Posts Tagged ‘video games’

Next week, on Avitable.

Friday, January 30th, 2009

Since I've spent 40 hours of the last week doing nothing but playing Assassin's Creed, I haven't had much time to prepare some of the posts that I wanted.

In the next week or so, I plan to do the following:

1. Write a ghost hunting post about my experiences at the haunted bed & breakfast in Ocala.
2. Do a product review for a sex toy that I received.
3. Plagiarize the brilliant plagiarism idea that my friend Shiny is doing. Seriously, if you haven't seen what he's done this week, go check it out. It's genius.
4. Rule the world.

I'm optimistic that I'll get at least 75% of my list done.

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I wonder if I committed a felony last night?

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

For 14 days, I tried to play Grand Theft Auto IV unsuccessfully. The game wouldn't load, or I kept getting this obnoxious "RESC10" error and all I kept reading on gtaforums was that the idiots at Rockstar were working on a patch.

While the concept of releasing a product that is incapable of being played on 50% of the machines out there, especially the higher end ones, is abominable, I didn't return the game for a refund. I waited for the patch. And waited. And almost gave up.

At long last, on Monday, the patch was released. I installed it and rebooted my computer. As I waited for my computer to restart, I told my employees not to expect to be able to talk to me for a while, plugged in my headphones, and got ready.

"Fatal Error (RESC10 = Video out of memory)"

It took a lot of willpower not to pick my computer up and throw it out the nearest window. Instead, I started poring through different forums and reading what everyone was trying. Editing the command line parameters for loading the game, downloading strange registry-altering software, buying a new video card – I contemplated them all and actually tried some of the attempts that I was positive wouldn't fry my computer.

I swear that when I actually found the combination that worked, a light from the heavens shined down on my computer and I heard angels sing. I could finally play GTA IV!

Yesterday, I played pretty much non-stop from 9 AM until 8 PM, at which point hunger necessitated a run out to get food.

After spending almost 12 hours driving at top-speed in a fully-immersible, extremely realistic environment without any physical repercussions to actions like smashing into other cars, driving over pedestrians, and driving in the oncoming traffic lane for fun, I got in the car to go to a restaurant.

Without getting too specific, let's just say that speeding was the least of the moving violations I actively and happily performed last night. In a distance of less than a mile, I'd say that I probably broke about six or seven laws and had I gotten pulled over, I cannot say with any certainty that I wouldn't have led them on a high-speed chase just for fun.

Maybe I was better off when the game didn't work.

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Grand Theft Autoerotica

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

As some of you may have gathered, I can be a bit obsessive compulsive about things (gum, hand wash, toilet paper, diet coke, hotels). One of those things is video games.

Currently, I'm impatiently awaiting the release of GTA 4 for the PC. I refuse to play it on a console, mainly because I don't own any of the consoles for which it was released, but also because I vastly prefer PC games to console games.

Since I wanted to play GTA, I decided to break out the old Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and play that again. My obsessive nature kicks in because when I start a video game, I have to beat it. I cannot stop playing in the middle of it. This makes it difficult when it's such an open-ended game like GTA, which can take 60-80 hours just to get through the main story.

For the last two weeks, I've slacked on my blogging and even a bit on my working because I can't stop playing, and this culminated in a weekend-long GTA orgy where I finally finished the game on Sunday night, right in time to listen to the Sunday night Blog Talk Radio show block.

I'd like to pretend that only my blogging has suffered during my slackjawed video game time, but I think it's also affected me mentally. Spending well over 80 hours driving around a virtual city at top speed, mowing pedestrians down, sideswiping cars, driving off of embankments and ramps, and gleefully crashing vehicle after vehicle after vehicle until they burn has made it hard for me to focus when I'm driving for real.

Oh, someone's going too slow? Just drive straight into them.

Sitting at a red light? Just run it! You can drive through the cars and push them around.

Traffic at a standstill? Go up on the sidewalk and through the grass! Who cares if a few pedestrians get in the way?

Do you see a car that you like better? Get out of your car, run over, and just pull the driver out. The car's yours now!

As I type this, it's Monday night, and I'm preparing to drive the 20 miles to my favorite drunken gutter slut's house for the evening. If I survive and/or don't get arrested for vehicular homicide, I'll see you tomorrow!

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Posted in General | 47 Comments »