odinez

I'd pollinate that!

I'm just really glad to be going back to San Andreas. That was my favorite GTA of them all. I can't imagine that they wouldn't include San Fierro and Las Venturas seeing as Los Santos was the least engaging area of San Andreas. Anywho can't wait.

I started typing in the title and the auto complete options revealed a major spoiler from the game. You have been warned.

Well the movie is about monetizing... something.

I played the demo and loved it. I have a question though. I usually never notice screen resolutions, but did the text seem a little blurry to anyone. Is the game not running at 1080 or something?

They are being completely hammered right now. The infamous 2 demo is taking about 8 hours to download. I think that 's probably why they decided to wait to start delivering free games. The traffic needs to spread out over time or it'll crush their servers. Which means I'll probably be playing infamous 2 before I have a chance to play the original. Awwww.

Before I jump into this blog's topic I want to tellyou guys about something. At a traffic light on my way to work yesterday I heard laughter in the car next to me. I turned to see a couple in the car furiously playing a multiplayer game of Mario Kart on their DSs before the light turned green. I smiled for a long time.

   I've been wondering for a while just how much electricity I use gaming. I came across an interesting nytimes article 

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/consumption-study-takes-aim-at-game-consoles/

   It's quite astounding how much console energy consumption jumps between generations. This generation in particular, with the advent of HD graphics, pushed power consuption into the hundreds of Watts.

http://www.sust-it.net/energy_saving.php?id=71

The notable exception in that list being the Wii which uses less energy than a gamecube (who woulda thunk that duct tape was energy-saving). It's clear that the first iterations of these consoles used much more power than was necessary. The slim version of the PS3 uses drastically less power than the older version (see link below) and the 360's power usage has been reduced as they moved from 90nm chips to 65nm and most recently to 45 nm chips. 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10318727-1.html

 I use my 360 slim fairly heavily, especially around the holidays. About 80 hours a month at an average of 85cent per kWh comes to about $6.50 a month. Remember though that if your console is on, your TV is probably on too and most likely a surround sound system as well. Now that Netflix is so well integrated I find myself falling asleep with the console on quite regularly. Usually,  if I think I'm going to fall asleep watching something I use the TV's sleep function to keep it form being on all night but our consoles don't work that way. The 360 can be set to turn itself off after six hours of inactivity. Six hours! Which is to say if I fall asleep watching something it'll turn itself off just before I get up and turn it on again. Smooth move Microsoft. Of course, I know it's my responsibility to turn it off if I don't want it on all night, and I do... but sometimes I just want to listen to Keith David intimidate someone as I fall asleep.

Oh shit. I just saw the trailer for Fable III and there's this huge battle scene in which a very angry female townsperson hurls a cannonball at the enemy! She... somewhere a cannon operator just got laid off.

Bye.

I rendered that film for you. Now anyone can watch it online... I think. Let me know how it works. 

I had hella problems with Long Night of Solace. Once you are on the corvette you face off against room after room of elite heroes. Plasma Launcers, concussion rifles (the bane of my existence!), focus rifles, I took a while to get through that. 
 
That last bit was pretty tough as well. Now I'm just waiting for Giantbomb to update my achievements. 
 
Here's a tip that I discovered after completing the game. If you shoot a hunter's weapon as he is charging it up it will backfire and do damage. This would have made my life so much easier! 
 
A typical encounter with an elite on legendary. 
http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=498020&player=Odinez

Yup, ot's a very dynamic system but that can also cause a few problems. If you happen to complete an objective at the moment of your death you could wind up reverting to a dead state over and over. I do believe that if this happens the game will eventually revert you to the checkpoint before that one. But I digress.