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Overkill in Just Hanging Out JoeUser Forums

So, I figured I'd write one final entry before finals kick into high gear - aw crap, who I am kidding, it's not like I'm a real student. Good joke though. For me, finals are actually kind of neat. I get to do the same thing I've done for the rest of the year except I get the gratification of being "done" with a class the second I turn in the final paper or exam. Being the silly little English major that I am, I get the joy of only having one of my three English classes require

Reply to Music Review: Fountains Of Wayne "Hey Julie" in Music JoeUser Forums

I really liked the song, along with "All Kinds of Time" on the same album. The rest of the CD, though, was fairly bad. I respect Fountains of Wayne for wanting to try a bunch of different stuff, but it's like no two songs on the album were even on the same page in terms of their sound.

Reply to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Adventure JoeUser Forums

Well, of course. It's not an Elder Scrolls game without the bugs. As generic as the setting in Oblivion is, I'm really digging the game. I'm finding myself increasingly put off by RPGs. Especially the Final Fantasy-esque games; I enjoy them, but I just no longer find myself interested in long, drawn out clones of games that I played growing up. This game, though, is really quite overwhelming in its awesomeness. It's just so easy to start up the game and completely lose yourself for a

Reply to Dirty blogs in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I think I've been blogging, in general, for about four-five years now. Mostly on my personal site with a lot of articles being cross-posted to my JU blog. Throughout all this time I've kind of transgressed more personal-centric blog posts to some, occasionally, more formal game-related (in development or just enjoying games) posts along with my occasional rambling posts. Throughout all this time I don't think I've ever even thought of making any sort of "prof

Reply to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Adventure JoeUser Forums

Heh; good 'ol brown. The staple of Morrowind and Quake. And though the screenshots of Oblivion look fantastic (and they do); the dungeons are still terribly repetitive. I think the general structure of every dungeon is pretty much the same and, for the most part, they all share the exact same texture set. The underground dungeons all look pretty good, so it's not a problem, but the Planes of Oblivion are neat for about twenty minutes and then the repeating orange/red combo with lava t

Reply to Remember, Remember the Fifth of November in Just Hanging Out JoeUser Forums

I'm really not all that sure you can say that The Shield has low production values. I believe the look of the show is actually a desired effect and one I'm honestly quite fond of. It's a more gritty, dramatic show which focuses on quick sieges, shaky camera, and minimalist special effects. One of the things I enjoy is the rarity with which big, flashy explosions are used in the show. Helps to make it a bit more realistic, I suppose. Haven't seen The Wire, though. And, yeah, V for Vend

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November in Just Hanging Out JoeUser Forums

For whatever reason, tonight just wasn't an Oblivion night for me. I got back from a fairly funtabulous dinner at Chili's (it's the new golf course -- Small Businessman Magazine) where I got charged eight bucks for a Heinekin. I'm not normally one to complain about prices, but something just seems… off in this particular instance. Oh well, still a damn good meal with a bunch of friends. Anyone who watches <a href="http://imdb.com/titl

Reply to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Adventure JoeUser Forums

Heh, I know what you mean with the number of games. Currently I'm playing Act of War, Command and Conquer Generals, a Rise of Nations' "Conquer the World" campaign, Red Orchestra and this. So many games, so little time. And, yeah, the game's requirements are pretty steep, but some moments in the game are just so pretty that it's hard not to consider it worth all the trouble.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in Adventure JoeUser Forums

I think it's safe to say that The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is one of the most widely anticipated games of 2006 -- one of the few MMORPGs of my favorite definition (Massively Multientity Offline RPG). I will add to this statement by saying that although I really enjoyed Morrowind , Oblivion is not one of my most anticipated games of 2006. So keep in mind while rea

All Kinds of Time in Just Hanging Out JoeUser Forums

I said in an earlier post that I would write an entry later on and, for what may be the first time, I'm actually following up on that. I'm not the kind of person who can lie in a bed and fall asleep almost instantaneously. I'm more the kind of person who, throughout middle and high school, often went to bed and started aimlessly at my ceiling for hours thinking about completely inane and useless things. It started getting a

Paradise - Chapter 2 (Partial Draft 1) in Fiction Writing JoeUser Forums

Depending on how involved I get in Red Orchestra or Ubik tonight, I may make a general post later. Though if that's what you're looking for at this particular moment, you may want to look elsewhere. This itty-bitty post has nothing to do with anything save Paradise -- which, for the unfamiliar, is what I'm currently cal

Reply to Cause You're Turnin' Me Inside Out in Just Hanging Out JoeUser Forums

Heh, thanks for the comments. Yeah, I don't actually mean I'm old in the whole grand scheme of things, just old in comparison to my not being as young as I was... So, yeah, pretty much the most useless metric ever. And I'm planning to embrace this newfound age in order to buy a six-pack of beer this afternoon. I may never actually drink said six-pack, but it's the thought that counts... I guess? The night before I posted this entry to JU (which was about two days after I had or

Reply to Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 -- First Impressions in FPS JoeUser Forums

Yeah, Octavius took care of the Steam thing nice and well. It's basically Valve's new publishing platform for their own stuff and other smaller games (Space Empires IV, Darwinia, Rag Doll Kung Fu, and so on). I really don't have many complaints about Steam, though I was never really one of the people who disliked it from the beginning in the first place. It does its job fairly well for my purposes. I can definitely see why modem users wouldn't like it, though. It's a pain in the ass to try and p

Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 -- First Impressions in FPS JoeUser Forums

My original plan for the day was to skip Spanish at 2:00pm today so that I could be at my computer exactly at the time which Valve/Tripwire unlocked Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (released through Steam -- and here is the game's Steam site ). Unfortunately, due to the fact that I had to write a few papers before 4:00pm, that w

Cause You're Turnin' Me Inside Out in Just Hanging Out JoeUser Forums

So. I'm twenty-one now. All old and stuff. Feels pretty much the same as always, actually. The cool part, though, is that now I can buy alcohol and drink scotch late at night while working away at a typewriter and throwing a tennis ball against the wall. i'm outlining a new writing project ... Now a little story; block-quoted for formatting goodness. I originally had this as part of the general entry, but it ended up being

Has Anyone Seen My Shoes? I Kicked Them Off in a Fit of Joy in Just Hanging Out JoeUser Forums

As a quick note, this entry is actually even more devoid of content than usual. It was more of a thing to help me relax for a while than actually be an interesting read. All apologies in advance. I had reserved a good portion of tonight due to the idea that I had an exam tomorrow (Thursday… So I guess that's today, now). After I checked out the semester calendar for the class, though, I found that I was about a week off in my estimates. Turns out the thing isn't until next Thursday. So, her

Folsom Prison Blues in Life Journals JoeUser Forums

It's been so long since you and I had a nice chat. I feel like you've changed before my very eyes. No, no, it's a compliment -- no need to shield your face. So, hey... How's it been going? Things going good? Yeah, well, I suppose they would be good now that you're seeing someone else. I can't believe you'd ever do that to me! You tore my heart out, threw it on the ground, and stomped on it with those hideous steel-toed boots you're always goin' on about. -- What's that? You

Age of Empires 3 in Real-Time JoeUser Forums

Age of Empires 3 came out in fall 2005, but it seemed to come and go with little-to-no fanfare. The came received decent reviews and apparently was considered a letdown to RTS gamers who were looking forward to it. I actually played it when it first came out and got a nice bit through the first of three acts in the single-player campaign, and thought it was a very well-done game. I quit playing it at some point shortly afterwards, m

Reply to Paradise - First Two Chapters in Fiction Writing JoeUser Forums

No need to take it quite as serious as you did. Though my point still stands: I have no idea what your comment was trying to say.

Reply to Paradise - First Two Chapters in Fiction Writing JoeUser Forums

Well, yeah, they are both nothing but mere drafts (the introduction moreso than the first chapter), but then again, I'd wager a hefty amount on the fact that your comment is in need of some serious proofreading.

Reply to Galactic Civilizations 2 Review in Turn-Based JoeUser Forums

Yeah, I'm not quite sure exactly what it is, but the basic fact for me is that I get more out of a session of Civilization 4 than I do GC2. I'm not ready to make a definite statement delcaring that one game has more depth than the other, but I'm very tempted to say that of the two, Civ 4 does a better job of making the depth more accessable .

Galactic Civilizations 2 Review in Turn-Based JoeUser Forums

Since this is the first time I've done this in a while, let me just get this out of the way: when I say "review," I don't mean it like all the big, bad game journalists do. When I review a game I look at some of key components of it. I also discuss some of the flaws of the game. At some point, I'll write a few conclusive paragraphs and, then when you get to the end of this article, what you're going to find is a line break and then nothing. What you won't find is a single, definitive stat

Paradise - First Two Chapters in Fiction Writing JoeUser Forums

Last night I finished what I recently decided would be the full first draft of Paradise and I'm surprised at how well it's turning out. I have a nice majority of the content I want for the first chapter written in, but it's still very rough around the edges. Last night I made an initial editing run of the first ten pages of the 1.5-line spaced draft (which stands at thirteen pages right now) and added a few large sections of entirely new content that have yet to be proofread. And tonight

Three Months in the Life of a Kitten in Cats JoeUser Forums

Every now and then I feel it my civil duty to ensure that Polycat.net actually has a post or two about cats. And since this very rarely actually happens, I thought I'd write a nice summary post about the first three months with my little kitten Hobbes . Before I get too far into this, though, let's just all make sure that we know that when I say "summary" I really mean that it's more of a treatise o

I Watch As You Go in Gaming JoeUser Forums

Weeks simply shouldn't feel as long as this week has. It just should not be allowed by whatever governing force remains in charge of determining the relative length of a week for a certain individual. This is week that a majority of my classes decided to cram the rest of the out-of-class homework into due dates, so I had a nice, full schedule of things due every day of the week that kept me all sorts of busy. Next week, other than reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0