Raithe

Watched Halo 4 Forward Unto Dawn. An interesting take, live-action of cadets and centered around Lansky (the character of turns up as an officer in Halo 4) and his trials as he tries to figure out if he's meant to be a soldier. Set at a military academy and then one of the first Covenant invasion points when know one really knew they were out there. Throw in the obligatory appearance of the Master Chief towards the latter section to help rescue the surviving cadets and allow Lansky to figure things out about what he's doing with his life. Didn't look too bad, but I would say it really doesn't stand well on it's own. Although I did go through half of it thinking "where have I seen that girl before?" about one of the cadets, until I realised she was one of the four kids in the Narnia films. But yes, if you haven't played some of the games or somehow have a grasp on the world and characters at its basis, there just isn't enough depth to it to successfully carry it by itself.

Had a series of very vivid and slightly odd dreams through last night that I kept waking up from in the wee early hours. Although surprisingly after those multiple wakeups I'm not feeling that tired this morning... Just slightly disconnected in general.

Just pushed my Sith Juggernaut to 50th and wrapped up the class story on TOR. I have to say, I do think the Sith Warrior and the Sith Inquisitor storylines are the most well-written and consistent through the prologue and three chapters of all the classes I've played so far. Which means I'll have to get around to pushing the Jedi Consular along, and then seeing about the Imperial Agent and Republic Trooper so I can fully judge them all....

Just wrapped up my Professional playthrough of Hitman Absolution. Hm, they definitely ended that on a "and we'll be starting off the next game via this plot route..." I have to admit, I'm tempted to go back and try some of those levels on Normal difficulty just to see what effect that has. But I think I'll take a break from it just for the mo.

Hm, ever since I put in Gods and Kinds I can't play Civ 5 longer then half an hour without it freezing up and having to be crashed out.

The timed dialogue was a major point. It was setup to instil that tension and remind the player that in those situations, you don't get half an hour to consider your options. I thought it added nicely to the whole ambience of the game. Besides, it never actually takes that long to make a decision on conversation choice. Especially if you've got a feel for the characters you're talking to and what sort of Michael you were playing. The timing never gave me grief.

Or that point where a single god is worshipped under different names by different cultures.. and each one has slightly variant beliefs and touches the aspects of the god in different manners. Causing the single god to actually split into almost "multiple personalities" depending on who is around....

I have to admit, I'd like to see a god of Secrets / Mystery that isn't automatically also linked to Lies, Theives, Murder, Assassins, etc. More of a neutral toned god that no-one else truly understands where he/she is coming from. Even the other gods... Great for that pawn-moving and catspaw making with no one getting the grand plan and manipulation... Without an automatic "that guy is an evil git / good guy"

Caught up on odds and ends. Made that dentist checkup for myself and my mother. Looked at my sister's laptop to update a bunch of drivers and figure out why her dvd player has stopped playing dvds but still handles cd's normally. Gave the dogs some run around. Poked at some christmas gifts for family, pondered on when to start getting the decorations down and what needs to be sorted for that.. Spent about half an hour on TOR helping someone out, and contemplated returning to Hitman at some point in the near future to restart a level after a few days break.... Having a quiet cup of tea right this moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFsx9dKLGlI

Thats tough Nep indeed. Heh, my iniitial university dissertation I'd planned out and done all sorts of research and prepared for it the year before I had to start it.. and I went to speak to my university advisor..and they said "that would be really interesting. no. Do something else.". Admittedly, they gave some good reasons for it over the difficulty in gaining data on certain things but still.. having to totally start from scratch on a totally seperate concept was a bit of a bitch. And then I had to drop out to look after my mother about 6 months later anyhow. Still, on the upside, she got discharged from hospital late this afternoon/evening.

Picked up the Gods and Kings expansion for Civ 5 on the steam sales and just tried playing some.. but so far in the space of about an hour and a half.. its locked up and frozen 3 times....

Heh, first time I played CK2.. I started as the King of Georgia.. by the time a few hours of gameplay had happened, I'd ended up with one of my children becoming the Byzantine Emperor due to some careful marriage proposal and a couple of lucky deaths... <whistles innocently>

Well happy birthday. So is it heading to that fine balance point where you aren't so much celebrating another year of life, as are more counting off one more year to the grave?

"That's a wildly inappropriate story that I can't tell you. But that's the point. Don't you want to have wildly inappropriate stories you can't tell your children about when you grow up??"

For the car related anecdote.. Some years back during university, a group of us were out at a pub with a live band. One of the guys feeling unsociable stole the taxi we'd ordered without waiting for the rest of us. Leaving the group to walk back a fair few miles (because it was murder trying to get a free cab at that time of night). Since the route we walked went past said friends place.. in a fit of general annoyance we decided to let the air out of his tires so he'd have to get them refilled... Not too much of a hassle since there was a garage about 5 minutes down the road. Go to a few days later when we next saw him.. and he complained about how he woke up, went outside and found "some git had slashed his tires" - not actually checking to see that they had been slashed, just assumed it due to their flat condition- so he drove his car with completely flat tires down the road to the nearby garage to get them replaced. So he pretty much ruined his own tires by driving there in that condition... We were all like "duude?!"

Trying to do work with random power cuts isn't actually the most productive... I'm keeping a small torch on me due to how dark its getting now. Otherwise everytime the lights go out it's pretty pitch black inside the house as well as outside..

Well I'm going to grab Civ V Gods & Kinds while it's down to sensible money..

Haven't been able to make headway on much of anything today.. Just having that mix of mental frazzle, distractions and procrastination that keeps merging and flowing around.

So, already the plans for the next Hitman are in motion.. RockPaperShotgun - Square Enix Montreal to make Next Hitman

Sounds like someone is stuck at home behind some defences.. Perfect for the zombie apocalypse? The important question is.. Do you have supplies of food, alcohol, and secured internet access?

To be fair, there are some really nice bits to it as well. It's just those couple of niggly game mechanics seriously push the annoyance factor.

Whilst there are some quite nice points to Hitman Absolution.. I really am coming to loathe the checkpoint system and Disguise/Intuition thing. I mean literally there are moments when folks in the same costume I'm in disguise in, will go from "hey" to "You're an imposter!" before I can take a finger off the W key and try to hit the S... That is how damn fast suspicion hits. Which when combined with the checkpoint system they have.. you can spend an hour or more replaying the same damn 10 minutes of gameplay... And then of course, any guards you have previously taken care of before that checkpoint are resoawned due to checkpoint reload...

Managed a little more Hitman Absolution time this morning. The levels do seem split between short linear maps to "sneak" through and some semi-wide open maps with lots of ways to assassinate a target. But I have to admit, the Intuition thing is seriously pissing me off now. You have enough to spend about 2 seconds walking past someone if you're disguised as that "type" of person. Ie; dressed as a cop and a cop walks past you. Which in a map full of a dozen cops makes it really freaking awkward. That and it takes them about a second and a half to go from "oh, I'm seeing a cop" to "this is some faker wearing a costume". So when you take a step around a corner and have 5 cops looking at you, it gets a bit awkward,. The other annoying bit is there is no save game. Just several "check points" scattered around the map that you can use once.. and they don't actually save the game per se, as if you reload one.. every single guard/enemy on the map will be respawned as they were at the very beginning when that level was first loaded. So if you're relying on having dealt with certain guards before hand.. boom. You're out of luck and might as well just reload from the start of the level. On the plus side, so far I've had plenty of options and methods to figure out to get by various sections of the maps / guards and deal with my targets. But it does seem awkward at times the way it bounces between those sections and straight linear ones.

Had a little play on Hitman Absolution this evening in some quiet time.. The first mission is incredibly linear, but then it's basically the tutorial. The 2nd mission is one space with a whole multitude of options.. although I think some of them are really only viable on certain difficulty settings. Or after you've played chunks of the game to unlock Abilities/Improvements. I've got to say, the way they've changed Disguise is a bit.. offputting. A disguise works perfectly against people not of the disguise type, but you have to use Insight against that type. So if you're wearing a Bodyguard disguise, it works against everybody but Bodyguards , who you have to use Insight as you walk by them or they notice you.... Which is a pain in the tucas if it's a level thats full of them.. Also, if you're trying to sneak, its a bitch to regain Insight on the Professional difficulty....