Well yesterday went well… until I tried to fall asleep.

I woke up at approximately quarter to 11 am and proceeded to get some coffee. I then took out Siren from my PS2 (Sara had been playing it prior to me waking up) and placed MGS3 into my PS2. For the next 9 hours MGS3 did not leave my PS2 and I hardly left my couch.

I stated this morning shortly before turning into a scientist. (That took me longer to remember where I started playing than I thought it would.) I ended the day not knowing exactly why I died.

I am taking in MGS3 slowly. There are points to it that are quite difficult. Most of the time I am just giving the guards a bit too much credit for their new AI and being over cautious. The difficulty is not why I am taking it slow. There is just so much to do in this game it would be a shame to rush the game your first time through, as in life.

The Fear down. So far the hardest of the boss fights. It took 3 lives to get a good tactic down for him. This fight also taught me how to use the motion detector best. I don’t use the battery operated gear a lot. I have only talked to the tech. Guy once over the codec. It just does not feel like a part of the game.

The map does.

I can’t explain why, but the map really works. It is a kind of black and white topographic map that is not very specific. It also is not convenient enough to check frequently. When I do end up looking at the map it is usually if I get turned around in an area after taking a few turns evading enemies. I just points me back in the right direction.

The End down. I was nervous, I had heard many a time from multiple sources that this was an extremely difficult fight. Well I think I pissed him off. While thinking that I was shooting one of those green frog things… I hit the parrot. I actually felt bad for the old bastard in the way he mourned for his bird.

This must have pissed him off.

I ended up putting the scientist outfit back on 2 more times before finishing the battle with The End. It took quite a while because when he only had 1/3 health left my run-around-till-he-shoots-then-hone-in-on-the-sound tactic (surround sound is better than the mic) no longer worked. My wife stopped back about an hour after I made the comment that “I am a bit disappointed, I was told this was difficult ” to ask “well, were you disappointed?” “I am still fighting him so, no.”

The Fury done. I have something to say here, this was too easy. Right off the bat I got hit because I missed a column. I had a total of 3 hits worth of health left. I only got hit that one time. While a cool fight, this was disappointing.

The mountain side was much more challenging.

The mountain side had helicopters and more men than you could throw a stick at. Some of these men had RPGs that really hurt. You also get to eat buzzards, and buzzards get a free lunch from you. But the ladder getting there was better. Then you get tortured. Well first you get to be Raiden, then you get tortured.

The Sorrow. I got to The Sorrow, and not knowing what I am supposed to be doing I just trudged forward. I held these spirits at bay with a fork when out of bullets. Probably should have saved some bullets. Then I get to what is mostly likely the end and hit a … something and just die with about a quarter my health left.

The soldiers are just too corny.

I wish that I could take this part more seriously, but can’t. I think some soldier was moaning about me shooting his dick off and now he is worthless. The ghosts also act like people in a haunted house where the sort of follow you for a bit once you get past them, then give up.

So I ended up saving after going back to the beginning of a fight with a man who has not health and no stamina. “SNAKE!!!!” indeed.

I think I like ellipses too much in my … on line speak. I wonder if I use ellipses in my day to day conversations or if I am just using ellipses wrong. Nope, I am using it right. I know I do not use ellipses in real life as Snake uses them, he has more of a “hrmummhhh” than a …

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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: I saw this flick on Friday night. I have been on a should-have-seen-in-film-crit.-class kick lately. I was not expecting too much, but it usually ends up in a Top XX list somewhere so it went up on my Net Flix queue. I did not only enjoy it, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it. I can not believe that the caliber of acting that Jimmy Stewart gave for this being made in 1939. If you ever want to see a good b&w movie I would put this up there on the top of that list. 3.5 out of 4 stars.

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Well since DW7 is the semi-hot topic around IC and I finally found disc 1 (in Rayman for the PS1… what?) I decided to see if I could regain some interest in it. Well I finished up what I left off doing when the company was still Enix, and found the cure for Pepe. I then went back to the town in the present and got the last Wind Shard… but alas it was not the last wind shard. I missed one somewhere. I think it was in the volcano in current time (I have the Guide Book, and thank god for that). This will be a good test to see if I can rekindle any interest in the game. The test of Shelf VS Rotation!

See this game kept me up a bit later than usual. Till after midnight, which is not bad… unless you have to wake up at 6am for work. But I though, what ever. Then when I got to a good save point I turned it off (Thank you for Playing) and tried to sleep. Well the birds cage got cleaned on Sat and the finches decided to get upset about the placement of their sticks at about 1am… What. The. Hell. I got like no sleep last night and now I have too much work to do on my desk and I can’t wake up.

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One final comment, something that stuck with me but I forgot to work into the flow of the MGS3 bit above. When fighting The End I really got the sense of being “schooled” as a rookie. It really seemed to etch that in my head, now I am just looking for reasons to re-confirm that with the dialog between self and The Boss. See my recolection of MGS and MGS2 story is vauge at best and I only recall certain aspects of it. But enough to put a few peices together early. Man this game is great.