Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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It's that time of year again.
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A heartfelt Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to anyone and everyone who takes the time to click on over to this blog and read my ramblings. I'm looking forward to a new year that will be better than the last, and I hope the same is true for you as well-- and again, thanks for coming by.
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(…And by the way, is it just me or does it feel completely bizarre to even imagine writing ‘2010’ in any context other than a futuristic science fiction story?)
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Games: I've been spending the last few days hopping back and forth between tons of different games, not settling on any one for long. Brace for impact.
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In the PSP I have Fate / Unlimited Codes, a download-only fighting game that I know very little about.
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Apparently, it's based on an anime or something along those lines, but I've never heard of it before and the game itself makes practically no effort whatsoever to give the player any context.
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From what I gather, there's some kind of ‘war’ over a ‘holy grail’ and some people are ‘masters’, while others are ‘servants’. I heard people saying that the story mode was great, but I have to call bullshit on that… it might be great if you already knew everything about the source material, but as someone who came to the game with a clean slate, it's incomprehensible.
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Luckily, the actual fighting itself is pretty good. So far I've seen an above-average variety of moves and although some of the characters are a little too generic-looking for my taste, the controls and engine are satisfactory for the PSP. It would never fly on an actual console, but it feels like a good fit here.
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Spent a little time with Kahoots, one of the Minis available on PSN. It's fairly simple, but well put-together and has a nice style.
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It's vaguely Lemmings-ish, sort of, but saying that is lazy shorthand on my part and doesn't really capture the essence of what it's about. (It's late and it's Christmas Eve, so just take my word that it's one of the best Minis available at the moment.)
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Besides those, I thought I'd give ODST a whirl since GameFly had sent it and it was just sitting here. I am definitely not the world's biggest Halo fan, but I'm always up for trying something new. That said, I spun the disc for a little over an hour before ejecting it and dropping it back in the mail.
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I'm not going to review it and I'm not going to spend a lot of time going into detail on it, but I will say that the graphics were terrible, level design left a lot to be desired, and the weapons felt extremely underpowered (even after ratcheting it down to the easiest difficulty.) No thanks.
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Moving on from there, I downloaded the new ‘Big Pack’ add-on for Trials HD on the 360. If you've played Trials, then you know what an intense love/hate relationship that is. But, like so many matches made in places other than heaven, there's just something about it that you can't quit even though you know it's not good for you. It's worse than a drug, really. Completing the first release nearly sent me spiraling off into madness, so seeing that there are new ‘Extreme’ difficulty tracks is an irresistible challenge-- and also something so frightening that I am compelled to run screaming from the room.
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(We're almost to the end here...)
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I put Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time through its paces and walked away extremely dissatisfied. Contemplating doing a review so I won't shoot my load here, but I will say that this is probably my least favorite game in the series, except perhaps for Deadlocked or that absolutely craptastic Secret Agent Clank offshoot. If I wasn’t pre-playing it before letting my son have a go, I would've seriously considered just walking away.
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Last but not least, since there is a little over a month until Mass Effect 2 (WOOOOO!!!!) I figured I had enough time to slip in one more ‘big’ game. I had a few different things to choose from, but ended up settling on Final Fantasy XII for PS2.
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I‘ve heard several different takes on the game from people who have played it, but after three hours my impressions are very positive. It certainly doesn't feel like the usual Final Fantasy, and I like the art style. The graphics are still quite impressive, and look better than some 360/PS3 titles I've seen.
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My only concerns at this point are that I have a feeling that I may end up completely screwing myself over by biffing the License Boards (the system that grants abilities and equipment for each character) and that the voice actor for street urchin Vaan is one of the most irritating and unlikable that I've heard in quite some time. Seriously, did no one at Squeenix realize that he comes off as a whiny, petulant punk? Whoever chose this particular voice actor for the game needs to be beat.
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Writing: Although the holidays aren’t quite over yet, things have settled down a bit and I've been taking advantage of the downtime to kick work on the book into high gear. I've been able to crank out about four thousand words over the last week, and that made me pretty happy. Of course, my original plan was to have the entire project wrapped up by the end of the year and there are still at least five or six more chapters to go, not to mention editing, rewrites, polish, etc., but the bottom line is that it's coming along.
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Also, it will henceforth be known as ‘RT’. Can't share the title just yet, but those are the initials my co-author and I have settled on.
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Food: As a present, the wife got me a small bottle of pink peppercorns… I've seen them used on the Food Network plenty of times, but I've never had any in the house before, nor have I ever eaten them-- to my knowledge, anyway.
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It was a great gift to receive, and I put them to use while cooking tonight's dinner. They taste like black pepper, but with a lighter, more aromatic body and none of the bite. It was a great complement to the prawns I made, but I think next time I'll scale back on how many I throw in. There were a couple bites that were pretty overpowering, so it definitely seems as though moderation is the key here.
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