Been a long while, but that's just me.

Okay so I haven't been on in a while. The game reviews are still under way, but frankly I haven't had the time and/or inclination to do much gaming lately. It is time for an update though, meaning I'm in one of my 'pensive' moods.

Game Space
Not much happening here I'm afraid. I am beta testing another couple of games (can't say which, NDA and all that). I can say one needs alot of work at a concept level and the other is rocking. Not surprisingly, the former has been delayed and the latter is due out soon.
I did pick up a couple cheapo Playstation 2 games. Mark of Kri is a great 3rd person action game except it's nearly impossible to do combos, and you need to do combos. Just more practice I guess.
Final Fantasy X-2 proves why I don't like Japanese RPGs all that much. Confusing but gorgeous, so the animator in me still pays attention. However the actually game play is annoying (a random encounter every 5 feet? c'mon!) and gets me wishing for a fast forward button for the next part of the story...
The third one is Rumble Roses. I am a sick, sick little boy. A mediocre wrestling games with great ... polygons.
And there isn't much coming out that I'm terribly interested in. Since the Big Corps are now taking over the market, well I'm bored with the pablum. There are some people trying to get more organized for the small and mid-sized developer (check out http://www.costik.com/weblog for someone I hope gets huge success. I love reading The Escapist (www.escapistmagazine.com/) as they have some more professional journalistic writing than say, IGN or Gamespy.

Book Space
And for books well, I'm taking a 3d Studio Max course at the local educational instipitution, and lovin' it! I can spend (and have on numerous occassions) 8 hours just playing and experimenting. The class itself is pretty good, covering the basics to get you on your way. Since I want the deep dark secrets I picked up a couple books.

3ds Max 6 Bible: well I've tried 3 of the tutorials and only 1 actually worked as advertised, so I'm not impressed so far. However it's a thick book so I won't write it off yet.

modeling a Character in 3ds Max by Paul Steed on the other hand is a fantastic book. Essentially one long tutorial on how to model the babe on the cover it goes into minute detail on every step with lots of pics. It's also well written and Mr. Steed certainly has a sense of humour. I haven't started the tutorials yet (and may not be able to) but I've read through some chapters and it's exactly what a new 3d modeler needs.

And of course Thud! by Terry Pratchett! Bringing back the Guards of Ankh-Morpork (my favourite) it's a great read, but with most of his later books, you really, really need to read a few to get the background.

Geek Space
Okay like I said, I have been taking classes in 3ds Max. Since they are Saturdays from 9 AM to 4 PM it basically means I have another day of work, but if my other 5 were like my Saturdays, I'd never leave the office. So that's going well.

So my latest addiction is getting ships from WizKids Rocketmen http://www.wizkidsgames.com/rocketmen/. I haven't actually played yet and I've spent waaaaytoo much cash on the cards. On the upside I'm using them as models for creating my own 3ds max models and animations, so I guess I can justify it....

Yeah I'm totally geeking out on this whole animation thing.

Head Space
We with winter approaching fast, I'm slowly degenerating into my Winter Grump (it's early this year). Work is driving me nuts, but since I said I wouldn't post work rants anymore, I'll leave it for the tell-all book. However I have engaged the services of a head-hunter and am following up on contacts with great urgency so I getting my ass in gear instead of just whining (hear that Stray Lemming?). Of course I will continue to whine loudly and publicly at every opportunity.

The other thing is the girlfriend situation. Lately I've been doing alot of soul searching (my Granddad died about a month ago) and I think I'm coming to the conclusion that I want to be a single guy for the rest of my days.

I've tried the whole relationship thing a couple of times (okay 4 times) but the awful truth is that:
1) I don't want kids. Not just "I'm not in a place right now where I want kids" I mean I neverwant kids. Actually considering getting the boys snipped in that cause. I like kids, as long as they are not mine and wrecking my place. Besides, I'm 37, a tad late in my view.
2) I don't want to get married. I mean I've been to all seven of my parents' weddings (counting the one to each other twice) and frankly the whole marriage thing seems outdated to me.
3) I like living alone. My own space, my own stuff, and my own money. Relationships are expensive and with the current GF back at school I'm paying for everything. Add on top of that, she wants to buy a place together the day she graduates. She'll be neck-deep in debt, looking for work and she's hinted that if she gets a job out of town, I'm expected to follow.

And I know that sounds close-minded.

Lately I've been feeling that everyone wants something from me, but when I ask for something, it's not convenient, or not do-able right now. It's boiled down to 'I'll do what you want as long as you leave me alone after'. And that never actually happens in real life.

Like I said, the winter blues and blowing hard and fast from the north.

So yeah winter is coming, I'll be indoors more so I'll probably update this once in a while (I know, you've heard it all before).

Anyway, last load of laundry is done, have fun!

DM