Nappi

http://mikeyburton.com/projects/thesis-project/

A bad cover isn't going to stop me from buying a book, but I'm certainly willing to pay a couple of euros extra for an edition with nicer artwork. A couple of examples and ... which I already posted somewhere else. I'm also pretty pissed right now because I got this in light blue

Mexicola.

Toblix had 'All' selected on 'Show settings'.

Yeah, VLC settings are mindblowing and the UI isn't too nice, but it's still a good media player. I think it helps not to go through all the settings to see if there is something to tweak (like I usually do with new programs), but to only open the thing if you really need to do something. I'm far from expert on media players, but if you would mainly be using one for watching movies or series on full screen, XBMC might be worth a try. As far as I know the codec support is excellent. The interface is pretty nice too and works well with remotes (in similar OS X program Plex with Apple remote, at least). I'm not sure how well (if at all) the mouse controls work in XBMC, though.

Great idea.

She's back! I wish they showed us something other than quicktime event sequences all the time. I might even get excited about this game. I also wonder if the final outcome had been significantly (or at all) different if he had actually won the fight.

Since my last post, I have read Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 as well as Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan and Timequake. All of them were good, although Timequake is probably my least favourite of Vonnegut's novels. Just finished George Orwell's Animal farm as well. Very interesting little book. I got a bunch of nice books for Christmas (some of which I actually bought myself). It will take forever for me to finish all those but I'm not complaining. I really enjoy reading for a change. I also like the Finnish cover for God Bless You Mr. Rosewater:

Where did you stop playing Metal Gear? I quit after two boss fights and to be honest, with so many good games I'm yet to finish, I don't think I'm going to continue any time soon. I didn't (nor am I going to) make any new year's resolutions this year. I guess I could try to play video games more than I did last year. I don't know.

Awesome, Congratulations!

How does Trials 2: Second Edition compare to Trials HD? Are the games significantly different? Is Trials 2 any good? It's only 2,49€ on Steam.

My sister and I got this game for Christmas and completed it today. Completely awesome! I was actually quite surprised that pretty much all the levels could be completed in 2-player mode. The chaos of Mario and Luigi constantly bumping into each other was nicely balanced by being able to free the other player from the bubble if he/she happened to die. I can't imagine completing some of the later levels with 4 players, though. Well, actually I can imagine that but I also can imagine it being a complete hell. The level design was mostly superb and I'm looking forward to playing (most of them) again to get all the star coins. My only complaint is that I would have hoped for more variation in the boss battles, although that's not very Mario-ish, I guess. The clown copter battle was a clear highlight for me. As for the controls, they felt different from those of the past 2D Super Mario games for sure but were close enough to get used to and comfortable with pretty fast. So much so that my sister, who doesn't really play video games anymore but was ace with the Super Mario games of the past, beat the final part of the last castle with relative ease* when I had died. The graphics are totally forgettable but serve their purpose well enough. The music was mostly good and even the choir parts didn't bother me. Actually, I only now realized what you were talking about. While some (heartless bastards) might diminish this game as an ultimate example of shameless recycling, the fact that pretty much each background music, every sound and all the enemies bring back fond memories from the past only goes to show how enormous Nintendo's contribution to gaming has been. *That is not to say she completed it with her first try, though. We died probably ten times trying to get through that part together before the run where I had no lives left and she got everything spot on.

Done. It's ok, though.

Having not played the original game, the beginning was confusing as fuck and that short rambling about Templars and apples of Eve didn't clear things out for me at all. Luckily I have no interest in those modern parts anyway. The controls got some time getting used to as well and for once I would have hoped for a thorough tutorial explaining all the little nuances of climbing and combat (and not just how to control a newborn baby). For instance, while racing my brother on the rooftops, I kept performing awesome suicide wall jumps when I was actually just trying to climb the wall. The controls for these actions were explained immediately after the sequence. Now that I'm familiar with the controls, the game feels brilliant though! I really enjoy exploring Florence and the missions so far have had enough variation to keep them interesting. I don't even have a weapon yet and I'm not minding it at all. The game's presentation of Italy is cheesy enough with merchants yelling "Formaggi!" and people in general being colorful and loud. Ezio seems to be a huge douche too. For some reason I find that quite entertaining actually. On the other hand, he is not a very believable character, something that doesn't bother me too much as I expect him to turn all dark and quiet soon. Hearing his mother suggest him look for outlets other than felt a bit weird, though.

Has anyone played Zombie Driver? Seems like a cool mix of Death Rally and Carmageddon without the actual races. Is it worth the 2,24€? ..fuck it. I'll just buy the thing and find out myself.

Just to be clear, I am not complaining that the battles are particularly difficult, which they obviously aren't*. Nor am I saying that they are nearly as frustrating and stupid as in Drake's Fortune. Like I said, this has been a major improvement compared to the original game and at least this time they are trying to justify the amount of bad people trying to make you stop living. (Namely, by saying that the main villain has a sort of private army at his control. Spoiler, obviously.) The arena style combats are still easily my least favourite part of the gameplay and so I'm not looking forward to the rest of the game too much. Improved melee combat and grenade toss have indeed helped a lot. However, I might still be playing it too much like I would Uncharted 1, as Thrik suggested, as I often end up hiding behind a single cover trying to take the enemies out one by one when (for some reason) I should actually run towards one of them, take him out in hand to hand combat and proceed to use his cover. I guess that is one of the things I dislike the most about the combat gameplay: that it is sometimes so counterintuitive. If you have plenty of ammo and good spot, it would seem wise to stay put and kill the fuckers one by one. That, as far as I can tell, is usually not the case in Uncharted 2. I'm not sure if there really are "invisible gates" in this game but it sometimes feels that, given infinite ammo, I could be taking out guys near a turret till 2012. Again, this doesn't make the game hard (I only have to move a little closer to be able to "capture" it, or whatever), but it is kind of annoying that one of the tactics doesn't (always) work when, like it has been said, so many of them do. The turret sequence I described earlier was the one Thrik mentioned as well, by the way. I was on the raised thingy on the turret side of the bridge right of the turret when the stay puft guys appeared. I only brought it up to point out that the game sometimes clearly expects you to be somewhere and turns sour if you are not where expected. As usual, I've been rambling about a non-issue for far too long, and I'm about to stop. I just want to make it clear that this is far from ruining the game for me in any way and I do think the sequel has been a huge improvement on the original and a brilliant game overall. Furthermore, I only consider "giving up" on the game because I'm not sure if the ending is going to offer me all that much anymore. The plot is definitely above average for video games but I'm still not itching to know how exactly will everything be all right at the end. I might still finish it sometime, if only for the scenery and for having actually completed a game this year. The main reason for considering to stop playing this, however, is Assassin's Creed II, New Super Mario Bros., and a ton of good books I got for Christmas. To end on a positive note, I really liked the throat singing I thought I heard in the Himalayan part. *Although, I couldn't imagine someone being able to complete a larger section of the game with just "one life" as there is simply so much going on during combat.

I have hard time finishing this game. I'm in the monastery (near the end of "The Monastery" chapter, to be precise.. I assume) and I'm not enjoying it too much. The multi-wave battles that I disliked so much in the first game are back at full force and it is way too easy to get oneself killed. I don't mind the increase in difficulty but it seems that the game actually "breaks" way too easily during these bigger battles. For instance, during one of these larger gun fights there was *spoiler*a turret guy*spoiler* that was hard to kill (and if I managed to kill him from the distance a new turret guy would pop up replacing the dead turret guy) and I was forced to kill all the other enemies before I could finalize him. I somehow ended up on a ledge that was still quite far from the turret but slightly above it so it was pretty for me to toss a grenade in there and kill the turret guy. I had apparently passed some invisible checkpoint too, because a new turret guy didn't appear. My victory was short lived, though, as six guys with fucking bulletproof mattresses tied to them appeared right behind me and butchered me with ease. I was obviously supposed to be near the turret, ready to take control of it as soon as I saw them coming. I was not, however, and the game decided to teach me (another) lesson. I might as well say what I think of the game as a whole here since I'm not sure if I will ever finish it (should I?) because of the aforementioned annoyances. The gameplay is pretty solid. I was pleased to find out that they seemed to have reduced the number of large gun fights at the beginning of the game. The sneaking worked decently as well and I didn't have any problems with the museum part (except with one guy that was standing next to a fountain). The visuals are absolutely stunning which is hardly worth mentioning, I guess. Kathmandu (did they specify it was Kathmandu, by the way?) looked absolutely gorgeous and must be one of the most mind-blowing things I have ever witnessed in a video game. The Tibetan village was beautiful as well. Which brings me to one of the things I dislike the most in Uncharted 2: how game-ish the game sometimes is. You can spot a big gun fight from afar even if there is no enemy in sight because the ground is littered with weapons and places for cover. The best example of this I can think of is the village I mentioned earlier: It's mostly good, though. There is enough variation in gameplay, some of the scenes are very clever and the banter between the characters feels surprisingly organic for the most parts. Plus, there are no loading screens between the chapters or scenes which is pretty impressive. The Tibetan man who accompanied you at one point was called Tenzing.

Yey, Christmas! Have a merry one!

Holy fuck. I just bought Civilization IV pack (with Civ IV, the 2 expansion packs, and even Civ IV: Colonization) for 13 euros on on D2D Christmas calendar. That alone is enough to consume all my spare time. And now this!

Red Dead Redemption = Fallout + horses = (Oblivion + guns) + horses Therefore, Red Dead Redemption is Oblivion with guns and more horses. How many were there in Oblivion? I can pinpoint the exact moment I started hoping this game would be a lot more like Fallout 3 than the GTA games (whatever that means): when the dog (wolf ?) attacked the main character in the gameplay video. I feel the way that GTA and Fallout (and Oblivion?) worlds work are somehow fundamentally different. I can't quite explain what I mean, but I still think I prefer the latter.

Gameplay video with someone talking. Looks neat still.

There are like 5 games I have played this year and I'm yet to test some that I'm interested in, so I think it's too early for me to name my goty 2009. Looking at my collection, my game of the decade (based only on the amount of fond memories I have playing it) would probably have to be Mafia. It was by no means perfect (from a technical standpoint at least) but it was lovely nonetheless. My other favourite games this decade, based on the same criteria, are No One Lives Forever (1 and 2), Desperados, Rome: Total War (although I think I played Medieval even more) and Company of Heroes. Half-Life 2 was kinda neat as well, I guess.

The beginning of the Spec Ops trailer, while still far from original or "anything special", actually got me a wee bit interested in the game. The latter half was very generic, though, as is the gameplay itself, it seems. Still, quite surprisingly, that was the most interesting trailer in the list of not very interesting VGA trailers for me.