Instruments n stuff

So now that i have revealed being a guitarist, I have now decided to show some of my gear.

The first guitar I ever received was a nylon stringed classical guitar. At the time I hated this guitar and now relies I was very ungrateful. To my defence, it sounds quite bad for a nylon guitar. However now I quite like this guitar as I am able to play finger picking songs.

The electric guitar I first bought was a Peavey Raptor Plus, EXP. I really like this guitar, I use it when im playing Van Halen stuff. It was an excellent beginners guitar and I don't on getting rid of it any time soon.

The next guitar I bought was an Epiphone Les Paul custom. I purchased this off eBay for 380 bucks. The electronics were quite bad, so I recently installed new pick-ups myself and that was quite a learning experience.

The most recent addition to my gear was a new amp. My first tube amp and boy im loving it! I bought a Vox AC4TV stack. The overdrive sound so damn good for classic bands such as Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. I have even managed to get a decent VH tone out of it.






So, WHAT EPIC STUFF DO YOU HAVE!

My second love

It is quite clear judging by my past posts that I am very interested in games an technology. However there is another thing that takes up my time, and that is music.

Whether it be listening or playing, music is my passion! I was given a guitar for my birthday last year and soon after began taking lessons. Despite my guitar teacher being an insane shredder, I was not interested in going down this path. I began liking acoustic music. It was easy for me to learn at the time and i progressed well.

My sister's boyfriend moved in with us soon after and he is also a guitarist. He was a huge fan of Led Zeppelin and Van Halen and I could often hear him playing these amazing songs. I said to myself, I want to be able to do that.

Sure enough I started listening to the greats, Guns n Roses, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin just to name a few. These bands inspired me! Jimmy Page especially! The first real challenge a set myself was to learn Stairway to Heaven,. This goal being set just a couple months after beginning lessons. I practised and practised, trying to master my favourite song. My guitar teacher helped me immensely. With out his help, it would have taken me much longer.

The day I could play that song start to finish I was so proud of myself. To this date it helps to calm me down when ever I am frustrated or angry.

I have continued progressing, learning many other great songs. I only wish that one day someone will refer to something I write as a great song.

So tell me this,
What is your passion?

- Matt

Games, Games, Oh so many games!

With so many titles being released at E3 the question on my mind is.

What do I want first!

Out of the three front runners (BF3, MW3 and Skyrim), my vote is cast on BF3. Being an avid Battlefield 2 player, I have been long awaiting the next game in this series. I thought BFBC2 could be the next amazing game but it was a let down in my opinion, after unlocking every weapon at level 30 (no lifed for 2 weeks) I grew bored very quickly!

This is where games such as the Call of Duty series and Battlefield 2 shine. In BF2, it took AGES to unlock the next weapon, I played for around a year and never unlocked them all. And with the prestige option in the recent CoD games, it allows the player to have something to strive for. I hope BF3 gives me something to strive for.

I will not be purchasing MW3 as it looks far to similar to MW2 for my liking, and with dedicated server not being confirmed for PC, it is a definite no in my books. You would think IW would have learnt from their mistakes with MW2 on PC.

Skyrim has completely flown under my radar as RPG's are definitely not my strong point. I owned Oblivion on PC for a while but due to my impatience I used cheat codes and lost interest in the game. I also feel that a 300+ hour campaign is far too much for me!

On a final note, I feel that an unnoticed gem has arisen from E3. This gem, being Payday.

Lets face it, who hasn't dreamed of robbing a bank and getting out with millions of dollars! Well this game allows us to make that dream come true. I am eagerly awaiting the release of this game! Possibly more so then Battlefield 3.

What are you eagerly awaiting?

- Matt

Curse My Internet

Slow speeds,
You have got to hate them!
All i know is, they drive me up the wall. constantly getting speeds slower then 2mbps! And this is on an ADSL2+ connection!

I used to receive speeds around 3.5mbps but after changing to a plan with more bandwidth, it seems my ISP has throttled me.

This makes downloading hell! I use steam as a way to purchase most of my games and with such slow speeds, even a 4gb game is an over night job. I'm sure I don't have the worst speeds on the planet, but with me being such an internet dependant person, my speeds sure do frustrate me!

'Til next time,
 - Matt

Duke Nukem

He's Back Baby...

After a 12 year wait, it had finally been released. You would have though that in that time the graphics engine would have been updated a little bit. But no, this game is surprisingly running on the original Unreal engine.  I have to admit, it looks quite impressive for such an old engine.

The game is full of witty one liners, pointing fun at many things, even at itself during some points in the game. It also points fun at other games such as the Halo franchise.

As expected, sexual innuendo is almost non stop during this game and sometimes its a little bit more then innuendo!

The graphics of this game are very disappointing compared to other modern games. However, the game play itself is very enjoyable. The standard video game health bar has been replaced with an "ego" bar which reaches maximum potential when Duke engages is certain activity's throughout the game. Such as playing 8-ball, bench pressing insane amounts of weight and gambling.

A let down to this game is that Duke is only able to carry 2 weapons. This seems illogical, a man who can bench press 600lb but cannot carry 2 guns, even when one of them is a pistol.

This game is very enjoyable so I encourage you to try it out and have your own opinion for the game.

Pros -
Interactive
Witty
Humorous
Released

Cons -
Old engine
Bad graphics
Horrible AI
Long loading times.

I rate this game a 6.7/10

I feel that the enjoyable game play makes up for the dated looks.

-Matt

DOCTOR WHO

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!

Just finished watching the season finale of Doctor Who in ABC in Australia. I have to admit I saw this coming for a little while but this episode was still quite good. Im not the biggest fan of Matt Smith as the doctor, David  Tenant will always be my favourite.

So this leaves me to ask, who is your favourite doctor?

My Rig

Hello Again,
This is my rig which I recently built. It's nothing super good and is not the prettiest thing ever but im loving it!
Here are my a few of my specs.
AMD 1090t
8gb G.Skill Ripjaws ram
Asus 560 ti
CM 690 II Advanced

What are your computers like?
- Matt