so i picked it up as it seemed like the thing to do prior to Halloween. it's a game with a concept/story drawn up by Clive Barker, after all. it's gotta have quite the scare/disturb the fillings out of your teeth to it.

unfortunately, the game has been more frustrating than scary. they expect you to do PRECISION shooting from the get go. hit these two spots on this monster while it's convulsingly lurching towards you along with 3-5 of it's buddies. btw, better hit those 2 spots before they reach you or else they'll EXPLODE and seriously injure/kill you/your squad members.

speaking of squad members, perhaps it's because i haven't had to micromanage npcs in a while but ugh...such a bother and it seems like they don't listen to me half of the time. i'll tell them to hold position, yet i'll see them running next to, if not AHEAD of me when i start moving. wtf? one good thing is while there's friendly fire, they don't seem to die from you shooting them. even in the head. of course, this might be because i currently have it on easy.

speaking of 'easy', i know there's generally a learning curve for any game but usually on EASY, it's like...EASY. this kinda goes with the 2 previous paragraphs but inbetween commanding the squad, shooting oncoming monsters, trying to hit those points on the splodey monsters, having to heal injured/fallen squad members as you're 1 of 2 people in a squad of 7 that can do so and hoping one of the splodey monsters doesn't feel like coming up behind you during the healing animation, it's feeling...not so easy. i like a challenge but typically, i'll go through a game on easy the first time through to see story/character development stuff, then go back to play it on normal/hard for the challenge. but yeah, it took me 4 or 5 tries to get past this one fight just because of all the splodey monsters, just...grrr...

a few other things that annoy is the utter lack of a map/compass/objective list to tell where the fuck i'm going/what to do. 'this is omega! we need help in the northeast sector!' cool! ass kickin' time! ...which the fuck way is northeast?! at the moment, i'm stuck at some big arena of sorts with 4 sphinx-like statues just...staring at them and the walls. i have no idea what to do. i even tried shooting all of my squad members in the head. yes, i really did. just...guh...

it's a shame because i do enjoy the stories that Barker comes up with but so far, Jericho isn't impressing me. if i can ever get past the stupid statues, maybe it'll improve but for now, i ain't holding my breath.

i'm tired as hell so i'll be slacking off on the paragraphs but i had to say that Hellgate London is made of absolute win. now that the NDA isn't in effect, i can freely gush about it. so far, i've tried out blademaster, marksman, engineer and evoker. blademaster is pretty snooze, evoker is alright but marksman and engineer are friggin' win. marksmen is better for teams while engineer is kinda like a marksman but with a small army of robots to help you kick ass. it's kinda like being a mastermind on CoV but without having to micromanage. at first, it worried stormdragon and me that engineers and summoners didn't really have control of their pets but after Jericho, i'll be sure not to take that for granted anyhore. also, NEVAR ENDING CLIP IS RABURII DESU! we'll be losing our beta characters but thankfully, leveling isn't that much of a pain, nor is raising money. it's pretty easy for anyone to farm for parts/money so hopefully there won't be an economy problem except for unique items. getting around is pretty easy as well. as stormdragon said, it really is what we were hoping to get out of Tabula Rasa but that got fairly convaluted pretty fast. so yeah, i'll likely be playing that along with CoH/V. inbetween homework, of course.

a very fast river. DX so much to blab about and will probably come out not so comprehensive at times so bear with me prs.

ugh, been quite busy as of late. been procrastinating on school work because i've felt so busy doing stuff that all i wanted to do was shut of my brain and relax, which for me means logging into either CoH/V and/or Hellgate London to run around. GYARGHSAFOOT! i'm hoping that finally dropping those two 'extra' shifts at work will alleviate some of that ZOMGness and i'll feel less stressed, thus able to concentrate on schoolwork, rather than running away/blissfully forgetting about it.

probably also helps that i went out and bought a dry erase board with a calendar on it so i can note when stuff is due for my classes so i can pace myself better. hopefully will keep me more organized in general as well. lord knows it'll come in handy for those days i don't have class for whatever reason. would suck muchly to get up hella early, waste gas driving to school then back when i realize LOLMEFORGOTNOCLASSTODAYZSUCK4J00.

reorganized my desk a bit. pretty much moved the cd boxes full of anime i had to the bookshelf and put the shiny clear plastic cases i have some of my Type-Moon figurines in on the middle shelf of desk. so i kinda have a Type-Moon shelf, then miscellaneous above it. pictures later mebbe.

argh, finished one of two things due tomorrow/today. had to do a mix of Time by The Alan Parsons Project using Audacity, which is a YAY!FREE audio software, but of course, nowhere near as shiny as ProTools or Live. was kinda frustrating not having such-and-such option available to me but was satisfied with finished product. link later mebbe?

other thing due is an essay which is kinda GEH because i haven't written an essay in...8 or 9 years. fairly easy subject but am still kinda EEK because it's the first time in many moons. hopefully will not utterly suck.

Hellgate London is fairly shiny. not super shiny but entertaining enough. waiting to see how the servers will work but until then, will enjoy the beta. rocket launcher = <3 vere muchly.

as mentioned before, i'm playing CoH/V -again- at the begging/pleading/highly suggesting/eye batting of stormdragon and themishi. still fun as ever though i'm rather LOL!LOST at the new stuff. at least running up and bashing it with my fists hasn't changed much?

urgh...highly considering freezing LotRO account for a while. i feel bad since i know we've lost a few other people in the kinship to school/elsewhere gaming but i know they also absorbed a smaller kinship recently as well. mrrr...might keep account alive if money isn't too problematic.

Erica of Yuricon will be in the area at the end of the month and wants to hang out, much to my surprise. while i'm not 'scared' of her, i guess i was never really sure if i was in her Good/Tolerable/OMG Stop Stealing My Oxygen And Please Don't Procreate list. pleasant surprise to say the least. want to take her to Gochi but grr at them not being open on sundays. DX might have to go with another izakaya or different restaurant completely. we shall see. also got invited to go along with her to a Viz Halloween get-together of sorts in SF. whee~ might be wearing Dickens costume early? :D? still need a bowler hat though. :(

( and now, i leave you with a meme )

while i'm still pretty piss broke from fixing up my car and buying collectors editions of Burning Crusade for peoples, i HAD to buy Hotel Dusk, just because i knew it'd take forever to get it back in stock when they all sold out. so here i am with it.

wow. just. wow.

anybody who's ever seen the music video for the song Take On Me by A-Ha knows how friggin' awesome it is, especially for the time that it came out. even with the bad 80s hair and clothes. and of course, it's a kick ass song.

Hotel Dusk reminds me A LOT of that video just because it's executed in somewhat of the same manner. they have pencil sketchings over color backgrounds that are somewhat animated. sure, a lot of it is recycled, especially on the speaking spots but damn if the style just doesn't make me love it from the get go. definately a step up from Trace Memory, which i also loved playing.

i'm just hoping that the actual playtime of the game is a lot longer than Trace Memory but it's hard to say since i think the in-game/story time is only supposed to be the length of an evening or at most 24hrs since that's the amount of time your character checks into the hotel for. we'll see i guess.

ugh...i'll finish all my DS games eventually. really.

*eyes FF3, Phoenix Wright 1, EBA, Trauma Center, Cooking Mama, etc etc...* ~_~;

oh yes, and i <3 NCSoft for having double XP weekends on CoH/V. XD can't get that on WoW! \o/

oh, and yes, muimi07, there is another hawt megane woman in Hotel Dusk. ;3