Lazy Sunday Challenge: 10 Hours, 10 Games

Posted on March 3, 2012 by

My time with Target has come to an end, and I’m now on an 8-day vacation until my job with American Family Insurance begins. So, besides hitting the gym so I’m not a sedentary slug ALL day, I plan on making Sunday a Lazy Sunday. I’m going to indulge in an excessively long gaming marathon, since I’ll be working on chores and tying up loose ends almost all day Monday.

So, I’ve decided the challenge will be to play 10 games over 10 hours, devoting approximately an hour to each title. I’ll make an attempt to stream it, but my setup is notoriously laggy, so I’m not sure how good the video quality will be, so I may pull the plug if it looks bad. I’ll also be tweeting happenings over the course of the day.

Here’s the schedule (tentative based on my time at the gym.) All times are US central time.

  • Noon -1pm: X-Men: Destiny
  • 1-2pm: Kingdoms of Amalur
  • 2-3pm: Rayman Origins
  • 3-4pm: Cars 2
  • 4-5pm: American Nightmare
  • 5-6pm: ONE HOUR EYE BREAK
  • 6-7pm: Skyrim
  • 7-8pm: Nexuiz
  • 8-9pm: Gears of War 3
  • 9-10pm: Assassins Creed Brotherhood
  • 10-11pm: DreamWorks Kartz

Three games on this list are achievement punching bags (X-Men, Cars, DreamWorks), but the rest are quality games I’m looking forward to playing. It should make for an interesting (and lazy) Sunday!

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Nearing the End of Purgatory

Posted on February 1, 2012 by

My days as an under-employed job seeker are drawing to a close. While there are still some steps I need to make for it to be 100% final and official (just need to pass a background check and fill out some forms), American Family Insurance is offering me a job as a claims adjuster, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity. It will make good use of the customer service skills I honed while working with Walmart, and improve the analysis skills gained through my Sociology degree.

I will begin their training program on March 12th, which means I have a job in hand, and almost a month and a half of time to kill before that. I plan to continue working at Target up until that time, to keep making money to cover my cost of living, but no longer worrying about finding a job means I have a significant amount of free time to play with. How will I spend the days?

I have 4 things I want to spend my time on this month – Gaming, Writing, the Gym, and growing a social life. Without breaking the bank (as it will take months to restore my savings) I want to see what’s out there for social groups and clubs, and try to meet new people. Because my rate of weight loss will likely decline once I begin full time work, I plan to hit they gym aggressively in February, to lose as much weight and improve my physical condition as much as I possibly can. It’ll make for an intense month!

On the gaming front, I’ve rejoined Gamefly for achievement fodder, will be picking up Kingdoms of Amalur, and plan to keep rocking the back catalog like I have been. Beyond a review for Amalur, I’m not sure yet what writing I’ll be doing for The Game Effect this month. Tomorrow, I plan to hit the gym, knock out some misc. chores, then sit down and plan out some feature content.  When I have specifics, I’ll be sure to share!

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Gamer Transformation Project: Game Line-Up and Battle Plan

Posted on January 2, 2012 by

The “last year of Earth” (not really) is upon us, and with my holiday mini-break behind me, it’s time to get cracking once more on the things that matter… like finding a job and losing weight. Of course, I’ll want to have good games to play to unwind after my efforts, so yesterday I flipped through my back catalog to decide where to start.

It turns out 2011, my so-called “year of the RPG,” wasn’t very successful. I completed just 2 RPGs – Torchlight and Phantasy Star Universe. PSU, with a 120+ hour time commitment, is a completion I’m quite proud of. This year, however, I need to up the ante, as completing only 2 RPGs in 12 months isn’t good enough for me. This year, I’m aiming for six. I think one every two months, given the time commitment these games require, should be tough but possible. Given the work I have to do to complete Gears 3 AND get to 200k this year, I expect a mini-GSL later in the year (assuming I have income) to keep on pace.

Seriously 3.0 is the achievement I plan to use to hit 200k right on the nose. For this to be possible though, I need to correct my gamerscore, which does not currently end in a nice, clean 5 or 0. To do this, I could find some game with odd achievements to use, but I plan on trying to go back to three old games and correct their odd totals. First, I’m starting with Infinite Undiscovery, a fun JRPG that I dedicated almost 40 hours to back in 2009, completing the game on Normal. Now, I plan to press on through the next two difficulties, anticipating another 100-120 hours for the last 331 points. Yes, seriously.

After that, it’s time to return to the original release of Divinity II. I have the 1 point achievement for killing Charlie the Goblin, but I need to complete the game for the 99 point achievement to balance it out.

Lastly, at some point before the end of the year, I need to figure out how to get “You Ate All the Chips” in Halo Reach (collect all flags in a matchmade Stockpile game). Thanks, Bungie, for that evil achievement. If anyone knows ways to make this easier, I’m all ears. If I can accomplish these three tasks, the path to a perfect 200k is simple scoring and doing all the crazy crap I need to for Seriously 3.0.

My current game rotation is Infinite Undiscovery, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Skyrim, Gears 3, and AC Brotherhood. Also, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I’m back on working Red Alert 3 with W1lly x360a. That’s a lot of games to try to juggle, but Gears 3 is something I can casually play whenever I want and make progress, and Red Alert 3 is a scheduled affair. Once a few of these games get wrapped up, I’m going to try to keep the rotation smaller.

On the weight loss front, I’m at a snag… already. I’ve been spot-on with my diet, but despite reduced calories, my numbers aren’t dropping, even though at this point diet alone should be working. My body’s been refusing to burn the blubber over the last few days. I’m going to try to mix it up with an AM and PM workout. I’m under-employed, so I have the time…

As a measure to make sure my daily efforts are focused to job hunting, I’m imposing on myself a Monday to Friday “No Xbox before 6pm” rule, except for days where I had a work shift at Target, or special occasions (like my best friend coming over on Thursday and Friday). Here’s to hoping I have the will to be good about this, and don’t find other ways to waste my time.

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2012: Gamer Transformation / 200k Project

Posted on December 29, 2011 by

WARNING: What follows is a brutally honest personal post, detailing my mission for 2012, and some video content that is forthcoming.

As I’m sure many people do near the end of the year, I’ve been thinking about what I want to achieve next year. I have to hope 2012 swings the scales of karma in the direction of the positive, as 2011 has been a year to forget, for reasons I won’t get into here. Besides landing a job, I’m planning to make 2012 a year of transformation physically, and hit the next major milestone of my gaming hobby: the 200k gamerscore. I’m going to be combining those two items together into a documentary series for YouTube, with an introduction up the first week of January, and monthly episodes after that, with additional updates via Twitter and this blog. By the end of 2012, I plan to have lost a MINIMUM of 50 (and up to 80) pounds, while packing the last 27,000~ish points I need to my gamerscore to cross the 200k mark. The documentary series will detail both my gaming exploits and my weight loss efforts.

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

I’ve been overweight for a long, long time. I am, if we’re being brutally honest, several negative gamer stereotypes in the flesh: I’m obese, rarely exercise, and don’t “go outside” often enough. It’s a problem I’ve long bitched about to myself, but I’ve never gotten angry enough to attack the problem. When I stepped on the scale just over a month ago, I weighed 228 pounds. That’s a BMI (body mass index) of 34.7 for my height, which puts me in the 97th percentile for men of my height and age. That is most certainly NOT a good place to be. It’s very much in “obese” land. Goddamn it, I’m a Fat American. Job status aside, and even though I’m one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet (if you don’t mind my saying so), this mass places me pretty firmly in the “undatable” category for most women. So, for my health, self-esteem, and shot with the ladies, it’s time to get Serious. My initial goal is to get to 170 pounds (a loss of 58 pounds) and see how that looks/feels, at which point I may lose up to 20 more, to go to 150 pounds (78 pounds total). 150 is probably the lowest I should weigh with my body build.

One month into my mission, I have lost 6.6 pounds; I’m down to 222 pounds.

WHY I’M MAKING A YOUTUBE DOCUMENTARY

I’m done whining about my problem. It’s time to fix it. Having a goal, and making it public, adds motivation to meet that goal, as I fully expect my friends (both the ones I know in person and the ones I know through XBL and Twitter) to give me loads of shit if I start flagging in my mission. Seriously. Let me have it if I start messing up on the mission… you’re being a good friend. So, part of the motivation of making this so public is to keep highly motivated to have progress to report. Plus, once it’s done, I’ll have the videos to look back on and recognize my accomplishment. With obesity such a huge problem in the US, I’m also hoping my videos can inspire others to do the same. Surely, I’m not the only fat-ass gamer. If I can inspire even 1 person to, like me, stop being a cliche, it’ll be worth a thousand negative YouTube comments.

WHERE GAMING FITS IN

In each episode, I’ll be reviewing achievement progress, and commenting on my quest for 200,000. Using Roxio Gamecap, I plan to splice in some game footage, and I’ll be talking about what games I’m playing. So far, I think I want to get to 199,900 and use Seriously 3.0 as the achievement to hit 200k on. Because I have an odd number, this may well mean I also need to 1k Divinity II and Infinite Undiscovery next year… the 1 point final achievement from the latter is the stuff of nightmares. Footage will be split either 60-40 or 70-30 in favor of weight loss over gaming exploits, but it’ll be there.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

If you think of things you’d like to see in the videos, let me know! If I have viewer / reader responses, those could be a part of each monthly episode. Extra encouragement and motivation is always appreciated too.

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Thoughts on Some of DC’s New 52 – Three Issues In

Posted on November 23, 2011 by

I am one of DC’s target customers, a new reader brought in at the prospect of new #1s, and new storylines. I like the idea of being able to wade in without having to sift through years of backstories and things I know nothing about, or jumping in at the mid-point of a story arc, and thus find myself doubly lost. So, it’s with a lot of excitement I got my nerd on and started following some of my favorite heroes, and branching off into new stuff, too. What follows are my thoughts on the first 2-3 issues of several series.

I’m also going to include a “Reboot Factor” from 1-10. A rating of 10 means I consider this a total reboot, that those without extensive comic knowledge (like me) could pick up and get into without feeling lost. A 1 means I don’t feel it’s much of a reboot at all, and those unfamiliar with the characters or universe are likely to be a somewhat lost. At the end, I’ll rank them all in order of favorites, so far.

Justice League (Issues 1-3)

Of course I’m going to pick up Justice League, which is DC’s flagship series. Having Batman in it helps, but I’d have read it even without Bruce Wayne.  Some mysterious alien artifacts are turning up around the world, leading to explosions and lots of demons appearing to abduct people, for reasons currently unknown. Issue 1 featured Batman, Green Lantern, and Superman. Issue 2 added Flash, Issue 3 adds Wonder Woman, and Issue 4 is set to introduce Aqua Man. Cyborg’s backstory has been a factor of Issues 1-3, though he has not interacted with the other heroes.

With the number of heroes in the comic, things are naturally going to take some time to set up, so I’m not too concerned that there’s not a lot of traction in the story through three issues. The art is pretty good, and writer Geoff Johns has a knack for snappy dialogue, that helps keep things moving and interesting.

REBOOT FACTOR: 9

These heroes are meeting each other for the first time, and several of them didn’t believe the others actually existed. Metahumans (aka people with super powers) are a new thing in the global landscape. Most necessary information on the characters is related to the reader through dialogue. Familiarity with the characters probably helps, but I didn’t feel hindered during issue 3 because I don’t know much about Wonder Woman.

Teen Titans (Issues 1-2)

I’m familiar with Teen Titans as I used to watch the cartoon on Cartoon Network. These aren’t the same Teen Titans at all. The character roster is completely different, and with only two issues out, it’s hard to tell if they’ll play similar roles to the old crew. Through 2 issues, we’re starting to see the formation of the crew, like with Justice League.  I like Red Robin, but Cassie Sandsmark (aka Wonder Girl) kind of annoys me. I miss the old Starfire, who was so totally an anime character trapped in an american cartoon, and I loved her for it. The other characters have not had enough pages to make an impression. The basic premise is Teen Titans vs. a government agency kidnapping metahumans.

REBOOT FACTOR: 9

It’s a totally new cast, with their back stories being built up as we go. Knowledge of Red Robin may help you, but a lack of it does not really matter.

Green Lantern (Issues 1-3)

Hal Jordan isn’t a Green Lantern anymore. Sinestro has his ring back, after losing it for being a total douche (over-simplification on my part). Sinestro recruits Hal to help him reclaim his homeworld, which is now enslaved by the Yellow Lanterns he created.

REBOOT FACTOR: 2

We’re a long way from retreading origin stories here. Sinestro makes comments that Hal has blown it with the Green Lantern Corps multiple times already. Hal has a history with a woman I know nothing about. This may be a new storyline, but it hardly feels at all like a reboot, as there’s a lot of references in the first three issues I just don’t follow. The art looks good, and the ending to #3 is a hell of a cliffhanger, but I’m not blown away by the series so far.

Green Lantern Corps (Issues 1-3)

Some alien force is royally fucking up the Lanterns. It’s capable of destroying worlds. That’s all I know after three issues, as each issue shows the Lanterns getting the crap kicked out of them. OK, it’s high stakes. Big Powerful Bad Guy. I get it. It’s hard to invest in the characters when I have no idea which ones are going to be alive or dead in the next issue. This appears so far to be a more situation-driven than character-driven series.

REBOOT FACTOR: 3

It’s slightly more forgiving as more time is spent on the human characters in #1, but the bodies keep piling up with little time wasted on exposition.

Batman (Issues 2-3)

I haven’t been able to track down Batman #1 yet, so I’ve just carried on with 2-3. Batman has to content with the Court of Owls, a shadow organization said to be secretly ruling Gotham since colonial times.

REBOOT FACTOR: 6

It’s hard to say for sure without reading #1, but this feels pretty fresh. Nightwing makes a cameo without much fanfare, suggesting this is farther along in Batman’s life. Some time is spent mentioning Batman lost his parents, but most back-story is out. With the world’s most famous hero though, do you really need that? I believe the Court of Owls is a new enemy, and I enjoy that fresh start, rather than immediately squaring off with known foes like Joker or Two-Face. Batman has the best writing of the Batman comic lines, though strangely has the least appealing art.

Batman – Detective Comics (Issues 2-3)

Again, I’m late to the party to find a #1. This series plays up Batman’s detective skills more than the other series do. In this line, Batman has to take on the Dollmaker, an enemy with ties to Gordon’s Past.

REBOOT FACTOR: 6

New enemy, same old Batman. What else is there to say?

Batman and Robin (Issues 1-3)

Damien, Batman’s son, takes on the role of Robin in this series, which seems to focus strongly on the relationship between the two title characters. Damien has a violent nature, and it’s up to Batman to raise him right, while a newcomer tried to corrupt him.

REBOOT FACTOR: 3

It’s an uphill battle if you don’t know where Damien comes from (I don’t), or who Talia is. She’s the boy’s mother, but I know nothing of her history with Batman, or the kid’s early years. I like the character dynamics, though I know little of this Robin.

Batman – The Dark Knight (Issues 1-2)

This incarnation is by far the most violent and bloody of the Batman line. Some drug has Two-Face and Joker looking like steroid abusing hulks. I’m a little put off by most of the characters looking like they should be in Gears of War, not a Batman comic.

REBOOT FACTOR: 3

It’s assumed you know about Arkham Asylum, Two-Face, Joker, etc.

Catwoman (Issues 1-3)

Catwoman is the most M-rated of the DC comics I’m following. Lots of sex, blood, and tits. I know Catwoman is a rogue and a thief, but her character here isn’t very likable, and I don’t much care for Batman’s character in this series. So far, issues 1-3 have focused on the theft of a painting and the resulting trouble with the Russian mob. If I chose to drop a subscription, this will be the first to go.

REBOOT FACTOR: 7

Her background is explained a little, but anyone reading this series is likely to be familiar with her anyway.

Nightwing (Issues 1-3)

Nightwing is Dick Grayson, the first Robin, all grown up and gone solo. A professional killer has been hired to take him out, for reasons he does not know. I like the characters of Nightwing, and the story’s progression so far. Each issue adds to the picture while making it more complicated. Unlike Green Lantern Corps, I see forward momentum with this series.

REBOOT FACTOR: 9

The first three issues are revolve around the circus where Dick grew up as a boy, and his current interactions with the people there, his former family. His connections to Batman are made clear early on, and there’s a lot of exploration for who Dick is, making this series very new-reader friendly.

Supergirl (Issues 1-3)

I’ve never been a Superman fan, but I find Supergirl’s character more interesting. She lands on Earth knowing of her past on Krypton, but not of Earth or her new powers. In issues 1-3, she’s in denial that she’s really on Earth, and has no idea how to control her power. To make matters worse, a powerful agency has stolen the pod she arrived in, and now intends to experiment on her, as well.

REBOOT FACTOR: 10

The series literally begins with Kara crashing down to Earth. If that’s not starting from the beginning, I don’t know what is. Some knowledge of Superman and the fate of Krypton may help, but this is the most new-reader friendly of any of the DC comics I’ve read.

So, those were some brief thoughts on the comics I’ve been following. Don’t want to read all of those? Have time for only the best? Here’s how I would rank them on my favorites, from best to worst, so far:

  1. Nightwing
  2. Batman
  3. Justice League
  4. Batman – Detective Comics
  5. Supergirl
  6. Batman and Robin
  7. Teen Titans
  8. Green Lantern
  9. Batman – The Dark Knight
  10. Green Lantern Corps
  11. Catwoman
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Red Alert, Captain

Posted on October 27, 2011 by

Wow, the days fly by so fast! I’ve been so busy with job hunting activities that I’ve had less time to game or write than I would have liked. It’s a struggle right now to balance time between job hunting and doing things like writing for The Game Effect, and I hope to get better as time goes on. Right now, job hunting obviously has to be #1, and I’ve done a poor job at it the last 90 days, and have thus had to work almost double-time with the things I’ve learned. So, I’m sorry about such few and infrequent blog posts.

On the gaming front, I have been holding true to my mission to work on my back catalog (as if I have a choice in the matter). Crysis and Torchlight have both been completed. For $20, Crysis was a fun experience, though I may be alone in thinking the game was much less fun when the aliens finally break free. Crysis is a tale of two halves; for the first half, it’s an open-environment FPS, with level design that allows for numerous different tactics to complete missions. For one objective, I could sneak in by sea, snipe enemies and hide from an elevated position, or storm in from the front, to name just three options. Once the aliens take center stage as the antagonists, the game become totally linear, like a prettier Half-Life 2 without the emotional depth. It was still entertaining, but it felt like a different game from the first half.

Torchlight was a fun dungeon crawl and loot-fest. While it was fun, it would have been better with co-op, and the framerate issues in high-level dungeons drove me nuts. It got very annoying while building up my fame level to watch the game slow to a crawl while the game tried to process the dozens of enemies on screen at once. Hopefully these problems are fixed in the sequel.

I’ve continued RE4 on Professional, and cleared the area I was stuck on by running around the area as fast as possible to grab two halves of a crest to open a door, while ignoring the enemies. I took some damage and had to use a health item or two, but I got out without using any ammo or suffering a ton of combat. I’ve advanced as far as the cabin defense sequence with Louis, which I actually cleared on my first attempt. I will continue to make slow progress with my Pro playthrough, but RE4 is not at the top of my priority list right now.

Most of my gaming time this week has been spent with Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. I pulled this one out from DEEP in my back catalog, and with only 40 of 1000 achievement points, knew I had some work to do with it, as I had barely played the game before. My initial outing with the game went poorly, as I was attempting to play through the campaign on Hard with someone for every campaign achievement. The problem was, that partner was an IDIOT. They’re lucky I’ve forgotten their tag, or I’d be calling them out here.

This individual did not even have the courtesy to play the tutorials before our designated start time, so I’m playing on hard with a person who does not even know how to play. Joy. Even better, the fool had no concept of strategy, didn’t get what any of the units do, and would not listen to my directions when I’m straight-up telling him what each unit does and what I needed him to do to help us win. Thus, I had to literally do the work of two to get through the first three missions, and I’d had enough of him and dropped him in a hurry. The game sat neglected in my library ever since.

Upon deciding to restart it, I sent a call-out to my friends list looking for a new buddy, and got a good amount of responses. I’m working with W1lly x360a, who was one of the first to respond, and has a level of RTS experience similar to my own. My, what a difference this change in partners has made for my enjoyment of the game.

Rather than the frustrating nightmare it was before, Red Alert 3 on Hard is a stimulating mental challenge with a good partner. W1lly is on par with me in terms of strategic thinking and understanding of game mechanics. Each of us has come up with an idea or two that radically changed our level of success within missions, and made it possible to achieve victory. So far, we’ve never failed a mission more than once. It’s taken us two nights to get through the first 6 (of 9) missions in the Soviet campaign, and there’s 2 more campaigns after that, so we’ll be at this for a while, but I’m more than satisfied with our rate of progress.

The best moment so far came in mission 5, where after capturing an Allied science station, we were supposed to protect it for 10 minutes. The first time we played the mission, we got rick-rolled here, since we didn’t know it was coming. On our next attempt, we build up heavy defenses and maxed out our armies before capturing it. As it turned out, we over-prepared to truly epic levels. Once the new Allied base appeared, we sent our joint air force up there to try to knock out their air fields early, to make it easier for our network of stationary guns to protect the science station. What had been intended as a stalling harassment tactic worked out so amazingly well that we went on to level the whole allied base (on HARD, mind you) in approximately 90 seconds. So, with 8:30 still left in the defense timer, we’d won the mission. Boy, did that feel good.

I think I’m going to break out the Roxio GameCap to film our exploits going forward, to upload to my YouTube to savor. Then, if I mention future Red Alert exploits in this blog, I can refer to video so you all can see what I’m taking about.

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Massively Overdue Update

Posted on October 15, 2011 by

No, this blog ain’t dead. I’ll admit it’s been a struggle to decide what I want to do with it though, with my feature work now going up on The Game Effect. I’ve decided to scale this back to very laid-back commentary on what I’m playing, and thoughts on gaming culture in general. This being my personal space, I may write about any personal matters I’m passionate about, as well. If you’re looking for my more formal stuff, like reviews and interesting features, be sure to bookmark thegameeffect.com and look for it there (of course, I always tweet links too).

This GSL has not been going well for my team. Our only goal is to beat Band of Brothers, and I don’t see that happening, since I feel only DarkTharen has made any effort to score points. I know I haven’t, and neither has Method. (To be fair to Method, I knew when I recruited him he would not be seriously trying for points.) Party chats haven’t been happening much either. It’s like there isn’t even a competition going on. I had a personal goal of 7,500 points, which I will not achieve, but I’m not too upset about that, since I’ve been having fun with what I’m playing. What I’ve learned from this is that I cannot captain a team that is “in it for fun,” because we don’t seem to do anything as a team (the points are irrelevant.) I need to be in it for real, or not bother signing up. On the positive side, Dark is about to hit 100k, so a milestone will be achieved during this GSL.

For the last few weeks, I’ve actually been on the Rule of Four, confining my play to Gears 3, Resident Evil 4 HD, Crysis, and Dark Souls. It helps that all of these game are new to my collection. I’ve been horrible about mining points from my back catalog so far LOL. I’ll run through each of these four games and where I’m at on the quest for 1000 achievement points.

Gears of War 3: I’m in this one for the long haul, as I want to get Seriously 3.0 with a minimum of boosting. The game’s not even a month old yet, and most of my friends list has moved on to other fare, as I knew they would, since most of my list is achievement whores. Still, I’ve been able to get some matches going with my brother and my friend Stefan, as well as a few others, and have managed to get the gang together for some Horde sessions. I hope to pad my friends list with some more Gears players though, so I don’t always have to play all my matches against random people.

Right now, I have 6 Onyx medals, including Beast and Horde on Insane. I think it will be a while before I see another Onyx. Most of my recent play has been in Quick Match games in Warzone. Since nobody ever talks in QMs, I’ve written off the game audio and have been catching up on my podcast back catalog while playing.

Resident Evil 4 HD: I have completed the main game and the Separate Ways side-game. Now, I need to beat the game on Professional, and remember to shoot the water when I reach Del Lago. After that, I need to reload an save from my first playthrough and get the last of the bottle caps. Pro is no cake walk, since I can’t buy the Chicago Typewriter or any of the other special weapons on this save. Ashley’s suit of armor will help, but the challenge is there.

Right now, I’m stuck early in the game, right where you meet the merchant for the first time. I’ve been playing poorly in this area, and there seems to be FAR more Ganados than I remember. Do they keep spawning until I make the crest and leave out the other side, or will they eventually run out? The last time I failed I swear I took out 40+ guys first, which seems insane. Part of me wants to power through and nab my 1k, but I don’t have the proper mental focus for Professional right now, so it’s temporarily on the backburner.

Dark Souls: I love this game, but the game does not love me back. I’m in a state of frustration and little progress. The more I think about it, the more I feel Dark Souls is the video game equivalent of my history with women. Self ZING! I did get through Blight Town without much trouble, and I killed Queen Quelaag on the 1st try, but I’ve hit a brick wall since then. The Drake Sword does crap for damage against the enemies of Sen’s Fortress. I can barely get through the front door there. I’ve also tried returning to the Undead Asylum, but so far the Black Knights in there are having their way with me, and again, Drake Sword is doing crap damage.

Right now, I’m investigating my options to get a better weapon, but the sad truth is I may have to suffer for a while, needing to take 30+ swings to kill a common enemy. If I ever successfully 1k this game, I need to come up with a suitable way to congratulate myself, since it will be the hardest 1k on my card.

Crysis: This game is currently the least frustrating thing I’m playing. At first, I really didn’t like it, and thought maybe I’d made a bad call on dropping the 1600 points. I couldn’t get a sense of how I should approach combat. Is this game like Halo? Call of Duty? Rainbow Six? The answer is really none of the above, but once I learned how much damage I can take, and how I should be engaging enemies, I’ve been having a blast. I’ve unlocked 14 achievements for 285 points in the game today, and I’ll be going back for more.

One thing I’ve found funny is that the human AI enemies can’t seem to climb up sniper towers, so I’ve been climbing to the top and raining death on them with virtual impunity. Of course, I need to duck into cover to recharge my camo between kills, but the fact that they never investigate the tower has made many base assaults laughably easy.

I think after finishing RE4 or Crysis, I’ll work Torchlight back into the Four, since the only achievement I have left there is to for a high fame level, and that will come naturally through playing. After that, I’m not sure what I’ll work on, or how much time I’ll have until Skyrim comes out. We’ll see.

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