I'd Rather Be Gaming

Bioshock Review

2010-09-13T10:27:00.008-04:00

So my boyfriend brought over his copy of BioShock to play on my new Xbox 360 Elite (see previous post, lol) and he was playing through it and it looked kinda interesting, so I started playing it too.

Now I'm not a fan of FPS games, I find it too hard to aim and see around me and stuff. I like RPG games the best. Yeah, I've played Borderlands, Halo 3: ODST, Resident Evil 5 and Left For Dead, but they seemed really hard (except for Borderlands, that was fun). So yeah, not a fan of FPS games, and Bioshock is a horror/survival first-peron shooter game. But it looked cool, so I gave it a try. And OMG it was the most awesome game ever! The graphics are so good, the atomosphere is creepy and scary, the gameplay is simple, the storyline is fascinating. I would definitely play this game again. :)

So you play a character called Jack, who's plane crashes in the water near the underwater city of Rapture. You start to receive radio messages from a character named Atlas, who is concerned for your safety in the dangerous city and teaches you the basics. You have a weapon in one hand, and your other hand can be used for various plasmid powers (like shooting electricity, fire, ice, telekinesis etc.) There's tons of weapons, ammo, money, health packs, eve hypos (recharges the energy for the plasmid powers) available all over the place for easy pickup. So you continue exploring the city with the help of Atlas, and you fight various bosses and do jobs for him. Some of your enemies include Splicers (insane humans who try to kill you) of which there are different types. Leadhead splicers carry guns, Houdini splicers can disappear and reappear somewhere else, spider splicers can crawl on the ceiling and do various acrobatics and thuggish splicers use crowbars or other types of hand weapons. There are also the big daddies which are like mini-bosses. They are huge, metal men who are harder to kill then the splicers. Some of them protect Little Sisters, who carry ADAM that Jack can use to buy more plasmids and upgrade existing ones, and level up his character basically. You can harvest the little sisters (kill them and take all their ADAM) or rescue them (make them human again but get less ADAM) and I choose to rescue all of them. I'm just a nice person like that when I play games, lol.

So I managed to get 44 out of 51 achievements too, I was really proud of myself. I used this walkthrough from IGN FAQs to help me get through the confusing bits, there wasn't a lot. If I had followed the walkthrough from the beginning, I would have had all achievements except for one (for playing through on hard) but oh well, I like discovering things for myself. It just means I'll have to focus on getting all the audio diaries next time, and research more security cameras, turrets and bots.

I really don't know what else to write for this game, other than the fact that it is a great game all around. The only thing annoying about it is that you can't use plasmids and weapons at the same time (which they fixed in the next game btw, but more on that later). So if you haven't played it, give it a try!

I Got an XBox!

2010-09-13T08:44:00.006-04:00

So I finally bought my first console at the ripe old age of 29! LOL. It's an Xbox 360 Elite console, bought from EB Games. It came with Halo 3: ODST (I had fun playing a bit of this with my boyfriend) and Forza Motorsport 3, which my boyfriend enjoyed playing more than me, as I'm not really a fan of racing games.

So I actually bought it in July, but I haven't posted about it yet, I'm sorry! I guess I was too busy playing it instead, lol. I also bought two games for it, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Divinity 2: Ego Draconis. I quite like them both, but I got distracted by my boyfriend bringing over Two Worlds and Bioshock. I actually finished Bioshock, look for a review coming soon!

Some features of the Xbox 360 Elite:

120 GB Hard Drive
Xbox 360 Headset (black)
Xbox 360 wireless controller (black)
The two games mentioned above

So I already had an Xbox 360 USB controller for my computer (so my daughter could play the PC version of Kung Fu Panda) and it works on the Xbox so I have two controllers. But I would like to get another wireless controller some day. Maybe I'll get the Fable 3 limited edition controller, which looks awesome!

Anyways, that's enough for now, time to go back to playing Two Worlds, lol. It's addicting!

Drawn - The Painted Tower

2010-05-23T19:12:00.003-04:00

So I finished this game recently, Drawn - The Painted Tower from Big Fish Games and all I can say is WOW!!!!!

This is a hidden object/puzzle type game where you find items and store them in your inventory to use them on puzzles in the scene and then solve other puzzles to open objects, etc. The storyline is fairly simple -- a princess and her guardian are on the run from an evil wizard, and the princess is trapped at the top of a tall tower. You must climb the tower floor by floor and solve the puzzles to find the princess. However, the plot is still compelling even if it sounds cliched! Even the cutscenes bring you more into the story. The visuals of this game is just breathtaking.....truly gorgeous art which is the main draw of the game in my opinion. It really adds to the atmosphere when you're playing it.

My only complaint is that the game is too short! It took me maybe five hours at the most to play this game.....I would have liked more puzzles and more floors of the tower. But I guess that's why they call these types of games "casual" huh? They're not meant to be long involved games. Another complaint I have is that it's annoying going down all the levels in the tower when your on one of the top levels....there's no way to go just straight from scene to scene. Oh, and the ending was sorta abrupt....you don't really know what happens. Can you say sequel? I certainly hope so! :D

But yeah, I highly recommend this game, it's so visually stunning that I was just blown away by the graphics, very detailed. I wish I had taken some screenshots to show you, but maybe you can find some on Google Images. I did need some help while playing the game, if you're in the same boat and confused by anything, check out the walkthrough by Big Fish and Jay is Games walkthrough. Here is also a short video from YouTube showing the gameplay:

Have fun with the game!

A Zoo Mystery and Ancient Secrets in Kuros

2009-07-11T11:15:00.003-04:00

I really liked 3 Days: Zoo Mystery, it was really fun! I did NOT enjoy the Fishing puzzle game though, LOL. The hidden objects were hidden cleverly, and they mostly had to do with the storyline which was good. Lots of good puzzles and hidden object tasks in this game too.

Some puzzles were too hard or I didn't understand them, and I liked that the game had an option where you could complete a hidden object challenge instead of doing the puzzle. I took advantage of that feature a couple of times. The game was a good length too, at least a couple of days of gameplay. Not sure about replayability value, though I suppose you could play it to get a higher score. Oh, and the game also has unlimited hints, basically it's a question mark that has to refill after you use it.

I would definitely recommend this game to people to play, it was pretty good! I used this walkthrough for the hard parts.

I also finished Ancient Secrets: Quest for the Golden Key recently and it was really fun. I used this walkthrough for the hard parts, it was really useful, lol, especially for the harder slider puzzles. My daughter who is six actually played this whole game with me, and she really enjoyed it too! She needed help to read stuff of course, which was fine. The gameplay is basically a mixture of point-and-click adventures, hidden objects and puzzles games.

Like I said before, some of the puzzles were really hard like some of the later slider puzzles. Other puzzles were really easy and my daughter figured them out before me! lol. The game was also a good length, about 3 to 5 hours of gameplay. You get to travel to different locations, search shops, talk to people to get quests and do lots of puzzles. A really good game that I would definitely recommend!

The last game I finished recently was Kuros, a beautiful hidden object and puzzle game. The graphics are stunning! Basically you are in the land of Kuros, and you have to fix these glyph stones that are broken. You talk to people and peform quests for them, and also have to find hidden objects like map pieces (put them together and get a new section of map to explore) and collect items to solve problems (like how to make a bridge across a chasm). I used this walkthrough for the hard parts. Kuros was a pretty good game, but too short! I wished it had been longer. But, another definite recommendation!

Coming soon.....a review of Legend of Crystal Valley.

Women's Murder Club does Everest

2009-06-21T15:58:00.004-04:00

Yes, you read that right, I finished two more games today!

First up, Women's Murder Club 2: A Darker Shade of Grey was a very cool puzzle game. Hidden objects were limited to finding things you needed for the game, for example, pieces of a torn up fax and a pink notice pasted to the wall. I used this walkthrough for the difficult portions of the game, and I didn't have to use many hints. By the end of the game I had 44 hints :D (hints follow you through the game).

There's 10 investigations in total, and each investigation is broken into maybe 5 parts or so, I didn't really count. The storyline was pretty interesting, though it would have been nice if the game was longer. Once again, I found the ending abrupt like when I played the first game, Women's Murder Club: Death in Scarlet. One annoying thing is that you can skip cutscenes by clicking the mouse key, but the game gives you no option on speeding through the cutscene. I tell you, I can read faster than the text went by so that part of the game was sorta slow for me. There were also some grammatical and spelling errors but not too much. All in all, a really good game that kept me quite engrossed, and the puzzles were very interesting.

I also finally finished Hidden Expedition: Everest. I had started playing it before my old Windows XP computer crashed, and I didn't look forward to starting it again from the beginning but I finally did. There's a walkthrough and review I found helpful posted at Jay is Games . What's really cool about this game is that it's narrated by Ed Viesturs (yeah, I didn't know who he was either) a real-life mountaineer who has climbed Mount Everest seven times. Along with his voice, he provides a gallery of video footage and photographs of his travels that gets unlocked gradually as you play the game.

Hidden objects were very good, and the various puzzles that finish each level were good and challenging. You could find 5 small gems per location to provide you with one more hint (3 hints at the start of the chapter). I tell you, those hints were dear to me, as I needed them quite a bit! There is also 3 other teams you are racing against to reach the summit in time. Believe me, they got quite close to me at some points. There is one part of the game I didn't finish, and that's these mystery items that are hidden one per scene, and you have to find them without knowing what you're looking for. I only found 9 out of 18 I think. But the walkthrough posted above has more hints to those items locations. That would be the only replayability value I can see in the game, finding those mystery items. But I would definitely recommend, quite fun!

So now I'm playing 3 Days: Zoo Mystery, Treasure Seekers: Visions of Gold (which will probably be followed by Treasure Seekers: The Enchanted Canvases) and Angela Young's Dream Adventure (which I started awhile ago, but should finish). We'll see which of these I will post about next!

Elizabeth Find and Robinson Crusoe!

2009-06-20T18:54:00.004-04:00

Yes, I finished two new hidden object games that I can post about, yay!

I haven't been playing a lot lately, due to the fact that I have a new boyfriend. :) and before that I was playing a lot of The Sims, so I didn't really have anything new to post about.

But on to Elizabeth Find MD: Mystery Diagnosis. Here is the walkthrough I used for the game. It was a pretty good game, it has 3 chapters that you can play, basically 3 patients that you have to diagnose. You get to visit different locales, like the hospital of course, with various offices and lab rooms and the patient room, and you also visit an ambulance and a school and the patients' homes.

I played in relaxed mode, so I didn't have a timer. The hidden objects were pretty easy, I think I only had to use 6 hints in total throughout the game. I like the fact that some hidden objects were various doctor related stuff like drawing blood and finding the heartbeat, and to do those ones you had to click on an instrument in your medical bag. The puzzles were pretty good as well, though I found the Radiology-MRI game really annoying. I skipped that a couple of times. Characters were not that good.....I found some of them annoying, I think they were trying to be like a House clone or something. But this game was good, it gave me 3 days of gameplay (one case per evening) so yeah, I would recommend it.

The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was another hidden object game, I found this one rather more entertaining. I used this walkthrough to help me through various parts. This one was also more longer which was great. It had six chapters and each chapter had 6 parts. I played in Survivor Mode, which was timed, and I think I only got close to the clock a couple of times.

But yeah, puzzles were very entertaining, there was spot the differences, find x number of items, and putting together puzzles, along with a whole bunch of others. Oh, and you got five hints at the start of each chapter, and you could earn more hints in various ways. At the end of each chapter you got to build a little more of a boat so that Robinson Crusoe could escape from the island. The hidden object portion of the game was challenging, items were hidden quite well. Had a good storyline as well, the game goes from when the ship is caught in the storm and he's shipwrecked to him building a cabin, then meeting Friday (a native that helps him), and escaping from a tribe of cannibals, to going to Friday's tribe, to of course escaping from the island. Not sure about the replay value, but it was a very good game, and I would definitely recommend it!

Anyways, now I'm playing Women's Murder Club 2: A Darker Shade of Grey, Hidden Expedition: Everest and Detective Stories: Hollywood. Will post once I finish another game, but funnily enough, it probably won't be one of the ones I've just listed....I play what I feel like playing, and sometimes it's something I haven't played yet.

Oh, and I have some cool news! As you know, my favorite game company in the world is Spiderweb Software. I've been a member of their message boards for a little more than a year now, and in April a senior moderator asked me if I wanted to join the moderator team! Of course I said yes. :) They wanted to have a newer member as a moderator instead of someone who'd been there for years and years, lol. So I haven't done much besides edit posts to contain pictures, and edit someone who had something spammy in his signature. But anyways, it is awesome that I am a moderator on my favorite game designer's forum. :)

So that's it for now, see you next time!

The Sims!

2009-04-14T17:58:00.004-04:00

I've been playing a lot of the Sims lately....the first game, not the second one. It's not that I don't like the second game, it has a lot of cool features like a child growing into adulthood and being able to get married and then getting old and also moving out to University. So I'm sure I'll get into it eventually. I want to buy the complete set of the Sims 2 once the Sims 3 comes out. That's what I did with the Sims. I bought The Sims Complete Collection (the game plus the 7 expansion packs) for $60 bucks at Best Buy but I don't think they sell it there anymore.

One of my favorite things to do in the Sims is download objects that some very talented and creative people make and offer to others for free! I've found so many cool furniture sets, wallpapers, floors, heads and clothing sets in my searches.

Here are some of my favorite sites to download from:

NightTime Sims
SIMcredible! Designs - Some sets available only for donators
beewitched - Sims 1 Downloads by Fairywitch
Around the Sims - Some sets have special objects (gifts) only for donators
Moppet Sims
Parsimonious
TSR - The Sims Resource - All Sims 1 downloads are free, as is registration for the site.
The Sims Zone
7 Deadly Sims
Dincer Hepguler Website - Click on The Sims box to get gorgeous furniture and build sets!
Atelier Quebec
The Secret Society of Woobsha - Tons of free, hacked object for the Sims.
Sims Interior Design - Some objects are for donators only, but lots of free stuff.
COMHAIR Sims Stuff
Marina's Sims - Great Sims 1 downloads, especially build items! Not updated anymore though.
C&C Enterprises - Free site that specializes in hacked objects.
Gnohmon's Sims1 Goodies - More great, free hacked objects, including a staircase that allows more than one sim to use it at a time.
The Well Dressed Sim - Some items of all the sets are free. That makes most unusable but you may find some good items that can go with your existing objects.
SimFreaks - Some freebies, but most are for subscribers only

Oh...whoops. Did I say some? Obviously I meant a lot. :P

In fact, I downloaded a couple of things while I was posting the links here. I really didn't mean to, as I have too many objects already. So many I think, that some stuff doesn't show up in the game. I am supposed to be going through them and deleting the ones I don't like. Oh, I use a great program to view the furniture, walls and floors without opening the game. It's called SimExplorer (available on this page) and it's so handy! The next thing I want to do in the game is edit the categories that the objects are placed into. I find that only certain objects show up in the different sub-categories and that the rest can be viewed under the "View All" tab.

Anyways, I have some work to do so I best be off!

My New Computer!

2009-04-07T19:31:00.008-04:00

Well, I couldn't figure out how to fix my computer....so I bought a new one!

Staples was selling it for $664, which I thought was a good deal. Of course I went to a Best Buy store and TigerDirect first, but didn't find as good as a deal.

Here are the specs for other techie people:

2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Dual E7300
4GB DDR2 SDRAM
640GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
Supermulti, Double layer, DVD+/-RW, DVD-RAM
nVidia Geforce G100, 512MB add on graphics adapter
10/100/1000 (Gigabit) LAN
High-definition audio with 5.1-channel audio support
Front I/O ports: Five USB 2.0 ports, multi-in-one card reader, headphone and microphone jacks; Rear I/O ports: USB 2.0 ports, PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, five audio ports, ethernet (RJ-45) port, D-Sub VGA port (VIA Convertor), Serial port, DVI port (on VGA card), HDMI port (on VGA card)
Microsoft Windows Vista® Home Premium 64bit

I'm really liking it so far!

It's really fast, I can do so many things at once, like run Firefox, a computer game, music on my Winamp player, and my email. Even my old programs still work, there's just a secondary Program Files (x86) folder for them.

Some things I don't like about it:

Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna don't work! Hopefully someone has found a fix for this, I just have to keep searching.
User Account Control - Way too annoying, I've disabled it for now. It would pop up notifications even when I deleted stuff!
You can't customize Vista folders by adding buttons to the toolbar. In Windows XP I used to add the Delete, Cut, Copy and Paste buttons to the top because I use them a lot.
My folders don't stick to the viewing method I want them to. For example, a folder I've changed to tiles view will be details view when I open it again.
The Witcher is still a bit laggy. I was hoping once I upgraded my computer and got a better processor (I had an Intel Celeron chip in my old one) it would run perfectly. But the video is slightly stuttery, and not flowing smoothly.

If anyone has any tips for a newbie Vista User, or if I'm wrong about the above, please leave a comment. Any advice is appreciated. :)

I'm just so relieved and happy that I got a new computer. It's gorgeous and I love it. Now I can get back to posts about computer games, yay!

P.S. I love how tiny it is! It sits right on top of my computer desk and isn't in the way at all. I just won't be able to modify it much as the case is so small, but that's okay.

Computer Issues IV

2009-04-02T16:30:00.003-04:00

Well, no longer do I think it's a virus, but now I have no clue what's wrong with my computer.

Let me explain. Last night I reformatted both of my computer's internal hard drives and left the external hard drive turned off and unplugged from the computer. I reinstalled Windows XP on the main hard drive but got the blue screen of death halfway through so the installation restarted. The second installation worked fine, and Windows loaded and activated over the internet and everything seemed fine.

So I started downloading updates, and my anti-spyware programs I use, and Firefox but a lot of programs when I tried to install them said that they were corrupt. So then I figured out that I should update the Windows Installer to 3.1, so I downloaded that and installed it. But I was still having issues with installing stuff because files are corrupt or missing. I couldn't even install my sound driver, cause it said that was corrupt! And I tried to install my nvidia geforce driver from the CD, but then I had to remove it from startup because it kept on crashing the computer. And the one I downloaded from the website didn't work.

I was able to install Firefox, but every time I tried to run it the error message came up that said a serious error has crashed Firefox. I managed to update Internet Explorer to IE7, and that sorta works. Everytime I visited Facebook the browser would crash. The computer just kept on crashing and restarting! And it can't be a virus, cause I did reformat both internal drives. What kind of virus would that be? Maybe's it a hardware issue....I need to get the motherboard checked out.

I tried to install Service Pack 3 but it failed halfway through, and then Windows wouldn't load at all the next time the computer restarted. So I'm using the disks to try to repair the existing Windows installation. I didn't know it had to go all through the process of installing again though, I thought it would just replace a couple of files! At this point I must have installed Windows about 20 times, it's a wonder I don't know the key code by heart!

Anyways, I read a post in a support forum that said maybe Windows Firewall is corrupting the installation files, so I'm going to go home and turn that off and see whether that helps. I would like to be able to install my anti-virus software and run a scan. Wish me luck!

Computer Issues Part III

2009-04-01T09:35:00.000-04:00

Alright, so I think I know what's wrong now, in a general sense.

Let me explain further. My coworker had given me the suggestion that maybe just my C drive was corrupted, and I should reformat the second internal drive and install Windows XP on that. So on Monday night I booted from my disk, and reformatted both drives and installed Windows on the second internal drive (I call this my Storage Drive, as it usually has all my pictures, video and music on it). Well, it didn't work at all, in fact it was worse than the previous installations of Windows. I'm not sure why but maybe it was a Master/Slave issue? The C hard drive did have the boot priority (I had changed it in setup but it changed back).

So I wiped out the Windows install on the Storage Drive and re-installed it on the C drive. And it worked perfectly! I was so happy.....the internet was working, Windows looked like it should've looked, everything seemed fine. So I turned on my external hard drive (I had backed up everything from the second internal hard drive to this drive) as I normally keep it unplugged, and that's when I started getting errors, and issues, and Windows crashing and restarting. The internet started crashing and I would download files and they would be corrupted. So I think I have a virus as everything was fine until I turned on the External hard drive. Maybe it was the autoplay feature that released the virus.

Anyways, last night (Tuesday) I started Windows in safe mode with networking and tried to download antivirus software from the internet but they were all corrupted files. I also tried to run Trend Micro's Housecall (online virus and spyware scan) but it didn't work. So then I just turned on my external hard drive and copied and pasted various files into my second internal hard drive. In case I have to reformat my external hard drive, I wanted to save my pictures, music, saved game files, my Sims data, my bookmarks html file and other important documents. I didn't drag over any programs or .exe files.

Tonight when I get home, I will reformat my C drive again and install Windows XP and leave my external hard drive unplugged and turned off. If I still have issues, I will know that the external hard drive managed to infect the secondary hard drive, and I will reformat both internal drives. Then I will make sure Windows Update runs(another thing I wasn't able to do because of the issues) and my anti-virus is running and I have all my maintenance and cleaning tools downloaded from the internet, before I turn on the external hard drive and attempt to recover some of my data.

Wish me luck!

More Computer Issues....

2009-03-30T12:58:00.003-04:00

So I tried to fix my computer by reformatting it, but it didn't work. My computer is still messed up!

First of all, I kept on getting errors when installing Windows XP....a couple of times my computer crashed and then restarted while in the middle. Also, other weird things are going on, like my computer not being able to run Themes. It loads with the Windows Classic theme and not one of the shiny XP themes. Another thing is I can change the Desktop Wallpaper but when the computer restarts it's not there anymore.

The kicker? NO INTERNET. Yes, you heard me. I try to add a new Network to the Network Connections area, but it keeps on disappearing on me. It doesn't seem able to tell that I have an internet connection that's always on, and always attached to the computer. I called Rogers to find out whether there was something else I had to do to get the internet working. After they had me run the cmd.exe program out of the Start Menu's run command, they had me type in ipconfig/renew at which point it came back with the message Unable to run this service, RPC Server unavailable. At which point they said my network card is broken and I need a new one. Not very helpful.

I looked up the RPC Server unavailable line in google and found some hints regarding the Administrative Services program and the registry, but it didn't work. I should also point out that my Windows Installer seems to be broken, as I couldn't install a bunch of programs. It kept on saying I needed to upgrade to version 3.1, and some installers would just quit and give me error messages or file corrupted messages. I should note that I made sure the drivers were installed and that none of them had the yellow question marks and they all seemed to be working, even my Ethernet driver (which is for the internet).

So maybe I'll have to replace the motherboard on my computer for it to start working again. Not a hard task, I've done it before, but a pain in the ass nonetheless. A coworker also gave me the idea that maybe my harddrive is corrupted and I should try to install Windows on my other internal harddrive. I'll try that when I get home from work tonight. I had updated my drivers and did something in the registry the week before all these issues, but if that was the problem, it would've been fixed when I reformatted the computer and reinstalled Windows XP.

I've also checked my Hotmail email account and found that I've sent out a lot of spam emails to the people in my address book. Are these issues connected? So many questions....

Well, I'll keep you updated and thanks for reading!

Computer Issues.....

2009-03-27T09:26:00.007-04:00

So last night, as soon as I got home from work I opened FireFox to check my favorite sites (my deviantART page, the Spiderweb Software forum, Urban Dead and Facebook). Firefox would shut down the moment I started surfing around, popping up a notification that said "Firefox has encountered an error, please send a crash report to the developers, blah, blah, etc. And then there was two buttons, to Quit Firefox or Restart Firefox. At first I thought it was the Urban Dead website that was causing the issue, as it would crash as soon as I started typing my login and password. But when I restarted and visited a different site, it would crash again. Finally I just chose "Quit Firefox".

I then opened up Internet Explorer and went to Urban Dead (had to log in to spend my action points for the day). I managed to successfully play Urban Dead (leveled up, whooo!) and then tried to visit another site, at which point IE crashed. I went into the Task Manager to find out what was causing the issue, at which point my system restarted without any warning whatsoever (no Blue Screen of Death). When the computer came back on again I got an error message about my logitech driver failing, and then I went into WinPatrol's startup menu to disable that and any other unncessary startup items (like AdAware, Lexmark printer stuff, etc).

At that point, Win Patrol froze along with my entire computer so I had to restart manually. After the restart, I opened up LogonStudio and BootSkin and changed them both back to the default Logon Screen and Load screen, then disabled them from the startup menu as well. At that point, my computer then crashed and restarted again. After the restart, I tried to do some backups of my data in preparation for reformatting my hard drive, but the computer was so slow I had to restart again.

When it came back up again, I quickly pushed the F8 key to get the loading options and I picked safe mode so when the computer restarted, it didn't seem to have any issues. I copied the files on my desktop (two game install packages) to my secondary hard drive so they wouldn't get wiped out (it took a really long time, the computer was still slow even though most processes didn't load), and then opened up my backup program (Karen's Replicator, a great freeware program that I absolutely love!). I had to create some new backup tasks for it for various games and programs (Dungeon Siege LOA, Rocketdock, Geneforge, Geneforge 5, Fatal Hearts, Neverwinter Nights, etc). I also went through my deskop wallpaper folder that was saved in my Windows folder and deleted a whole bunch of images. At this point it was 11:30 at night and I had two pieces of toast with cheese spread for supper. I then started running Karen's Replicator and after it had finished a lot of tasks, I went to the Recycle Bin to empty it out. Then my computer crashed on me again. After I had restarted it again in Safe Mode, I ran Karen's Replicator again and left it running when I went to bed (at 1:30 AM).

When I got up in the morning, it was obvious that my computer had crashed again, so I restarted again in Safe Mode and opened up Karen's Replicator and checked the log of the jobs. The last job (a backup of my secondary hard drive) had not completed so I left that running when I got ready and left for work. Hopefully when I get home it will have completed and I can get started on reformatting the computer. I had so much I wanted to do last night too -- I had to put away Heather's clean laundry, write a new blog post on my favorite freeware games, maybe play a computer game -- but none of that got done. Instead I'm writing a new blog post about my computer issues on my work computer. :(

So, I probably won't be back until Sunday or so....not only do I have to reformat, but then I have to update drivers, update Windows XP to SP3, install my programs and games again, etc. At least I have my setting files and saved game files on my backup drive now. It was hard to come to work today, I just wanted to stay home and fix my computer! You know how it is, when it's broken you just want to get it fixed. And my computer needed a reformat anyways....ever since I tried out Google Chrome my computer has seemed slower, messed up even. So I am going to have a fun weekend. :P Actually, I really do enjoy messing around with my computer, so it won't be all bad.

Anyways, wish me luck!

Dungeon Siege: Legend of Aranna Review

2009-03-25T19:04:00.006-04:00

So I finished playing Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna about a month ago, and I would really like to post about it here. I am just going to copy the review I posted to Facebook's LivingSocial: Video Games application because I think I expressed myself very well.

"The game is seriously cool, I mean what more could you want? Great graphics, great storyline, great monsters to fight! This game took me 39 hours to play (spread out over probably a month) and it was well worth it. I loved the addition of the displacer pads, much better than trekking backwards because you missed a quest in a past area (yes, I'm looking at you Dungeon Siege!).

My favorite dungeon was the Mountains of the Dead (exterior and interior), and my favorite monster was the Great Krakbone....just the way it appeared out of the water like that, scared me half to death! I think my least favorite area was the swamps, there's just so much you have to wade through (pun intended). Oh another great dungeon was Halls of the Lost with the Lost Queen.....that dungeon had so much atmosphere, it was great. I just loved how the Lost Queen talked at you while you were coming to get her. Great fight as well, I must have fought 12 of those purple spiders before I realized they were coming from the tail and I had to defeat that first.

Also, I didn't think it was possible, but this game drops way too much loot. I had to drop a lot of stuff because I didn't reach a store in time and wanted to pick up something more valuable. My seven characters and one pack animal (the one that looked like a dinosaur) were always packed full. And yes, they all had backpacks. I probably should've gotten a mule, I think they had more storage space. Also, there was a lot of spells for my nature and combat mages, it was sort of overwhelming.

My other complaint was the final showdown with the Shadowjumper. It just seemed over too quickly! My characters didn't even use that many healing and mana potions. And no, they weren't super characters either. I think he should have run away....to a big massive door with maybe 10 or 15 of his Shadowjumper minions (and him of course). That would have been a boss fight!

But other than those points, the game was totally awesome, and I'm definitely going to play it again sometime with different parties and such. Very fun!"

Without further ado, here are some cool screenshots I grabbed while playing:

See the rest at my photobucket album.

Thanks for reading!

Other Names

2009-03-25T09:26:00.004-04:00

Other names I considered for my blog:

Achievement Unlocked (some people might not have gotten this one)
Beware of Lasers (a close second to this one)
Zombies Beware!
Beware of Zombies
Watch for Undead
The Internet is my Only Friend
Dungeons and Discourse (yes, I know it's a webcomic title...but I really liked it!)
Bibliophibian
Everything is Fine

A lot of titles I picked up by looking at the Split Reason merchandise and the TopatoCo store, which sells a lot of nerdy t-shirts for geeks and gamers.

But yeah, I'm pretty happy with the one I picked, even though "Beware of Lasers" is a very close second. I just hate those lasers in Avernum 2 and 3 so much! And mirrors....god, I hate the mirrors.

So.....

2009-03-24T20:45:00.002-04:00

So, it seems as if I have joined the throng and have created a blog. I have no idea what to write about!

Um....last night I finished Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure. It was a pretty good game, the hidden objects were not too hard to find, but not too easy either. In fact, my daughter Heather shamed me a couple of times when she found objects before me! (She's six). No replayability value though. The extra items that they added to locations after you were done I found while I was playing the game so there was nothing for me to do after I finished the game. I uninstalled it as there was no point in keeping it on my computer.

Be warned though, I needed help from this walkthrough a couple of times. Some tasks were confusing! Graphics were pretty good, though they did get blurry on the "zoom in" sequences (when the camera would zoom in as if you were moving forward). Oh my god, the talking sequences were so annoying! After you finished a area (or quest) there would be a cut-scene in which characters talked to each other, and there was no way to go fast through the text without skipping the whole scene. It seemed as if they left the text on the screen forever! I guess people are slow readers. But those scenes seemed to drag on forever.

Anyways, I am still playing Hidden Expedition: Everest, which I am really enjoying so far. I love how you're in competition with three other teams and it really feels like you have to go fast to win over them. Objects are not too hard to find, and you can find coloured gems in each scene to add extra hints. I also like how the game has Ed Viesturs(real life mountain climber) narrating it and popping up little trivia on the map page. It also has photos and video of his real life climbs of Everest.

Logged in to my nightly session of Urban Dead recently, and so proud of myself, I'm not dead! Whoohoo! I swear you log in sometimes and you have a whole list of stuff that happened while you were "asleep" like a zombie broke down the barricades (of the place you're hidden) and bit you and now you're dead. If you haven't tried this great online mmorpg game, you should. It's pretty simple but it works. Let me tell you though, it takes forever to get to level 2, or at least it did for me. As you level up you can add on more abilities (every 100 xp) so the game gets easier. Yeah, so I'm totally addicted to it. And you only get 50 action points a day, so you have to log in to use them!

I don't know what else to write about, so I guess I'll be going. Thanks for reading!

Oh and welcome to my new blog :)