It's all about the Wings.

So I've laid out my plan for my wing aura in ID7. It takes a hell lot of planning, and money ._.

Okay, to start with - there are 5 requirements:
- Reach World of Professional 7
- 600 online battle (1v1) wins
- 500 tag battle wins
- 100 in store rivals
- 100 tag partners.

When me and Ivan got this Level 3 open we were like OAO dafuq, this is impossible.
Fast forward 4 months and he has one already. I might as well get mine - although to be honest it doesn't look that great (it does pulse the colour of aura, which does look kinda cool in it's own way :P)

So now I am at
- World of Professional 12 (CLEAR)
- 600 online battle (1v1) wins (exactly 600)
- 301 tag battle wins
- 50 in store rivals
- 67 tag partners.

which means I only need
- 199 tag battle wins (this will take a while...)
- 50 in store rivals
-  33 tag partners.

Sounds easy, but really time consuming =w= I hope to get this done by end of next week. :3

Right now, Yukiho-chan's aura looks like this (it's the Level 3 2nd row's mission - the conqueror aura)

  

Pardon the camera but my phone sucks =w=

Anyway, signing out =w=

Mission complete. Now I can finally officially quit ID4 TA with a happy end...

Irohazaka DH Dry 2'43"655 RX-8 Type S (SE3P) - my CP times.

Okay fine, so I didn't really hold true to my vow and quit ID4 TA - but now, I can finally do so. When I did that post down below, I was abit unsatisfied, since I didn't really get to achieve what I wanted - or at least something I can be happy about. Nevertheless, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be serious about ID4 ever again.

Well...at least till today.

I had some major form going on when toying around (just for fun since the MT3 machines were full) with my MR2 (1-1-1-1-0 tuned)...did 2'46"955 Iro DHD with it so I thought hey, why not give it a try again. So I tried my fully tuned RX-8 then. For 8 games I tried I kept getting good CPs with it. While the above time was abit of a disappointment (CP3 was +0.4 off my last personal best of 2'44"1xx) nevertheless it is still a 2'43.

Could I have pushed it? Yes, probably....but no more. I do notice that if I had not messed up the third section (due to the fact I lost 10km/h coming out of the final jump) I would have gotten a 2'43"2xx which would have really been nice, but I don't think I want to push this anymore...seriously, no more....

As far as my ID4 TA times are concerned, this is it...its the end..300+ days since I first touched the machine in Sunway Pyramid. I will never declare that I will stop ID4 for good (like, 100%) because inevitably I will play battles or have some fun games no matter how I try to resist. But as far as seriously time attacking is concerned, "Time Is Up". I neither have the passion, nor the resources to commit myself to this, more towards the former...

What next for me? First priority now is to get a job. Yes, I know it's been overdue for so many months now....but I will be the first to admit its partly due to my laziness. Now though, I should get serious regarding this, because despite being in such a mental state that I'm lazy yet I definitely need a job reality hits hard - I need money, and I need it if I'm going to survive.

Signing out for now, bad Streamyx connection doesn't allow me to surf the net much.. being limited to local sites and MSN sucks.

Current music: Nobuo Uematsu - Submarine Nautillus (Final Fantasy 3 DS OST)

Mission accomplished. (and..."OMG! Similar features!")

2'59"808 Akina Downhill Dry with the AE86 Trueno.

My IR entry. Ranked 31st in the world as of 28th Dec 2007, 0214 hrs.

Finally dipped below the 3'00 mark. Don't know if I could go any faster, but that is for another day.

And this is my latest avatar for the last card I made:
....hey wait a second she looks like...

And no I didn't do it on purpose, I only realised it when I got home, LOL!

O_O OMG. Hair and Shirt/Vest colours seperate them!

That's all for today :p

Freedom?

After the hell that is Uni is over (well, at least until the results are out), let me recap on what has happened.

- Uni exams have been hell.
Let's just say if I pass, it's a freakin miracle. I screwed up. Bad....

- Been doing a fair amount of ID.
I have a few targets in mind. Some not even hit yet.

- Picked up another FD
And since I was paid to tune it, woot. :D

- Bought an RX-8 for Wangan Midnight Maxi Tune 3.
So far so good, still haven't lost in story mode. :p

- Finished tuning my Evo IX after about 2-3 months from buying the card.
Finally got around to tuning it XD

- Had some annoyances with some people.
Ever want people to shut up while you are playing but they can't? I wish they would. Yet there are a fair few idiots who don't know how to zip their mouth. If you're reading this and you KNOW it's you, do me a favor and shut up next time. I do not need to hear your comments especially since 95% of what you say is utter trash.

- Met up with Dom (shadow_zero) after so long.
Sorry mate that we couldn't have a better outing, hopefully next time we could do something better.

- Finally met Jake @ Haseo.
Yes you freakin' ant. No more dino jokes. Coz we know YOU're the real dino :D

- 9999999 All 300s SSAY Ouendan 2 Hard & Insane modes done again. XD
The scores were worse spinner wise so no new High score.

- Finally scored the final trainer card in Pokemon Pearl.
I lucked out in the Beauty Contest Master Rank with my Ranger Manaphy (thank you Drifblim for using such useless moves over and over :D). And with a friend of mine cooperating with the CTF bit of the trainer card, I've done it.

- Had a wonderful time at the @D4 Christmas BBQ on the night of Christmas. Unfortunately I forgot to get pics -_- but the outing was a major success. :D

With just barely less than a week till 2008 I hope the remaining days will be a good one. And I'm sure it will. :)

My ID4 cars

Feel like introducing my cars :D In order of acquiring them:

My FD. First car ever :D All my noob games in this :p

My RX-8. One of the better cars that I liked. :D (I have since changed the GT wing to the same one with the RX-8 below :P)

My first S2000. I rarely used this one....because of....

THIS awesome lil' baby that turns fast and accels fast! Makes my other three cars before this feel..uhh...crap. :(. One of my main cars.

Now this one I bought for Iro. Turns fast, is small. Too bad the accel sucks :(

This one was on request from a special someone. I actually like this better than my Black S2000. One of my more used cars besides the 86.
There seems to be a mysterious aura behind this RX-8 (this also is meant for the special someone). I seem to be doing better in this RX-8 than my own. -_- . I'm using this as my primary car at this time.

Oh by the way, I hardly ever use the first three on this post. My team mates use it more often than I do. -__-;;;; ah well, since I have one of only two FDs in the team....I guess it can't be helped. :P

Will I add more cars? Maybe if my interest in this game doesn't die. Somehow Wangan 3 seems more fun than this....

Limit.

When you are playing something competitively, be it an FPS game like Counterstrike or a racing game like Initial D or even a music game like Guitar Hero, you will always have a limit of your own when you play.

Training or learning on your own does help you improve your game, but eventually when you are at the top of your game, there will be a barrier. This barrier is different for everyone (can come late or early) but this barrier is usually a barrier that is tough to knock down because there is (usually) no more room for improvement. At least for the person.

Maybe for example, you reached a pinnacle by scoring a fast time in Mario Kart, but as hard as you try you never seem to be able to beat that guy who was way faster. Eventually you might beat it, or you might not. It can turn into a psychological mess if you stress yourself over it.

Here's my example, with Initial D v3:

This is...or rather, was my best track/weather condition to play in Initial D v3. And I might be second now, but I'm happy to know that I at least managed to snag the top spot for a short while.

When I first started playing this map, I got an early 2'49"737 (see rank 10), and thats with plenty of mistakes. Even then, I continued to improve and I got what I wanted, a 2'49"190 (rank 5), but it took me roughly 5-6 months for this (as well as buckets of money retrying). I thought I was on top of my game....

Until I got beaten.

At that time when I posted the 49"190 up, I was 1st. It didn't take very long for it to get knocked down to 2nd. And then there's the urge to take back the record. And so began the battle against the barrier.

A huge barrier. I actually thought of giving up because there was hardly room for improvement. The feeling went on until during the last game, I saw a big improvement. And the fight went on until I broke the barrier. And scored a 48"787. :D

Which was #1 for 9 months until it got shot down. By that point I've already stopped so I didn't bother to continue. I might be able to beat it...or...naaaah...

More or less I was inspired to break the barrier because of the feeling of rivalry. (The dude that is #1 btw, is a Sarawakian, from Miri IIRC).

Looking back at Initial D, there were plenty of runs which were not at limit yet, but with Version 4 already out in Malaysia, and the fact that I have better priorities with my money now, makes me decide not to pursue such targets anymore.

And recently, just yesterday, I finally reached the limit for now....for Ouendan 2.

There was no other game has managed to push me to display my best before this. Not Ouendan, not EBA, not Mario Kart DS, not Tetris DS, not Counterstrike, and not even Initial D. It was Ouendan 2 which managed to bring the best out of me. Why? I don't know. And to think I spent MORE time each on all of the other games!

Initial Target: 187000000
Current: 188120370

It was an unexpected one. My calculations told me I would be hard-pressed to reach even 185 million. When I got to 187 million, I thought there was NO way I would be beating this.

And 6 hours later, I managed to push that to 188 million. But futile attempts to increase that suggest that I probably have hit the limit for now. Not the absolute max, but it did take a lot of work. (And I managed to get Zenryoku Shonen on Insane all 300'd too :p). Whether I might be able to push this to 189 million....well...that's hard to say.

So for now, thats my limit for both games....in Initial D, I will never go back to test the limit anymore seeing that the newest version has arrived, and as far as Ouendan 2 is concerned...it's not the absolute best score, but I'll have to work hard to increase this further. But I must stress that although it is difficult to break the barrier once you reach it, learning is a wonderful process, and it helps to break the barrier. There are many more limits in life that I have experienced, but it will take me a very long while to blog it all out.

What are your limits? Be it in gaming, or in life, strive on, and you will be able to set new limits for yourself.

Thank you for reading.

My sister's first S rank.

YMCA Breezin' (Elite Beat Agents)

My sister (12 years old) has her own DS Lite, Light Blue's the colour. Once in a while, she'll borrow my games. And she loves to play Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan. So I see her play, and she gets better and better every time she plays. So it's inevitable that one day, she'll get her first S rank. And it's been a long time waiting, since she got a string of As. An in the end, she did. Although it is a pretty close S...but it's still an S eh?

(Oh, and she can spin the spinners better than me too -_- she beats all my spinner bonus scores T_T)

Ouendan 1 - Atsuki Kodou no Hate Cheer Girls S rank ALL 300

I haven't scored an all 300 victory in the first Ouendan before this, but I have now :D

My first all 300 run on the first Ouendan :D

At times like this I wished there was a replay option on Ouendan 1 :(

On a roll~ Kira kira no Pop Star @_@

EDIT: Moved to sub-site. Click here.

Ouendan 2 vids (previously shown on blog)

Click here. I archived it onto a seperate site now.

Yes!

This one above is Hard + Hidden SSAY (Sekai wa Sore wo Ai to Yobunda ze). Actual score: 10636410. Did it last night.

If that Cheerleaders+Hidden SSAY took me 3 hours, this one took me at least 12 hours (on seperate days, not one sitting). Quite simply, on Cheerleader difficulty, the cue to hit them is when the markers start to disappear. On Hard, it is 1 second AFTER it disappears (I'm practically tapping on an invisible marker- aka NOTHING). I thank the white line which served as guidance(and I don't think have served me any purpose before :D). This is definitely harder than the Cheerleader one (in Hidden) even though it has less markers.

Of course, the pink Touch Pen Attachment I bought(click here to go to Host Play for review) was a major help. ALL HAIL! :D :D

Finally!

Three and a half hours. A lot of near misses. A lot of WTF moments. But I finally did it.

Here's a little history.

Last Friday, someone over at GameFAQs found out about the hidden timer circle mode. The thing that makes it worth playing was it multiplies your score by x1.5. The very next day, alkaliph (a really great Ouendan player) posted a 9999999 score on Sekai wa Sore o Ai to Yobunda ze Cheerleader difficulty with the hidden circles option on, proving now it is very possible to max out the score counter. (It is - you can score roughly 7 million++ in Sekai wa Sore o Ai to Yobunda ze in the regular Cheerleader difficulty provided you never missed, multiply that and you have roughly...10.5 million?)

So having S ranked this song on the regular Cheerleaders, I thought of trying the hidden circle mode. It was a bit of a chore memorizing where are the quick-double, double, quick-triple, and triple taps. There were SO many times that I could have scored better. (To clarify on this, even though the score counter caps at 9999999, the game continues to count your score; this is reflected on your total overall score/rank menu - And I found out my final score was actually 11258610) So many 100s that were 300s in the other (failed) attempts. But in the end, after the final spinner, it was worth it.

I think I just hit a high point in my rhythm gaming life. :)

(Oh by the way, the screenshot was taken with an Emulator - but I did it on my original cart. I just transferred the replay to my R4 and just so happened the emulator uses the same style of sav with the R4. I don't have my digital camera at hand now, so I had to use this)

Now to watch Lucky Star Ep. 7. Been sitting on my HDD for some time now :p