Raithe

Well I was playing AC2 this afternoon, then did one of the Assassin's Tombs in Venice... and that sucked out all my enjoyment of the game. I was practically foaming at the mouth over that. Maybe it's because I've just had a batch of the same issue on Tron Evolution.. but I really am loathing platform-jump-jump games that have those sequences in. Playing the rest of the game is fun..but the tombs , especially that one I was just doing really make me grip. They're fairly artificial to make you bounce around..and then they increase the difficulty by having camera angles suddenly shift and change and lock you in at odd angles. It doesn't become about playing the game but memorising when those camera shifts happen and adjust keypresses to match.. If it was a few degree's different you'd run in a straight line when you hit a key, but because its just set so...you have to finaggle it to run in a slightly diagonal manner and the slightest wrong twitch wastes time and bounces you off a wall the wrong way... But anyway, now that I finished that tomb I'm going to have a long break from that and see if I can settle my grouch.

I picked up Crysis awhile back.. Actually I'd just upgraded my pc at the time to the bleeding edge. Crysis was the first game to really use all that oomph. Graphically I was impressed.. but meh, just couldn't get interested in it beyond a certain point. It felt like a technical win with no real soul to suck you into the gameplay. At least to my mind.

Picked up AC2 cheap via the steam sales.. the low price battled my distate of the drm and won.. A lot more enjoyable then the first one I'd say.. Even though it's doing a lot of the same things, it doesn't actually feel quite as repetitive.

Tron Legacy. It's bright, it's shiny, it's fairly fun. Olivia Wilde looks good in it.. The "young" Jeff Bridges looks very smooth in it, a nice use of computers. I guess we can start expecting to see more things like that happen in films now... Generally it's entertaining..but I don't know.. part of the trouble is you're expecting this nice update on the world inside a computer, some references to the internet and such... but the whole thing takes place only in this single closed system that has no outside access. Heh, the old Tron 2.0 game showed one view of how things would have changed and I guess I was hoping to see the film's take on that shift in progress..but you didn't really get that. Still, enjoyable for what it is, and it did push various nostalgia buttons.

In the real world (that's outside this forum), you'll find that describing most games. Not quite to that extreme that it comes across in that game.. Honestly, Tron 2.0 actually gave me a more.. glowing, nostalgic feel for the Tron universe then Tron Evolution did. I was hoping it would give you that feeling of being inside a computer again...but it doesn't really convey that sort of mood. Which in a Tron game, is really, seriously disapointing.

Tron Evolution. It somehow managed to combine elements of good with elements of disappointing. Lots of nice visuals, it comes across as a fairly decent film tie-in type of game. Sets up lots of connections and explains things in a lot more detail for how things are in the film. However, you don't tend to stop and enjoy the visuals because the pace of the game is set so you're usually rushing through locations rather then enjoying the sights. And while the combat has a flow to it.. it does get a little repetitive. The multiplayer aspect actually blends in fairly nicely with the single-player story. But they don't really make any good transitions as to why you're doing it.. just sets it up so that at various points you can slip into the "game grid". The lightcycle sections at first look really nice... but then you realise it's basically an on-rails type of travel and there's no actual opportunity to use lighttrails to take out opponents. It's more high speed from point a to point b along a single narrow track with occasional disruptions. My main grief with it is that there are several locations where its a flipping pain to move along. The whole.. urban running style in games is beginning to get a bit annoying and overused. But there are a few locations where the camera suddenly locks in tight, at odd angles, and the controls get incredibly fiddly and the slightest wrong movement sends you plunging to your doom. So with a checkpoint system that will quite often have you running across x distance you can do in your sleep, and then this simple 5 second piece of travelling that you keep failing at.. reload back to the checkpoint and start all over.. you can end up spending 10-15 minutes with multiple reloads trying to get past a simple 10-15 second stretch of movement. Which can get exceptionally frustrating. Especially when it happens for the 5th time in the game... One point of note, although they've said they coordinated with the Tron Legacy film, to set it up as a kind of "prequel" story and yes, there are a few characters and scenes that you'll recognise when you see the film.. there are a few things that seem to be told in "different" ways. Notably a couple of aspects about the ISO's, the Purge, and Quorra....

Deus Ex HR is on pre-order (yes, the augmented edition, I want the shiny art book and soundtrack..) Mass Effect 3 I'm most likely to give SW The Old Republic a try.. Dragon Age 2 is pretty likely, just to get a hands on for what they do. Homefront I'll keep an eye on, but undecided just at the moment. What are the odds of Red Dead Redemption finally making it to the pc over this upcoming year? Dungeon Siege 3 is one I'll wait and see on. Hasn't got me all excited just yet. Apart from that, there isn't much that's hovering on my awareness.

That would work better if it could be seen outside the US.. Still, it's crossed midnight here in the UK.. so I shall wish all you folks a Merry Christmas day..

I have to admit, I do appreciate the whole concept of that..and the effiency of that process. But to me it just..makes the gift rather impersonal. Wrapping it personally and putting a handwritten note actually "feels" like it means more. Because you're taking an effort in it. Just whacking off a couple of mouse clicks and a short typed in keyboard prompt..just. makes it feel too mechanical to really mean something. Not saying I wouldn't do it under certain conditions, but generally I'd rather have them sent to me, then wrap them up and deliver them.

I have the mixed dealing of christmas. On the one hand I am heartlessly jaded and cynical over large amounts of it. On the other... I can be gleefully childish on the idea of the festive and the concept of snow and a christmas tree, and the whole concept of people wanting hope and good cheer. Plus I find that the whole Christmas period kind of runs across a series of hm, lets say meaningful anniversaries which always adds a certain tinge of melancholy and grief that never quites goes and can almost turn to obsessive. So I'll push to get the tree up and some decorations out (mostly tree decorations with a few room) , nothing in the extreme and tacky. And then I'll bounce between the gleeful and the glum.

Letting the evening soak over me. Just caught up on the last episode of Top Gear.. which was amusing for all the anti-Stig comments the trio came up with. Now just working on some mince pies with cream and some port. Although going out late tonight to do some shopping for food for the christmas meal. Hopefully around midnight the store will be lacking the annoying crowds.

Hm, some interesting things came out there that I didn't know before... Although seeing them do the "mutual flagellation society" over the DX Invisible War post-mortem..

Augmented Shame.

Out running some errands around the village, getting past some snow and ice, picking up prescriptions for my mother then off to pick up some milk and assorted needed things. (also picked up two bottles of Croft Reserve Port to enjoy over christmas).. However, had my ipod with me, listening to some GiTS scores and soundtrack.. hit a couple of the slow paced soulful tracks and out of nowhere just had the really stonkingly vivid image of slowdancing with my ex. Given me a total mood turnaround and hit all those buttons. Anyhow, hot cup of tea to warm up. See if I can force some festive spirit back.

So who did you side with? And for the bizarrely random trivia.. The nicknamed "Good Samaritan Law" in France, which compels bystanders to provide aid was actually put into effect by the Nazi's when they were controlled the Vichy government..

I remember reading something about the psychological effects of battle on the different branches of the armed services. It brought up how the air force as a rule are distanced from anyone they kill, so they don't often have quite the same.. visceral response to having killed people that infantry will usually have. Something about seeing a plane blow up, or go down in a crash doesn't create the same emotional response as actually seeing a human body directly. Take that as you will. Haven't actually felt like a productive day. Dealt with snow, some standard groceries. Did get about two hours of playing Fear 2, and learned a few new and interesting things from watching some Q.I... So it hasn't been a total loss. (for those without access to some decent UK tv.. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/QI for the appropriate description.)

Dabbling my toe in Fear2 for the first time....

Went to replay some Deus Ex which has been installed on my machine for ages.. and it kept crashing. uninstalled it. reinstalled it. It still kept crashing. So I decided to enjoy Steams sale and picked up Deus Ex for a couple of pound.. and it installed and ran fine. Makes me wonder what the hell was wrong with my old Game of the Year...

Hm, I might be coming out of left field here, I have some vague memories of seeing on the news a few weeks ago that here in the UK they did put a change in about allowing women to be placed on the front lines. While allowing women to serve in many positions within Her Majesties Armed Forces, they made that change not because women couldn't handle it, but because no matter how pc a group is, the men will still put themselves at greater risk to protect any women who are along.

That one always struck me as a bit..hm, blackly humerous. "If you've killed yourself, we're going to slap cuffs on you." I always thought it wasn't so much the actual suicide that was illegal as the attempt at suicide. Or is it that just because you got caught making the attempt you get to hit the 48 hour psych ward monitoring?

Although you have to be very careful with targeting things like this. There have been a few instances over here where it gets hammered home that it doesn't matter how you actually meant something you said or did, but how someone else perceived it. Which sets you up for an automatic fail. Like the policeman who was on holiday in Africa and sent a jokey postcard that was sold at his holiday resort back to the police station. It got passed around with some humour, right up until the guy who'se grandfather had originally been from said location in Africa claimed that it was rascist and was used to humiliate him by the guy who sent it, and all the constabulary in the office who passed it around. And I have to admit, I've had to struggle over the last few years of finding myself almost becoming rascist due to various people I've met who were jerks, but who then play the whole "i'm not an obnoxious jerk, it's because I belong to x minority group so I can be a total **** and be abusive and if you call me on it its because you're rascist." I could take the first few with a grain of salt and humour, but when people start dropping the "you're x-ist" at the drop of a hat and can have the weight of discrimination laws behind them just because they're a minority and you're automatically in the wrong because they can claim to have perceived something as a slight ... it starts to get worrying. Of course, that's a whole nother matter then the Army issue. Although on one hand I don't quite see it having that much of an effect. I think on a certain level it'll run along pretty much the same "don't ask, don't tell" lines but without the stresses of what happens if it is told or comes to light... But then I might be oversimplifying it.

There was also the "Normally when a child enters this school, if everyone in the teacher's staff room recognises a childs name by the time half-term has arrived we know it as either a really good thing or a really bad thing. For some reason, we can't decide what it means with your child."

I remember having the problem that I was one of those annoying kids who'd made it through Secondary School and my GCSE's without ever needing to develop revision/note-taking skills (roughly High School to translate for the Americans). I'd soak things up in class and manage to get passing grades in exams without too much effort. Then I hit college and that shift in pace left me in a very awkward position where the teachers all expected you to know how to do that stuff, and I got caught out trying to scrabble and figure out some of those basic techniques... That, and what was the bad academic practice of producing the right answers without showing the process of how I got there... That was something I always found awkward to do. Of course, by that point I'd had years of teachers telling my parents that I drove them to distraction by not doing as much as they thought I was capable of. Even with the history teacher who complained what annoyed him was that he could hear me finishing his sentences when explaining about a new period of history ..but what really annoyed him was that I was always right.

I always remember the exam a group of us had finished early and left , stood outside talking about it, what we'd done, what we thought we'd gotten wrong... and then one of our lecturer's passed by, stopped and did a double take.. gave us the whole "What are you doing out this early?" When we replied we'd all finished the exam.. he peered over us.. then laughed evily and did a really maniacal cackling "Then you did something wrooooong!!!" and kind of skipped off.

No matter what.. I still keep seeing Hitman these days when I hear Ave Maria...