[Game Review][WiiU] Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

In a sea of story driven RPG's, Capcom's take on the genre turns heads time and time again. In its 3rd main releases as "Ultimate edition”, they didn't disappoint. A heavily action oriented RPG with an extremely tight combat system and highly rewarding quest system. Its art style and general aesthetic is also very pleasing and nice, being realistic in the details, but overall non-realistic. And while it is still technically an RPG, it is a lot harder than most. And can sometimes be downright unforgiving to even the most seasoned players. However, the game balances the grind with the reward almost perfectly, giving you a long, very tough grind, but in exchange the pieces to craft the perfect set of armor and equipment to better prepare yourself against those types of monsters in both elemental defense, and in extra skills. And in this game, armor is key. There is no traditional leveling up system, instead all the defense, attack, skills, and special elements are all held within your weapon, armor, talisman, and the gems you equip to them. The main way to get equipment is to battle large monsters, either alone in offline mode, or online with up to four players. Battling these monsters takes real skill in knowing what attacks to use when, what to bring with you to help turn the fight in your favor, and when to properly dodge or block to avoid taking damage. And this is where the online mode truly shines, the level of balance to where your whole party is only offered three extra lives to share, meaning that you need to carefully choose who you go on those tougher quests with, as some monsters can be straight up brutal to any player unaware of just how badly one attack can effect them die to elemental disadvantages. The weakest part of the game would have to be the story, and the maps. The story feels like a quickly thrown together "save the village" thrown together to introduce new areas and quest tiers. After a while, you start to ignore the text to skip over it as fast as possible, and might end up missing something important to continue on. I ended up doing this and had to check the wiki. The maps themselves aren't actually bad. Gorgeous scenery and well laid out maps often offer a refreshing feel when you go there for the first time. My main problem is how they are all disconnected and after every area change is a loading screen. The load is usually only 10-15 seconds, but while searching for a monster that has fled, it can grow annoying and tiresome. But overall, I give this game a solid 9/10 for its amazing style, wonderful combat, and wide array of spectacular weapons.

[Product Review] Sony's MDR-ZX300 headphones.

Are you looking for a new pair of budget headphones? Maybe you need something for gaming or just listening to music, well today I am going to be talking about and reviewing my personal suggestion, Sony's budget headphones, the MDR-ZX300. I'll do my best to list both the pro's, con's, and some extra tidbits about these headphones to hopefully help you make an educated purchase for your price range. Now, I am by no means an audio expert, and I have not compared these to professional headphones or used them in a professional set up, these are my first real pair of headphones, and before them I used several different pairs of ear-buds.



Now that we got the introduction out of the way, I'd like to state that you should not let the term "budget" turn you off from these. I'm simply saying they can be found very cheaply, not that they are made cheaply. In fact, they feel and sound far from it. When compared to my old Skullcandy Ink'd 2.0 earbuds, they sound much crisper and cleaner, while sounding slightly louder. Also, they will come to you slightly small, but don't let that worry you. I myself have a slightly large head, and the headphones ended up stretching out and now fit very nicely on my big head. Here is a pretty good breakdown of the headphones:

Pros-
- you can find them for around $20 on amazon, and occasionally even lower on eBay.
-the pads are very comfortable on the headphones. Very soft, cushion-y and don't grab the skin at all.

-nice crisp sound
-pretty amazing range

-great volume

-headband eventually bends to better fit your head
-sleek design that doesn't feel bulky

Cons-
-no real grip to them, they easily fall off your head if your hair is silky/smooth
-the cord is kind of short in my opinion, they could of extended it by maybe a foot or two

Extra tidbits-
-the cable's connector has an "L" shape to it, which is nice on a laptop, but a bit frustrating on other devices at times. It also helps reduce stress on the cord's connector to hopefully help extend its life.
-they seem durable as well, I've dropped them a few times (by accident) at anywhere between three to five feet, they don't seem to care much.
-although I complain about a short cord, it is nice for if you're using it with a laptop and smartphone.

And with that breakdown, there you go. I hope those bits and bites help you form an educated decision on if these headphones are for you(if you want something for casual daily use, you really should give them a shot).

Here is a link to their amazon page for further investigation. However, you can usually find it slightly cheaper(like maybe four to five bucks cheaper) on eBay during certain times of the year, I snagged mine for around $15 with free shipping. These are worth every penny, hell, I'd personally be willing to pay $35 for a product of this quality. Happy listening!