Well season 4 of Diablo 3 started yesterday and it didn't exactly go so smoothly for me. It is always exciting to start a new season. Well I guess any "new" season is always exciting. Just as I am excited about season 4, I'm also excited about the "new" football and hockey season that are about to start.
First of all, as I previously mentioned, I was going to play a monk as my main class this season. I started out on hard difficulty and I wasn't having too much problems with it. I was able to do the bounties on act 1 to 4 and started to head towards act 5 last because I knew act 5 mobs were a little bit tougher to do than the rest of the packs. I managed to do some of the bounties before heading off to do Urzael. Now I knew Urzael was a tough boss to do even before the season started because I saw someone die to him earlier in the day. But since I managed to do the act 5 bounties, I thought I was safe. How wrong I was. Getting him to under 50 percent was pretty easy but after his flame cannon did so much damage and I couldn't even react and I died. So after about 25 levels of grinding, I had to start all over again :(.
Even though I died, I managed to get myself to level 70. I played through most of Friday night and Saturday morning. I took a break after hitting level 70 at around 8:00am. I came back and then something very scary happened. The weather outside was really bad (lots of wind) and knocked my power from my home out. I was in a greater rift on torment 1 (I think) and I had just managed to get a pack of mobs down and started moving towards another pack when the lights went out. So after waiting nervously for about a couple hours, the lights came back on and I quickly checked to see if I was still alive. Fortunately, I was alive and I didn't have to start all over again.
Currently I am paragon 50 or so and I have managed to do greater rift 13 (which is about torment 2). I am playing as a tempest rush monk, which is really easy to play with. I am hoping to get more gear so that I can start playing with a seven-sided monk build. I probably won't play as much as I did in season 3 but I can't be sure. If I manage to get anywhere close to where my demon hunter ended up, I will be happy.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Saturday, August 22, 2015
My Top 10 Juno Reactor Songs
Well this is my first top 10 blog post and hopefully many more to come. I am going to list my favorite Juno Reactor songs and believe me when I say that it is very difficult to narrow the list into a top 10. This list will probably change over time so keep checking back to see if it changes. There are many Juno Reactor songs that could have made this list but I wanted to limit it at 10. There are also too many honorable mentions so I won't mention them (maybe I might make another list for those that didn't fit in my top 10). Also, I didn't include stuff that Ben Watkins did as the Flowerpot Men or Sunsonic (although most of those wouldn't be in this list anyways). Onto the list:
10. Biot Messiah
From the single "God Is God" on the UK version. Also know as "The Journey Kontinues" from the Mortal Kombat: More Kombat album. What I love about this song is that of the dueling guitar playing. If you ever have watched a Juno Reactor live playing of this, it is a very awesome sight seeing Ben Watkins jam on the guitar with Sugizo. There is a remix version of this song (Diabolic Art Remix) that's pretty good but I prefer the live version of this song the best.
9. God Is God
From the album "Bible of Dreams". This is one of first songs I fell in love with when I first started listening to Juno Reactor. I love the vocals of this track which was done by Natacha Atlas. What I love about this song is that it's definitely not your typical pop song, instead it makes you travel to another country. There is an official video of this featuring the movie "Colour of Pomegranates" (it's worth checking out). There are many remixes of this song (the CJ Bolland being one of worst ones ever), the unrevelation remix done by unseung is a very interesting one.
8. Zwara
From the album "Labyrinth". Zwara has kick ass vocals done by Susan Hendricks plus the taiko drums of Gocoo. Zwara is message that we shouldn't be sleep walking through life. Also it's a song used by the Sangomas to help protect the children. Very danceable song when it's played live. There is a very special video taken from the Juno Reactor Live DVD (2007) in which Mabi Thobejane gives a very intense performance. There are two versions of this song, the one I prefer is the one from the Zwara EP which has some added vocals. There was also a remix contest based on this song.
7. Mona Lisa Overdrive
Also from the album "Labyrinth". Used for the freeway chase scene in the Matrix Reloaded. This would have probably rated higher if it kept the original song from the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack (plus the one remix of this is pretty meh). What I love about this track (especially the soundtrack version) is the build up to actual freeway chase scene (often referred to as "Dante"). Not only does the chase becomes more intense, but so does this song. As soon as Trinity starts riding the motorcycle, the taiko drums of Gocoo start to kick in. A very good track to listen to while riding your car :).
6. Tanta Pena
From the album "Gods and Monsters". Featuring the vocals of Yasmin Levy. The original version of the song was taken from the anime short "Bombs of Dimension" entitled the war sequence. I loved the first listen from the "Bombs of Dimension" short and with the added vocals and flute makes this song truly special. Every time I want to shout out something, "Tanta Pena" comes to mind. Feel like cursing? Yell out "Tanta Pena". Feel like celebrating? Yell out "Tanta Pena". I think you get the picture. The Mickey Noise remix is also pretty good too.
5. Invisible
From the album "The Golden Sun of the Great East". When you hear this song you know a storm is coming. The vocals was done by Feroz Khan and it is pretty unbelievable that Ben Watkins managed to record the vocals while riding in a taxi cab. Not only do I like the vocals but I also enjoyed the sitar playing by Ravi Chary. Invisible much like God Is God transports you to different place but is way more upbeat than God Is God. The Ritmo remix of this song is very good.
4. Journey
From the album "Electric Pondoland". Although technically it's not a Juno track (it's listed as Amampondo - Journey (ft Juno Reactor)), I've decided to put this on the list. This song is truly amazing in that there are two very different parts. The first part features the lovely vocals of Taz Alexander and is very Celtic in nature. The second part involves the Amampondo, who are a percussion based band from South Africa. It is amazing how two different types (Celtic and South African vocals and drums) can seamlessly roll into one song. Ben Watkins is truly a genius.
3. Pistolero
From the album "Shango". Probably one of Juno Reactor's best known song. It has been used in "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" film. Used in every live show of Juno Reactor. Very danceable and
has a beat that makes you want to hum along. One particular live show performance was done by Steve Stevens from the Live DVD (2007). There are so many remixes of this song (too many to mention), probably been remixed more than any other song. One remix I do like is done by unseung (which is over 14 minutes long). But then again, listening to Pistolero over and over again isn't a bad thing.
2. Navras
From the album "Labyrinth". It was used as the end credits for the movie The Matrix Revolutions. The epic of the epics. This song truly has it all. Not only does this song have epic vocals (done by Lakshmi Shankar and Azam Ali) but it also has Deepk Ram on the flute and Mabi and Greg Ellis on the drums. I am surprised that only fans of Juno Reactor know about this song and that the rest of world have either not heard of this song or know how epic this song truly is. There are couple of remixes of this song, unseung (again) did a very good remix of it.
1. Samurai
From the album "Beyond the Infinite". My favorite all time song. I could probably write for days about what this song is about and what this song means to me. Maybe I will write a future blog post about this since I want to make this brief. Anyways, this song is basically me in a nut shell. When I first heard this song, I knew that I was listening to my new favourite track. Juno Reactor recently did a re-mastered version which kicks ass also there is remix done Juan Obando, which is a favourite of mine.
Whew, that took a long time to write lol. As you can see, there are lots of songs from the Labyrinth album, which means that Labyrinth is my favourite album of all time. I will probably do more top 10 lists in the future, although with maybe less detail since this took a very long time to write out.
10. Biot Messiah
From the single "God Is God" on the UK version. Also know as "The Journey Kontinues" from the Mortal Kombat: More Kombat album. What I love about this song is that of the dueling guitar playing. If you ever have watched a Juno Reactor live playing of this, it is a very awesome sight seeing Ben Watkins jam on the guitar with Sugizo. There is a remix version of this song (Diabolic Art Remix) that's pretty good but I prefer the live version of this song the best.
9. God Is God
From the album "Bible of Dreams". This is one of first songs I fell in love with when I first started listening to Juno Reactor. I love the vocals of this track which was done by Natacha Atlas. What I love about this song is that it's definitely not your typical pop song, instead it makes you travel to another country. There is an official video of this featuring the movie "Colour of Pomegranates" (it's worth checking out). There are many remixes of this song (the CJ Bolland being one of worst ones ever), the unrevelation remix done by unseung is a very interesting one.
8. Zwara
From the album "Labyrinth". Zwara has kick ass vocals done by Susan Hendricks plus the taiko drums of Gocoo. Zwara is message that we shouldn't be sleep walking through life. Also it's a song used by the Sangomas to help protect the children. Very danceable song when it's played live. There is a very special video taken from the Juno Reactor Live DVD (2007) in which Mabi Thobejane gives a very intense performance. There are two versions of this song, the one I prefer is the one from the Zwara EP which has some added vocals. There was also a remix contest based on this song.
7. Mona Lisa Overdrive
Also from the album "Labyrinth". Used for the freeway chase scene in the Matrix Reloaded. This would have probably rated higher if it kept the original song from the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack (plus the one remix of this is pretty meh). What I love about this track (especially the soundtrack version) is the build up to actual freeway chase scene (often referred to as "Dante"). Not only does the chase becomes more intense, but so does this song. As soon as Trinity starts riding the motorcycle, the taiko drums of Gocoo start to kick in. A very good track to listen to while riding your car :).
6. Tanta Pena
From the album "Gods and Monsters". Featuring the vocals of Yasmin Levy. The original version of the song was taken from the anime short "Bombs of Dimension" entitled the war sequence. I loved the first listen from the "Bombs of Dimension" short and with the added vocals and flute makes this song truly special. Every time I want to shout out something, "Tanta Pena" comes to mind. Feel like cursing? Yell out "Tanta Pena". Feel like celebrating? Yell out "Tanta Pena". I think you get the picture. The Mickey Noise remix is also pretty good too.
5. Invisible
From the album "The Golden Sun of the Great East". When you hear this song you know a storm is coming. The vocals was done by Feroz Khan and it is pretty unbelievable that Ben Watkins managed to record the vocals while riding in a taxi cab. Not only do I like the vocals but I also enjoyed the sitar playing by Ravi Chary. Invisible much like God Is God transports you to different place but is way more upbeat than God Is God. The Ritmo remix of this song is very good.
4. Journey
From the album "Electric Pondoland". Although technically it's not a Juno track (it's listed as Amampondo - Journey (ft Juno Reactor)), I've decided to put this on the list. This song is truly amazing in that there are two very different parts. The first part features the lovely vocals of Taz Alexander and is very Celtic in nature. The second part involves the Amampondo, who are a percussion based band from South Africa. It is amazing how two different types (Celtic and South African vocals and drums) can seamlessly roll into one song. Ben Watkins is truly a genius.
3. Pistolero
From the album "Shango". Probably one of Juno Reactor's best known song. It has been used in "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" film. Used in every live show of Juno Reactor. Very danceable and
has a beat that makes you want to hum along. One particular live show performance was done by Steve Stevens from the Live DVD (2007). There are so many remixes of this song (too many to mention), probably been remixed more than any other song. One remix I do like is done by unseung (which is over 14 minutes long). But then again, listening to Pistolero over and over again isn't a bad thing.
2. Navras
From the album "Labyrinth". It was used as the end credits for the movie The Matrix Revolutions. The epic of the epics. This song truly has it all. Not only does this song have epic vocals (done by Lakshmi Shankar and Azam Ali) but it also has Deepk Ram on the flute and Mabi and Greg Ellis on the drums. I am surprised that only fans of Juno Reactor know about this song and that the rest of world have either not heard of this song or know how epic this song truly is. There are couple of remixes of this song, unseung (again) did a very good remix of it.
1. Samurai
From the album "Beyond the Infinite". My favorite all time song. I could probably write for days about what this song is about and what this song means to me. Maybe I will write a future blog post about this since I want to make this brief. Anyways, this song is basically me in a nut shell. When I first heard this song, I knew that I was listening to my new favourite track. Juno Reactor recently did a re-mastered version which kicks ass also there is remix done Juan Obando, which is a favourite of mine.
Whew, that took a long time to write lol. As you can see, there are lots of songs from the Labyrinth album, which means that Labyrinth is my favourite album of all time. I will probably do more top 10 lists in the future, although with maybe less detail since this took a very long time to write out.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
New Season for Diablo 3
Well season 3 of Diablo 3 is quickly coming to an end. The season will be closing on August 23rd. Before the season does ends, I hope to reach paragon level 650. I am currently at paragon 645 so it should be doable for me. I have been leveling about one paragon level a day so it should only take about 5 more days of Diablo playing. I am very happy of what I have accomplished so far this season. I reached my personal high of greater rift 45 this season and I hope to do even better next season. I was also able to do 3 conquests this season, one which I just managed to do today. The one I did today was the Avaritia conquest. This conquest involves getting a 50 million gold streak on hardcore. It was pretty tough to do but I managed it doing in the Field of Misery.
The new season of Diablo 3 will be starting on August 28th. I am looking forward to this season because I will be playing a new class (the Monk) this season. This will be my first time playing a melee type character for a season so I am a bit worried about dying this season. As mentioned before in my other blog posts, reaching the higher greater rift and now the new, tougher torment difficulties is becoming very dangerous for hardcore players. For example, this season I was able to do a greater rift 45 but I never, ever felt safe going into a greater rift that high before (especially without a Unity ring). There is so much damage coming from mobs that you never know when there is a very bad elite or rare pack that could essentially one shot you. This is true with some of the rift guardians as well (Perdition comes to mind).
I don't know what type of monk I will playing this season yet. It is probably going to take me a while before I will know what I will playing with because I tend to level pretty slowly. I know a lot people will go very hard in the beginning trying to get items and paragon levels but my play style is very different than most. I have a very consistent play style in that I only play 1 or 2 hours a day but then I play almost every day. Most of the players go super hard but then after 2 months or so, they stop playing the game. There really isn't much difference between the 2 styles except that in the beginning, I tend to start out slower but then I am able to catch up once everyone else stops playing. Luckily for me, I will have another week of vacation in September so hopefully I will get plenty of time to play Diablo in the future.
The new season of Diablo 3 will be starting on August 28th. I am looking forward to this season because I will be playing a new class (the Monk) this season. This will be my first time playing a melee type character for a season so I am a bit worried about dying this season. As mentioned before in my other blog posts, reaching the higher greater rift and now the new, tougher torment difficulties is becoming very dangerous for hardcore players. For example, this season I was able to do a greater rift 45 but I never, ever felt safe going into a greater rift that high before (especially without a Unity ring). There is so much damage coming from mobs that you never know when there is a very bad elite or rare pack that could essentially one shot you. This is true with some of the rift guardians as well (Perdition comes to mind).
I don't know what type of monk I will playing this season yet. It is probably going to take me a while before I will know what I will playing with because I tend to level pretty slowly. I know a lot people will go very hard in the beginning trying to get items and paragon levels but my play style is very different than most. I have a very consistent play style in that I only play 1 or 2 hours a day but then I play almost every day. Most of the players go super hard but then after 2 months or so, they stop playing the game. There really isn't much difference between the 2 styles except that in the beginning, I tend to start out slower but then I am able to catch up once everyone else stops playing. Luckily for me, I will have another week of vacation in September so hopefully I will get plenty of time to play Diablo in the future.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
eSports
I just watched the finals of Dota2 "The International" (held at the Key Arena in Seattle). Even though I have never played Dota2, I really enjoyed watching the finals. Dota2 is a moba-style game similar to League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm. What is interesting to me is that the prize pool for this championship is at 18 million dollars (no joke). I believe the winning team gets about 6 million of it and since there are 5 members on each team, it's probably going to be split to about 1 million for each person. That is so much money to make for one person. When people say that eSports is not a true sport, they might want to reconsider since you can make good money from it.
So what is it going to take eSports to become more popular to the general public? I think first of all there is a stigma that eSports is not the same as a regular sport. Yes a regular sport involves physical activity in some way but to say eSports is not physical at all is absolutely wrong. It takes just as much hand-eye coordination in eSports as there is in a regular sport. Second of all, there needs to be a more accepting attitude towards professional gaming. In North America (in particular), professional gaming is sort of frowned upon on. Many people believe that spending time gaming is sort of a waste of time thing. This is the attitude of the older generation (the baby boomers) who haven't played video games at all. But as more and more people gets involved in video games (especially the younger generation), I think there will be a changing of an attitude.
ESports is not going away any time soon. There are many video games for people to watch and enjoy. For example, I am going to BlizzCon this year and there are probably going to be 3 or 4 highly competitive championship games that will be shown. I've been to past BlizzCons and these final championship games are incredible to watch. I hope in the future, eSports will become just as popular to regular sports. And with the money involved, I don't think it is too far off.
So what is it going to take eSports to become more popular to the general public? I think first of all there is a stigma that eSports is not the same as a regular sport. Yes a regular sport involves physical activity in some way but to say eSports is not physical at all is absolutely wrong. It takes just as much hand-eye coordination in eSports as there is in a regular sport. Second of all, there needs to be a more accepting attitude towards professional gaming. In North America (in particular), professional gaming is sort of frowned upon on. Many people believe that spending time gaming is sort of a waste of time thing. This is the attitude of the older generation (the baby boomers) who haven't played video games at all. But as more and more people gets involved in video games (especially the younger generation), I think there will be a changing of an attitude.
ESports is not going away any time soon. There are many video games for people to watch and enjoy. For example, I am going to BlizzCon this year and there are probably going to be 3 or 4 highly competitive championship games that will be shown. I've been to past BlizzCons and these final championship games are incredible to watch. I hope in the future, eSports will become just as popular to regular sports. And with the money involved, I don't think it is too far off.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Expansion News
I've been hearing a lot talk about expansions lately. It looks like World of Warcraft (WoW) will be announcing a new expansion at the upcoming Gamescon over in Europe. While I am not surprised about this, it was kinda a surprise of not announcing at BlizzCon instead. Most players are excited about this since the current expansion had just released their final content patch. There are many theories about what this new expansion is about. Some think it will be a continuation of the current story while others think it will be revolving around a new zone. While I did play the current expansion for a while, I don't think I will be playing the next expansion. Although I do like WoW a lot, I simply don't have the time to do the end game (like raiding) so I really only see about half the content.
Hearthstone also will be coming out with new expansion this month (August). This expansion will be called the Grand Tournament and will feature a new mechanic called inspire. Inspire is whenever you use your hero power, that will trigger something for that card. The Grand Tournament will feature 130 new cards so getting the new cards will become a priority. I have already pre-purchased some cards for $50 and I am currently saving up my gold so when the expansion does come, I can purchase some cards with my gold.
Hopefully Diablo 3 will announce a new expansion soon too. There is speculation that a new expansion might be announced at BlizzCon this year. And since I will be attending BlizzCon, I am super excited about this. I will have more details about BlizzCon in a later post. Diablo 3 expansion news might be further away than BlizzCon because I don't think Diablo is quite done with Reaper of Souls. Patch 2.3.0 is still not here yet and season 4 is still probably a month or 2 away. There is still talk about another patch (2.4) that might be coming out. So say if patch 2.3.0 comes out in October, season 4 might run for 4 months meaning that patch 2.4 might come out in February. So the end of season 5 might be another 4 months from February so the new expansion might come out in June? I don't know what the time line for Diablo will be but I am really excited about what is about to come.
Hearthstone also will be coming out with new expansion this month (August). This expansion will be called the Grand Tournament and will feature a new mechanic called inspire. Inspire is whenever you use your hero power, that will trigger something for that card. The Grand Tournament will feature 130 new cards so getting the new cards will become a priority. I have already pre-purchased some cards for $50 and I am currently saving up my gold so when the expansion does come, I can purchase some cards with my gold.
Hopefully Diablo 3 will announce a new expansion soon too. There is speculation that a new expansion might be announced at BlizzCon this year. And since I will be attending BlizzCon, I am super excited about this. I will have more details about BlizzCon in a later post. Diablo 3 expansion news might be further away than BlizzCon because I don't think Diablo is quite done with Reaper of Souls. Patch 2.3.0 is still not here yet and season 4 is still probably a month or 2 away. There is still talk about another patch (2.4) that might be coming out. So say if patch 2.3.0 comes out in October, season 4 might run for 4 months meaning that patch 2.4 might come out in February. So the end of season 5 might be another 4 months from February so the new expansion might come out in June? I don't know what the time line for Diablo will be but I am really excited about what is about to come.
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