Two big games.

This weekend hasn't been very productive. I was on a weird sleep schedule from working so late a couple of nights this week, so I made up for some of that missing sleep. I tried to clean the house a little, but only put a tiny dent in a huge beast of a mess.

On Friday Capcom's official blog picked me for a fan art contest they were running, which was really cool. I posted about it on Die Everyday if you need more information. It's pretty fun, though. I've got a lot of nice comments from people over there, and Capcom is sending me some swag. I've got my eye on an advance copy of Street Fighter 4 or a Mega Man 9 press kit, but I'm realistically expecting something like a poster or t-shirt.

I played a couple of very time-consuming videogames this weekend. Namely, Far Cry 2 and World Of Warcraft. I finally got a chance to really sink my teeth into Far Cry 2 this past week. It arrived the day before I left for Hawaii, and I managed to play for an hour or so before we left. But when I returned I got pretty invested into Fable 2 again so Far Cry 2 remained virtually untouched.

So I'm finally back to give it a far shake. I keep ending up playing it until the wee hours of the morning every night and I am loving it.

My first impressions were that Far Cry 2 was an amazing looking game, but it is also confusing, sprawling, frustrating, difficult and slow paced. And, in a way, I think those are all accurate descriptions. But you could also describe it in slightly different terminology as as deep, complex, fresh, challenging and methodical.

Once I got used to the pace and navigating the landscape it turned out to be exactly the game I hoped it would be.

It's a totally immersive first-person shooter in a completely wide-open microcosm of Africa. I love games that encourage you to tackle a situation any way you see fit, and Far Cry 2 is very flexible.

I can see how it would be frustrating to anyone used to something like Call Of Duty, which it linear and scripted and holds your hand every step of they way, telling you "Now it's time to go nuts with a machine gun over here" and "Now it's time to use the sniper rifle up here" and "Now it's time to be stealthy over there."

Far Cry 2 puts you in a huge world and says "do it whatever way you want, and don't expect help" which is liberating and awesome, but also means that sometimes you'll fail. Or at least have a difficult go at a mission. But I'm all about that game right now.

On Saterday Lindsay got the itch to play World of Warcraft, so we dove back in for a couple days. I went from level 32 to 35 in two or three chunks of playing, so it was pretty productive.

As we started playing, Lindsay mentioned she'd like to be in a guild. I was skeptical, but if we found a guild that was totally relaxed, I'd be down. Within an hour of playing, someone came up and asked if we'd like to join a guild. I asked a few questions to make sure there was nothing expected of us, and he said it was just for fun. So we joined. And it's been fine. There's always a couple people on, and sometimes they're running dungeons or questing and they'll invite anyone who's in the area, but it's no big deal if you say no. So far, so good.

Who knows, though. It's possible we'll log on after our next two months of inactivity and see we've be kicked from the guild. Wouldn't be the first time.