LadyCrimson

I guess PaintShopPro either sucks at compressing or I suck at knowing what to do with the program. The sliding scale it uses, a compression value of more than 35 looks like crappola to my eyes unless it's a really stellar photograph....Most 'busy' screenshots at 1920 end up being 380-450kb or more at 30-35 compression. Meh, like it really matters. I'll leave the super-pretty to others. I don't have a screenshot right now...they're on the other computer. Maybe in a few days, if any of them are interesting.

Only wanted to say that my initial reservations about Overlord2 have been vanquished. Once I got the red hive the game picked up enough for me become immersed as of old. Puzzle/strategy definitely went up a notch or three - not that it's complicated, but it does take observation and an occasional pause for consideration. Just got to Everlight...I like the change of scenery. The snow was becoming too much white. Also...I miss the Arena.

I know how to resize and compress pics, but I can never seem to dramatically compress kb's without losing a lot of quality. Shrinking dpi sometimes helps (everything I do is at least 300dpi to start with) but If I get it right, it's mostly by accident or just cause the pic itself isn't demanding in terms of info it possesses (like mostly black...). Anyway...hope this wasn't already posted. Not of gameplay (in-game cut scene), but I thought it looked cool.

Ok, got past it. Didn't understand the plant pod...from the 1st possession bit, thought you had to kill the dryads first. Heh. I like being able to see your minions individually in the minion home...and definitely like being able to resurrect your fave/most buff minions. In the 1st game I had this one minion w/a gold helmet & sceptor that I kept alive the whole time, reloading if he died. Now I don't have to reload. Awesome.

Weird, the wheat came back this time. But it's still not working. They just hibernate and come back over and over and over...

I had placed the reds in a group up top and made the plant babes chase me until the reds started firing. The wheat burned, but they just hibernate & come alive again. The wheat didn't come back upon reload save game but the creatures did move back to original positions upon reload so maybe it'll work this time... Things like kill the gnomes are 'achievements'...I don't think they do anything but give you score points & maybe titles, so at the end of the game you can pat yourself on the back for having done them all. Kind of like WoW did, maybe.

Re: Overlord 2 Played a little while, only up to where I find the red minions, but haven't grabbed the red hive yet. I'm kinda stuck, I can't seem to kill the 3 plant babes blocking the big elf statue. The reds burn them over and over, but they never actually die so the roots still block the path to statue. Is there a trick to it or am I bugged? So far, OL2 has the same minion humor aspect I like, but 2 mild annoyances: there's a lot more loading screens and the minions seem less intelligent...like when I direct them to pillage boxes/kill they do so but most of the time don't auto-bring back the lifeforce or treasure w/out me sending them out over the area again. That said...I do like it...hopefully it'll grow on me as I go along and as I get used to the 'new stuff'. As I recall, the 1st one took quite some time to truly engage me, as well...like once you have 3 of the 4 minion types. Getting the 2nd minion type still feels like I'm in a too-restrictive tutorial, to me.

Hubby came home, I told him I'd bought Overlord 2. He said "Where's my pc gamepad?" ...I have a feeling he's going to be hogging the better pc/big TV tonight, so I might not get to play until later. Hehe...but I don't mind. I can watch him get 'lost' and giggle when he curses the game.

BTW, I don't know how some of you get 1920w pics to be only 180-200kb w/out looking like complete fuzzy crud. One day I'll learn.

Pre-Order...I refuse until it's mandatory. Heheh... Gamestop is the only place around here that I could find that was stocking it. Best Buy and others were all "backordered" only. Got it today...and my manual seems fine. I installed it on both PC's and took a look at the starter spot & beat up snowmen (pic), went "ooooh pretty."...but now it's time for baseball. The first game wasn't that long...I'd expect this to be similar, ie I suppose it's a weekend game for me.

Eh? I thought the ms time had to do with graphic lag/smearing of fast paced movement (games, maybe movies). What does that have to do with human reaction time?

Can't say I'll miss his persona...but the nostalgic memories of growing up with Thriller (as well as his earlier stuff) makes me miss that talent. I think I'll listen to Thriller right now, in fact. heh

Drat. I spaced out and didn't get to Gamestop before they were sold out. Next couple days, I hope. I also saw Majesty2 should be out soon too...two games in one month I actually want to buy. Amazing.

TFT is supposed to be better for colors. This LG supposedly has 2ms, no ghosting so far, and no noticeable dead pixels either. However, it does not come with any kind of manual which is a bit annoying and there sure isn't much info on it online, which makes me nervous. I have 14 days to return it w/no 'stocking fee'. :D So far my biggest beef really has to do with the text. I can see colors between the pixels of letters (dot matrix like), drives me nuts. Contrast is fine. A little on the green or blue side but ok and better than too much red. I can now see that yes, a lot of my recent screenies or photos I was adjusting too bright...altho that's sometimes because I often have the brightness down very low and forget... The stand won't tilt tho and I can't figure out why..It SAYS on a tiny piece of paper that it should, and I saw it do so in store. So I'm befuddled. I'm afraid to push too hard for breaking. *mutter*

2 brief things: somewhere I read how you can tell if a panel is TFT or not by some measurement...but I can't remember how. Anyone know? Supposedly this one I bought is, but I don't always believe what they say. This thing seemed awfully cheap ($229 on sale), but what do I know anymore. Two...never mind, I figured this one out...

@Aristes - It's a vegie garden, not a flower garden. I bought a cheap (supposedly TFT...) LG Flatron monitor at Best Buy to see if I could stand it. I like the size (23") and the resolution (1920x1080) but that's all I've tried so far. Now to fiddle with the settings/color/brightness. Default is way too bright but the color is at least ok/moderately acceptable. It might work for a while. But so far, I still like the old CRT monitor for clarity (image and text) better. The ones we have just weren't working anymore for fine color adjustments of photos tho.

@213374U - your avatar makes me nauseous if I look at it for very long. Today (and yesterday, and maybe tomorrow) I'm in a good mood, but also rather manic. Which means I'm either really charming/fun or really childishly annoying, depending on one's perspective. Our garden is coming along nicely, my camera is getting a lot of use lately, we can still pay all the bills, and I am younger than Brad Pitt. Life is good.

I didn't say he stunk...just he's over-rated. imo he plays essentially the same role in the same way almost every time. He doesn't, for me, add anything to the movie by being the actor chosen. He's vanilla. And no, it's not just luck...I consider him to be a very smart business man as far as his career is concerned...I'd say the same for Arnold Governator. In terms of movies that I think are terrible or at least not very good: Vanilla Sky ****tail Legend War of the Worlds (nice eye candy but that's it) Far and Away Top Gun Days of Thunder Mediocre to kinda decent: Eyes Wide Shut Risky Business Jerry Maguire (zzzzzz) Mission Impossible's (1st one was the best one) Few Good Men Color of Money (Newman was good, movie not so much) Born on 4th of July (to me a case of over-acting) Decent to Good: Minority Report Rainman The Firm The Last Samurai Collateral I know it's all relative/opinion...and that's just mine.

I consider Cruise to be extremely over-rated as far as acting goes. He's passable, but usually he's surrounded by actual stellar actors/chr. actors who are far better than he is that somehow manage to hide his flaws. When he makes a movie where that isn't the case, more often than not, it sucks. The one role where I actually did like him as a chr. was where he played the assassin guy.

Oh ok...the aiee smilie was confusing me w/it's frantic/freaked out face. heh And yeah, I guess the 23rd date was for the pre-order (in the US) shipping date or something...I think store date is actually tomorrow...assuming a store's shipment is on time, of course. :/

Fantasy book I'd recommend: Tad Williams, The Dragonbone Chair. Only problem is it takes about 150-200 pages before it gets going and I was tempted to put it down, but once reaches a pivotal point, I really loved it. The second in the series was also pretty good, but when the last book was so huge it required being split into two separate 800 page 'books' I wasn't able to finish. But the first one is great! heheh. I don't read much post-apocalyptic fiction, so can't help there. I read Robots of Dawn & Robots and Empire first, which were written much later and allowed more pages to tell the story...and I fell in love with Daniel & Giskard's robot chrs. The first two were a lot more limited in size...the later two were better. The first three robot novels are also, at heart, largely mystery novels in a sci-fi setting - whodunits more in line w/Holmes, say. The last one distantly tied in with his Foundation series, as well. But yeah, Asimov is a very dry-style writer...and he's terrible w/even any hint of the notion of romantic relationship, or female chrs. in general. Yet somehow I connect w/his robot stories (not much else of his, tho). If you read the whole series, you'll discover his settings are often (imo) about human prejudice/lack of self-control/suffering for greater good cultures - hence the lack of freedom you perhaps noted. Over the robot novel series, you'll see his chrs. start a movement against both the 'City' and 'Spacer' way of living. I'm not sure I agree about the lack of futuristic insight. You have to remember Caves of Steel was written in the 50's. The notion that they'd one day have chips the size of a fingernail tip was too much for most people of the times to imagine actually being possible. Almost all sci-fi/fantasy is like that to a degree - Star Trek and Star Wars (original one) among them.

Valkyrie - Gets a B-, despite Cruise being in the movie (and being a bit slow). Some good chr. roles for some other good actors. Starship Troopers - Each time I watch this movie, the more I like it and appreciate the over the top propaganda satire, which always slays me. Edit: oh yeah, also saw 'Defiance' w/Daniel Craig & Liev Schreiber. WWII refugees-in-hiding drama. Liev is outstanding, Craig good. Thumbs up/A-.

"Kill, kill, kill!"

Is that a bad thing? To be honest, I barely noticed it was there, or if there was a way to remove it. The demo has very limited options available tho so even if there is, it might not be in the demo. And minions chasing baby seals made me laugh, because I'm evil, or something.

Yup...it's just the demo tho, which is only long enough to make me want MORE. Going to the store tomorrow to see if I can snap it up. Demo has it being much like the first one...with new touches. Humor's the same, which I love. Still can't stand the glowy bloom effect(1st pic), I turn it off. And for some reason it's one of those games that looks 100% better while playing. Esp. on the big tv. Oh well.