all things me

That’s not a typo — it’s a fact! I only have 8 days of work and then I’ll have 14 days of summer vacation!!! It’s depressingly little compared to past when school holidays were 2½ months or as much as 4 months (in Uni) and I didn’t work or worked only for a part of the summer but it’s a great improvement to last year. I don’t know yet how I’ll spend the precious little time except that I’m going to an art museum and a restaurant with Grandma one day, but what I will not do is get up at 6:30.

I know I haven’t been writing for ages but that’s because I have nothing to write about. I just work and I can’t talk about work. I’ve been playing Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and I think I’m almost finished (with PoP, you never know). I had to find some help with an abominable fight and found a great place, Stuck Gamer, that has video walkthroughs. Very wow-y! It also has a guide for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory which I haven’t played in ages and I’m horribly stuck, but I’ve decided to re-start the level or take an earlier save game to save some sticky shockers and try again.

Thanks to Kory I’ve been listening to some wonderful music by Stabilo. I’ve listened to the songs so much that it doesn’t matter anymore whether I have them playing on computer/mp3 player or not. The other day I had recharged batteries for the mp3 player, replaced the old batteries but then forgot to take the player to work. Of course, inner player isn’t as effective in blocking the outer noise as a tangible player with earphones but it did keep me entertained. If nothing else, go to the Stabilo site » Albums » Happiness & Disaster » listen to Don’t Look in Their Eyes. Listen to all the songs if you have the time!

Owning — or having the possibility to borrow — a season boxset of a TV series is unbelievably liberating. The reruns of the X-Files started last week. They’re shown at 10pm on Mondays and Tuesdays and — hold onto your chair now — I haven’t been watching them. Instead I’ve been watching other channels or dozing off if I’ve felt like it (and boy have I). No need to stare at the little channel logo (it disappears just before the commercial break) in the top right corner with my thumb on the Pause button, no need to keep my fingers crossed that my stupid DVD player records the episode properly. I’m hoping to borrow season 1 box of Lost on my summer vacation so I haven’t been watching that either. Now, if only they had season boxes of the news I’d know what’s going on in the world…

On my regular just-checking-out-the-prices trip to a couple of stores resulted this time in “Saw” DVD and a triple pack of CSI games (it was Winter-een-mas, so I guess that was allowed). I had read how horrible the first CSI game was but I wanted to try them out, nevertheless.

The first CSI reminded me of the X-Files game where you didn’t have much freedom of movement, you just needed to spot evidence on the screen, click it and use a proper tool, or go around asking questions in pre-set order. CSI didn’t offer much of an intellectual challenge in the figuring-out part but playing peek a boo with the drops of blood or tiny threads of fiber was difficult enough (although the hotspot cursor spoiled some of the fun, but also saved a couple of moments of frustration). Second CSI, Dark Motives, introduced difficulty levels which allowed me to turn off those active hotspots (cursor changes when there’s something to examine) and other help features. I played with “auto-evidence questions” off as long as I could stand the repetitive reply of “I don’t know anything about that” and “Why you asking me?” every time I dragged and dropped an evidence over a suspect to bring out new questions. In CSI:Miami (in progress), in addition to the continuing “why you asking me” torture, there are more puzzles with crypted emails and torn notes which is nicely refreshing after the first two just-drop-it-on-the-lab-guy games. Alas, it’s CSI:Miami with the Horrendous Horatio.

The characters don’t look much like the real actors but at least they’ve got real voices (I once heard a smile in Nick Stokes’s voice!) and there are too few cases to play but still I’ve enjoyed the brief moments of heureka I get — when active hotspots aren’t enabled.

I thought I’d post for a change even though I don’t have anything special to say.

It’s freezing here and I’m yawning/dislocating my jaws. It was warm (10 celsius) up till the end of last week then came a storm that sounded like a bunch of kids in a rollercoaster and the past few days have been a few degrees below zero. I’m thinking of hooking up my extra radiator.
This week I’ve also been awfully tired for some reason (no, X-Files isn’t on later than usual). The other day, Monday or Tuesday, I overslept but luckily Mum noticed I wasn’t at the breakfast table and came to wake me up.

Yesterday I ordered Colorado Kid and Blood & Smoke (audio book), by Stephen King of course– a little pre-Xmas present for yours truly.

I borrowed Dolores Claiborne (S.K. movie) DVD from a colleague. He’s quite a movie buff. I told him I’d list my puny DVD collection if there’s anything he doesn’t have already, but I’m pretty sure I can’t offer anything in return.

I figured out what I’m going to buy my godson for Xmas: a subscription of Bionicle magazine. It wasn’t available for order at the publisher’s website but I sent them a query.

I’m still trying to figure out what I’d ask Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas… I’m such book-picky but I’ll give them a list of King books I don’t have and a picture of the series I’m collecting and hope for the best. It’s really not such a big deal if the books aren’t from the same series, but it’d be so nice if they were! Well, I’ve already bought mismatching books so it’s really not big a deal. As long as the book is not ugly I’m happy. I once went to exchange a book I had bought the day before because I found a prettier one (correct series!) in another bookstore. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone! I did buy a new book during the exchange, of course.

Oh yeah, I promised to write something about Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy… I’ve forgotten everything I meant to write! I finished my 2nd round the day before yesterday. Next time I have to try and play badly to see what will happen. Anyway, like Kory said, it’s like an adventure game / interactive movie. Sometimes you need to be quite quick in deciding what you want to do (what to say to people etc.). Every once in a while there is an action sequence and depending on how well you do, you may for example avoid cars trying to run you over or find out something new about the story. I haven’t yet tried what happens in certain situations (where you can’t die if you do badly!) if you fail the sequences on purpose. You can decide what you want to do or not do and the story, naturally, changes every time you do things differently.

There is some humour in the game as well. Especially with one of the “cops”, Tyler Miles. His facial expressions are excellent! The main character looks annoyingly and disturbingly familiar but I can’t figure out who he reminds me of. I’ll try and dig up a good picture (maybe take a screen shot).

The soundtrack is wonderful and the graphics are very beautiful, especially during the fights (as far as I can tell, I’m too busy at staring at the Action sequence indicator). I love the Matrix-y moves the main character does. Refreshing change: a game I can, and have the patience/time/endurance to, finish! It is very short; I played it in a Saturday (12 hours minus distractions). Regardless, I recommend it. You US people get a censored version of it (called Indigo Prophecy), in Europe we have Fahrenheit, which includes some nudity. You’re not missing anything with the censored version; in my opinion the sex scenes were unnecessary. But that’s just me.

Last week Second Sight arrived from a game club but, alas, it was missing the key code sticker. Before returning the game to get a new one I emailed the club with the game key doubting that would help. Lucky thing I did, because they were able to give me the code which I really really hope works… then I’ll get to throw mental hospital guards around with my PSI powers — can’t wait!

I still haven’t finished with Vampire the Masquerade, hardly started Farcry, haven’t even touched True Crime or Deus Ex 2 for that matter. I’m afraid DE2 won’t work on my computer, I’m in the process of getting a new one — I’m trying to find a machine good enough to my requirements. The problem is, I’ve only found computers that have a lot of Ghz, but not enough Gb, or vice versa. Hmph. Too bad Alienware is not available in Finland. I’d like one of those fancy laptops. Maybe I’ll have to travel to England for a little computer shopping; I wonder what the customs would think about that. Oy the taxes…

Now I must get back to the Quest of the Mysterious NullPointerException. I just want to go home because I’m so tired! I read Dark Tower VII all weekend (only 168 pages to go!) and noticed that reading is tiring. Perhaps because it’s a dream-like state without the refreshing qualities? No idea.

Blimey. My current best in No Brainer

is the best score all month

There’s this hilarious and addictive game, No Brainer. You answer really simple questions as fast as you can and try to grow the brain bigger and bigger. Here’s my result for Game 1 (there are three versions):
Updated Tue, July 19th

I challenge you.
(I’m not saying I have a good result, it’s just my current personal best.)

From a conversation with Mac I got a bad itch to play Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We used to have it on a diskette but at least I didn’t find it anymore (Dad had an old disk formatting frenzy a while ago) so I pouted a little and started looking for it. Luckily I did find it, and in the process I found a lovely site for abandoned games (and old games in general), Abandonia. I downloaded the DosBox that helps running old games on modern machines and also a couple of games I haven’t really tried properly yet.

But I did play Indiana today. I’ve never played it from beginning to finish because we didn’t have the manual and I never got the hang of fighting. (Instead, I played a little of the beginning and then loaded a save game at the temple in Iskenderun.) After talking to Mac, I found out that one does not have to fight the guards when fleeing Iskenderun. So of course I wanted to try it that way! When I was at the castle, I first tried to be very clever and gave Donovan Indy’s “Grail Diary” instead of Henry’s (Indy’s dad), but then Henry didn’t want to go to Berlin which was a must if I wanted to avoid getting caught at guard posts. Finally I met the Führer and got my easy travelling. I even managed to fly the biplane this time! But I’ll probably play it a second time because I want to fly in the zeppelin, too.

As if I didn’t have enough games to play, I downloaded some old games from Abandonia. But I think Vampire is my #1 priority. (I got past a couple of difficult fights again on Wednesday/Thursday — all I can say is, Katana is great!! Slash slash slash and enemies go down like… hay!)

Recently I’ve been playing Vampire The Masquerade — Bloodlines. It’s RPG which isn’t my favourite genre, but hey, it’s vampires!!

It’s a very interesting game. Games don’t usually freak me out (except for the piranhas that were in my face in Pharaoh), but when I went to pick a lock to a haunted house and a light crackled above my head with electricity… I jumped. And in the house when I was happily walking in the narrow basement corridors, I came to crossroads and a ghost runs past. Yeeep.

I’ve taken a seduction, persuasion, talk-my-way-out-of-it approach to the game so some of the necessary fights have been pretty difficult. There are a few unfinished quests because I’ve found the bad guys to be a bit too tough for me. I’ll get back to them after collecting a bit more experience points.

Today I was jamming at the local disco, Asylum:

Dancing with the triplets

Another set of triplets

… and this guy …

After finishing the first PoP, Sands of Time, I knew I wanted to get the sequel too. The first one was a bright coloured game where the prince looked like a sweet young boy. In Warrior Within, the Prince had apparently found the warrior within and become a harsh looking guy. The game is also gloomier with hard rock type of music and dark colours. I don’t complain about that at all — the music is very good. The ladies in the game show even more skin than in the 1st part, which I didn’t think was possible…

The camera annoyance I complained about in the first game has mostly been corrected. There are times when you can’t see properly because the camera gets stuck in something. Knowing which way to jump, especially from poles and especially when you don’t have much time to think, is still a puzzle and eats a lot of rewinds.

The fighting is more sophisticated in this sequel. I used to handle most of the enemies in the 1st part by vault-over-and-slice (some you didn’t vault over though without getting thrown on the ground). Now there are more moves and there’s a possibility to use double weapon attacks which are very nifty. Then again, grabbing a poor soul and slicing it in two is a lot of fun — that you can’t do with both hands taken.

Most of the enemies are nice to fight against, but I can’t stand the ninjas that hop over you in silly splits and slit your throat. Uh. They are ok one-on-one but whenever there are several against me, they drive me nuts!

The areas aren’t as straightforward as in Sands of Time. I spent a lot of time wandering around — until I realized the map can help somewhat. It’s also a bit annoying that once you think you’ve got rid of an enemy in one place, if you go back, they’re revived.

There is a nice twist towards the end and it’s enjoyable to see (well, play) the story unfold.

The font used in subtitles is a copperplate type of font (all letters look like capital letters). It’s a poor choice, because not only is it ugly (and huge), it’s also harder to read than a regular font.

The game has a big replay value because at least I didn’t get all the life upgrades or artwork chests on the first try — and it’s always nice to play the game from the beginning because you know all the neat tricks that you learned as you went on the 1st round. This time I’m following a walkthrough to ensure I don’t miss anything. It pays to get the life upgrades because they open an alternative ending AND you get illustrations in the Extras. In Sands of Time there were “secrets” where you got longer health bar but in my opinion they were more obvious than in Warrior Within. Although, I may have played in a too light-up room to miss some suspicious cracked walls or whatever.

I don’t know if that’s all I was going to write about, I tried to make mental notes while playing. I’ll have to add to this if I remember something while playing it through again.

Trivia: Monica Bellucci does the voice of Kaileena. She played Persephone in Matrix movies. (Not my favourite character in Matrix, didn’t like the accent.)

Game’s website

I couldn’t help myself! I had to buy Prince of Persia: Warrior Within even though it was pretty expensive (and we usually either wait for a game to come from a game club or buy them used). I couldn’t wait that long and in such uncertainty!! In 10 days I’m going to buy Splinter Cell 3 so maybe this wasn’t such a good idea but who cares. It’s only money. Hard-earned money.

I desperately needed a fix.