As of today I am no longer authorized to post in the soapbox, asked Jody to remove my badge and so the story ends, my friends. I'm no loger gonna be an active user, just dropping by every once in a while to see reviews and such. Definitely not active in the community anymore though. I'm not gonna make up excuses, I just simply don't feel like being here for anything else than the couple of good people I met here and the occasional review of a game maybe I'll someday play. It's kinda hard maintaining calmness and you can't use the F word and the majority of the community is made of 15 year old Master Chief worshippers. Those of you who give a damn know where to find me. So, somebody write a good editorial so that there is somebody to fill in for me in the touchy subjects area of the soapbox. Bye.

OK, so as you know I recently got my first PS3, started out with KZ2, now playing MGS4. Obviously I already think it's the best game ever (also, it could not be more Japanese... gotta love the subtle cultural references), but I'm only at the end of act 2 so don't tell me what happens!

This is strange and eerie... last night I found out that Snake has nanomachines and a virus in his body, has to take shots for seizures and that his entire cell structure is a mess. Today I found out that my mother-in-law has liver cirrhosis. This really freaked me out because it seems like this kind of thing happens to me way too often: I watch something in the TV or in a video game and BANG, the next day or week somebody gets it. Did I mention the fact that also last night I watched Parasite Eve, a movie in which a crazy biologist steals the LIVER from his dead wife's body? What are the f*****g odds? Now I'm thinking, damn, coincidences are ganging up on me. Something is wrong, definitely wrong. My father died 3 weeks ago, now this. There is a strange vibe in the air. And still I'm here, playing Metal Gear, thinking how these nanomachines could probably cure my wife's mother, instead of slowly killing Snake. It just seems like everyone around me is dying lately. It's a very strange feeling. Sometimes I have a hard time telling what is still VR and what is actually happening.

No condolences please, my dad wasn't exactly a good guy. Also, I don't need to be cheered up, just gotta walk it off.

And btw, add me to your friends list on PSN, my id is SETHORU. I prefer playing online with people I know, not with strangers. You can also add me on Xbox Live for that matter, the gamertag is also SETHORU.

So, Heavenly Sword goes to the Unfinished Games shelf, because I just don't have the patience to finish the last stage of the last boss. It's almost as frustrating as the last boss in Ninja Gaiden II. All in all HS is a beautiful, action packed game, but that last fight totally killed the experience. I retried him like 20 times and more than half of that I was one hit away from winning. So I'm sorry, even though you're a hot chick with a badass sword, I don't have the nerve to do the same thing over and over. This got me to thinking a bit, boss battles can make or break a video game. I generally hate them, but some are just so awesome, without necessarily being insanely difficult. Like God of War or Devil May Cry series. Some great boss battles there, stylish and not at all impossible to win. I know this Raven King guy is beatable, but after 20 tries I'm just like 'meh'. Plus, there are no trophies in this game so who cares. I'm sure the outro movie is very rewarding and maybe one of these days when I have nothing to do I'll give the bastard another try. But right now I have 2 more games to play and this whole sword thing is just a waste of time (or, I suck at third person action games, you be the judge). Time to shoot everything that moves in 50 Blood on the Sand (got the game brand new for $10... why not).

In other news, my sleeping disorder is really acting up lately (it all started when I was about 15... so that's 12 years without a proper, long, rejuvenating sleep...) so I all my sense are pretty much numbed down to like half of their normal perception. I did a really stupid thing when I was younger: whenever I had trouble with sleeping I'd take sleeping pills. Now, nothing works on me anymore. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. No prescription drug works, I tried. Ambien, or whatever that's called worked for like a year. Then my system became totally immune to the drug. Same with valium, noctamide, etc. The only thing that is sure to make me sleep is a bottle of whiskey. But I've got almost 4 years sober now, ain't going back down that road... blah.

Just finished my first PS3 game, Killzone 2. Definitely one of the best shooters I ever played. I'm starting Heavenly Sword tomorrow, just to relax. I don't know why but I can't just go from one shooter the another one. KZ was so intense I feel like the echo of gunshots still bounces around in my skull, I'm kinda exhausted. At the end it was just pushing it to the limit, like "c'mon I wanna be done with this already". It's not that I was bored with the game, not at all, it's just that I was tired of all the shooting and pushing forward, cuz the Higs sure didn't wanna give up easy. I was hoping for a rewarding awesome CGI outro movie... tough luck. The image of Sev sitting down on those stairs was pretty powerful though. Just tired. So very tired.

I watched the first episode of TOTS and didn't get my badge. Now I'm sad.