Finished the last of the Lost Empires group books and am moving on to the Th Threat From the Sea trilogy. The First book is called Rising Tide.

From the back cover

From the murky depths of the Shining Sea rises a prehistoric menace who commands a rising tide of invasion to crash over the shores of Faerūn.

Iakhovas has plotted for long, bitter years to regain the powers that were torn from him by an angry goddess. Now, nothing will stand in his way, and the face of Toril will never be the same again.

Oblivious to the growing danger of the undersea civilizations, the surface world is about to awaken to a new horrifying threat from the sea.

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On the gaming front I beat God of War 2 like a week or so ago. I was pretty happy with the ending and how it sets up GoW3. Been playing Forza 2 on the 360 and Pikman on my Wii lately. both are cool.

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E3 2008 is over as you know and the word is pretty uneventful. Will there even be another next year? The cry for a return to form seems to be getting louder this year from the inside. Bring it back to the people!

Anyway despite my view of the Sony press conference it seems the roundtable disscussion some journalists were privy to afterwards was much better and oh yeah I still want one and hope to have a PS3 this year.

So much reading to do in school so not enough time to do a rundown pf the E3 press conferences as I did in the past.

First I thought MS's was the best. The had most games that were in real time and the more impressive announcments. FF13 helped a a lot.

Nintendo's was fun to watch as usual but nothing spectacular. That add on the the Wiimote if it works should be helpful with the accuracy problem. Looking forward to the new Wii Sports game and Animal Crossing too.

Sony,....*sigh*. Lat year I seem to rememeber I thought Sony had much improved and maybe even had the best show, don;t remember exactly. This year,.....not so much. In fact I found it pretty boring. Resistance is ok I guess. I haven't yet played the first but I always thought it looked pretty mediocore and this didn't look muh better. I do want God of War 3 but yeah that trailer was not very good. And MAG,....Ok here is the thing Sony now has 3 titles that are focussing on online play heavily, all FPS and two them seem to feature no single plaer experience at all (SOCOM and MAG), I just don't know how well this stuff will work on a console,..any of them. Fact of the matter is these types of games have been done before and are actually a dying breed as games like Quake and Unreal have shown they are just not selling well any more. And worse large team based games almost never do all that great on consoles because that is stuff of the truely hardcore FPS player, many console gamers like to solo rather than work together. I don;t know though maybe it will be different but I still don't see any these becoming mass market big time sellers.

Oh and on a side note I was pretty impressed with EA's stuff. What change huh? Probably the best I have seen from EA in awhile lineup-wise because it wan;t so sequal focussed or filled with me-too games.

So I forgot to mention that I finished my schooling for my associate degree about 2 weeks ago. I only got about a week of rest though since I was still in the hospital for one of those weeks and now as of today its back to the grind witht he beginning of my bachelors degree program in IT/software engineering.

I finished Star of Cursah last night and it ending up being way better than I though it would be. Anyway though I have moved on next to the last of the Lost Empires series of books, The Nether Scroll.

From the back cover....

Ansoain has been murdered, and her son Galimer taken hostage.

Druhallen, a young magic user, must avenge the murder of his teacher and rescue her son from dubious fate. But not everyone is telling Druhallen the truth.

Druhallen and his companions must brave the ruins of Dekanter to find a missing artifact...

The Nether Scroll.

Without the Nether Scroll Galimer may die. With it Druhallen may go mad.

What lurks in the darkest corners of the haunted Weathercote Wood? A race for the possession of one of Faerūn's greatest artifacts is on, and the Beast Lord himself is in the running!

A young magic-user sets out to avenge the murder of his teacher and save her son from a similar fate. Facing evil and treachery, he must brave the ruins of Dekanter to find a missing artifact that might be a clue to the source of all magic in the Forgotten Realms.

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I did by the way get started back on trying to get through God of War 2

Not a fun month friends. I have since last month been in and out of the hospital,...mostly in really with reoccuring pancreatitis. The main treatment for this is pretty much starve you to lets the irritation go down since there is little else they can do. In my case they pulled a few meds that weren;t the problem first, then my gall bladder and finally it seems after that didn't work they went back to meds may have gotten it right this time. Things were compicated by me also haveing C.diff and ulcerative colitis to boot. During my stay I finished my last book and started a a new one called Star of Cursurah.

From the back cover...

Lurking in the ruins is a horrific tale of greed, power, and revenge.

The Protector crawls forth, the shade of a dead city whose rulers refuse to die, and young companions in two distant epochs learn of a dreadful destiny they cannot escape...

...and a deadly threat to all they hold dear.

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On the game front I obviously have not been playing any. I am still looking to get back to God of War 2 though,....hmm, maybe Sunday huh?

On the school front I finished my last ****for this degree but probably won't get the A I should have since I had to turn in a few things without fixing them since I had no access to a computer in the hospital though hopefully it doesn't bring it down too much.

On the gaming news front I see Diablo 3 has been announced and I am soooo happy about that having lost interest in WoW awhile ago and having only mild interest in Starcraft this was what I was waiting to hear and yeah I am glad it isn't an MMO.

The Spore creature creator is out there if you missed it. Its available in two flavors, the very limited trial version and the full version that you have to pay for. Real preorders are now being taken for the game as well. I may actually pop for the fairly expensice Galactic Edition too which is not something I do often.

E3 coming up....wonder if it will be any good. Not really much out there for 08' yet that I know of and what of 09'?

There are flyers out there showing an impending 360 price drop by the way. Like $100 less I think, bout time MS since it was well overdue. My only gripe I have about them now is how slow they are is changing the 360's guts all the while it seems Sony is rolling right along changing the PS3's.

I still do not have one of those btw. A PS3 that is. Just do not have the money right now, still. I still want one though especially since it seems to be getting some game I actually care about now.

Guess that it for now.

Started the second book in the Lost Empires group of books, Faces of Deception. From the back cover.......

Atreus of Erlkazar

Hidden from his powerful family's enemies behind the hideous mask of his own face. Sent by the goddess of beauty on an impossible mission. Driven to find a way past his own flesh, into a soul torn between destiny and love.

Deep in the ancient valleys of the enigmatic Utter East, Atreus will finally look into the...

Faces of Deception

Return to the Utter East in a new Forgotten Realms story by veteran author Troy Denning! Atreus has come a long way to drink from the Fountain of Infinite Grace. Will the greed and prejudice of others stand in his way, destroying the fountain and its ancient guardians?