Forgetful me…

Well, it figures I would forget something in my last post. That’s what I get for posting when sleep deprived… overtime and a lack of sleep will do that to a person.

–

I picked up Dragon Age: Origins for the 360. It’s a fairly simple game to get a hang of, that is, after you go through the process of customizing the look of your character… which could take a long while if you have OCD, like me. I figured I needed to be a little less OCD about the way my character looked after I took a good half hour making my character look just right, then deciding I didn’t like the way he looked any more about ten minutes into the game, deleted him, and remade him… with the almost the same results.

I have not played all of the origin stories, but of the ones I have played I only found 2-3 that actually peeked my interest. The Human Noble and both Dwarf Noble and Dwarf Commoner. I’ve mostly played my Dwarf Noble, but it seems I’m making better progress with my Human Noble because I have more of an understanding of the talent system and game-play.

It probably didn’t help my Dwarf Noble, who is a warrior, because I was using the Auto-Assign skills to all the party members [except my main character, who I was setting up to be the tank]. So, Alistair was being auto-setup to be the tank, just like I was specifically setting my Warrior. For a while I had to keep Alistair in my group because I didn’t have enough party members, there wasn’t enough DPS to kill things quickly. Things have picked up since I got other characters to replace Alistair.

My Human Noble on the other hand, who is also a warrior, is built more for the brute damage of a two-handed weapon. I’m also assigning the points for each party member instead of using the auto-assign. I let Alistair keep his tanking role, I wanted to try something a little more DPS oriented this time around.

My Dwarf Commoner on the other hand, is a Rogue. Naturally, Alistair has to keep the tanking role. I haven’t gone nearly as far with this character as I did with the my other two characters. I just finished the origin and “starting area” with this character.

–

My brother and I have done quite a bit of the Spec Ops in Modern Warfare 2 over the weekend, yesterday, and today. We’re going through the whole thing on Veteran. So far, we’ve completed all of Alpha and Bravo, every mission except the last in Charlie, and the first 3 in Delta. I’ll just say, they’re lots of fun, and they  can be challenging… especially those Juggernauts. Oooh, those Juggernauts… *shudder* they’re insane on Veteran. I haven’t played Spec Ops on any easier modes, but I’d imagine they’re a bit easier to kill. I’m almost dreading the last two Ops in the Echo section. That just seems like a suicide mission to me.

We need to take a break from the Spec Ops though. We’re missing the multiplayer versus [we haven't touched versus since we started playing the Spec Ops]. Our favorite versus modes are mainly Team Deathmatch and Ground War.

Distractions…

Downtime at work can be fun… I’ve had a chance to work on my Sudoku skills. I managed to do this one the between yesterday and today, not bad if I say so myself.

–

Hmm, I think I finished Fable II… I can’t quite recall at the moment now. Of course, if not, the reason being… better games. Also, Batman: Arkham Asylum is still sitting in the que to be finished, I’m picking at it on occasion. There are just so many games that catch my attention. I really need to work on completing a game before I start another.

–

I have spent a lot of time playing Borderlands, although, I stopped playing Mordecai [the "Hunter"]. I started playing Lilith [the "Siren"].  When I started Lilith, I started playing online. I thought it was good before, it’s even better online, especially with friends! I don’t know why I even thought about playing that game solo. The only downside to playing online is people talk & it gets hard to hear what NPCs are saying in game.. you miss a bit of the story.

From what I’ve heard, there is another downside for playing online… but I have yet to experience it. The loot drops on the ground, anyone can grab it and leave the game for no reason. I’ve only ever played with friends, so I have yet to see that. My friends and I chose the drops based on what character we are playing and who it would benefit most.

When you distribute skill points properly, Lilith becomes vicious. I managed to get her to level 50 on her before I got Mordacai past 25. She becomes even more dangerous once you get her some nice weapons. I managed to get some pretty beastly weapons for her. She rips almost anything apart, even in 4 player games. There are a few areas that I need to find a weapon specific to the mobs in those areas.

I know I complained a little about the inventory system in my last post. It was annoying at first, but now that I’ve expanded it to 45 slots, it’s not as bad. And there’s a chance that it can expand even further, I just have to do all the quests in the second play-through: on the second play though, there’s only a chance you’ll get extra inventory space, so far out of 4 quests I’ve received 1 upgrade.

–

Alas… Borderlands has been pushed to the back burner a bit. Modern Warfare 2 came out. *glee* I have been waiting for this game since the first Modern Warfare came out [not really, but you get the idea]. I borrowed my friend’s MW2 for Xbox 360 for a few days while he was at work, & I waited for it to be released on PC. For some reason, Steam didn’t release it for a few days after it was sold in stores. I played through the campaign on the 360 on Normal, and did a little bit of the Spec Ops missions, but I only did a few, and solo.

I’ve since installed MW2 on my PC and played through the campaign [yes, again] on Hardened.  My brother and I are playing Multiplayer pretty much any time we are both on the PCs. We have yet to hit up any Spec Ops, probably sometime this weekend.

One thing that is slightly disappointing is how quickly people are hacking & cheating in the MW2 multiplayer. I’ve run into a few different forms of cheating that’s quite annoying. One of which any time I looked at an enemy [they were near the middle of my sight] my view would spaz out like I was having a seizure just in my arm and swinging the mouse all over [character would look around very fast in random directions until I was killed].

Then on top of that, there’s lag. Now, I know there’s bound to be issues with this due to playing online. But it pisses me off when I’m behind someone and toss a grenade at their feet, then unload a full clip into them because they didn’t die [grenade and every shot registers as a hit], only to have them turn around, sprint tot me, and knife me dead. Then when I watch the kill cam, from their view, stand there like a complete idiot staring at them. That’s just stupid.

–

One thing I’ve determined… I need to get a new mouse. My gaming mouse broke about a month ago, I’ve been using some shitty Microsoft mouse for the past while. I also need to find some sort of desk-like surface for my keyboard & mouse. My PC is hooked up to my TV, I don’t have a monitor, I sit on my futon when playing games, it’s quite a hassle when trying to play fast paced games, such as MW2. Sitting with the keyboard on my lap & mouse on the futon next to me sucks. Haha, my own fault I guess. I decided to ditch the monitor & desk for the TV setup.

–

I let my World of Warcraft account expire again. I’ll return eventually.. I’m sure. I just don’t see the point in paying for WoW when I’m not really playing it. I logged for a few hours a day or two before it expired and managed to get Deathengine to level 71. I’d like to be able to hit up some gaming with my other brother, but with the lack of desire to play WoW it kinda makes that difficult… he’s not going to be getting MW2 until sometime after the holidays.

I’m a gamer, no denying.

The past month or two my computer has been out of commission. Rather than fixing my PC right away, I decided I needed to take a small step a way from games (mainly World of Warcraft) and get out with my friends more. It’s difficult since I work in the morning/early-afternoon and most of them work in the mid-afternoon/evening, but it’s a lot easier since I stopped working overnights. Even with staying up “late” to hang with friends, I’ve been getting more sleep then when I was on overnights.

I dusted off my 360 to play some games that I left untouched, since I have some free time when everyone else is working. It’s a lot easier to pull away from games that don’t require more time (WoW- raids, endless grinding to level, etc).

–

Finally finished up Mass Effect [the last 2-3 hours I skipped out on *sigh*], I think it had great story & excellent game play. My only concerns are the load screens/time, and some bump-mapping issues. Quite often it takes a second or more for the textures to load during scene changes [conversation sequences, doors opening, amongst others], and right after load screens. The inventory system could have use a bit of work as well… it felt a bit jumbled at times. Despite all the load screens & bump-mapping issues, Mass Effect is worth it. I plan on picking up the sequels.

–

I’m still not too impressed with Fable II. I don’t find the story line very interesting, there are many load screens, & if you get a lot of NPCs in one area the game bogs down and gets jumpy, there are also bump-mapping issues at times as well. What really kept me playing the game was the achievements that would add points to my gamer-score, and the fact that I could just go around murdering whole villages or saving the entire countryside on a whim. I’m not sure if I’m gonna pick up Fable 3, we’ll see though… I’m hoping for improvements.

–

I’m a big Batman fan, so Batman : Arkham Asylum was a natural choice. It’s pretty good, I still need to play more of the story, I got distracted doing the challenges (specifically the Scarecrow one that was downloadable). The story, graphics, and game play are all excellent from what I’ve seen. There are Challenges given by the Riddler throughout the game that you can solve for extra achievements & game completion if you enjoy that kind of thing, I know I do. That’s probably a big reason I haven’t beaten the game yet, I spend a lot of time “treasure” hunting.

–

I’ve beaten Halo 3: ODST, the story line was interesting with the way they hopped between each of the squad’s stories. I was slightly disappointed in the difficulty of the Legendary mode, it seemed a lot easier than Halo 3. Since you’re not playing as Master Chief, I would think it should be more difficult without the over-shield and not being genetically enhanced.

Firefight is amazing. Although it has no random grouping functionality (like Halo 3 matchmaking). There have only been a few times I’ve actually had enough friends on at the same time to play and it be worth-while (and even then it’s only been 2… maybe 3 out of the [almost necessary] 4 possible). I would love to play it more, but in order to get far enough to make it worth while, my friends and I are going to have to make some sort of schedule for it.

–

Borderlands… ah, Borderlands. Probably the best description I’ve heard about it is, “it’s like the Diablo games and the FPS had a baby.” I chose to start with Mordecai, the sniper. I’ve reached level 19 on him, it’s a lot of fun. Now my newest sniper rifle has enough power to completely blow enemies heads off, and lower level mobs can be blown to pieces with said rifle. One thing that gets me is the fact that some non-sniper weapons have a zoom scope almost as good as my sniper scope, I don’t think I need that good of a scope (or any) on a shotgun, but some I’ve seen do have absurd scopes on them.

The inventory system is alright, only 12 slots to place things when you first start, but it’s expandable… right now I’m sitting at 18 slots. The lack of space can get annoying at times, since any extra guns, shields, or first aid kits all take up space. If you want to carry a first aid kit or two to be safe, be ready to give up precious inventory space. If you get hurt bad enough, you can chose to fight for your life or respawn back at the last save spot you walked by in what is essentially a clone body… this costs money though (currently $600-ish per spawn). I should probably start carrying a first aid kit, just in case I need it, but I would rather be able to carry that one extra gun that will add to my arsenal, or my wallet if I sell it. You also start with the ability to carry a main weapon and secondary weapon, as you progress you unlock the ability to hold up to 4 weapons, all choseable by cycling through them or hitting a hotkey.

–

I still have a few other games to work on that didn’t impress me too much for one reason or  another: Blue Dragon (RPG, might just need to get further into the story), Assassin’s Creed (while pretty, it is very repetitive), & Grand Theft Auto IV (I’ve always taken my time with the GTAs, so this one will take a while) just to name a few.

–

Obviously I’ve since fixed my computer. And yes, I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again, but nowhere near as much. I still enjoy the game, but I know I need a break from playing it as much as I used to, so I’ve been limiting myself. When I do play, I’m hopping between my Death Knight [Deathengine] on a server with my brothers and my Mage [Stasís] on a server with some friends. I hit 70 on my DK today, and did a few of the Headless Horseman quests for the Hallow’s End event. I’m debating if I want to power level to 75 so I can complete the quest to kill Headless Horseman, the event ends next Saturday.