Dream of Waking

I’ve clearly angered someone.

I’m in a gaming rut. There’s nothing in particular that I really want to play that I already own. This weekend I spent an unhealthy amount of time staring at my game collection, trying to work up the nerve to install and play one. I want to play Doom 3 but it doesn’t play well with 64bit Vista. I kind of want to play Deus Ex but then I remember that I hate Deus Ex. But hey, what’s like Deus Ex except fun? Deus Ex: Invisible War. And I just so happen to own it on Steam.

I install it. As it downloads I find that wizz-bang new High Definition textures pack. The game finishes downloading, I install the texture pack, and run the game. Crash to desktop. No error given. Okay, maybe the texture pack isn’t playing nice. Uninstall the texture pack. Run it. Crash to desktop. No error. Fuck. Maybe the texture pack didn’t uninstall cleanly. Delete the game, re-download the game, run it. Crash to desktop. No error. The support forums have mention of the same problem but the answers are never the same for each post. None of the solutions work. I’m just fucked.

Today I’m on 24 hour duty. I’m using my laptop, which runs Windows XP. Maybe I can play Deus Ex: Invisible War! Slowly download it. Run it. Holy shit, it’s working. Get in the game, start to enjoy myself for about 20 minutes, the power goes out. Turn it back on, it’s giving an overheat error. This is an old laptop. It’s never overheated before but this is not unheard of. I try a couple more times to make sure it wasn’t something else with the same results. When I go home for dinner, I made sure to get my small tools to bring back with me. I open up the laptop, dust out some old Iraqi crap, pull out two dust bunnies conveniently located around the fans, and put it back together. When I start it up, I can hear one fan going. The other isn’t. Okay, that’s an improvement. Run the game. Start to enjoy myself. Power cuts out. I’m fucked again.

I can sit here and watch Battlestar Galactica for three hours straight but I can’t play a game for longer than 20 minutes. I don’t even want to bother with playing a less graphically intensive game at this point. In conclusion, the laws of heat transfer can go to hell.