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There has been so much time between now and my last post that I don't really know where to start or how much to write. Nothing dire or especially important, but a lot of stuff.

Well let's start with Dark Heresy. The campaign is going really, really well. The players are enjoying it much more than Dungeons and Dragons and the storyline just flows so much more readily. I'm sure a large part of that is the setting and system being so much better, but also I think I learned some valuable lessons while DMing for Dungeons and Dragons. Bob was visiting his family for Christmas and asked if he could join in for a game or two while he was in town. Of course, I've been planning the storyline around two acolytes, not three, so plonking another character into the players' midst in the middle of the game isn't very easy. Still, we kind of did it.

Sam's guardsman character just spent his last coin on a combat shotgun and has decided that Drive (Ground Vehicle) isn't actually the worst and most useless skill on his list. In fact, I think he has rolled more Drive (Ground Vehicle) tests than Tech Use. Nick's character just bought a laspistol but I don't think he's managed to hit anything with it yet. The largest weapon the characters have used so far is an industrial tractor which killed a building. They also managed to avoid dozens of alternative means of taking down a grox while avoiding combat, and instead just filled it with shotgun shells (this was before the combat shotgun; both characters were using very basic weapons).

Nick introduced me to Mount & Blade, a free indie-developed game which smells like Sid Meier's Pirates! with a side of Medieval: Total War, seasoned with Age of Chivalry. I've only played a little bit of it and my first few characters were taken prisoner (i.e. I lost a battle but the game felt like being nice to me rather than killing my character off) far too many times. The combat mechanics are really good; momentum plays a big, big part in dealing damage to your opponent (so of course, being on horseback gives you a massive advantage); shields get smashed and broken by axes, but can be covered with a forest of arrows; you can ally yourself with so many knights and nobles, raid villages and turn yourself into a villain; and, most awesome of all, trot slowly through peasant villages admiring the sun setting over fields of crops.

Unlike Pirates! or Freelancer, Mount & Blade allows you to physically wander through villages, towns, and castles to recruit warriors, discover the latest gossip, and buy provisions. Oh, and don't think that the village blacksmith will sell you a new sword or some sort of magical armour, oh no; Mount & Blade is much more realistic than that. Peasants have no gold to give you in return for looted weapons and armour, they don't make or sell weapons; but you can buy food (to raise your party's morale) and the like from them. You can also buy cattle, the only use I have so far found for cattle is giving the cows to another village in order to help it expand.

Prince of Persia was great. The style was different from the Sands of Time trilogy, but unlike many small-minded and intolerant gamers out there, that didn't phase me one bit. Elika's presence provided another dimesion to the way the game worked. She very rarely gets in your way, and when she does the results are never lethal. The game's way of saving you from death did not actually make me cringe at all. In fact, when I was playing Gears of War 2 with Sam (we completed all fifty levels of Horde mode, although to my shame it was on Casual difficulty because we were getting destroyed on Hardcore; don't even ask about Insane) I kept thinking that having some automatic return to checkpoint system would save so much time rather than continually being prompted with "reload to last checkpoint or quit?" over and over (in the campaign I mean, not on Horde mode). Speaking of Gears of War 2, the Dom/Maria cinematic (linked video contains spoilers - you shouldn't even consider watching that video if you are playing Gears 2) half way through the game was really, really good. Proper drama.

Anyway, the ending of Prince of Persia was actually really good. It was very, very cleverly done. There was a built up to it that you never saw coming until it was too late. The twist was appreciated. I haven't found all one-thousand-and-one light seeds yet, but I'm playing the game a second time because I enjoyed it so much the first time around, so this time I'll keep an eye out for them. Besides, the banter between the Prince and Elika is very entertaining. Oh, and Ubisoft did themselves proud by avoiding horrible DRM software (I'm looking at you EA!) with Prince of Persia. I won't be getting Dead Space for PC, regardless of how awesome it looks, if I am limited to the number of installs I can run on it while people pirating the game will just download fresh counterfiet versions of the game for free if they run out of installs.

And in real-world (boo, hiss) news; I almost slipped up on the way to work yesterday due to the icy conditions. We saw snow and the snow saw us. The school's caretaker is running low on grit and doesn't have a proper spreader to spread it with (I think he just has to use a spade). So my bike's tyres were spinning like crazy but had absolutely zero traction no matter how gently I manipulated the throttle. Eventually the caretaker arrived to help me push the bike out of the way of any traffic moving through the carpark. Still, it was unnervingly sketchy for a moment and if one of the schoolbusses hadn't pulled up to let kids out in front of me, I might not have been so lucky to see the icy patch dead ahead.

On its way out, one of the busses locked its front wheels on the ice. I thought a collision was due by the driver was lucky/deft enough to stay out of trouble. I suppose he must have Drive (Ground Vehicle) too.