LadyCrimson

After 8-9 hours ... 55% done! ... I have a lot of errands to do this morning, so probably for the best anyhow. Also...I've seen some videos of this years Black Friday madness. That stuff is just crazy...mob mentality. I'll never understand wanting something (materialistic) so badly that I'd put up with the risk of being trampled, pepper-sprayed, fist-fights over toys, camping out in line for days, etc.

Most of the FXAA injector vids/screens I've seen have been pretty terrible too...mostly just over-saturating the color palette, kids going crazy with the setting I guess. Looks awful imo. But Bokshi's shots aren't bad...some more color, selectively, isn't unwelcome, imo...there's no grey sky inside a fire/lamp-lit cabin, for instance. You can create a general bleakish mood without having to make all colors/lighting everywhere muted to death.

Apparently, formatting (not the quick format...) a 2TB USB external hard drive takes a really, really, long time. I was hoping it'd be done by now so I could reformat/reinstall Win7 then do a quick system image backup of the clean install on it, but at this rate it'll be tomorrow morning. Stupid USB drive I bought was in FAT32 so I have to reformat to NTFS...

...nope, still not even close to photo-realistic. Sorry. But some of those look a lot better than the vanilla game, that I've seen at least.

Woke up. Started PC. Browsed a couple forums for about 5 minutes, the (new) HDD made weird noises, Firefox froze again, then system froze. At this point I'm pretty sure it's not the HDD/hardware itself, something else has gone wacko that's causing programs (possibly FF) to wig out and then corrupt system data. Even hubby was like "weird, don't think it's the HDD now." Running a complete long-arse virus scan now;doubt that's it but may as well check. May have to reformat after all. Overdue anyway I suppose. Pretty strange stuff. Gremlins...

Death Spank was cute. Played about an hour. Not sure it's cute enough for me to play very long, but it's definitely amusing. Played Skyrim for a couple more hours. Still just running around looking/finding places & locations....which half the time seems to trigger quests even without talking to anyone. The walruses were funny. There's definitely something about ES games that make me not care about doing quests. At all. Every time I try to do one, talking to ppl and doing what they say, I get bored and ignore it.

Hm. Good idea, especially for it's current half off price. I liked the sound of the "open worldness" of the gameplay, even if the setting isn't something I typically go for. That and the insurance fraud humor and beating people up with that long purple .... weapon.

I played a bit of the last Anno and while it was decent, it's not quite as city-building/sim as I like. Or...something. I'm not sure, just wasn't the same. There was this one indie Farming sim that almost tempted me....it just looked cool, heh.

I like this. I've been noticing more games there that are "only" 4-5 years old, stuff like that. And the Witcher2, very recent. Just nice to have an option other than Steam for some stuff, when possible.

Anyone playing Saints Row3? I can't decide if it's a game I'd like or not. Some of the stuff you can do in it (from videos) makes it look like my kind of quirky humor, but other than that...I'm having a hard time figuring out what the exact gameplay is supposed to be... Is the demo any good? I could try that I guess. Just seems like most demos I've ever tried suck....

I can't wait for specific sales because I don't check Steam every day...or even every week. heh. I was definitely annoyed at 2W2's sale price from when I bought it a few weeks ago or whatever it was. ...I was looking for a city building type strategy sim but most of the ones I saw look like garbage. That genre seems pretty dead right now.

Is that the 2nd Batman one? Liking it so far? I noticed the 1st was on cheap Steam sale and thought about buying it but...I already have too many games.

The game is far from photo-realistic. I've seen so many talking about how awesome the leaves in particular are, but they drive me absolutely insane when I see them, heh. (the birchbark tree trunks look pretty good from a distance tho). As are all games, outside of some non-gameplay cutscenes. The tech may be there to do it, but probably too much work+expense+they have to keep games with low hardware in mind.

They still haven't actually confirmed that its related to Aliens in any way... I know the wiki isn't the best source for everything, but reading the page on this film, it sure sounds like they have. It's not actually a direct prequel...more like a "pre"- re-visioning/reboot of the alien world/universe, perhaps.

Hey, I said I'd give it a chance.

@Spider - agree with Cant...try leveling up non-combat/augmentation skills/magic for level ups. It is frustrating to feel "forced" to level up things you're not interested in/not using, in order to level up the character, tho.

I realized recently that Skyrim has made me miss FNV's companions quite a bit. Not quite enough to replay FNV (tho I keep thinking about it) but yeah...something about Skyrim (and the companions in it that I've seen) turns me into a lone wolf. Obsidian makes awesome companions that for me end up being half the fun of the game.

Why does the future always have people wearing outfits that look like skin tight wetsuits? The poor actors, can't have even an ounce of extra body fat to wear those things. ...I see no need for an Aliens prequel. That said, since Ridley Scott is making it, I may give it a chance.

I really have to get a smoker one of these days. For me, not my cats. Happy Gobbler Day, luvs ya all.

Anyone play Lara Croft & the Guardian of Light on PC? If so, can you use the pc-xbox controller with it? Thought hubby might like it for the long weekend but he likes using the controller.

I take a bit of umbrage on this statement. A few highly publicized incidents doesn't = "your cops are pretty ---- up." Not that I think our police system doesn't need work. More accurate would be "those specific cops at that scene did a ---- up thing." On the issue, I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, from the video only, I would condemn the way it was used (those really long, spraying bursts on people who were sitting peaceably). That definitely doesn't seem right at all, in this specific instance. And the cop in question looks like a tool to begin with (he has some minor history of other stuff supposedly) On the other hand, I've also seen (highly publicized) videos where cops tell protestors they have to move, the protestors refuse, the cops try to manhandle them off the grounds, the protestors struggle mightily against it/resist (vs peaceably walking away with the cops), which starts to look cruel as the cops struggle with them, and then things start to physically get out of hand from there & suddenly you have a mini-riot going on. Or (highly publicized) videos of cops using rubber bullets (or whatever they are) on the more unruly crowds which goes awry because someone gets hurt from it (they may be rubber/soft material, but they can still hurt). Point being, I always end up with mixed feelings about "what is a police force supposed to do, then?" about breaking up protests/crowds, if the crowd is either getting rowdy, or if the cops are under orders to do so, maybe because they're illegally blocking road/other access or whatever? It doesn't seem to matter the method...if there's injury, foul is cried. What are they supposed to do? Ask nicely and if the crowd doesn't obey, say "ok, we weren't really serious anyway" and go home? If that article is correct, however, that mace is actually less risky because of less breathing issues etc risk, then they should use it for crowd control. Or the water hoses. I dunno. It's a rock and a hard place thing sometimes.

Yeah, that's what I need to look into. ATT says they have it in the area now, and they'd come and install the stuff in your house, but I'm not sure/convinced yet if what they'd be connecting to outside of the house is actually fiber optic, if you know what I mean.

How big is your room? Isn't that some floor space to the left of your desk? I mean, it's not like you actually need anything but a tiny walking path from desk to door.

I hate the price, but I still love having cable TV there when I want it, even if I don't watch a lot of TV. Hubs is actually the one who watches lots of TV, heh. Netflix/Hulu is mostly for watching now & then on my computer, not the big screen TV (I've gotten used to it, but hubs still doesn't like Netflix/internet quality either). I would like something other than Comcast tho, with their crappy HD selection. AT&T fiber optic maybe. I keep forgetting to check into that.

No. New Vegas was alright because they received all the assets and engine of Failout 3 from Bethesda, so they could focus on their strengths rather than creating everything from scratch. If Obsidian had to make Skyrim from scratch, it would be completely doomed. Beth should let Obsidian work in collaboration with Beth's tech people on all their games. Beth has always been (imo) terrible at quests/dialogue. They serve their purpose, but not much more. Beth just rocks at creating open-world/sandbox.