Robot therapy needs more cookie platters.

Thank fuck it’s Friday. I had the Monday off to recover from Blizzcon (mostly from the retarded hours it’s shown here – it’s like Live Stream jetlag) but I swear the universe, or more specifically, karma has decided that it would draw this week out as much as possible to make it feel like a full working week. Well. I hope your happy karma, mission accomplished – my week has been shit. Anyway, back to the more important stuff.

Last night, I playing a bit of the old Portal 2, CO OP! After clearing the level we had previously been bashing our robotic heads against the non-portal-surface wall, we cleared it and then came to the ‘in between’ level. Let me just say, I love references. And when I stumbled across a portal robot arm in a glass case (ala Terminator), I thought that was pretty fucking awesome. Until 30 seconds later. When I walked past an office window and saw a workstation with a turret placed in the chair. A turret. In a chair. At a computer desk. …winning! But we were progressing pretty decently considering neither of us are major puzzle solvers, mostly RTS for me and FPS for him. And WoW. So yeah. Good considering the circumstances. We found test chamber 8 and whilst brute forcing out way through it, a strange thing occurred – one I never thought possible. I was getting my run up on the orange speedy goo, about to go into a portal and fly to the other side of the room when my co-op partner (and I use the term ever so lightly) shifted his portal at the last second which resulted in two things.

First thing, I think I kinda broke the game by being half in the portal and the wall at the time and as such, not only did my marshmallow robot body smash into the wall at breakneck speed, but secondly, after being half into a portal that was about to reorientate me and throw me across the entire room, m P-Body Aperture Science Testing Robot had a seizure. Now I mean a full blown, epileptic shaking all over, monitor-can’t-keep-up seizure. So I’m sitting her going ‘Aaahhhh what the fuck is going on, I’m having a seizure, holy shiiiit’ and slowly but surely, trying to walk around with my robot tripping out, it gets closer and closer to that giant pool of robot melting acid. I fall in. I have mixed emotions. On one hand, I died, that sucks. On the other hand, I died, so that should clear up the seizure thing. That’s good.   -_-   That’s not what happened. I fall out of my robot reconstruction tube and my robot seizure apparently has the ability to cross time and space and deconstructed robots. So after another twenty seconds of watching my robot flail around and listening to my co-op partner laughing so hard he’s crying, I threw in the towel and went and finished my Bioshock 2 save.

True story.

Et Tu, Alexander?

Well, considering that Every other time I have tried to update this blog it has started in massive enthusiasm and then a day later it has pretty much taken a nose dive and exploded on a mountain face in a horribad combination of flame and twisted metal. That aside, I think now, I still have no clue what I want this blog to be. A release, a gaming blog, a vent for my stress, a place to put my thoughts into word – hell, probably all of those things combined in a giant katamari ball o’ hybridness (yes that’s a word now).

So, without further ado, I present to you the new Dread Cake blog! *insert triumphant orchestra music here* Taa-Daa!

Let’s start this off with a confession of sorts. I…am a World of Warcraft  junkie. Now, when I say junkie, I don’t mean to compare myself with the decrepit, down-on-his-luck rail thin guy slumped in the corridor of a crack house type of junkie, but more of the chubby kid in school who sucks in knowledge like it’s water and he’s a sponge. Yes, a lore junkie. I started with Warcraft III and moved on (eventually I might add. About halfway through Burning Crusade to be precise) to World of Warcraft. To actually set foot in the Dead Scar and travel along the same path that the Scourge took to Quel’thalas is crazy loregasmic for me. I see the site where Grom killed Mannoroth and see the pitlord’s broken blade suspended in time or to actually be able to stand in the throne room of the fallen kingdom of Lordaeron and see the dried blood on the floor and hear the whispers of past events play out is just…amazing. Anyway, I think you get the point. I like WoW. I also like DKs.

I’m also in IT, so I deal with morons at work (which I’m sure I’ve mentioned in previous posts) and I deal with morons in WoW. No respite, for that would be the easy path and karma does not want me to go down it. I have a personal grudge against karma, it and I do not get along and it is constantly tried to screw me over, yet somehow, no matter how bad it is, I manage to scrape through and get along with life.

Anyhoo, in other news, ended up getting the ‘Bolter’ special edition of Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. I mildly regret that now. Let me extrapolate my meaning. With most games that I end up getting ‘Collector’s Edition’ or “Limited Edition’ versions of, I do it for the extra material included within. Take Halo 3 for instance. It came in a special black tin case with a special features dvd, a book with Conversations from around the Galaxy, and another one that had a Forerunner type catalogue of the Halo species (which I loved by the way). All very nice. Some Collector’s Editions give you extra items in-game, like the Mass Effect 2 one, which included a full set of armour and a superweapon of sorts. All very nice. Which brings me to the Space Marine Bolter [read: Collector’s] Edition. You get a golden chainsword and bolter. A simple glance or even a full read would both come to the same conclusion: you can gun and cut down orks with awesome looking weapons. If you thought that, like I did, then you would be wrong. Not only are these weapons not usable in the campaign, they have the exact same stats of their counterparts in multiplayer. The only difference is the skin of the model. Personally, I feel a little dirty about this. If I get a collector’s edition, I want something that makes it stand apart from the normal versions. What’s the point of having something if you cannot show it off? But, that’s just my own opinion.

Methinks I have gone somewhat overboard for a simple ‘hey, I’m still doing stuff with this blog’ post. But you get that.

Catch you on the flip side.

AJW III