Hello there. It sure has been a while. Well, I just finished my last exam this semester.

Anyway, I bought a few games last week, but I never got to try them:
Chrono Cross - PS (I know, it's been out since 2000 but I only got it now!!)
Tokobot - PSP
Jak X - PS2
Castlevania DOUBLE PACK - GBA
Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble - DS
Animal Crossing Wild World - DS
Mario Kart - DS

I also bought GLADIATOR, the 3 disc extended special edition.

It's really sad that I could't play the games or even watch the movie. I am not sure if I'll be able to try them soon since I plan on playing Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance on GC first. I only started playing Fire Emblem like two weeks ago, just before the exams, even though I had it since its release last year. I played for only about seven hours though, but it really got me excited. I cannot wait till I go home tomorrow and play it.

The last chapter of Naruto manga, chapter 292, was a great one. I have already read it more than ten times, and there really isn't much dialog, but still it gets better every time I read it. Gimme a sec... (I just want to read it again)

So, what was I saying? Yeah, Naruto, of course. The chapter really is amazing, and that sure is to be expected. I won't talk about its details though since I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

I feel sleepy. I wonder if I would be able to blog more often during the two-weeks break.

I just remembered, tonight is the first of Ashoor so "Ma'joorein" to all Muslims out there.

I just finished Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. As I said in a previous 'blog', the game is great. I was surprised when I spotted many Arabic names in the credits (both males and females). I always read the names in the credits, in games or movies or anything, and I have seen about a couple Arabic names in most games I finished but this one had the lion's share, which made me very happy.

Today is the first of Eid Al-Adha, so 'wish you a happy year, and God bless you!!' for all Muslims out there.

A couple days ago, I recieved 'Game Design: The Art & Business of Creating Games' by Bob Bates, which I ordered from amazon. I am very excited about it but I couldn't read but a few pages (about twenty). I also recieved the 200th issue of Nintendo Power magazine, which I got for free as I registered a few products through Nintendo's site.

There is an ad in the mag about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I don't have the game but I plan on buying the movie's DVD as soon as it is out. I also want to watch Peter Jackson's King Kong, which should be great, along with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I played Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones a week ago. There are many things that I liked about it; especially the conversations between the prince the dark prince while playing. These simple conversations, along with that woman telling the story during play-time, were a nice touch. I think that if they made the dark prince a bit different, it would have been better. The fighting style changes when you play as the dark prince, which is great, but he is strong in a not-so-good way. He should be able to toss enemies around and destroy some of the surroundings instead of simply playing with his chain-like weapon while slashing enemies through. Anyway, I'm looking forward to Asassins, or Project Asassins, which is developed for PS3 by the team behind The Sands of Time. Though there isn't much about the game out yet, but the game is under development since they finished The Sands of Time.

I just finished The Alchemist, 3 hours before the weekend ends. It was a great book, I enjoyed every word of it. I'll probably buy more books by Paolo Coelho but before that I'll try to finish the seven volumes of Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind by Hayao Miyazaki.

This weekend was a great one for me, except for a few issues about my grade in my labwork for a specific course (seems like the instructor lost one of my homeworks or so). I was able, for the first time, to go online on my PS2 (Sony PlayStation 2). I played Final Fantasy XI online before, but on my PC. This time, I played Ratchet:Deadlocked online and it was great. I am waiting for Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistance, which should be released in March, to go online for the first time in the franchise. It is going to be a great experience for sure.

When I was surfing the net early today, I found out that SQUARE ENIX has opened their official sites for Kingdom Hearts II and Grandia III. I never played Grandia before but I am excited about this one which will be released next month, February. About Kingdom Hearts, I am a big fan. This game broke all expectations, where everyone said that SQUARESOFT (by the time KH was released) and Disney are like oil and water, a strange mix would only produce a strange, probably unsuccessful, game. The game sold in North America more than Final Fantasy X and X-2 did. IGN says that KHII is "possibly the best show of graphical wizardry on the PlayStation 2." Kingdom Heart II will be released in March.

Moving from Video Games to Movies; war between the next-generation of disc formats is at rage. Some title lineup were announced to be released on Sony's Blue-Ray and Toshiba's HD-DVD. Sony holds PS3 as the winning card for this war (note that PS2 is the best selling DVD player in Japan).

Sony is already going strong with its UMDs (universal media disc) on PSP (Sony PlayStation Portable). House of Fying Daggers already sold in 3 months as much as what took the early DVD titles more than 9 month to sell ( about 100,000 copies if I remember correctly). The machine is selling as a movie player better than a hand-held gaming system. Popular Science magazine stated that when the PSP was released, handheld gaming systems stopped being toys.

Today was a bit tiring. I went home, which is about 120km away from KFUPM. The drive took about 1.5 hours. There was a big traffic jam, because of the holiday season. I was not the one driving though; my friend gave me a ride. We (a total of three guys) talked about different topics along the way. I brought my PSP along with SOCOM but I couldn't play since I felt sleepy.

At home, I finally got my hands on 'Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga', which I ordered like three weeks ago. It cost me about 109$ but I believe that it's worth it. I already had Digital Devil Saga 2 but never played it since I wanted to start with the 1st. I never played or even heard about Shin Megami Tensei series before this one but I played lots of RPGs (Role Playing Game) before. I am a big fan of the great Final Fantasy series.

Seems that I won't be able to read The Alchemist tonight as well. Hopefully, I'll finish it tomorrow.

Last night we (my class and I) had a project presentation for User Interface Design course. I presented my group's project. There was a total of eight groups and mine was number two. I went to the meeting room and there was a change where my group had to do the presentation first due to technical issues with the first group (they had a problem connecting their laptop to the projector while we used a FlashMemory). I think we did a great job considering time limit and the changes made by our customer in the last minute. We had to evaluate all groups including ours.

Our project was for Fire Department Quality Assurance at a company that is well-known in the area. I gave my group 19/25 (the highest grade I gave was 21 or 22/25 while the lowest was 13.5/25). That presentation concluded our work on the project (for the time-being). Soon, final-exams will start (at January 22nd). My last exam will be at january 30th.

I didn't have time to read The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho but I'll definitely finish it by the weekend.

Happy new year,

I hope this is going to be a good start.