Chocolate charms

Monday, December 16, 2002 » gaming movies thought update

I like rain.

So I've been joking for a while that the only reservation I have about turning 20 is that I'm afraid I'll no longer be able to enjoy pizza or videogames. Of course, anyone can tell that's totally a joke. EXCEPT when I woke up this morning I recall I had some thought about how I should no longer eat fast food (not that I do too often) and eat healthier things. Then later on I was playing Vice City (of course) and happened to look down at the table, upon which sat my stack of PS2 games, and I thought to myself, wow, that's quite a few games there. It wasn't any old observational thought; I was definitely being somewhat critical of the number of games piled up on the table. So, help. I think I'm going to try to get a pizza this week.

Just in case, I'm still going to see The Two Towers tomorrow night at 12:01. (OK, so it's technically Wednesday.) After some discussion I have been convinced to arrive around 6 PM or so, so we can wait in line for about five hours for them to open the theater. That's so much waiting. Noah is talking about watching The Fellowship of the Ring on a portable DVD player or drafting, just for the sake of doing the nerdiest thing possible while waiting. I'll have my camera to take shots of any Gandalfs who show up. But still, that's so much waiting. At least I'll have ample time to catch up on Dragon Warrior III.

Earlier tonight Noah and I invaded Ken's house to play Splinter Cell. The gameplay was decent, with seemingly much more emphasis placed on stealth than in Metal Gear Solid and possibly in Metal Gear Solid 2. Combat seemed to be pretty difficult, however, with Noah getting killed in the majority of encounters. So you might say there's more incentive to be stealthy. In most cases, though, it was not a complicated feat to escape from pursuers after being seen, which was not always the case in MGS2. So I don't know. Maybe the combat is just bad. Camera and character control weren't as dead on as in MGS2, either. However, there were about a zillion environments apparently thrown in just to show off the game's crazy lighting effects. (We were playing the Xbox version.) The consensus was that it was a very pretty game. Despite Mr. Sam Fisher's arsenal of cool moves and gadgets, however, we got bored before the first mission was over and decided to pop in The Thing. The Thing is basically the X-Files episode where they go up to Alaska or wherever because a research team was killed by little prehistoric worms, except in this game a team of soldiers go to Antarctica because a research team has been killed by huge mutant alien bugs from outer space. That was the impression the intro cinema gave us, anyway. It turns out the actual plot involves the team going to Antarctica and then becoming bored because nothing happens. So we played Final Fantasy VI for a while.

I put up some new photos. I'm also very tired and going to bed.