Magic can be sexy!
During one of my many fruitful days lying around on the couch waiting for this stubborn little baby to come out, I was watching Ellen. Nothing new there. Except, during this particular episode she had a magician on. Now, I’m not a huge fan of magicians normally, there’s one guy that does shows at local shopping centers during school holidays that I like. He’s an exception. Why? Because prior to becoming a magician, he was a stripper. Yes, stripper! And not one of the ones that couldn’t make it as a gyrating sex fantasy so quit, oh no no, he does that very well. Let’s just say his “magic show” is fun for all ages!
*shakes head to clear it*
Ellen has added another magician to my repetoir however, a he’s a fellow Aussie which automatically makes him cool, he doesn’t strip but does some very cool card tricks. To finish the trio of enjoyment off, he’s also very easy on the eyes!
The card trick he’s apparently known for (he’s done it at the comedy festivals and all sorts of places) is very, very cool. I realise it’s all tricks etc, but still very cool to watch:
The Sims 3 Ambitions…
So, I managed to get my hands on a copy of the latest Sims 3 expansion, Ambitions. I know, I know, I said I wouldn’t waste the money because I wouldn’t play it very long… and I think I will be right. Even today, ie day number one, I ended up logging off after five minutes due to boredom. Ruh Roh.
I remember reading a while ago that the expansion was coming, but I wasn’t playing (or even remotely interested) in The Sims at the time so didn’t bother looking into it. Of course now I have it, and I still haven’t looked into it, I had no idea what to expect. This is always good when trying to choose a profession because it wasn’t until after I created my sim, purchased my lot, built a pathetic excuse for a house (hello no couch, no TV, how WILL she survive?!) that I went to find a career and realised you could be a fireman, architect and all sorts of other interesting opportunities.
I heard Homer echo through my head… Doh!
What stood out even more however, was that after I had chosen my career path as a ghost hunter (I always choose what ever the game asks me to do first), the little message that popped up showing my wage said weekly! Um… didn’t that used to be daily?! Help!!
The whole reason I wasn’t worried about the lack of couch, TV, computer, um… SHOWER! was that after a day or two of work I would be able to afford them. But, um, if I am getting paid weekly, that kind of changes things!
The new… FrontierVille
THIS is how desperate I am for a game at the moment:
That’s FrontierVille, one of those annoying Facebook games that always sucks me in 250% when I start playing and is then long forgotten a couple of weeks later. After FarmVille, Cafe World, My Town, My City and god knows what else I stopped playing a few months ago, I vowed to myself that I would not start up another one. But there I am…. playing.
Thankfully I only have a couple of weeks until bubs #2 arrives so I’m not that worried this time. I just need something to stop my brain completely drying up in the mean time. I mean, I spent all Sunday reading the trash mags (Who and New Weekly)… god knows how much damage that has done!
So bored…
I’m bored. So bored. BEYOND bored! I need a game to play…
WoW’s not done it for me for a long time now, and frustratingly, there is nothing else that’s stepped up enough to keep me entertained. I got my hands on a copy of Anno 1404 which was great for the three weeks it lasted. And now I’m bored again. I really do enjoy the strategy games, but they just don’t have a long life for me, and Anno proved no different.
The Sims 3 has just released a new expansion – Ambitions, but, well the Sims never sees more than about three to four weeks gaming time, ever. I think I’ve finally recognised my habbit of seeing a new expansion, thinking that expansion will be the one to keep me hooked, buying, playing and then decorating my bookshelf with yet another PC box. This time, I am resisting. For $50 or so, it’s just a little too much for a temporary distraction.
That said, I did sign up to the Lego Universe beta lol – a MMO made out of LEGO people!! How could I not?!
Time to wake this blog back up…
With a deep breath in, Alexan blows the dust off the blog…
Yes, I am that bored I talked in the third person. Arg. After a long break from gaming (18 months), I have decided enough is enough! A new MMORPG flew into my radar and it’s “game over” for the non-gaming part of my life. Time to jump back in!
Unfortunately Tera-Online (the new MMORPG) isn’t even in Beta yet, so I have to find something to fill in the time between now and when ever that is released. I tried to get back into The Sims 3, but that, like always, didn’t last very long. And nothing else seems interesting to me.
Anyone have any ideas? I’m SO bored!
Surprised Kitty Cat
Just too cute…
Trine
With extreme boredom setting in last week, I decided to spend some time perusing Steam for something to cure it even short term. Enter Trine.
Trine is a fantasy action game where the player can create and use physics-based objects to beat hazardous puzzles and threatening enemies. Set in a world of great castles and strange machinery, three heroes are bound to a mysterious device called the Trine in a quest to save the kingdom from evil…
The screenshots looked interesting enough, and at the time it was only $9.99 and came with a Demo. I figured even if it only gave me a single nights enjoyment, that’s about the price of a movie (hired) and some munchies. Well worth it. Demo downloaded and in I jumped…
And I have to say… quite fun! It’s a platform game based around solving miniature obstacle puzzles. You know? Push a block so you can use it to get up to the ledge sort of puzzles. To solve these puzzles, you have three characters that you can switch between on the fly – the ‘Theif’ as she is constantly referred to who can shoot arrows and has a grappling hook, the ‘Mage’ who can levitate and summon magical boxes, and the ‘Knight’ who comes equipped with a sword, a board and the knowledge to use both.
The grappling hook was an interesting addition to my ever expanding gaming knowledge. Especially as I didn’t realise you should actually let go of it to continue moving forward and instead just kept smacking my face against the upper ledge. Eventually I got the hang of it and it came in very handy, especially after I learnt that even if you are hanging still, you can use your back and forward motion keys to swing your legs and eventually, get a decent swing going yourself.
To change things up from Dragon Age, left clicking on the ground accomplishes nothing more than a bent arrow and a pissed off bug. Nope, for Trine you use your arrow keys to move. Oops.
Along with the puzzle based obstacles to pass, you are assaulted with very amusing skeletons. I found it easiest to switch to the Knight when ever they approached and just beat them down with the sword, but I also discovered, accidentally, that if you summon a magical box with your Mage, you can squish them! That was really cool.
It seems the skeletons (and I assume any other mobs I will face later) all suffer the same slip ups that our characters can. One section I was crossing had 3 ledges across a field of blades. Enticing. And painful – I fell off. Switching to another character, one of the skeletons coming at me from the other side lost their footing and copied my graceful entry into the blades of doom. Yup, he fell off. Poof, dead. Awesome!
Or what about the area with the fire balls? I smacked the skeleton with my sword which slightly pushes him backwards, he teeters on the edge before dropping off to the lower ledge and BAM, gets incinerated by a fireball and is burnt to a crisp! Just too funny.
The major difference between this and other games is the way you collect (or should I so don’t collect) your health and mana pots. Instead of weighing down your inventory, you actually use them as you pass over them. Which means you’re screwed if you’re on a character with low health and don’t see any health pots for a while. Or if you’re like me and use your Knight to kill, who them runs over all the bloody mana pots in the process. The one character who doesn’t use mana!
Overall though, the demo was quite fun and I’m thinking I’ll buy the full game. Kicking myself I didn’t do it the same night I tried the demo as the very next day the price was up to $20. Not bank breaking no, but still, I could have had it at half price, which makes the $20 price tag seem all that more expensive lol.
Squashing a skeleton with a box lol!
Sunday Catch Up
Been a bit quiet the past few days, mostly because I have nothing interesting to say. Been soooo tired this week that I’ve struggled to even log into any games this week, let alone play properly. Doesn’t help that Dragon Age is wearing thin on me, I need more action and less chatter. I know, amazing right? I’m a female and yet, there is too much talking. Who would have thought a game could accomplish that? But sadly, for me, it has. It feels like 90% talking to NPC’s and 10% fighting. I just don’t need that much talking in my games.
There was one moment during the week which did make me sit up and pay attention. Wasn’t anything to do with talking or combat for that matter. It did involve a certain desire demon and well, an interesting option to take.
I ummed and ahhed over the choices for a while. For those familiar with the offers given, and my Twitter Dilemma regarding a certain specialty, you’ll know where I am. After discovering I hadn’t missed my opportunity to become a Blood Mage, I was now torn if it was even the avenue I wanted to take. Did I really see myself as a self serving, blood draining, demon dealer? No, not really. So what other option would I take.
After debating the predicament with Moochew, I made the comment that “surely it’s not that kind of game, so I wonder what the “pleasure” would be….?” After a good 10 minutes of procrastinating, I found out. And oh boy was I wrong!
Apparently, it IS that kind of game. I was gobsmacked. I would have gotten a better screenshot of their faces, but I was too slow to move my hands from my dropped jaw to the Print Screen button. If you’re familiar with the demon, you’ll remember her entire outfit consisted of a beaded necklace draped over her nipples. Hardly over dressed for any occasion. It was an… interesting part of the game.
Outside of that though, I’m finding it harder and harder to log in to play. Yesterday I spent 3/4 of my time running or talking to people, and 4 very short 5 minute stints of fighting people.
I considered Torchlight, but while that’s an extremely fun “I’m in a shitty mood and gonna go blow stuff up” game, it’s the polar opposite of DA:O when it comes to story and depth. And The Sims 3? Yeah pass thanks. Sorry my little simmer friends, the game just can’t draw me back.
Result? I’m soooooo bored!! I’ve spent the past two nights just watching TV. Oh god, I’m becoming one of those people! Time to start researching and find myself another game to play. Any suggestions?
An open letter from IT Nerds
I can’t even remember where I clicked a link to end up on this blog post, so I apologize for being unable to give proper credit. But since I live with an “IT Guy”, and I know a few others online (yes, looking at you @evilsnoofy), I got a chuckle or two and had to share. It’s a simple open letter from us, that is, IT nerds, to you, management, users, and everybody that has to deal with us and our sometimes very bizarre behavior.
That box popping up, mocking you, telling you that the IT gods from down the hall had decided that the talking purple gorilla was not a worthy piece of software was actually making sure that your laptop, the tool that you use to do your job and to make sure that our paychecks cash every month. See, like I said, computers are complicated. Think of it like a maze, okay? When we “lock you out”, or prevent you from installing non-approved software, what we’re doing is making sure that that maze of a computer you’re using keeps the same route from the inside to the outside.
Read it all… it’s worth it. IT dorks, who we are, what we do, and how to manage us.
Work with me Sims 3, work with me…
I’m trying really hard to give World Adventures a good go. Prior to Aion, I was playing my Sims every night, number 3 just seemed to do something so right, something that the Sims 1 or 2 couldn’t. I was enjoying actually playing, not just building and I became quite attached to my nutty little families. Yet now, after playing Dragon Age, I can’t help but notice the massive void of in-game story line and depth when playing the Sims.
World Adventures brings, supposedly, a more MMO feel to the game. You travel to 3 different places (China, France and Egypt) where you complete mini quests. There’s even chests you get to loot. The staple to any good MMO.
Don’t ask about the puddle at her feet, I can’t explain it.
I used the last remaining money I had Saturday night and travelled to China, the only destination I could afford. You arrive at a ‘base camp’ which is a 5 star hotel compared to my one bedroom granny flat, and appear immediately in front of a notice board, aka the quest board. You can accept one quest at a time and it involves going into tombs to have a look around, or going in to retrieve an artifact etc. Your basic explore or retrieve quests. Nothing new there.
You get to push and pull statues and stick your hand in open holes without a clue what’s on the other side… always a safe move in a never explored tomb full of mummy’s right? You can also back-flip into water you have no idea the depth of, just so you can swim to the bottom and come up in the room next door. All very realistic stuff.
In theory, it should be enjoyable. But it’s really not. Not for me at the moment anyway. I’m still stuck on that “am I playing because I bought the expansion and not really because I want to factor”, which could be contributing.
Could it be Dragon Age? Could I now be corrupted with higher standards? I mean really, the Sims is nothing more than watching your little pixelated self go to the toilet, shower, sleep and eat. Now, I get to watch her push a few statues around and hopefully not step on the electric panels. I’d hardly call it game changing as other players are crying, it’s 100% the same game, now you just get to use your brain a teeny tiny bit. “Hrm, do I push it left, or do I push it right?”
Will that be enough for me? At the moment, I’m thinking not. I’m not sure I can chose that over being splattered with blood every three seconds while listening to the soothing sounds of Alistair’s comments. That’s a thought! I might make a Sim version of Alistair and my character and make em do the nasty! That’ll make both games more interesting…
Alexan...
A female gamer converted into a full blown nerd by her husband. Oh yeah, and you can find me... "Down Under"...
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