Hmm, the time. She has flown by.
The list of games heading this page is acutally sort of small. I am playing several games but just a little bit at a time. I was able to get Wasteland to run on my PC, but I have not actually played it. I had been playing lots of EVE Online, since December 21st, 2005 in fact, and only just now took a small break. My other game subscriptions have either been canceled or the game has gone out of business, although I am also playing something which I cannot talk about.
Steambot. Looks OK, the cel-shading could have either been done better or not done at all. The controls drive me nuts, but I suppose I will get used to them. Still clunky.
I have not finished Oblivion. It's great, despite the bad case of consolitis. I recommend a UI mod if you are running it on a PC.
I'm going to try another playthrough of Eternal Darkness because I only just found out that it supports 480p and 16:9 display. I think I did not have the component-cable setup on my Gamecube during the first play. I'm rather excited!
Lots of things have happened between then and now.
It fun to re-read the thing I wrote here. In some ways things are like they were, I am just older and wiser and more tired. I am able to make less time to play games these days due to the limitations of this mortal frame that I inhabit. Some games I play these days are not electronic, such as making a car wash with two stuffed animals for Sam to ride his firetruck through. When everyone else is tucked away, and I finish up some necessary chores, I stay up as long as I can; right now I am switching between Dungeon Siege II and Half-Life 2. HL2 is so much fun that I might even play it again.
I have recently decided that I simply must obtain and play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I should have played this eight years ago, like a proper gamer, but as we all know: I suck. I guess I won't be playing it unless some sort of miracle happens since I really, really need to stop buying superfluous things.
I have been playing Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis and I am saving my judgement for later, once I get some more time with it. At first it compared favorably against Final Fantasy Tactics(PS), but there has not been the expected increase in depth. Perhaps the lack of a manual is the reason, but I am pretty confident I have discovered all of the menus and controls by now. Perhaps I just miss the job system, found in FFT and FFV.
I would be playing more Arx Fatalis if it would not crash or hang my PC so much. You have to do something unusual to hang WinXP, in my experience.
I am still looking for a copy of Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis that costs less than $60. I don't know what is so hard about getting a copy, but apparently I am just going to have to get serious about it and start working hard on the Ebay auctions.
Dark Cloud 2 is still amazing to me. I have put over 93 hours into this game, according to the counter, and just this week I unlocked the fishing tournament. There seems to be some way to breed your own fish, but I have not gotten to that part yet.
I will be so glad when it is no longer stylish to put colons and lengthy subtitles on game names.
I have managed to do a lot of stuff in Wind Waker, which means the game must be relatively easy. This is the first Zelda game in which I have ever gotten all four bottles. Next up is laying down the law for Ganon... I just don't think I am up to completing that picture gallery.
As it happens with me, I have somehow forgotten about Dark Cloud 2 and Azurik. Azurik was starting to become irritating, what with me not knowing what to do next due to my lengthy absence and the totally unhelpful oracles. The worst part was that I assumed the oracles were giving me good information. Anyway, I was sent out to get the mail yesterday, and since I already had to drive into town I decided to see if some magical fairy had left a copy of Tactics Ogre at EB Games. It wasn't there, so I grabbed a copy of Eternal Darkness for $19.95 and, just to make the voices stop, Arx Fatalis.
I had forgotten that Arx Fatalis was one of those games that I had slobbered over while reading the previews. Basically it is an homage to Ultima Underworld with modern production values. I have played through the opening tutorial twice already, and will do so a third time thanks to the one, lonely, shitty FAQ/walkthrough out there. I would write one myself except that I don't really have time to play the games, much less write out a walkthrough about them.
Wario World is fun, but it is missing a few key items that would make it a great game. First would be the proper exploitation of the third dimension. It is fully 3D, and the characters move freely in three dimensions, however it is basically a long, narrow 3D hallway. It is a shame that so much time and money was expended just to produce a side-scrolling platformer. Somebody needs to send a copy of Munch's Oddysee to Nintendo HQ.
The creators of Diablo have left Blizzard. So long Diablo III, hello Diablo-Clone-That-Is-Not-Dungeon-Siege. I think that Vivendi's chances of selling off their games division at some sort of reasonable price are gone, which is sort of odd since there are some great franchises in there. I would not have thought that the likes of EA and Microsoft had such vulture-like patience.
I'm not spending much time at home lately so there has not been much gaming going on. I might end up taking my GameCube over to my inlaws' house, where I am spending most of my non-working time, but the thought of playing Wind Waker on a normal TV makes my stomach sink.
Fortunately that should not be a problem next week, thanks to the GCGBPlayer. I already knew that the GameCube Game Boy Player was set for a June 23 release, but a quick trip to EB World meant to assure my paranoia over the aforementioned release date brought Wario World to my attention. I'm sure that I won't feel any better about playing that on a normal TV, but it's something to look for once I get tired of Mario Sunshine, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Wind Waker, and whichever GBA games work nicely though the Player.
Karen and I went to the mall, and I went inside EB looking for Tactics Ogre. I left with a wireless Logitech controller for my Xbox... without the "extended warranty" either. For some reason, it seemed very appealing to play Azurik with the new controller, which is actually nicer than the Logitech that I use on the PS2. The big thing is that the sticks have rubber caps while the PS2 controller has mildly-uncomfortable concave hard plastic tips. They would not be an issue at all if either my thumbs were longer or the sticks were shorter so that I could get my thumbtips into the depressions. It's not a bad controller, though, and I can drive better than anyone else in Vice City with it. The Xbox one is nicer, though. I also like the button feel and layout better than the stock Xbox controller.
I played a bit of Camelot as well, but not really enough to add an entry to the top of the page. My valewalker is performing much better after the v1.62 patch, chewing through yellow mobs with grace and fluidity. She even beat an orange one-on-one last night, but I would not be able to count on that every time.
I mentioned RCT2 just because I beat a scenario and worked a lot on another one while at the in-laws' house on Sunday.
I am having some fun with Midnight Run II. I know that it was requested by Karen, but in case you don't know how things work, here's the deal. Karen doesn't actually play any games except for The Sims and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Sometimes she will play a game for a few minutes, such as sailing Link to some god-forsaken sector of the trackless ocean, or once recently defeating most of a dungeon in Dark Cloud 2. She has driven some in Midnight Run II, but she does not compete in the races. She just does not fight boss monsters. She is pretty useful as a navigator, though, helping me out at times. It's hard to compete without looking at the map. Even if you know the route you want, sometimes you need to know where the other racers are.
I know, long time. Been busy. You're getting your money's worth from this site.
Some news highlights...
Nothing to talk about, really, except John Milton got me playing Ocarina of Time, which is a fantastic game that I have not played until now, and I got him to buy Animal Crossing. Actually, I just let him watch me play it for a few minutes and described it to him a bit, then he calls me up the day after he gets home and he has already bought it.
I was playing .hack//infection for a bit, but the story is better than the game... plus I keep getting my ass handed to me so I decided to take a break.
I don't have anything new and exciting to post. I am just here to say that I set the house alarm improperly and am now banned from playing games for a week.
I have been almost too busy to play games lately. Too many evening maintenance windows and weekend work, and it is not going to improve much over the next couple of weeks. But I bought Dark Cloud 2 anyway. Anyone who reads this or otherwise knows about my hobby should realize that I like buying and owning games as much as I like playing them.
I have been playing a lot of Animal Crossing as well. Whenever I describe the game to someone, they seem to think it is creepy that the animal miss you when you are gone. Karen thought so too, but she is having a good time playing. As in real life, her house is crammed with clothes and furniture but she will be building a bigger one soon. As for me, I like hunting fossils, insects and fish. I don't know that either of us are big fans of letter-writing, but lately I have been mailing garbage to one of the more irritating residents.
Dungeon Siege has recaptured my attention because it doesn't require a large chunk of continuous time, plus I don't have to remember some complicated plot. As long as I remember I should kill monsters and collect loot, I should be able to keep up. I'd like to take some more time with the more complicated games, but Karen has some sort or rabid opposition to me taking a week of vacation just to stay home and play games. I don't get it, really, but I'm used to being out of line with common thought.
I spent some hours on Sunday trying to find all of the hidden packages in GTA:VC. So far I am up to 98 out of 100, so the irritating part has begun: trying to find those last two that I have missed along the way. I had assumed I had gotten a few but once I reached the end of the package list I only had 96, so apparently I reloaded the game a few times after getting packages. The hardest part of going down the whole list is that I can't be completely sure that I already picked up a package, since I can't see it to make sure I'm in the right place.
I would suggest to people just starting out to do a few things right off. First, drop off 100 passengers in a taxi. This gives all taxis the ability to jump, and that can get you into the other side of town earlier than usual, plus it's also pretty useful just for avoiding other cars and even hopping over police roadblocks. Second, get a whole load of hidden packages. At some point the Sea Sparrow is delivered to the Diaz Mansion, and in case you don't notice right away, it has a minigun hanging from the bottom of it. I don't have much use for that right now but I can think of a few places I could have found it useful to rain hot death on people from above. As it stands right now, I just blow up things for fun. At 90 packages the Rhino tank is delivered to Fort Baxter, but you will want to complete the Copland mission so you can dress up as a pig and walk into the base unmolested.
Due to mild illness, plus other random things, I have really slacked off on the games lately. I did manage to replace my motherboard last night, in case you missed that on the main page. I have only tested Dungeon Siege, and it seemed to load a bit faster. I'll probably get more of a feel for the performance gain once I fire up Morrowind. The main thing that I expected to see improve with the A7N8X Deluxe was just memory and bus speed. I can't say I am disappointed. It should get a bigger boost once I add a SATA disk or two, or maybe once I work up the nerve to do some performance tweaking in the BIOS. My current disk is old and slow, a 5400 RPM ATA-33 if I remember right, and needs replacing just on the GP, but I'd also like to make a larger C: partition. 2GB is just too small these days.
I have decided that Dungeon Siege is really huge. I haven't even done any multiplayer yet. So far my group has made it to the Eastern Swamp, which might be halfway through the single-player campaign if you look at it right. At this point I find myself going back to the last campsite I found to purchase equipment much more than I previously had. My primary hero has finally gained the attributes to use a crossbow, and her rate of fire has gone up tremendously. This has led to a much faster progression in skill gain for her, as well. Vendor-diving is starting to look appealing in DS... now if I can just get the modifiers to appear on the right equipment!
Another visit to John Milton's house last Friday-Saturday. This one was even more of an ordeal than usual since he has stopped paying his gas bill. On top of that, I missed a phone call and a visit I had been waiting on for quite some time. John Milton didn't tell me about the lack of heat until I was there, at which time I noticed the space heater in his room. Despite the sub-freezing temperatures, I still managed to try a couple of new games: Pikmin and Luigi's Mansion.
Pikmin was alright; definitely unusual. By reading the manual I was able to make much more progress than John while he was at work on Saturday. I got tired of it locking up after a bit, since you can't save in the middle of a day, of which there are only 30, so I tried Luigi's Mansion.
I was quite surprised by Luigi's Mansion and I liked it a lot. It had great graphics and enjoyable gameplay. The character animations were particularly enjoyable.
I took my GBA with me and John used my link cable to activate the Fusion suit in Metroid Prime. I don't know if I like it, so I think I'll wait until I finish both Fusion and Prime, and can unlock the original Metroid.
I only played Metroid Fusion for a few minutes before I decided I had to install the Afterburner. That took me most of the afternoon but I got it installed before the sun set, barely. Of course, being my first time, I had a few problems, the big one being a couple of noticable bubbles under the anti-reflective film which laminates to the LCD screen. The white spots created by the bubbles are easily worth being able to actually see the screen. I have another GBA and Afterburner so maybe the second try will go better.
As for Fusion itself, it is great, aside from being on the GBA. I don't have huge hands, but the GBA still does not lend itself to the fast pace necessary in Fusion. I can get the job done, so far, but it isn't terribly comfortable. The game is great, though, and hard. I'm at the second boss, I think, the one that is contaminating the air filters. It's difficult to shoot missiles anyway, and now I have to shoot them at a wacky ball that floats around me at very high speed, like oh-so-many 8-bit and 16-bit bosses. Still fun.
John Milton calls me up for tips on Metroid Prime now that he has become a hermit. Unfortunately, he has already passed where I am in the game, if his progress remained steady. I like to think that I still have the upper hand since he does not yet have a GBA, and therefore cannot play Fusion. I suggested he get the GBA SP instead since it comes with a frontlight already installed. I suppose someone finally took the crack pipe away from Nintendo's engineers and told them no one can see their shitty screen. The problem I see, just from the pictures, is that it will be even harder to get a grip on it and deliver Samus' destructive payload where you want it.
There is some good news in controls, however. The cordless Logitech Controller for the PS2 works great. Personally I don't care for the stick design, however the buttons work better for me than the ones on my factory DualShock2. It is pretty big, bordering on "freakish", but I'm getting used to it. I wish the sticks had convex tops, thumbing that ridge is not as easy as the rubbery knobs on the DualShock, especially since I don't have the apelike hands required to reach all the buttons simultaneously. Seriously, this thing is bigger than the maligned Xbox controller, but it fits my hands much better. I will get used to the sticks, I'm sure, and the sensitive D-pad as well. It's well worth it to be able to sit back on the couch and play Grand Theft Auto.
I have been into Diablo II again. I'm not sure at all why I am playing that instead of Dungeon Siege. I did finally figure out how to defeat Diablo with my necromancer, but I wasted a skill point so when I get some free time today I am going to track down a character editor and move that point.
I also found a way to run multiple instances of DII, which means that I can trade equipment among my single-player characters. It is as simple as finding the hacked d2gfx.dll file on Diablo II Net and copying it over the original in the DII directory.
The only other interesting game-related news I have is that John Milton has not gone outside since he bought his GameCube and Metroid Prime.
John Milton came by for my birthday and he brought me a wireless PS2 controller. Just the thing I need so I can keep the doors closed on the entertainment cabinetry while playing.
He also brought along a few things he was playing, such as Mortal Kombat and Jedi Outcast. Mortal Kombat was fun but not so much fun that I think I want to spend money on it. I have Tekken4 already, which John Milton will not play with me since he has no chance at all of winning. Jedi Outcast seems like fun, but I spent most of my time with John Milton putting his lightsaber through some part of my body. I now hate Luke Skywalker even more.
John had forgotten that there was a Morrowind expansion and was confused by my wallpaper on my home machine. He thought that The Elder Scrolls III was Morrowind, and I said it is, Tribunal is just an expansion to Morrowind and is just part of the third Elder Scrolls game. He was once again impressed with my description of the journal-sorting that Tribunal introduces, however he did wonder why the hell I have not yet finished the main quest. I told him I assumed it would be a big battle at Red Mountain and was working on completing my stronghold first so I would have a nice base from which to assault Dagoth Ur. He said the final battle was really not that huge.
He was also impressed with Metroid Prime enough that he is going to trade in his PS2 and some games in order to get a GameCube. He is actually getting $100 for his PS2 at EB, which I think is amazing, so for another $100 he will be hooked up. He played with my GBA a lot, even though I have not put the light kit in it yet. Turns out that he has never played Tetris.
I just realized how funny that date looks.
Metroid Prime is just getting better and better. It was actually fun getting blasted by pirates last night, just because, a couple of times, in the almost complete darkness, the white-hot blasts from the Space Pirates' weapons revealed an extremely clear view of Samus's face. It was like seeing something in a lightning flash, or actually more like a camera flash, so I am not entirely certain, but I think that she has blue eyes.
Nearing the 50%-completion mark, it's getting very interesting. I'll not spoil things, even though I very much want to talk about the story development, as well as the enemies inside the crashed frigate. Instead, I'll just smile stupidly to myself. I'm glad my cubicle walls are high enough to hide my face.
I played Metroid Prime until 0100 last night. That game is dangerous. I was being attacked by some Turned Chozo and my button-mashing was furious enough to wake Karen. Hopefully I can get some time to play tonight before Adult Swim's New Year's Eve Bash, hosted by Carl and Brak. The fun starts at 2300 tonight on Cartoon Network. The reason I want to get some time in early is so that I can play with the sound turned up. No point in playing in Dolby if all I can hear is the center channel.
I, of course, managed to connect the GameCube to my receiver. I don't know how it works, but it does.
I started playing Mario Sunshine, and it's cool all around... however I soon started up Metroid Prime. I don't even know how to describe how cool that game is. There are no words... hence no green-lettered commentary. Metroid Prime certainly deserves some tool-tip love, unfortunately I am just not up to the task. The best I can do is warn anyone who thinks it is a first-person shooter that it is most definitely NOT. This is a Metroid game and plays just like you remember Super Metroid, once you get accustomed to the controls.
Not much news in other games. I'm progressing along the main storyline of Morrowind and working on building my stronghold at the same time. I really should have gotten the stronghold underway some time ago, since it is pretty close to Red Mountain and would be a fine base of operations for my upcoming forays behind the Ghostfence. I don't look forward to moving my museum-like house from Balmora to Bal Isra, but maybe I can get a pack guar to help me out.
All the games up top are probably misleading. Some of them are games I just wish I was playing, like GTA:VC. I have not played that since around Thanksgiving, but I keep meaning to go back to it. I should just go ahead and take it off the list now since I should be playing Metroid Prime and Mario Sunshine before the weekend is over. The GameCube is actually a birthday present but since I'm so cute and lovable (even though I am also bothersome and aggrivating) my wife said I can have it early. That's great because I might need the extra time just to figure out how to connect it to my Denon receiver.
I have been playing Morrowind lately. Not Tribunal, since Tribunal is essentially a very large plugin for Morrowind, and I have only talked to the two NPCs that let me travel between Ebonheart and Mournhold. I do make use of the quest-sorting feature which came with Tribunal, but it's probably misleading to say I'm playing Tribunal when I have only done so much as beat down some assassins associated with the Tribunal quest. I'm getting more play, at this point, from the GIANTS v2.0 plugin since those new creatures are running rampant across the whole island.
I suddenly stopped playing Dungeon Siege and I suspect that Shrouded Isles has something to do with that. Plus my lack of an attention span. I have really put very little time into Shrouded Isles, my firbolg Valewalker is only level 3... so she's not actually a Valewalker yet. She is getting relatively rich off the good drops around the Grove of Domnann, so I need to get on the expansion bandwagon before the loot is adjusted downward.
Not much else game-related to talk about. Not having a weekend last time really put a crimp into the games situation, even though Karen was out of town from Thursday to Sunday. I was invited to a WarCraft III free-for-all but due to work I was unable to play. If I was not on call things would have been different, and I would probably have gone to Walt Disney World with Karen instead of playing games anyway.
I know now, I like Dungeon Siege better. It's because of the tactical depth you automatically get when controlling a group of characters versus a single one. There are some things I don't know if I like, such as the monsters not respawning. Normally I am against respawning monsters but when they represent skill advancement and I find equipment that I'm not quite able to use yet, it makes me worry. A game like System Shock 2 suffers from respawning monsters but a combat-based game like Dungeon Siege could benefit. I'm still getting into it, actually, being deep inside the Glitterdelve Mines. I'm in so deep I don't have the slightest illusion of going back to town to sell, which is OK since the town was burned down anyway. I'm keeping the expensive items on my two mules, Flare and Mabel. In hindsight I really should have bought at least one more mule, but the Transmute spell will have to do.
Well, now I'm considering backtracking to sell. I think I missed a part of the dungeon anyway.
Dungeon Siege is a lot of fun and almost shamefully reminiscent of Diablo in a couple of places, such as the potions. Don't ask me which one I like better; I'm still getting into Dungeon Siege and having only just gotten to the first town I probably don't have a good grasp on things yet. I can say one thing, however: the manual sucks ass.
I am jerking around with TESCS again. I might have a half-ass idea this time, we'll see if I actually make any headway on this mod. I need to rough in the overall layout rather than spending all my time decorating the entry room. I'm still excited by it even if I get tired of CTRL-D'ing (duplicating) mushrooms.
Thanks to the holidays, Dungeon Siege and, of course, my natural laziness, I have not gotten my DSL working yet. That really helps to put buying Shrouded Isles out of my mind. I'm going to have to get it running again soon, though, since my porn collection is getting stale.
In regard to Battlecruiser 3000AD, if you actually have an interest in playing an unofficial simulation of what it's like to be James T. Kirk with a 142-page manual, it appears that you can just download the full version 2.09, which is the version that Derek Smart fixed up after the initial bug-ridden release by Take Two. Looks like he's working on something new, some sort of persistent world, maybe, or probably something similar to battle.net. I am not sure if I am endorsing Derek or his products, but if you like Star Trek or space sims, you might like his stuff. Getting it to work in WinXP might be another matter.
The dillema below has gotten worse in a way. I won two auctions on Ebay: $15 + $4.50 s/h for Dungeon Siege and $2.24 + $2.50 for The Elder Scrolls: Arena. Yeah, that's $4.74 for Arena. Rock on.
I didn't think I was going to get Dungeon Siege and you will notice that I stuck to my rule of never bidding more than $15 for anything on Ebay. I'm in trouble now since I'm spending my money on stuff other than Shrouded Isles. However, I have once again severely broken my DSL connection so I can't play Camelot anyway. Is it good? Is it bad? I don't know, but I really should stay away from Ebay. I was trying to get Neverwinter Nights for $15 or less but I just can't trust myself.
I'm a total idiot, you see. I have no extra money at all, plus I have Vice City, Azurik, TimeSplitters 2, Tekken 4, Morrowind and Tribunal, and plenty of other games gathering dust, yet I'm itchy thinking about buying Mortal Kombat: Dark Alliance or, hell, Dungeon Siege. Arena is different because it's for my collection, not just because it was cheap. Honestly I'll probably never play it. I have a problem. Not the sort of problem where I play games all the time, either. I spent the weekend hanging pictures, digging a trench and moving buckets of gravel instead of playing; I did get plenty of time in with Vice City and Morrowind, though, since I have effectively cut back to five hours of sleep a night. My addiciton is also in acquiring games, much like a Diablo II player acquires items and my wife acquires couches and wallpaper in The Sims.
Speaking of Diablo II, the smell of a patch is in the air, perhaps before Christmas. This will be the long-rumored version 1.10 and supposedly will add quite a few things to the game, particularly improved cheat-detection.
Since I am pretty damn bored, and I am tired of poking at my DSL connection, I'm going to surf to the Battlecruiser 3000AD web site and see if the damn thing can be made to run on WinXP.
Argh. Do I buy the DAoC expansion or Neverwinter Nights? Perhaps the real question should be, where am I going to get the money? Today I looked to see if I could sell my ten vacation days back to The Company for cash, but it seems that they only let you buy days. I was hoping that since I can buy five days for about $1500 that I would be able to sell off five of my ten for a similar amount. No dice.
Little to report except that I played GTAIII:VC this past weekend. I finally managed to hijack that tank from the military convoy. For some reason, this time I was able to lose the soldiers just a block from the main road. Realizing that they were not behind me as I came around to the front, I crouched behind a support column to shield myself from machinegun fire from the soldier on top of the tank before unloading a clip into the engine block of a Hummer next to the tank. The explosion killed the soldier(s) around the tank and I ran up and jumped in the passenger door. Who knew tanks had passenger doors? About that time the soldiers figured out where I was but of course once I was inside the tank, it was too late.
I also found a police helicopter parked on a rooftop. Much later I found I could buy the Hyman Condos building, which has a helicopter on top of it. Karen tried the chopper but she had much more fun ripping down the streets in a Comet (Porsche). She got a few unique jumps and hidden packages before she went to bed, and probably as many trips to the hospital.
I bought the Morrowind expansion, Tribunal, last night, as well as picking up TimeSplitters 2. If only I had the time to play them! I spent some time last night in Morrowind and was surprised at just how many quests I have found and NOT completed, thanks to the new organized journal.
Another thing I did last night was to cancel my EverQuest account. After dragging my feet on this I finally went through with it. It was a sad affair as two friends attended my last ass-whooping ever. After my spectacular death, I camped out for the last time, stopped billing on my account and deinstalled EQ. Or rather, I tried to. There are still some entries in Add/Remove Programs but that could have something to do with the recent brain damage my rig has suffered. Looks like I'll be doing some regediting later if the repair actions do not do the trick. The observant will note that the EQ information I had here is now gone.
Another visit from John Milton has come and gone. He brought TimeSplitters 2 along, and after lots of play time I am thoroughly impressed. Possibly the best shooter on the Xbox. It is not the same type of game as Max Payne, of course, but overall I think it is more fun even though a direct comparison is not possible. Your opinion will surely differ, but if you like the FPS you really should go buy it. Looks great, plays great and is definitely not boring. Usually I get tired of John Milton beating my ass in Halo pretty quickly, but somehow that was alright in TimeSplitters 2. Even though I was usually losing horribly, it was still fun. Especially when I chose the player model whose decaying head would pop off after a few gunshots because it disgusted John somewhat. Hey, anything for an edge. He was playing as one of those damned ducks. There are more models which are possibly more disturbing depending on your particular phobia, such as red people with large hands for heads and cheerful gingerbread men. With flamethrowers.
He brought Metal Gear Solid Substance (I don't know where the colons go anymore with these huge names) and Medal of Honor: Subtitle, but neither was as much fun as TimeSplitters 2. If the newest Metal Gear is the one that they added gameplay to, the one before must have been just one long cutscene. Nice way to stick it to the fans; they must have been talking to the people who made Soul Reaver 2.
Lots of fun with both GTA:VC and Azurik. If only a certain game sequel with a soul-stealing wraith was this fun, it might have done better in retail. I'm really not sure why Azurik has not done better in retail, but then there are many great games that did terrible in sales. One great example is System Shock. One of my favorites, Daggerfall, is also in that category, although the large amount of bugs probably had something to do with it. My wife said she would not play it just based on the box art, something about it giving her nightmares. Not that she plays games.
I think EverQuest has finally ticked me off. It's mainly the direction I see Sony taking the game now that the creators have moved on to other pastures. It feels less like a game and more like a casino in that I know it's just a money-sink. It's not even that good anymore. There are games out there now that are arguably better or worse depending on who you ask, but shortly there will be some games that will be undeniably better. I expect Asheron's Call 2 to be very well done, mainly because it is the first true sequel in this genre. There is also the expansion to Dark Age of Camelot which will update the NetImmerse engine they use to a version closer to the one that Bethesda Softworks used for Morrowind. This does mean that DAoC will have the spectacular reflections seen in Morrowind, besides just looking better overall.
That means once I get my DSL and/or analog connection working, I'm going to cancel my EQ account. It is a sad day for my old, old characters, but they all sucked anyway. No regrets, you know. In time I'll forget about it just like I did Ultima Online. I will probably move on, and probably to AC2. Where does that leave DAoC? Not sure.
I didn't list it above, but I'm still playing Diablo II: LoD on occasion. Single-player, as usual. I'm really not sure why except that it's just fun. Lately the consoles have been winning out due to the two games that actually made it into the headline. I still have not finished Final Fantasy Tactics, and today I find out that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the GBA will have new characters and a different story. It looks like they even changed the game mechanics somewhat. My network problems are getting less painful all the time.
Oh sweet Jesus, Vice City kicks ass. Begone, I have to save Perathia and destroy Vice City.
I have broken my network connections, so no online games. I'm being pretty sporadic with the game-playing lately anyway, except for my late-night RCT2 sessions. I can quit any time, really.
I still have not picked up GTA: Vice City but that will probably happen today. I really shouldn't, you know, since I have no money to speak of, but on the other hand what's another $50 when you are in debt for almost half a million? I say "Carpe Diem" because who knows if I'll live to see tomorrow. Or to see my DSL alive again, but that's a different topic.
I downloaded America's Army before I trashed my network connections. Now I have discovered that it requires an interenet connection to work. Silly Army. I hear it is good, and I'm going to play it simply because it's time I got some sort of return from my Federal tax dollars.
I am hoping that there is a copy of Azurik at EB or Best Buy or wherever I pick up GTA:VC. For some reason I have had an increasing desire to play that game. I suspect it has something to do with my disappointment in Soul Reaver 2 and the more-than-passing resemblance it has to Azurik. Azurik is a lot larger and funnier, though.
For those of you who might come by my house eventually, the entertainment equipment has mostly been installed and both the Xbox and PS2 are connected into the surround system. For the A/V literate, which I am not, I have a Denon receiver of some large type, a Toshiba 34" 16:9 TV and two SI-something amplifiers. All of these components are very, very large, with the TV alone weighing in over 200 pounds. That's about 90.7 kg for you non-Americans. I had to go all Egyptian to get that thing in the house, using ramps and lots of pushing. The hand cart has been invented where I live but I didn't have one handy and I wanted to watch a DVD, dammit.
So why do I have two amps? One powers the surround speakers, which are a 5.1 setup if I understand it correctly, while the other powers the rest of the house. I have a pair of Boston Acoustics in almost every room and a few outside. The surround speakers are Klipsch. The 400-disc CD player is a Sony and the DVD player is a Toshiba. Too bad Toshiba doesn't make a 400-disc CD player, I really like their products. My digital camera I used to take all the pictures of my house construction is a Toshiba PDRM3 or some such.
I have only powered on Max Payne in the Xbox to make sure the thing worked, but from the little bit I played it was very impressive. For the PS2 test I just ran Final Fantasy Tactics, but I'll probably give Gran Turismo 3 a spin soon enough. The PS2 has a 16:9 setting but it looks squashed since I am coming in through the standard RCA jacks. I have the DirecTV box going into one of the ColorStream holes, and I don't think the PS2 will jack into those anyway, but maybe I can get some improvement by picking up some S-video cables for my two main consoles. If I find out the Xbox can do ColorStream... hoo boy. I'll let you know what progress I make.
I have to figure out how to hook the N64 into the system now. It was somehow left behind! Imagine, Mario 64 on a 34" HDTV with 5.1 surround! Woo hoo!
I am not really doing much playing these past few days, I'm too busy with the house. When I was able to play lately I spent most of my time with D2X, better known as Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Why? Not sure, Warcraft III did not captivate me like I thought it would. That might change if I play it on battle.net but I'm sure I'll get my ass handed to me. But it's not like I'll be paying for it, unlike EverQuest.
EQ has gone all wacky lately. The details are meaningless to anyone who does not play, and if you do then you should already be aware of the issues. I'll just say that I recently reactivated my Dark Age of Camelot account. I started a new character in the same realm, a Hibernian Eldritch and I am having more fun than ever, probably because I am now blowing up things with Void Energy rather than healing people and having one of either a small tree, wolf or lynx follow me around.
GTAIII is bothersome for one reason: I have 99 hidden packages and that last one is very elusive. Irritating. Otherwise it is still loads of fun and I showed John Milton some things he did not know about, such as the Rhino tank, flying the Dodo (22 seconds) and some other stuff. I was going to demonstrate my skill at hopping around in the Yardie Lobo lowrider but we were too busy moving furniture and drinking.
I did continue along in Morrowind and have now started another character, a caster/thief or a thief/caster with the Atronach sign. If you know anything about Morrowind you should understand what I mean when I say this should be fun.
A related item, there is a Morrowind expansion pack scheduled for release in November! Yes, November! It will include a new master file and should not interfere with any current plugins. Best of all, it upgrades the Journal so that it tracks your quests and marks them complete, and it affects the quests in the original game. No need to start a new character, either. The map will also take comments. I was not very successful in convincing any of my friends to get the PC version originally, but they started thinking about it when I described the plugins I run (Armor Mannequin, Peaceful Racers, and all the official ones; next session I will add the Real Signposts plugin) and the announcement of an expansion might just push one or both to buying it for the PC. Unfortunately, only one of them has the rig to run it properly.
I have also done some work on my own plugin for Morrowind. This is essentially a rewrite from scratch of my Ancient Citadel idea. I only have the first room put together and I really should make some sketches on paper first so I don't waste a lot of time in TESCS thinking about what I want to do.
My last episode with Morrowind involved a game crash and no recent save. I'll go back once the pain subsides.
But then there is GTAIII. I got the PS2 version, and in fact got the game itself at my wife's request. She really likes it but mostly spends her time punching people in the head and crashing into things. Not a bad pursuit overall. I myself spend most of my time trying to make whatever car I have stolen do crazy shit. Usually that crazy shit quickly becomes "burn and explode" but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Aside from that, it is my job to run missions.
I just started playing the Night Elves this week. I think John Milton was right, they are going to be my race. I do like the orcs and humans, even, but perhaps the undead are more in tune with my style even though I don't particularly enjoy playing them. We'lll see how this elf thing goes before I decide.
Yeah, I'm actually playing Diablo II again. Better than WarCraft III? In some ways, but I have not gotten all the way through WarCraft III's single-player part. DII looks ugly but it sure is fun.
So what happened to Morrowind? I'm really just taking a break, not sure why exactly other than my wandering attention. I'll spare you the story of my character, but it is long and twisting. I have not gotten my intended plugin put together, but I'm sort of waiting until I complete the major quests anyway.
WarCraft III. You'll like it if you liked StarCraft, I think, but the less you played WarCraft II the better. The rush tactic is much less a part of the game although you certainly can do it. I'm still avoiding battle.net because of the severe ass-beating I will surely get. I even play DII single-player, I'm such a pansy. The races are not quite as diverse as in StarCraft but in detail they play differently. The few additional touches are nice, such as night and day cycles and heroes, but I was underwhelmed at the improvements to the RTS genre. There are perhaps a couple new ways to select groups of units, but right now I can only think of the TAB key to select subgroups. I'm sure that a lot of work went into the innovative design, but I'm having a hard time finding the innovation. Good game, though.
Your eyes are working properly, I did list EverQuest up there. I'm having trouble getting time to play, as usual, and when I do my shit-ass Creative modem likes to die on me. Damn Creative. My wonderful US Robotics was zapped by lightning during the first week of July while I was out of town and I decided to spend a mere $60 instead of $100 on a new modem since I suspect some issues with the analog line I am currently using. The $60 Creative ModemBlaster really sucks ass. Should be called the ModemShitter or some sort of more descriptive name. Perhaps call it the DriversNotWrittenProperlyForXPBlaster, but that name should actually go to the SBLive. Damn Creative.
Morrowind is eating me alive. So it actually contains a subset of things you find in Daggerfall, it looks great and is playable right out of the box. I can't turn into a wereboar, but the towns are not so generic. Lots to do, as you would expect if you are familiar with any Elder Scrolls game. I'm not even going to bother telling you about it. Just read a review of the game. It doesn't even matter if the reviewer liked the game, since every time I have seen that it was because the reviewer was just not into the CRPG thing. Perhaps the reviewer thought he was into CRPGs after playing Diablo or Baldur's Gate, but such a person is like someone who has never seen the world in color. Until you play Morrowind (or a game like it, such as Daggerfall) you really have no idea what you are talking about. I'm not saying that this sort of game is for everyone, I'm just saying that for the people who do like this sort of thing you will absolutely love it.
Check the Morrowind section if you want to load up some dorky shots of my characters.
So, as you might have guessed, I will not be purchasing Neverwinter Nights or Warcraft III. If I do, it will be much later and probably only when I and all my friends get tired of Morrowind. I have heard good things about Gothic, and there are people who say it is better than Morrowind... but there are also people who think Quake ]|[ is better than Morrowind. All I can say is that opinions are like assholes, and I don't want to see yours. This web site is the equivalent of my pants, meaning there is only room for one asshole here, and that's me. I'll be telling you if you need to buy Gothic or not, so stay out of my pants.
What? Munch instead of Max? Am I insane? Maybe. Max is a load of fun until he starts hallucinating. First it was when someone poisoned him and left him for the mafia to find, now it's due to someone else shooting him up with too much Valkyr. I wish they had just shot him. How many more "Super Max Payne Brothers" episodes are there? I'm all over the platform action, as evidenced by Munch's Oddysee, but Max Payne is not a platformer. The controls just are not up to it. Sliding on your back in snow while shooting two machine guns, the controls are fabulous. Walking on a thin hallucinatory path of blood and hopping from one to the next, not so good.
About Munch, it is great. I find that I am somewhat sad about the changes to the paramites and scrabs in this one. If you will remember, the only thing a scrab hates more than Abe is another scrab. Apparently the Glukkons have figured out how to domesticate the scrab enough that they don't eviscerate each other and can be kept in herds. For paramites, my complaint is simpler: they used to be able to jump, now they can't. I see why it might have been changed due to the design of the level, but I miss the personalities I expected the native wildlife to have.
Otherwise the game is loads of fun in the tradition of the first two. Karen feels bad for Munch in his wheelchair, even though I told her that Munch moves a lot better in water. She just missed out on that part, instead she got to see a small one-legged fishy-thing in a wheelchair be devoured by a literal horde of paramites. Hehehe.
I own an Xbox. Yes, I feel dirty, but much like porn, it's a good kind of dirty. I really thought I'd have a whole lot to say about it but really I can't think of much. If you are someone who plays video games already, I don't have to tell you about the Xbox. Likewise if you are someone who plays PC games, you either know what I am talking about or you have no interest in a console. If you don't play either PC games or console games, you won't care what an Xbox is. The main thing you non-gamers would need to know is that now I have another console to try to avoid buying a bunch of games for.
Actually I seem to really spend my time playing on the PS2 or the rig. This is due to several factors, such as the fact that the PS2 will play my PSOne games, my other consoles consist of a Nintendo64 and a SNES, and I have not yet been able to get my mitts on an Afterburner so I can actually see to play my GameBoy Advance. I don't think I have turned on my GBA since September. Now that I have an Xbox, what will that do to my gaming habits, and more importantly my marriage? I get in enough trouble without considering my gaming addiction.
Max Payne. Neat. The voice acting isn't up to par, but if you can sit through the dialogue in DragonBall Z, you can follow along. Maybe it would be easier on the ears if I had a better sound setup, but these are hard times.
Besides the Raymond Chandler-esque overacting, it is pretty decent. I am still getting into the controls and trying to think like a movie detective.
I took care of that kid-with-horns-stuck-in-evil-castle problem, otherwise known as Ico. I still can't describe the game any way other than "cool". I'm going to run though it again sooner or later and look for secrets.
Before I do that, though, I am working on my racing skillz in GT3. I have jacked up my Subaru Impreza 22B to a fat 571 horsepower and am able to dominate, as long as I do not have to do a lot of fancy driving. I did some rally with it, even, and after a long and terrible effort I was able to take the car prize in the first little Tahiti rally tournament. I bumped my 22B up to 571 during the rally effort and quickly realized that I had created a monster. I dropped some change on a smaller turbo kit and slipped back into the 400-hp range. That helped cut back on the whole "slaming into walls" problem I developed. Power was not my problem so much as a lack of talent, although I needed a bit more push so I could outdistance the little 206 when I had a chance in the straights. Eventually I came out ahead after five laps in Tahiti and won yet another Mazda to go with my little army of Miatas. This one, at least, is a rally version.
Yep, the rig is dead. I'll find out soon how well the XP recovery system works. I think I just have a hosed registry hive or a corrupt boot sector. Not sure, but the whole partition is inaccessible when I boot from floppy. My data partition is still there, or at least the directories and the few files I checked. I'm probably going to buy myself a new hard disk today to help prevent such downtime in the future, but first I have to fight the stingy genes. I'd like a 7200rpm disk, but do I need it? 12ms seek versus 8ms, is it a big deal? Oh, the agony.
So I have only played Ico lately. I have actually not played anything since last Saturday until Ico last night. I have just been too busy. Ico rocks, though. Sort of. I guess it doesn't actually "rock" but is is certainly "freakin' cool". I have a hard time thinking of a good way to describe it, but it seems that Ico transcends words even when speaking about the game.
OK, back to work for me.
It is making me itchy all over to be updating this site when I could be playing Morrowind. I would go into detail about how great it is, but there are plenty of web sites that have excellent previews of it. No one has an actual review yet, probably because no one has finished the game yet. Not that you can really finish it, merely complete the main storyline.
I think that part is what is confusing a lot of people. I have seen comments about how it lacks immersiveness, although it was spelled "emersiveness". I think that, while this person is entitled to an opinion, perhaps they do not yet understand the nature of Morrowind. It's not linear at all. Baldur's Gate had lots of side quests and stuff, but it still funneled the player through a story and maybe that is what is mistaken for immersiveness. Morrowind does not force much of a story on you, and really what story it forces on you is actually the character generation process and the first tip to the main story. It does not restrict you once you complete the initial char-gen/tutorial, it just plops you out into a small town. You can immediately start on the first part of the main story, or you can run around and murder mud crabs for their meat. The meat is actually an alchemical reagent, and there are plenty more if you feel like harvesting. Lots of interesting people in the first town, too. It doesn't stop there: at a later point, an important NPC will advise you to run around and do a bunch of stuff, whatever you feel like. When have you played a game where a primary NPC said to you "Aw, you can get back to this important stuff later. Go out and loot some bandits, explore some tombs, get into local politics... come back when you feel like it."? I will wager your answer is "never".
Immersive. Yep. You'll figure that out if you decide to harvest mushrooms. Don't steal when someone is looking at you. Don't try to sell stolen goods to an upstanding merchant, especially when he has a guard staffing his store. You'll get fined, or worse if you can't pay. A barter economy means the fine will often be your hard-earned equipment, and they confiscate all stolen goods before that. You can't be friends with everybody, especially when one of you friends asks you to assassinate another of your friends. It's a tough world with tough politics. It won't take you long to start forming a disturbing picture of the local government... unless you happen to be anti-Imperial or just a troublemaker. It gets better, and I'm only on Day Nine.
I won an auction on Ebay for one of the last remaining shrink-wrapped copies of Daggerfall. Bethesda is out of stock, which probably means forever. I can't imagine they think it will compete with Morrowind. I'm thinking of ordering a copy of Redguard just in case they decide to unload their inventory of that game, too. Since Morrowind has been given a release date in May, I have to occupy myself somehow.
Daggerfall will run just fine on XP, however getting it to install is a bit of a chore. If you just run the INSTALL.EXE from XP, it just sits at a black screen. To get around that I formatted a floppy for DOS boot and ran the install program from there, after I had copied the CD to my hard drive of course.
I played without sound for a little bit because I was working from home most of last week and I had the single analog line here tied up with my laptop, doing lots and lots of tedious work on an ornery machine. Once I was able to put some time into it, I downloaded VDMSound and was able to hear not only the MIDI music but the digital sounds as well. It's a great program, but it only works on NT/2K/XP and not for all games. Darklands, for example, will run in XP, but when sound is configured it complains about not seeing any EMS. I might be able to figure this one out if I can dust off all that old MS-DOS knowledge I used to have, but I don't think the sound in Darklands is worth all that trouble.
Another good thing about Daggerfall, it does not suffer from the same problem as many old games which we force to run on today's CPUs: it actually runs at a normal speed, or close to it. I set the reflex option down all the way, which might have something to do with it, but it's a small XP penalty for doing that.
Amazing as it is that I got Daggerfall, which was released in 1997, to run in WinXP on an Athlon 1700+XP, my wife does not quite understand. She mentioned that the game was rather ugly. Well, yeah, it even looks worse than Might and Magic VIII, which is a pretty bad game overall. Daggerfall has a beautiful soul, however, and I can get past the crude graphics and sound for something that deep. She understands that part, and she does know why I'm waiting for Morrowind, but I'm not sure if she gets as tingly as I do when I think about being turned into a vampire.
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is fun, and I am still a little surprised. I got my Sorceress to level 31 last night (or "clvl 31" as they say in Diablo II circles). She specialized in cold, mostly ignoring lightning aside from the needed skills to get Mana Shield and Static Field, and the all-important fire skill: Warmth. Turns out cold is pretty useful in the new Act V since it helps cut down on the amount of enemies that get up after you wack them. My hired buddy doesn't quite understand that he needs to wait for me to freeze them before attacking so that they shatter, but hey if he wants to keep fighting the same minions over and over I won't stop him.
Diablo II is fun again, mainly because so far I have not dusted off the old character editor. I found out, before the expansion, that if you give yourself all the best gear you will completely eliminate any sort of fun in the game. Unlike Might and Magic VIII, in which hex-editing the characters is at least as much fun as playing the game. Still, I am seriously thinking of stopping by the mini-storage and digging for Daggerfall. The thing stopping me is the almost-certain feeling that it will not run on WinXP... and the hundreds of pounds of STUFF laying on top of my bin. Yes, I have a W98 box but it, too, is in mini-storage, and if I am going to be digging everything I own out and bringing it to the Madhouse (remember the remodeling?), then what am I paying all that money for? A better question: why did I not label anything?
There is a silver lining to this whole dark cloud: my rig is on the other side of the in-laws' house from the bedrooms, so I can actually listen to decent sound now. Too bad I already finished both Thief games. I'm going to have to load something nice just to exploit this development, because in the old house (called The Mushroom due to its mind-altering effects) my wife could hear my games seemingly no matter how low I turned the sound and it would at least keep her awake, if not creep her out (Dungeon Keeper 2, Resident Evil, etc.). Maybe I'll install System Shock 2, but those stupid respawning monsters make me mad whenever I think of them. Still, that game KICKED ASS.
I don't know if Daggerfall will run on XP, but I am thinking of giving it a whirl. I managed to get Darklands to run, just without sound, so Daggerfall might work. The only game that has decided to not run is EverQuest, and with the recent price hike I'm afraid it's goodbye to Kogolev and Friends. It seems like I'm just not cut out for playing persistent-world games. I'm also wary of playing Diablo II on battle.net just because I'm so damn tired of l33t d00dz. I'm hoping that Morrowind will give me the good stuff from games like EverQuest while not including the bad stuff, meaning the people. Specifically, people with too much free time on their hands. I barely have time to play Disciples these days, and if you can't play a turn-based game then you know you are in bad shape. I think it will improve after the house is built, if only a little.
As I started to say in the Currently Playing paragraph, Baldur's Gate is really hard. I somehow managed to kill an ogre and take his magical belts, but I didn't realize I had to turn one of them in for XP up at the Friendly Arm, so now I'm probably going to try to hoof it from Nashkel to turn it in. Bad news is that some wizard is waiting for me in Nashkel and even the Amnish guard can't touch this guy. And Minsc is starting to get annoyed that we are not moving toward the gnoll stronghold now that I have cleared the mines, which I might not care about as much if I had another warrior to help poor Khalid. Baldur's Gate is a great game, sure, but I keep getting my ass handed to me, and everywhere I turn some mercenary evoker or gang of archers is after my head. Who do you have to know to get to level 2? I don't want to restart a multiplayer game, but if things don't lighten up I might just have to export my main guy and import him (if I can) into a multi so I can make my own group of six right off. Or I can just do some cheating.
I finished Thief II, or at least I think I did. I'm not sure that I got the ending. It helped a lot that I was paying attention as I played, otherwise I might be terribly confused. I started playing Fallout: Tactics, but for some reason I have stopped playing both that and Final Fantasy Tactics. I'm flighty, what can I say?
The free time has not been conducive to playing Camelot, and so far I have not taken the time to get EverQuest to run on my upgraded system. I stll manage to pester my EQ guild in the message boards. I have had to restrict myself to playing games that do not require more than a couple hours of comittment or a solid internet connection. I'm about to move, so the pursuit for a good ISP will have to wait until my new house is built. With luck I'll be able to get "real" DSL, at least ADSL if not SDSL, however since I'll be living in what is currently a hay field it is really hard to say.
Like I noted above, I have been playing EQ much more than I normally would thanks entirely to the Feir'Dal guild. It is, of course, severely cutting into my Camelot time; I hope that statement conveys the magnitude of coolness that is the Feir'Dal. I have also been spending some time with Clan Adept, particularly last Sunday when I almost-ran a little get-together in Paludal Caverns. I am planning on going again, and hopefully next time I can get some of my own guild to join me.
To save you guys some time, I have a bit of translation from the Final Fantasy XI web site. OK, so it's not to save you time, it's to make you laugh at the wonders of Japanese-English translation. Let's see if I can get this done without a reference to "all your base".
Final Fantasy VIII is finished, and I suppose the story was good. A bit too feminine for me, but Karen liked it. The Ragnarok was a damn fine airship, I'll commit to that. Next on my list should be Final Fantasy Tactics, unless I decide to start up Vagrant Story again. I'll have to let you know later. Most likely I will move to the PC again, finishing Deus Ex then starting Thief II. Thief makes me drool.
I made some progress in Camelot recently and now that I have a last name I am starting to look around for some of that good loot. So far the best thing I have found is a wolf claw, and the best thing about that is I can sell it for over 100 copper.
I am hoping to get some time in EQ soon, partly because someone in my guild is interested in doing The Warrens and partly because I may be able to obtain the new expansion. I'm going to get it one way or another, even if I have to covertly buy it, just because of the new lessening of travel restrictions. If I have read the release info correctly, one can buy a ticket to The Nexus and from there reach any wizard spire. Da-rool, da-rool. No more schlepping myself around on the old Ten-Toe Express.
Deus Ex has me fascinated. I'll not tell you what is fascinating, that way you will have to play it yourself.
We were going to shoot for finishing Final Fantasy VIII last weekend, but then we figured out that we will need to get everyone to a decent level before the final dungeon. This is all the more irritating because I will have to split my GFs among the six remaining people and then go about retuning everything. I also get to go hunting for adamantine again and I am not looking forward to that a whole lot. A nice side-effect, however, is that Selfie was at level 20-something while three other members were at level 100, so junctioning a strength and vitality bonus on her has given her inhuman power and resistance. She'll be level 100 pretty soon. Too bad Karen hates Selfie... but then who doesn't?
I'm still irritated at how short Soul Reaver 2 was. It looks even shorter with me playing FFVIII and Deus Ex. I managed to snag a copy of Thief II while I was out, which might bother Karen since I was threatened with bodily injury if I had gone out to buy a game without buying Christmas presents. Since I know that no one reads this, I'll admit that I did buy some presents while I was out, and Thief II only cost me $15. I'm not a monster, you know.
I have recovered the page, but I'll leave my transgression here for all to see.
There is not Camelot news, except that I managed to squeeze in a bit of play time and made level eight. No new spells at this level aside from the Naturalist dex buff.
Managed to drop the previous page into /dev/null so I'm starting fresh. The lesson is: don't write code when bleary-eyed.
I bought Soul Reaver 2 on 11-14-01 and I finished it on 11-17-01. Kinda short, I'd say. Spectacular game and very engaging, perhaps too engaging since it took over my life until I finished it. Probably the worst thing is that I still don't have any idea what the hell is going on in the story. I will probably buy SR3 (you know there will be one) but I am starting to get the feeling that I am being Lucased (meaning I'm on a non-stop sequel train). Maybe not, because the story is very well done and enjoyable, I just wish I had some sort of revelation that was not just another horde of questions! I think I'm even going to have to track down Blood Omen 1, as well as play SR1 again just to help figure out some of this and help my wife understand what is going on. We both thought that there would be two more elemental forges. Maybe if the engine stays the same Crystal Dynamics can come up with more meat in SR3.
I passed up AvP2 to get Soul Reaver 2, by the way, and I hear it's on the short side as well. It seems that I am either playing a novelette or falling behind in a MUD (see the DAoC section). Deus Ex is the happy exception to that rule.
I hear that Final Fantasy Tactics will have a sequel. I don't think mere words can express the newfound feeling of excitement in me.
Not a whole lot going on that I really care to comment on, so here are the bottom-of-the-barrel thoughts. John Milton, whom few of you know but should if only to serve as a bad example, longtime trusted friend and fellow philosopher, left me a frothing message demanding that I run out and buy Grand Theft Auto 3 as soon as I received his message. I don't know if you can recommend a game more than that, since I mentioned Soul Reaver 2 before he did.
I have heard rumors of Deux Ex 2 and, most excitingly, Thief 3, although I am sure that the hardcore among you already knew that.
Dark Age of Camelot has finally conquered Penny Arcade. Check the archives, but I believe it happened 11-09-01. And after the smack talk on Wednesday! For shame! At least I can buy my armor from a celebrity now.
I have been "published". Go check out the Top Ten Reasons... article from Nov 11 at Camelot Vault. Number five came from me. Next week, the Pulitzer.
