The game itself is beautiful and runs very smoothly. I enjoyed myself quite a bit and am about to load it up again.

Upon reading further, it came to my attention that a majority of people do not know what they want to do with their lives. Until recently i could be counted as one of them. But as i continued reading on how to discover what you want to do with your life, i realized that i already knew the answer. I have known the answer for years, and only until recently have i taken action to further myself toward what i want.

I don’t know if my view of life was correct or incorrect in the past, basically i thought that i was doing what i was doing because i had to. I had to finish college to progress toward doing what i loved, i had to endure years of mundane work that never pushed me intellectually because it would help me progress. Everything i have done in the past has made me who i am, and was basically prerequisites to get where i am today.

As i continued reading, i realized i was not like most other people stuck in an uneventful, mundane, even tedious day job. I enjoy my job. Proof of this is the fact that i was (am) downloading VMware and Ubuntu-server so that i could recreate an environment i have been working on at work so that i can get things accomplished outside work. My father left me with a piece of advice before i left the States and that was (basically), “What ever you are doing in life, whether it be work related, social, or personal; always exceed people’s expectations of you.”

I am not working at home for this sole purpose, but regardless of the purpose, i am doing it. The reason for me doing this at home is first, to gain a better understanding of what i am doing at work. Second, to meet and surpass the expectations of my supervisors and colleagues. And lastly, because it is what i love to do. Could one ask for anything better? Looking back i realized that i have made all the right moves to get to where i am, and without certain experiences would never had made the move 6500+ miles away to pursue what i love.

There is something to be cautious about however, and this is the feeling that i have accomplished my dream. While a dream may be accomplished, there is nothing worse than having NO dreams. While you may have accomplished one, there are always one or more to take it’s place. I know that i have started taking the steps to achieve what i want, but this is a never ending process. People need to realize that it is easier to get what they want in life than it may seem, you just need to be willing to make the effort toward obtaining it.

While this post used to be longer (my wifi that i’ve been mooching disappeared and i lost about 150 words) it still contains the basic thought that i was having.

Lets start with the obvious differences; Oblivion is a fantasy based game that mixes the RPG side of games like Neverwinter Nights 2 with a FPS. It is based in it’s own world, with it’s own races, classes, etc. Fallout 3 is based in post-apocalyptic Washington DC. You are a human (your only choice to start) and you have no special abilities.

Many aspects of the games are similar, the controls, the leveling and feats. I am having a tough time deciding which one i prefer more though. I thought it would be Fallout hands-down, but i feel myself wanting to play Oblivion again. I’ll go over a few things with some screenshots for clarification (and something to look at).

Graphics
Having not played Oblivion in a while, and not on my 8800GT, i still recall the graphics as being stunning. Im going to give Fallout the benifit of the doubt because it has 2-3 years on Oblivion and the graphics had BETTER be improved.

Here are some examples of characters:

Also here is a Fallout horizon and an Oblivion sunset.

Gameplay
Gameplay in each are very similar. There is one defining characteristic that sets Fallout apart though. This is the use of VATS which is reminiscent of the slowtime in Max Payne. This allows you to basically pause the game in combat and select which part of an enemy you would like to shoot. There are many factors that go into this and just because you want a head shot doesn’t mean you are always going to hit.

There are some things that were changed from Oblivion that i think was for the worse. My major beef right now is with lock picking. In Oblivion it was quite a challenge. However with Fallout it is a joke. I have picked ~30 locks and broke 2-3 bobbypins. In Oblivion i remember i couldnt get enough picks.

Much more to say, but that shall come later (possibly…)

Food – the food here has been amazing. While I am not positive I have been eating the healthiest, every meal I have had has been delicious. Some of the things I have had that I remember are grilled- chicken, cow intestines, cow tongue, another cow organ, tempura, udon noodles, lots of rice, ramen, fish, chicken heart and liver, and more. I have not encountered very many spicy dishes. Most of them are either a little sweet or a little salty, but never too much. There are also many more restaurants here than in America. Also each restaurant has a display of their best dishes (plastic I believe) in front of their stores so people can see what their meal will look like before ordering. Food comes out very quickly and you are never expected to tip your server.

Onsen – I had the opportunity to visit and onsen with Kevin and his family. An onsen is a natural hot springs. The place we went to was about and hour and a half drive from Tokyo. The inn was very beautiful as well as traditional. We all stayed in one room that had just a table in the middle. The onsen experience was something quite new to me. You start by talking off all clothes (in private) except for your underwear and putting on a robe called a yukata. Then once you have entered the springs (there is usually one for men and one for women) you can either clean off or just go right in. All you have is a small towel which you are supposed to use to conceal your private parts in a nonchalant type way. The water was great, and we stayed in for about an hour. Then once you are finished you wash off and then back into the room. We stayed in our yukatas all night. We had dinner and breakfast there as well which were both wonderful. In all it was quite a unique experience that i was glad to have tried and would love to again!

I will have one more post detailing my final thoughts within the next few days.

Upon Arrival – Once I arrived I was a mixture of relieved as well as nervous. I was relieved that I had finally made it and would be able to move away from the small quarters in which I was confined the last 14 hours and also nervous about immigration and customs. This all went by very uneventfully. The first step is a quarantine which you are supposed to go to if you are sick, I wasn’t. Then you get to immigration. There are two forms which were handed out on the plane that you had to fill out. The first was a customs form for declaring items (none of which I had) and the second was an embarkment/disembarkment form. After immigrations was customs where I talked to the lady for about 2 minutes trying to explain that I did not have the address of where I was staying, but only a home phone number.

My first breakfast – I had arrived uneventfully at my host family’s house and gone to bed around 9pm. I awoke around 8am and went to eat breakfast. I guess it was a traditional Japanese breakfast of yogurt with fruit, homemade juice (I don’t know what kind but it was very good). I also had two pieces of toast (which were much better than regular toast in the US). This was somehow very satisfying for being much less than I am used to.

My first walk – I then went on a walk with Kevin to his work. On the way we would pass Shibuya station where I would do much of my traveling from. The walk was a very good glimpse into the Japanese lifestyle. We walked for about 20 minutes to get there and I saw many things along the way. The first thing out of the ordinary and not something most visitors are likely to experience is the sight of the current prime ministers house. This house was less than one minute from my host family’s house which helped explain why there were policemen everywhere.
The streets are all very narrow and many people walk or ride bikes. There are vending machines for drinks everywhere. When we got toward Shibuya station the noteworthy image of a huge intersection with big screens everywhere and multitudes of people crossing the street came alive. This is an area in which I could spend hours just looking around and never get bored. Kevin eventually arrived at his place of work and I went back to Shibuya station and called my friend, Koji.

My first experience with the public transportation system – Koji wanted me to come over to where he lived in Meguro. To do this I would have to take the train at Shibuya station. It took me 20 minutes and 2 phone calls to figure out where to buy the tickets. I finally got my ticket and boarded the train. I got off in Meguro and Koji was able to find me no problem. After this initial run in with the public transportation system I was never confused by them again (as of now at least).

My first meal – Koji and I decided to go eat somewhere. He decided on a restaurant by looking at food on a poster from outside. We went inside and there was a vending machine. He found the meals we wanted on it from pictures. Then we inserted the money and received tickets. We sat at a counter and gave the waitress our tickets. In several minutes the food appeared in front of us. I had gotten salmon, some sort of beef in a bowl, sticky rice, and miso soup. Everything was delicious. I am not a fan of salmon, but even the salmon was great! The miso soup was better than any miso I had back in the US. And the beef was probably my favorite. The price was very reasonable at around 450 yen.

Maids – This was something that I am still trying to understand. When we went to the electronic district (akihabura?) I saw young Japanese ladies dresses in maid outfits. When I asked Koji about this I was told that this is a big thing here. The nerds are obsessed with the maid outfits and there are maid casinos, maid cafés, and more. A majority of the maid were quite good looking so there was a lot of eye candy for me.

Television – Japanese television is the same, if not wackier, than America portrays it to be. They had comedians doing the evening news, odd game shows, odder programs that I couldn’t understand, and more. I would have to say the most unusual thing was the way they cut to commercials. Unlike in the US where you can pretty much tell when a commercial is coming, they would randomly cut to commercials in the middle of anything. When the programming started again they would sometime rewind a bit so you know you didn’t miss anything, other times it would seem as though you missed a small portion of the programming. Everything was very interesting to watch though, even if I couldn’t understand it.

Smoking – So I know I shouldn’t be smoking, but I’ll be the first to admit that I am addicted. I bought a pack of cigarettes once off the plane and smoked one outside not thinking. The next day on my walk with Kevin I noticed designated smoking sections. Apparently in some parts of the city they have these. They are not hard to locate and are usually populated by a good amount of people.

Computers – I first experienced a computer in Japan when I used Koji’s. It didn’t help that it was 8 years old and ran Windows ME. Everything was in Japanese on it, which didn’t seem to be much of a problem since I could navigate windows even if it was in some alien language. The biggest surprise was the keyboard. At first glance, it’s a regular QWERTY keyboard just with Japanese characters listed as alternates for some of the keys. Then I tried to log into my email. Kylemcauliffe” huh? I tried again, but shift+2 was “. I spent about a minute searching the keyboard and found the @ was right next to ‘p’ and you didn’t have to press shift. There were many differences other than this, though the only ones I can think of at the moment are that the backspace key was extremely small, and that the enter key was narrow and tall.

Drinks – With all the vending machines I am obsessed with the drinks here. I have had nearly 12 different ones so far, and am looking forward to many more. The oddest of these so far is one by Fanta. It is in a small 6-8oz can which you shake hard once you obtain it. The beverage comes in apple, grape, and orange (at least this is all the flavors I have seen so far). It is like a soda, but there is a jello like substance in it. So while you are drinking what seems like a carbonated beverage, you are also chewing it. It was quite an interesting experience! Koji has told me that there are a lot of jello like beverages here.

All of this talk of DRM has had quite a negative impact on the game without even touching on the actual gameplay.  Let me be the first to say that the actual game is incredible.  I was able to reach the 5th stage rather easily (thats not to say  i never died) in about 10 hours.  Granted half of this was spent tweeking my creature’s design.  Then came stage 5, the space stage.  I was surprised by the difficulty of this stage.  This is not a critique, but a praise.  After basically breezing through the game on Normal difficulty, i was finally faced with quite a big challange.

Overall, the game is amazing.  When you actually stop to think of how they made it so that any design of creature each has their own emotions and movements, it becomes even more amazing.  What initially turned me on to this game was 1) the sound track is by Brian Eno, and 2) a seminar I viewed at the Long Now with Brian Eno and Will Wright.

Despite the negativity surrounding the DRM, I think that this game is epic and everyone blasting the DRM are probably just hoping to pirate the game so they dont have to cough up $50.  In the end, it’s thier loss!