And so I've reached another birthday, at the age of 31 now.
I don't write a lot of journal entries these days, but that's how things are.
Anyways, we had to do things a bit differently with my birthday as it was on a Monday and my sister and her family couldn't be here today, instead they were here last Friday for an important meeting we had and we had decided in advance that they'd give their presents on that day as a bit of an early birthday party, which went well.
I got a red t-shirt that has the text "Bla, bla, bla" on it, Ghost of Tsushima for the PS4, a pair of night blindfolds that has "Fuck off" written on the front and the co-op boardgame called Pandemic.
And today on my actual birthday, I got some more nice gifts, starting off with "The Lighthouse" starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as a pair of lighthouse keepers on a secluded island and then this evening I got The Great Dune Trilogy book which has the first three books in the franchise together, a mini-waffle maker and finally a cat shaped pillow with a cat's face on the front that looks a bit sad, the pillow is called "Sorry" according to the tag that's attached to it.
So its been quite a nice birthday with these gifts and the ones I got last Friday.

If you have missed this big announcement, the first two Command and Conquer games are being remastered by Petroglyph Games, which was formed by former Westwood Studios employees after that studio got shut down by EA, with the help of Lemon Sky Studios for the CG and the whole CnC community with feedback on what should be improved.
They've managed to find the old tapes that they had at Westwood Studios for not only the Command and Conquer games but also all the other titles they had worked on, including b-rolls for Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert that are gonna be included for free in the remaster collection as unlockables as you progress through the campaigns.
I'll let this reveal trailer they showed earlier today do the rest of the talking:

I pre-ordered it on Steam and I'm really stoked for the 5th of June for this.

Unfortunately, me and my sister had to cut our trip to NordicFuzzCon short as I got a really nasty bout of migraine and vomiting during the night to the second day at the convention, spent pretty much the whole day in the hotel room, feeling really ill until our dad came and picked us up in the evening.
The trip back home went thankfully smoothly, they did make a stop at a Chinese restaurant at one point to pick up some food they had ordered, but that didn't thankfully take very long and I only threw up once during the whole ride and that was as we were quite near home.
So, yeah, I have been spending these last few days with recovering from the effects of the migraine and just take it as easy as possible, making sure to drink plenty of sodas and such to get my stomach filled up.
I'm glad though that I got to have some fun on the first day though, even going to the arcade that opened in the evening instead of the next day like it did last year.

So me and my sister are gonna be off to NordicFuzzCon tomorrow, our second visit to the convention and this time in Malmö as I wrote in a previous journal entry.
We will most certainly have fun, but unfortunately a few friends of mine are not able to attend this year due to various reasons.
However there is always next year and hopefully it will go well.
But anyways, I won't be back until in the afternoon on Sunday, we are not gonna be staying for the last few dances and whatnot that they're gonna be holding, since that's not really my cup of tea, but it will be a lot of fun the other day.

And so we have entered a new year as well as a new decade with 2020.
Happy new year and a happy new decade.

Well this Christmas Eve has been great, gave each of my family members some nice gifts and I got some great ones too.
These are the things I got:
A pack of remote controlled outlets that you can use for turning on and off electric appliances with an included remote, very handy for Christmas lights and whatnot if we don't have a timer available.
Two Monty Python themed t-shirts, one says "Bring out your dead" and the other says "You know what nobody expects? The Spanish Inquisition."
A fairly large pack of new underwear.
A brand new Oral-B electric toothbrush that tells you when you should move on to the next tooth to brush along with replacement heads for when one gets dirty and basically unusable.
Three PS4 games, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 HD Final Chapter Prologue and The Surge 2.
Two new mugs, one of them being yet another grenade mug and another one that says "Do not disturb. Gamer at work."
An electric feet warmer from Rubicson that comes with an in-line remote controller where you can set how much warmth there should be as well as when the device should turn itself, like maybe after 45 minutes or even 90 minutes to prevent you from overheating, this'll be really useful for me as I have got extremely thin blood veins, especially in my feet.
A sweet little sticker collection that resemble the little orbs you hang in Christmas trees with different images inside of them.
Two new sleeping masks for when I go to bed, the one I'm currently using is very worn out at this point and its a lot easier falling asleep with those on.
And finally, a big and cute Ringtail Lemur plush toy from a company called Wild Republic, its very soft and adorable.
It has been a really nice Christmas Eve with my family.

Like the title of the journal says, its Christmas yet again.
Merry Christmas to all.
Got the remastered Ghostbusters video game for the PS4 as an early morning gift, there'll be more gifts later this afternoon when my sister and her family visits.

So my 30th birthday came and went with the 2nd of November, it was a nice experience as my sister and her family along with a few family friends showed up, got plenty of nice gifts from them and my family too, these are the gifts I got:
Two new shavers, one from my mom and dad that's for home use and one from my sister and her family that's for when you're out travelling.
Wrist protection for my computer that I can rest on, two of them in fact, one that's smaller for my arm and another one I can lean against.
A mini arcade machine with 240 games in it, it uses 3 Double A batteries.
A third grenade mug for my collection.
Three PS4 games, The Outer Worlds, Kingdom Hearts 3 and the MediEvil remake.
A Minecraft Creeper hoodie.
Two funny t-shirts, one that says WTF on it and another that says "I paused the game to be here."
I also got some money too.
Overall it had been a rather nice 30th birthday.

I know I haven't written a journal entry in a long while, but I just haven't felt the urge to write anything for these last several months.
But anyways, like the title of this entry says, my 30th birthday is soon, a week from now to be exact.
Normally I'd be feeling fairly excited about my birthday, but there have been some issues as of lately that's put a dampener on everything.
The issues in question being that the county we live in are trying to take away my assistance hours for no good reason whatsoever, the hours are for how much help I need over the days and weeks because of my disability combined with many other things, and that the Swedish Insurance Agency have denied me an application I sent in for sick compensation, since I can't work at all due to not only my disability but also the ulcerative colitis I got back in 2013 and the immunosuppressive therapy I'm on right now which would make it a fair bit dangerous for me to go out and try out jobs as I'd be more prone to getting sick because of this, something the Swedish Insurance Agency should realize is not the best idea but they decided to reject my application regardless on, quite frankly, bullshit grounds.
Not to mention, if the county gets what they want and gets rid of all my assistance hours, then that means I will not be able to move in with my sister and her family as we had wanted due to legal reasons involving disabilities and such.
Like I said before, its put a serious dampener on it all and I haven't been feeling well because of this horrible treatment from the state and all, plus that's basically my only source of income with how my life is right now.
We are trying to apply for another form of compensation, but we'll see how that goes, otherwise we are appealing the decision made by the Insurance Agency along with what the county is trying to do to us as this is not acceptable at all.
I just hope it pans out well in the end.

So, we got home yesterday evening from spending time at NordicFuzzCon, got to meet a few of my DeviantART and Furaffinity friends in person and I even got a few hugs from them and other fursuiters.
Of course, I was a bit sad on sunday morning when we were starting to pack up, since it was over for this year, at least for me and one of my friends as we didn't stick around for the closing ceremony and the last dance they had that evening.
Funningly enough, it was actually snowing that day when we were getting ready to leave, it hadn't been snowing at all up until that day and the theme for NFC this year had been about Christmas
However, while me and my sister were on the train going back home, I saw an announcement that next year's NFC is gonna be held in Malmö at the Clarion Hotel & Congress, which is much MUCH closer for us than going up to Upplands Väsby, taking the train up there took us a little over 4 hours to get to Stockholm Central station and then we had to take a commuter train to get to Upplands Väsby before we walked to the hotel we were booked in.
With NFC taking place in Malmö next year, it means we can actually take the car instead of a train ride to get there and most, if not all of the convention goers will have a fairly easy time getting there since there are a fair number of trains going through Sweden and from Denmark to Malmö, the station is even pretty much right next to the new hotel too so its even more convenient for people.
They showed a trailer for the new venue during the closing ceremony:

And yes, as you can see, next year's theme is gonna be about the Eurovision Song contest. XD
But we are anyway already talking about going next year too, especially with it being so much closer now.
I have however run into a bit of an issue for the time being with that the electric wheelchair I used for the convention seems to have broken down, it wouldn't start when dad was gonna bring it out of our car after we got home to bring it indoors and recharge it.
So I'm gonna have to make some calls about this, but that will have to wait for a short while as I have caught a nasty flu or something, which is no surprise considering how many were there and my slightly weaker immune system because of the meds.
But at least these things didn't happen during the convention, we got really lucky there!

Well, 2018 has flown by rather quickly and I'll be honest to say it wasn't a good one overall with all the crap that happened.
Especially for me with my computer starting to act up and us ending up wasting money on "repairs" that didn't do anything to fix it, sure as hell ain't gonna trust any computer repair shop after this.
At least we're gonna start building a new computer in the new year, probably as soon as possible, as well as that I'm gonna be going to my first ever convention in February and its the NordicFuzzCon, which is held here in Sweden up near Stockholm.
I'll be going with my sister as my assistent, since I need help with food and other things, but she is also looking forward to it as its also the first time she's ever attended a convention like this.
I'm planning on doing some cosplay too for the convention, gonna go dressed up as a Hunter from Crytek's Hunt: Showdown, which is a rather challenging shooter that has PVP mixed in with PVE in which you play as bounty hunters in an alternate take on the late 19th century in the Louisiana swamps where you uncover clues using something called Dark Sight and then hunt down monsters that have been created by some demonic entity known only as a Sculptor, at least according to the ingame lore that's currently available, while also contending with competing bounty hunters, you can do this either solo or with another player, which can be either a random or a friend you invite to play alongside you.
Also, the game has perma death where if the Hunter you're playing as dies, then you lose them for good along with all the equipment and levels they've earned, so you have to be real careful as death can come from seemingly nowhere.
Anyways, I've got some clothes and props that will go well with the cosplay, just need to get myself a proper hat, like maybe a slouch hat or a Stetson hat, along with taking a piece of fabric to function as an eyepatch over my left eye, some Hunters have eyepatches or even entire blindfolds, the latter most likely because of the Dark Sight since it is suggested it can drive the Hunters insane from the exposure as they're peering into some other dark dimension.
But yeah, hopefully I'll be able to obtain those last pieces I need for my cosplay and then I'll be quite ready for the 27th of February, which is when the convention starts.

Well, Merry Christmas everyone!
So far it has been a good one for me, didn't really have any high hopes after everything I had experienced, especially my computer problems, but I'm glad it turned out way better than I thought it'd be.
Got a lot of nice gifts and here's a list of them:
The entire Red Dwarf series in a DVD box.
Just Cause 4 and Vampyr on the PS4.
Luigi's Mansion, the first one, on the Nintendo 3DS.
A mil-tec balaclava and t-shirt.
A metal sign that says "Do not enter" on it, which we plan on hanging on my bedroom door.
And finally, a whole year subscription to the news magazine Aftonbladet, this is so I can access subscription-exclusive articles on their website and stay up to date on what's happening in the world and here in Sweden.
I also had a talk with Sam about my computer problems as well as about the computer repair shop Barondator, he asked me to show him the invoice we had gotten when the computer was returned to us and he was not impressed by what he saw.
As I had written in the previous journal, they had done a fresh Windows 10 installation on my computer despite the fact I already had Windows 10 and as Sam put it, it was not even an upgrade they did but a downgrade as the version I had was Pro, what I got now is Windows 10 Home.
He was also quite surprised about that we were double charged for cleaning the computer, I even thought it sounded weird that they'd clean the computer at all as me and dad had cleaned it not long before we took it to Barondator.
And we did of course talk about that they didn't fix the problem I had with my computer at all and which was the reason why I had it sent there in the first place.
He said that he and dad are gonna have a chat with Barondator about this, since they didn't clearly do the job we had expected and done things we hadn't asked of them at all, the first thing will be to give them a chance to actually FIX the problems.
But if they refuse, then we will have to contact the Swedish Consumer Agency about this, perhaps even get our money back if that happens since we were not at all satisfied with their work.
However, we did also talk about that my computer is 5 years old and it may very well be near the end of its life, so we're gonna have to build a new computer from scratch, which is a whole lot better than buying a pre-fab one from a store as it will allow us to save money if we can use some parts of my old computer for the new one, like my monitor and the harddrives for example.
We'll have to have a sit down and discuss design at some point, but it will happen and I'm looking forward to that.
Take this as a word of warning, be extremely careful when dealing with local computer repair shops.
If you know anyone who is very computer savy and are trustworthy, like Sam is, then you should stick to them, otherwise you'll end up in a situation like we did where we paid money for basically nothing at all.

My computer got home earlier this week, but it appears that the guys at Barondator didn't really fix it as I had hoped..
First of all, they had done a fresh Windows 10 on my computer, they had said my Windows 10 wasn't up to date and I didn't think they were gonna do something like this, so I wish they had elaborated on that in the phone call I had with them when dad had brought the computer to them.
And second, the only thing they really fixed were a shit ton of viruses that they had found on it and then installed what is considered the best anti-virus program on the market, its called ESET.
But this evening, as I was starting to play an Early Access game called Deep Rock Galactic which I had just bought during Steam's big winter sale, my computer did one of those random shutdowns.
Needless to say, I'm not in the best of moods and I feel like I wasn't taken seriously by the guys at Barondator as I had told them about that there was some component in my computer that was generating a lot of heat which was very likely the reason why my computer was doing these shutdowns.
My sister and her husband are gonne be coming over for Christmas Eve and we're gonna try to have a look at what might be up, hopefully Sam, my sister's husband, will figure out what component is overheating and then get a replacement, my hunch is still the PSU and if it is, we might as well get a new one with higher wattage, like maybe a 600W one or something just so I have more room to upgrade to a better graphics card.
That is another thing we'll be taking a look at on Christmas Eve too, been having some graphical bugs lately with artifacts on the screen and such, so it may be a sign of the graphics card starting to break down.
Urgh, this is not helping my already non-existant Christmas mood and I feel honestly a bit hurt at that the Barondator guys didn't even take my words into consideration that the shutdowns may have something to do with an overheating component.
Either I'm gonna have to send it back to Barondator and tell them that the problem is still there or Sam will find out what the problem is, either way I just want this crap to be over and done with so I can play Deep Rock Galactic, Sea of Thieves, Phantom Doctrine and other games without having to worry about the computer suddenly shutting down, it'd be especially bad in Sea of Thieves since its an online-only game and I already experienced that problem last week a few days before we decided to send the computer to Barondator..

As the title of the journal says, I'm probably not gonna have my computer for at least a few days.
This is because my dad's gonna be taking it to a local computer repair shop called Barondator to have it examined and fixed as I've been having a heat issue with a component.
The issue is that whenever I play games like Phantom Doctrine, Signal Simulator, Sea of Thieves or other games that are a bit more demanding, the computer will shut down after a while and then restart after about a second, which a friend of mine said is a clear sign of the computer's power supply unit, or PSU for short, starting to give out as it isn't able to vent the heat as effectively as before.
It'll most likely be a little bit expensive this whole thing as I am considering taking one of their "superexpress" examinations which means that within a day they'll start examining the computer for whatever issues it might have and then lay forth a plan on what should be done.
At this point, I am willing to shell out money for that and even if it means I will be without the computer for a few days, at least it will be fixed.

As most are probably already aware of, Stan Lee, the man behind so many of our favorite comic book heroes like The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Black Panther and most notably Spider-Man, has passed away at the age of 95 yesterday..
We will never forget you, Stan, you will always be an inspiration to aspiring comic book writers and artists around the world and to many others as well.
I'll share here this quote from Stan about how he used to feel about writing comic books:
"I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people’s lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you’re able to entertain people, you’re doing a good thing."
And indeed, he is right about that entertainment is one of the most important things in our lives, it can help to bring a smile and even laughs to those who need it, many of the comics he's written have had some pretty funny moments in them along with heartwarming moments shared by the heroes in them.

As the title says, I'm now 29 years old.
Got a lot of nice gifts this evening from my family.
Here they are:
A new and nice pair of slippers with a bit more faux fur in it to keep my feet warm during the cold winters.
Both Deadpool movies on Blu-Ray in a neat little box.
A Pac-Man lamp that can be controlled with a remote to play 12 or so sound effects from the game, including the iconic death noise, you can even adjust the brightness too.
A rather badass half mask with a skull jaw on it, sorta reminds me of the balaclava that the character Simon "Ghost" Riley wore in Modern Warfare 2.
Ni No Kuni 2: The Revenant Kingdom on the PS4.
The Spider Man game, which is exclusive for the PS4 and is supposed to be really damn good from what I've heard.
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, yet another PS4 exclusive and also one that's gotten a lot of great reviews from people, mostly due to it being developed by the same team that gave us the Yakuza games, so its packed with A LOT of things to do along with plenty of over the top fights.
I also got some money from my parents and family friends earlier today, so its been a pretty damn good birthday.

Well, my 29th birthday is two days away now.

Just found out through  Kentaro21 on Furaffinity that there is this really nasty exploit going around now on the PlayStation Network which involves users getting messages that contain characters which leads to your PS4 console getting bricked.
Here's an article they linked to about it:
https://www.vg247.com/2018/10/13/ps.....king-consoles/
So yeah, if you haven't done so already, make sure your messages are set to private and whatnot so that you are not at risk of getting this damned thing.

This journal is just to warn people about the upcoming October update for Windows 10 and its via NatouMJSonic who posted about this on dA:

AVOID THE WINDOWS 10 OCTOBER 2018 UPDATE OR RISK LOSING ALL OF YOUR PERSONAL FILES

Posted Oct 5th, 2018

Many users are reporting massive data loss following the October 2018 Windows 10 update. Personal files are being deleted and hard drives are being corrupted in addition to several performance glitches. Users who have received the update are reporting all of their personal files such as documents, music, pictures, and videos being deleted following the update.

Some people have lost hundreds of gigabytes of data. These files are completely disappearing following the update – they do not wind up in the recycle bin, they are completely gone. Other users are reporting their entire hard drives or SSDs becoming corrupted, making rollback and recovery of said deleted files impossible.

In addition to the file deletion, devices with 6th generation Intel processors and newer are reporting awful battery life and CPU usage following the update.

Long story short, hold off on the October 2018 update for now. There are too many glitches and way too much to lose. If you attempt it,
BACK UP ALL OF YOUR FILES FIRST.

Here are also links to several news articles about the issues:

https://www.digitaltrends.com/compu.....r-2018-update/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasone...../#749411953e79
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-.....r-2018-update/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windo.....river-warning/

My advice for people are that you should go to Settings, then Update & Security followed by Windows Update where you can find the option to pause updates for up to 35 days, which should hopefully be more than enough for Microsoft to solve the more urgent glitches that's in the update.

As the title says, John Bain "TotalBiscuit" has passed away...
He died yesterday after fighting cancer for 4 years, it had been in remission for a while but then it reared its ugly head again last year and his community managers posted a message on the TotalBiscuit Reddit page about that he's retiring as a game critic and instead would focus what little time he had left on his family as well as have fun.
During his fight against cancer, he had undergone extensive chemotherapy, but the post on Reddit said that they were no longer effective as his body had adapted to it all and worst of all, the cancer had spread to his liver.
As you'd guess, there's a lot of sadness in the gaming community as a whole with his passing, especially among other game critics like Jim Sterling and Angry Joe as well as YouTubers like Jim Caddick "Caddicarus" and Ethan Klein "H3H3 Productions".
John will be dearly missed by everyone, especially since he was one of those who was fighting against the shady business practices of the Triple A industry with how they entice people with pre-order exclusives and other such things along with cutting finished portions of games up and selling them as "DLC" as well as calling out companies that issue spurious DMCA takedowns and such against critics on YouTube for saying that their game is bad, like the infamous Day One: Garry's Incident debacle which saw TB become the target of such a takedown by the game's developer after he had done one of his famous "WTF is..." on it.
He rightfully criticized the game for how poorly made it was and he also fought against the developer when they took down his video, he in the end won against them.
https://www.pcgamer.com/game-critic.....ies-at-age-33/
Rest in peace, John, your life was taken too soon....

Yesterday evening, I saw a bit of news that GSC Gameworlds have resumed the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.
They've not released any screenshots or such, but they've announced that the game will come out sometime in 2021, it will be quite the wait, but its gonna be worth it.
I will admit that I had given up hope on there ever being a proper sequel to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games after what happened with the franchise several years ago, there were legal troubles and other things.
But now it is finally happening and it will be interesting to see what we might get to experience in this sequel.

So, today I stopped by GameStop and bought myself a copy of Far Cry 5 for my PS4, even went for the Deluxe Edition that comes with some extra DLCs as well as a map of the game's world and the soundtrack.
I have only just started the game, but so far I am enjoying it and it is quite interesting that Ubisoft decided to have it that you get to customize the character you're playing as, who seems to be a silent protagonist so far from what I've experienced, and yes you do get to select at the start if you want to play as a man or a woman.
The story is that you're one of several deputies who has been sent into Hope County to arrest the leader of a cult called Eden's Gate, a crazy bastard by the name of Joseph Seed who calls himself The Father, on charges of kidnapping.
But things go south when you and the other deputies try to leave the compound that the cult's holed up at and you're the only one who manages to slip away from the lunatics, thanks to an old military veteran who is called Dutch by most people in Hope County, he tells you that you can't expect any help to come as the cult has cut off the entire valley that the county is in from the rest of the world and the only way to fight back is to mount up a resistance against them.
And obviously, that is what you're gonna do, along with attempting to save your colleagues that were captured and sent off to each of Joseph's "siblings" for who knows what they're planning to do with them.
Along the way, you will also be able to recruit people to fight alongside you with the Guns For Hire system and this also includes unique specialists, each of which you unlock through missions, that come with new ways to take on the cult, whether it be by being as sneaky as possible or just flat out blowing everything and everyone up.
There's also another interesting thing about the game, you do not need to hunt animals and get their hides in order to craft new holsters, instead that's unlocked via a perk menu where you spend, obviously, perk points that you earn by completing challenges across the game's world and they range from causing as much death and destruction upon Eden's Gate as possible to hunting and skinning certain types of animals in the valley along with fishing, the perk points can also be earned by finding perk magazines that are found inside hidden prepper stashes that sometimes people you save might tip you off about.
The game also comes with an editor called Far Cry Arcade which has assets from not only the base game, but also Far Cry 4, Primal, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Unity as well as the first Watch_Dogs game and you can create ANY type of map you want, whether it be a co-op or a competive one, with these assets, so you can just run absolutely wild with these.
All in all, I think the game is so far fun and it will be interesting to see what's gonna happen further down the line.

So, earlier this week I stopped by GameStop to pre-order an upcoming open-world and story-driven RPG game called Kingdom Come: Deliverance for PC.
It is set in medieval times, but not in a fantasy setting, rather its set in the heart of Europe, the kingdom of Bohemia, and it is set during the time when beloved ruler, Emperor Charles IV, has died and now the kingdom has plunged into dark times indeed.
One of his sons, Wenceslas, has taken over and unlike his father, he cares not for the people, only about himself, is naive and has no ambitions whatsoever.
He has a half-brother, who also happens to be the King of Hungary, Sigismund the Red Fox, and he is sensing weakness in Wenceslas, he feigns good will by travelling to Bohemia and then kidnapping his half-brother which allows him plunder the kingdom and seize its many riches.
Caught in the middle of all this is Henry, the son of a blacksmith, who witnesses his entire village get burned to the ground by mercenaries that were hired, and ordered by Sigismund himself and he ends up being one of few survivors of this horrific attack, which has left him with a thirst for vengeance on the men who shattered his peaceful life and killed his family and loved ones.
He ends up in the services of Lord Radzig Kobyla, who's working on forming a resistance against Sigismund's invasion and Henry joins up without hesitation since this is his best shot at getting revenge.
Since this is a RPG, you will be improving Henry's skills when it comes to weapons and other things, which also includes charisma and other skills that can be used to try and avoid potential bloodshed.
As for the combat itself, it will be based around the fighting styles that they used in the medieval times AND armor will be, of course, of the outmost importance since one well placed hit will end either you or your opponent in one hit, the devs have worked hard to emulate just how effective the armor of a knight was along with showing that even cheap chainlink armor can mean the difference between life and then.
An interesting thing to note is that sometimes enemies might surrender during combat and you get to decide if you will spare them or kill them, this can lead to people either seeing Henry as a merciful and just warrior or a ruthless one that shows absolutely no mercy even to those who surrender along with potentially other consequences, same goes for how you choose to tackle the many quests you will be taking on in the game.
I'll leave you with some videos that showcase what to expect in the game along with a few trailers.

Weapons vs. Armor:


The Combat system:


Rex, Familia et Ultio:


Armor & RPG:


A Blacksmith's Tale:


You can find more interesting videos on Warhorse Studios' YouTube channel if any of you are interested.
As for the release date, it is on Tuesday next week.
And onto another thing.
A week or so ago, my big sister and her family had finally made their way to Sweden and settled in their new house, they came over and celebrated late Christmas Eve with us.
I got some nice gifts from them and these include Digimon World: Next Order for the PS4, the cyberpunk book Neuromancer by William Gibson and a cap that's got a bluetooth headset inside of it so you can listen to music while out in the cold.
Overall, it is really nice that they've finally moved to Sweden after this whole Brexit thing, they had originally planned to move here at some point, but it was planned for much later on until Brexit happened and it looked like their jobs weren't gonna be around because of it.

So, today I stopped by the GameStop store to place a pre-order for the upcoming Monster Hunter World on the PS4.
I have not played any of the previous games, save for a demo of one of the games on a PS2 demo disc years ago, but I have gotten intrigued by this franchise and now that its coming back to consoles as well as being released for the first time on PC, I thought I'd dive in and join the fun.
The game is gonna have a story where you, one of several Hunters, joins a group of researchers called the Research Commission that was formed by the Guild as they investigate a phenomenon called the Elder Crossing that occurs every decade where elder dragons, large and very dangerous beasts, trek across the sea to a land known as the New World and find out just why these powerful beasts make this journey, all while at the same time hunting down the many astounding beasts that roam the New World and uncover new mysteries.
One of the main points of the game is that you salvage material from the beasts that you slay so that you can then craft better equipment and this includes many different types of armor and weapons, including long swords, gunlances, switch axes and many other interesting weapons that change the way your character behaves in combat.
Of course, you're not gonna be alone as you go about hunting the beasts, the game will feature drop in and drop out co-op where you can call for the assistance of other Hunters by launching a red flare at any time you wish during a hunt which will allow other players to join in and while you're playing by yourself, you'll have an AI companion in the form of a very intelligent cat called a Palico, or Felyne if you're gonna be one of those who wants to be rather specific about what their race is called.
You'll be able to make your very own unique Palico when you start the game along with making your character, so you can actually try to recreate your pet cat who will fight alongside you during the hunts, I've seen some gameplay footage of the Palico creation part and there's plenty of stuff to make your Palico stand out, you can even have Scottish Fold-type ears and more along with different types of tails ontop of the many different fur colors you can choose from.
Another interesting thing to note is that you will encounter Felynes in the hub when you prepare for your next hunt, they're in charge of the stores and they even do cooking which can provide Hunters with various types of buffs that can turn the hunt in your favor, you can also have cooking done out while on the field but its done by your handler, but she still manages to create the same impressive food as the Felynes create in the hub from what I've seen in gameplay videos along with that you can also cook some meat that you've gotten from the monsters by yourself which has you sit by a fire as your character turns the meat over the fire with a short camping song being played before the meat is cooked and ready to be eaten at any time.
And as I said earlier, this is the first time the franchise has made its way to the PC, properly, most people will talk about this Monster Hunter MMO that's available in Japan, but I don't think its considered part of the main series, so there's that.
Here are some trailers for the game:

Tokyo Game Show trailer:


Third Fleet trailer:


Purrfect Palicos trailer:

Interestingly, the PS4 version will have some exclusive cosmetic stuff that will let your Hunter look like Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn and even have you wield her bow from that game while your Palico will be donning armor that makes it look like a Felyne version of a Watcher.

I also went and pre-ordered the upcoming Yakuza 6: The Song of Life while I was there, went for the Premium Edition which will come with 2 bar glasses that can hold about 280ml, two ice stones, two coasters, the game in a collectible outer box and a hardcover art book.
Gotten into the franchise these last few years thanks to a friend and I'm really enjoying them for the story as well as the over the top combat that the protagonists find themselves in.
I've still yet to finish Yakuza 5 though, which I hope to get to soon as I've got it installed on my PS3, but my controller is being a bit weird and I think I will have to buy a new one to replace it.
Here's a trailer for the game that shows some of the things that the protagonist, Kiryu Kazuma, will be doing ontop of having to protect a baby from the yakuza and at the same time figure out why everyone's after the baby and who the father is:

I can highly recommend this franchise to people who enjoy a good story with well written characters, especially if you like games that take place in Japan.

So, that's the end of 2017 and it's been one hell of a year for the world, what with Trump becoming president and other shit.
Here's to hoping that 2018 will bring some better tides for us all.
And as for me, well as most know by now, the end of this year haven't been the best for me and I'm hoping that 2018 will be better for me as well, especially since I'm gonna be moving out at some point to live with my big sister and her family.
No info on when it might happen, but I'm gonna guess it might be sometime in the first quarter of 2018 or perhaps the second quarter, it depends on how quickly they can renovate the house they've bought, but hopefully it won't be one that takes too long.
Me and my dad were visiting the house the day before Christmas Eve, to check so that nobody had broken in and such, and we met two gentlemen who look after the properties that told us that the area is due to have fiber installed at some point.
It had been delayed though for some reason and the man who told us said that this was a great time for us to ask my sister if she knew about this and that she perhaps should sign up the house as one of those who are interested in having it connected to the network, learned from her on Christmas Eve that she had gotten an email from him with a link to a form that she and her husband can fill out, so they got right on it.
But anyways, the house looks nice and its not a secluded place either as there's other houses nearby and they have a sort of neighborhood watch where they look out for each other so there's no big worry about any burglars and whatnot coming to this little neighborhood.
Hopefully things will get better once its all done, I might even try out some new things that I haven't really done in the 28, almost 29 years I've lived in my old home.