Time Will Tell How Much I Love You

Yesterday I saw the new Doctor Strange movie. It's terrific! I enjoyed it more than the last Avengers film and Captain America film. Marvel has done it again. Let me give you the good, the bad, and the nerdy. If you haven't seen the film and don't want any spoilers stop reading here.

First, the good. This movie is everything you'd expect from a Doctor Strange origins film. Benedict Cumberbatch does a great job portraying Strange as a brilliant doctor who is full of himself. Even the love interest in this movie doesn't get much love from him, at least not until the end. The best part of any Doctor Strange origin story for me is definitely the beginning. It starts with him losing control of his hands in a car crash. And it gets better from there.

Later, he realizes no Western medicine or surgery can fix his hands but he thinks if he goes out to Nepal for this special treatment he can gain use of his hands again and go back to being a brilliant surgeon. He learns about magic and other dimensions and such. He becomes an apprentice to this British female master-who's bald. Enter epic magic training montage.

The way they introduce everything in the first half of the film is brilliant. If you didn't know anything about Doctor Strange well now you do because of the beginning of this movie. Honestly most Marvel fans already know this stuff though but this is a great fresh reminder of who and what he is.

Now, for the bad. The magic in this movie was very cool but most of the fighting was done using melee attacks, energy weapons (magic sword), and not very much ranged magic attacks. I was expecting like actual ranged spells like in an rpg game or something but instead we got energy weapons made from magic and them using the cgi magic weapons, which were all mostly melee weapons like swords. I wish they used more actual magic in the fighting. Like in Warcraft. The magic used was all cgi trickery that looked super fake. But its not like they could do anything do make it look real.

Now for the nerdy. Stan Lee makes an appearance in the film reading the book The Doors of Perception. He's all laughing while reading it, pretty funny stuff. At the end of the movie we learn that Doctor Strange controls time using an Infinity Stone, which we know is linked to everything in the Marvel Universe. Thanos has an Infinity Gauntlet which basically gives him the powers of God. The fact that Doctor Strange has one makes him one of the most powerful heroes in the Marvel canon.

Lastly, I liked the sentimentality from Strange's love interest. She gave him a watch that said time will tell how much I love you. Pretty sappy but very beautiful. The ending of the movie was amazing. Basically he put himself and this evil dark god (Drommamu) in an infinite time loop where Strange kept getting killed forever until this god agreed to leave and never come back. They could've been stuck in there for an eternity while time remained still on Earth. Pretty fascinating concept for a children's movie. Also, the fact that he endured death for an eternity is very dark for a Marvel movie.

Great movie! The ending credits showed Strange agreeing to help find Thor's father Odin. And the other ending was the goody black dude sorcerer becoming a bad guy sorcerer. Interesting.

Don't miss this one this Holiday season

Overwatch Christmas event coming soon

So some stuff on the ptr suggests a Christmas event is coming soon. There's Christmas music files as well as new hero voice interactions. There's possibilities of a a bunch of great Christmasy skins like a Ana Ms. Claus, sexy Christmas Mercy skin, Reinhardt Santa, elf Torbjorn, Soldier 75 Dad Jumper, etc. This update will probably show up within the first week of December.

In this video here he explains that there's probably going to be some sort of a new arena mode based on some Athena voice-lines. Hopefully it will be a pve mode, something that replaces Junkenstein's Revenge. If it's an arena it seems like its going to be a pvp mode but we already have enough pvp modes in the game. I'm hoping that it's some sort of pve mode where you fight raid bosses and perhaps there will be like World of Warcraft mechanics like don't stand in the fire and stuff like that. But it would have to be based around Christmas. A Christmas raid type of thing would be sick!

I got most of the Halloween skins (except for Mercy's sexy witch skin and "my servants never die!" voiceline) and I plan on getting most of the Christmas skins as well. I really hope they have some great Zenyatta Christmas skin as well as Mercy and Ana as those have become my mains. I used to play Lucio a lot but now I just leave him to other players. 

Christmas is just around the corner!

Blackened Saturday, Cyber Monday Awaits

So the sales got to me and I ended up spending more of my hard earned cash money. I ended up looking up sales online for Gamestop and I found out Fallout 4 was only $10 for pc! Great deal man. I hopped the bus and trekked out there to get it. I also ended up getting a sweet Darksiders 2 shirt for $2 at Goodwill. Talk about awesome!

A few days before I got Doom and an Xbox 1 controller. I've been putting in work in Doom and Fallout 4 as well as playing Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain on my Xbox 1.

Doom is not for pussies that's for sure. The game is graphic as all hell (literally) and has so much blood, it's pretty intense. The heavy metal soundtrack makes for hectic combat against demons from the pits of hell. Great game. I'm currently on the third level. They just introduced these stronger demons called hell knights that are tough. Sometimes it'll take me 5 shotgun shots to take them out. I gotta figure out a faster way to kill them as they are becoming more troublesome and numerous.

Fallout 4 is even better though. Both games are made by Bethesda and this is probably my favorite gaming company other than Blizzard. I'm a big Skyrim fan but I never made it too far in the series. After playing Doom and Fallout 4 I'm definitely going to go back and finish Skyrim-with mods. The mods for Fallout 4 are fantastic. There's literally so much you can do to change and/or break the game in ways devs never intended. The base game is great too. I'm only in the beginning of the game but I can tell that it's something that I'm going to put some time into. Super fun. It's much better than New Vegas, which was my only previous Fallout experience.

I'm definitely adding more single player immersion into my gaming experiences at the moment. At first I was a multiplayer only type of gamer but now I find myself wanting to relax and enjoy a story without playing with a bunch of randos (randoms in pubs-public games, as I mostly solo queue). It's good to enjoy something by yourself and enjoy the depth within the game.

Cyber Monday is today. Lots of people are going to be buying things online. Not me though. I ended my Amazon Prime sub because I didn't think it was worth the $100 a year and things just aren't that interesting on that site.

However, I am still interested in buying more games!

:D 

I might pick up Warhammer Vermintide because its only $15 on Steam. I'm also still interested in Battlefield 1 but I think I should wait on that. Even if the sale on Origin ends soon it will probably go back to $40 for Christmas sales or maybe even less by then, who knows.

Hope you all got something cool for yourselves. If you haven't get something nice today. You've earned it sport!

'Tis the season

Black Friday Loot

So I ended up going out with friends after a super hectic work day of 1pm to 1030pm on Thanksgiving. Glad the rush won't be back until Christmas, New Years, and New Years Eve. My friends and I went out to Best Buy and a few stores at the mall. I ended up getting some good loot. Everybody loves loot!

First, we went to Best Buy where there were so many people! I decided to pick up a wireless Xbox one controller there. My bro got an Xbox one a while ago and his request for me to able to play it was that I have my own controller. It's a plain black wireless one. Got it for $40. Could've gotten it cheaper online but I like buying my products in person and getting it right away sometimes.

Later, we went to the mall mainly to check out and lounge around at Target. There was a ton of people there looking to buy Apple products. I ended up buying Doom (physical box copy, PC version) for only $25! Pretty great deal. I heard great things about Doom's single player campaign so I thought this was a great deal. I was going to get Fallout 4 but my bro has it on his Steam account. All I have to do is share my account with his and I can play it anytime. Fallout 4 was only $20 there. Maybe I should've bought both! :D

Even later, (during Black Friday daytime hours) I went to CD Trader (my local record shoppe). There was a lot of new stuff there but nothing (rock or metal) that really peaked my interest so I decided to get an old jazz record. I went with jazz guitarist John Scofield's 1992 album Meant To Be which features Joe Lovano on tenor sax, Marc Johnson on bass, and Bill Stewart on drums. I'm listening to it right now. Scofield is a master of chorus-infused jazz guitar. All his lines have great happening rhythm. Even though he's white he's a brotha with a lot of rhythm. Haha. But that's a discussion for another post.

I'm glad I didn't go crazy buying too many things that I couldn't afford. There will be more things to buy in the next couple weeks. For sure I will pick up Warhammer Vermintide. I've been wanting to play that game for a long time. Think of it as a medieval Left 4 Dead in Warhammer universe fighting against giant rats. Sounds funny but the game is great. I also was interested in Battlefield 1 but we'll have to wait and see because Christmas will be here pretty fast. Better save up that money for my family and friends too.

The deals are still going on right now online and in stores. Check it out. Buy yourself something nice. You've earned it sport!

Black Friday Is Upon Us

Today is Thanksgiving! For me its a regular work day and I probably won't be able to eat any turkey until sometime after 10 pm. Rip.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about Black Friday and stuff. There's so much people could buy but money is always a limiting factor of course. I wanted to buy a drum machine rather soon but the funds don't look good for it. I can however pick up some great games on sale for good prices. I just found out that my bro got an Xbox one so I was thinking of getting myself a controller and perhaps a game. Not sure what one though. I prefer gaming on pc so I'm not really sure but my ideas were possibly Fallout 4, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Battlefiled 1, things like that. But these are all games I could get on pc.

My bro already has Halo 5 and Titanfall 2 so maybe I should just settle for just the controller and getting some pc games instead. I'm definitely gonna pick up Warhammer Vermintide ($15 on Steam) and possibly Battlefield 1 ($40 on Origin). That would be great.

I really wanted to pick up the drum machine this Friday and hopefully get some good deals but the money is just not right. Gotta save up and hope to buy it next week I suppose.

There's a lot of great sales for gaming right now. Just check out Steam, Origin, Humble Bundle, Amazon, and other online sites. Everybody is doing great deals. On Friday I will definitely check out Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and maybe even Guitar Center with my buddies. Last year we got a good haul. My friend got a Wii U with Splatoon and Smash 4 and I got Star Wars Battlefront.


Happy holidays

Pretty Fly For A Wight Guy

Project Wight is a new game from a group of veteran developers that have worked on Battlefield: Bad Company and Payday 2. They're calling themselves the Outsiders and this is their creation that you can see here. The game is a work in progress but you can already see great ideas just from the short clip.

“There are currently 12 people working at The Outsiders,” says co-founder David Goldfarb, whose previous work includes the Battlefield: Bad Company series and Payday 2. “Our background is a pretty broad mixture of experience. Ben Cousins (co-founder) and I come from DICE, as do the other two founders. And we also have experience from Starbreeze, Sony, Guerrilla, and Avalanche. Lots of Swedish game dev in the house for sure.” (PC Gamer)

“The player will experience life on the other side of the sword as a creature attempting to survive the extermination of its species by humanity,” says Goldfarb. “The creature starts out young and extremely vulnerable, but will eventually grow strong enough to turn the tables on its persecutors.” (PC Gamer)

Project Wight is just a temporary name and they have a long way to go in the development but this little teaser clip is pretty neat. The fact that you can play as what would normally be the villain is a great trope. They tried to do that with Evolve but it just failed hard. I think people like bad guys (like Reaper, Roadhog, Widowmaker) in games and I think people will become attached to these gnarly dark age creatures.

I heard previously that this game was going to be a pvp game so I'm hoping that its built more for that market more so than a single player experience. The creatures seem to look pretty damn medieval. If this game comes out as a multiplayer game you can bet I'll be playing it.

Welcome the new Symmetra, Nummetra

So a new patch hit the ptr today and it completely changed the way Symmetra works. She has an ultimate change, she now has two ultimates! Once her ultimate is full she can use either the teleporter or the shield generator. This puts a strong shield on all teammates in a substantial radius. As long as everyone's within the radius everyone will get it. Her regular shield ability has been removed. She has a new shield ability called photon barrier. It moves on a projected path. It's a shield projectile! It's been compared to Reinhardt's barrier so you know its pretty strong. Very cool new abilities. An ultimate alternate and this photon barrier.

The turrets have been completely reworked. The max holding charge for six. She can place all turrets before the match starts and also she can quickly replace them if they're destroyed. Her primary fire distance has been slightly increased. Barely.

These are some major big changes to Symmetra. She can become a character that is needed in every comp.

Symmetra is definitely a lot better now. The community was crying out for Symmetra changes and for a while we didn't get them. But today it finally happened.

I hopped on the ptr today and sure enough everybody is playing Nummetra. Every match I played (this was Quick Play) Symmetra got play of the game doing some insane killing spree with turrets and her laser. Her projectile shield (photon barrier) is so strong and cool looking. It looks like a bubble shield projectile. It can absorb a ton of damage. In fact, when I tried continuously shooting at it I couldn't tear it apart. It seems very powerful indeed.

I feel like Nummetra could become a thing. Comps could be running Ana/Symmetra as supports, Mercy/Symmetra, or Lucio/Symmetra. With Sombra in the mix the game has certainly become very exciting within the last week. By now we can all say that Overwatch is a game that is constantly evolving and changing. Nothing stays the same for a long period of time.

Side notes to mention is that there is now a stay as party system after a match. This is perfect for solo queue players like myself. Now when I win a match with a team I like I can choose to stay as party and we can group up to play more. Great tool! In addition, there's an unlockable "boop" voiceline for Sombra. Lastly, players can play custom games for 3v3 elimination and 1v1 mystery duel.

Welcome to Symmetra hell.

Overwatch Has Changed A lot

Hello ladies and gents. I'm back! I was afk for a couple days and I actually tried going to sleep early and waking up early. I liked it! Anyways, let's have a deep disscussion about Overwatch.

Overwatch has completely changed with the last patch and I feel like its affected the game in a bunch of major ways. The biggest and most obvious change is the increased ultimate ability cost by 25%. The game has a much better pace to it now than it did before. Before teams could teamwipe enemy teams by just building up their ultimates really quickly and if they had great communication they could use all their ults at the same time and win engagements everytime. Basically the team that had better communication would always win because their ults would be timed better.

Now, ultimates are much more important and timing for them has to be perfect for the teamwipes. In addition, shooting in the game feels a lot more important.. Shooting has become important in a first person shooting game! How exciting!

Soldier 76 is like god tier right now. He does something like 150 more dps (damage per second). The only dps better than him right now is McCree and I would argue that unless you're a pro McCree you should play Soldier instead. He can melt through Reinhardt shields pretty quickly if he's defended well too. He's definitely going to become a must pick in this new meta.

Pharah got a nice buff with 35% lift thrusts so she's in the air all the time now. Pro Pharahs will rain death from above and do fine but I also think that she still has the same problems she had before in the sense that Zenyatta can discord orb her, Soldier can shoot her down, Ana/Widow/Hanzo can snipe her, and McCree can just pistol her at medium range. She's great but she has so many weaknesses I just don't see her coming back even at my level of play.

Now, for Sombra. Sombra is an interesting concept put in Overwatch. I love her kit, her voicelines, her skins, the fact that she's a cute latina hacker, etc. She's freaking great. But honestly I don't think she will become a part of the meta and I don't think she will become popular in the pro scene or even at my level of play.

I'm saying this because that's what I'm seeing in the game right now. I've seen pro players play Sombra and even I've played better with her on my good games. Obviously we still have a lot of learning to do with her and her kit but her damage is so low why would anyone prefer Sombra over say Tracer/Genji/Reaper? The other flankers do a much better job of killing. Sombra is more of a poking and finishing hit kind of hero. She can be played aggressively but we haven't seen any fantastic Sombra plays where she's killing everyone on the enemy team like say a Tracer, Genji, or Reaper.

What's the problem you ask? The main thing is that her gun is very weak. Not only that but the spread is kinda all over the place because its an smg. I like the fact that she can hack health packs but if you're constantly running around hacking healthpacks sometimes you aren't going to be there for your team. I notice that Sombra players like to go off on their own a lot. Her stealth is good but you can still be spotted and shot at even when you're running super fast. Her ultimate sounded bad ass and overpowered at first but in practice I haven't seen anything too special from emp other than a cancelled Lucio ultimate and a Reinhardt shield cancellation. Lastly, she goes down like a wet paper nap. Very much glass cannon.

With all these problems its easy to see that Somba will have a hard time getting into the pro scene, even my current level of play. Nobody is running Sombra for competitive at my level. I was actually shocked at first because I've been playing everyday since the new patch and I've only seen her in one comp game. I think they can tweak her in future patches and make her better.

Honestly they should do what they usually do. Buff a character so strong that everybody plays her and then nerf her hard so that she can fit into the meta when everybody likes her. Blizzard does this with all their heroes and I bet they'll do it again with Sombra. They did this with Ana and it worked like a charm. 

In conclusion, Overwatch will never be the same game again. I like to think that the game has changed for the better but sometimes I miss the old days, which were only like a few months ago. Sure, every team is running Lucio still but comps are becoming more diverse (at least at my level) and Blizzard is trying new things like Sombra. Not everything is good but at the same time its great that the game is getting updates and still going strong. I'm still getting into games within 30 seconds during the day. That's pretty neat.

Hack the planet.

Sombra Is Live-Patch 1.5

Overwatch's patch 1.5 is now live on pc, ps4, and xbox1. The update brings the new latina hacker hero Sombra as well as an arcade mode, a new map-Ecopoint: Antartica (Mei's map), and a bunch of hero balance changes. Pharah can fly pretty much forever. Ana's nanoboost no longer increases speed, and Zarya has changed a bit in an only slightly nerfy way.

The biggest change to the game was the fact that all ultimate abilities costs have been increased by 25%.

Developer Comment: Game-changing ultimate abilities were coming up a bit too frequently. This change helps keep them in check while still allowing them to be powerful.

This has changed the game in a drastic but good way. Games feel better paced. Ultimates are used in better ways now whereas before people would just ult whenever. I've noticed this especially in competitive play. These are good changes. The shooting in the game feels better too. More gunplay is always good.

Ana's nanoboost nerf isn't cool to me but I can see how Blizzard felt it was too overpowered. Ana was becoming a must pick mostly for the fact that she could nanoboost tanks or dps and just teamwipe easily.

Developer Comment: The increased speed from Ana’s Nano Boost made the ability feel unstoppable and forced Ana players to select targets that could really take advantage of the speed boost. Removing the speed boost means that Ana has a reason to apply Nano Boost to a larger variety of heroes, and enemies can fend off the attack more easily. 

Another change I don't like is that Lucio's healing got nerfed by 10%. Not cool. But at the same time I can see why. Lucio has been a mandatory pick on every team since the beginning. I think they want a more diverse healing cast. I myself would like to see more Zenyatta again. The old 30% damage buff discord orb made Zenyatta godlike.

Developer Comment: Lúcio’s overall healing output has always been on par with (or even higher) than Overwatch’s other healers, and his other benefits made him an almost mandatory pick.

Mercy's passive healing regeneration activates when Mercy doesn't take damage for 1 second (formerly 3 seconds). This sounds like a great buff for Mercy. I feel like she's still a big part of the meta in terms of my level of play but I hardly ever see her in current pro teams.

Developer Comment: This change allows Mercy to survive more easily by evading enemy fire. 

Torb now passively gets armor packs. Soldier got a whole lot better. Pharah's rocket lifts can fly forever. Zarya got slightly nerfed.

A big patch and day for Overwatch.

I can say that Sombra brings a whole to the table with a lot of new and cool firefights and situations in Overwatch. It feels new and exciting again like when Ana first came out. The meta will probably change and be based around having an Ana and a Sombra. That would be cool.

I feel like Sombra will become a must pick because she can hack health packs for the entire team as well as sneak in backlines and back out before the rest of the team nails her. But we'll have to see how the community responds with her. On the ptr everybody seemed to like her but she does have weaknesses. She goes down like a wet paper nap and her gun is a full auto uzi that doesn't have as much damage output as Tracer's.

The Arcade mode introduces a 1v1, 3v3, the good Weekly Brawls, and 6v6 no hero limit. The 1v1 and 3v3 modes are a best of 10 rounds and you only get one life. Great new way to play Overwatch. Its going to be fun playing and seeing how the community reacts to these new game modes. I feel like they're built with the competitive aspect in mind in its very nature and it could be an esports thing too. Who knows.

A lot is happening in the world of Overwatch. Cool beans.

Holidays Are Here But Not Quite Plus Gaming Decay And Band Update

Just wanted to do a little personal blog post tonight about the holidays coming up and life in general. Not everybody is a super big fan of the holidays but I think they are ok. For me the holidays begin at the end of this month, around Thanksgiving and then forward unto (darkness! :D) to Black Friday. For me Black Friday is a big deal because I always buy something awesome for myself that day.

This year I'm planning on buying Battlefield 1 from Fry's, Bestbuy, or Gamestop. My hope is that the game drops in price for Black Friday. I know its still a relatively new game but c'mon now its been out for a bit.

Also, looking forward to Thanksgiving. I'm only working four hours that day and its a early day shift so I'm looking forward to working and coming home early and hanging out with the family.

Christmas is going to be interesting. Last Christmases I got a lot of people at work stuff but I think this year I'm just gonna focus on getting my friends and family gifts lol. It got pretty expensive previous Christmases and this year I need to focus on the right gifts for the people in my inner circle.

Been gaming quite a bit as well. Sombra will probably be on the live Overwatch server in time for Thanksgiving, one could only hope. She will bring in a lot of interesting team plays to the game but she will also invigorate the game and get the casual players playing more again. As much as I love Overwatch I think I've been consumed by it in a way. I'll probably take a Sabbatical from it and play other games, write songs, and record them.

I've been trying to balance my home life effectively. I game in the early part of the day and practice guitar after, then I go into work. Sometimes I end up just hanging out with my friends and going to work but those days are like my weekends because I don't get weekends off.

My friends and I have a band but we have no name yet and we don't know any songs other than the Adventure Time theme song. The guys have a way to go with their playing but I was thinking about showing them some simple songs and seeing if they can play it all in time together. I'm thinking The Ramones or Black Sabbath, maybe both. That's the plan for this Wednesday. The other guitarist is new but he's getting the hang of it through my lessons but our bass player needs work on his timing as well as his general technique. In time I think they could be good musicians. Longer time will tell if they could become great musicians. We don't have a drummer yet but I'm thinking of using programmed drums until we get some songs and material going. Which should be pretty soon.  

So far I've just been showing them basic chords for the guitar player, rhythm and timing for the bass player, and a lot of technical technique things that would cost them a shit ton of money if they took lessons. I'm actually a great teacher. I think if I never go anywhere career-wise with music I'll probably settle for just being a teacher. I'd even be down to go back to college (probably community college) to get a music degree for that. Who knows.

After work every night I try to listen to new music-any kind but mostly jazz, classical, or metal. I write here for the blog most nights. I do it mostly for myself as a record of all the cool stuff I do and am into. I think its cool that I get a ton of views from all over the world, thanks for reading whoever you are! Its a terrific feeling knowing that my blog gets good traffic.

As you can see life is good. And that ain't not bad. 

Keep reading and if you like what you see feel free to leave a comment

European Free Jazz, New Music

I met a musician from Poland at work who I've been talking to on and off about jazz. He's given me a list of all these great European free jazz artists. After listening to a couple of them I'm very impressed. Europeans take jazz (and music in general, like metal) very seriously and it shows in their musical prowess and spirit. A lot of this stuff reminds me of late period John Coltrane, its insanely good. A lot of these cats come from classical backgrounds and it shows in their style and sound but they can also improvise too. I would say a lot of this stuff sounds like Jack Dejohnette, Art Ensemble, modern New York free jazz cats (William Parker), and AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, formed in Chicago in the 1960s) stuff. Seems like that style crossed the ocean and made its way to Europe somehow. Truly eye opening and terrific music. 

These are the guys he mentioned:

Anders Jormin
Jaga Jazzist
Leszek Mozdzer
Tomasz Stanko
Adam Pieronczyk
Esbjorn Svensson
Zbigniew Seifert
Jan Garbarek
Terje Rypdal
Krzysztof Komeda
Zbigniew Seifert 

Looks like I have an infinite amount of new music to listen to, learn from, and absorb for a long time. Lately, I've been digging a lot of metal but that can't satiate my instrumental musical needs and also sometimes you gotta give your ears a rest from all the power chords and coarse vocals. If you want to hear some truly great interesting jazz check out the artists listed above.

 Jazz is life, jazz is love. :D

That's Zbigniew Seifert on violin in the picture, very good jazz violinist that sounds way different from Jean Luc Ponty and the dude from Mahavishnu Orchestra, he also played sax

Black Sabbath and The Sword, The Classic Metal Sound

The other day on my off work day I went for a nice walk. I decided to hit up the local record shoppe (CD Trader) and I picked up Black Sabbath's Mob Rules and The Sword's Low Country. Sabbath is the classic English metal band we all know and love and The Sword is this newer doom/stoner rock band from Texas.

I can easily see how The Sword got a lot of their style and sound from Sabbath. The idea that you can play one super heavy catchy riff and just keep pummeling your listeners with it with lyrics and song structure behind it. Black Sabbath was the first real rock group to do this and many metal groups have followed in that idea. Even technically the newer metal bands, death metal, and black metal bands follow that pattern.

Low Country is an all acoustic album by The Sword that is an acoustic remix of their album High Country, which is a standard metal album with heavy guitars and a massive drum sound. After listening to both so recently I have to say that they did an amazing job on Low Country. Somehow even though it's all acoustic it still sounds pretty much identical to the electric versions, its uncanny.

I'm listening to High Country right now and I like it a lot. One thing that separates The Sword from other typical American doom metal/stoner rock bands is the fact that most of their lyrics are from books, fantasy, and folklore. It doesn't like something Ozzy would sing about. Dio maybe. This is more something that Mikael Akerfelt from Opeth would be singing about.

Which leads me to my next point. The Sword is a band like Black Sabbath that can get progressive. They've actually toured with Opeth. How I wish I could've seen that tour. All their riffs are simple and catchy but the fact that their lyrics aren't the usual metal norm gives them a bit of a progressive edge, even if its not too proggy like Opeth.

Low Country and High Country are two great new metal albums. I'd recommend them to any who's a fan of that classic 70s metal sound and sludgy distorted metal riffs. They get pretty bluesy too. When they get bluesy they can almost enter that Hendrix territory. Low Country has a very strong delta blues sound. High Country gets progressive, even has a Steve Howe acoustic blues tune with synthesizers. Great stuff!

The Sabbath album I got was Mob Rules. Great freakin' album. This was recorded with Ronnie James Dio, Vinnie Appice on drums, Geezer Butler, and Toni Iommi. It was produced by this guy Martin Birch, who previously worked with Deep Purple and Iron Maiden among others. This album is pretty damn well executed and orchestrated. Very heavy, heavy metal music.

This is one of those great records of the 80's, in this case 1981. Dio can carry any metal riff with his powerful voice but when he's being backed by some of the best metal musicians in history the music can get pretty damn powerful and good. This is real metal before all the glam phase. This album was so great that after it was made Warner Bros asked Dio if he wanted to make a solo album. And the rest, as they say is Kisstory.

Metal music is great but sometimes I find that the fans want the bands to just play the same old style and songs for their entire career. Look at bands like Metallica and Slayer. Metal heads aren't keen on change and I think that sometimes hurts the music for the worse in the long run.

New metal music that my friends like (mostly metalcore) is actually not bad. But it all sounds so similar that there's nothing interesting or new going on even if you listen to multiple different bands. It's like okay we've produced a formula and now every band copies it and tries to get big using that strategy. Metal is such a corporate sounding style of music even though its awesome. The singer from my old band used to call metalcore "scene metal" and he liked making fun of the kids who liked that style. But sometimes playing what's popular can get the job done and get your bills paid.

Nothing wrong with that. Can't begrudge a musician from trying to make millions. But some people build their entire careers like that. What I'm trying to say is that I wish metalheads had a more open mind and expanded their taste of music, as well as accepting when bands do new things in metal.

Like how Opeth has pretty much changed from a death metal band with prog elements to pretty much a progressive rock bands with barely slight death metal elements. I think the current metal scene is changing for the better right now.

Right now the sound is going back to the more proto-metal 70's sound of bands like Sabbath and Judas Preist. Clean vocals are coming back and cookie monster growling is becoming less cool, at least I see it that way. Songwriting has gotten better and more catchy songs are being produced. In a sense, people are playing like the old bands from the glory days. It's cool to see and hear the influence and styles in different bands. Bands like Ghost, Tribulation, Opeth, and The Sword are some examples of this.

But I'm sure at some point the more harder edge black metal and death metal riffing won't go away. There's a place for all styles somewhere, including my living room CD rack. I don't think metalcore will change all that much though. Although I went to the Warped Tour this past summer with my friends I just can't get past the fact that most of all those bands sounded the same. I enjoyed it as a social party event but musically it was very tiring.

But that's enough for a rant on metal. Go listen to some Sabbath or The Sword. Dig that classic metal sound! 

Music I've been listening to lately 11/10/16

Lately, I've been listening to a ton of music. A lot of metal, black metal. It all started when I got really into the band Ghost. I've heard all their songs a couple times over now and I'm a little tired of them but I still think they're a great band. I can't wait to see what kind of material they put out for their next album.

Since Ghost I've picked up the newest Opeth album, Sorceress. It's a really great progressive rock album with a very heavy feel. It's so heavy in a progressive way but it sounds metal in some aspects. Interesting how they do that without it sounding death metal like their old records.

I've been getting back into actual albums. Usually I'm a big live rock concert guy. I know rock bands aren't the best when it comes to live performances but I prefer to experience the music live as opposed to studio albums. I like to hear mistakes live. In the studio everything can be touched up with computers and nowadays music can sound very fake and processed. But sometimes you gotta listen to both studio and live performances to really understand the bands. And that's what I've been doing.

A great album I heard today was Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Tragedy. Freaking fantastic metal record. Probably in the top ten best metal records of all time. Recorded in 1976, it gives you a feel of the proto-metal sound and what was to come during the 80s. It's cool to think about all this stuff now and look back in time not only as a listener and fan but also as a seasoned musician with plenty of chops.

I've also been getting really into this band my co-worker told me about. They're also from Sweden, just like Ghost and Opeth. Have you noticed all my favorite metal bands are from Sweden? Something about Sweden is just dark, heavy, and slightly satanic. Probably the fact that they spend most of their winters in darkness.

Anyways, Tribulation is from Sweden too. They have a strong black metal vibe but I also get a very punk feeling from them as well. They have no guitar solos and no intricate or progressive parts (similar to Ghost in that aspect) but their music still intrigues me. They have this metal hooks that are so catchy that its almost like pop music, except in a black metal way. Almost like Ghost but totally not like Ghost at the same time. They're similar in the sense that they're both catchy bands with a black metal influence. The vocals are a little harsh but not like those extreme black metal bands. I can still understand what they're singing. I also like how one of their guitar players uses a semi-hollow body guitar. In a black metal band it sounds really heavy and distorted. Bad ass! Really good band.

Then there's all the classical music. I've been listening to a lot of Lizst, Chopin, Vivaldi, and Bach. That music connects to me in a different way than the rock stuff does. In some ways I can compare metal with classical music in the sense that they both convey a lot of emotions through sound. Classical music has given me a different form of musical entertainment than my usual jazz stuff does.

I can't remember the last time I listened to any new or interesting free jazz stuff. A friend from Poland (all these Europeans!) told me about all these great European free jazz musicians but I haven't gone through and listened yet, mostly due to a lack of time and the fact that I'm going through a big black metal phase. Most of the famous black metal bands I actually don't like because the vocals are too harsh, like they've smoked ten packs of cigarettes and recorded their vocals right after.

It's pretty inspiring stuff. I don't take the lyrics seriously and I don't think these bands believe in the lyrics they sing. It's just a gimmick like how Slayer's been singing about satan since the 80s. A lot of this stuff is European and I gotta say that they do a great job with music there. They take music very seriously. Even their pop music is great.

My dad's told me that a lot of Taylor Swift's most popular tunes are written by two European guys. They take metal, jazz, and classical music seriously. It would be cool to become a big musician and play there one day. Or even play with these bands I like.

One can dream right? 

That's a band picture of Tribulation, the guy with the stash seems to be the funniest

Trump Defeats Hillary

Today was unprecedented. Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. The polls all got it wrong. The news stations all got it wrong. It was a regular work day for me but a lot of momentum built up to this election day and I was excited throughout the entire day, even checking the news on the break room TV all day for any updates. I was prepared for a victory of the first ever female American President.

But that's not what happened. Trump ended up winning. During all the time up to today I thought he was a joke and that Hillary was going to win in a landslide. Needless to say, I'm quite shocked. Still am as I'm of this post. I'm not necessarily angry but I am not happy either. Either way life will go on for me and I'll need to do all the necessary things I need to do to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

But then again there's something odd about all of this. How could so many people vote for a fear mongering, racist, misogynistic, asshole? The answer is clear. People are afraid and uncertain about their future. They don't want another Clinton in the White House because Clinton's represent the old way and she comes with a shit ton of baggage. Many of my young associates didn't vote this election because they said both candidates were shit.

Well, if you chose not to vote then in my opinion you don't get to complain about the country's future. I believe as an American it's your duty to vote. While I do think Hillary and Trump aren't the best Presidential candidates (I had my eyes on Bernie) I do think Hillary was the lesser of two evils. Even if she's a baddie too at least she's a baddie with Presidential experience and a hard working political record. Trump, on the other hand is just an asshole with a loud mouth. The stuff he's said during his campaign is all mostly evil shit.

It's possible that he will lead us all to ruin. It's possible we've already reached the peak of human evolution and potential and voting for Trump will bring us backwards. But the stupid part of me thinks Trump could be a great President. He could somehow get the right people in Congress to work together and get a lot of work done. I wish him good luck on that.

Even though I thought of Trump as a joke I gotta hand it to him that he's come very far with no political experience and being a straight up hater. It will take a village to show him how to lead and organize people and the country. I don't think he knows what he's doing but I think with the right political aides and advisers as well as senators backing him up I think he can learn the job as he goes. It will be political improvising with the fate of the country. But I do think that it's possible for him to do it. At least that's what I want to believe.

He could just bring the country to its knees and cause more division, hate, fear mongering, all that jazz. He's been great at doing that so far. Let's hope he quits the bullshit he's been spewing during the campaign and actually starts learning how to be a leader.

If not, then God help us all.

Blizzard's Remaking Diablo Within Diablo III, Plus Necromancer reveal

Blizzard's going to release a remake inside of Diablo III as part of a 20th anniversary patch. It will have a 16-level dungeon and the four main bosses from the first Diablo. It will be called the Darkening of Tristram and will be free to all Reaper of Souls owners on both PC and console. Blizzard said in a press release:

"Celebrate 20 years of Diablo by traveling back into the depths of the Cathedral where it all began in this upcoming Diablo III: Reaper of Souls content update. Get ready to explore a monster-filled dungeon 16 levels deep, and come face to face with the four main bosses from the original game—all with retro touches like special graphics filters and eight-direction character movement."

The patch will be on the ptr next week.

This is exciting! Time to start playing Diablo again. I kind of got out of it after getting bored with barbarian builds. I experimented with a really cool zombie bears witch doctor build but I used mainly barbs for those higher torment levels.

Blizzard's also going to have a Necromancer pack that will add the necromancer to the game as well as an in-game pet, two more character slots, two more stash tabs (on PC), a portrait frame, pennant, banner, and banner sigil. 

Check out all the info about it and watch the cinematic trailer for the necromancer here.

This might get me back into playing Diablo. The main reason I stopped playing was that I didn't find it competitive enough for me. It felt more like a grind to me in way. I preferred playing Diablo II pvp back in the day when I was a middleschooler. My best character was a level 98 elemental tornado (nado) druid. Good times playing pvp in D2. My friends were always playing and liked to go pking (player killing) together. A lot of trolling went on back then. :D

So yeah this will be a game changer for Diablo. It's always been a pretty popular game and the necro will definitely make it better. Who wouldn't want to wield the powers of the undead and spells?

Sombra Was Finally Announced

So today at BlizzCon Blizzard finally announced the next new Overwatch hero Sombra. This feels like a big relief in the community because everybody's been waiting for this for so long. The arg (alternate reality game) about Sombra took the internet by storm and then everyone got tired of it. And now here she finally is!

Okay, so first of all watch the cinematic trailer for Sombra if you haven't already. You can watch it here. I can go on and on about how great this video is.

But the thing I love the most is how Sombra sounds like a chola. I like Hispanic chicks a lot so its cool that she's Hispanic and has an accent and stuff. She's hacked her way into my heart. Basically what happens in the clip is Sombra, Reaper, and Widowmaker are there to take out some important Russian official who's in charge of omnics. Sombra gets alone in a room with the official and basically black mails here with these photos that show her kind of being love dovey with omnics when Russians are supposed to be against them. She then teleports away and then we see a shot of Zarya. The Russian woman official says,"you know why you're here, right?" Zarya responds with,"I have an idea". Talk about badass!

The cinematic was excellently done. Probably my favorite Overwatch cinematic in a super long time. It actually almost brought a tear to my eye, I was in such awe. It's funny to think that video games have influenced me so much but at this point its one of my biggest inspirations alongside music, movies, and literature. But enough of that lol.

Let's talk about Sombra's actual in game abilities and whatnot. So far people are saying that she sounds a bit overpowered. But to be honest I don't really feel like too many heroes in Overwatch are really too OP.

First off, she has 200 health points-which puts her in line with most of the roster. She has a machine gun. "Sombra’s fully-automatic machine pistol fires in a short-range spread." Her gun fires more slowly than Tracer's machine guns but have a bigger magazine of 60 compared to Tracer's 40.

Her first ability is Hack. "Sombra hacks enemies to temporarily stop them from using their abilities, or hacks first aid kits to make them useless to her opponents." She can't hack if she's getting attacked or invisible. Hacks on enemies last about 6 seconds but a lot longer on other things-about a minute maybe. This sounds like an amazing ability. This could stop Mercy resurrections, a Pharah from ult killing your entire team, stop people from getting health kits, and more. But it seems that she has to get pretty close to use hack. So there's that. Sounds op but I think Blizz will do a lot of balancing with this ability to get it just right.

Next, thermoptic camo. Interesting word that I haven't heard before, thermoptic. "Sombra becomes invisible for a short period of time, during which her speed is boosted considerably. Attacking, using offensive abilities, or taking damage disables her camouflage." So this is basically a stealth that we all figured she would have. This is the thing that everybody is up in the air about because once you introduce stealth in a competitive game things can get dicey. Balancing this part of her kit will be the hardest part from Blizzard with this new character. It sounds awesome though but I don't think it will be perfect from the start. It will take a lot of ptr testing and balancing that's for sure.

Then there's translocator. "Sombra tosses out a translocator beacon. She can instantly return to the beacon’s location while it is active (including when it’s in mid-flight)." "Once thrown, it has about a 15-second window to be used. After you translocate, there's a 6-second cooldown before you can throw it out again." (Kotaku) This is her escape route, sort of similar to Tracer's recall but very different.

Lastly, we have her deadly ultimate emp. "Sombra discharges electromagnetic energy in a wide radius, destroying enemy barriers and shields and hacking all opponents caught in the blast." There's so much that can be done with this ultimate that just this alone is game changing-and possibly game breaking to a certain degree.

The ptr is going to be interesting next week. I'm really exciting for entire matches full of Sombra's going at it. It was super fun with all the Ana's although it was a very unwinnable strategy. This is everything I've been writing about for months when it comes to the Sombra news. It's finally come to end.

Boop

BlizzCon 2016 predictions

So as you all probably know BlizzCon is tomorrow. My good buddy from work is going. As you can imagine I'm super jelly. Maybe next year I'll go.

Anyways, lets do some speculation because I love doing that. Blizzard does all their big reveals right at the beginning so I will know all the major important news by the time I wake up and check the internet. Let's start with what we know will probably happen for sure.

They're going to announce a new Hearthstone expansion, one of the heist/mobster variety theme. Blizz even did a fake newspaper article from the Gadgetzan Gazette about a vault heist. There might be more news about the game, possibly even a new game mode or something but a new expansion will definitely be revealed.

For World of Warcraft there might be more information about more content for Legion but probably not much more than that. New WoW expansions have been coming out every 2 years so we probably won't hear anything about a new expansion. But perhaps something about patch 7.2.

There probably won't be anything crazy revealed about Starcraft. It's a dying game. A game that I played competitively and seriously for years from 2010 up until about 2013. I'm sad to see the state that its in but let's face it, it's a dead game with not much of a player base despite the tournaments. I don't think anything game changing will be revealed about it but there's a chance they could do another expansion with a new story. But honestly Starcraft is a dying breed. It would be great if Blizzard did what they've done with Starcraft 2 and make Warcraft 4 out of it but I don't think that's going to happen. World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2 are both in lulls as of right now. WoW has momentum from the new expansion but how long will people keep playing until they get bored of the MMO grind? Despite all this I don't think Blizzard is done with Starcraft just yet.

Now for Diablo. We're all expecting a bunch of things. A new Diablo 3 expansion, a Diablo 1 and 2 HD remake, and the possibility reveal of a Diablo 4. The most likely of all of these would be a new Diablo 3 expansion. Diablo 3 is the go to action rpg that everybody loves. The least likely is of course a Diablo 4 reveal but that would be amazing!

Heroes of the Storm has a lot of possibilities for tomorrow as well. Gaming sources have predicted two new maps, three new heroes (one of which is from Overwatch), and possibly a new game mode. A wild guess would be an entire Overwatch theme where they add characters from that game-with Sombra definitely in there. Two years ago they announced Lost Vikings. Last year it was Cho Gall. So this year they'll do some other weird character. Sources say it could be the Hearthstone innkeeper.

And now for Overwatch. We all know we're going to get a Sombra reveal. Good God that's been a long time coming. There will probably be a new map or two revealed as well as the Overwatch Pro League. They're going to step up their esports division for Overwatch. Sombra though will definitely be there. "She'll almost definitely be playable on the show floor before going on the PTR next Tuesday, and then live in the game the week after." (PC Gamer) There will probably be a new cinematic or two as well as some comics. The hope is that they create some kind of interesting new game mode or something. Like a co-op Brawl like Junkenstein's Revenge. That would be sweet.

All these predictions will be answered by the time I wake up tomorrow and check all my gaming sources. I already have an idea of what could happen but I'm hoping that Blizzard does a 180 and pulls a rabbit out of their hat.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon Is Free

Starting on November 9th and for the next month after, Ubisoft is giving away free copies of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. This game seems a lot different from the other Far Cry's, at least the ones I've played. It has a strong retro art style for the dialogue and has enough neon pink to remind me what the 80s was like even though I wasn't born until '89.

It's part of Microsoft's free games with Gold (Gold membership) starting on November 15.

I've actually played a little bit of this game once and it was pretty good. The actual graphics of the game and gameplay is top notch for an old game. From what I remembered it had a strong science fiction sorta theme.

Pick up this freebie for your pc gaming collection.

Official Sombra art leak

So we were all wondering if that last leaked picture and information about Sombra at the end of the summer was real. Looks like it was. Based on that picture and this new official leaked (intentional leak) art of Sombra she looks pretty much the same down to the cool, sexy cyber punk haircut to the foxy clothes. What's new in this photo is what she's doing with her hands-this sort of purple energy is flowing from her hands into these robots. 

Let's speculate. I've been doing it for months during this entire Sombra arg (alternate reality game). She might have the ability to be a summoner. She could summon robot minions that attack enemy players or something. She might be able to hack turrets, Reinhardt's shield, and stop abilities from working for a certain period of time. Things like that. 

I'm kinda hoping that she's gonna be a summoner of some sort. There was this vampires vs humans game called Nosgoth (it was 4v4 pvp game) and it had a summoner. That summoner was so freaking fun in that game! It would be cool to see Blizzard do something similar for Overwatch. I do know that a character like that in any game is difficult because its hard to balance. Usually summoners are either pathetically weak in games or they are ridiculously over powered. We'll have to wait and see what abilities she really will have.

It's believed that Somba will be announced at BlizzCon, which is only in a few days-I'm greatly looking forward to it. I've kind of taken a break from Overwatch because I'm disillusioned with competitive mode because of bad teams and having a hard time ranking up. It really is elo hell as other players have put it. Sometimes its fun though. I still enjoy playing the game but I've mostly been playing Heroes of the Storm as of late. 

One more thing about Sombra. People were thinking her ultimate would be her being able to control that giant omnic robot on Valskya Industries, that huge one in the background. Pretty cool idea. I hope it turns out to be true. 

Again, we'll have to wait. September and October were pretty slow months for Overwatch and pc gaming in general but it looks like some interesting things will happen soon. Also, we can't forget that they're going to make ultimates take longer to charge up, meaning more fire fighting and maneuvering and less reliance on ultimate abilities. That patch is on the ptr (public test realm) servers but hasn't made it to the base game yet. But it will in due time. 

Wish I could be at Blizzcon this week instead of being at work :'(