Tale

Tomb Raider Legend. Not really able to hold my interest, so I drop out of it every now and then to try something else that might.

If I ever end up in it, it'd better be as Wild Mage or so help me!

They ran out of third party prizes. If you go for any gift pile achievements, you can only get valve coupons and games now.

I don't believe in "years." That's just a construct of the man to hold us down. Be safe if you're going out.

Puzzle Agent Great game. Sort of an American Professor Layton. A bit of a cliffhanger, though. Maybe Puzzle Agent 2 will resolve it.

I like 4E Forgotten Realms. What I don't particularly like is that it is necessarily Forgotten Realms. The new Neverwinter, Thay, and Athkatla, the introduction of Abeir, are all great places. But I don't think they needed to be Neverwinter, Thay, and Athkatla. It seems almost gratuitous to change the setting into a new setting with old names instead of just creating a new setting. And the Spellplague was just crap. It could be nice as a setting itself. It ends up feeling tacked on at times. Like the setting has just become too busy. This city is now filled with refugees, this one has become destroyed, this one taken over by undead, and the political climate of these have shifted dramatically, oh and there was a near apocalypse recently, y'know, for flavor.

Played a couple hours of War in the North. Adequate for me. But my standards are often considered low. I can't recommend it unless you're a big LOTR fan, maybe not even then. Opinion could easily change once more abilities get unlocked.

Not a good day for kitty. I had a reason to suspect a urinary tract infection. So, take him to the vet yesterday. They can't get enough pee to test, so they hold him overnight to test this morning. Tests come back before I even get off work and he has crystals. So he needs a special diet and medicine. No big deal. On the way back from the vet, he decides to crawl under the carseat to hide. And gets stuck. Freaks out, cuts his paw. The bleeding has stopped, he's still walking on the foot and jumping, so I'll check on him again in the morning. I don't think the cut is bad, but still... poor kitty.

They ended up selling me on Guardian of Light yesterday, Binding of Isaac and War in the North today. Yeah, I'll never get around to playing all I've got.

Tangent from that link That... makes so much sense.

Those onlookers could have been staged, or filmed from another scene. If they're going to stage the onlookers, they could stage the choir. Meaning the words can easily be what they claim.

Got my Farscape Complete Series Blu-Ray set today! Farscape is my favorite series of all time, so I'm very excited. Somewhat tempered by knowing it won't really take advantage of HD or Blu-Ray. I knew a while back that the series wouldn't be able to make a good HD conversion, so I never thought it would get a Blu-Ray release. Many shots are completely digital and made strictly for SD. Until I saw season 1 at Wal-Mart. I promptly did the smart thing, checked Amazon on my phone to see when a series set was coming out, found out it was already released, checked reviews to make sure it wasn't just the DVD set on new discs, ordered it that moment. Several hours later I finally lifted my jaw off the ground. Reviews indicate that they mostly just upconverted PAL. Which makes it a little better than my NTSC dvds. Some are complaining of issues in motion sequences. But if it's better than my DVDs by a smidge (heck, I have a faulty disc on season 1), or lasts longer, it'll be worth it.

The reactions of the onlookers imply otherwise.

In my limited experience, design comes from, well, experience. There's a few courses out there that will teach game design, as well. But you might need to be careful with those. One guy I know took ITT Tech's game design coursework and, while he got work in game development and even design, he regrets not getting one from a better school. I'm not sure what's offered in the OP's area that might be good. We have SMU and its Guildhall program near here. And I know that several companies look for students out of Digipen. Coding is a good place to get your degree in. Just be sure to try to get experience in as well. Working on hobbyist projects, mods, indie titles. And even DM'ing P&P games.

Beat Gears of War 3 yesterday. My opinion is unchanged. Played Solar 2 today. Wow. Becoming a Black Hole was the hard part. If you keep collecting stars, you'll never do it apparently, since the mass distribution won't give any to your neutron stars. Seems counter-intuitive. But I guess they did it that way so people don't go Black Hole if they don't want to. Edit: Oh, I also purchased and played the indie game No Time To Explain. Hilarious, fun, with absolutely no save feature, runs only in windowed (and maximized) so the cursor will end up out of bounds from time to time, and a gamestopping glitch about halfway through.

Well, there's Crossworlds and Armored Princess. The Heroes of Might & Magic games are relatively similar. Which is not surprising since both franchises spawned from the same company a looooong time ago. They're practically cousins. HoMM tend to have more strategy. With resources, troop production, and an enemy that roams the field same as you do.

What's your feelings on Metroid, then?

The good thing about the Steam Gift Pile promo is that it's getting me to try all these games I've had sitting around. I've had And Yet It Moves for a couple months, and it's a pretty good game. Never touched it. Jaymestown is a more recent purchase, but dang is that fun. Never touched it, either. Edit: Also rented Gears of War 3. It's Gears of War. Doesn't seem all that different than the last two so far.

Christmas shopping! I have a philosophy. Holidays are supposed to be relaxing. Don't stress the gifts. So, Disaronno for everyone except those who shouldn't or don't drink. Best Buy giftcards for them.

Remember that every time someone tries to claim older games didn't have bugs.

http://steamcommunity.com/stats/CivV/achievements ? 3.6% have Bollywood

I wouldn't mind making a turn based 4th ed. game... I knew there was something about you I liked.

Gorth ended up selling me on Grotesque Tactics. heh

Obscuring nebula and asteroid belts are pure fiction. Nebula density is still less than that of a vacuum produced on earth. Asteroid belts are incredible sparse, with large distances on the order of thousands and millions of miles between rocks. Planetary rings can be dense. Too dense to navigate around stuff, which means you're dealing with the structural weakness of the impacts against glass. But not so dense that visibility is really limited. A ship could hide in a planet's atmosphere. But at that point it no longer needs to hide its emissions. It stops being a stealth ship and it becomes a ship hidden by aplanet. In short, if there's anything to see in space, it's either a planet or colliding.

Am I sad? Or angry? Emotional turmoil!