How long?

Jeez? How did I get so bad at this? It seems like my start at Paper Bicycle had something to do with it. So I'd guess that it's either because my life is one long thing with no divisions between work/play/home/work and there never seems like a good point to reflect...

Or I'm too freakin' busy. I COULD write a blog, but when I've got emails coming in from 5 people at once who all want something and don't realize/care that there's other demands being made, then it makes writing about Dragon Age 2 seem secondary.

But it's not. Or, it shouldn't be. Probably. Maybe?

Actually, there's been a lot going on outside of normal work. Our upstairs renovation is now basically done; aside from some light painting, it's ready to roll. It was a long, long process (start to finish, it must have been months. Did we even start this year? Or was it in December? I can't remember.)

Apart from that, we created a poster for the upcoming ArtCrank show. Which took longer than expected, but it turned out well (I hope, we haven't gotten the final prints back so I guess there's still room for failure).

I also finished, and printed a shirt for I'm Organic. It was a tough one, only because the design took several revisions, and color was impossible because the t-shirt we were planning on was out of stock at the last minute, so we had to go back to the drawing board a couple times. But it's out in the wild.

I've also been working on 2 SAAC pieces at once, and one is pretty complex compared to my normal work (actually they both are, but I'm still on sketch phase for the second so it might change).

I've been trying to go to the gym more regularly now that it's been getting nice, so between juggling all that jazz left very little time for games. I made sure to fit in some time, but it was usually between the hours of 1-2:30 am.

Oh yeah. Also, my PS3 broke down. Bad. And I had to have it fixed, but not until I went through a super-painful troubleshooting and reconciliation period. I won't go into detail, because it boils my blood so bad, but I will say it took weeks, I lost all my data, and it cost me a lot of money. And it really shouldn't have been that way (well, maybe the money part I understand). But I lost all my PS3 data from the last 3/4 years due to obvious oversights in design by Sony.

I got my PS3 back a week or so ago, and I've played a bit of Killzone 3. Probably one hour of the campaign, and about 3 full multiplayer matches (which are closer to Battlefield length than Call of Duty). It seems really solid. I actually liked the Killzone 2 multiplayer a lot; I thought the classes were varied and unique compared to any other shooter, and the Warzone mode is outstanding. Every game should copy that mode, for real.

But I put off playing Killzone 3 most of the week (even though my broken PS3 had already put it off for a few weeks already) because I was playing Beyond Good and Evil HD. Which is an up-rezed game from 2003 that came out on XBLA for 10 bucks. It's really, really good. I totally overlooked it when it came out (the same day as the Prince of Persia PS2-era reboot). I remember even playing a demo and passing (the demo showcased one of the worse parts in the game, in my opinion). But I've been wanting to play it for a few years now, and I even got a PS2 copy a while back to revisit it.

But as soon as my PS2 copy showed up in the mail, they announced this HD version. So I waited. And I'm glad I did, because I'm sure it made a big difference (not only the graphics, but the achievements). I started playing just to have a peek, and decided to put everything else on hold (like Killzone 3, Little Big Planet 2 and Dragon Age 2) until it was finished. Being just a downloadable game, I figured if I quit and 'lost my place' in the story/objectives, I wouldn't come back.

So even though Killzone is said to only take around 5 hours, I went ahead and plowed through BG&E, which clocked in just under 10. And it was a treat. I mean, it still had some of the hallmarks of a game made in 2003, but I was really impressed. If I had played it when it came out, I'm sure it would have blown my mind.

I stayed up really late a couple of nights this weekend played it. I knew I shouldn't but I couldn't put it down. Good stuff.

I'll talk more about the likes of Killzone, DA2 and more later. I should go to bed because it's now 2 am.