This Seems Familiar

I was way too tired to go to Eastbourne for AvP2. From what I hear I didn't miss too much as the storyline had been replaced by gore. Someone did say "Get to the chopper!" and it was apparently fun to watch but not something the guys would want to see again. Ah well.

I've installed and played S.T.AL.K.E.R. which has impressed me no end with its AI and setting. The way dogs move around in packs (one pack in particular was lead by a pseudodog freaking huge monstrosity which I avoided), creatures avoid the anomalies, factions contest with each other and make expeditions deeper into The Zone... it was very cool. And difficult. Human enemies have proven to be quite deadly thanks to their firearms. Unfortunately I've had to start the game again from scratch because patching the game makes all your previous saves incompatible. Fortunately I wasn't very far into the game. I'm dreading nightfall in S.T.AL.K.E.R. though, some anomalies can be hard enough to spot in daylight and the reduced vision range after dusk will make things (such as avoiding packs of blind-dogs or wandering mutated boars) a whole lot more difficult.

I've completed Dark Messiah twice now and seen all four endings. Okay, mathematically that doesn't make much sense. The four endings are based on four choices you have to make. Firstly you have to choose which of two characters you ally yourself with; and secondly, later on, you must choose whether to free or imprison a significantly powerful demon. The second choice is literally at the end of the game so after watching the credits roll you can just load the last auto-save and make the alternate choice. While the action within the game is brilliant, not one of the endings felt right. What doesn't help is that each one is almost identical to the last. If you completed the game one way and then a month later completed it with the opposite choices you probably would not realise you were seeing a different ending. Which is really disappointing. Especially since the rest of the game is done in such a powerful and dramatic way (the video at the end of the Spider Temple Catacombs is one of the most exciting I've seen among in-game cut-scenes). There are still some choices to be made in the game though; along the way there are optional objectives to complete. So far I've always completed them for the experience points but I wouldn't mind seeing how certain characters react when you avoid some of them. I can't describe the choices you get to make without spoiling parts of the game, but suffice to say a sequel based around certain choices would be very interesting (not to mention welcome).

Dungeons and Dragons went very well. The characters got their hands dirty (literally) in enough combat to satiate them for a while. I don't think they will be wandering willy-nilly into any caves without good reason any time soon. They had very lucky dice rolls when they were fighting the choker and the dire weasels (although they ran away from the main dire weasel nest "Oh no... it's dire! Flee!") and even more fortunate rolls when avoiding the Vargouille's kiss. Samulus managed to pocket some loot without the others seeing and everyone is forming ideas around the mysterious events surrounding the village. I think they will enjoy the next adventure and that it will be tailored more towards their abilities. Although combat is fun (adventurers don't spend all their gold on magic swords just for show), we're not going very kick-in-the-door heavy, which is good. I think the group will enjoy role playing more than combat anyway, with fighting here and there to mix things up a little and avoid monotony.