Weekend, what are you playing?

It's the last weekend of June and for most of you, summer has begun. Summer equals free time equals hours and hours spent gaming. What are you playing?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KWNCNfY-hs&w=560&h=349]

Migoy: Digging through some old PS2 games I got from my friend in hopes of finding something random to play. Aside from that I've started Final Fantasy XII on the PS2. Being a Final Fantasy: Tactics fan, I love the world of Ivalice and giggle everytime I spot a familiar name or term.The MMO style of combat still feels a bit strange but the gambit system is pretty fun to mess with. I've been having a Mega Man craze recently with this huge urge to purchase the D-Arts Rockman X figure. While I'm currently short on funds at the moment, I popped back in Mega Man Marverick Hunter X on the PSP and beat Normal mode for X in like less than 3 hours (I know where everything is). Started with X again but this time on Hard mode and now it feels more like a Mega Man game, with the heightened damage etc.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ZeISfJ7Vc&w=560&h=349]

Arlie: While it's summertime in the US, it's the typhoon season here in the Philippines. It's been raining here for almost the whole week. Flooded streets and heavy traffic everywhere, not to mention that fucking tornado. It's fucked up because we don't usually have tornadoes here. But enough about that, it's game time!

I've been "playing" Gran Turismo 5 mainly for the week. I am trying to complete Endurance Series for B-spec. I just finished Indy500 (200 laps) yesterday and had 2 of my B-spec drivers reach Class 30. Suzuka 1000km (172 laps) is currently on going right now. I placed the quotes because I wasn't really playing. With a really fast car(mine's Formula GT) and tuning setup I could just leave my trained B-spec drivers unattended and win the race easily with the expense of leaving my PS3 running for straight hours while I do other stuff like play other games or watch educational art films. Since saving in the middle of a race is not yet possible I can't be sure if I'm ready for the 24-hour events because of the random power outages caused by this weather we're having here in the third world.

I finally had the chance to play Alice: Madness Returns the other day. I am really attracted to this game, imagine the movie Sucker Punch turned into a video game, only that instead of Baby Doll you have a knife wielding, pepper grinder spewing, emo-looking chick collecting lost memories of her past. What I like in this game is it's gameplay and design, love the physics of how Alice's emo hair move with the wind in Wonderland(her hair suck balls in the real world).

I also played F.3.A.R yesterday, I wasn't able to finish F.E.A.R. 2 so I really didn't know what happened. And just like in previous F.E.A.R. games, I shoot everything that moves and hope that the little bitch doesn't appear. Finding those freaky Alma dolls hidden in every stage is not fun.

Quash: Yesterday i was at the Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition and  Mortal Kombat Tournament called Last Chance. It lasted pretty much the whole day and left me exhausted. For my second fighting game tournament, I actually did fairly well. I won my first 2 matches bringing me to the winners bracket to met the best Guile player I've ever seen. A player that uses Guile aggressively which is not Guile's playstyle at all, but he make it work leaving players stunned and shaking their heads.

When i lost to him i was brought down to the losers bracket and i needed to beat my own friend to reach top 8. That really sucked since we both wanted to meet somewhere in the finals. I lost again with him playing his over-powered Yun knocking me out of the tournament. Regardless, I'm pleased on how I did. I was worried about getting knocked out at the start but thankfully i was able to pull it off. In the end, we were treated with an intense Grand Finals with an Akuma player named Den against Ben, the aggressive Guile player that took me out of Winners. Den beat Ben taking him out of Winners, so Ben was actually coming from losers during the Grand Finals and had to win 2 sets of best to 3 matches while Akuma only needed to win 1. It was crazy, and Ben eventually got used to the fight and won the match. Congrats to him!

Mortal Kombat? well i joined that for kicks and i actually won my first match for some reason. I was using Kitana and with no practice whatsoever and with only one combo in my belt(which is why i picked Kitana in the first place), i quickly lost my next two matches against crazy MK players. It was fun though and i'm still laughing that i grabbed a win at the start.

Since all of that is over, I think ill go and play some Team Fortress 2 and forget about Street Fighter for a bit....until the next tournament. Thanks again for Pinoy2Dfighters for another successful tourney.

Last Chance - Mortal Kombat Grand Finals - Chronocaster(Kabal) vs Marcus(Kung Lao)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuwqT6FFgb8]