What You Did There; I See It.

First and foremost – coil over at day1patch showed me this game today, and I’m not quite sure what I think. It’s… disturbing, to say the least, but certainly powerful. What do you guys think?

Once in a while, I find myself in the uncanny situation of being just ahead of the curve on some type of breaking news or situation. The moment something happens, I’ll be right there, in the thick of it – “on the ground”, so to speak. Last week was just such a time.

Other times… well, other times, I find myself wondering how the hell I managed to go this long without seeing this movie/playing this game/eating a scorpion. Hell, sometimes it’s even stuff that I should have instinctively known about, like this game that has a gun that shoots sharks instead of bullets.

Hold on, hold on, I can explain. With Midnight Run, well, y’know, I just never got around to it. I mean, it’s in my netflix queue, that counts for something, right? Right? Please, stop hitting me. Ow, ow! And the scorpion, well he was in my tequila last night. Was I supposed to just let him get away with that? Hell no! I did what any badass would do – I ate the fucker. I have no excuse for not knowing about the Land Shark Gun game; I totally dropped the ball on that one. Dragon Age: Origins, on the other hand… well I blame that one on Microsoft. That’s right, I call foul on the achievement system.

Don’t get me wrong – I love achievements. I mean, I don’t live and die for them, but if I can do something that’ll only take me an extra hour or eight and it’ll net me another hundred or so on my gamerscore, am I gonna go for it? More than likely. It is for this reason and this reason alone I have several games that are better played on PC for the Xbox 360 (I’m looking at you, anything-FPS!). How could I resist buying Borderlands on the 360, when so many of my friends already had it, and playing it there would rack up my achievements on xbox live? I’m not some robot programmed to not care about friendly obsessive competition, you know.

So Dragon Age: Origins comes out and I’m totally going to buy it. But then I have many friends tell me “hey, it’s so much better on PC”. Freeze. I do some research, and the word sounds the same all around. That’s not to say that the 360 version isn’t good, just that it’s not really, well, the same game (controls, graphic limitations, etc. can really change a game experience). So I’m immediately torn. Obviously, I want to buy the game on the 360, rack up my gamerscore, and show off all my points to my friends. On the other hand, I really want to experience what is considered by many to be the “real” experience of the game (sprawling real-time tactical RPG on a controller doesn’t sound so awesome to me). So I stall, and stall, and stall. Days turn into weeks; weeks into months. Eventually, I just sort of write it off as one of those limbo games that I’m never going to buy (NOTE: do not confuse this with the game Limbo, which I plan to purchase the very MOMENT it is available – seriously, I demoed this game at PAX East and it was un-freakin-believable).

Then Steam (oh, Steam, how far you’ve come) goes and unleashes their “OMG THE OUTSIDE WORLD IS PLOTTING TO KILL YOU; HERE ARE ALL THE GAMES YOU EVER WANTED, ALL ON SALE; BUY THEM AND STAY INDOORS AND SAFE!” summer sale (definitely one of the best promotions I’ve seen in ages), and I pick up a boatload of new titles for rock bottom prices, Dragon Age: Origins included. Hooked immediately.

I’m maybe 30 hours in or so and I love it so far. I had intended on just playing it all last week until I beat it (stay-cation, remember), but then that whole “omg the Blizzard sky is falling” thing happened (remember that? those silly kids), so I got a little sidetracked. Even still, I’m loving every moment of it so far, and I can already foresee myself starting over once I’m done just to try it another way. Although, I suppose it would be good of me to finish the games I’ve started already before I got sidetracked (*cough*FFXIII*cough*Alan Wake*cough*), and then there’s that whole “guild” thing I run (not to mention, y’know, work), but hey – what’s a gamer to do? I’d rather have too many great games to play than too few.

Did you take advantage of the Steam Summer Sale? What games are you playing catch-up with at the moment? Most importantly, what do you think are some of the most underrated/unknown awesome games out there?

So this long weekend was full of delightful steak, scotch, questing, zombies, Hero Quest, and raiding.

See that steak? Yeah, it was awesome. There’s not much more to say about that meal, other than trust me – you wish you ate it. The garlic-rosemary potatoes are a recipe I stole from my main tank Aeman. What can I say; the man knows how to cook. Also? Super nerd. How nerdy, you ask? Nerdy enough to go watch Zombieland, come home, make bison tacos (like I said, the man knows how to cook), and then play Hero Quest.

/:/:/scratching record/:/:/

Yes, that’s right – Hero Quest.

If you’re over 25 and reading this blog, chances are you were a super nerd when you were a kid. Ok, I’ll allow that WoW has somewhat changed the nerd/non-nerd dynamic; you could totally be captain of your rugby team (hi, Apop) and still play WoW. But before WoW came along and made everyone ever play video games, if you were the kind of person to read this blog, you were a dork. You had a crush on Rydia from Final Fantasy (hopefully the grown-up version, you sicko), had a collection of 20-sided dice, and the closest you came to playing a sport was kicking your neighbor’s ass at Ice Hockey. Chances are you know what LARPing is (God help you). If any of this is true, you had a copy of Hero Quest, and right now, you’re wishing you still did.

Well it just so happens that Aeman got his hands on a copy. After Zombieland (which, by the way, was about as perfect as I could have hoped), I went to casa de Aeman & Theine and played Hero Quest. This is, quite possibly, the nerdiest thing I’ve done in a long, long time (and that includes starting this blog). It was totally awesome and I want to do it more. Yes, I just said that in public.

Last night, we did a quick clear through most of Ulduar and watched most loot go to either offspec or sharding, proof that yes, we’re pretty much done with that instance. Time to buckle down and focus on ToC hardmodes. Also – check out my dps on XT-002, sans Heroism (we didn’t want to engage hardmode).

I’ve recently realized just how poor my collective wow account is; I mean, I can always afford repairs (though we have a guild bank allocation for raid repairs, I never use it), but if I wanted to, say, purchase some Crusader Orbs to make the ToC bracers, could I afford ‘em? Not a chance. This irks me. This irks me something fierce. I’m not generally the type to be satisfied with a situation over which I have little control. A-ha!, though – I have control over it; it all comes down to time allocation.

You see, a while back I made this Druid. She’s not much, I realize (dual spec? yes! competent at either? errrr… not really), but she’s fun and more importantly, she was designed as a farmer. Skinning/Herbalism. Insta-flight form is as cheating as you can get without requiring seppuku to absolve yourself of the shame, and it’s perfect for a farming toon. In addition to this, while leveling her, I did as many Outlands/sidequests as I could bear, in order to hasten the place in Northrend at which I’d hit 80. In this case, I got there around mid-Zul’Drak. I’ve now finished Zul’Drak and done about half of the Sholazar quests, and have made about 2.5k in doing so. This is nuts. Druids are a cash cow. When I’m done with this one, I’m considering making another to level just for the gold (I’d make another DK for said purpose if I could; those guys are the definition of solo-leveling OP).

Oh, one last thing – I’ve noticed my traffic increasing steadily. Hello, readers! In case you’re wondering, I do not have a cushy “sit in an office and play on the internet all day” job. As a result, I won’t be updating this daily. I will, however, do what I can to update at least 2-3 times a week. I’ll do what I can to keep you office-bound folk in mind and try to post in such a manner as to give you stuff to read while you get paid to sit on your ass, but no promises.

So there ya go – if I don’t post for a day or two, don’t freak out and unsub. Just sit and be patient; the good stuff’s on the way.

Deborah Gibson, I had really missed you. I admit it, I completely dropped the ball when you were on Broadway, but gimme a break – I was in middle school. I had very little control over whether or not I was in New York City. Since stopping your mall tours and moving into adult contemporary, I admit my interest waned a bit – until now. Until seeing your performance in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. Truth be told, I don’t know if I can even really call it a performance, it seemed so true-to-life. Such talent and emotion brought to such a plausible script – I don’t know how you do it, but I salute you.

So seriously – the scene where the shark jumps out of the water and eats the plane? Priceless. I definitely feel that the octupus got the shaft a bit; we don’t really get to see his motivations very much, other than perhaps his deep desire to either sleep or get something out of his eye. Either way, worth the price of admission (in this case, free, streaming via netflix). I highly recommend intoxication.

Also – Gamefly? How have I possibly owned an xbox this long and not known about this site? Are there any other totally awesome services that elude me? Please, let me know!

• (+) The previously mentioned Gymkata is supposed to arrive at my house today, in plenty of time for Bad Movie Night.
• (-) At the time of this posting, however, it has not yet arrived.
• (-) [Justicebringer] failed to drop for me again.
• (+) On the upside, we downed the new Onyxia as well as Sarth+3 tonight.
• (=) The changes to DKs this patch make unholy Oblit useless, while buffing SS to a roughly reasonable level. Rotation is borked, but might be good once I get used to it. We’ll see.
• (-) The change to Bone Shield (one less bone, 1-min duration, 1-min cooldown) is obnoxious to work into a rotation.
• (+) This week is flying by, speeding quickly toward Bad Movie Night.
• (-) Aion retail has hit stores this week. I really wish I had gotten into the beta earlier, as I may have enjoyed the game more later on. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough to grab me right away, and hey – that’s how you sell stuff.
• (-) Pearl Jam’s Backspacer was released for Rock Band 2 DLC this week – I have no interest in purchasing it.

A short update list, of sorts:

• (-) I saw Equilibrium this weekend, starring Christian Bale. It was one of the more wretched movies I’ve seen in a while. I think the gun kata was the only thing that was even remotely cool. That’s right, gun kata.
• (+) Upon describing Equilibrium (and the gun kata) to a coworker, I was informed of the movie Gymkata, which supposedly boasts a serious fight scene entirely in slow-motion. It is now in my netflix queue and I hope it arrives before Friday.
• (-) [Justicebringer] failed to drop for me again.
• (+) On the upside, we downed Anub’arak tonight.
• (-) I am still far too broke to justify spending $50 on Prototype.
• (+) $15, on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable for Shadow Complex. Miss Metroid? Get this game.
• (+) While I’m suggesting games that are awesome – if you haven’t picked it up yet, go get The Beatles: Rock Band. It’s super fun.