Raithe

I have to admit, I find it interesting how your brain can link music to certain memories.. and how years later you can hear that tune and get the total flashback and emotion of the original event... And on the seperate note.. good god its been grey and drizzly today. I'm missing the scattershot sun. The cloud cover has been lingering awhile..and had to miss the lunar eclipse the other night due to hazey clouds.

For the slightly off-the-wall thought... If you're having trouble with getting a proper "script" as such written, have you given thought to getting it developed as a sketched out storyboard style?

Not quite the heavy reading material.. but I saw a copy of "Icons: The DC Comics and Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee" going for a reduced price. I'm finding myself strangely tempted. There can be something compelling about art books that can firmly stir the imagination. Also when included are design sketches and comments on how things developed. Although balanced against the possibility of Syd Mead's "Sentury II" designs and sketches..

Yup, I have my original cd's with the Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack.. and I still keep getting distracted for hours by that game.. Some day they'll make a sequel. Then again, maybe I'd rather they didn't. Yeah, the odds are they'd Civ5 it.. (note, while i enjoyed some aspects of Civ 5..something just didn't click right)

And the fact that Washington is using "The Malvinas" to refer to the islands could be a touch worrisome..

It wasn't just the physical level design. Pretty much all of it was geared towards you not being stuck on a single play style. You could treat it as a shooter and go through it like that, but you could turn sneaky and bypass things, you could hack systems to bypass, and a few points where simple conversation would get you around.. Quite often a combination of all of that provided the most fun. Part of it was exploring the world to find those sorts of alternate ways to do a mission or to get to a location. Throw in some of the background fluff, the books you could find and read, the newspaper articles, something about it gelled in a way that's kept DE in that top 10 rpg lists for the past decade.

Yup, I have my original cd's with the Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack.. and I still keep getting distracted for hours by that game..

I think it is kind of hard to judge it nowadays if you never experienced it back then. (wow, that sounds kind of gaming snob like). The graphics were a little rough, but it really was one of the first games to cross-genres and mix it up in quite that way. And to throw in the multiple paths approach in such a nicely tuned manner. It just had a knack for drawing players into it and getting them interested in the world, the story, and figuring out all the different ways you could do stuff.

I wasn't..

I have to say as I replay ME2.. it's some of the quirky side-missions you find on some planets that work the best. The ones that shift the pace, such as the crashed starship hanging on the edge of a cliff... There's just something about them that fleshes it out more then if every moment was the cover-n-gun gameplay.

Educating her in tech-goodness would be like..hm, her trying to educate me in wool-types and knitting styles. It's possible, not really interesting to my point of view, and would take a long time, with the bare minimum sticking in the mind... I mean, the last time she got a laptop.. she walked along the countertop at the store looking at them.. and going "oh, the graphs on this are prettier then the graphs on that one, will this do what I want it to?"

To her, it's that mix of literal "pretty lights" and there's something about an aqua blue backlit keyboard she's always liked. Throw in a laptop with specs that will run through pretty much any games she'll be interested in for the next four years... and she's gone ahead and ordered one of their laptops. Which has my mother happy, since that means she can 'inherit' the old laptop... Tis being a very windy, rainy day here. Couldn't see the lunar eclipse last night due to cloud cover... I'm up, but for some reason I'm just feeling totally shattered. So revitalising with a fresh cup of tea and seeing what the day brings..

There's a very different use of brownie points if its gf/wife related... Edit: And for the continuation of Muah-Hah-Hah! - My sister arrived home from work, gave me a frowny look, did a "you bastard" and is now going to look at more 'computer porn' on the alienware site.

You redeem them on things you've screwed up .. like...oh..forgetting birthdays or such. Oh..and christmas presents. The end of the year supply of brownie points versus those lost are vitally important to christmas presents..

Having to get a pair of new batteries for my mothers mobility buggy.. bloody expensive. Although at least we get VAT back because she's disabled. And for various reasons... she's using my credit card to purchase them.. The things we do for family. Ah well, I guess this will count as many brownie points gained..

I have to say the current one works fine for me...

Eh well her current one won't play ME, for some reason the graphics chipset crashes it out.. although she's been working her way through DA and sundry dlc and expansion.. She's pretty much using it daily for various things, including sorting her ipod music.. but she's wanting to spend money so she has a laptop that will let her play ME1-3, DA2, Deus Ex HR, a few other things.. and that she won't have to worry about upgrading for another 4 years or so.. Heh, I mostly showed her the Alienware site to do the "yes, this is silly money but look it's SHINY" She's kind of looking at it in the vein of "Okay.. if I say it's a grand for a laptop that's expensive..but I use it everyday..and if I'm still using it in four years..that's worth 250 for a single year..." I think I might have put her on the path to too great a temptation...

It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here... No .. wait..that's a different thread..

She's not a tech geek , it was literally the "ooo shiny pretty lights" because of Alienware's funky backlit keyboards and such on laptops. Her last laptop she judged by the prettiness of the graphs set up next to the laptops displayed at the shop.... At least it was the "oo thats a pretty graph, will this laptop do what I want?" sort of question. One of the somewhat disturbing moments in my life was getting asked to help put up the stripper pole in her room when she took up pole-dancing for exercise. And then when she came back from one of her repeated trips to work at a ranch in Montanna she made me a present of some exceptionally ...loud... cowboy shirts. I actually wore one out once, and my friends looked at me and did the whole "dude, does your sister think you're gay?" Anyhowt, on to the day.. doing the ultra final scan of this report before I send it merrily along its way. I think I shall note that I've read too much American writing. Actually, I blame the assorted rpg books I've read in my lifetime (and character sheets I've filled out). My spelling these days seems to be turning into an atrocious mix of proper English and Americanised spelling... and it bloomin varies within the same document. Heh, and I just caught that for some reason I'd put "Columbia" in half the places it should read "Colombia". Thank you Replace All.

Spent a few hours playing ME2.. First time I've actually kicked it off from the very beginning with all the dlc as well..

Muah-Hah-Hah! I cackle evilly. My sister is looking for a new laptop. I just introduced her to Alienware. She's now sitting there, alternating between "Oohh..Pretty lights" and "Oh you bastard!" for showing her that place...

Urf. Well tis been a delightfully sunny day here... although the morning was a touch distracting with the puppy doing about a dozen things mentioned previously (although nothing in the vomit or bodily functions style). However, I have a roughly 19 page or so report written now. Technically I'd say its finished, but I know I'm probably going to keep poking at it over tonight and the early part of the morning before it has to be sent off. But I'm going to force myself to take a break from such tweaking for a few hours now.. I need a serious mental palate cleanser. I might dabble at some ME2 or some such.

Reread through my posts the last 3 months or so. See how many include variants of "bloody puppy" "puppy threw up" "puppy eat the antique such and such" "puppy took a dump on the carpet" "puppy tries to eat the cat" and other assorted... However, I will also point out that walking cute puppies can induce pretty women to linger in your area. Also judge whether you'll have time/energy to walk it appropriately....

Project Snowblind was actually fairly decent for what it was. I mean that was originally designed as a much more FPS spin-off from Deus Ex, but with the crash and burn of DE:IW they decided to take it as a seperate game and universe. It might have been much more combat geared, but they did try to keep a certain amount of "multiple paths" within that.

If it hadn't been a Deus Ex sequel it would have been considered a better game. Among things that came across for me, was that the developers had pushed hard the idea that you'd be dealing with different factions and would be able to double-cross them on missions and it would all shape up how the game went... In practice, you could double-cross them to your hearts content and they'd be right back offering you another mission and there were no real consequences... There were a lot of interesting ideas in the game, but it just didn't gell together the way the first Deus Ex did. If you could ignore those issues, it was mostly entertaining.