LadyCrimson

Closed for length. Feel free to make a new thread to continue to discuss all things Russia.

Previous incarnation. ...The days have been quite nice here the past week. But today I'm stuck in the house since hubby's van is running funny and he took my car. So...a little winter yardwork this afternoon. Then probably some gaming.

Post limit. "Just when you got on a roll...here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again..."

I'm pretty sure I tossed a little money towards it during their KS, but not enough to get into the alpha/beta tiers. I can wait.

"Cold Comes the Night" - the Bryan Cranston movie I mentioned earlier. It was ok, but nothing special. Not particularly thrilling or intelligent enough to turn it into something more than a by the numbers crime tale. Cranston and Alice Eve do credibly well with what they're given and the film is short enough to not wear out its welcome, but slow and doesn't engage you that much. I'd give it a 5.5 or 6 at most. Bryan Cranston's accent still makes me giggle tho.

Discovered the fave Chinese restaurant that I grew up with and continued to return to occasionally, off an on, all my adulthood as well, finally closed. Knew that would happen sooner or later (been there close to 30 years). Owners sold it/retired. A new Chinese eatery is in its place, but not sure I care to try it, especially since we haven't lived close to the location in some time. It makes me sad, tho. Time passing and all that. My fave local pizza place has been there forever, too, which means they could close shop anytime now too. Thus I ordered a pizza. Edit: two really late nights in a row. I think I'll be going to bed super early tonight.

Yes, he ends up as the main character and I'm sure the idea was he was the main/important character, since his visual ability is what helps them survive. But I, at least, felt at least a few of the other characters were just as important at making Pitch Black stand out from the average low-budget horror thriller. Ensemble cast sometimes has more meaning than "just a bunch of people for a star to bounce off of action/plotwise." I mean, in most Stallone vehicle films, it's all about Stallone, even if he's surrounded by other actors or even absent for a chunk of the film. That's what Chronicles/Riddick makes me think of, while Pitch Black doesn't. And yes, Pitch Black isn't a masterpiece or anything like that. It was just a surprise, I think. One went in expecting a marginally watchiable cheapie b-grade flick and while it was that, it was also a lot better than most.

Here's the thing about Pitch Black ... Vin Diesel wasn't the main character. Ok ok, he ends up as such I suppose, but what I mean is the ensemble cast, most of them were important in some way. The young girl. The pilot woman. The bounty hunter. etc. Riddick wasn't completely interesting of himself (outside of his eyes), it was the dynamic/struggle between him and the others and their different skills and personalities/ethics to survive (or not). Do we trust each other, can we trust each other. Film used that formula pretty well. Chronicles and Riddick on the other hand, are all about ... Riddick. How marvelous he is. How super-human he is. Which isn't inherently bad for an action pic, mind you, but in this case, for me that's largely meant .... zzzzz.

What exactly is the definition of "blant"? I tried Googling it, but all I got were crappy urban dictionary entries that seemed to have nothing to do with the subject at hand, as well as one entry that basically equated to "bland".

Sliced steak on fresh sourdough bread topped with lettuce and bacon. It was tender and delicious and cat approved.

I vote sword. Swords don't need bullets to be useful. Plus you can look bad ass wielding it. Either that or slice off a toe. Either way. I keep dreaming of owning some far east blade collection, mostly just to admire (since I'm of the "slice off a toe" sort) but sadly I probably won't ever get around to it. Plus, I'm not rich either. ---- Stayed up way too late last night with a friend, so had a late start today. Chores, dinner, now what. Hm.

Hm.....and now I'm reading up on this MMO. As always, highlight for me is "can be done alone." I assume I can buy it outside of Steam, since I don't like using Steam for MMO's. ....I like that it's not medieval fantasy. Not that I don't like such, but something different is always nice. The UI comments kinda scare me tho. I can get used to quirky UI's sometimes, but if it's really unintuitive I find it tends to put me off too much, even if I might like the game otherwise.

I have a ... thing! A headcrab that bounces like a spring. ... it's cuter when it's moving. :/

I remember the fishing in Torchlight2 being more productive, over the long haul. I'm guessing they nerfed some of the fishing percentages...which is too bad, I liked the fishing for when I didn't feel like monster bashing. I'm also remembering why I probably stopped playing TL2 - it's great fun in short doses but it's too monotonous gameplay/area wise, even for a loot-fest game, and becomes rather uninspiring before long. Can't quite put my finger on it, but yeah. Still, it is fun to revisit once in a while.

Being tired just makes me slothful. Being bored and mentally inactive is what will make me munch all day long.

Hopefully not to much. They said April 2014 on Kickstarter during the campaign for the basic version before we blew past that funding level. Kickstarter, I believe, requires you to put up a projected completion date in order to even put up the KS for people to fund. Thus I think a lot of them are huge guesses, since they often don't know exactly what they're going to end up with, project size wise, for various reasons. So from what I've seen, not making the original guesstimate date is pretty common, unless the game/thing was practically finished before they even did the KS. But yeah...I'm hoping it won't be much past Xmas 2014 or something. Mostly because I'm selfish and impatient.

So based on your last post, I took a look at that Elven Battle enchant and decided to experiment with it. Thankfully, its graphic is limited to glowy arm shield looking thingies, which is better than weird shifting glows that totally negate any armor dye job you spent time creating. >.> Anyway, I bought a Lesser, thinking I'd level it up. Which I did, but then I realized I needed another Lesser to upgrade it, vs. only variations of marks. Didn't check, but I'm assuming now I'd need a 2nd "regular" version to upgrade it to Greater (or maybe 2 Lessers...). Then yet more to get it to Perfect. Not that I need a Greater/Perfect, personally - I was just experimenting. But that was when I realized it's also that's way for the regular enchants too, once you get past r8. I guess r8 is as high as I'm going, then. There's no way I'm leveling up multiples to high levels just so I can create a single r10. Ha.

Despite my slight grievance about too much focus on one particular thing (even if there was an eventual point), I wasn't disappointed with Sherlock. I think for a 3rd season they did fairly well at trying to branch out even further from the typical Holmes. eg, I saw it as trying to grow into their own. Some aspects of that worked, some didn't. I still like the 1st season the best. The 2nd season was good, but I was not overly fond of the Hounds episode myself. Not that it was terrible. It just wasn't great. I'm also not fond of the giggle-insanity version of Moriarty (he's more Riddler...), but it worked well enough when it counted and that actor was funny/good at being such, so I can go with it. I really like the dynamic between Sherlock and Holmes - the two actors play off each other beautifully - and it's likely I'd keep watching even if they can't keep up the pace mystery-wise, over time. Kinda like why I kept watching House, MD (House/Wilson).

I think I'm one of the few who isn't that enamored of Minsc. Don't get me wrong, I liked the Boo bit and he was funny, but it got old fast. I was more the Xan type - no idea why, but I found his moroseness hilarious. But I totally know what you mean. A companion can be a lot more memorable if they have a personality quirk or two, that one either finds giggles amusing or at least highly relatable in some fashion. They don't have to be over the top, but I certainly enjoy chrs. who feel like they stand out.

Sometimes the Oscar show is fun to watch, but the Oscar's themselves are just the artists patting each other on the back or giving Oscars as a sort of lifetime achievement nod. Which is fine, but I don't put any stock in it. Has anyone tried watching Cold Comes the Night? I saw it on VoD last night and noticed Bryan Cranston was in it (Alice Eve too, for those that care). Which made it tempting, but when I viewed the preview, the Russian (?) accent he was using had me laughing so hard my shaking hands couldn't press the "buy" button. I might still give it a go later...

Yeah...when I say 20-25 hours I do mean the main campaign + side quests, perhaps. But not including the mega-dungeon. Unless each level of the dungeon only has a couple of encounters, I expect that to add some hours to my total. If it's higher than I'm expecting, say 30-40 hrs, awesome. I'm so far content with two major city hubs. The only thing that would seriously disappoint me is if the entire game felt linear travel-quest-wise - and by that I mean more like some arpg's, ala Dungeon Siege 1's single-player campaign. Follow the yellow brick road forward and nothing but. That's fine in a loot/action game but would be not desirable in this style of game. But I don't expect Obsidian to disappoint me in that regard.

I wasn't ever expecting mega-epic in breadth or length to begin with, although I was/am hoping for a game that would take me (a slow-poke) 20-25 hours first-playthru at least. So I suppose for many others that might mean only 12-18. My hopes rest more upon that quality/the world and various options are such that I want to replay the game more than once, as opposed to many games these days where I play it and go "that was some fun" and then never fire it up again. It's pretty rare I rack up countless hours on a video game because the official campaign is really that long...it's more that I rack up hours via replays and endless tinkering of...whatever it is that interests me. Btw, I didn't find BG1 to be all that long, either ... main campaign wise. I think I spent most of the time on non-quest things + trying to get every map to have as little "black" left on it as possible.

I've done ones that are almost all black. I usually find such easier because you have no graphics to interfere with perceiving the interconnecting shape-outline, which is what I mostly go by. But if there's only one or two shapes used, or close enough to seem like it, as it appears is the case of that one, that could give me trouble.

It's a real product. And sadly, I want to try it now. (some guy reviewed it, too - he opens the can at about the half way point)

They have computer game jigsaw puzzles. Sadly, most of them don't offer more than maybe 400-500 piece options, which for me makes them too quick/not fun. There's a few that go up to 1000. I'm more the 1500-2000 piece sort. That usually keeps me busy for a few days... Think I'm still better off buying a physical one. Which is too bad, because they take up a lot of room and give one a sore neck.