The Return of the Oakstout

Well, my trip to Arizona is finally over....and I'm soo sad. The high every day was in the 70's, the freakin 70's, it was just a little slice of heaven for sure. I'm back in North Carolina this morning and it's in the mid 30's, but with any luck I can survive the next few days in this bitter cold weather till I leave for L.A next wednesday.

Well, lets get back to what I've been playing, shall we.

Normally, when I'm out of town, I'll take my nintendo DS, but I never seem to have time to turn it on. Well, this time, my participation was limited to only a few video rolls and running a speaker timer, so I managed to get about 6 hours of play in. So, what was the one game that I brought that kept me busy for that many hours and didn't bore me? Why, Final Fantasy III.

It plays like every other FF game. You start off as a kid, who is chosen to save the world. Along the way, you pick up companions till you form a party of 4 characters. I did not realize how huge the game was till I had completed a major story quest and the game started playing the intro credits after 2 hours of game play. Then the game really started to open up. I could then select Jobs, or classes for my characters, which can be changed on the fly, except during combat, to assist you with any challenges that you might face.

The game is challenging and fustrating at times, but I stuck with it. Most of the fustration came from the fact I hadn't played a FF game in forever and I didn't bring the instruction manual, which made figuring out how to save my progress difficult, but after repeating the same section over 6 times, I realized that you can save the game anywhere but in dungeons or towns, which helped tons, after the fact.

It has me wanting to pick up a PSP so I can play Final Fantasy 1 & 2, but for now, I'll just get Final Fantasy 4 for the DS, which will be cheaper for sure. I might even give Chronos Trigger a try, which I hear is a pretty awesome RPG. I had forgotten all the fun I had with Final Fantasy II back in the day, and this DS game just renewed my love for the genre.

As far as other gaming news, I do plan to pick up Rock Band 2 in the next month or so, if I can manage to hold on to a little bit of per diem from my Arizona trip and the next two trips I have coming up. My only problem is, I hear Los Angeles is expensive and I do love the New York night life a bit too much, so I might just come back broke. I just have to learn not to spend too much money Shoe Shopping. (Sorry, Inside joke there!)

Also, because Bildo insisted on getting the PC version of L4D, instead of the Xbox 360 version, what a loser, I'll probably end up putting the PC version on my short list of games to aquire. I can't help myself, that game is just so much freaking Zombie-lishus not to play with all my buds.

Speaking of buds, I'll have to also find time for a wee bit of WoW this weekend. I've got a standing invite with a bunch of friend's from my college days, problem is, the invite is for a Wednesday get together every week. Problem is, this wednesday I'll be out of town again as I have been for the last 2 weeks, so I'll have to make some time for them this weekend to level my Paladin up, before they get too far ahead of me. The good news, they've promised to give me a hand catching up, which is a good thing.


One last note. Scottsdale, Arizona is a fantastic place to visit. Everyone I met was extremely friendly, no one copped a "tude" of any kind. The area is simply beautiful and as mentioned above the average Jan. temperature is around 70. Also, did I forget to say the humidity was zero. I'm hoping to get some pictures to post soon. I have to beg co workers to send me theirs since my camera decided to crap out on me right before my trip. The good news is I went with the wife today and bought a brand new point and shot camera, so I'll have plenty of pictures when I get back from California and New York. Course, I'll have to remember my flicker password. lol

Ok, thats about it. Don't want to bore people too much with my adventures.