Raithe

Had a slow start to the morning, realised it was a bank holiday monday.. Not sure why but I'm feeling a wee bit depressive today and I can't chase down a reason for it. The cat keeps lurking by either the back door or the front door prepared to make occasional sprints for freedom. He doesn't quite get that he's a housecat that's blind in one eye and not cut out for urban traffic... Trying to figure out just where my focus is for the day.

Just finished it.. I was curious as to see if that extra scene would change in any way to reflect the different endings you choose. So I sat through the credits... and saw the same scene each time. Ah well, it was worth at least checking. It's quite a stonking game. Some of the levels did hit me with that nudging of memory of some of the original DE ones. Although I could kind of wish they'd had another "real" hub rather then several lone levels scattered around the world in the latter half of the game. I guess the original was laid out pretty similar tho... One american hub, one asian hub, and a handful of other locations... I finally started killing the special ops guys down in the Picus building - that rush when you're waiting for the big lift just pushed me out of the pacifist state. Now I'll have to consider to try a pacifist attempt. Hm, Adam's monologues at the end... since he talks about how he kept to his morality during the events, does that change for folks who were on killing sprees?

Having one of those moments of breaks to get drinks and such.. Just finished talking into giving me codes..so guess it's nearly to the end. I have to say, Federova has to be the worst of the boss fights. I reloaded that a buncha times before I managed to get a handle on it. It was after that that I decided to spend the praxis on getting the typhoon. Then the moment Namir showed his face, I hit him with three typhoon's in succession because I just couldn't be arsed with another boss fight. It's kind of nice to hear the "old" deus ex theme show up in snatches on the background radios... or the grammarphone..

Heh, that was my plan. My copy arrived about 10am friday, I installed it and started playing around 11am... I basically told family and work that I was going to be incommunicado on Deus Ex solidly. Of course, then some real world stuff intervened and my boss asked me very nicely if I could spare a few hours to research / work over the weekend... So I'm treating that as the "necessary" break from gaming before I throw myself back into the fray..

Well I think I spent about 13 hours in total on my first Detroit hub time before I headed China-ways. Now I've added about another five or so hours in that rather delightful multi-tiered city and helped the pilot find a murderer.. I've got to admit, balancing the augs is a twitchy business on exactly what you want.. I meant to pick up stealth and some hacking.. and ended up picking up all the ones that help you explore first.. icarus landing, jumping, smash through walls (although so far I've only come across about 3 of them..and they were all around detroit), with some hacking skills. Mostly relying on being sneaky without the camo-system at the moment... Dumped the whisperhead sniper rifle in Adam's apartment because I just wasn't using it and it took up way too much inventory space. I'm having fun, but I don't seem to be finding that many sidequests in the second hub.. not compared to what there were in Detroit. Still, time for a pause, some moments away from the game to have that break...

Spent a chunk of the morning whiling away time in the second hub of Deus Ex.. Now having a break to get some researchy work done before I return to the joys of sneaking, hacking and exploring... Hm, possibly throw in some food and a fresh cup of tea as part of that break...

Mwauh-Hah-Hah! My copy arrived this morning so I installed and started playing a little past 11am. Jumped straight into "Deus Ex mode" difficulty. And here I am just a little past 4pm and I've only just entered the Detroit hub because I stealthed slow and spent time exploring options through that first post-augment mission.... I'm bout as giddy as a schoolboy.

Eh, nothing too bizarre. Although I consider it freaking weird. I pre-ordered it back in December. Since then, my credit card expired, and I updated my amazon account with my new one. But apparently, when you update a credit card on your Amazon account, it doesn't actually link it to any open orders you have. you have to go into any open order you have and change the details within it, rather then just your overall account details... So when it was supposed to have been posted.. I suddenly find out that they're having credit card issues because they're trying to charge the expired card rather then the new one (and by new, I mean, several months old..) And then, even though I'm supposed to get free next day delivery, they're doing the "delivery estimate 27-30"

So in the wake of the press over GameStop's actions.. they've apparently decided to just pull all physical copies of the pc version of thegame from their shelves.. and are refusing to sell it unless Square Enix provides copies that do not include the OnLive coupon...

And another fuzzy science thing.. California Crime Predicting Computers

Had some crappy dreams which didn't start me off in the best of moods this morning, then I found Amazon had done a bit of a balls up so I'm its quite likely I'm going to have to wait several more days for my copy of Deus Ex to arrive. The puppy keeps trying to eat the cat, and I'm trying to not let it get on my last nerve and vent my general air of irritation on him unfairly.

That's what I get for not checking alll the threads ..

I wouldn't pick it up from GameStop if I were you.. It looks like they might have a small bit of bad press cropping up.. GameStop removing Free Code from Deus Ex games..

From gamescom... The Saints Row The Third interview with the "Quality Assurance Team".. and said interviewer seems just a tad flustered..

The reasons for the energy use actually came up in one of the interviews. Apparently they did implement takedowns without any energy use, but the testers would go through entire levels just using takedowns and not bothering to "find" any of the alternate routes or actually put that much thinking into it. So in the attempt to balance it out and make sure folks would do more.. they decided game balance needed that energy use just to put a slight check in... Swings and roundabouts I guess...

.. and I keep hearing the argument between the Cthulhu cultists "It's a star!" "No! It's a tree!" "It's a star!!" "Tree!!" "If you try using a tree sign to summon the great evil one you'll be...." Edit: Okay.. maybe I've listened to a Shoggoth on the Roof a few times too many..

Poked a bit at work, tried sketching out some thoughts, and played a bit with the puppy. Having a short lunch of fresh from the oven breaded camembert and pondering on the urge to have a doodle with some Shadowrun stuff.

There's an interview with Mark Strong out on his voicing Captain Titus in Space Marines. Kind of interesting to see how he came into it and that he's playing a hero for once... Captain Titus Interview

Well happy days and celebrations and wotnot. Congratulations for making it another year closer to the grave...

Fast and Furious Five. Ludicrous physics. But some pretty cars, and prettier women. Fun driving, a few entertaining crashes and some gunshots. So..generally amusing.

Went from a fairly sunny day yesterday, to a rather grey and rainfilled one today.. Pretty much everyone appears to have had a bad night and have thus been cranky today. That and mom's pain levels are a bit higher then normal, especially in one of her arms, so there's been the fun of that. The dogs were being a bit full of energy, and its always fun to give them a run around in the rain to wear some of that energy out. But I still managed to poke a few work related momens through. Now my sister has managed to finish off ME on her new laptop, and she wants me to put ME2 on it for her. Deciding whether I should wait a bit and let her get into the game before adding the dlc missions for her... And that generally optimistic anticipation for the new Deus Ex has actually got me reading through some shadowrun books for that general vibe.

And Gamespot has a couple of cutscenes from the game up already.. Intro-Sequence Cutscene Six Months Later Cutscene

They're also saying the Radiant system should do wonders for making it "unique". Sort of if you get a quest sending you to a dungeon, but you've already visited dungeons a, b, c and d in the area, the system will identify dungeon E as the on you have to go to... Just to make sure you "explore" the world and don't have to backtrack. I don't know, after all the disapointment over Oblivion, this is definitely on my wait and see list rather then jump on straightaway.

Yup, Amazon.co.uk is listing the shipping date as 25-26th.

I have to admit, I liked the : That's what reviews are for.. entertaining little quotes and the occasional metaphor..