Month: February 2018

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Pre-order Baits

The wonderful temptation of pre-ordering games online is an excellent venus fly tray I’ve avoided for years.  Gamers are baited with extra goodies for parting with their cash as an early adopter of the title.

As a rule, I never do this but for FarCry 5 I’ll make an exception rather than a habit of it.

Money or your life

Streamers, however, are pulled into this to boost their viewing and subscriber numbers and people naturally want to see the actual gameplay before diving in.  I didn’t catch a Beta for FarCry 5 but already had some hands-on gameplay at a Gaming conference late last year; the look and feel is awesome.

Of course, the pre-order options are more attractive for the digital version so you are literally playing on Hour One of the new release.  Predictably, the very same title will be available for 30-40% lower a few months later.

On sale already?
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Disaster recovery

It’s never gonna happen but when you are hit with a major digital failure it’s always good to where your data is.

Despite having a fairly robust set-up it’s really hard to stay focused and not succumb to the emotional inconvenience of an IT failure.  It always happens when you are busy, traveling and distracted with real life.  Individuals seldom practice the scenario and companies are on high alert standby to fleece you of any hard earning monies to fix the issue.

“everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. Mike Tyson

Titan Attacks! Did you Back-up today?
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Pain tolerance

It’s been over a year since my last tooth extraction.  It took two burly male dentists to get those sucker teeth out of my head.  Leading up to the operation the pain was so bad I couldn’t think or walk properly.  I cried daily to myself.

The memory pain faded pretty fast as I pushed it deep in the past…but sometimes it’s good to remember the pain, learn from the pain.

What the “bleep-bleep” is that for?

You ruined my life and I hate myself for allowing it to happen, I failed with blunt indecision but not anymore. Rationalisation comes with plenty of unintended consequences, no more playground fun, no more “why” questions and it’s all so quiet now.

I’ve started on a new study path that will take me 6 to 8 months to complete.  After that, it’ll be academically satisfied for till 2020.

No meds today, no pain today

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Digital Blood sports

In less than 3 days the Second Life effect has kicked in.  Playing The Division as a 4 player squad commits you in a different way than any single player game ever could.  Firstly, there is the session commitment where it would not good form to quit unexpectedly.  Unfortunately, this is often the case if you pay attention to your physical life and a 2-3 hour session is broken in the middle of a mission so you can bath the cat WTF.

Skill level

A strong feeling of ‘must do better’ strokes your ego as you seek to improve your abilities and skills so you can bring a brilliant experience to the team.

Enough is enough

Knowing when to stop as a team without bad feelings is key as well as actually playing with like-minded people.  Of course, this just relates to titles where you have full voice chat enabled.

Lost in the crowd

Titles like Star Wars BattleFront give you the mass experience when 20+ players can jump in and out of games without it really getting too personal.

Warping space and time

There’s a real distortion of your physical world and you could easily miss important events like Weddings and such.

Heading back to my safehouses

For now, I’m deleting The Division to focus on more self-paced titles.

Slept in the daytime, no meds today

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Carry me

I jumped back into Tom Clancy’s The Division after seeing that one of my high talent streamers was in the early ranks.  Joining a squad is the best way to succeed in this title and even though I have fairly decent guns and gear it felt like I was being carried up the Dark Zone ranks.

There are so many areas IRL that I need to be carried.

At times the sheer weight of being the decision maker all the time is simply too much.  I gladly followed the squad leader into battle and occasionally performed well enough for team mission success. Back IRL I’m using new strategies and staying healthy.

Tom Clancy’s The Division – trying to avoid getting melted

Get off my back, I can’t carry you anymore