What I (Dis)Liked Last Week

Again, another week where my gaming time, what little I had, was dominated by Grand Theft Auto IV. I understand I'm creeping ever closer to the end and I'm trying to extend it as long as I can while still getting other stuff done, taking care of all the Vigilante and Assassin side missions, doing activities with other characters to unlock their perks, etc. It really helps that there isn't another big release I can think of anytime soon that would draw my attention away, because the idea of falling behind and having a backlog on my leisure time would be a grim scenario indeed.
I still haven't given the LEGO Indiana Jones demo a whirl yet, but if LEGO Star Wars was any indicator it'll be cute and fun for an hour or two and then I'll get bored with it, in which case the demo served as a perfectly acceptable substitute in lieu of the full product.
Finally played Mario Kart Wii at the mega barbecue, most of you reading this probably attended and also played, and it is, indeed, a Mario Kart game. I'm not usually one to get on Nintendo's case about milking franchises because, while I have not yet played Galaxy, I still enjoy Mario's forays into platforming, RPGs and even some of the sports games. While almost each of the "official" platforming sequels in some way tries to bring new elements to the table, Mario Kart has barely changed since it's debut on the SNES apart from the addition of the bullshit blue shell. From the looks of things the majority of the tracks are recreations from previous games, which only serves to draw attention to a lack of originality that I often try my best to overlook when it comes to Nintendo. I understand that there's only so much you can do with a cart racer and it's selling like crazy so I can't fault them for, seemingly, giving people what they want.

So in the course of the last couple days I've apparently lost fifteen pounds. Maybe, just maybe, I have a bad scale. Skipped breakfast in favor of one of those shakes and it's becoming hard, especially with a slow day here, to resist the call of going to the vending machine which is literally right outside the door. Already dark clouds are surrounding this plan which will only lead up to an insane and shameful gorgefest of chocolate and salty snacks, where authorities will no doubt find me underneath a pile of plastic wrappers, sobbing while attempting to cram another Payday bar into my mouth.

Lastly, if there was one movie I would bother to go see an early midnight showing of it would be the new Indy, but now I'm in a rare position of not having a workable schedule. Goddamn it.

-K.

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The Price of Freedom (From Body Fat... and Happiness)

So I've been working here for a few months now and lately I've been running around a lot, more than usual. Well, not really running, but moving at an increased gait while lugging and lifting heavy equipment around, which means that, especially for a man that is winded after using a rotary phone, I've been sweating a lot. Probably because my exercise regiment has increased exponentially to something I'm not used to, but an increase from zero to anything would probably be considered exponential. I've also been eating less since I'm not spending as much time at home which means I don't have easier access and time spent snacking out anymore. So imagine my surprise when the scale in the kitchen was telling me I've actually gained a few pounds. That's right folks, I'm drawing ever closer to the 800lb milestone.

Really, though, what the fuck? That's not how things are supposed to work. In fact, it's supposed to be the complete opposite of that. It's not like I've been ordering roasted butter sandwiches and lard soup at the cafeteria, I've been eating plain grilled chicken sandwiches. On wheat, no less!

I'll probably have to do something about the breakfasts I've been getting here, though, despite the convenience of the friendly chef knowing exactly what I want every morning and as soon as I walk in I can count on him whipping up my bacon, egg and cheese bagel with some hashbrowns. My alternative, however, since I'm usually in a hurry to leave the house, would be to start drinking the health shakes that my dad has been on lately. They promise that they will "smash my hunger," but I've tried them before, and that phrase only works if the hunger they're referring to is a slumbering beast within your stomach that, once "smashed," becomes a raging, writhing, screeching hell spawn that demands vengeance.

The most obvious suspect would have to be that I've probably been averaging an intake of 4 liters of RC Cola a week, but can't I be allowed that vice? Isn't it enough that I don't really drink and I don't smoke and I don't kill hookers (At least not in the real world) and I don't get my morning pick-me-up from doing a line of blow in the bathroom, can't I have this? Sugar and caffeine, that's all I want to hang on to. In the not too distant past I attempted to abandon my sugar water and tried to go with just water with sugar-free flavor packs. This lasted a couple months and I must have been going through a withdrawal, though not nearly on the Trainspotting level, I did get an insane craving, much like a pregnant woman on a hilarious sitcom, for Pepsi that absolutely had to be sated and then I was off on my delicious, delicious sugar ride again.

But today I start anew, I've stopped bringing a bottle of RC to keep in the fridge here, I am no longer filling my cup full of Pepsi or Coke or even Fanta while making my way through the cafeteria, instead opting for an arguably healthier choice. I don't think it'll last, either.

This wouldn't be so difficult if I wasn't so completely sure that if depression and hopelessness had a flavor it would taste exactly like Diet Coke.

-K.

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Play This Now: Space Hulk Remake

Way back in the early days the PC was the home to niche genres like squad oriented turn-based strategy games and crazy hybrid puzzle-RPGs. Well, I guess they still are, more than ever, but anyway. Also back in these brave, olden times there was a fun but challenging turn-based strategy game set in the Warhammer 40K universe titled Space Hulk, in which you lead your squad of space marines through dark, cramped corridors fighting brutal alien foes. The game would've most likely been lost to time had it not been for the efforts of a little group called Teardown who created a full remake of the game. Titled, cleverly, Space Hulk, it is a carbon copy of the original with some improved visuals. If you like Warhammer 40K or turn-based strategy games it's worth a shot, also mostly because like all the other games, it don't cost nuthin'. Now if some other group of awesome nerds could get to work on a free remake of D/Generation, that would be fantastic.

Download, spacehulk.rar (19MB)

-K.

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Wednesday Morning Sketch: Upright Citizens Brigade - Ass Pennies

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Two Men Enter, One Man Leave

I think my time here would go more smoothly if Justin was not here. I realize that his departure would mean they would have to find another replacement and that would take more time for me to return to my former schedule, and I would have to train them, but I think that would be preferable. After the regular business of morning office moves we've spent some time cleaning out shelves of old equipment, finding a handful of old Jaz drives, which has prompted Justin to exclaim "JAZ!" every few minutes as if he's borderline retarded.
If this continues I fear that one of us will not survive and I will be happy with either outcome.

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What I (Dis)Liked Last Week

Still slowly making my way through Grand Theft Auto IV partly because I don't want to finish it too quickly and also because with the departure of the other part-time employee in our department I've been temporarily bumped to full time and I'm already going insane. It doesn't help that things have gotten much busier and I've had a couple incidents with slightly hostile users. It's a lot like high school, really; I have to get up earlier than I'd like, stay here for a little over eight hours, wait for lunch time to roll around so I can go to the cafeteria, I only get about five hours sleep a night if I'm lucky, and I try to keep to myself but there's still a lot of people I don't like.

The big difference here is that I'm sure the pain will go away on payday.

-K.

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Wednesday Morning Sketch: Mr. Show - Mustmayostardayonnaise

The best part, I think we'll all agree, is Jay Johnston looking like a ridiculous Abe Lincoln.

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CTA Tells GTA GTFO, T2 Says "no u."

A week or so before release there was a number of shootings over a single weekend in Chicago resulting in the death of a couple dozen people. The Chicago Transit Authority responded accordingly by removing ads for Grand Theft Auto IV from their busses, but to their surprise all violence in Chicago did not come to a grinding halt. Publisher Take Two has finally decided to take some action against them, with good reason. The Miami-Dade Transit Authority has also pulled the ads, after a single complaint from soon-to-be-disbarred Jack Thompson. The ads themselves are fairly tame, from what I've seen they simply show the characters and the title, and if that drives someone to violence you've got bigger problems in your town to deal with. Here's hoping they come out on top.

Somebody really needs to hurry up and invent a new medium to become the next enemy of the old and the ignorant.

-K.

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What I (Dis)Liked Last Week (GTA4)

As you can imagine, my free time last week was almost completely dominated by Grand Theft Auto IV, balancing my time between the excellent single-player and the almost-as-excellent multiplayer. I'm assuming it doesn't count time spent playing multiplayer in the states, so going by what it's saying on the stats section I'm reaching the 16 hours mark with a completion rating of 33%. Reading Jeff Gerstmann's latest post on Giant Bomb revealed he had finished the main story with about a 61% so I guess I'm at the halfway mark, and I really don't want it to end. Hopefully it won't take them very long to get the promised DLC out the door and it will be something substantial, rumors flew around about there being new cities (Vice City and San Andreas were technically considered "expansions" because they fell under the "Grand Theft Auto III" name, but that's a stretch.), but I would be perfectly happy and gladly put my money down if they were 10-20 hour mission packs set within Liberty City, because the playing area is already interesting enough, diverse and mind-bogglingly huge.

If you haven't been able to get your hands on it yet, it is everything San Andreas was except turned to 11 (or 12, because I thought San Andreas was really awesome.) The basics from last few games are there, but both the driving model and combat have seen significant changes. The cars are a little harder to handle, they feel like they have some real weight to them, you can't just go powersliding around corners like you used to. You can also free-aim a handgun or submachine gun out the driver's window, though steering and shooting at the same time is a little tricky, like a murderous take on patting your head and rubbing your stomach. The addition of a cover system has made the combat, usually a sore spot in the GTA games, much more entertaining. If it's tall enough to crouch or stand behind, you can almost always take cover behind it, anywhere in the game. You can even roll up to a firefight, spin your car sideways, get out and take cover behind that. They don't explode after taking a few bullets like they used to, either, but conventional explosives still get the job done, and even one popped tire means you're going to have a lot of trouble getting away. But being able to get a handle on the situation, pop out and fire a few rounds and take cover again helps keep the game from being frustrating and means that if you play smart, you can take out an entire gang of biker drug dealers with barely a scratch. Also blindfiring an RPG is awesome.

The multiplayer, for the most part, is a lot of fun. I'm not a big fan of racing, even when guns and explosives are involved, so the two race modes will probably go largely unplayed. But excluding those there are still six other competitive modes, three co-op missions and Free Roam. I admire what Rockstar has done here, being able to bring the entire city to an online format without sacrificing anything, and I haven't really had many issues with lag, but with only a 16 player max cap regular Deathmatch can suffer if the host doesn't configure things properly. You can limit the action to one of the three large islands, the two smaller ones, or even small sections like the docks, airport or prison, but if the host just gives free range to everyone and sets the "respawn distance" to far it means you'll probably spend most of your time trying to track someone down to kill for only a minute or two of action. Team Deathmatch isn't as problematic because the game tries to keep the teams as close as possible when respawning. When configured properly, though, it is a lot of fun. I've been giving the Crooks N' Cops mode the most play, a team mode with one team as the crooks, either collectively or escorting their boss, attempting to get to a getaway vehicle and the cops out to catch them before they escape. Playing as a cop, starting in a squad car with three other players, is a blast when you have a good driver, and coming upon a car load of crooks and hailing them with submachine gun fire. The co-op missions are fun, but there's only three, and even though the open world allows for a little latitude, chances are they'll get old within a month or two. Anyway, my review at this point is that it's an incredible game that I would've gladly paid double for.

Thanks to a heads-up from Theron, I've also been playing The Last Stand 2 (A misleading title) as well as the original. We'll call these two games my Play This Now for the last two weeks. I'd like to see another sequel where you have to also secure the buildings you search.

I just had lunch, now I'm going to go concentrate on not falling asleep.

-K.

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GTA4 GTA4 GTA4

GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4. GTA4 GTA4 GTA4? GTA4! GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4. GTA4 GTA4 GTA4, GTA4, GTA4 GTA4, and GTA4. GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4 GTA4. GTA4!!

-GTA4.

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