Just another useless personal blog
Well, I got home soon after the Diablo 2 ladder reset yesterday, played for the rest of the evening, and managed to complete Act 1 and reach level 16. Not too shabby.
Then I looked at the top of the ladder, and the highest person so far was already level 69. I didn’t even appear in the top 1000, with the very bottom of the list being level 24.
And I thought I was obsessed with D2…
Yesterday I finished off Psychonauts, which has been out for a few months and was getting good word-of-mouth, but I hadn’t had time for until recently.
It was worth the wait though. Its mechanics as a platformer are fairly standard, but it really shines in the art direction (some people consider it ‘ugly’, but it’s certainly distinctive), surreal and varied level design (the Milkman Conspiracy level is like a slice of idyllic suburbia warped by paranoia and has to be played to get the full effect), characters and dialogue, and the just overall quirky feel to it.
The only downsides are that it may be a bit too easy up until the last level, and then it becomes insanely difficult. There was one part that I must have had to retry at least 30-40 times before finally passing it, almost building to controller-smashing levels of frustration. You also need to collect an awful lot of items scattered around to gain levels, which may or may not be your thing.
In the end though, it was definitely worth the $30 I paid for the PC version. I’d be a bit more hesitant about the much-more-expensive console versions, so you might be better off renting it and finishing it over a weekend on those, or waiting for it to drop a bit. (It’s far better-looking and smoother on the PC anyways.)
Unfortunately, it looks like Psychonauts hasn’t sold very well so far, despite the excellent word-of-mouth going around, and the publisher is in trouble over it. It looks like some of the problems may be distribution-related, as it’s been somewhat difficult to find; the Future Shop I usually check hasn’t had any PC copies for quite a while and only occasionally has any PS2 copies. I had to go to EB Games, and even then, only one of three locations had any PC copies. It would be a shame to see it fail, as people often lament the lack of creativity in modern games and the emphasis on sequels in franchises…
You know you’ve been using the PVR too much when, after finishing a show, you keep hitting the Menu button and wondering why it’s not working until you suddenly realize that you were watching it live for once…
So long free time…
Wheee, tonight I got to be That Guy holding up the line at the supermarket, taking forever just to pay.
I was low on cash and forgot to stop at the ATM on the way out of the office, and didn’t realize it until I’d arrived at the local Safeway to pick up dinner. No problem, I can just whip out the debit card, right?
Well it seems that its position in my wallet has formed a bit of a bend in the card. The ATMs accept the card without any problems, but the crummy little readers they use at the store just wouldn’t read it, even after repeated swipes. I noticed that my old card was still in the wallet too (I probably held on to it just in case its replacement didn’t work), and the scanner accepted it. Except that after the “Processing…” delay after entering everything, the transaction was rejected. Of course, the old card was deactivated after the new one was used…
My last hope was the credit card, and fortunately it worked and the line could start moving again, but it’s still embarassing going through the public frustration of having trouble paying for something while everyone’s eyes are on you.
That’s why, despite the convenience of debit cards, I still prefer to carry a bit of spare cash.
Blizzard surprised everyone this last week with the sudden announcement of a new Diablo 2 patch and its release shortly thereafter yesterday. Nothing too earthshattering, though the mechanics behind the new boss fights are at least intriguing. Still, it’s surprising that they’re doing anything new with it at all this late after its release.
So, will I succumb to the old addiction and slip back into D2’s icy clutches? Not…yet. The one thing they didn’t do with this patch was reset the ladder, as many people were expecting. The date of the next reset thus remains unknown, so I’m still a bit hesitant to start new ladder characters this late into the current season and risk not getting to play them for long before the next reset occurs.
But, eventually… Maybe they’re just letting the patch have a ‘shake-down’ period before resetting the ladder, and then there will be no escape. Diablo always seems to win out in the end…