A Gaming Journal

4Mar/110

Update

My lack of updates have been fourfold:

  1. Entertaining company in real life.  This happens once every 2-3 years, but it meant I couldn't continue Metroid: Other M, which is what I'm trying to finish for backlog and scripting purposes.  The good news is that I have to have it done by next Tuesday, when Dragon Age II comes out.  I also need to play the last 5 minutes of Trauma Team and actually finish it.
  2. Above-mentioned company also made me discover the pure joy of playing Minecraft on a dedicated server with close friends.  I am the material-bitch, who spends all their time digging in mines so everyone else has enough cobblestone to build awesome things.
  3. RIFT.  I cancelled my World of Warcraft account (sorry, Jacquelle), which doesn't say much because I've cancelled it about 10 times in the 2 years I've been on-and-off playing.  Even so, RIFT has completely blown me away.  I'll probably write something up on it in the future when I get a better grasp on things, but it's so fun.  It's also not so much of a timesink; I'm not sure how they did it, but it always feels like you're doing something awesome, even if you can only play a couple hours at a time.  In WoW, I would stare unmoving and unaware at the screen for 14 hours and then see that all I did was craft a pair of pants.  In RIFT, during a couple hour session playing with my friend, we did a few entire quest threads, explored a mountain area, got a few artifacts, sealed 3 large Rifts and fought back a full-scale invasion of our hometown.  It also links in to Twitter, so if you're so inclined to see all my picture updates (I try to only take interesting ones), you can check it out here.
  4. This has nothing to do with anything, but I haven't been so excited for any video game in recent memory as I have been for Catherine.  Words cannot express how much I want to play this, and the fact that Atlus is actually releasing it in the US at the end of July brings me so much joy...I was expecting at least a late-year release, but I guess there's a lot less to translate in a 10 hour puzzle-game than a 200 hour RPG like Persona.
  5. Bonus - The fact that I can't listen to this while playing a game makes it hard to play anything, since that's all I've been doing.

29Jan/110

Catherine Demo with Duke Nukem

TL: Hello, folks.  I have the opportunity and honor to talk to the one and only Duke Nukem, star of the insanely popular "Duke Nukem" series of games, and of the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever, amazingly enough coming out this May to consoles everyone.  Thanks for joining us, Duke.

Duke: GOOD TO BE HERE, TOM.

TL: So you must be enjoying your time back in the limelight, with your new game finally coming out.  Especially after the number of issues it had.

Duke: WHAT CAN I SAY, TOM - EVERYONE LOVES THE DUKE.  NOTHING CAN KEEP ME DOWN, EXCEPT TRISH AND BARBI BACKSTAGE.  AND THEY'RE MORE ABOUT KEEPING ME UP THAN DOWN IF YOU GET MY DRIFT.

TL: I think I do, Duke.  So it's been twelve years since anyone has really heard from you; what have you been doing in that time?

Duke: WOMEN.