Ugly Weather

Today, the weather in Vancouver was horrible. It snowed most of the day but with positive temperatures so it was more like melting snow. The streets were covered in slush and there were puddles everywhere. Trees were all weighed down and breaking. It was just bad. It's all just about melted now, which is good. Vancouver weather is so unpredictable.

Today I didn't really do all too much, as I should have. I went out to meet a friend to pick up a CD with a game engine on it. He wants me to be the level designer for the company he is hoping to create with a friend. I have to install this and start learning it, pronto. That was my plan for today but I actually didn't get around to installing it yet. I can't believe myself. Instead what I did was play video games.

I played Metal Gear Solid 3 for a couple of hours today and then after I got stuck at a hard part, switched over to Ookami. MGS3 is a really really nice looking game for PS2 and I really like how they have so much story involved. It isn't all just gameplay gameplay gameplay (though I am a lover of gameplay). There are parts of the game where it stops the game and has story for 10 and sometimes even 20 minutes at a time. It's great, its like playing through a movie. Very well done. The gameplay on the other hand is a tad bit frustrating to be honest. The game is obviously made for people who like to wait and sneak. I like to sneak but only to a certain extent. There are four "modes" that Snake can be in while playing. "Alert" which is when the enemy has spotted you, which lasts for 99 seconds (but usually quickly goes down once you've hidden yourself). "Evasion" which is after you've hidden yourself well and they're still looking for you. That lasts for 99 seconds as well (but also can be sped up if you have hidden yourself REALLY well). Then theres "Caution" which lasts for 99 SLOW seconds (by slow I mean every second in the game is about equivalent to 1.75 regular seconds)... this mode does NOT speed up if you've hidden yourself well. You have to wait for the entire 99 game-seconds to finish. It takes about 3 minutes-ish for this to finish. So all this time together can take up to 5 minutes before its totally safe to proceed in the game. Highly annoying. Also the enemies are really smart and if one sees you, you might as well just die and start from the last load point. Its possible this might change later in the game, but for now its annoying. The last mode is just the regular mode that you're in for most of the game. I got stuck at this part with landmines and whatnot and it was quite upsetting so I just shut the game off and turned on Ookami.

I played Ookami only for about an hour and 1/2 or so. Didn't get too much further either, but at least I didn't run into any problems or annoyances while playing. Ookami is everything its made out to be so far. I'm really loving it. Not too much to say about Ookami... I have no complaints, I'm not stuck, and I haven't got far enough to talk too much about what I like most. So in the future ^_^

Right now the wind is blowing like mad. Seriously... wtf is wrong with Vancouver's weather. Our living room windows are buckling. *sigh*