I'VE MOVED

I moved to Wordpress because I heard it's better.  New blog is located at

http://ohhiblog.wordpress.com

Check it.

Post-Graduation Boredom.

Seriously, I thought this whole, “WOOO NOT HAVING TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL EVAAARRRR” thing would be fun.  It’s not.  It’s boring and lame.  Also still looking for a real job.  Freelance writing isn’t really cutting it right now.  The economy does seem to be improving, so that’s a plus.  However, I doubt I’ll be able to move up to Northern Virginia as I wanted to, at least until I can afford it.  Housing up there is fucking expensive.  So I’m thinking of going back to Fred Vegas, because it’s a bit cheaper and at least it’s closer to NoVA than I am here.  Again though, a job is needed.  FFFFFFUUUUU adulthood is lame.

My Bachelor of Arts is pretty awesome though.  I mean, it’s just sitting in a box right now, but some day I’ll display it or something.  Even if a history degree is borderline worthless.

I went on this quest to listen to every song in my iTunes library and I sort of hate myself for being such a music nerd now.  Seriously, I have over 12,000 songs.  On the other hand, I previously had 14,000 and this exercise is helping me to clean out my iTunes.  I had a lot of shit that people gave me, I listened to once, and then promptly forgot about it.  Honestly, if it doesn’t hold my attention enough for me to listen to it at least a few times or even simply remembering what the hell it is, there’s really no point in me keeping it.  I’m like a music hoarder, damn.

I really need to get back into playing guitar, because I sort of miss it.  As of right now XBox and job hunting are sort of ruling my life.  However there was something really pleasing about playing random Radiohead songs and the Super Mario Bros. theme.  Yeah, definitely need to pick one of my 3 guitars that are just sitting there back up.  Seriously even just typing that makes me sad.

Anyway.  Time to go back to doing…nothing.

Red Dead Redemption (Single Player) Review: Holy Shit, I Feel Like John Wayne

It’s no secret to anyone around me that I was stoked about Red Dead Redemption for months.  My friends and I had a posse formed a solid month before it came out.  I’m happy to say that the game lived up to my expectations.

You play as John Marsden, a reformed outlaw who is now trying to live a quiet life as a rancher with his wife Abigail and his son Jack.  However, he hasn’t quite been able to escape his criminal past, and now is on a mission to hunt down his former partners-in-crime.  Basically, it’s a typical Western genre storyline.  It could have gotten boring, but because it’s Rockstar Games making a sandbox game set at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, it’s pretty impossible that this game wouldn’t be at least somewhat enjoyable.

There is plenty to do around the large map.  You can hunt wild animals, search for treasure, capture outlaws, kill innocents, help out random strangers, play poker, blackjack, or horseshoes; patrol towns and ranches for crimes, duel at high noon, and clear out gang hideouts.  Oh yeah, and you can do the storyline missions as well.  Seriously, there is so much you can do in this game that it’s almost overwhelming, but it’s good for someone like me who gets ADD after about 20 minutes of gaming.  Any game that can hold my attention for 6 hours in a row like RDR has is a good game in my book.

The game itself is also very, very well designed.  The graphics are absolutely gorgeous, even on the XBox 360.  I once rode my horse Dusty Butt off a cliff because I was staring at how fantastically rendered a mountain was in the background.  There were only a few moments where the frame rate dropped, which is astounding due to the sheer amount of shit happening in the open world.  I never experienced some of the weird glitches that some people did, such as humans accidentally being coded as animals (flying people and cougar dudes).  The two glitches I experienced were close to the end and at the very, very end of the game, and I’m not even entirely sure whether one of those was a legit glitch or it was supposed to be like that.  I’d explain it more, but I’d spoil the end of the game if I tried to.  Graphics aside, voice acting was also pretty good.  There wasn’t any dialogue where I was like “LOLWUT,” but then again I often space out during cutscenes so it’s entirely possible, even probable, that I missed something.

I kind of have to pull at straws to find any negatives in RDR.  A few of the missions were a bit confusing as to what I was supposed to be doing.  In the game’s defense however, as I previously stated I often don’t watch cutscenes and I’m also a bit of a dumbass.  It was never anything that took me more than a couple of tries to figure out, however, so it’s not a major issue.  There were also a lot of scenes of nothing but riding a horse or driving a wagon and chatting with an NPC.  They are basically there simply for the sake of the plot, but at times they were a bit tedious and too fucking long.  Some of these you could skip, but that’s only if you were the passenger on a wagon.  Again, I’m really grasping at straws here to find negatives.

RDR is probably my second favorite game of the year so far, after Mass Effect 2.  The only reason it’s not my absolute favorite is because I’m a Mass Effect fangirl.  It definitely has the feel of GTA, from the save system to the map.  If you like GTA, westerns, sandbox games, or shooters, I can’t imagine you not getting at least some enjoyment out of RDR.

9.7/10