Hurlshort

Dracula: Origin - A very good adventure game.

It is also a nice that golf is a sport you can play well into old age without a tremendous change in your skill. It isn't really about strength, my worst hits tend to be when I try to overpower the ball. I plan on playing Ice Hockey as long as possible, but I know it will get much harder eventually. It's a decent activity for us old fogies

Just Cause 2 is definitely a short increment game, I liked that I could jump on for 30 minutes, putz around, then turn it off. I actually felt rockstar lost that a bit with RDR and GTA4. They were more story intensive, and that meant more time intensive. I get what you are saying though, I just like to have a game like that around for a quick spin. Saint's Row 2 does that even better, for my money, and it has a fairly good story.

Weird, I had a blast with Just Cause 2, and I stayed away from the story line pretty much the whole time. I just blew stuff up, had fun grapple hooking stuff to other stuff, and rode around on top of jets. Pure fun. I can't imagine playing it without a controller though.

Back when I lived in New Zealand, my colleagues tried to persuade me to become a "golfer". No luck since I agree with the last part of that line Even having lived for years less than 100m from a beautiful 18 hole course, overlooking the park lands with a view down to the river, I was never tempted. The only thing I can get myself to join every now and then is a game of mini golf Oddly enough, thanks to years on mini-golf, my short game is rather fantastic. I can two-putt it pretty much every time, and I get a couple good long range putts on occasion. Driving the ball is my weakness. I have no idea how to make it go straight.

I went golfing yesterday. Man, I am terrible. There is really nothing good about that game. I'm playing because my Dad really enjoys it, it gives us a chance to catch up, and he is footing the bill for the most part. Even with that, I'm not sold on it being worth it. I did buy a golf shirt and some golf shoes, so at least I looked the part. I got a 126 when we went last month, and yesterday I hit a 124. Ugh. Yesterday was considerably harder though, due to the very wet conditions. It was pretty marshy.

Last night I got the urge to play Starcraft 2. It had been a couple months since I had loaded it up, and I wanted to continue with the single player campaign. Instead I watched it patch for about an hour and a half, and at that point my gaming window was closed. Dumb autopatchers, I wasn't even playing it online. At least give me a choice! So this morning I played Stronghold 2 for a bit. Castle building fun.

Ah, the life of a young aristocrat!

Bummer Enoch. Insurance should cover it pretty easily though, depending on what your coverage is.

Polish isn't based upon opinion at all, hell I never loved a Blizzard game, but they're all polished to a gleam. AP and FO:NV are fugly games from all kinds of professional perspectives, being technically poor, and artistically void. AP was certainly clunk from a gameplay perspective. We can expand this analysis if you wish, the simple point is that basically polish isn't based on opinion, its based on obvious improvements due to development iteration. Uh, I'm not a professional developer. I'm just a gamer. As an untrained pleb, I thought AP looked good and FO:NV looked fantastic. I found both interfaces easy to use. If you really want to spend time educating me about this, feel free to. But I imagine it is a lot like comparing art. Sure, there is a huge difference between an untrained and a trained artist, but it gets a lot harder to explain why Picasso is such a big deal compared to some other neo-expressionist Joe Schmoe.

I don't think it was patronizing. He even explained my there are so many kill x monsters in most games, it comes down to time and resources. He is just saying the reason it is taking so dang long is he is trying to keep the story and quests elaborate.

If you want it to be a long married life, do the dishes :D

Global warming, or global climate changes for those hung up on the fact it also leads to cold weather, very much exists. Our planet has gone through changes like this throughout existence. The question that hasn't been answered is whether our actions are hastening the events. It probably isn't a question that can be fully answered, given that our planet will go through changes regardless. Still, pollution is bad, m'kay. We should still be actively trying to lessen our carbon footprint.

Bugs are a fairly individual issue. I didn't encounter anything major in AP or FO:NV. Polish is also pretty deep in the personal opinion realm, I mean neither game is what I would call ugly or clunky. In my opinion, they were both fun and engaging, which is why I love them. I finished both, which speaks volumes about how engaging they are. I probably only finish about 10% of the games I buy. Usually I have fun with a game for awhile, but then I stopped being engaged and move on to something else. AP and FO:NV kept my full attention all the way through, so that makes them two of my top games. I didn't finish NWN2, by the way, so it isn't just blind fanboyism.

Considering the developer's track record, I will steer clear unless proved otherwise. That doesn't make any sense, they have a great track record. This year alone they released two of the best RPG's I've played in a long while.

But if they came to visit you, that makes you the host. Shouldn't you be the one saying, "Hey, let's go do this?" It is your town after all. I don't want it to sound like I'm giving you a hard time. It takes awhile for the parent/child relationship to change into more of a friendship (and many people never get there) but it is a good start to plan things out for them when they visit. Just a suggestion I imagine the weather doesn't make it easy either!

Calax, didn't they travel all the way to Iowa to spend time with you?

Playing Gothic 3 - the Enhanced Edition. Hopefully I'll get into it a bit more this time, I've tried it a couple times in the past. It looks really good with the current patches though.

Well, just for the first couple months there are a couple big ones I plan on trying to get. Two Worlds 2 - Got it pre-ordered and I have a gift card to cover the difference. Dragon Age 2 - Probably will pre-order it soon enough. TW Shogun 2 - Might be a day one purchase, depends on my schedule. I'd put Dungeon Siege III on the list, but I question the relased date on it. We haven't seen much yet, so a March release seems a bit tough. Considering AP was delayed for a like a year, I'll wait and see.

Merry Christmas everyone! Sorry to hear that Gorgon. It might have been cheaper to break a window

I took the RV up to my sisters today, and we took our kids ice skating with their cousins. Then I cooked dinner for everyone. It has been pretty awesome so far, all the kids want to sleep in the RV though.

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I enjoy giving gifts as well as receiving, and I actually like wandering around looking for individual gifts at the mall. I always like getting up early on christmas morning and opening presents. Since having children, though, it is a totally epic event. The whole month of december is awash with stuff that lights my daughter's eyes up.

Sorry to hear that Calax.

I own it, actually have the case and everything. It is like a decent fan-made remake of Xcom. Everything about it is fairly average. The problem is it really misses the charm of the original. It's hard to explain, but basically Xcom was like magic in a bottle, and UFO:E fails to capture that. It's worth a few bucks though, some people really enjoyed it when it came out. Just the fact that it is an average turn based squad level game makes it fairly unique in today's market. There is supposedly a sequel in the works.

Today I cleaned my BBQ, which was crazy dirty. Then I loaded it into the RV for our holiday trip. Then I started the RV, and the battery was dead. I hooked it up to the battery charger and about an hour later it was ready to roll. Then I washed it, which is crazy hard to do. I do it twice a year. I'd pay the shop to do it, but they want like $70. Checked the tires and everything was good. Tomorrow I'll clean the inside and take it to the store to stock up for the trip. We are actually only going away for a night, but it is good to get the RV up and running, we haven't been able to use it much since the baby was born.