alright....heres an update.....

i've been playing A-Creed over the past 4-5 days....and it's grown on me...not much, but enough to make me WANT to play it....and not so much MAKE myself play it....

for starters i'll get the fun and cool things outta the way....i really love the free-roam options, theres tons of places to go and things to see... i have like 4 citys and this middle ground that i can just explore for the sheer excitment of seeing wonderous views.... the combat isn't bad as well.....it's realistic to the time period and has cool close-ups that give me this sense of deep enthralling action.... also the voice acting is incredible...i feel like i'm hangin with a bunch of arab guys that like to chill like it's 1423..... hmmm what else... i really love the graphics, not too much bloom effect and just enough bump-mapping to make the enviroment really "pop"....

now to the bad....

the exploring was cool....but once you've climbed to the top of your 20th F#@king tower just to get a more accurate map, it's boring...... and it just pisses me off the more i have to do it... along with the exploring thing, there are maybe 2-3 things that you can do.....1. climb stuff 2. randomly assassinate stuff 3. save the citzen stuff..... and all the rest of the time when your not doing those things is spent collecting "evidence" or information so you can assassinate the main dude......yea...think CSI: Hard Evidence and you got how fun this part is.... hmmm...ah yes.... the middle ground that seperates the 4 citys (called "the kingdom") is huge...and everytime i have to cross this area i want to cause pain to myself and others.....not only do you have to go thru the entire length of this place at the slowest pace ever, or risk being caught and slaughtered by a army of guards, but being on a horse increases this effect at least 10 fold....i stride past a guard and bam...caught...

Combat....wow...yea...at first it was hard and a challenge and kept me on my toes and the number of guards acutally increased the diffuculty... but then after my first assassination, i got a move called counter... what used to be a delicate balnce of fun and challenge turned into a simple timing mini-game....i can take on like 10-40 guards and only suffer maybe 2-3 bars of damage...and to add insult to injury, almost everytime i use this move it goes into the close-up....at first i really like this feature....but omg...i can't stand it now...

Graphics....they're not amazing, but they're good....my primary problem with this subject is more so the aninmation than the graphics...the stabings that bring you in the "close-up" view often show your hand going thru the guys head and the ground...and you see this all the time...its not a big issue, but it's embarraisning....it's like they knew this problem was here, did a half-ass fix, and shipped the game hoping no one would notice....

if i have more things to write about then i'll check back here....

i've been playing thru Some Assassin Creed, and it's ok so far, but it's such a slow begginning that i had to eventually just put it down....i swear if i had to sit thru one more lengthy unskipable conversation i was gonna shoot my foot.....

this was not the game i expected....it's much lamer....it could of been so much better....

i run thru a crowd of people, and wouldn't ya know? i bump into someone and i suppose that makes me an assassin.... of course i am one, but come on!

and heres a great tip: don't ever bite off more than you can chew in this game....you will get destroyed.... i ran into what was appearently a muslim solider barrack and assassinated some joe and set off the entire place in a firery panic....

the beggining is kinda weird too...they expect me to sit here and just accept the fact that i'm actually an escaped assassin from a place called "the farm", kidnapped by some "memory-bandits" looking for treasure that was hidden in my very ,very distant past....and in order to get the treasure, i have to go around killing people in my head because my captors told me to.... wtf ubisoft....i love sci-fi and all....but come on....lame...

i guess they must think that since i'm swallowing pills like bio-engineered super soliders and mute M.I.T graduate Scientists, that i'd have no problem with this..... i suppose it's not terrible, and most of my quarl is not with the plot but rather the game mechanics, but eh.....it was enough to make it worth mentioning....

so far my biggest issue is getting around at a pace i'm comfortable with....without getting exposed as an assassin...... and actualy killing people....it takes forever to kill one guy and when you do, he screams for help and then all his little guard buddies come in and hand me my butt on a silver platter..... the only way to bypass this lenghty battle is to assassinate the guy....and for being a game about assassin's, theres not much assassinating going on......or at least stealthy assassinations...

idk...i guess i'm just having problems getting started.....

it's too early for me to completely pass judgement on this game but so far it seems like a game that has it's quarks, but in the long run will be worth my time getting past.....

been playin crysis of and on over the past few days... after of course running thru the CoD and UT3 demos....

it's fun, actually no, it's a lot of fun.....once i worked out a few bugs and figured out my optimal settings (that in-game optimal settings helper is no help....it always sets it to very-high...) it runs well and looks good. i likehow they give you a giant map, and an objective but the rest is up to you. usally i take the most direct and psychotic route only toswitch to camo/speed to run away becausei underestimated the amount of north korean firepower......but having the option to take them out one by one isa fun and neat concept.i'm starting to learn that it's all about stealth and speed of which you attack.its like a cooler version of farcry.

Moonslash will say that the game doesn't have much of a story but i beg to differ. it may notbe super original (Human vs. Human, then later human vs alien menace) but at least it puts an orginal twist on it. the whole nano-suit ablity things adds an extra layer of fun to my cake, and i like that. one thing that gets on my nerves though is that they kill2/4 of your friendly neighborhood NPC's in the first 3 missions....leaving you and the "wise-ass" to get stuff done.

Another thing i hate, is how your almost always alone! what are your allies always doing that you have to complete all these objectives alone! are they doing they're laundry or something?! and when one of your allies finally comes along for the ride he sits there and beats off while you battle an entire company of North Koreans....lame...come on crytech, your better than that...

i'll update later with details on combat andother things. but for now i have to go forth and kick some serious korean ass....

so i was up till like 2am yesterday, and during that time i was messing with the settings and features in crysis.

i finally got it to be playable and look good. it's not amazing, but it's playable and pretty....

and the white bush thing ended up being my driver....i installed a older driver andthe problem isgone!! hurray!

i'm really starting to enjoy crysis, it's really not that orginal, but it puts a intresting twist on the whole alien vs man thing with the nanosuits unqiue ablitys.....i really like cloak and speed. those make combat so much easier. i can hide and runaway! lmao

but yea, its all good.... i haven't got around to getting a mic, but i'll get it eventually...

so i picked up crysis today, and i installed it.... been messing around with the turtles and such, very cool stuff....

so far it's ok, but i think i'd enjoy it more if only it didn't completely destroy my comp....i cant get anything out of it that i like... i've been messing with all the little features, and it's just so sad that i have to have it all on med-low with my gt.... :(

crysis is fun, i guess, but it has a few problems....the white bushes for example...although i think that it's just my comp.... other than that it's pretty cool, has it's ups and downs....for awhile it was really scary, than it settled down a bit...

but i've really been getting into BF2142, i've become quite good at it, but i'm still getting owned...i can max out this game....

any one else got a GT? can ya reccomend settings? lol

well i finished building my comp, and all is well....sorta....

i got the 8800GT on wed, and i started sorting thru bios from there. the first problem i encountered ended up being that i couldn't get my DVD-rom to detect, which scared me a little, but i solved it with the help of the PC hardware forum....so kudos to those who helped with that....

The next problem i encountered was the fact that i bought the wrong version of vista. I bought the Home premium upgrade as opposed to the normal home premium....i didn't understand the difference, i figured "upgrade" meant more features....not even close... because i didn't have a previous OS on my comp i couldn't enter my product code in, so i rendered the software i bought completly useless... so now i have to buy another product code for almost twice the original price.... thx mircosoft for not screwing me over big time :) ..... f@#kers... i ended up installing the "trial" version....which is kinda gay...

but other than that it's all good, it all runs cold, and quiet. and i wouldn't want it any other way....

Vista is awesome, it pretty much does everything i want it to, by it's self. i probaly won't ever go back to XP...

i downloaded the Cod4 demo, but i didn't have a chance to play....which makes me sad, but thats life... Other than all of that, building and installing went fine. and i'm happy with the end product.and thats all that matters :)

i'm picking up crysis tomorrow and i'll see how it performs on that.... and i'll get pics of my comp..... and screenshots....

and pin-ups....

alright, i'm starting to get really comfortable with this whole profile thing.... i've added a banner and a new avatar/user icon...all of which i've made myself, using PS v7 and ImageReady.

andi can't help but reconize moonslash for giving me PS and Imageready to make these awesome pics....bravo moonslash, bravo.....(he'll yell at me if i don't give em credit.....)

alright...the 8800GT alpha dog XXX should be arriving tommorrow....and as soon as i get it all working i'll either be playing crysis or GoW, or CS.....i haven't decieded yet.... in any case that'll be tons of fun.....

i've been thinking of starting up a web-blog....and the only thing that keeps me from this is the fact that i don't have a mic....but as soon as i get one, expect a awesome video blog.....

lately i've been trying to find good intro music and intro video, along with stuff to talk about....most likely i'll have a mic by the end of this week and i'll be popping out V-blogs like mexican babies the following week...

if i end up making a v-blog i want it to be something funny and not as long as the ones i see here(mr. bojangles+camera=20min rant). i'll make em just long enough to get a laugh, but not so long that i've overstayed my welcome.... as far as a name goes, i haven't thought of one yet...

i'm almost done building my rig ( it'll be done by the 26th-27th), its really sweet and i'm happy with how it's coming out so far.... the specs are as follows

Intel Core 2 Duo @3.0ghz 4mb cache/ eVGA 680i sli SE Tr version Mobo/ Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade/ OCZ GamexStream 700w PSU/ Hitachi 320gb Hard Drive @7200rpm 8mb Buffer/ Antec 900 Gaming Case/ XFX Alpha Dog 8800GT 512mb/ OCZ Sli 4gb (4x1gb) RAM @800mhz/ Zalman Cpu fan and heatsink/ Samsung 20" 226BW TFT LCD/Sony DVD-ROM 20x

it all cost me about $2k.....ouch...lol and i was trying to keep it at $1.5k or lower...

all in all it's a great comp....when i get the money i'll sli the GT and upgrade the CPU. And for kicks i'll throw another disc drive and hard drive in as a bonus.

i'll get pics/video as soon as i make lvl 10.....god-forsaken hiearchy lvl system -grumble-......

i'll see you guys on the PC hardware forum.....thx for dropping by!