Happy Holidays

[Pesadilla]

Let it snow boys. Best winter sports conditions since 1990s they say.

Too bad all i do is sled.

[Kirin]

thats not true, you're very good at getting your ass kicked in the snow....

[Nari]

I feel your pain Tydd.  The roads are crappy here, or it's just plain cold.  I'll wait for a string of 40 degree days to get out and freeze my nuts off.

[lugard]

Im back playing on blackhand  See geish or lugras

[Sodom]

Been grinding through my Gamefly list, too bad the waiting list for Assasins Creed and Mass Effect is crazy long.

I played through the Orange Box, and shortly therafter TimeShift. Both are fun, but I had one of those unappealing gaming epiphanies: I'm not good at FPSes. I mean, I enjoy them, and when I play multiplayer I usually am comfortably near the middle of the scoreboards. I've beaten just about every one I've spent any serious amount of time playing in the last couple years (except Jericho, which was just too shitty).

But I don't really hold myself to any kind of standard of competence. I rely heavily on the ubquitous quicksave systems and stubbornness to get through shooters these days, rather than any kind of skill. Never was this more apparrent than playing through TimeShift, which grafts Prince of Persia-style time manipulation onto standard fps gameply. I got about halfway through the game when I realized that even with the ability to rewind time, I was still using quicksaves to act as my own expendable scout, like so:

1) Rush into a room either full of enemies, or trigger a scripted event so the enemies rush you.

2) Make a half-hearted effort to fight my way through, but really just study the lay of the land and enemy positions.

3) Die.

4) Load quicksave.

5) Repeat 1, but this time take advantage of prior knowledge to kill the baddies.

So halfway through TimeShift I started over on Expert difficulty. I mean, if I'm going to be reloading from quicksave every 5-10 minutes anyways, why not unlock all the bonus content in one playthrough?

It made me feel kind of dirty. Still, despite the above rant, TimeShift was pretty fun. Lots of opportunites to slow down time and snipe whole squads of guys before they realize the first shot has been fired. Or execute whole rooms full of troops with shotgun blasts to the head while time is stopped, only to have them all collapse at once when time starts up again. Only complaint is that you can't abuse your time powers nearly as much as I'd like.

I'll probably pick it up for keeps at some point - I didn't have a chance to really get into the multiplayer.

[Tydd]

Just buy Mass Effect and when you are done I'll buy it from you for an insanely low price of $19.99.  

[Rosslyn]

Mass Effect is a pretty cool game...

[Sodom]

Strangely enough, I just sold a bunch of old console RPGs on eBay, Super Nintendo and PS1 titles. Here's what I got:

Final Fantasy II (Super Nintendo) : $15.50
Final Fantasy III (Super Nintendo) : $21.51
Chrono Trigger (Super Nintendo) : $64.00
Final Fantasy VII (Playstation) : $61.00
Final Fantasy IX (Playstation) : $15.50
Final Fantasy Tactics (Playstation) : $31.00
Final Fantasy Chronicles (Playstation) : $51.00
Final Fantasy Anthology (Playstation) : $56.00
Suikoden (Playstation) : $29.00
Suikoden II (Playstation)  : $102.50

The only one that didn't sell was Final Fantasy VIII for the Playstation. Not suprised, it was a crappy game. I was kinda suprised that I made a profit on 5 of the games, getting more than I paid for them way-back-when.

[Rosslyn]

wow, that's unreal.  i should try unloading some PS2 games and see what I can get

[Tydd]

I agree.  I should try and unload some of Ross's games as well.

[Axecleaver]

Wow, I can't believe you got over $100 for Suikoden 2. That was a cool game but I never got around to buying it. Damn!

[Lifesbane]

$61 for FFVII? wow... i got that for like $20 last year my local EB Games or whatever.

[Sodom]

Yeah. It's the original (not Greatest Hits) release, so I guess it's worth more to a collector.

It was my wife that convinced me to sell stuff on ebay, because people pay WAY more than you'd think for stuff. For example, my wife never returns old cellphones when she decides to upgrade to a new model. She takes her old one and fucks it up so she can get a new warranty replacement, then throws it on ebay. She sold her White Chocolate Verizon cell that she paid $25 for with contract for $150 on ebay.

(Edited by Sodom at 12:02 pm on Jan. 9, 2008)