The third iteration of the recreation location

AKA PS3.

I got one. You know how everybody talks about system sellers? Gran Turismo is the defintion of that. I bought a PS3 exclusively for Gran Turismo 5. As some of you might have noticed, I like cars. Gran Turismo is the best racing simulator that doesn't charge exorbitant monthly fees. Also, it's the prettiest racing simulator out there. As a result, $350 was a small price to pay.

I'll skip the boring gushing over the game because I know y'all don't really care. Interesting story though: I tried to become a racing driver. GT5 has a tournament going on where the top 8 compete on a real track to become a driver for the GT5 team (there's a real racing team sponsored by the game). It goes round by round. The first round, the top 128 in each region moved on. The way the tournament worked, you do laps at three tracks, and the best combined time wins. The first day, I spend about 30 minutes on each track, and I end up ranked about 600. Not bad. In fact, I'm pretty psyched. The next day, I work exclusively on one track, improve my time, and move on to the next one the next day. After about a week, I was ranked about 160th in my region, and pretty excited about the progress I was making. On one track I was in the top 100.

Then school happened. 🙁 For a week and a half, I didn't touch the game. With 3 days left (it was a Saturday), I log on to see I've dropped to 230th. That's huge. I feverishly worked to improve my times (I probably spent 10 hours that weekend on one damn track) to no avail. I was simply making progress far too slowly. I ended up around 180th–way outside the top 128. Oh well.

On the plus side, I know those three tracks like nobodies business, and can absolutely thrash anyone on them using lesser cars. It makes my brother rage, haha.

The Superior Gaming System

AKA PC.

I picked up Mass Effect 2 during Stem's holiday sale. For those of you who are too lazy to read the whole blog, here's the TL;DR version of the following section:

ME2 is awesome. Surprise

First off, DAMN this game is pretty.

Second, DAMN, Miranda Lawson is sexy.

Third, DAMN, the girl she was modeled off of is sexier.

Now, onto the game. The FPS aspect is pretty easy. I guess when you're used to reasonably high level CS:S play, AI on a game designed with consoles in mind aren't very challenging. The RPG aspect is really well done. On the easier modes, it doesn't matter much. However, at higher levels, who you use and how you use their skills becomes very important.

The conversation tree that everyone goes gaga over I found very underwhelming. It basically works like this: questions that give you more info about what's going on go to the left. On the right, the top is the Paragon (good guy) choice, the middle is neutral, and the bottom is Renegade (bad ass) choice. You basically choose whether you want to be a Paragon or Renegade and that dictates how you answer stuff from then on. Trying to do both doesn't work well as a lot of quick action events and response depend on your Paragon or Renegade level being high.

The setting is where this game really shines. The galaxy is really fleshed out and immersive. You've got all these planets, races, and organizations with unique and interwoven stories. Not only that, but they use this setting to motivate movement within the plot. Your movement around the galaxy allows for various locations that are all beautiful. Mass Effect 2 has some of the best use of particle and lighting effects that I've seen in a game. Aside from a few muddy textures, it's really hard to find any flaws in the visual presentation.

IRL

I'm back in school taking courses with names that would freak most of you out.

Dynamics
Materials
Properties of Solids
Thermodynamics
Statistics for Engineering

It's really not that bad.

I've been reading this in my spare time:

I know half of it already, but most of that was though oral presentation, and it's nice to have it in print.

I've got about *counts* 3 1/2 girls who've currently expressed interest in me. I need to make up my mind quickly, or it could get ugly. Considering the last two girls I was involved with never got past the first date, I'm trying to do this in a way where I can leave other girls as a plan B and C for a month or so. I can generally tell if they're going to be the crazy type by then. Just to make things clear, I'm not leading them on. I've been doing my best to keep things platonic, but the flirting on their side is pretty obvious, so I know it's only a matter of time before they make their respective moves.

That's about all for now.