[18] Tokyo Game Show

console

< Piro >

"don't be so grumpy"

Saturday - September 23, 2000

Of course, who can blame Erika-sama for being grumpy. She's a character in this strip. It would ruin any girl's day, fer sure. :)

I'm late, and I'm gonna keep this short today, mainly because I am up to my ears in stuff to do - a good part of which are things for Megatokyo itself. I've listened and read and got a good feel for what people's reaction to a l33t shirt would be, so this weekend I plan to design one. I've done t-shirts before, and usually they come out pretty cool - hopefully we wont disappoint.

I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has e-mailed me in the past few weeks. If you didn't hear back from me, I apologize... I'm terrible with e-mail. Mainly because i could easily spend 3 hrs a day doing just email with the volume I've been getting, and I just can't do that. I'll try to get back to you. Promise. It's just that i gotta get drawings and strips done first. Oh, and that annoying day job thing too. :)

I don't even remember going to bed last night. All i knew is that i woke at 11 am this morning - and it didn't feel like i got anywhere enough sleep. I was working on this drawing of Erika last night, and had just added Kimiko to the picture. There are some drawings of Erika kicking around, but I wasn't quite happy with the design yet. After spending some time on it this morning, i'm pretty satisfied. Dom told me that he wondered where all of her heavy artillery was. My comment was that her ability to wrap largo into a small pretzel was enough for daily use, unless he really pissed her off and higher levels of vaporization were needed...

ack, giving away too much. ^_^

got a lot in store for the next few weeks. I almost fell into the temptation of playing Kanon once again last night... (sigh) good thing i didn't. I'd still be missing. :)

Ah, and while doing my normal rounds, i felt i should point you to plutonia.net - phil and I have been friends for a long time now, partly because I've always found the news, information and other stuff on his site interesting and useful. Also, his little rants remind me a lot of my own... he's an inspiration. ^^ I had to beat him over the head a few times to get him to go back to that format, but thankfully he has - it must have had something to do with the sun there down-under. :)

Of particular note is his ArtMap site - Phil regularly visits a large variety of fan-art sites and keeps tabs on when they were last updated. Very useful for those of us to lazy to check them out ourselves. :P

... and, yea, i know. I owe you some artwork Phil. ^^;;

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< Largo >

"bioware 0wnz j00"

Friday - September 22, 2000

[Largo] - 09:14:00 - [link here]

Baldurs Gate II was delivered to me yesterday. The first thing I did was in Gabe-esque style plunged the game down my pants!

Installing the game was the next logical step, well - that and washing up. I gently inserted the discs into my cdrom as the install took what seemed like several lifetimes, although Piro contests it was only ten minutes. No matter! It was done and that BG2 started, the sound begin to surround me, bringing tears to my eyes! I could feel the evil lurking around each corner, I was ready to finally play this game! Then, my system crashed to a blue screen.

There are few moments in a man's life where he will feel completely inadequate, your computer dying right at the height of gamer climax is one of them. After I recovered from both shame and shock I tried again... and again... and again... failing each time.... In the end, only one course of action was left, re-install the OS! You linux fiends are probably laughing right about now.

Now, after all this, the game finally launches and I re-enter the world I left over a year ago. I played the game for about six hours straight, and I'm still in chapter two. I'd never want to spoil a title like this, so I won't tell of my adventures, though I will say everything Bioware promised about this game is true. It's not tedious, and I've yet to run into a simple 'fedex' quest. The plot easily grips me in like a giant squid to a submarine. I find myself less concerned with the current tasks I must do in the game, and rushing through them so that I can advance the main story.

John Romero's mantra of "Design is Law" seems to take a backseat to what I'm guessing Bioware's mantra, has become, which is "Content is Law". The game has content, the story pulls you in like a best selling novel. I have to hand it to Bioware's writing team, these guys deserve some recognition for their outstanding work. This isn't to say that is the most impressive area, the sound creates the right moods at every moment. The updated engine is a huge improvement, spell effects look great. The voice acting is top notch. Which reminds me, I need to find out the voice actress for Imoen and see if she's single.

What can I say? I'm sold.. I'm hooked.. and Bioware has re-secured its place as my gaming crack dealer.