Awful gaming memories - Lightning strikes...200 times?

They say lightning strikes once. Maybe twice.

But what about 200 times? And you having to avoid them all in a row without failure?

Final Fantasy X is one of my most favorite games of all time. I have so many amazing memories from playing that game. From the incredible graphics, to the amazing cutscenes, the great script, the memorable characters and that emotional connection with the world and everything. My best saved game had over 100 hours played. I don't remember having dedicated so much time in any game but Football Manager or Pokemon back then when i was young, ugly and antisocial. Quite the contrast now that i am a handsome man, playboy and philanthropist right? Oh wait...

I remember being so obsessed with that game that we were for vacations in a hotel in Petalidi called Hotel Sunrise. If you find yourselves in Messinia in Greece please check it out. It is amazing. I actually carried my PS2 with me so i could play this game. I ended up playing a hard boss over some disappearing platforms over and over again. I could not find my glasses but i kept playing. People that know me know very well that i am as blind as a bat without my glasses. But i kept going. And going. In the end i found out that my glasses were lost in the swimming pool and some kind soul brought them to the reception desk for me.

So what is this lightning talk about? Well i was also obsessed with maxing out my character stats. All of them. So that meant endless grinding and uncovering all their secrets. That also included their secret ultimate weapons. I got most of them quite easily but there was one that made me want to gouge my eyes out with a pitchfork. There was a dark valley with cliffs and cracks and a very dark evil tone. It was called the Thunder Plains. Guess what, there was lightning dropping every few seconds. In order to get a piece of Lulu's ultimate weapon, which was a creepy old ventriloquist doll, you had to dodge 200 of them by pressing X just as the screen flashed. It was not so hard to do it a few times, but after a while you lost count and it was rather hard to keep focus and concentration. So there was little Kostas at home repeating over and over the same dodging pattern, losing count every few minutes.

Once I was almost there I could taste it. When I finally counted 200 I tossed his controller in relief.

"I did it!" I screamed almost with tears of joy.

But where was the chest? In the midst of my joy I forgot that the lightning kept going. And then the character got struck by one. He miscounted by one. That meant that I had to start all over again.

Fuming with flames of hell, with steam coming out of his ears and ready to summon the hounds of Balthazar and the spawns of Lucifer I tried to recover and not smash the controller. I decided to start again and not stop at 200 but count to 220 to make sure.

So i started again. It took me hours to do it again. Resetting time and again, again and again. I was reaching boiling point. Then it was THAT try. That try where i could feel everything was clicking and i would do it. 1, 20, 50,100, 150, 170 lightnings dodged. I made sure i counted correctly. I was at 197.

I could taste victory. I was playing for at least 5 hours straight. And then while i was ready to gloat and boast and drink a ...pepsi twist i guess because i was just 12 the unthinkable happened. A power outage. A FREAKING power outage. My screen went black, my PS2 stopped working. What could i do but explode. I started freaking out and swearing in any possible way with all those creative Greek swear words that we have. And believe me we have many. I went completely berserk walking around furiously in the house from one side to another cursing uncontrollably.

..........

It was horrific. For a kid that his mother used to cut his hair like he has a bowl on his head straight out of the dumb and dumber movie and his best friend was another nerd that played Pokemon it meant a lot to me.

It took me days to relax and even more to play the game again.

Eventually i did it and i got everything i wanted. Sucks being a completionist and perfectionist some times.

So what are the morals and conclusions after this? Lets make a recap.

A) My childhood was shallow

B) I was a nerd

C) I was not well known for style. Not in hair, not in clothes

D) Women? Is that an alien breed?

E) If you are obsessed with something you will maybe eventually get it. But you will lose your sanity and the reward ends up being less exciting than you expected.

F) It also marks the beginning of this new series that will hopefully relate to some fellow nerds there.

G) I am a vampire and i only wake up during the night.

The source of all evil - Thunder Plains

 Well, have a good week Sweden. Goodnight!

By fire be purged

What another strange day. I could not sleep. I spent hours playing pvp in Guild Wars 2 with Qita mou. It was 09:21 and i felt like i was about to melt in my chair. I gathered all the strength i could muster and headed towards the bus stop.

Life has been hard lately. Searching pockets hopeful of finding some hidden coins and then reveling in excitement when you can finally afford a cinnamon bun is priceless and deeply saddening in the same time.

I sat along Shahar again and tried to pay attention for the next 2 hours talking about dispersion, diffusion and advection in water. We had a computer lab later at 13:00 so that meant 1 hour break from 12:00. Gah. I thought i would go up to the sofa and sleep but it was impossible. At least something happened that made my day.

I received a text file from someone. It was a short story and thoughts that were based on my post from yesterday. I rose up from my pile of ashes and had such a great smile for the rest of the day. She liked what i wrote but more importantly she liked who i am. And what makes it even more important is that she was a friend of my first love, the woman that dominates my memoirs here in this blog. That means i did something right all these years. I am not bad or rotten after all.

I will paste her text on the bottom here but not before i write something else too. While waiting for people to contact me regarding the blog advertisement i tried to think how to motivate myself and write new refreshing things since i do not get out much.

I was thinking about a post on separate topics. Since i was a video game nerd when i was a kid and knew nothing about love and James Bond kissing women on film would make me want to hide i was thinking of adding a category called Awful Gaming Memories. I have a lot of them it should be interesting. So maybe my next post will be tossed straight into that world. Another one based on the fact that Avengers 2: Age of Ultron is premiering next week has got me pumped up on film reviews. Maybe i will look into that as well.

These were some ideas, what do you think about them? Here follows the text as sent from Claire Newton.

Dear Kostas,

Firstly, before I start writing what I have in mind, let me apologize for my mediocre use of English (despite the fact that I’m half British).

And secondly, you’re free to publish this letter as an actual blog post with what you might think as an answer, if you feel like doing so. If you do, please correct any mistakes.

Now, to the point. I’ll try to keep it short. I’ve been following your blog almost from its day #1. I found it accidentally via facebook, and since then I’ve been a constant reader. Some of your posts made me cry and some others made me laugh. But what I liked most, was the fact that you wrote about your life, your everyday struggles, what you saw and experienced. And that I thought was the most sincere and interesting thing someone could write about. I’ve been a “blogger” user for a few years and there was not a single blog I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed yours.

As I said, I’ve been a blogger myself, not only a reader, and I know that sometimes it’s pretty difficult to keep writing. You don’t have the motivation, like you stated. It’s a struggle to maintain a positive attitude towards your blog and your followers. I’ve deleted more than a dozen blogs because of my lack of motivation (and the lack of feedback, my only existing blog counts 87 posts and 14519 views in 5 years). I’ve been there and I honestly and strongly advise you to keep trying. Make a schedule, a plan, anything that could help you write. Keep it short, it’s not mandatory, not even necessary to write long posts. Write for things that might be useful for someone who’d like to visit Sweden or move there permanently (me for example, I’m searching for possible opportunities in both USA and Europe, and I’m more than willing to consider moving to Sweden), like jobs, rents, transportation, anything. I know, some people might Google directly those things, but it’s good to have an opinion from someone who went through the same situation.

I, and I guess many other readers, enjoy your personal posts because they share a somewhat private part of you, a piece of your heart, not only your mind. That’s the best way to know someone. And what’s the point in reading your blog, if not to know you? They are not always happy and positive. Your memoirs made me cry. They really touched me. Not only because the person that inflicted such pain upon you, was a friend of mine (or so I thought for quite some time) but mostly because since I met you, I’ve considered you not just an average nice guy, but a person I respect and with whom I’d like to talk and get to know him. And anyway, no one should have to experience what you did, it’s unfair and so unkind. You don’t have to write about sensitive topics but it’s nice to share more with your readers.
I know, you sometimes write about  how you feel but it’s almost always “soaked” in humor and fun and everyday stuff. Go for something deeper next time. Your blog is mainly a personal/lifestyle one, you can write anything along those lines.

Write about experiences like army for example, there are many young men out there who would appreciate some info from someone around their age that went through the madness and chaos of the Greek Army. Write stuff that could be some kind of help for someone in the vast internet.
Make a post solely to compare Greece to Sweden, or Greek universities to the Swedish, or compare people and habits, anything. Make a post for a specific topic at a time.

I don’t know if I’m helping or not, but I felt like writing and sharing my thought with you was a good idea. It might not be, who cares? 

Don’t give up. Keep it up. Good luck.

Best wishes from Greece

Claire

Thank you Claire. Goodmorning Sweden. It is beautiful to be here these days.

From left to right: Cawa, Vicky and Ippu.