Geek vs Life

Okay, so this meeting in the door. Apparently they’ve got some sort of “school club” where they fight “shadows” during the “Dark Hour” with our “personas” (trust me, it wouldn’t make sense to you if I tried to explain it). They let me join their “club”, and gave me a fake gun to shoot myself in the head with. Then I heard a weird voice and saw a tarot card, and was told that I apparently established the “Fool” Social Link. Went to bed after the meeting, and that kid from before was in my room during the Dark Hour. He said something about “the end” coming, and then disappeared.

Came downstairs the evening on the 19th, and Akihiko introduced us to… Junpei? Apparently he’s “one of us” and is gonna live in the dorm, too.  Akihiko was all excited, ‘cuz apparently we’re goin somewhere called “Tartarus” tomorrow. The Chairman’ll give us the details, apparently.

During lunch on the 20th, Mitsuru came into our classroom and told us to meet in the lounge after school. At the meeting, we were told we would be going to Tartarus, and Mitsuru and Akihiko lead us… to school? However, as soon as the Dark Hour hit, our school turned into… wow, that thing is CRAZY! Our school is some huge creepy tower! We got inside, and I was apparently nominated as leader, but before we could go up the stairs, I saw a weird door. Hey, it’s the Velvet Room. Nice, easy access. Mitsuru only let us explore the first floor, though. I was kinda disappointed, because of how pathetically easy it was. We cleared the floor and went back downstairs. Mitsuru congratulated it, then I heard that voice again. Aparently I’m at rank 2 of “The Fool” now.

Tuesday morning, met Kenji, a classmate of mine, before going to morning assembly. Mitsuru spoke, but a lot of it went over my head. Okay, most of it. During classes later, I SOOOO wanted to fall asleep, but I actually stayed awake. Somehow. Not sure how. Didn’t have anything to do after school, so I wandered around. Got outside, and saw Akihiko, who told me and Junpei to meet him at the police station in the mall. Okay, I guess. We got there, and apparently one of the cops is willing to sell us weapons. That’s useful. So’s the 5,000 yen Akihiko gave us. Decided to go to Tartarus that night, and got up to the fifth floor.

Met up with Kenji again before school, and after school, he invited me out to ramen. We hung out, then I heard that voice again, saying that I’d established the “Magician” Social Link.

On Thursday, I decided to join the kendo team. I heard that voice again, telling me I’d established the “Chariot” Social Link. Decided to go to Tartarus that night, even though it was just me and Junpei. Junpei and I explored up to floor 10, then went back to the dorm.

At lunch on Friday, Kenji and Kazushi (from the kendo team) both asked me to hang out after school. I really wanna work hard for the team, so I opted to go to practice. Chatted with Kazushi a bit after practice, and that voice told me that “The Chariot” was now to rank 2. I offered to walk Yuko, the team manager, home, but she declined, so I went home on my own. Yukari was up to it, so we went to Tartarus again. Made it up to floor 14, but since Yukari was tired, we didn’t fight the strong shadow there, and went back instead.

Heard that a new bookstore was opening on Saturday, so I checked it out after school. The old couple that runs it seemed nice, but the man kept talking about some persimmon tree at school. I went out and looked at it, and then took the couple a leaf I’d picked up from the ground. We chatted for a while, then that voice told me I’d established the “Hierophant” Social Link.

Week End’s Social Links:

Fool Rank 2 (Automatic)
Magician Rank 1
Hierophant Rank 1
Chariot Rank 2

Here is the first installment of my Persona 3 Project (P3project). This covers the beginning of the game through the second save point.

I arrived at my dorm right at midnight, and was greeted by a strange young boy who had me sign a contract. Then two girls came downstairs, one of whom had a gun (wth?). Apparently, they’re residents in this dorm… I dunno, there’s something suspicious going on. The younger girl, Yukari, showed me to my room, but told me that any questions I had would have to wait for later.

The next morning, Yukari woke me up, saying that Mitsuru-senpai had told her to walk me to school. We take the train, and then reach the school. There’s quite a few people here. She cautioned me not to tell anyone about what happened last night (what did happen, anyway?). I checked the class rosters, and found out I was in Class F, before heading to the office, where I met Mrs. Toriumi, my homeroom teacher. Made a friend at school (or, rather, he found me) named Junpei, and we walked home together.

The next evening, the Chairman of the Board was at the dorm when I got home. He’s kind of an idiot.  Had a really weird dream that night, with some old dude named Igor and that contract that I signed. He said I was welcome in the ‘Velvet Room’, and that he was going to watch me. I don’t really get it, and the details were really fuzzy when I woke up.

That night, I was woken up by some huge noises, and Yukari came and woke me up, taking me to the back door, but there was something out there. We ran to the top floor, and then onto the roof, where there was a huge monster! Yukari pulled out that gun of hers and was going to shoot herself in the head, but she couldn’t do it. I saw a vision of that little boy again, encouraging me, and I picked up her gun, and shot myself in the head.

I don’t really remember anything after that, but I think I fought something, and met Igor again. When I finally woke up, it was the 17th! I was in the hospital, apparently I’d been there since I passed out. Yukari was there, and she pretty much dumped her life story on me (I’m in the hospital, darnit, at least explain things to me in a way I’ll understand before dumping on me!).

At school the next day, she told me to meet everyone on the 4th floor of the dorm when I got back to school.

I was planning on doing this on my livejournal, but I figure it would be interesting for our visitors here, as well, so I’ll post it here.

For those of you not aware, Persona 3 takes place in semi-real-time. It takes place over the course of a single school year, day by day. You go to school, you hang out with friends, you save the world, etc…

The date that the game “starts” on is 4/7/2009. This year, I am going to attempt to play the game in “real time” (a week’s worth of game at a time… first save point, IIRC, is 4/22, hence the late start). I will be posting my weekly “journal” of the game’s events (yes, there will be spoilers… I’ll try to put cuts in). To get through the game’s events as quickly/easily as possible, the following allowances are being made:

1) Game will be played on “normal” mode
2) Game will utilize save-data from previous run (money, equipment, level, Persona compendium, Academic/Charm/Courage stats)

However, I will be going for max social links, which does limit my free time in the game.

The first “installment” should be posted later today, or tomorrow.

This could be you!

More details have surfaced on what will be included on the much talked about The Beatles: Rockband Limited Edition Premium Bundle. For $250, when you already have a drumset, a mic and a few guitars, there might be good reason to pause before laying down that kind of dough. So here is what you’ll get when you open the box:

• The Beatles: Rock Band game
• Hofner Bass controller: (A replica of the bass famously used by Sir Paul McCartney himself)
• Beatles-inspired and Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drums (w/ classic pearl finish and vintage replica Beatles kick drum head)
• Microphone & Microphone Stand (finally my hands will be free!)
• Additional special content* (*oh I do love a good mystery, I wonder if they ship you Yoko.)

Considering that most people who would be inclined to purchase TB:RB, probably already own a previous incarnation of RB (either the original or extra cordless version). There’s just so much room in someones shed or garage before having to build a house extension to house your gaming peripherals. Then there’s the whole landfill problem and eco/green/save the planet concerns… For those the game is also available in a not so special package which will retail for approximately $60:

• The Beatles: Rock Band game

Now there’s something we can all enjoy.

Hey all, I know I’ve been absent for a while but I totally had to come back around because the news in the world of gaming is well… generally pretty dull. This story I found on a popular web-comic was particularly interesting so I’m going to share it. (Making it SFW of course) It comes from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and their quest to stop Canada from its annual seal clubbing event that is going to take place for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler. Yes, you read that right… ANNUAL SEAL CLUBBING EVENT! Kind of makes me a little jealous because all we have in Seattle is Hempfest and Bumbershoot…

Anyway, here is the quote from the comic:

“OH… If you play World of Warcraft and you can, go to the coordinates 79, 73 on the southeastern coast of Howling Fjord, due south of the Explorers League Outpost, on Saturday, April 11, at 1 p.m. EST turn your flagging on and start clubbing baby seals. Why? Because PETA is f—— stupid. They’re using WoW to promote their protest against the clubbing of baby seals in Canada. While I’m neither condoning nor condemning this action, I think PETA’s course of action is ridiculous.” –Dueling Analogs Apr 9^th, 2009.

I’m a pretty liberal minded person, but for f——‘s sake, this is a whole new kind of stupid. More importantly, it is a little crazy to push any kind of politics on the general gaming public and expect it to fall on ANYTHING but deaf ears. Apparently there are activists who play this game between raids and whatnot so kudos to them for standing up for what they believe in, but really? It seems to me that unless you are really paying attention to what you’re doing, this is just going to be a silly thing that you see in the game, akin to the Undead doing the dance from Thriller.

Now the story above story, from what I can tell, is not ENTIRELY accurate. You don’t, in fact, club the seals, but instead fight a group of Horde who are killing the seals. Which on my end, seems less fun, but I guess it sets a good precedent for the players. This is only a minor consolation for me however, because like I said before… will the world really notice? I dunno, I suppose that is up for you WoW players to decide.

As for me? I may just start playing this game again to see if I can in fact, club the seals. But I roll Horde and am a helper. Please also let me know how it went if anyone goes and tries this, I’m curious.

‘’Anyone who slaughters baby seals for their fur must surely be in service to the evil Lich King.’’ – Ryan from the PETA blog.

Further reading on the subject can be found on these two websites:

http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/04/help_battle_sea.php

http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/seal_hunt_09

BEST! PICTURE! EVER! (Keegan, of GVL)