It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

The months of April and May were entirely consumed by insane hours at work, and then recovering from said work. I generally feel like I don’t have time for anything, but it’s not until you seriously do not have even a moment for anything else that you realize how liberating the usual routine can be. I’m finally starting to get back into the rhythm of a normal life. Part of getting back to that routine has been the launch of the Star Trek: The Animated Series Re-Watch, which formally began today with “Beyond the Farthest Star.” I’m really excited about this one, mostly because I don’t know what to expect.

I’ve also had enough free time recently to play some games and watch some TV.  I sort-of-but-not-really beat Batman: Arkham Asylum.  I found the game after the midway point much too difficult for me. I was playing on Normal mode, and even though I knew exactly what to do, I just couldn’t respond quickly enough to defeat the last few bosses. I would sit there, fuming, fingers practically numb, trying again and again and could not do it. I had to have my boyfriend step in and beat them for me. (After much struggle, I should note.) The whole game alternated because really clever and fun (a Batman game that’s about stealth, not combat! Riddles!) and infuriatingly difficult and repetitive. I realized about three bosses in that every single boss fight was exactly the same. Evade, batarang, hit. Evade, batarang, hit. I mean after 20 hrs of that you just want to grab a bat-crowbar and whack everyone on the skull for making you do the same bat-dance a hundred times. I don’t know if it’s just that games have become more difficult as the Halo crowd become the dominant gamer audience, or if I’ve gotten worse, or if I was never any good to begin with, but I find myself struggling with almost every game I play. Here’s hoping the next game fleshes out the detective aspect a bit more and makes combat a little more interesting.

I’m currently half-invested in three other games: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which I suspect I’ll love but just am not interested in playing right now; Star Wars: Force Unleashed, which was really fun at first and has become infuriatingly difficult (see above); and Divinity II: Ego Draconis, a refreshingly old-fashioned fantasy RPG.

I also got three new board games for my birthday (which was last week, whee!): Last Night on Earth (the basic game, unfortunately, is just boring; I’m looking forward to the advanced game); Shadows over Camelot (weirdly difficult, and the resetting of quests casts a shadow [haha] of futility over everything); and the Lord of the Rings board game, which I really loved, even if it took me until the end of the game to figure out how to actually play it. I suspect I’ll warm up to the other two once I get to play them a bit more. Anything is better than the masochistic bender I’ve been on playing Betrayal at the House on the Hill, a game so badly broken we have to make our own house rules for every scenario.

In between I’ve been forgoing movies to re-watch some old television. Rocko’s Modern Life is, sadly, not as good as I remember it, while Daria is as good if not better than I remember. The Stand, I was shocked to discover, has been touched by the sexism fairy, and I had entirely forgotten about the whole magical negro crap that King relies on like a crutch every time. Disappointing, but I still enjoyed it and I miss when network television used to produced actual miniseries. (Which reminds me: I’ve been sitting on the John Adams miniseries for how long?)  I’ve started Dexter and while it took a few episodes to get me into it’s now very addictive. My only complaint is that it’s not really the kind of show I want to watch while I’m either eating or about ready to go to sleep, which is pretty much when I have time to watch things.

The next few months are going to be very busy, so I’m definitely looking forward to the long weekend.

3 Comments

• 

  By bobsandiego, May 26, 2011 @ 7:55 pm

  We have Last Night On Earth in our board games collection but we don’t play it that often. Not because we dislike it but because we tend to play short fast games on our B&C game nights. (Loser gets to select the next game.)
  How mnay people do you genneraly have playing? I might have some suggestions…

• 

  By Torie, May 27, 2011 @ 9:40 am

  I only played it once, the night I got it, and we played with four people. I really think the issue was playing the “basic” game, which is extremely dull, especially for the zombie players. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to play around with it this weekend.

  Any game recommendations from your game nights?

• 

  By bobsandiego, May 27, 2011 @ 2:26 pm

  If your taste for game play includes vicious attacks on fellow players, Cthulhu 500 is one of our favorite games. Tons of Lovecraft puns, easy game play, and plays fast.
  More of a beer & Pretzels game Inn Fighting the game of a Bar Brawl in a D7D tavern is silly fun.
  From Blood and Card Stock games Showbiz Shuffle is a funny game of movie production. (when you have David Duchovny you make a genre film.)
  Out of Print games so maybe you find them on eBay
  Isacc Asimov Presents: Star Traders Lots of SF in-jokes as players rush about filling contract throughout the galacy.
  Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Board Game Simple game, but some love it. One player plays a big bad from the TV shows the rst play Buffy and The Sccobies. Biggest defect, little thinking required. I have played this game stupidly on purpose and stil won.

Other Links to this Post

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment