command&conquer 3: tiberium wars

After buying the game in uh january, I finally started playing command&conquer 3 a week ago. I postphoned playing it for various reasons, the main reason being that I didn't think that I'd like it, and I can't be bothered doing effort during the schoolyear. Lol that sounds bad, like playing a game is so horrible that I have to do effort for it.

Anyway since it's vacation now, I didn't have an excuse anymore and started playing the campagin. It was way nicer than I expected. The videos between the missions had real actors, it made me feel like I was in a movie. The missions were fun, and because the game is so fast paced, I didn't even get a chance to get bored. I finished most of the GDI campaign now, and did part of the Nod one. This is probably the most that I've ever played a campaign, so congrats c&c, you made me like a campaign.
Most of the missions in the campaign consist of the same routine: collecting tiberium and building a base with the funds that it gives you, all while the enemy attacks you. Then you build up your army and take out the enemy base. In the other missions, you just get a few units that you have to complete objectives with.

Tiberium is a powerful mineral that spreads rapidly across the globe and is toxic to carbon based lifeforms. Despite it's negative effect on human life, tiberium is a very useful energy source.
The main objective of the GDI is to stop the spread of the toxic tiberium and destroy the terrorists of the Brotherhood of Nod. The brotherhood is a religious organisation that believes in the potential of tiberium as the catalyst of the next stage of human evolution and tries to accelerate its spread. The leader of the brotherhood is Kane, a charismatic man whose authority within the brotherhood is unquestioned.
Earth is divided in 3 areas: a red zone where tiberium has spread so much that human life is impossible, a yellow zone that's heavily contaminated with tiberium and a blue zone that's protected by the GDI and is still free from tiberium exposure. Most of the world's population lives in the yellow zones, and this is also where the brotherhood of Nod has its bases. When the brotherhood launches an attack on the GDI, the third tiberium war begins.

This game has really pretty gfx, but I only found that out after days of playing with these crappy gfx, the lowest settings possible:
The game probably decided that my cheap laptop could only handle that much. But when I changed the gfx settings, I found out that the game could actually look like this, and not lag:
A significant difference, right? Look how much nicer the tiberium looks, all glowy and stuff. And the units have shadows. I like shadows.

sand sculptures

pictures taken at the sand sculpture festival in Blankenberge (2009)

Fullmetal Alchemist: brotherhood

The first fullmetal alchemist anime was good, one of the better animes out there. It got me emotionally involved with its good story and likeable characters. Ed, Al, colonel mustang, the homunculi, everything seemed perfect. I was surprised to find out that the anime hadn't followed the actual manga story, or at least not towards the end. Because the manga was still in progress at the time, the anime producers just made up the entire last half of the series. Apparently, the manga story very different. It was much darker, more complex, explained things better. It even had new characters.
Sounds good, right? So I started reading the manga, in French because French manga's are cheaper than English ones. But I didn't get very far before the French started to annoy me, and I forgot about fullmetal alchemist.
This would've been the end of my fma story, but one day (probably 1.5 years ago?), I heard the glorious news. Fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood would be a complete remake of the fma series, but following the actual manga story. Yay.

The first episode of fma brotherhood was a filler about an ice alchemist. This episode was used as a introduction of the new series, and to emphasise that this would be different from the first fma. The next 15 or so episodes overlapped with the first fma series, so they went over the story pretty fast there, expecting that most people had seen the first series already. Because it was so rushed, I didn't really have time to grow to like the characters and care about what happened to them. Tragic events that had been very emotional in fma1, just didn't feel make me feel anything in brotherhood.
But after that, it got better. Much better. Once they got past the part of the manga that fma1 had already covered, they slowed down again, and things really got interesting. It was nothing like fma1, it was an entirely new story. A story that just kept getting more interesting after every episode, and kept me captivated until the epic ending.
Here are some random screenshots:

Anyway, this is truly a good anime. You should all watch it asap.