Living After Midnight

I have to work in four hours. Stupid days off screwing up my sleep schedule. I've spent the last forty-eight hours doing as little as humanly possible, with the exception of watching movies, eating, and playing videogames. This is how everyone should live, but, sadly, I must go back to work. Stupid work.

V for Vendetta was pretty good, though I'd have never pegged it as being a Wachowski Brothers production if the marketing people hadn't shoved that down my throat. As it stands, it's really how an Alan Moore adaptation should be done, despite the fact that Moore's name appears nowhere in any of the credits, by his own request. As such, should anyone ever make a Watchmen movie, he might want to think about changing his lack of a title-credit to something more along the lines of 'Not based on any sort of work by Alan Moore; do not believe anyone who says otherwise.'

I've also been playing MLB 2k6 for my friend's Xbox 360. Playing it on a widescreen 19" LCD, it's pretty obvious that there are significant graphical improvements over the current generation of consoles, but it mostly gets lost when being output to NTSC. Given the fact that it's going to be six or seven years until I can afford a high-def television of at least twenty-five inches, being able to output to an LCD monitor is certainly a welcome thing, but it still tacks another two hundred dollars on to the pricetag of a unit that's already four-hundred. Top that off with the fact that the games cost sixty bucks a pop, and you're looking at a significant dollar investment that I'm not personally willing to make. Bring on the new system, Nintendo.

I've been playing Simcity 4 again, and I've no idea why. The game is totally devoid of any fun, whatsoever. It's gone in fifteen or so years from being a game to being a full-blown urban-planning simulation. And, while it's certainly interesting to monitor funds, lay out streets, and place various city services, it's simply not fun. It's as though my brain says, "I need a workout, so just think of boobs for a while as I decide optimal placement for this commercial district."

Finally, I'm really excited about the next episode of Half-Life 2, for the simple reason that the Portal movie I saw a couple weeks ago is a marked improvement on Half-Life 2 as it is. Shooters, by and large, are similar to the point where they're just reflex-exercises. Portal, on the other hand, appears to turn the Half-Life 2 engine into almost a puzzle-game, which piqued the hell out of my interest. I note this, because Joystiq (and later Slashdot) pointed the way to an interview over at IGN (excuse me while I vomit, briefly) with Kim Swift of Valve. I'm not sure which I found more interesting: Portal in general, or the fact that this is proof that women actually work in videogame development in roles other than marketing, clerical, voice-acting or anything else along those lines (note: you cannot use the Stevie Case card against me, because she's not in the business anymore). One can only hope that eventually we'll get back to a sort of Sierra-esque heyday, where women will be back in lead design roles, but that day ain't here yet.

Very Nearly a Postscript: New Nina Gordon album on the 8th! Four songs are up for listen at her Myspace locale, so you should go check that out. Maybe you could be her friend... God, I hate Myspace, but I've mentioned that several times before, but I can't totally hate it as long as Nina Gordon's on there. Yeah, also like I've said before, I'm a sucker for girls with guitars.


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