Home stuff. Game stuff.

We've been cleaning and organizing the house pretty constantly lately. It's a good thing, too, because it was starting to get bad.

We found a condo to buy to use as a studio, and we're just waiting on some final answers before we decide to put in our offer. But in the meantime, we're starting to get our 'studio-stuff' back in order and ready to be moved.

Also, we had an offer to submit some stuff to a TV show about fixing up people's homes, specifically kitchens. So we did what they asked, and we've made it to the next round, an visit to our home and a screen test...

We want our kitchen fixed up, and if we don't get it done on TV we'll have to do it anyway, so despite my anxiety about being on TV I'll take the offer. So we've been making the rest of our house presentable. Things sounded very, very promising until yesterday, when it came out that the host is allergic to cats, and we have a lot of them...

We're still talking about it, but now it's a little less likely, I guess. We'll see though.

After I beat Mass Effect 2, I was a little exhausted from the dense story and awesomeness of it all. So although Bioshock 2 came in the mail, and Dragon Age is still sitting there 1/2 played, I can't really bring myself to play anything too narratively driven. So I've been enjoying some MAG.

I've leveled up to 20 now, and it is a damn fine game. The shooting is fun and satisfying, and the graphics are... tolerable. Although going back to Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield Bad Company 2 instantly make you realize how much it's lacking in looks and feel. But MAG has a lot going for it that the other two don't, so I'm alright with that. I did 'apply for leadership' for my first time this weekend, even though I've been eligible for 5 levels now. It didn't go well. But I it was more to do with my squad than my skills. I was giving out sound objectives, but my squad was busy doing their own thang. Or course, it could easily be said that a bad squad could be the fault of the Squad Leader... but nah.

I've also been playing the XBLA game Vandal Hearts here and there. I'm a fan of the Strat-RPG genre, specifically those that followed in the footsteps of Final Fantasy Tactics. I've never been a main-line Final Fantasy fan, but the offshoot Final Fantasy Tactics is easily one of my favorite games of all time. Vandal Hearts is a light, easy take on the genre, but it's got depth and customization to boot. I also like leveling systems that reward how you play, Oblivion-style (use swords, your sword skill goes up), instead of just auto-leveling, or giving you points to assign to arbitrarily to your skills. It's good, and I've had quite a bit of fun with it. Despite it being pretty ugly. The game itself it just kind of poor, but the cutscenes and character portraits are downright awful.

I've just been dipping in and out of those games. A match or two in either is plenty for one day, so I've also found myself going back to slightly older games that I put aside temporarily.



I got back into Demon's Souls, and boy do I love that game. I really do need to invest myself into beating some more of that game, because it's fabulous. I was able to play around with the co-op aspects, which was a bit daunting, because there's not tutorial or even explanation of how the system works. But I figured it out, and just knowing the option is there makes the game much more approachable.

Now I've gotten my body back (I've played the game 15 hours so far, and only about 1/2 hour was spent "alive") so I'm actually looking forward to having someone invade my game to attack me. Even if I lose and return to Soul form and lose all my souls, that's OK. I'm cool with that. Bring it on!

And finally I decided to wrap up the very few remaining quests in Fallout 3. I've beaten the game, and the Broken Steel expansion, but there's a number of named quests that you can get achievements for that I haven't done. My quest log was empty, so besides exploring hoping to find a quest, there wasn't much for me to do. So I'm going though, actively seeking those out with the help of the internet.



I also had bought the Point Lookout DLC, so after wrapping up a couple quests and getting back into the combat and mechanics of the game, I went off to complete that content. So far, so good. Fallout 3 is still great. But it seems glitchier and harder than I remember... I've been running into a lot of enemies that I'd never really encountered through the entire course of the game, even though I beat it, and did at least 50 percent of the side quests.

And since starting it up a couple days ago, I don't think I've done a quest yet where I haven't had to consult the internet about some weird bug of glitch. Most annoyingly I can't have any of my followers join me, because they all say I'm already traveling with a follower.

I'm not. I'm alone. You ALL say someone's already following me. That means ONE of your should be. But you are NOT.

It doesn't really matter now, though, since no one can accompany me to Point Lookout anyway. Maybe when I get back they'll change their tune.