Lemme lay it out for ya like this:
- I take classes, and I'm one of those students who works incredibly hard at determining what I can do to get away with having to do the same amount of work as the generic, average students, but get at least a B. This takes a lot of dedication and devotion to fucking around. I take my slacker-ness seriously.
- I work, and I rather enjoy what I do. Working in IT on a college campus seems like a tough, bitchy job if you haven't actually had a tough, bitchy job. I have had some fairly bad jobs (ripping the guts out of chickens), and I've had some very, very hard jobs (being a restaurant GM), so going to work in an IT department on a college campus is something that I actually enjoy, and in order to keep enjoying it, I actually, ya know, work. And read sports news on the internet.
- Uncharted fucking 2: Among Thieves. Thank the Maker, this is the best game I've played in a long, long time. I know that Cody's mental vagina has developed a severe allergy to cut-scenes, but this game epitomizes my belief that, in certain games, the cut scenes provide a wonderful breather, and act as a 'take a sip of your beer, grab a smoke, and relax for a minute' kinda moment. Cody, my dearest friend and fellow bloggist, I urge you to inject your brain with some Vagisil, and happily slurp down a PS3, loaded with wonderful cutscenes. Anyway, this game is the best of the adventure/platforming genre, and has a beautiful blend of puzzles, storytelling, rich characters, platforming, combat, gorgeous art, and my wife was even wanting to give kudos to whoever 'dresses the sets,' so to speak, because the environments are so detailed (and I don't mean polygons and textures, though those look nice, too.)
- I also journeyed out to Kingston, IL and Chicago over the weekend for a wedding and to visit the in-laws, so there.
- I spent quite a bit of time fighting with Windows 7, since I got my retail keys for several copies a couple weeks ago, through work/school. I've been trying to upgrade my gaming Deathbook from Vista Home Premium x64 to Windows 7 Pro x64, and it is not, officially, possible. I don't accept that, and I'm halfway through the process now. Of course, if I have to do a full reinstall, so be it, but I have that machine, and each game install, super-customized, and don't even get me started about my fucking iTunes library. If I have to reinstall, I'm looking at a month or two of tweaking to get everything back to where I want it. No thanks.
- Lastly, I've been working on getting more gaming going w/ Linux. One of the things I'd really like to do in life is bring a greater gaming presence to Linux. It would make gaming platforms FREE, which is a huge win, but would also open game development up to a greater number of people. Gaming + open source could be a great thing. I've now got Guild Wars & the Neverwinter Nights (plus all the expansions) running on my Ubuntu netbook, and they both run PERFECTLY. NWN actually runs without any emulation. It is actually running ON Linux, which is awesome. Now, if we can just get Steam to act as a means to run anything and everything on Linux...
Oh, and I guess I need to publish that third chapter of my book on here, as I had promised. I'll get it up here tomorrow.
What have you been up to?
-Blaine
Oh you silly Blaine, you. I suppose I have less problems with cut-scenes and more a developer's inability to craft stories unique to the medium. I saw a few clips from Uncharted 2 where they seemed to have a good balance between the actual game and the stuff you old folks use to take breaks, and even better some nice transitions from the in-game storytelling/action and the cut-scenes. I really need to play it, once I finally buy a PS3.
ReplyDeleteI might update to Windows 7... I've got Home Premium and supposedly it's pretty simple to upgrade if you're just getting the same software version and not updating from XP (which I hear is a real pain in the ass). Though I'm probably the only person who's never had a whole lot of problems with Vista. I've had it for half a year and it's crashed on me once. Or I could get a Mac... though at the chance of getting shot around these parts, I'll say a netbook and Ubuntu instead. Though one day I'll probably own them all just for diversity's sake.
As for what I've bee up to, picked up a few books lately (currently reading American Gods), seeing my Red Sox fail, seeing my Packers sorta do okay, and enjoying the leaves changing as Fall is my favorite season.
Whoa, hey there, Cody! Dude, the Red Sox seriously suck. I'm a New Englander born and bred and I've never liked them (OK, hate is probably a better word). I have issues, I know.
ReplyDeleteBlaine - you know what I've been up to, 'cause you left a message on my 1up blog. I've also been having back issues, dealing with good friends kicking off this mortal coil and my car breaking down on Sunday. Meh. I think I'm going to go console myself with my consoles.