so, double xp weekend was interesting.  mainly because it got the reaction that ncsoft was hoping for-it was hoppin'.  seriously, come on, if your going to do something like this, expect it and deal with it.  it was so heavily populated this weekend that every server crashed at least once, and the lag was horrible.  i have a friend that i invited to play, giving him the friend pass, and he was almost entirerly turned off from the game just because he couldn't move without the lag slowing him down.  it's really sad that this happened.

he is willing, however, to play again next weekend (friday or saturday) to try again and see if he can actually enjoy the game.

My first character in city of villains kind of sucked, and i decided to drop him.  now i have a character named Soulfur-he's a fire/fire brute, and i like him. i like him alot.  i'm level 12 now, which means 2 more levels and i get to have my travel power :-D.  i chose teleport for him, now while it's not the best travel power (best meaning coolest to see and watch), it's very useful in that it takes me not much time at all to get where i'm going, which means when i team up with people they wont't be waiting on me every single second-also, i don't have to avoid all the bad guys on the way to my mission objective.

I got myself all excited about playing city of villains now.  well, not super excited, but i'm at a point where i can play the game and enjoy it.  and i like that.  i played for about an hour tonight, maybe a little more, and leveled my 1st villain from level 5 to 6.  I've decided to spec as a flyer, but i was very unsure of that, for the reason that i have to take 'hover' as my main traveling power set for the next 8 levels.  to those that don't know, hover is quite possibly the slowest form of travel.  seriously, i can 'sprint' in game and get where i'm going faster than hovering.

of course, i may be able to choose another travel power before the level 14 mark, but if i do i'd be giving up normal attack powers which could help me alot for the next 8 levels.

my next power of choice will probably be the assasination strike, very good first attack, will cause major critical damage when i first attack because of my hiding ability.

yes, i enjoy city of villains alot.

also, i saw the Portal video teaser thing.  i can't wait, seriously.  i will purchase half life 2: episode 2 just for that, if need be.  hopefully by the time that comes out though, i'll at least have the first half life 2 game done, and then perhaps half life 2: episode 1.

it'll be a while before i finish half life 2 though, i'm going to focus some on my Villain for now.

I've given myself some time away from the games, just to see where i get.  and i am at a place where i can tolerate games again, but i don't think i'll be able to jump onto oblivion for another week, at least.

I played the prey demo, and while it is a very basic fps, i did find myself getting into the game, for what i could.  i was kind of disapointed that i didn't get to go further (the demo IS only so long).  I would say, even though there isn't much of a storyline or excitement on the side of half life, it was a very intriguing game to paly, if you don't really want to think about anything and just blow stuff away.  and i do have to say that the game's graphics were definiately up there in quality, half the enviroment almost makes you want to turn your head and get sick for a second (like tommy did at least once while i was playing-seriously, he puked in the game), the visuals mixed with the audio makes for a very interactive feeling.  although for some reason there was some glitching on the graphics for me.  i don't think i'll be getting prey, not right now anyways, maybe when they drop the price to about 20-30 dollars.  i can't see myself purchasing it before then.

next demo to play i believe will be F.E.A.R.  I've heard and read some good things about it, so i do have high expectations.  if i enjoy the demo the way i'm told i will, fear will be on my list of must-haves.

So yesterday i spoke too soon, for some reason i just couldn't get into oblivion yesterday and actually feel against playing it for a few days, if not a week or more.

if i decide to play games over the next few days i'll probably be jumping into bf2 or graw, to get a hang of those games.

i think perhaps part of the reason for my reluctance in games the past couple days (while i didn't mention it before, it has been the past couple days and not just yesterday-it took yesterday to confirm my suspicions), is that God has been working on my heart. I've realized that i need a better balance in my life, with God being the center of it. now, i know he doesn't forbid playing games or going to movies or doing anything else for that matter (as a matter of fact, 1st Corinthians 10:23 says "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive). Now, i may be taking that verse out of context, but i think that it means that while i am not denied anything, i do have to make propper decisions with what i do have. Which means setting proper priorities and makign good decisions with my time. again, i believe that means making God the center of my life and having everything else revolve around Him.

While that doesn't bode well with my gamer side, or any other side of myself for that matter (we are all selfish and all want what we want), i want to please God more. So i think i'm going to start setting limits on myself, limits to the extent of 2 hours of playing a day on weekdays (mon-fri) and up to 4-5 hours a day on weekends (sat-sun), excluding special occasions (lans, etc.) In the other time i have available (mainly in the evenings) i will read the bible or other God-centered work of literature either in silence or whilst listening to worship music.

Yes, i think that best for me.

I've been trying out and playing the various games that i've purchased (btw, i bought city of villians at target on friday or saturday one, can't remember the day, as it was 10 dollars cheaper than everywhere else), and have a feel for several of them.

Oblivion has been taking up most of my time, and i admire that it can keep my interest without making me bored.  I haven't been following entirerly the main story line, every now and then i'll hop on it, but i've been focusing on the theives guild mainly.  I've found a couple bugs in the game, but i knew that a few were there.  For some reason the game is laggy when i start it up, not entirerly sure why.  after a couple of minutes things smooth out though.

I've played GRAW only once so far, as gamespy despises all i do and tries to hinder me in all aspects.  what i have played of it however, i enjoy.  It's certainly not a run and shoot game, but a squad game, which is something i think could/would/is quite enjoyable.  I've always liked games where you have to work together with a team of a couple of players to achieve your goal.  in this game if you abandon that idea, and embrace the idea of the lone ranger, you will be dead in no time.

I unfortunately haven't been able to dip my hand into bf2 yet, but plan on it soon enough.  i'll probably be getting the couple of expansion packs i've seen, euro and armor (or whatever they are).

City of Villians is pretty good, it was hard for me to get back into city of heroes, but i think after playing villians for a little bit i'll be used to the gameplay and ready to pursue the fight for freedom as a hero of paragon city (after i pursue a right of selfishness in the rogue islands of course).

It will probably be a while before i buy another game, as i have alot of content to go through in these 4 games alone, not including half life 2, far cry, and all the mods that come with all these games.

anyways, not my best post, but an update none-the-less.

After work yesterday i headed out to best buy, getting there 15 minutes before closing time (like i usually do after work), fully intending to get the games that i mentioned yesterday (BF2-Delux Edition, Oblivion, and City of Villians).  Unfortunately they didn't have City of Villains, but t hey will supposedly be recieving a shipment in for that game on the 12th.  No, instead of City of Villains, I was ushered by Commander McNeil to purchase Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (i think is the name?).  Fully intending to play GRAW with McNeil, i went straight home and got to work installing these new games.

Something i realized while installing these games-these aren't your daddy's games anymore, the games that take up a total of 200 megs of space.  no, these games take up 4 gigs and more of space now.  which leads me to believe that i will be needing another raptor drive should i buy 5 more games (i have 40 gigs left, 5 games more games would leave me with only 10 gigs-i don't want to fill up the whole drive, for temporary files).  After perusing newegg i see that the 150 GB raptor drive is going for $259.99, so i will be putting back the money for at least one, possibly 2, for when i need to get more space.

Anyways, i installed BF2 first, then oblivion, and then graw.  Oblivion installed the fastest, obviously (one disk vs 5 for BF2-Deluxe edition and 4 for GRAW).  by the time everything was installed I had to get the patches for everything.  I tell you what, the patches for the games are HUGE.  seriously bigger than gaames of old (starcraft anyone?)

By the time i had GRAW patched and ready to play it was almost 12, the time by which i was planning on going to sleep, so i told Command McNeil that i'd have to play GRAW with him another time.  He signed off and i booted up oblivion for a quick 10 minute session.

wow.  that 10 minute session turned into 60 minutes quickly.  I have to say though, they have the 'E' key and the  Space Bar key assigned to the wrong things.  but i guess they wanted it that way to differenciate themsleves from normal fps'.  The 'E' key is set to jump and the Space Bar is set to use or talk.  eh.  i will be switching those.

The game however was incredible.  Just in those 60 minutes of me getting used to the game, even where the storyline was very absent because all you're doing is trying to escape prison, i found it fun and interesting.  I did however probably choose all the wrong things for my character, class, sign, etc., but i'll find out later.

afterwards i went to sleep.

when i get home today (i get off at 6 today) i'll be playing Oblivion for a couple hours and then i'll probably hop onto graw or bf2, try to get used to those.

oh, did i mention i run Oblivion on ultra high settings? yes.  yes i do.  and actually, my cpu only heats up to about 31 degrees celcius, vs 36 degrees celcius when running counter strike: source.  I'd guess that's because most of the work is being done by the grapahics card and not the processor.  I'll have to check actual system temp after i play tonight and see what it goes to.

I'm going to set BF2 and GRAW to highest settings also and see how those run-if they run smoothly i'll keep them there.

So i got paid today. awesome is what that is.  reasons? because having money is good.  that and i'm going to go out and purchase a couple/few games after work today.

First game-Oblivion.  Reason for getting it?  because from what i have seen and heard it is quite possibly the best game out since duck hunt.  supposedly you can play the game however you want to play it, which is awesome.  and the graphics blow me away personally.  as well as the ai.  all around great game is the reason for me purchasing it.

Second game-Battlefield 2 (package).  talking about the package with the expansion or whatever it was.  why? because it's a good game, i've played the demo and enjoy it.  also i want to be able to play it with friends, now that i have a gaming system to enjoy it on, and actually run it.

Third game-Unknown at this moment.  I'm not sure i want to get a third game, however if i do it will be awesome.  actually, thinking back on it, i may pick up city of villians, as i own city of heroes and i would like to play as a villain.  also i am already paying the 15 dollars a month, and that gets you subscription with both heroes and villians.

so that's my list of things to get. yay.