Street Jousting

So while GTA IV works (initially I had problems with the sound, but managed to find a fix on the game's forums), I'm having a lot of trouble accessing the multiplayer side of it. I've only managed to get onto a single server that hasn't immediately kicked me off. You have been removed from the server. You have been removed from the server. You have been removed from the server.

Why? Is the admin kicking me because he doesn't want more players? If that's the case then why leave a game open? Or is there some sort of auto-kick for certain latencies? If so then perhaps this problem won't be a problem forever. Since I've only just aquired Internet access from Tiscali, my connection speed is jumping around all over the place while they stabalise the speed. Or something like that anyway.

Things are much clearer on the PC, and although I haven't set the graphics to maximum it still looks impressive. The video editor will take some practise to get used to. I made a very short clip of the swingset of doom but it's nothing to write home about and I was just playing with the editor to get my bearings.

And yet, I find myself wanting to play Mount & Blade. I've hired myself out as a mercenary captain to the king of the Vaegirs, who is at war with the king of the Nords. Recently I helped (read: single handedly) break through the defences of a Nord castle to claim it for the kingdom of the Vaegirs. Unfortunately the Vaegir king has now been captured by the Nords. I have no idea where he is and I only have a small number of men compared to most of the Nordic lords.

The last time I played Mount & Blade I made a big tactical mistake. I was given perhaps one of the best possible tactical advantages in terms of starting position. I was on one side of a very wide river with a cliff face to my left and open ground to my right. I placed my archers on the clifftop overlooking the river, and my infantry on the riverbank protecting the slope leading up to my archers and ready to spear my sea raider opponents as they struggled out of the water. Then, while the sea raiders were struggling through the river and getting peppered with arrows, I ordered my cavalry to charge the sea raiders' flank. Forgetting that the sea raiders were, of course, still in the river. The result was that my cavalry lost virtually all of their momentum in the river and didn't really help at all. In fact, several of my high-level cavalry units got killed.

I managed to win two tournaments though, so my honour and renown has gone shooting up, allowing me to hire more recruits from the nearby villages.

I still have The Witcher to complete. I'm right at the end and I still have the expanded stand alone adventures that come with the Enhanced Edition to play. The only thing is that the last three "boss" characters I fought were incredibly tough. One of them killed me four or five times before I was able to figure out which combat style was best, balance my potion, oil, and sign use, and get lucky with the damage dealt/taken during the battle. Now the game seems like it's going to just be combat, combat, combat all the way to the end. What I loved most about The Witcher was the character development, the darkness of your surroundings, and the sturdiness of the system. Towards the end of the game it feels like a lot of the things that make The Witcher special have been wasted.

Like Crysis when you're put into a tank. A soldier can use a tank just as well as a super soldier in a nanosuit. Your stealth, speed, armour, and strength enhancements do nothing for you while you're stuck with the limitations of a tank. The tank doesn't become invisible, it can already knock down walls and kill people by running them over, your suit can't make it go any faster, and it doesn't get more armour just because the driver is bulletproof.

Oh well. I really should just complete it before I forget how to play it.