Tale

Drake's Fortune felt very weak for me, too. Chloe and the new guy were only bit characters. Elaine's arc felt like old territory. I hope they don't do a 4, and move onto something new, but if they do, hopefully they can stop trying to reintroduce Elaine and their relationship. They're married, let's move on. And when will they learn about pseudo supernatural fights near the end. They don't know how to do them well, they should stop trying. I swear, the monsters get less fun to fight every single game.

Spent 4 hours working on my test chamber. And found a neat revision for a mechanic, followed by a new related mechanic. Promptly tried using them both together and received a cacophony of laser noise. And that's why you should never get attached to anything you design. Because those two should not be on the same map, let alone the same puzzle. Heck, the old mechanic wasn't that good anyway. I think I'll scrap half the chamber and forget it ever existed.

Portal 2 still. Spent the past 4 hours creating two mechanics. Integrated them into a minor test chamber and published it as friends only. Add me as a friend if you want to see it and please please leave feedback if you do. Going to try out some other people's chambers, then come back fresh tomorrow to try to put those two mechanics into a more complex puzzle.

Portal 2. Trying out numerous custom puzzles. I always try to give constructive criticism. Might make one, myself.

It's terribly repetitive. It's probably the worst game I bought for 2010. It's an action game that's not quite sure if it wants to be horror, not sure if it's wants to be episodic, and was unable to commit. So you end up with 1 enemy type, cameras that dramatically announce every encounter, and you lose your equipment loadout after every mission. Sometimes in the middle of a mission. The narrative wasn't worth remembering either.

Scratched Another World from my backlog. Now trying to figure out if I want to play Precursors, Space Rangers 2, or Freedom Force.

Just came back from Avengers myself. I felt it needed to be longer. There's no real character development. Only character with it seemed to be Hulk, and his is more hinted than shown. It was still good. But they just seemed to work as a team without the conflict all the advertising implies.

Greenman always struck me as too high profile for a key store. But I don't have enough information to contest that. It also popped up at Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.co.../dp/B006JSY3MI/

Dag nabbit. I specifically told those drug cartels "el tiene ningun dinero." My spanish is rusty, but that should translate to "he has 9 million dollars!"

Not unless it was Season 5. I haven't seen that one.

Yeah, she is stable. I went by and saw her and she seemed fine, if tired. The vascular doctor seemed confident she wouldn't need the cauterization, so I'm being hopeful. Which is good, I was panicing more when my sister informed me of it. She had to go a good 5 minutes before mentioning that mom was okay.

I feel like I know enough to piece together what's going to happen. But I always feel like that and I'm always wrong.

Started the operation on my mother today. It started bleeding and would not stop. This needs to be immediately followed up with that she's "in no danger" at the moment. But they had to stop the operation and will check to see if the bleeding stopped tomorrow. They've got some balloon plugging the bleed. If it hasn't stopped by tomorrow, they'll cauterize it. The situation is apparently something that doesn't happen often. The doctor knows it's a possibility, but has never seen it in his practice before. So, it's all pretty terrifying.

Yeah, but pawns follow you around. They don't try to enter the shop while you leave town, then complain when they find out it won't load two different areas and let you keep your characters and quest progress separately from the host. Saw that pop up with Neverwinter Nights 2, Fable 2, and Dungeon Siege 3.

I was playing Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep In doing so I came to a decision. I need to be more discriminating. It's not that it's a bad game. It is a good game. It's just not a great game. I have a rather significant backlog of books and games and there's little point in spending too much time with those that are simply passable. Further, I'm in the mood to improve my understanding of the ways that good stories can be told. All this game is doing for me is reminding me of the flaws of long cutscenes, pointless sideplots, and unclear impetus. The lesson about how those are bad is one I think I've already learned. The effect of this decision seems to be that I've shelved most of my current queue and gone back to reading. I hear delightful things about Nier and Dragon Quest V, so I may pick those up shortly.

She still has the stone. They're not removing it until Monday. They were putting the stint in first. They're going to break it and remove it to my knowledge.

They let my mother out today. Orogun, I asked, and both my mother and sister agree, the kidney stone is more painful.

Mother is in the hospital. Has a kidney stone that's too big. Today they were to put a stint in and actually take care of it on Monday. In the process they moved the stone, so she's in lots of pain. Putting her on medication that will knock her out and they're keeping her over night.

New thread up. This one's past 500.

End of old thread. I did everyone's favorite activity, nothing. Which I'm feeling guilty over because I need a replacement for my current job. Should have been looking at new ones and sending out resumes.

Finished Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Had to force myself to do it. Didn't care for it, so won't be grabbing 2 or 3 unless they go on sale. Starting Charles Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden.

On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness Episode 3 is back in the works. This time from Zeboyd Games. http://zeboyd.com/ http://penny-arcade..../episode/game-3 Apparently they showed it at PAX. So this isn't exactly breaking news, but it's the first I've heard of it.

Finished Ghost Trick. Wonderful game.Shu Takumi and his team are alright in my book. I enjoyed it every bit as much as I did playing the Ace Attorney games from the same team. Or 999 from Chunsoft. Time to browse my GOG list for adventures that might come close.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Pacing is a bit uneven so far, but the puzzles are fun. Story has my attention.

Who was it that was wanting to do a setting described as Lord of the Rings if Sauron won? Was that Sawyer?