The Road to Mel is Paved with Games 05:02
By melcene 10 Comments
This Week in Gaming!
So besides the ever-present Bejeweled 3, which is my go-to when I'm completely bored, I've had a short attention span for my games lately. Over the last week I tried out a few different demos, and here were my impressions:
World of Goo (demo)
This was a lot more fun than I expected. I thought it was along the same lines as Portal - a puzzle game that forces you to be creative to get past the task at hand. I didn't complete the entire demo, but according to steam, I played it for almost three hours. The little goo balls reminded me of the minions from Despicable Me. I may go back and purchase this game.
Magicka (demo)
This game peaked my interest mostly because it's an RPG, but also because you play as a caster no matter what. And I love my finger-wagglers. Even more interesting was the idea of combining spells to create new ones. So I tried it out. Sure enough, the combining spells was pretty cool. But for me, the interface of a game is very important too, and if I'm not feeling it within the first short while, that may well kill the game for me. This was the case in Magicka. Our normal WASD keys are actually spell keys, along with a few others. You have to remember which one is which element so that you combine them properly, as some elements do not mix. The other thing that kept tripping me up was having to pre-load every spell. So it would be click a letter, or a few letters, then mouse click. Melee is a different mouse click. AOE is a different mouse click. I just think that while the game itself was great, the implementation could have vbeen better.
Dungeons (demo)
So again, sorting through Steam demos, I came across Dungeons. Basically, it was described as a Diablo-type dungeon crawler, where you're actually the dungeon boss, and you get to kill heroes that come into the dungeons that you build. I was intrigued, so I downloaded it. This was definitely interesting. I think I'd have to call it a strategy game, as there were various things to strategically deal with. You had to build your dungeon, make sure heroes don't make off with your gold, and keep monsters away from the heart of your dungeon. The heroes spawned about every minute. The game had a bit of an Overlord feel to it, which was fine as I enjoyed that game too. I think I'd like to play the demo more before I decide on a purchase or not. So far I'd only spent a little over an hour on it.
Non-gaming stuff
What an awesome weekend! Usually in the Puget Sound area, the nice days are during the week when everyone's working, and then we get the crap weather during the weekend. But this past weekend was the opposite. Yesterday we got up to at least 65 degrees, maybe higher. I know it felt pretty damn warm while I was out there mowing the lawn and pulling weeds! Here's to hoping we get more weekends like that.
The Law School Saga
So my financial aid packet came in. After federal student loans, I still need to come up with $10,000 to cover tuition costs (not including all the nickel and dime costs like parking, books, etc). It seems I didn't qualify for any grants, and am going in with no scholarship money. My credit sucks thanks to being out of a job for two years and coming close to losing my home at one point. Somehow, in the next month, I need to find money. I'm stressed, but I know that it will work out somehow. Most likely I'll have to get a cosigner for a private student loan.
On the bright side, I found out that I got in under regular admission, and not access admission. The access admission program was a program that looked at things besides the student's GPA and LSAT scores, and is more for students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I was told at one point I was being considered for access admission. Why is this good? Because I can now be proud that I got in under my own merits, and was not given special considerations.
The OBL Situation
I'm not going to go into all that crap. Yay, we got him. He had already gotten to a point of irrelevancy though. And of course, Obama takes credit, like any politician in office would have done. The only reason I bring up the OBL situation is this: My 11 year old, 6th grade daughter had no idea who he was. When I said he was responsible for the 9/11 attack, she still seemed confused. A lightbulb finally went off when I said the Twin Towers. WTF are they teaching these kids in school? She doesn't know what 9/11 is, or why it's called the 9/11 attack? She had no idea who OBL was? I mean, he was big figure even before 9/11 thanks to previous acts and attempted acts of terror. How disappointing.
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