Raithe

Getting walked through some further C# development.. geared around TDD (Test Driven Development) and I'm just not making the right mental connections today... Which is a little bit frustrating. So okay.. we've got a program that achieves the results wanted. Now we put in a bunch of Tests that at the moment all cause failures. Then we look at those tests to create code that satisfies them so the Tests pass.. And none of this actually has any relation to the code we'd already done. Soo... I've got to take all the logic and code of the first part (the code that satisfied the original problem)..remove it..and re-create it in a totally different way that the Tests will accept. Right at the moment.. I'm just not clicking on it.

As long as they don't try to remake Casablanca.. I mean, hell, they remade the Philadelphia Story as a Musical version and had Bing Crosby taking Cary Grant's role... So you can't exactly say the remakes/reboots of classics is something new..

And to think some people get those frequently. Yeah, my mother has some one-use pen injectors with some reaaally good meds for the migraines she gets. One shot in the thigh and boom, out like a light for about 6 hours (Of course, that's a pretty restricted prescription). Although actually I have to say, she hasn't had as many bad ones in the last half a year or so. So I'm pretty much thinking it's a family curse. It's one of those annoying things, we used to have a really good GP. But he retired..and his replacement..well, is a nice guy. A very pleasant Doctor. Just his medical skills aren't exactly great. I mean, I know my mother has a nice collection of medical conditions, and her file is inches thick and there's a whole batch of pharmacutical products they have her on... But for over a year he misdiagnosed that she'd developed diabetes and kept telling her she was only suffering from "side-effects" of the drugs she was on. Ignoring her comments that she'd been on most of those drugs for years without those side-effects. And he's kind of like that with the rest of the family. As a person, he's nice and friendly. Just as a doctor, he's a little bit crap.

And found that my sister was taking the day off work with a migraine... So in the middle of dealing with laundry, household tasks and trying to figure out why the dog was being a little weird and kept running upstairs..

Okay, I'll admit it can be a bit annoying that with every game release of Bio's you get the mass-hype and "Best Game Evah!" from both their marketing department and a lot of hard-core fans who are only going by the previews.. Which can tend to make a lot of people automatically downgrade the potential. Throw in a certain level of "catering to the masses means dumbing things down." But we'll still end up with a game with some flaws that a lot of people will still actually ENJOY. That's the important thing. Not how smart it is, or how bad some of the dialogue is. Or just how closely it cleaves to the Bioware standard of "lone hero meets companions, travels to 4+ locations, has a romance, then defeats the big evil." It's the fact that most people will actually have fun playing it, regardless of the flaws in it. Sure, I think they could do games a lot tighter and smarter then they have recently. I don't expect to be out-n-out amazed by it. But I do expect that regardless of parts of it, I'll generally have fun playing my way through it. And for 20+ hours of potential gameplay.... That's all that matters. Of course, once I've actually sat down to play the full game rather then a broken off demo that doesn't really showcase the game.. I might have a lot of bile and complaints if it truly stinks and I don't enjoy playing it.. But until then.. eh, I'll wait and see what its like ...

Did you have headaches with this frequency before your concussion - they look weekly at the moment, and I didn't notice it before. Off and on. Every now and again just get them recurring like this and then it'll settle for a few months and then start up again. My mother and sister both come down with really stinking migraines.. While I tend to get more regular grinding headaches. I guess it's that balance.. I'm happier not having the migraine versions..but I seem to get the "lower level headaches" more often.

There seemed to be only a couple of actual changes to the combat in the demo. 1: the tactical view. You couldn't zoom out and around as you used to do. However, when a mage does an area attack...then you can freely roam around the map not linked to any particular character... (So it seems kind of weird they won't let you do that otherwise). 2: the animations/actions are sped up. so things happen at a quicker rate..and which also has faster cooldowns to go along with this... Although there were a few times they get stuck on the autoattack and won't actually do what you tell them... 3: the skills for the non-mages are a bit more "flashier" then they were. As if they were trying to follow a "rule of cool" more then anything else... Although I couldn't decide quite how successful that came across in the demo. Apart from that.. it pretty much seemed as the combat was in DA:O. The sped up pace makes it a bit more awkward to hit pause and sort out what everyone in the party is doing... but it's still possible to do it.

So far today I was woken up by a cat having a 15 minute manic-frenzy run around... Managed to have a multiple-choke-on-tea incident.. and have the swell beginnings of a grinding headache. I do not foresee this going down on my list of great sundays.

Pretty much the opening paragraph to a book I was reading... Something about it just kept me amused...

Has that actually been confirmed or just a guess? I was taking the logic that you get more xp because of the added risk of opponents being re-awakened by other enemies.. After all, if they're unconscious, there's nothing really stopping you from rifling their bodies.. It was actually something that was brought up in the gamebanshee preview. There was a comment about extra XP being awarded with a "Ghost" tag which I assume is for getting through an area completely unseen. I'm just guessing, but I wouldn't think you'd get that bonus if you went around knocking everyone out with stealth takedowns. The reason for the extra stealth XP is probably a combination of factors. Ah I was more referring to if you ko someone, you should still be able to loot them.. One of the reviews talked about how killing someone gets you 10xp, but knocking them out was worth 20xp... Although I could almost foresee some twinkies seeing if they could farm xp that way by knocking them out, waiting for them to be woken up then go back to ko them once more...

Has that actually been confirmed or just a guess? I was taking the logic that you get more xp because of the added risk of opponents being re-awakened by other enemies.. After all, if they're unconscious, there's nothing really stopping you from rifling their bodies..

So I went out and did the grocery shopping.. and got home to discover my mother trying to unload the dishwasher and going "Ow! Ow! Ow!" as she struggled to put the cups and mugs back in the cupboard, nearly dropping several on herself... Now.. I can appreciate the whole struggle to prove yourself independent to a degree, but with physical pain and physical problems actually making it dangerous to do so.... There's just something wrong about having to take that "parental" tone to your own parent...

The important question isn't whether it's aggreably profitable or not.... but how much more profit they can squeeze out of it... It's a capitalist business. The key concept is "how do we make more money" not "hey, we made profit, that's good enough."

"Are we there yet???" ..and now I'm getting flashbacks to Cthulhu Road Trip... "Moommm! He's got his tentacles on my side of the seat!!" "Just another 100,000 years to go till we get to the alignment kids..."

Well as long as you go by the first "proper" mission that all the reviewers have been harping on about and not the "trainee/introductory to the basics" section pre-augmented character.. It certainly sounds as if there's a lot of variety and pathways through the level. So if they keep that up through the rest of it... Also, for the random note of potential interest, JJB has always loved the original Versalife level design and apparently pushed for that style of multiple pathways.

Hm, so THQ has confirmed Saints Row: The Third should be coming out holiday 2011... and with the promise of the most "outlandish gameplay scenarios ever seen"... Throw in the odd swipe at the GTA series with "There's no delivering pizza, no shuttling family members about in a long series of taxi missions." That could be interesting.. Personally I found Saints Row 2 a hellava lot more fun then GTA IV.. but I'm weird like that.

And that discovering routes around enemies will also award xp... so bypassing combat is just as rewarding as plotting complete kill/ko zones... Of course, how well that'll work with letting you wander back and forth...

And that's the second reviewer I've seen mention that you earn more xp for knocking out rather then killing opponents...

Well.. I'm the unsociable one who rarely if ever plays online .. but what the hey, I'll slip into the Obsid group on steam as well.. just on the offchance..

Oh what was it.. There was a short lived tv series something like Total Recall 2070 or some such.. and they'd actually kind of fused elements of both Total Recall and Bladerunner together... And hey, regardless, how many people can forget the impression of Rutger Hauer's brilliant improvised speech at the end??

You should try reading the original Bourne book trilogy.. although they're getting just a wee bit dated now..

Watched an episode of jdorama "Gallileo". Interesting but quirky in the way that the japanese can do...

Although, remember for the really impressive... Lego House The two story house made of lego, including a working toilet, hot shower and a very uncomfortable bed

Enjoying the late night heart flutter when about 4 hours into defragging the primary drive of the computer.. it decides to lock up and then reboot...

Heh, if the trend continues.. maybe Rockstar will go back to releasing PC games...