Ramblings of a Self Defeatist

I've been really enjoying it to be quite honest. At first I was pretty apprehensive that the people behind so many bad licensed games
(Lego Racers anyone?) were doing a shooter. But these were also the folks who made the really fun Hunter games.
So I followed all of the news on it up until launch, and was intrigued.

Now that I've played it, here are some of my thoughts. I don't know if I'd call it a review, as I'm probably not good enough at critiquing to really use the word.
But, here are some musings anyway.

Like a lot of people, I really was taken back by what HVS was able to pull off with the Wii hardware. There are a lot of special effects in the game
that previously have only been seen in games running on id, epic, and crytek engines. Engines many have said would either not run, or run so poorly that they
wouldn't be worth attempting on the Wii.
Now, I'm no programmer, so I couldn't tell you HOW HVS did this, but they did. Some of it may be software emulation, instead of the actual Ati chipset in the Wii,
But it's very impressive nevertheless. HDR, Bloom effects, reflections on surfaces. It's very well done.

But how about the game? For anyone who hasn't tried it yet, The controls in The Conduit really are worth the hype. They feel spot on. When I was playing through it
I didn't have any moments where I thought I was hampered by either unresponsive, or too responsive input. HVS also made this the most customizable controller configuration
of any game I've ever played that wasn't on a personal computer. You can change EVERYTHING.
When you're playing the game, you will stumble upon hand grenades. You throw these (Unless you change it to a button) with the left nunchuck underhand or overhand.
As if you are actually throwing something. It again, feels natural, and responds pretty accurately to your movement.
With the wiimote, stabbing it forward lets you pistol whip. Admittedly sometimes it gets iffy here because you get attacked from all sides, so you won't connect as often, as you'd like.
But it really doesn't get in the way.

The main game is a story based campaign. I'll try not to give any spoilers, but if you don't want this part ruined skip ahead a few paragraphs I suppose.
The story is actually pretty good. I didn't care for part of the ending, because it seemed like a cop out, but I digress. It's sort of [i]National Treasure[/i] meets [i]X-Files[/i] meets [i]24[/i]. In it you play this guy named Mr. Ford who stops this assassination attempt on the President. Upon doing this, you wake up in a D.C. Subway where you are greeted by this guy Mr. Adams. Adams, (as you fight through the Subway) tells you about these alien invaders, and says that some Terrorist named Prometheus (Played by Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo)
is the mastermind behind their invasion. He tells you that Prometheus is responsible for this mysterious disease called "The Bug" (Yeah I know, "How original"), and that the aliens are also turning Humans against their superior leaders. As you track down the bad guy, you also learn about [i]The Trust[/i]. It's a freemasonic secret shadow Government that Adams works for.
Apparently, it's been around since the creation of The United States, and has had it's hand in everything. But Adams maintains he's doing for the good of the nation, by sending you after Prometheus. At some point you'll also get this object called the All Seeing Eye. It's this ball that uses the Pyramid eye on our Dollar, as a kind of blacklight.
It becomes essential throughout the game because it finds a lot of hidden clues, hidden puzzles that open all sorts of Nicolas Cagey closets full of alien ammo, and hidden items.
In any event, shortly after you find this thing, Adams turns on you, he leaves you at the blown up Lincoln Memorial fighting hundreds of aliens. As you play through the rest of the game, you learn about a vast conspiracy to hand control of the Country to an insectoid alien race known as the Drudge. Prometheus was actually trying to stop it, so the Trust frames him.
Oh but that's not the whole thing, because when you meet him in the last stage you get to find out that he is an alien. Not only is he an alien, he's a Drudge! Not only is he a Drudge, Adams, and the Trust are taking his DNA, and using it to make Mutant insectoid monsters to help them take over the world!

Overall not a bad storyarc for a game. the cop out ending is a little disappointing. But good.

As for the gameplay it's your typical shooter. If I had to compare it to another FPS I guess I would have to say Half-Life. Both games are story based, and pretty linear. The Conduit though is a bit more run, and gun. There is a lot less puzzle solving going on, and it doesn't have the Action/Puzzle/Action/Boss routine of Half-Life.
The level design is a bit of that mixed with Gauntlet. How could one mix GAUNTLET into HALF-LIFE? By making The Conduits the story refers to (Little teleporters) into enemy spawns like certain items did in Gauntlet. They were creative enough with the idea, although admittedly it does get to be a little over used at times. Which is why I actually like the length of the single player campaign. A lot of reviewers didn't think the Single player game was long enough, but honestly with the Conduit spawn mechanic it's just about right.
The levels themselves are comparable to Half-Life or Call Of Duty 1 in complexity. There are certain parts closed off so you have to go where the designers want you to.
Which I suppose is fine, but some people who like open world titles will feel it's a bit over done. I thought everything fit nicely enough. It's 9 stages of going through our Nations' Capitol, fighting enemies, and finding hidden areas, and items along the way. HVS also did a lot of nice touches. As you go through the war torn D.C. you find abandoned radios you can listen to, or in blown out stores, and homes sometimes a TV with a telecast. These moments advance the story without pausing the action. Again, I was reminded of Half-Life 2. Not a bad game to crib from if you're going to crib from something. Some of the levels are actually really inventive despite the linearity. For instance, in one stage you go through an off level apartment building. Floors become walls, the Camera works accordingly. Another level has you going through The Pentagon. It really fits the mood of the game, and the story that goes along with it is interesting enough to keep you playing enough to see the end. Another point that stuck out to me, was that they took a page from tactical shooters like Rainbow Six, and made it where you can only hold two guns at a time. While that might not seem to fit in a game like this, it really does, and keeps the game challenging.
Speaking of challenging, the game goes from fairly challenging to BRUTAL in the last two stages. Even on the easy setting.

But the best part of the game is the online multiplayer. Here you have the typical DM, and TDM stuff, but the levels, and the pacing of the game are amazing.
My personal favorite level is The Pentagon stage. Here you can walk through a block of skyscrapers. Each with several floors blowing the crap out of each other.
The MP seems to take inspiration from Perfect Dark, with the pace of Half-Life 2 DM. There's a lot of interesting weapons to use, there's a Goldeneye styled radar.
The game also has a ranking system, and even uses the Wii speak microphone if you have one. So that means you can do voice chat similar to PC, and 360 shooters.
They also let you send friend requests by Wii System number so that you can avoid typing in friend codes. Another big win

The game isn't perfect of course, and it's not the most original title I've played. But it is an awful lot of fun, and it has very solid play control. HVS really outdid themselves, and it'll be interesting to see where they go from here.  

I picked up The Conduit yesterday. I was actually surprised I was able to nab a copy seeing how
highly anticipated a title it's been.
I haven't had a lot of time to spend with it yet, but what I've seen so far has been pretty good.
I should have my summations up when I get some free time to blog about it.

When was the last time you were disappointed?

The real question is: "When was the last time I WASN'T?"

A few years ago, my Grandmother moved out of her house after being persuaded to buy a condo by relatives. I can't delve too deeply into the back story since some of them may stumble upon this, and misconstrue things. Because hey, families are like that.
Anyway, one of the things that transpired in the move was that my folks ended up getting a shed, to house her stuff for her to save her from having to pay some outlandishly high storage prices. Between the shed, and one half of a garage, there are eons of items from floor to ceiling.
One of the bins that found their way to my house was an electronics tote. It had a number of working things I'd forgotten about. I mostly remember finding it during the move, and telling my Aunt that Grandma may have been a bit of a pack rat, but there are some things you just don't toss out unless they're broken. Even then, one should have it recycled. Several years later, I've been given the go ahead to poke through it, because my Grandmother probably isn't going to have the room for them, and sorting through the vast library of books she has packed away is going to take up whatever time may have been there anyway.

When I went through the tote it was more than the typical time warp. It was my childhood flashing before my eyes.

Atari 2600 VCS V1

The first thing I uncovered was pretty much the first game console to gain mainstream appeal lasting even beyond The Crash of 1983. The Atari Video Computer System. aka The Atari 2600.
I won't spend a lot of time getting the new schoolers up to speed. Suffice it to say this was pretty much where things took off.
In any event, this was the first version of the VCS. 6 switches, wood panel. as I dug deeper I would also find:

Atari 2600 VCS V2

Another 2600. Still titled the VCS, this was the first revision. Going with a smaller motherboard, Atari moved the difficulty switches to the back of the system, and retooling the casing. This was the console I could remember my relatives playing whenever we had to go to Grandma's house for something. Bubby (My Grandmother's overly bawdy Poodle at the time) would interfere with every conversation with his constant barking, and leghumping. I remember one visit where my Mom flung him off of her shin, and into the TV set. And folks, this was a mammoth TV set. It was a 32" Zenith, with Silver Age Decor. It weighed (To a tyke like me at the time) a metric ton.
This was the console me, and my cousins stayed up all night playing at Grandma's during a snowstorm because my Aunt was in a Waterbury Hospital, and our power had gone out besides.
This was the console that had been going many visits where my late Grandfather had around 40 dozen Dunkin Donuts boxes lying on the kitchen table, and Grandma would implore anyone who would listen to scarf them down because he wasn't supposed to be eating the damned things.
Anyway, I had been kind of taken back because I didn't nor do I currently remember them ever owning more than one 2600. On the other hand, my Grandparents would buy anything that seemed like a sweet deal even if they didn't need it. Nevertheless, my eyes came out of their sockets when I found:

Atari 2600 VCS V2.5

A third, yes, THIRD Atari 2600. This was what I call revision 2.5. It's basically the second version, only now instead of a woodpanel front it displays a matte black background with the official name change to Atari 2600. But that's still not the end.

Intellivision

An INTELLIVISION. Back in the 80's Mattel (Yep the folks who make Barbie dolls) was the Sega to Atari's Nintendo.
I never owned one. At the time my folks were pretty much one system per Generation.
I can't say I ever remember my Grandparents having one, but there it was.
Underneath the Intellivision was a Nintendo 64, and a truckload of 2600 controllers, and wires.

Now here's the really crazy thing. Despite being in a mildewy basement for God only knows how many years before arriving in my folks garage a few years ago, and sitting there until two days ago get this:
ALL FOUR SYSTEMS WORKED!
Even more bizarre I found a ton of games, many of which still had boxes:

2600 and intellivision shelves

And even odder: My Grandparents NEVER opened two of these games!

Jungle Hunt MIB

Atari football MIB

For the record, I haven't opened them either. I'm afraid to.I won't go into why, but yeah. Crazy.

So, at that point I figured I'd try the systems out. As I mentioned earlier they all worked. But here are some pivotal moments during my time travelling adventure

2600 Smurf Ending

This is the end screen of the Smurf Adventure. It was originally a Colecovision game I never played, but to make extra money, COnnecticut LEather COmpany (See how they got their name?) ported a lot of their first party games, and games they had licenses for to their competition. This of course doesn't happen at all anymore. This was in the wild west days, where there were no Seals of Quality, or Official Platform Holder licenses. There were the intellectual property licenses for characters, or Arcade games. But little else. Once Activision defeated Atari in court when they sued their former employer for not allowing them to make their own non Atari branded game cartridges, it was anyone's game at that point.
But I digress.

Genesis Controller on 2600

One interesting tidbit 5 gamers out there may not know: The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive controller ports are the same as the Atari 2600's. So this means I was able to use a Genesis Arcade Stick for my experiment in classic gaming.
On a side note, way back in high school at a friend's we tried playing Altered Beast on the Genesis with a one button Atari joystick. I can't recommend it

MOTU POHM Title

Mattel, also ported it's consoles games to other platforms for extra revenue. When I was a kid we had the 2600 port of MOTU. I have to say, the Intellivision version is the hands down winner. I don't doubt it's because Mattel realized they could use their own Toyline IP's as killer apps for their system, and nerfed the 2600 version on purpose. But the fact remains it's the better version of the Console Master's game. Better graphics, and music. More gameplay features, and the game even has an attract mode! It's too bad that nearly three decades later Intellivision MOTU blows away the MOTU game that was shovelled out for the GBA.

Intellivision Power of He-Man 2nd screen

Intellivision Power of He-Man

One port the 2600 clearly wins on however, is Donkey Kong. This is despite the fact that Mattel's system had more horsepower. It goes to show market support will always outgun horsepower, as Atari would learn itself when they released the 5200, and when they really shot themselves with the Jaguar.
Anyway, I can only speculate the reason for the crummy DK on Intellivision. But my theory is that Coleco was also a toy company. They competed with Atari in games, but with Mattel in games, and toys.
Being the sole console licensee for Nintendo's Donkey Kong, they figured they would make themselves the best version (Which they did) then downport to the 2600, and then slapdash the thing on Intellivision:

Intellivision port of Donkey Kong WTF ery

That said, I can't help but wonder why they ever bothered. Look at this screen: The first stage is BACKWARDS.
You can't tell by a picture, but the controls are attrocious (Which is why it says GAME OVER), and the only color outside of Donkey Kong, and his barrels  is FUSCHIA. Even the 2600 had more than 4 colors displayed. At least 2600 DK's Mario sprite somewhat resembles Mario. Don't get me started on the controls. You slide the disc left or right, and press a side button to jump. But the response time seriously lags. A LOT. The hit detection is bad too. You can be right in front of a ladder, but you won't neccesarily climb it. It makes DK a crapshoot. Terrible.

Controller Card

This was the only thing I didn't like about the Intellivision, aside from the bad DK port.
Many games require these paper cards that slide into the controller. Now, I can understand the thinking. Obviously with the numeric pad that translates into a lot of buttons for macros. But like the AVGN noted in his Intellivision summations many moons ago most of the games of the time didn't require such complexity.
But even more worrisome, is even the simplest titles can be confusing if you don't have the cards. Without them, you can't pick up, and play the games because you have to spend a good ten minutes figuring out what number does what. Thankfully for me anyway, my Grandmother's OCD paid off because most of the intellivision games came in their original boxes.

Swords And Serpents Title

Swords, and Serpents ended up being pretty decent. It's a bit like Gauntlet. You can play a two player mode, where player one is a wizard of some sort, and player two is a knight. You can spin the disc to swing your sword as you navigate the mazes. Like, Gauntlet these demons spawn all over the place, and try to keep you from getting through the mazes. The play control is actually pretty decent. But you really do need two players to get the full benefit of the game.

Frog Bog

After a horrendous day at work, I came home, played some UT3, and realized I should probably make a decent wallpaper. So a screenshot from my folder, and a photo editing program later viola! New Wallpaper.
Thanks to Crotale over at the Epic forums for the logo. Lassoing that out would have taken forever.
Enjoy. I recommend you get the full size in it's 1680 x 1050 Glory.

UT3WP

Well I haven't seen Anne all week, so no news on the coffee front.
But today was pretty good, because one of my favorite games got a major overhaul for the better.

If you haven't played it, check out Unreal Tournament III. It's a little over a year old now, STEAM has a try it free all weekend promo going on, and for those who don't mind making a frugal purchase will find it for $13 at Gamestop

Epic released a new patch, as well as their new Titan pack for the PC, and PS3 versions. (360 fans will get it late depending on whether or not Epic can work something out with Microsoft over a file size conflict on their LIVE service)

In any event the patch, and pack fix a variety of performance issues, and give a lot of new maps, and modes to the game. Even ordinarily "Big whoop" things an average person may not think much of, have gotten some royal polish.

Newsplash

The Splash screen features a dark background now (Used to be white, with less characters)

Newtitle

The title screen is new, and now features crisp 2d sprites of characters that are randomly displayed at bootup.

FixedUI

PC Gamers got their wish when Epic added a more traditional set of tweakable settings every UT game up until the initial Holiday 2007 launch of UT3 had had. Now we can mess with settings without having to code our own tweaker, or hack apart a document file!

Achievements

Because it's all the rage in gaming these days, Now UT3 has achievements to chase after. The only one I care about is Goop God being a Bio Rifle fan, and all.

Titanmutator

Epic's Titan Mutator is awesome. With this enabled players can turn into Godzilla sized versions of themselves after scoring a certain number of kills. And in the code of fairness, anyone can do it. Some matches may feature a good 24 giants! But you can still take them out. Plus it's a limited time thing, so it's tough to stay a movie monster. But it's a blast, and everyone should try it.

I haven't had time to check out every new mode or map just yet, but the performance difference is unbelievable, and that alone was worth the download. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I think anyone who stumbles upon this will too.

Her name is Anne I only know this because she was wearing a nametag. She's slightly shorter than I am, around 5ft 9in. She has these pouty cheeks, thin lips, ravenous red hair, sculpted in the vein of Camera Obscura's own Tracyanne Campbell. She has big, beautiful blue anime like eyes that pierce into your soul when you look into them. She has a thin, yet plain body frame which only adds to her plain jane sexiness. There I was in Trader Joe's 525 where once again I was ill prepared for such beauty, and failed to ask for any contact information.

Other than the latest chapter in: "The Deviot uncontrollably pusses out when in front of a girl he really likes despite the fact that doing so only makes it all the more obvious"

It's been a pretty ho hum day off. I went to The Last Drop, wrote a pretty respectable piece of writing material, and stopped off at Trader Joe's in town here where the first paragraph happened.
I fear that by the time I do muster up the courage to ask the siren for an email, I'll find out that it's been 20 years, and she's yet to be widowed. At which point I will receive the self induced facepalm.It would probably be easier for me to get up off my duff if the grocery store wasn't so mobbed all of the time. It's kind of an added pressure trying not only to not give off a wussy vibe while pathetically attempting to get to know her better, but also having people in back of me needing to get their foodstuffs home, and into their refridgerators. Of course, working a few doors down opens up a few more opportunities. But something ultimately happens to foil my plans. Be it getting sent to a different line, or like today allowing my irrational worries to get the upperhand. Which is strange because other than not being able to throw out a simple "Hey, you seem like you might be interesting, do you have an email?", to which I could either hear "Of course here it is." or "I'm flattered, but I'm taken, and my boyfriend doesn't really like you all that much." both of which are valid replies I can easily handle, I can carry on a normal non nervous wreck of a conversation.
I suppose in the end this tale is less about Anne, and her captivating aesthetics. Rather it's more about my insecurities once again biting me in the ass, and creating self fullfilling prophecies.
But I am trying to get over those. Really. I promise.

I realize it's been awhile, and I haven't been so hot at keeping this up so here's a few things I've been up to:

Saints Row 2 (Windows)

Yep. I picked up the funnier, goofier, less serious, more fun of the two crime game franchise releases for the PC.
When it launched SR2 had a lot of random crashes. bugs, and performance issues. It was clear to anyone playing it that THQ essentially didn't want to wait further, and schlepped it out the door. But kudos to Volition for listening to the community of customers, and getting a patch out earlier than most other console game port makers. There are still some performance issues that crop up, like random frame rate dips when walking through certain parts of the game, or driving. But nowhere near as common as at launch. It's also nice to be able to play without random lock ups, or crashes to the desktop.
As for the game itself? Even with the problems I had playing, it's been an awful lot of fun to play, and even the multiplayer aspect of the game worked well enough to get in a few hours with a friend.
A lot of folks will compare it to Grand Theft Auto 4 for obvious reasons, but the game really is a lot different in that there is a bigger parody aspect, The controls feel tighter, than GTA to me anyway, and I like the convention of filling up "Respect" to open up levels a lot more than GTA's "earn enough money" to open up a stage.
#1 it's a pain in the butt to earn the monetary difference between misions in GTA. Always has been.
#2 The respect meter actually compels you to dick around in the game. Honestly, most people I know who play GTA really only play for the sandbox element. To explore, and take a car, run over some pedestrians, and go out like a Black & White movie villian, after getting the S.W.A.T  team to show up. In the GTA games though this would never give enough cash to open the next part of the story. In Saints Row, 15 minutes of starting crap with pimps, or shooting some guy, at the mall to get the PD to show up will.
#3 The multiplayer Co-Op is a nicer fit, than the traditional afterthought DM mode thrown into these types of games.
Plus the fact you can heal a buddy means, even if your friends are crappier than you are at the game, they don't pull your whole performance down.
It's a lot of fun,and like many other games these days it's great that it's on the PC in addition to the 360. The fact that all of the 360 games I'd want to play show up on the PC, or the Wii have kept me from wanting a 360 anyway. Yeah I know someone somewhere will want to flame me for that. It's a good system. I know. But the PC is saving me money here, and bedroom space! (Speaking of space, you can buy it on Steam, which negates the need for space!)

In other news I finally nabbed a copy of Rise Against: Appeal to reason. It really is worth all of the hype folks. It's a brilliant album from a hardcore band even if it does veer a little more into hard rock territory than some old timer fans might want it to. But all of the songs kick ass. It's lyrically deep, and powerful. It doesn't come off as lame or pretentious whatsoever. It's actually one of the most sincere records I've listened to in recent memory.
Whether you like loud punchy rock n' roll or not you really ought to give it a listen.  Everybody of course cites Re-Education (Through Labor) as the must have single here, and it's hard to fault them for saying so, But I was actually quite into Hero Of War which to me does an absolute brilliant job of painting a picture of the story it wants to convey, despite being the softest sounding song on the album.

Of course I'm still working, writing, and goofing off. :p

With a hectic schedule, and having my ISP out a number of times to fix my connection I know I've been away from this a bit too long. I'm probably just going to end up rambling to myself. But anyhoot since I'm tired of punishing myself this week for a regretful summer, and I don't feel like the umpteenth "Work is poo" rant is in me tonight, I'll instead talk a bit about gaming. Or actually the demise of my other go to gaming news magazine/website.  And the five of you who don't dig gaming may still find something of merit in my boring Ben Steinery so humor me, and give me at least a few sentences of your time.

Ziff-Davis sells 1up.com to UGO Online (Hearst), and Kills EGM in the process.

I'm going to miss KB. It's the store that time forgot 86 years old, and it finally comes to a close.
Say what you will about the place, true it's prices were higher, in some of them you could barely navigate the aisles thanks to all of the floor stacks. But most of the workers were pretty swell, they would get some of the rarer shortpacked action figures (I'm looking at you Mer-Man, Fisto, Chase Trap Jaw, and Chase Orko), and sometimes they would have the rare gem in the discount bin. For Christmas a few years ago I had to get my Brother in Law's obnoxious asshat father something so I wouldn't look like a jerk. I was also broke from all of the other Christmas gifts I had to buy people I actually wanted to give cool stuff to. Walking through The Newtown KB what did I find, but the classic PC Game Max Payne for a mere $2.99
I was able to eat that day, and not have to hear behind the back schoolyard whining from my Sister's Husband's ingrate Father. Or at least I didn't have to hear that he was an ungrateful asshole. Whatever.

I think I'm also going to miss it though because despite my outward cynical pessimism I guess I still have that part of me who would like my nieces to be able to experience old school coolness.
When I was a kid going to the Toy Store was a rare treat. My folks were never wealthy, and while I was certainly blessed during birthdays, and holidays my folks didn't buy toys on a whim all that often. So it was sort of special when we made the rare trip to KB, Toys R Us, the Bradlees, or Caldor Toy Department, or (MAN am I dating myself) Childworld.
Out of all of those only Toys R Us remains now. That's kind of sad. Sure I know there are many factors for this. The fact they make kids grow up way too fast these days. The fact that tech is getting cheaper, the fact that action figures are heading toward the adult collector market, and of course the big nail in the coffin the world's economy in it's death throes... All big understandable reasons.
But going to the toy store used to be a nice nostalgic high. for 45 minutes, I could scrounge for a Hornswoggle figure to go with my Finlay
before noticing someone brought back Madballs.
Of course in the Mall today it was sad to see yet another group of good people counting down the days until becoming jobless. I've been in those shoes twice in my life already, and I'm sure they won't be the last.
So I paused. I stepped in. Nothing left for my nieces sadly, but Oddly enough I did find a copy of Steamboy for only $3.49. I also found a Mr. Burns Dashboard Figure for my Brother who always laughs whenever The Simpsons are on.
I sighed. I paid for my dramatically undervalued items, and departed.
I'll probably make one final trek before they close that gate for the last time.

Otaku Deals

Otaku Deals Receipt

On my way home I stopped at 7 Eleven for some Bawls water, and what did I see? Someone had brought their dog as backup. And what did this dog do when his master went inside to waste money on the Lottery?
He decided he was going to drive!
I hadn't seen that sort of thing since my Grandmother's late pet poodle tried that at a wholesale warehouse.

Dog Driving Car in 7 Eleven

I still of course needed to get my cousin  something. He is the last on the list, and I have to get him, and his sister something because I bought stuff for some other remote relatives. Of course he's not a bad kid so that helps. I had already gotten the wonderous MTX ..And the women who love them EP at an independent record store for his sibling, as she's almost a teenager now, and is entering the time when schlock is, and should be abandoned in favor of music that is well, actually music. Of course I'm probably hitting the age of the
 curmudgeon.  In any event I hit up the Play N Trade that just opened up not too long ago, and after wistfully talking with the staff about the glory days of the Nintendo 64, and the many hours spent upon Goldeneye, I found a copy of Superman Returns for the DS. It's a pretty average game, nothing to write home about. But for less than ten dollars I got him something halfway decent (He's 8). I would have spent more on my various relatives this year, but honestly these are people I see twice a year, who rarely go out of their way to even talk to me. So I give the good stuff to the ones who actually seem to deserve it. My siblings, the folks, my friends, the real ones. Oh, and charity.

Play N Trade

Anyway, after that I came home. Ate some chicken with wild rice. Typed this blog. Missed RAW. I'll just read the spoilers tomorrow.