SNOW!

[ultranos]

So, today my alarm went off. I flailed at the snooze button, rolled over, then remembered something and checked my email on my phone, found out that the Institute was closed today for all non-essential staff (I'm not essential in the least), and then burrowed further into my blankets and went back to sleep.

Yay, snow days. Yeah, Boston got buried again. And I'm saying this as a former Midwesterner, so I know snow.

Thus my day was mostly spent gaming and drinking tea. Well, tea and then homemade hot chocolate made from Mexican chocolate with Guajillo Chili (from Taza Chocolate). It was gooood.

Reinstalled Supreme Commander after the Great Windows XP Crash of 2010, so I expect SupCom parties in my near future (MONKEYLORD!). During the installation and patching process (which took...some time), I watched Yarmond play Valkyria Chronicles, which is no-really-we-swear-not-WWII. Where the Empire might be either Germany or Soviet Russia and the Federation is the allies, and as far as we can tell, you might be Lithuania or some other small Baltic state. The map is we-swear-it's-not-Europe-see-Italy-is-missing. It's kind of hilarious. But most importantly, you have a tank. A tank that goes "RRRRRRRR'. No, seriously, the tank has comic-style lettering next to it when it moves going "RRRRRRR". It's kind of ridiculously adorable.

And then I managed to get myself horribly addicted to playing Dragon Age: Origins, which I bought as part of the Dragon Age Ultimate during the Steam sale on Christmas Day for $25. It's totally worth the $25. I've played for 6 hours, and I'm disappointed I have to stop because I have work tomorrow.

I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed these days with Bioware. I remember being kind of "meh" about Neverwinter Nights the first time I played it, but I was very much used to JRPGs. This isn't JRPG, but it's engaging enough in the story to trigger that part of my brain and engage it. The inability of a lot of western RPGs to do this is pretty much why I don't play a lot of them. Sandbox games are fun, but I find I enjoy an RPG a lot more if the story and/or characters are engaging. And DA has that, even if I only have Alistar and Morrigan as my party members right now.

(And I'm so very, very glad that Claudia Black is doing a lot of voice acting work. It's not a visible job, but it's a lot, and let me tell you: after sitting through years of terrible VA in video games, good voice actors are worth their weight in gold.)

Comments

[holdouttrout]

Yay snow days! Your video game talk confuses and amuses me. *g*

[ultranos]

Uh huh! Yay snow days! With delicious hot chocolate!

Aw, I confuse you? *sadface*

[holdouttrout]

Confuses only in the sense of not knowing the characters and scenarios. No sadface needed!

[ultranos]

Clearly this means you should be indoctrinated play. *grin*