Recent Buys: Episode 19 - Equipment Upgrade, DLC, and Small Final Fantasy Characters

It's that time again. Money saved and money spent. And money well spent if I do say so myself.

First off let's go with the big item. I got myself a new microphone. It's the Zoom H2n. I was actually planning to go for the Samson Meteor USB microphone but after a friend of mine showed me videos of the Zoom H2n, it was just a night and day difference in the audio quality. The fact that this is a portable microphone that's battery powered is a huge convenience. With my old setup, I would record gameplay and audio separately and would then run the audio through some noise removal (the microphone can pick up the sound of my electric fans, it's hot in this country). The Zoom H2n also mounts on camera tripods which is cheaper, easier to find and a whole lot lighter than regular mic stands. couple all that with awesome sound quality, wish I knew about this mic sooner.

On to the video games. I went to Datablitz in Greenhills asked if they had any Hong Kong PSN cards in stock. Lucky for me they just got a new shipment that very day. With that, I finally got the DLC characters for Street Fighter x Tekken. Since the ver. 2013 update changed the game so much (for the better), I thought it was time to get the characters. With the remaining money, I also got the DLC character color pack for Persona 4 Arena. I kinda want to get another card for the glasses DLC pack.

Getting a Hong Kong PSN card is cool and all but that wasn't the reason why I went to Datablitz. The real reason I went to DB was because of an action figure. A Squall figure from the Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini series of figures. Squall is not my favorite Final Fantasy character but the figure just looks too cute and one I saw that the figure comes with him in his SeeDs uniform, I was sold.

After messing around with the Squall figure, I was curious as to what other Final Fantasy characters got the chibi treatment. I remember seeing a figure of Lightning in the SM Megamall DB branch and found it cute. I looked up the pictures of the Lightning mini figure and that one of her extra faces have her doing the "whatever" eyes. She also comes with her riding the Odin horse and Odin's swords which are all pretty cool too. But it's really the eyes that sealed the deal.

Last but not least, I also got a new set of component cables called "4 in 1 HD Component Cable" by a brand called "Cable". It's one of those "all in one" type of thing where it has 3 connectors at the end. One for PS3/Ps2, one for Wii, and one for the Xbox 360. It fixed the ghosting problem that I had with my older set of component cables which is a huge sigh of relief for me as the ghosting would happen on both the TV and the captured game footage of my laptop. So expect the newer videos to be in better quality with these new set of cables.