Rediscovering Old Favorites

I took a small peek through my game library to find something to play the other day, to find something rather interesting: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Now, this game was created by Bethesda Softworks in 2008* for Xbox, PS3, and PC, and I have had the pleasure of playing all three versions and comparing/contrasting all the visual differences. Now, no one should be offended by what I'm about to type - it should be rather blatant, actually, and unnecessary to say - but I believe that the best looking of the three is most definitely the PC version. Of course, this all depends on hardware, and that's a thing for perhaps another time.

However, it's continued beauty graphically aside, Oblivion has also aged well in another area I particularly love to see games flourish in: story. Add to this that Bethesda managed to actually merge gameplay and storytelling seamlessly, much like BioWare and it's fantastic lineup of RPGs, and Oblivion makes for one of, if not THE best game of it's year.

As I said, Oblivion has actually aged gracefully in terms of graphical quality; it was well ahead of its time, in my opinion. Almost the entire world is rendered at once, with minimal loading times between certain few areas (and of course, going inside/outside houses and dungeons), achieved by caching some of the data into the hard drive of whatever systems drives that particular copy. So, it's beautiful AND fast to render, which always quite impressed me.

All things aside, Oblivion is a great game, and if you haven't played it, I highly recommend that you do. It's simply an awesome experience.

*Edit: I totally meant '07.

I'm Richard, and I'm a Bungie Fanboy

So, I've finally got in touch (again) with the hiring manager at the place I'm trying to get a job at, and now I have to wait longer for this potential job to either come to fruition or be cast into oblivion. I hate the real world, sometimes. If only things would just work out, how easy would that be? Too easy, likely, but all the same, all of this run-around just makes me want to hurt something.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I'm obviously still sitting out on the release of Halo: Reach, while looking in. I've been trying not to even look at videos beyond the trailers for the game so I don't spoil it for myself. I'm basically willing to sell my soul for a copy of this game, although not so dramatically.

But, while we're on the topic of Reach, I don't think many people who play it will realize what a momentous occasion this truly is for the franchise. And I'm not just talking about it being the precursor to everything that's happened in the series so far; no, this is based solely on the developer, Bungie. Halo: Reach marks the final game that Bungie is making for the series before moving on to their next IP - which is undoubtedly going to be a smash hit, best-selling game. This means, that whatever comes next for the series is more than likely going to feel... well, different somehow. Not the same, at the very least.

Halo was Bungie's baby, from day one. The original RTS version of the game that got transformed into one of the best first-person shooters of this generation (last generation, if you're speaking consoles), that was the catalyst for arguably the best gaming series of the day and age; all of it came on the back of Bungie's excellent core of programmers and writers. The fact that they were able to take their project from real-time strategy and turn it into a workable (read: great) FPS is a testament to their flexibility, which has served them well. But, now it's all over. The trilogy's done, and now, even the prequel has been realized. I, for one, look forward to the next great Bungie game.

Posting Schedule After This Week

Alright, so for future references and for my sanity, I'll be imposing a schedule to which I will update this blog. So, anyone who actually reads this beyond myself, will have ample notice as to when to expect the next big blob of absolute nonsense to be posted on the site, and those who don't, well, won't.

So it'll be like this:

Sunday through Thursday, every day, whenever I can find the time, and I can remember to post things. Friday may or may not happen, depending on whether or not I'm in a rush to head off for Dungeons and Dragons (the real one, the one played with ACTUAL PEOPLE). Saturday is generally a no-go. This be my lazy day.

And there it is. When you can expect me to make a big 'ol fool of myself in semi-public.

As for tonight's post, I don't have much, beyond a short rant about my own stupidity. Awhile ago, I pre-ordered Halo: Reach, much like a lot of other people in the world. I was expecting to actually be employed by the time release date rolled around, but lo and behold, it didn't happen. So now, I'm a very unhappy person. Mostly at myself. GO ME. Let's just hope that I actually get this job by the end of this week. Perhaps that will change my mood. Then again, perhaps not. Moods are very fickle things, you see. More tomorrow, when I should actually have a topic to go off of.

I Believe an Introduction is in Order Here.

Hey, everyone, I'm Richard. Or, probably better known to everyone else on the internet, Python862. I like a lot of things. I like to read, I like to write (more on this later), I like to play video games (again, more on this later), and, I like to shamelessly promote myself on blogs that likely won't see much traffic beyond myself comment-whoring.

Now, when I say I like to write, I mean that I really like to write. It's one of my all time favorite hobbies, and at some point or other, I hope to be published, just like any other aspiring author. What do I write? Fiction, usually high fantasy or something along the lines of fantasy. I even have quite a selection of stories based upon well known properties (you know it as fanfiction), which, conveniently enough, are all posted upon fanfiction-dot-net. You can probably guess the username. However, I've since drifted away from that and am now focusing entirely on original material. Some of which I hope to excerpt every now and again here on this very blog.

I also happened to mention that I enjoy gaming. I'd rate this right behind writing in terms of hobbies, and it would likely explain why I wrote fanfiction for the longest time. I've recently gotten over an addiction (yes, an addiction, for that's what it was) to World of Warcraft, and I feel better for it. So much wasted time, it sickens me. Regardless, I continue to play games on various systems, most notably Modern Warfare 2 (for both Xbox 360 and PS3 - I'm just lucky like that) and the Mass Effect series (much <3, BioWare). So, with that said, I'm quite likely to start off on some sort of tirade on one issue with gaming or another. Just don't get me started with games being an issue for children's mental health - that's always been a topic I've been hot about.

So that's me in a nutshell. I hope that whoever reads this will stick with me for what I hope will be a long, fun ride in the adventures of variety.

Be Happy, everyone.