Raithe

I think SR2 has a more.. cohesive storyline in general. SR3 was a bit more patchy in that regards. But SR3 was a lot more balls out crazy in general in regards to all the things you could get up to.

Had a major headache flare-up yesterday, to the extend I actually "borrowed" some of my mother's pain killers. Dihydrocodeine can certainly take the edge off but that's the man-made opiodes for you, still I've then pretty much slept through till nearly noon today. Now it's pull myself together and figure out what needs to be done for the rest of the day. Hm, and see if I can make work-out tonight...

Heh, even Saints Row games give you more news reports on things you've done in game then Watch Dogs.. Or maybe you just need a really crappy reputation with the citizenry of Chicago. Anyone played that route yet?

Okay, with Watch Dogs.. I think things I would wish them to pay heed for the sequel (since its pretty much assured of going into franchise)... 1: Better inventory control method. Being in the middle of a gunfight and having to hit tab to open up inventory, mouse "wiggle" to highlight an option, then either mousewheel or arrow keys to scroll through that option - all while you're getting shot at... That gets a wee bit awkward. 2: More news reports about your activities. Or at least the results of your activities. Some gauge of what's happening in the world. There were hardly any snippets about what you did. Mission where raging third world war happens in a gang block the police don't go into and gang leadership decapitated? One brief mention and that lasted about 10 seconds. Until the last couple of missions there wasn't even any mention of the popularity of such of the vigilante, even though the "vigilante" was news from the very first mission. Note: The "big" side missions of such where you have a whole bunch of collectibles to gather and then a final mission to wrap up - like the serial killer, don't get mentioned. The sex slave trade only gets a short clip in the end credits, and no mention in game despite having been linked to a main storyline mission and explosions, gunfights, and hordes of cops descending on the docks. So yes, something more to make the world feel more alive and reactive to your actions. 3: Economy. Seriously, once you've picked up a few weapons, there's nothing to really spend that much money on. Even if you stop hacking random citizenry and stealing their money you end up with a ridiculous amount of cash that just sits there. There should be something to do with it. 4: Offline mode : If you've got it switched to offline mode you should stop getting the damn pop ups inviting you to accept online contracts. 5: Audio logs : Most of the collectibles and such involved background on characters and things happening in the form of various audio clips / diaries. Which is all fine and dandy for providing background fluff.... But when it reveals big kickers about things, but then your character acts completely oblivious to what you've discovered (in fact, not even recognising names and terms) it feels decidedly odd. There needs to be some form of reactivity, or at least not provide access to those sorts of logs until after events in the game where they get discussed. It's just, disconnecting to have a road map of what is really going on laid out to you, but not having it mean anything in game.

Yeah, I am be-puzzled. I'm afraid that one went right over my head in my state of disconcertment..

Were you in a railroad yard when the news story broke? No, there was no breaking news story. One minute I've been all quite and unknown and just "the vigilante" with no name, then I do the mission that has you meeting T-Bone.. and the cut-scene has my face plastered across the news. Next thing there's radio news reports about the manhunt for Aidan Pearce, but absolutely no mention of how they figured it out. Weirdness. Just a little disconnect I guess. Edit: Okay then.. and a few missions later, there's a big reveal of who you are. That's.. a little bit odd. Things seem a little out of kilter there.

Huh. Not sure if I missed something or not, but in Watch Dogs I've managed to keep a high vigilante rating, there have been no news stories about me, you go through a chunk of Act 1 and 2 making sure no-one knows its you.. and then suddenly a few missions into Act 3 and my face is on the in-story cutscene news, and there's radio news about the vigilante Aiden Pearce.... Hmmm....

Heh, I switched off the online play after getting annoyed with the amount of times it would do the "invitation to x form of online activity" then spend 3-4 minutes chundering on "looking for players" then telling me there were none. Instead I let my bout of ocd hit with the collectibles and such.. I will say the gunfights are pretty damn punishing. It really doesn't take much for Aiden to get killed, no magic cinematic mass bullet soak and the AI is pretty good. They communicate, they flank, they will take cover and try to work around you.

Huh. Went to play some Watch Dogs today, and found that for some reason whenever I get in a car, I suddenly suffer massive amounts of stuttering that makes it impossible to drive anywhere. Considering it was all good yesterday, I'm wondering what the hell has happened to cause that.

Playing some Watch Dogs, but probably not giving it the due focus it deserves since my stomach bug has me racing for the toilet repeatedly... Chicago is pretty nice, I would agree it comes across better then Liberty City. The dynamic weather and day/night routine is nicely done. The graphics are good, but nothing that really jumps out in an "omgz amazing" way. I've kind of done the puttering around on side stuff rather then throw into the main story missions, and there's a whole heap of random stuff to poke at and do. Some people will complain that there really aren't any radio stations to go through, and I tend to think the car handling is a bit..off. Something just seems a bit clunky about the handling. The hacking is quite entertaining as you improve your skills with it and pick up the way it works. I'm not sure what to make of the multiplayer aspect. It keeps throwing up invitations to the different multiplayer game types, but if you click accept, it whirs into a "searching for x" and spends 3-5 minutes doing so before telling me it can't find anyone. Of course, while it is searching for that, the majority of the single-player game stuff hides on the map so you can't spend the time poking at stuff.

It's always fun when a day you had planned out to be intentionally lazy and non-worked focused.. get's interrupted by a stomach bug.

As I recall, if you're dark side from early on when you hit Nar Shaddaa, you end up with Hanharr as a companion instead of Mira. So if you want to turn Mira into a dark side force user, you need to be fairly benign during that initial stage.

Of course, according to news reports the pirate version has been loaded with bitminer software and a bunch of other malware and zombie-network making paraphernalia. Does that count as some form of irony?

Mulan : Legendary Warrior. The Chinese Epic live action version (not the Disney)... Some glorious visuals, and soul-tugging music. A few good battle sequences as they go through the 12 odd years of war that saw Hua Mulan become a General. A lot closer to the original tale (and no talking dragon), however it's also wrapped up in the rather standard Chinese Epic Tragic Love story which seems to wander back and forth and at times dominates over the war story. Even the 'villains' have understandable reasons and good personality presence.

Does the Restored Content Mod come with the Resolution patcher as part of it? I can't remember off-hand. You might want to dig that up separately to make sure.

I'll be sliding into Watch Dogs as time allows manana... Or possibly even tonight depending on if they give access at midnight in Europe..

One of the reasons that the UKIP got so many votes this time around is that for pretty much the last decade plus the UK public have been clamouring for a referendum on the subject of the EU. It comes across that very few of the public actually want to be part of the EU, especially after the sheer morass of bureaucracy and wasteful spending that it's become. But for various reasons Labour, Tory, and LibDem keep talking around it, agree to sign treaties and play the politics as normal while ignoring that amount of unrest it's building up. Sure, there's the idea of helping out your neighbour, that's all to the fine. The trouble being that you don't hand your neighbour your building materials when your own roof has fallen in and the rain is pouring into your house. You fix your own place first, and then you can help out others. It's the little things like that, dragging tax money out of country to pay off other's debts, being told that "no you can't deport that extremist hatemonger, because even though he's breaking your laws, Brussels says it's against his human rights to put him back in his own country...." Trying to sort out expense fiddles with your own government, and then having the various reports on just how much corruption, nepotism, and general "expense abuse" there is with the EU bureaucrats and various quangos that seem to have piled up. After a decade or two of that, it's not that surprising that fed up people will vote even for the annoying prats if they're the ones who actually seem to be talking about the subject people want changed.

Destroyed the world a few times now in Plague, Inc. Evolved. Worked my way from bacteria, to viruses, to fungi, to the neurax worm, and parasites.... Interesting concept, helps make you a bit more aware of how transmission occurs and plagues spread.. But I'm not sure it's sufficiently evolved from a phone app game to really be considered more then a 'casual game' and more of a strategy one.

I realised I had an odd yen to play something more in the FPS line then I had in awhile..and Call of Juarez Gunslinger was only about £3 from Amazon so I've been cheerfully shooting cowboys...

Watch the whole 3 seaons, then hit the film.. Definitely worthwhile. Also watch out for the odd cameos of the likes of Joss Whedon and a few others who likes the show so much they got themselves put in it...

Stephen King's IT ... as a family film. http://youtu.be/wdf2tqSy2zc

That's one of the reasons email or a letter can work best to..cover certain grounds. When you're in face to face, or live conversation it can be easy to flow with the emotions and snap something out that you didn't mean to say, or in a tone that gets it misinterpreted when emotions are running high. But, here's hoping things sort out for you Hurl.