I haven't read any professional reviews of KoA just yet, but what I've heard via word of mouth is that it's decent yet repetitive. Just curious...

Obviously, I haven't been making huge tweaks to the blogs after the recent change of some enormity, but today I did add one tweak that's been on my mind for a bit: a bar along the top of the page so that it's easy to return to your own profile if you visit a friend's blog. It's something some of you had asked about, as well.

Another change I may implement today is a change to add replies to the "Friends" page, so that it's easier to see discussions friends might be having that you aren't necessarily aware exist. It's likely I'll put that change in place today, perhaps even in the next few minutes. It'll make it easier for more people to join interesting discussions.

This section of the site is obviously still a work in progress. I hope that you're enjoying the streamlined design as much as I am. Thanks for continuing to frequent the site and for posting in your blogs when you have something to share.

I always (as in, both times thus far) enjoy reading about your expliots at Gamejam. Long may it continue!

Excerpt from another forum I frequent.

"...A few days ago my roommate who's been playing this p. steadily for weeks did something that we think might have been, if not unique in pvp then at least vanishingly uncommon. For starters he's doing a Faith build which I gather is rare in itself, but it's made a few of his spells quite powerful including Wrath of the Gods, that fat white aoe that the giant knights in Anor Londo do. It's been quite effective by itself during world invasions, but one night we decided he should combine it with the Chameleon spell that turns you into a vase. And the giant dragon helm that breathes fire.

So he invades a world of the guilty, and places himself behind one of the pillars in the hallway leading to the twin bosses in Anor Londo, and turns into a vase. It takes a while, but the guilty player eventually starts fighting the giant knights just to clear them out, since he's not seen my friend and thinks he's safe. Miraculously, he ends up running right past the vase, whereupon my friend immediately explodes out of it with Wrath, hounds the player into a corner in front of the white boss door, hits him a few more times with Wrath, then finishes by breathing fire on him. We erupt in laughter."

I found it worth reading through too. Kind of jealous really :). Great that the event grew so much.

Awesome write-up describing what sounds like a wonderful event. Thanks for sharing!

Eventually you get to the point where every other puzzle will stump you for a while.

I downloaded Pushmo this afternoon. Now a few hours later, I'm at 4-6 and ready to stop for a bit. I didn't skip any puzzles, so my brain is a bit fried at this point. Getting to the top of the Christmas Tree was quite the ordeal, and there were a few other tough puzzles along the way, as well (the NES controller comes to mind).

MS Word mostly. I use Notepad for small stuff.

I use Microsoft Word and sometimes Open Office. I also write a surprising amount of stuff in regular Notepad if I'm in a rush.

I didn't play much this week. I've been more interested in watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's my first time watching them, ever. So no spoilers. Currently about half way through Season 2.

The Longest Journey

Up to the start of chapter 4. April's just ended up somewhere in her underwear. That's so... not appropriate!

Pullblox (Pushmo)

Up to the Nintendo murals. They're a bit easier than the challenges, and form some interesting pictures of Nintendo characters.

Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Got lost in the stupid forest near the start of the game. Don't remember what I'm supposed to do. Found an animal who talks about smell and a mushroom that gives off an aroma but I'm damned if I know how to make the two things interract.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Just landed in the mines section of the lower world. Haven't explored further yet.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

Got the lens of truth from the well and then I went to Gerudo Valley, but that whole dodge the sentries thing is much harder on a small screen.

I've tried other text editors but can't believe I didn't discover Notepad++ until recently. I really like NoteTab Standard for organizing things that need chapters, but Notepad++ is great for typing one-off stuff like reviews I don't need/want to take too many notes on--it even tracks the # of bytes a file is, and so forth, which is nice when I don't want to bloat a piece of writing too much.

I'd actually heard of Notepad++ before but assumed it was too much like Notepad for some reason. But it's not. After trying a pile of other text editors geared towards HTML coding and such (which I bet some people here might find useful) it took me about fifteen minutes to realize that I'd found something I wanted and probably should've done so years ago.

So what finally made me take the plunge? I got sick of Windows 7's Wordpad asking if I wanted to save a text file as text, because it might lose all the formatting I never put in anyway. I could kill this in XP or even Vista by closing and reopening.

Can't give any non-windows recommendations, but it's great to find a freeware that -works-.

Found Quell. Lovely relaxing puzzle game where you move a water droplet around various boards avoiding spikes.

My gaming habits are all over the place. Also on a Zelda kick.

The Longest Journey

Progress is slowing down. I'm enjoying the story, but I find myself with other things I want to do. I've hacked the archives, given the kid what he wants, gone to see a guy in a hoverchair and after a LOT of dialogue, I was just too weary to go on. I think I'd have preferred this game as a TV series or a book (though graphic novel might have been a better fit). It's really just a visual novel with some puzzles thrown in. It doesn't want to be too challenging, because it doesn't want people to give up and not experience the story.

Dead Rising

The mechanics of this game really bug me. Shooting is incredibly difficult. The one save thing is also a bit weird. Started a new game with old stats, got about an hour in, shot Carlito in the food court gunfight, then died on my way to a save point. Took the disc out and probably won't attempt this one again for a while. I'm a couple of levels up though.

Pullblox (Pushmo)

The puzzle solving continues. Still getting stumped by a lot of them.

Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Got this on the 3DS virtual console. I'm hoping it's as awesome as I remember. Haven't done much yet, basically gone down to the beach to retrieve my sword.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Still in the Volcano/Earth Temple, making progress. Got the bomb bag, will probably finish this dungeon the next time I play. Sword fighting with those lizard guys is tough. Fighting two at once almost killed me.

Lucid

Drawing lines is getting a bit dull. I play this when I don't feel like playing anything else.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

I knew ahead of time I'd be sitting somewhere waiting a while so I put this back in my 3DS. Cleared the water temple. Dark Link was tougher than I remember, but that is a really cool fight. Beat the boss, onto the next segment of the game. This is where it opens up and lets me tackle the next two temples in any order, I think. I'm in the well under the town looking for the lense of truth, and falling into stupid pits all the time.

Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

I bought this on the Wii Virtual Console a while back but hadn't played it. I've finished the game a few times before, but not for a very long time. I played the first 3 day cycle where you're stuck as a Deku kid. It was amazing how much I'd forgotten, like where to find the fairy fragment, where to find the bomber kids when they challenge you to hide and seek. First time I failed, too, since I started the game about a minute before morning. They said I wasn't up to it, but there wasn't even enough in-game time to complete it. That's something I'm remembering about the game - time management. You need to make sure you have enough time to complete certain tasks. But the first cycle is pretty easy. Got the observatory, lovely music there, got the moon tear to trade to the plant near the clocktower, and ended up getting there a full day early, so I danced until dawn with a scarecrow, and then again till night, banked all my rupees and went to visit Skull Kid. SWAMP, MOUNTAIN, OCEAN, CANYON, HURRY, THE FOUR THAT ARE THERE, BRING THEM HERE! If it lets me listen to Oath to Order, then hell yeah!

Mass Effect 2

I bought the Arrival DLC a while back when it was deal of the week. Decided to start it. It's not really that good. I'll still try and finish it before ME3 is out.

Cool. You should post maps of every day for this week, then slow it to once every few days / every week as the game progresses. (Since I imagine after a while, a map a day will become too much).

Why does EmP already have five orbs while everyone else has four?

Better map:

Bought one of these at vast expense, just so I can read free books with a backlit screen and watch iPlayer in bed.

Tried out a free game which was way too hard for me, constantly swiping at the screen to turn corners whilst being chased by some monkeys, but I wondered if anyone could recommend some simple but engaging games?

I had a nice list of games I wanted to cover within the weeks, mainly including Demon's Souls, Jett Rocket, and Mario Bros. (arcade). With recent developments, I've put those on the side for now. Yes I will get to them, just not right now.

In the coming weeks, I'd like to hit a few key games I've played and others from my collection that I probably won't touch again. I'll sell them on eBay afterwords, but I'd like to have them here for the time being for reference. I'll also be covering a few titles for Realm of Gaming, so check there now and then.

What I'm hitting:

Secret games- [classified; there are two is one of them]

Tales of Phantasia (GBA)- Yes, I just added this one as well. It has earned my prime hatred recently, and shall also be receiving a meh rating.

Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters- Did I really just add this game after publishing this blog? Yeah, I did. Yet another dreadful game that I forgot to mention I was going to cover soon.

White Knight Chronicles- I just ranted about it. I still feel so stung by its ending that I have to review it, possibly next.

Eternal Eyes- The meh-ness continues in this generic tactics game, released as a budget title for PSX. My, how budget titles have come along since this one.

Tobal No. 1- Yet another semi-retro title I'd like out of my collection. I've had my fun with it, but its age shows remarkably.

Darkstone- I'm almost going to miss this game. It's a shame I have to rip into it.

Most of these are going to be middle scores (4-6). I'd like to hit some positive titles afterwords to purge the overbearing meh-ness I'm likely to feel after covering these. Thankfully, Valkyria Chronicles is keeping me quite entertained, which is more than I can say for about the last four or five games I've gone through.