Returning To Normalcy

Merry Christmas.

Happy Holidays.

Happy New Year.

I'm now making this post from Conklederp's iMacpadairintoshBook, although it says MacBook right in front of me.  Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Apple.  I grew up on an Apple //e and every other computer I used until college was some form of Mac, but I digress from my lack of there being a point.

I got my computer back from [Name Omitted] after having spilt a small amount of beer on the keyboard.  I figured the keyboard was shot, due to the H, G, "Up Arrow" and 7 (on the 10 key) not working (and H is part of my password to log on to my computer; at least it was), I just wanted to make sure that nothing else was damaged, even after I performed a fairly thorough cleaning job right after the spill happened.  Turns out that it's just my keyboard that needs to be replaced, which the guy at [N.O.] sounded a little surprised at.  He then quoted me a price that seemed a little high, but maybe that was because I knew what had to be done, knew to do it, and how much a replacement keyboard would cost.  For a moment, it sounded like he was trying to hoodwink me when saying that it would be difficult/costly because of the metal shell that makes up the casing of my laptop, suggested that the keyboard was backlit, which I said it wasn't, then said something about the possible difficulty in removing the keyboard.  I thanked him for his time, paid for the diagnostics and check up that he ran and said I would perform the necessary repairs myself.  I was polite, but knew that I could replace the keyboard, minus the $60 labor fee.

Moving on to gaming now.  I fully admit that I have a weakness for games in a series.  They don't even have to be related to each other, just add a 3 or an VIII and I'm interested.  Bare in mind though, that this doesn't happen with all genres, just mainly RPG's but there are always exceptions.  I feel it'd be pretty obvious that I'm a fan of the Final Fantasy games with the only games that I haven't played are VIII, X, X-2, XI, XIII, XIII-2 and XIV.  I currently have Dragon Warrior/Quest I - VI, VIII and IX.  After playing through Doom 3, I immediately wanted to know about the story from Doom  and Doom 2: Hell on Earth, so I bought those shortly after acquiring a Steam account.  The Baldur's Gate and Diablo series I also love, although I've been resistant to buying Diablo III for reasons that I've gone into before.  I have also yet to play Warcraft III even though I loved the first two games, which is possibly because I've heard about the Orcs not really being evil, I call bullshit on that.  After seeing a lot of Fallout 3 (but not having played it), I really wanted to know what the Fallout series was like, so Vorlynx got me the first three games a couple years back.  Recently with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I fell in love with the world and backstory of events that may have happened in previous games or were never covered.  There was talk among people (as well as books) referring to "the Oblivion Crisis," so after some hunting, I was able to locate and download the first two Elder Scrolls games and only yesterday, purchased Morrowind and Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls III & IV respectively).  There's also the Professor Layton series, of which I need to play Diabolical Box (yes, I know I'm two and-a-half years late) and then get the rest of the series.  And dear god!, The Legend of Zelda series, although with the exception of The Adventure of Link, have avoided using numerals but instead have used subtitles, which is a nice change of pace for any genre.

I have missed this, our little moments together in our little corner of the internet.  I've since ordered a replacement keyboard which will hopefully arrive by the end of the week and will be installed within 10 minutes (as opposed the hour the guy at [N.O.] said it would take) and then I'll be able to get back to my regular routine.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Absence Makes The Heart Wonder Why There's No Beer In The Fridge.

Exploring A Different Side

I feel it somewhere...... and it mostly seems to be this "feeling" in my chest.  Somewhere just below the region of the heart, but not the area of the heart itself.  It's like there's this force threatening to take over.

Enough of the vagueness.  I've always considered myself to be a Console Gamer and in all respective purposes, I have been and still am.  Sure, I've enjoyed playing computer games, but they were never "very" current/cutting edge/ AAA rated/level  games.  

And now, some history of my computer gaming-ness:

The first computer game I remember playing was on a color screen in kindergarten (1985-86), which must have been something special, probably something akin to an Apple IIGS.  It was some Disney point and click game, similar to Shadowgate in that it was a "point-and-click" adventure that involved Mickey Mouse and outer space.  Then in the third grade (1988-89) we had an Apple IIe computer, which is where I was introduced to "classics" such as The Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, Lemonade Stand and Where in the World/USA is Carmen San Diego; these games were all on a monochrome black and green screen.  Sometime around 1991-92 (I don't remember exactly), our family got our first computer, an Apple IIe with a duel floppy drive.  [I believe we received/bought this system (as well as a dot matrix printer) from my aunt and uncle after they upgraded].  The games that came with this computer, from what I remember, were The Hobbit, some kind of Olympic game that may or may not have been Olympic Decathlon from Microsoft, some kind of graphics / drawing program that I was never able to make any sense out of and your basic word processing and spreadsheet program.  Most likely there were some other programs, but I can' remember anything else.

This computer we had until sometime around 1995 when my sister used some of her high school graduation money and bought herself an Apple Macintosh Computer; I believe it was a Macintosh 5215CD running the System 7.5 OS (To add, we had, I think, 8MB of RAM and a 500MB hard drive).  The few games that we had for this computer were Where in the World is Carmen San Diego and The Oregon Trail II.  Again, we probably had some other games at that time, but I don't recall what any of theme were.  Since it was primarily my older sister's computer (which was in my parent's room for whatever reason), I was mainly able to use it for homework assignments, and not too often then.  My letters to colleges when I was applying in 1997, I typed them out on one of our families two typewriters.  Don't get me wrong though, I'm not knocking my upbringing or our lack of serious computing power, I'm just trying to tell a story.

It must have been when I was a junior in high school (1996-97) that I was introduced to Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, with an online demo (we had a 28/8 modem, recently upgraded from a 14/4).  It was the very definition of awesome computer gaming.  Shortly after playing the demo numerous times, I went out to Target and bought the Warcraft Battle Chest, which contained Warcraft: Orcs vs. Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and Warcraft IIx: Beyond the Dark Portal.  I played the ever-living shit out of these games, although never completing either the Orc or Human campaigns in Warcraft II or IIx.  I spent most of my time using the level editor, trying to perfect how the computer controlled its characters and how to create a compelling story.

In late 1998, I bought a Compaq Presario laptop, partly because I wanted a computer that was separate from the one my sister had bought then taken with her that year to SDSU, or maybe she bought another computer for herself and left the old one with my parents; I think that's what happened.  Either way, I wanted my own computer.  Shortly after I played quite a bit with the Diablo demo although never got around to buying the game.  I did buy the PC port of Final Fantasy VII, being the avid Final Fantasy fan, it seemed only natural. Within a year, my computer began experiencing odd issues when I tried installing a DOS D&D game; it was never the same after that.

Jump ahead to around 2002 when I was introduced to Baldur's Gate from my friend Dylan; this was on a Dell something-or-other.  That's all I'm going to say on that, as anyone whose ever played will know how much it can consume your life.  I also went through the sequel Baldur's Gate II: Shadow's of Amn, although I felt it was too linear and it didn't pull me in like the first game.  Then, in 2003, I purchased Neverwinter Nights, which was about the limit of gaming that my then Dell something-or-other (but better than the previous Dell that I had bought with an ex-girlfriend) could play.  I played this quite a bit as well, purchasing the physical expansion packs and like with Warcraft II, tried making my own games/stories.

This was really it for computer gaming until more recently, as in 2006-7 when I played the Bioshock demo on my roommate's (Vorlynx) computer.  I also got through Doom III on Vorlynx's gaming computer back in 2010 before I moved up to Portland.  With my previous netbook, I mentioned in a previous post, that I'd been playing Diablo, Diablo II, Plants vs. Zombies, and Portal.  I got about halfway (maybe?) through the first Fallout game, although I got to a point where I didn't know where I had to go or what to do.  With all this in mind, I've never really considered myself a PC gamer.

Now I have a newer-ish computer (Lenovo Ideapad Z575), I have a Steam account with over 20 games, some from Dr. Potts while others I bought because they looked awesome and pretty (Dear Esther), with Dear Esther and Portal 2 being the most recently released games.  Most of the purchases have been when Steam has a weekend or daily sale with a game being 50-80% off.  

I now have a computer that can handle newer-ish games unlike my consoles, the newest of which is the Nintendo Gamecube.  I do, however, as previously stated, play the DS and PSP a lot and would count those as my primary source of gaming.  I also just bought a Nintendo 3DS last week and am loving the shit out of it

I don't really consider myself a PC gamer, although I'm starting to feel the pull.  And the pull is quite strong.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Grass Is Just A Different Shade Of Green