You'll have to forgive him. He's from Barcelona.

As predicted in my previous post a full work week resulted in my failure of the Tales of Symphonia Challenge. I managed just over 25 hours in eight days, getting to Gaoracchia Forest, before I had a full week of work in which I wasn't able to keep up my original pace. I then only had the weekend to play the game before two more days of work and the graduation deadline. Alas, no £40 for me, although it did achieve Dave's goal of getting me to play the damn game. I haven't gone back to it yet, but I certainly plan to at a more leisurely pace now that I've invested time into it. I would certainly recommend trying to get hold of a copy if you have an itch for a good JRPG.

Speaking of graduation, I'm now a graduate! The event was held at the Brighton Dome and while entirely too long, with chairs that absolutely sucked and much more clapping than I could really deal with, it was mostly enjoyable. Some of the students even made mockery of the whole formal procedure, which was taken in good humour and brought some life to the event. Overall it was mostly just a good excuse to see some folks from Uni and go out for drinks and food afterwards.

I wasn't particularly a fan of the getup they made you wear, especially when the robe people told me I had a large and awkward sized head. Some photos of said outfit can be seen over yonder.

So with graduation behind me I'm now officially a real boy and this week I started my first week of full time employment. To be honest I've not really accepted this yet, as working for the same company I've been at for two years makes it feel like nothing has changed, but at some point it will certainly hit me that this is it, and I'm not going back to education in October.

Speaking of work, this week we released a pretty major revision to the site with an entirely new navigation structure. The old nav was structured entirely around whisky, which made it almost impossible to find the many other drinks the company has expanded into. Hopefully this new nav will do a much better job.

In animal news, we're adopting two kittens! My older sister practically tripped over a stray cat giving birth to a litter of five outside her house, so we took them to the RSPCA Cattery my younger sister volunteers at, and rather inevitably we've ended up adopting two of them. My younger sister has already named them Alice and Polly (the latter following the Fawlty Towers theme our remaining cat Sybil started), and we should be taking them home in a couple weeks.

I also appeared on another episode of the Downloadable Content podcast which went up a couple weeks ago. In this one we discuss the advent of downloadable add-on content in console games and whether they are good for gamers or designed simply to drive up prices. As before, you can subscribe to the show in iTunes or download the episode directly over this way.

So it occasionally catches fire but they keep perfect time?

My second appearance on the Downloadable Content podcast is online, in which you can hear us discuss the PlayStation network hack and outage at length. It was recorded a month and a half ago, so please excuse it not being the most timely discussion. As before, you can subscribe to the show in iTunes or download the episode directly over yonder.

On the subject of video games, today I completed day 4 of 18 in the Tales of Symphonia Challenge, where I attempt to complete this lengthy JRPG before I graduate for money. You can see daily updates on the twitters, but so far I'm fourteen hours in, having done the fire, water and wind seals. I'm enjoying the game a lot, especially as it's been a long time since I played an RPG this hardcore. I should almost do this more often, as forcing myself to play 3.5+ hours of the game a day really gets you engaged in it quickly. So far I'm loving the combat and exploration of the world, but I'm not entirely feeling the story. In particular the voice acting (which is inconsistent in when it is used) and dialogue can be cringeworthy at points.

So far I'm making good progress, but then I haven't had to go to work since starting the challenge. Next week I have to work five days to make up hours, which could make keeping up the pace difficult.

Hi, folks. I hope I didn't crash-land on anybody.

So this Friday everyone at the office went out for lunch (we ate delicious pizza) to welcome the new employees we have, including new placement students (remember when I was one of those?). The following picture, taken as we returned from lunch, demonstrates the continued professionalism of the operation as much of the office walked down the street eating ice creams.

I approve of everything about this image.

 

Today I received the fabled results letter from University that would declare whether I had succeeded in becoming a real boy or if I had just wasted four years of my life. The good news is I passed! The more shocking news is I got a 1st, which this wikipedia article will tell you is the highest level of degree I could have got. How I managed that, I have no idea. Here are my actual results my module:

- Placement Learning: A-
- Individual Project: A
- Advanced Internet Application Development: A
- Internet Gaming Design and Development: A
- Data Management: C-
- Managing the E-Enterprise: A-

As this picture shows, I got a honours degree in internet computing with sandwich (means I took a placement year). I sure hope its delicious!

 

I was also reminded today that I have a long running bet (for about a year now) that I can't complete Tales of Symphonia before I graduate. If I achieve this goal I will win back a delightful £40 that I lost in a previous bet. Something about not being able to complete games or something. Fortunately I have a whole eighteen days left before graduation, unfortunately I'm informed the game is over seventy hours long, so I better get my finger out.

I will keep this blog updated with how I progress in the Symphonia Challenge (TM). So far I'm about three hours into it and the game seems pretty cool. Wish me luck!