I finished Skyrim after 377 hours.

MOVING ON.

Diablo 3

I don't have a history with the Diablo series but I really enjoy those style of games. Torchlight is amazing, and that has satisfied me up until this point. I played the open beta and couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it. I expected it to be good, of course, but not enjoy it all that much. I chose a monk and spent the next 4 hours PUNCHING FOOLS IN THE FACE.

See, that's the most satisfying thing. Forget your swords and spells, how about ROUND HOUSE KICKING A SKELETON KING IN HIS STUPID BONY JAW. I may have already selected my class for the full game. I think the game has an excellent sense of style in that dark, gothic fantasy kind of way. Excellent art design all around.

For that reason, when it came time for me to get a new mouse and keyboard I decided to go with the Razer Black Widow (I always wanted a mechanical keyboard) and the SteelSeries Diablo 3 mouse. It is a sexy piece of hardware. The tribal/gothic markings, the pulsing red light behind the diablo 3 logo and even just the weight of mouse. Feels great.

Unfortunately... I can no longer afford to buy the actual game! ARGH! Frustrating, sitting her with a Diablo 3 mouse and no Diablo. :/

Golden Duder Award

Winternet is running the Golden Duder Awards all month long. Such a great idea, I don't know how nobody decided to do this before. Get voting while you can, the second round is so close. My money is on one of the tested crew winning. I love those guys, even if I don't visit tested much any more.

Anyway, I decided to butt in and help out by making the official banner for the awards, because I was bored. Check it out, and leave some comments. Whatever you like. Abuse, even.

Bonus photo, I found some Gears of War 2 figures under my bed from a birthday years ago. I'm not in to action figures but they're pretty cool.

Have to return to Skyrim. No cash for Diablo3 at the moment. Really blows. Playing stuff from a huge backlog so not that big of a deal. Games that i'm trying right now are Deus Ex HR and Dead Island both on Steam. Also BF3 on PC. Mouse looks nice. I'm rolling with a normal barebones logitech one and definitely need to upgrade soon.

@procrasturbate: I am lucky, because I friend bought it for me and just dropped it over. I had no idea when I wrote this blog this morning.

This is my first gaming mouse, and I don't regret it. A normal mouse is just fine. I use PCs all day for my hobby and career, as well as gaming.

I'm still playing Skyrim, though I have nowhere near even half of what you have invested into it yet.

@believer258 said:

I'm still playing Skyrim, though I have nowhere near even half of what you have invested into it yet.

That's a good thing. I wasted a lot of time.

I returned to Skyrim this week, and it's been a deep dark hole. I'm kind of pleased I had to pack my computer away today to move it back home, as I would've made poor decisions with my time. I'm starting to disagree more and more with Jeff's assessment of the game, though my inexperience with Oblivion probably helps that.

That mouse looks awesome.

@Little_Socrates: What was Jeff's assessment? He seemed to like it but then it's started to feel like he doesn't really care for it. I spent 300 hours in Oblivion, and I think they are different experiences. Skyrim is way more serious.

@AlisterCat: His assessment was that Skyrim was cool, but he found all the questlines in the game to be pretty middling in quality. His real bummer was that nothing in the game was even close to the Dark Brotherhood questline from Oblivion. It sounded like he just didn't have an exciting time with the Thieves' Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, the mages, etc. and was hoping one of those would really pull through for him.

@Little_Socrates: I saved those for last and while I see what he was getting at, I was far more awed by them and they are telling very different stories than Oblivion. I can't be trusted though, with the amount I played. I just enjoyed the overall thing a lot more than he did. Maybe the same is true for you.