See you in hell, pilot
I'm stuck on space dogfighting sims again. The usual suspect, Freespace 2, and Starlancer on Dreamcast. How can any one genre of games get so neglected? Freespace 2, the benchmark for all space dogfighters, was released in 1999. Starlancer is the only game since Freespace 2 that can even come close to touching greatness and it was released in 2000. These games are screaming for competent sequels or even good knock-offs and all we can get is an endless wave of World War 2 games and stupid EA sports titles. I'd die for a serious space dogfighter that supported all the bells and whistles of modern flight sims, such as rudder pedals, full joysticks, and multiple monitors.
It’s my turn.
Work sucks. I'm on a 24-on, 24-off schedule which means I spend a day out in the middle of nowhere with little/nothing to do but be miserable and then a day back at home. It is better than spending another week out there and being off half the time is better than nothing.
I've dug up my PDA. I didn't take it to Iraq and that was a good decision and now I'm trying to find ways to work it into my daily life. Of course my primary concern is with games though so the first thing I do is look for another pirate copy of Ultima Underworld for it because that was simply the best way to play it. It never fails that I can't find anything I want when I want it so UU is nowhere to be found and now I'm stuck playing with DOSBOX ports. Hopefully I'll be able to weasel the PDA into playing Ultima Underworld or Ultima 7.
Katie and I watched the pilot episode of Sliders on DVD tonight. It was pretty good, if a little cheesy, and the production values were pretty high. Here's hoping the rest of the series is good!
Grease and oil
That's basically all I eat for dinner on Sundays. I've been making mexican eggrolls for dinner on Sundays for the last three weeks. They're tasty as hell but they're also dripping in canola oil and oil runoff from the melted cheese. You can only imagine the gas they give me. They're delicious.
I get to spend this week and the majority of the next two weeks in the field. I just love being filthy and living like a primate for long spans of time. Thankfully I'll be coming home on Friday for at least a day since Friday is me and Katie's wedding anniversary. This is the first time since we got married that we'll be able to spend this day together and Katie keeps threatening to rent a hotel room and hide all day because she doesn't want to jinx us.
Video games
To help round out my original Xbox collection and take advantage of everyone trading in their old Xbox stock for the new stuff, I picked up three games on the cheap from Gamestop this weekend. So here's some impressions of Gunvalkyrie, MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf, and Stubbs the Zombie.
Gunvalkyrie - Here's an oldie. I played the demo for this when it was a new game and wasn't grabbed by it but then the reviews hit and basically called it an arcade action classic. I've determined that I'm not great at arcade action classics. I managed to get through the first level okay but then the second level hits and I've got bugs all up in my balls (or is it "all up in my ovaries" since the main character is a girl?) and I can't seem to jump around and blast them fast enough. I got Otogi three weeks ago and it's pretty fun so I guess I was expecting something similar but with guns. The hopping and bouncing gets pretty old though.
MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf - I'm now fully aware that MechAssault destroyed the Battletech franchise by dumbing it down to console levels and basically removing everything that makes the PC games worth playing. That totally doesn't stop me from enjoying a good action game where you stomp around in giant robots and blow stuff up. The game is pretty and dumb and I'm kind of stuck at a section in it but it's a minor roadblock. I'll get through it soon.
Stubbs the Zombie - I picked this one up simply because I listened to the soundtrack and it was awesome. And it's a game about being a zombie which sounded totally unfun to me when I first read about the game but after playing through the first few levels it is easily the most entertaining of the three. You smack people, eat brains, fart, throw your guts as bombs, and possess people with a disembodied hand. It's all good filthy disgusting fun.
Hiro is dead
I can't believe this! Hiro's dead! What are we going to do now?! Wander for all of eternity?
No! This can't be happening! Hiro just got bitchslapped into oblivion!
No! Hiro just got his ass capped! What do we do now?
*sob* Oh no *sob* goodbye *sob* Hiro!
Say these lines in the most anguished tone of a stereotypical angry black man as you can and you might match the greatness that is Daikatana's Superfly Johnson. There was another one but I forgot it although I'm sure to hear it again soon as dying seems to be Hiro's forte.
I keep playing it because it's a first-person shooter and there's something good in there just "dying" to get out but it's swallowed up by the busy texturing, the lame level design, and some of the dumbest bad guys imaginable. So I'm more or less enthralled by the slow motion car wreck and keep playing just to see how big the pileup will get.
update: Oh man. Fixed the ones that are there and added a couple more. These are awful!
It’s a bad movie.
Katie and I just watched the movie Anti-trust. It was bad. Not bad bad but just full of corn. It was so corny, corn bread got jealous of just how much corn they managed to cram into this one movie. It's like one gigantic groanfest. It was amazing.
There’s not a whole lot to say.
I worked a total of two days last week and those were the first time I'd done real actual work since the middle of January. And they were possibly two of the shittiest days in the last three months.
Mom came to visit on Thursday though and her and Katie went to see some lame concert on Friday so I got to order pizza and play games all night. That might be my favorite way to waste a Friday night.
So I got S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl (and a new video card to play it on) and I'm torn. It's totally up my alley, a freeform FPS that's kind of like a cross between Fallout and Oblivion. But then the bad guys have some insane eyesight and always spot me before I can find them and when you're in an open field being shot at it's hard to tell the direction the bullets are coming from, let alone where the guy firing them is. And there's roaming packs of wild animals that can tear you apart in a heartbeat. So my patience wears thin from dying repeatedly and I've decided to play some Doom 3 before giving it another shot.