Sometimes I do forget that I have a blog sitting around that I can update with goings-on. Problem is usually that there goings-on aren’t really very interesting or worth blogging about.

Not much has really gone on over the past few weeks. I’m still making my YouTube videos, doing a lot of streaming over on NGame, and getting pissed and annoyed with a few people as always. The NASCAR, F1 and IndyCars have also sucked away a fair few hours.

More recently however, there has also been a couple of cases of conflict in areas.

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So, I was on the train home today from a meeting in town with some of my fellow boards.ie Pokéforum nerds, when my mind managed to stumble around to Minecraft. I had begun to think why the Flint and Steel is made using Flint and an Iron Ingot? So that led me to think: why not add Steel to the game, and make Flint and Steel require – literally – Flint and Steel?

Thus begins the rather large thought process.

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So, this morning saw Portal 2 release at sometime about 5:30am – no thanks to all the people who played along with the whole Potato Sack thing and kept pushing the launch time back from mid-afternoon… –  to which I duly booted it up, slowly waited for the damn thing to decrypt the pre-loaded game files, and then streamed my entire playthrough of the game on my NGame channel.

Firstly, I should give a big shout-out to ThoughtsOfGlought and IrradiatedGamer for hooking me up with the game after winning a contest they were holding for a pre-order copy of Portal 2. And also I get to hopefully enjoy Glought dying a lot in VVVVVV soon

The game itself is brilliant, very well made, great story, and actually lasts for quite a while when you compare it to the original Portal. Overall, you get three distinct environments in which the puzzles take place, and I’d have to say that each one is about the length of the original Portal testchambers – and only the testchambers.

To put a time on the length of the game, I’d say six hours is a good figure for the story length, based on my stream video containing pretty much the entire game bar the first while lasting five and a half hours, and also the timespan between me getting the first story achievement, and the last one was 5h32m. Although that timeframe did include a couple of puzzles that well and truly had be stumped for a while, I must say.

Co-op I haven’t had much of a chance to dive into yet. Both myself and MegaGWolf played the single player from launch and were pretty damn tired afterwards, but we completed the first “intro” part of co-op, and the first set of testchambers proper – before G had to get ready for work, and I had to go to bed (after having had three hours of sleep and running on a bottle of Mountain Dew).

One thing that some people may say about it – seeing as it is released to retail on 360 and PS3 as well – is that the PC version is pretty much a console port. I would normally disagree with that, but seeing as they did screw up in where you’re manually saving the game and it advises you to “not turn off your console“, I’m on the fence about that.

Overall, it is a great game, but I do have one major bone to pick about it: the price. Full retail price of €50 for something as short and kinda unreplayable as Portal 2 is a bit of a rip-off. As with Portal 1, once you’ve gone through the game and have an idea of how to do the puzzles, future playthroughs aren’t exactly the same. This may seem a little biased considering I got Portal 1 on PC for free (special Steam offer to all); and Portal: Still Alive on Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 MS Points (€15) which had even more content that the regular Portal – but I think maybe something like €30-€35 would have been the most fair price for the game. I pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2 back in the day and that too was €50, and I do kinda regret it considering how much I haven’t really played it, how similar it was to L4D1, and also the fact it dropped in price to €30 within a few months of launch…

Anyway, I’m not going to spoil any of the game for you, go play it for yourself if you haven’t already.

Link to my NGame recording: http://www.ngame.tv/thechrisd/thechrisdsrandomgamingstream24787

PS: If you bought it on 360 or PS3, SHAME ON YOU!!! VALVE GAMES ARE SACRED THINGS THAT SHOULD ONLY BE PLAYED ON A PC WITH A KEYBOARD AND MOUSE!!!
(I know it seems rich seeing as I bought Portal 1 on 360, but I hadn’t otherwise paid for Portal before. And the extra content…)

So, I’ve been playing F1 2010 recently, and I thought it might be an idea to maybe try write up a “racing report” style of article once I eventually finish up the first season. Now the results themselves may seem a little askew given the current difficulty settings I’m playing under (Amateur difficulty; full ABS, TCS; manual gearbox; sim fuel/tyres/damage; max flashbacks; auto pit), but I’m blaming that on the fact I’m doing an achievement run in the first year for at least:

• Rocking the boat (15)
  Finish ahead of your senior team-mate in your first season with a new team
• Crushing victory (20)
  Outclass your team mate at each race, over one season
• Consistency is the key (25)
  Score a point in every round of a season

Maybe after I finish it completely – and I finish up doing my Let’s Play of Pokémon Black – I might do a Let’s Play of one of my future seasons in the game on a harder difficulty, which should ideally offset the fact I’ll be in a much faster car, particularly as I have both Force India and BMW Sauber interested in my services for next year

First, I shall give a brief lesson as to what an Emolga actually is:

FUCKING EMOLGA

Emolga (Japanese: エモンガ Emonga) is a dual-type Electric/Flying Pokémon introduced in Generation V.

Emolga is a rodent-like Pokémon, primarily white in coloration, that most resembles a flying squirrel. It possesses facial features similar to Pachirisu’s, such as its eyes, tiny nose, and yellow cheek patches. Its ears, positioned at the top of its head, are rounded in shape and black in coloration, with yellow and white sections of coloration in the inside of its ears. Emolga sports a vaguely hood-like patterning of black around its head, with a spiky extension of the pattern above its face. Emolga possesses winglike, yellow-colored flaps connected to its three-fingered arms. Its feet are white-colored and fairly small and its black-colored tail is in a jagged shape.

Similar to Pikachu, Emolga can store electricity on its electric sacs located on its cheeks. When threatened, it releases this electricity to fend off other Pokémon. Emolga lives in the treetops and glides from tree to tree using its cape-like patagium, sometimes discharging its electricity.

This fucking thing. Oh my god, THIS FUCKING THING.

Emolga is the worst possible thing to come out of Pokémon in Generation V. It’s Electric/Flying dual typing gives it immunity to it’s primary weakness: Ground; and instead replaces it with a weakness to Rock and Ice. Normally this is fine, as the only other Pokémon with this typing are either legendary (Zapdos, Thundurus), or only acquired the typing in Gen V and aren’t available in Unova anyway (Fan Rotom).

However the primary problem with this thing is the fact that it appears so early in the game, and when it does start to appear, it appears in force. Through a combination of it’s 103 base Speed, Static ability, and early access to Double Team; this is the most annoying Pokémon you will come up against, especially if you lack the necessary tools to be able to dispatch it.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that Emolga appears prominently in the Electric-type Gym of Unova, in Nimbasa City. It is the 4th Gym of the region, which differs to the other Electric Gyms in Vermilion (3rd), Mauville (3rd), and Sunyshore (8th).

Another part is the lack of availability of Electric-types in general in Unova. At that point in the game only Blitzle/Zebstrika and Emolga are available, and as such the Gym also features only those two evolutionary lines. The other Electric-types of the region: Tynamo/Eelektrik/Eelektross, Joltik/Galvantula and Stunfisk all appear after the 5th Gym.

And finally, the lack of viable counters. The Ice-type does not come into play until the next town, which you cannot access before the 4th Gym battle. As for the Rock-type, there are a few more options, but unless you already have them, it may be too “out of the way” to bother with. Pokémon-wise, there are Roggenrola/Boldore/Gigalith or Dwebble/Crustle. Both have a high physical Attack and Defense, but suffer with a lack of Special Defense, opening them up to Volt Switch. Also, their lower Speed means getting an attack off before a Double Team is nigh impossible.

As well as that, the available moves aren’t great either. Smack Down is the best as it renders them vulnerable to Ground, but requires that it actually hits, which may be a pain given Double Team. Rock Slide requires a higher level, and has less accuracy, as does Rock Tomb from TM39 found in the desert.

In general, these fucking things were designed to make you tear your hair out, swear profusely at your DS, and to rage-eject the game cartridge before running it over with your car. Add to this the annoying strategy they employ with the Gym Leader (Double Team, then Aerial Ace in case you try the same, and Volt Change to GTFO to Zebstrika when the going gets too tough).

FUCKING EMOLGAS.

PS: On my Facebook page, you can find an album of images with other people’s expressions of anger, with regards to these little rodents. Also, feel free to express your anger at these things in the comments, or rant on Twitter with the hashtag #fuckingemolgas.

I should be able to still utilise the excuse that I’m paying too much attention to other stuff to realise that I have a blog that I really should keep updated…?

Been spending most of my time working on more videos for my YouTube channel. Hopefully all this effort will pay off soon, as right now I feel like I’m putting a ton more work in that several high-profile YouTubers who dapple in the same subject areas as I do, who are still more popular and gaining even more views and subs every day, whereas I’m sitting here just hoping that even a few hundred people will watch it.

After yesterday, I think I’m going to start echoing my fellow Commuting and Transport Boardsies in dubbing Dublin Bus’ restructuring of their routes and timetables as “Network They Wrecked“.

While I thankfully haven’t had to rely much on the bus service since the train line opened – which by the way has always been pretty much on time, no sudden cancellations, or instance of just plain not operating – I did hear quite a few horror stories, including numerous tweets from Elly and George over the snowy period in which DB were too scared to send the 25B’s to Adamstown – i.e. their only bus service – as well as other stories on Boards of buses not turning up for an hour, 39A’s stopping in the City Centre for no reason and no notice to passengers, and some routes just not running at all owing to a lack of passengers.

Yesterday, I had the misfortune to fall foul to an instance of a bus just plain not bothering to run at all. The plan was to leave the village on the 1402 departure of the 270 to get into the Blanch Centre for about half two, in absolutely plenty of time to meet up with a few friends in Leisureplex for 3 (off topic a bit, but since when has the Plex been free entry? I’m surprised they’ve stopped being bloody gits in that sense…). All seemed grand, so out of the house about half one, down to the village for a quarter to, into Spar for about five minutes for lunch, and then across to the terminus by ten to.

Now it was a bloody cold day, and I hadn’t exactly tried to dress for the weather as: 1. There was to be a lot of physical activity with my friends when I got there; 2. I wasn’t exactly planning on having to wait on a bus that long; 3. It wasn’t really all that long of a walk from the bus stops to the places I needed to go to.

Two o’clock comes and goes with no sign of an arriving bus. As does 1405, 1410, 1415… At this point it’s started to shower slightly, so I trudge down to the second bus stop on the route since it actually has a bus shelter – and on the way not even a bus waiting in the set down area on the way into the village. 1420, 1425… And now arrives a normal 70 – obviously the 1330 departure from town. But wait, still no 270, which was supposed to have left the Centre at 1332 and been back there for 1432 to leave again? Fuck’s sake…

1435, the normal 70 is leaving the village, and given how close we’re getting to the meeting time, I have no choice but to get it down to the very end of Littlepace, then walk through to Huntstown to wait for a 39 to drop me down to the Centre.

And yet, on the way back home after all of this, the 1832 from the Centre was running no problems, having been in the set down area at the Centre since about 1820.

I am going to e-mail DB to complain about this, but in reality, what sort of thing is that going to accomplish? Are they going to reprimand the driver? Nope. Are they going to apologise? Doubt it. Are they going to possibly blame me? Maybe. Are they going to bin it? Almost guaranteed.

So, to bring in the new year, and to try coincide with my recent shift of focus from the “normal blogger” to the “gamer and video editor”, I’ve slightly re-organised my site a bit to try and help that. I’ve basically reverted the previous change of putting the entire blog on the homepage, to put more information relevant to my current interests there.

A slight rewrite of the About page was done as well, the Stream page has been updated to my current Livestream channel, and I should hopefully soon be working on the Videos section a bit more as I believe I’ve found a good WordPress plugin for it.

Might still jiggle stuff around a bit, knowing my tendencies to never be happy with the way my site looks. Thankfully I’m not this anal with the bear’s site…

So I hear the bloggies are dated and coming up soon:

Campaign for the bear for Best Newcomer…?

So, despite the fact it’s barely even up a day, I’m already starting to get some flak over that new Facebook page I created for myself. As such, I’m going to explain the main reasons why.

Over the past year or so, I’ve had two main personas that have manifested – my own: that is to say, me the blogger, Twitter addict, boards.ie semi-lurker; and a more gaming-centric one: so that’d be my YouTube channel, Raptr, TrueAchievements, UKCS, Xbox and the like. Recently though I’ve started to feel that these two main personas have started to mix in with each other, and that’s not really something I want.

To put it into more detail… Well, I was following a crap-ton of gaming/YouTube related accounts on Twitter, and my own tweets were getting filled with YouTube tweets, gaming stuff and the like that I really don’t think those who follow me really cared about all that much. On Facebook, I was starting to get friend requests from people who followed my YouTube, thus I had to set my privacy so that only friends of friends can request me.

I feel that now with a separate Twitter account and Facebook page, then I can be the massive gaming/YouTube nerd I want to be, and those who actually want to listen to that stuff can read it there. This way my YouTube subscribers and gaming acquaintances can go follow my ramblings on either (or both!) sites without having all of my random banal rants getting in their way, and also my normal feed can be a lot more true to me.

This whole thing is not a new trend. I know plenty of YouTubers who have a separate FB fan page for people to follow them on. Chuggaaconroy, SuperSkarmory, FPS Russia, the guys from Is It a Good Idea to Microwave This; and more all have separate FB pages, so that their video fans can keep up with them there, while their personal profiles can stay true to their personal lives, family and friends. Yes, I’m nowhere near as popular as them, so I may be jumping the gun a bit with creating it at this stage with only 500 subscribers, but at this stage, I’d rather make things perfectly clear, rather than having to try do this at a later stage having already had everything mix together too much (a perfect example of that would be Jonny Paula and Jory Caron from the Microwave show – they hit the 5k friend cap simply because they were so popular, so an FB page made perfect sense).

This last bit is in direct response to Samm’s tweet:

What would you think of someone who made his/her own fanpage on social media? What about someone who “liked” him/herself?

I needed to “like” myself to do a few connection thing with the page so it would work. But I guess if that makes me seem really sad, then fine…