An Attempt to Blog Regularly. Or a Flash in the Pan.
By skittles 1 Comments
Hey all. I spend a lot of time in the Off-Topic section of the forums here, and I see a lot of people posting blogs about themselves - what they've been up to, what they've been playing etc. I've been a fan of Giant Bomb for a while now and I'd kinda like to get a bit more involved with the community, even if that just means posting around the place a bit more, and getting to know some people here. I'd also enjoy writing,so this gives me an excuse to put more words on a screen. Everyone here seems pretty friendly, so hopefully this goes down well.
A Bit About Me
I have a penchant for starting projects and not finishing them. A prime example would be this blog post. I started it a couple of days ago, and after bashing out a longer "What I've Been Playing" section than I would have liked while I was watching-but-not-really-watching the trainwreck of a movie that is Season of the Witch, I've struggled to make the time to finish it. This always seems to happen. Every time I attempt to get in the habit of writing regularly, whether they be opinion pieces, reviews or just a regular-ass blog like this one, I get sidetracked and don't finish what I start. Basically that just means I'm lazy and I need to make some models to get my diligence up. Ok here's a bit about me.
My name is Phil, I'm 23 and I live in Tasmania, Australia. I work as an IT support tech for a government research body. It's a pretty good gig. During my off-time I like to play video games, spend time with friends, read whenever I get the urge, write whenever I can push myself to do so, and watch movies. I also play field hockey for a club, but I'm not absolutely loving it at the moment. Oh, I also play a bit of Magic : The Gathering, though that hasn't reached obsession levels yet and probably won't. I live in a rented modern apartment in the city with a couple of old work mates, but I'm considering saving for a deposit on a house - something that should be a lot easier now that I've finished paying off my car loan this week.
Ok that's enough about who I am.
What I've Been Playing
After coming out of a long period of "non-gaming", I've loaded up on a few titles, mostly for the PC. Here's a list, and a bit about each one from my perspective.
Dragon Age 2
This was probably the game that broke the ice and got me back to playing games. I was a big fan of Origins, though to be honest I didn't actually enjoy it the first time i played it. It was only after coming back to it a while after giving it a try the first time that I really got into it. Strange how that seems to happen to me. It was the same thing with Vagrant Story, and that's one of my favorite games of all time.
I mention this because I'm not enjoying Dragon Age 2 as much as I'd hoped. Most of the characters aren't particularly charismatic, the combat feels fairly shallow, and the story doesn't seem to have the scope that Origins did. That being said, there are a few diamonds to be found in the rough. The character of Varric seems pretty cool, so maybe I'll keep him around as much as I can. The more I get to like the character, the more I'll care about his fate at the hands of his interrogator. More on this game later.
Dead Space 2
Just a couple of quick words on this, since I haven't started it. I played through the first game over the course of a long-weekend. My housemates were all away for the whole time, so I was kicking around a big empty house, As I recall, it was also pretty cold, windy and rainy, and there was a big glass double-door in the lounge that looked out on a "forested expanse". The house wasn't in the wilderness by any means, but the view set a pretty good mood. I don't live in that house anymore (thankfully) but I'm hoping I can recreate some type of creepy atmosphere when I sit down and play this. Maybe I'll hire out a log cabin somewhere and take my PC.
Final Fantasy XIII
I've been a self declared Final Fantasy hater for a while now. It all started with Final Fantasy 9, which I enjoyed, but not as much as a lot of other people it seems. I was a lot younger when I played it, and back then I was prone to disliking things just because everyone else likes them. It's a bad habit I got into, and I'm actively trying to shake it. When FF13 came out I just assumed it was going to be bad without giving it a chance. For some reason a couple of weeks ago the desire to play it just rose up in me, and I snatched it from my housemates game collection.
Turns out I wasn't completely wrong. The game isn't great so far. I'm having a lot of trouble caring about any of the characters. If I don't care about any of them, I can't really care about the story overall, and if I don't care about anything that's happening, why play? I've heard it gets better the further you get in though, so I'm giving it a chance to change my mind.
Mass Effect 2
I've spent most of my time over the last few days playing this. I think I started on Friday night, and I've sunk 20 hours into it so far. Almost everything about the game is brilliant. It's truly impressive how well Bioware have constructed a new Sci-Fi universe. I've said too much in this blog already, and I'm absolutely loving this game so I might do a blog post all of it's own later.
What I've been Watching
Again, already said too much in this post so I'll try to keep it brief. Here's what I've been viewing lately.Season of the Witch
I mentioned this earlier in the blog, and my opinion on it hasn't changed. Quite an awful movie. I think I spent more time writing, and browsing the web than I did actually watching the movie. It's such a pity Nick Cage couldn't bring a bit more to the table, though I'm not sure there was a lot to work with in the story/script.
Limitless
This on the other hand was quite a good movie. It had a style to it that I really enjoyed, but it was the narrative script and the delivery thereof by Bradley Cooper that I found most entertaining. I found it a bit odd that his charisma kinda shrouded the fact that the film seems to openly encourage drug use, for those tough enough to deal with the negative side effects, but oh well.
Game of Thrones
Regretfully I haven't read any books in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, but what I've seen from the first two episodes of the show has me pretty interested. I'm going to bet on the fact that books are nearly always better than the screen adaptations, and pick up a copy of Game of Thrones at lunch time today. Man, I hate being that guy that goes into a bookstore to pick up a copy of something that has recently been made a movie/TV series.
What I've Been Doing
I was going to include a little "what I've been doing" section, but this blog is probably long enough already. I'll just have this next time to replace the "A Bit About Me" section.