LadyCrimson

No, I mean the scenes/pics I've seen of the chr. "floating" in space while doing stuff. I guess that's just no-gravity sections of a ship/room/area or something? Anyway that aspect looked kinda fun, but I guess it's mostly ground-bound like average.

Hm. I've never played Resident Evil's either because I'm not that into zombies. Did play System Shock 2. Dead Space looked more interesting because of the ... outer space stuff. But if that's a very minor part of the gameplay (or even non-existent) and it's just more "zombie" shooting....hm.

So, both Dead Spaces are on super sale on Steam. Shooters aren't my main thing, but these look somewhat interesting. Anyone played them? Good as many write about?

Diablo1 w/a Sorc can still give me that tense, sweaty palm ARPG feeling early on. Creeping along, trying not to trigger many enemies at once or use potions since you have no cash. Something both Diabo2 and the D3 beta failed to do. Well, D2 did have that one slug boss that originally was like that, but that's it. Risen was a game I meant to get back to at some point but never did....might get Risen2 just because it's...pirates. Something other than typical fantasy trappings. I remember they make pretty tough games...just slightly too much so for me maybe. But I think I'll try anyway.

This last episode ended at 9:53pm instead of about 9:58pm and I felt ripped off. Hahaha. It was a decent episode...like a things are starting to move after all the setup, feeling. Re: the pervy/sexy stuff - it's HBO. The more they can do scenes like that, the more it justifies that they aren't a "network" with limitations. They love any excuse to put as much in as possible. But yea, that scene was pushing the edge a bit even for me in terms of dwelling on it too long (reading it in text is a different thing than seeing it on screen, imo). We get it...Joffrey's a sadistic, sick, pervy, spoiled boy-King.

Since so many ppl who pre-ordered from GoG were annoyed with the bundle/no full soundtrack (me not included), they've apparently given ppl free copies of Machinarium and Witcher Enhanced/Dir. Cut. Which if you already have, isn't a big deal I guess....but if you're like me and have neither, that's pretty awesome. I didn't even pre-order, just technically bought before their deadline time I guess. Anyway....wasn't their fault, imo, so it's above and beyond. I can now check out Machinarium.

Wait, are you saying you can still play it? I thought it was ended? Just curious.

I'm going to install and play some Diablo1. Sure it's not as skill-choice oriented as Diablo2 and had terrible walking mechanics, but I feel like killing the Butcher and the *real* Skeleton King. Plus, the game installs in, like, 2 seconds! Heh.

I'm sure the oven thing would work too. I just don't like heated coconut, and it isn't necessary. Raw pieces straight out of the shell is the only way I actually like coconut. Don't like it in dishes/confections etc. More than one way to crack that giant nut: http://www.wikihow.com/Open-a-Coconut

What? Cook a whole coconut? Raw coconut "meat" is the way to go. Just break it open with a hammer and start eating. It's what I've always done.

Pizza!! That's all.

@Tigranes - it'll have harder difficulties, like all the Diablo's. Nightmare/Hell after Normal...but you have to slog through Normal first. Whether they'll feel harder when you get there with high lvls/skills and high gear...who knows. It's easier to just not join into any MP games. Not that huge on MP anyway. Open beta's almost over and I'm already bored enough that I don't feel like finishing with the Demon Hunter or Witch so ... that's it for me.

Not to mention, know where they're from to begin with. With the anonymous nature of most of the internet, that doesn't happen (at least initially) all that often anymore....except in a few places/circumstances.

I think originally (way back when) the friends type listings showed your real name by default, which is what I strenuously objected to. If it requires some kind of easy-to-monitor approval (on my end, not dependent on the other person) before that occurs, now - email address, permission checkbox, whatever - that might be tolerable. But it sounds like, generally speaking, if I ever buy this game, I won't be having a Friends list.

Yeah....I read the stuff about the battletag, which sounded like the tag would be used to ID you to other players and thought that was fine. Then when I saw my real name in the Profile I was highly annoyed - there should be no reason to see/list my real name in-game only for my "benefit" (I know who I am already) if no one's going to be able to see it anyway, right? So...I haven't entered a MP game because of it. I've asked this question in a few places and no one has answered yet. Maybe no one knows for sure or they all think I'm stupid for asking and won't respond.

And many of those still have lowish speed internet and/or fairly severe bandwidth limits. I see ppl in forums constantly saying things like "everyone has 'net/highspeed/unlimited bandwidth nowadays" and laugh. I don't know if more will change the world that much tho, outside of better/faster access to the news/events and perhaps more physical sloth - assuming an area's internet isn't censored. Mostly seems like it'll change bandwidth/true speed capability (vs. advertised speeds ) for a while as companies fall more and more behind on keeping infrastructure up with demand. That's about it. And yeah, the 'net hasn't been a majority domain of science/computer geeks for ages now.

Question before I ramble on: In my Profile I see my "battletag" and my real name (hate that...). I assume others can only see my battletag and not my real name? I see no setting that assures me this is so, like "don't let ppl see name" and I don't know how/what the realID stuff does these days. Rambling: Tried the Monk. Even more powerful/easier than the Wizard. Enough that I killed Skelie King a few times for LOL's. I thought she was a lot more fun to play in that powering-gaming w/out having to actually power-game kick-butt way. Plus her skills were noisy and visually entertaining, unlike Wizzie. For those that don't like that, I'm sure Blizz will quickly over-nerf the Monk to the point of useless. This is Blizzard, after all, and they like to change their game constantly and over-reactively with patches. I do miss mobs like the zillion Fallen in Act1 of D2, for entertainment. I guess some of the Events sort of do that but meh. And yes I'm sure in MP it's a bit tougher so it'll be more challenge/fun enemy wise, but Blizzard has always been terrible with balancing classes and difficulty. Started a Demon-Hunter. She's a bit tougher but still kinda dull, like the Wizzie. I usually like ranged classes vs. melee but opposite this time. Love the treasure hunter enemy imp things. Hilarious. The new hirelings seem more useful. Also, with Wizzie, I entered a few side areas (cellars and a cavern) and they were tiny, one or several room affairs. With the Monk, I entered a side area and it was pretty big. Emptyish, but big. I don't know if I missed it with the Wizzie or if it's part of their random generation placement, but the total difference was weird. ....one big GUI complaint I have is the constant giant event popup messages. I don't mean tutorials, I turned those off. They show up in the middle of the screen blocking view and are huge icons. Plus they can stack on top of each other making it even worse. In the screenie, the "massacre" msg is blocked behind the other ones. It's too much.

*thinks a moment* *ROFL's some more* I keep hearing how awesome the game looks graphically, and some of the dungeon stuff that's brightly lit/brick does look very nice considering the low stress it puts on the system, but yeah...those landscapes, imo, are lacking. I kept thinking it was like a muddy watercolor painting or that my contact lenses were cloudy. The MP part is a good thing to note, as well. I personally loved the single-player of D1 and D2 but it definitely becomes a different game during MP. I don't like that it limits you to 4 players (instead of 8 ) now, tho. That feels like potential for less fun. Even tho random MP was always iffy, it was still often nutty fun to just jump into a game and run around with 7 strangers causing chaos. Maybe less is better for playing with only friends tho. (vs. PUG's). The DS3 comparisons are valid too, imo. That game popped into my head a few times while playing this beta.

Finished Botanicula. The ending came very abruptly, to me...felt sudden. Like, "oh, is that it?" Thought there would be one or two more little parts or something. Anyway....I still prefer the first third to first half of the game. It's a fine short romp however (6-8 hours 'blind'). And every time your little characters jump up and down and shout in glee or cowered in fright, I grinned from ear to ear. That never got old. Only got 104 of 123 creatures cards...still got two extras gifts however.

Played the Wizard, will play the Monk later (seems most interesting). Here's my reaction to playing the short beta in a nutshell: "Ok, but underwhelming." Longer: Negative: --dungeons/areas feel small and not complicated. Didn't even need the map. I was kinda bored/slogging thru to "see" it, mostly. Maybe that improves in later acts. --the auto-skills system does mean you can focus more on the "fight fun" but..yeah just don't like it. I wouldn't have minded some "simplifying" changes but don't like how they've done it. --Normal difficulty (playing solo at least) is a joke even compared to D2 (which wasn't hard either, to be fair). --Items = zzzz. --don't like the forced primary/secondary skill mouse button thing... --still not seeing any reason to replay the game more than once per chr. class. Less, if not interested in all chr. classes. Then it becomes "wait for DLC" or "wait for ladder reset" or whatever. --Can't play offline when servers are busy. Positive: --Combat is overall fine/fun...same ol' Diablo feel. Clicky clicky...nothing wrong with that. --still love all the nods to the previous games. Black mushroom etc. --technically sound for me --no lag/desync for me either...but I was playing at 2am PST and alone. --potential big stash! --bigger inventory and most gear seems same size. I like that. If you're going to make a game simpler, make inventory fiddling less of an issue. Fine with me. --character stat info is a lot better, GUI overall is fine. --rune effects (what I could use) worked fine at increasing effectiveness/coolness factor I guess. So I did more than watch some let's play videos....I still won't be buying. Playing this beta only makes me want to play some Diablo1. heh.

Warm and summery, which I like. High ambient room temperature making the PC temps go up...don't like. It regularly gets 80F-85F by noon in here, most days. Time to put the A/C in the window. Might need a new unit this summer... Played some Diablo3 beta (meh). Did some yard work between bouts of sitting in the shade drinking cold water. Thinking about dinner. Mellowness.

Oh, all right...since it's a stress beta for free and I still have a bnet account from when I played WoW (not touched for 2 years, heh). At least I can judge those early levels for myself. ...it's doing the Updating setup files routine now. And yeah, I heard a lot of ppl were having problems getting on for a while. It's a stress test for a wildly anticipated title. Tho it does make you wonder if release size/number of servers will be up to the task. I remember when D2 was released...couldn't get on half the time for ages felt like.

Think I'm getting close to done with Botanicula. The first 1/3 was wonderful...art-wise, humor, cutenees. sound effects and music. then you hit this "town" (in a manner of speaking) area and it starts to feel a bit too random/tedious. Still some great stuff/humor in there, but I spent a couple hours being stuck on a couple of the huts/rooms, running around clicking everything, looking for some part that would let me collect what I needed. Then the area after that, similar thing. Now I'm stuck at the halfway point in some almost all-black levels. Time for a break. The puzzles aren't terribly puzzly, with most being more of an item hunt with random clicking around to figure out how to activate things. Some of it's just random click until you find the right order for something. They're puzzles of a type, but not exactly mind-bending/thinking man sort, if you know what I mean. Controls are simple (mouse clicks) but occasionally trying to control movement of an object w/the cursor movement feels wonky/lagged/buggy. Slighty better if you're in windowed mode. Those quibbles aside, still a fun and artistic game....and for $10 I have no complaints. So far I'd give the first third of the game 9/10 and the latter two thirds maybe 6.5-7/10.

I have got to get off my butt and go buy a different SB audio card...this one has that funky thing where it doesn't record internal sound in most program use (no 'what u hear'). Fraps works fine (it's own recorder/format?) but nothing else does. Annoying when I can't use Fraps, haha. Spent the afternoon playing games and enjoying the sunny day. It's almost hot in my office/gaming room! Roast beef for dinner then...uh...more video gaming! Most don't notice when I change either, but that's because I usually try to get ones that look very similar to my old ones. heh

Eh, I was impatient, bought GoG's version. Loving the game so far. All the cute sound effects, humorous little bits and pieces, artwork, everything. Except now I'm stuck trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do in one spot (creature who spits out various bubbles+black bat-like thingie). Adorable game.