Thrawn's Desertion

First off, let me apologize that getting up the Youtube videos of PAX items is taking Sooooo long. I keep forgetting I need to chop the important ones into less than 15 minute pieces, and I have not yet figured out how to do it yet on my brand new laptop. Right now, the most realistic timeline is sometime between Sunday and Tuesday of next week. Sorry for the delay. Over the next few days I'll be hanging out with my friend Stefan, and I have some writing left to do for x360a, so those items take priority over wrangling with Youtube.

My first PAX preview, for Portal 2's coop, is done and will be posted after it's been reviewed and any necessary revisions have been made. Tomorrow I aim to finish Comic Jumper before heading off to Wisconsin. Stefan is on notice though that we'll have to take some breaks in our chilling so I can spend some time writing features. Since he has nursing liscensing exams to study for, it'll just be like the old college days when we both had homework.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a new computer, and this is the first post to come from it. This computer is about 100,000x faster than by dying Gateway. I got 5 years out of that machine, so it had a good life, but it's performance was beyond slow, and I don't think any amount of tinkering would fix it. Plus, I really wanted a rig that could run Starcraft 2 and Final Fantasy XIV anyway, so I'm trading up. I still need to extract valuable data from the old computer, so it's not gone yet.

While typing up the Portal feature, I was installing the initial complement of games for my new PC, and updating Raptr with my new accounts. For some reason though, my PC hours are coming up as raptrguest6553209 for the profile, and not ThrawnOmega. Is there any way to fix this?

I now have the following games for my PC:

Starcraft 2: I LOVED the original, despite constantly losing online. The sequal has some amazing social options, looks to have a robust multiplayer (haven't tried it yet), and has about a billion achievements. Sure, they won't pad my gamertag, but achievements are achievements. I'll eventually go for them, but for now I'm just starting to enjoy the campaign, as I'm a fan of Starcraft's story.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (Gold Edition): I got the game with its expansion, for a potential 2,000 achievement points that WILL show on my gamercard. I'm going to dig into the RTS genre more as I enjoy them, but not on consoles (exception Halo Wars).

Sins of a Solar Empire: I hear great things about this RTS and its epic scale. It's a steal at $20.

Quantum of Solace: I got this as PAX swag, and it's 1000 achievement points, and can stack with the 360 version. So, if people need to do the MP for the PC version, I'm an eligible candidate.

Sword of the Stars: Ultimate Edition: Got a code to download this game for FREE as more PAX swag. Haven't tried it yet. It's another RTS.

Deus Ex & Deus Ex: Invisible War: I downloaded these two titles off of Steam for a total of $20. The first is perhaps my favorite game ever and I've never yet had the chance to play the second. Despite not getting achievements for them (yes I'm actually gaming without any regard for getting gamerscore!), I hope to have both completed before Human Revolution releases. Deus Ex is pretty fugly by modern standards, but the gameplay is as solid as ever.

Vampire: The Mascarade: Bloodlines: I loved this vampire-themed RPG, and have played it several times, though never quite got to the end. It always chugged alon on my older computers, but now I have a rig that can run it easily. This time I should get to see how it ends. GREAT storytelling, and how quests and the story turned out depend on the choices you make. Looking forward to diving back into this one as well.

SO, I forsee a lot of PC gaming in the near future. Of course, I won't be completely abandoning my 360. I just rejoined Gamefly in an effort to reduce my game spending in the long-term (by renting instead of buying as much), so I'll have games to play from them, plus there's arcade games like Comic Jumper and Hydrophobia to look forward to. Oh, and that Halo game that's coming next week...

Over the next month, it'll be interesting to see how my gaming trends change, add in the fact that I'm going to get more forceful (as in trying a lot harder, not being a pushy douche) in my efforts to break into the game industry, and I have no idea how my gaming time is going to be effected. Expect to watch my completion percentage drop even further into the toilet (not that I care very much) as I just jump from game to game, playing whatever strikes my fancy at the time.

In other words, I'm about to turn into Silva...