My life lately and how I rediscovered games
Life has been a bit of a roller coaster lately with much migraine and flu. I am still not convinced I am finally rid of the blasted flu and I didn't go to uni today curtesy of the migraine, but it seems to be better than it has been the last months.
I passed my last semester with flying colours, which is always a relief and managed to speak to Professor Westermann who is the authority on artificial neural networks in the department. He gave me an old and not quite ready for publication Master thesis which I am now tasked with finishing and getting ready for publication. Rather excited and the topic is really interesting, although coursework and illness have kept me from really getting on with it.
I also had a moment of realization when my mum called me on Monday to ask me to come down over the weekend. It occurred to me that when I am doing my Master I won't be able to just randomly go down to take care of mum, because I will be glad when I get enough sleep. Also with how ill I've been, I might be struggling as it is. So I consulted my doctor, my personal tutor, my mum, Garry and my counsellor in rapid succession of their opinion and the common consensus was that going part time would be the much better choice. I asked my parents if they were willing to finance me through the extra year and they both said they would. So on Wednesday my application went out for part time masters. I am a bit worried about just how late I will enter the work force, but at the same time I will be no use if I have another break down or can't take care of my mum. Taking care of her is really quite important to me.
On a less serious note: I have also rediscovered my love of games curtesy of the 3DS. I bought a load of game magazines to sate my 3DS cravings (Zelda Ocarina of Time in 3D <3 <3 <3) and also ended up buying a few magazines in Luxembourg when visiting my mum.... and they had a long list of games they considered the best of the genre - most of which I hadn't heard of! Looking at amazon today, I discovered that most are also really cheap in the UK (presumably because the British magazines never mentioned them if I am not very much mistaken). Now a beautiful little parcel is on the way to me :D
I've also been playing Pokemon Black and White with Garry. It is really quite good. I am enjoying the new story and the graphics. Not brilliant, but after several carbon copy games any change is good. The new Pokemon are pretty ugly in my opinion, but they are all new - which makes it nicer playing with Garry as the Pokemon are new to both of us. I am not too sure if it really deserves the brilliant scores it has been getting, but it definitively is a massive improvement to the previous games.
This times around you are yet again a kid, but look a bit older. You have two friends who get the other starting Pokemon and you keep running into them during your journey. They are both good fun with fairly distinctive personalities, though a bit one dimensional. You go on your journey, because it is a passing right for kids in that particular country - which I prefer to the "YOU ARE CHOSEN!!!!!!" story in the other games. You are not treated as anything particularly special.
Sadly your Pokemon don't follow you around anymore, which is a great shame. There is the usual amount of silly humour. The difficulty has been greatly increased and you now get more or less XP depending your Pokemon's level and your opponents, which makes it next to impossible to grind your way above the difficulty curve, which again is a nice change, although it can be a bit frustrating at times. Constantly running back to the Pokemon center is not that much fun, but at least they have added one extra person per area who can also heal. It still involves a lot of running, but makes it slightly less bad.
On the whole I'd give it 8/10
I passed my last semester with flying colours, which is always a relief and managed to speak to Professor Westermann who is the authority on artificial neural networks in the department. He gave me an old and not quite ready for publication Master thesis which I am now tasked with finishing and getting ready for publication. Rather excited and the topic is really interesting, although coursework and illness have kept me from really getting on with it.
I also had a moment of realization when my mum called me on Monday to ask me to come down over the weekend. It occurred to me that when I am doing my Master I won't be able to just randomly go down to take care of mum, because I will be glad when I get enough sleep. Also with how ill I've been, I might be struggling as it is. So I consulted my doctor, my personal tutor, my mum, Garry and my counsellor in rapid succession of their opinion and the common consensus was that going part time would be the much better choice. I asked my parents if they were willing to finance me through the extra year and they both said they would. So on Wednesday my application went out for part time masters. I am a bit worried about just how late I will enter the work force, but at the same time I will be no use if I have another break down or can't take care of my mum. Taking care of her is really quite important to me.
On a less serious note: I have also rediscovered my love of games curtesy of the 3DS. I bought a load of game magazines to sate my 3DS cravings (Zelda Ocarina of Time in 3D <3 <3 <3) and also ended up buying a few magazines in Luxembourg when visiting my mum.... and they had a long list of games they considered the best of the genre - most of which I hadn't heard of! Looking at amazon today, I discovered that most are also really cheap in the UK (presumably because the British magazines never mentioned them if I am not very much mistaken). Now a beautiful little parcel is on the way to me :D
I've also been playing Pokemon Black and White with Garry. It is really quite good. I am enjoying the new story and the graphics. Not brilliant, but after several carbon copy games any change is good. The new Pokemon are pretty ugly in my opinion, but they are all new - which makes it nicer playing with Garry as the Pokemon are new to both of us. I am not too sure if it really deserves the brilliant scores it has been getting, but it definitively is a massive improvement to the previous games.
This times around you are yet again a kid, but look a bit older. You have two friends who get the other starting Pokemon and you keep running into them during your journey. They are both good fun with fairly distinctive personalities, though a bit one dimensional. You go on your journey, because it is a passing right for kids in that particular country - which I prefer to the "YOU ARE CHOSEN!!!!!!" story in the other games. You are not treated as anything particularly special.
Sadly your Pokemon don't follow you around anymore, which is a great shame. There is the usual amount of silly humour. The difficulty has been greatly increased and you now get more or less XP depending your Pokemon's level and your opponents, which makes it next to impossible to grind your way above the difficulty curve, which again is a nice change, although it can be a bit frustrating at times. Constantly running back to the Pokemon center is not that much fun, but at least they have added one extra person per area who can also heal. It still involves a lot of running, but makes it slightly less bad.
On the whole I'd give it 8/10