Perfections know what I'm talking about. These are the guys who replay certain things again and again and again because they just HAVE to get the best score, or the best ranking, or the best time. My current poison are the events in Prototype. At first, I didn't spend too much time getting gold on the ones I had unlocked, because I was eager to play through more of the story, but now that every move and power upgrade costs so freaking much, I decided to go back and get golds on the ones I haven't already achieved.

This brings me to tonight. I was doing an even called Fire in the Sky, and what it required was 300 points or more to get the gold. Well, easier said than done. I spent more than an hour trying to accomplish this, because I was struggling with the target system. For some reason, it likes to keep targetting things off screen and instead of immediately selecting what's infront of you, it cycles through whatever targets are still off the screen until it finally gets to what you want. It also kept targetting military personnel when all I wanted were the infected enemies. The waves are also completely random, and sometimes, I wouldn't even get any of the bigger enemies that were worth more points.

After I finally got the gold, someone told me that I shouldn't even bother with the targetting system, and to just shoot straight down at the infected civilians. Wish I would have known that sooner. Anyway, I got it, and I have two more events to try currently. Funny thing is, the next event I attempted, I got gold right away. Feels good to finally take a break from the game, I must say. Now off to bed I go.

Ok, so here's a little back story. I work for the Denver Public Library, specifically the Park Hill branch. In the middle of February, our branch closed down to undergo some rennovations, and I was reassigned to the Schlessman Family branch, a much, much busier branch. I was supposed to be there for only four months, returning in the middle of June.

Well, obviously that didn't happen. I am here still there at Schlessman, and I was told that I would be returning again in a couple of weeks, but this morning I received an email from my senior librarian stating that the reopening of our Park Hill branch has been pushed back yet again! Now it's looking like the end of August. So what the hell's the hold up?

Our branch was getting some new paint, carpet, plumbing, electrical and roofing repairs, and all that is complete. The problem lies in a delay in furniture. Seemingly, whoever was in charge of ordering the furniture didn't do so until a week before the initial scheduled date of our return to our home branches. I can understand that, but this new delay is still using the furniture excuse. Doesn't quite make sense to me....

Why am I bothered by this? I'm just getting tired of the Schlessmanbranch. I want to be back at my slower branch. I'm a 40 hour shelvers, and to be worked to the bone (I work myself hard, everyone else just kinda slacks) 40 hours a week tires me out. I also have problems with the way they shelf things. I think certain things are moronic, but it's not my place to say. If I want to change things, I guess I should just apply for my MLA (master of library arts) and become a librarian myself.

Anyway, I was really looking forward to returning this month, but that won't happen. I should definately be thankful, though, becaues i still have a job in a government agency that is sorely lacking in funds. Oh, by the way, I also found out our other shelver (20 hours) at Park Hill has accepted a position at the Field branch, so that's great.. She seems to love working there a lot more than Park Hill so, good forher. Well, I guess that's all I want to say for now. Thanks for letting me vent.

I try to not buy games at full price. I usually wait until I see them drop down to 30 bucks or below, or buy them used, or buy them with a coupon. The last brand new games I can remember buying this year was MadWorld, Killzone 2, Punch-Out!! and Prototype. With MadWorld and Punch-Out!!, I just had to have them to give my Wii something to do, and Killzone 2 is still sealed, so I'm little mad at myself for that, but I knew as soon as I was finished with the Splinter Cell games, I wanted to play Prototype because of Radical's previous work with Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

So let me speed it up to today. I just came back from Best Buy with two brand spanking new games: Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood, and Ghostbusters. Buying a new game so soon after Prototype was pushing it for me, but why TWO new games? Well, I got a coupon in the mail for 10% video game purchases of up to three titles. It expired today, so I felt like not having it go to waste. Why did I pick the two games I did? Well, Call of Juarez was simple, because I really enjoyed the first game, and I really love a competent western game. With Ghostbusters.... IT'S GHOSTBUSTERS! And a decent game, at that! If two weren't bad enough, it was going to be three as I wanted inFAMOUS, but they were out of stock.

"Great, you bought two more games you're just going to let stay in their wrappers." Nope. I plan on moving directly into these games the moment I beat Prototype. I want to actually play them while they're new, because if I get around to them after I see them on sale for 30 bucks, I'll be kicking myself in the butt later. Sounds silly, but that's just what I believe. The only new game I can see myself getting in the foreseeable future will be Wii Sports Resort, which I have already pre-ordered. Now I have to exercise a little more will power from now on.

It's been a while since I've done this, so I have a bit more games to talk about this time. The following will be XBLA arcade games.

Droplitz

Droplitz is a puzzle game that sorta reminds me of Pipeworks. Basically, what you're trying to do is rotate titles to form paths that connect one point to another. You have two starting points at the top of the playing field, and three ending points on the bottom. Ending point tiles will also appear on occasion. Fluid will start to flow from the starting points, so you need to hurry and start creating paths before the Droplitz roll out. You also get bonus points for connecting the starting points to the same path. The game could have used a tutorial mode so I could have figured out what was going on sooner. The game's presentation is pretty simple for a puzzle game, and unfortunately,I'm just not excited enough about it to purchase it.

GAROU MOW

This is an SNK fighter. I've never heard of this one. Somehow, I never came across it in my arcade days. One thing I noticed, though was the quality animation that still holds up to this day in my eyes. Moves were kinda unoriginal, though. They give you two characters to play from: Rock and Hotaru. Rock is your typical street fighter and Hotaru is you're... well.. typical anime girl. I'm going to pass on it.

King of Fighters '98: Ultimate Match

Here's another SNK fighter I never played before. How this game works is that it looks like you can pick from fighters from a few different SNK fighter franchises and pit a team of three fighters against the other team. I like the moves and characters more than GAROU, so if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with this one. The one thing I did notice was that I did some kind of piledriving slam that barely did any damage, and then I unleashed a punch that did about three times more damage than the slam.

Rocket Riots

"ROCKET RIOTS! ROCKET RIOTS!" This game is indeed a riot, with rockets! These are the kinds of games XBLA needs more of. You're a legless person who has a jetpack on his bottom and you fly around levels shooting rockets at everyone and everything. You move with the left stick, aim and fire with the right stick. Pulling back on the right stick more gives your rocket more power. There's power ups everywhere from making your rockets bounce all over the level, to making them huge with massive destructive force.

What makes this game stand out is the graphics. They're done in a sort of 3D 8-bit style, and everything is destructive. When something gets hit by a rocket, the crater upheaves a cascade of pixels. The levels for the most part have you battling other characters to kill them and unlock them for play later on, but they're also broken up with other things like destroying boots and cannons, or carrying a football to a goal post and scoring before others do. I can't wait to try the multiplayer on this, oh, and by the way, it impressed me so much, I bought it for the 800 points right away. Definately try this game out!

The next two are 360 game demos:

The Bigs 2

Just want to say that I feel bad my The Bigs1 is still sealed. I'll get around to it... So, I can't really compare it to the first game at this time. Anyway, the game plays fast, a lot faster than normal baseball. Runners zip to the bases, fielders throw the balls to bases like lazers. Pitchers can throw fireballs, batters can activate almost guaranteed home run special moves. This is arcade baseball. The presentation is nice. Colorful, loud. I got my ass handed to me, though. 11-1. I need to learn how to play this game. I should probably start my The Bigs 1 first so see if any improvements at all has been made to this game.

Ice Age 3

This game based on the newest installment in the Ice Age movie franchise is about as bland as movie based games can be. You are given three levels to sample. The first two has the sloth Sid walking a giant snowball around and then running from a Tyrannasaurus Rex. The last level has the new character Buck in a more traditional platforming level. This level wasn't really so bad, but it needed to be populated with more enemies. There was a nice section where he was sliding down a a vine, leaning left or right to avoid spikes, and then transfering to the back of brontosauruses. Only children or gamers obssessed with their gamertags need to apply for this game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzmf7ZJRI9M

Open in new window or tab and listen to this song while reading this blog.

Well, I'm now out of Level 60, and into 61. My title is Mr. Big, who happens to be this guy from SNK's Art of Fighting.

I've never played the art of fighting games, so I can say that I'm not familiar with this particular character. He looks pretty cool, though. Let's see what else Mr. Big could represent...

Mr. Big is a character from Sex in the City, not that I watch the show, though. I really don't.

It's a candy bar by Cadbury. Never had one of these before. I love Cabury products.

Mr. Big is a band. Never heard of them, and haven't heard their music, so I can't say whether they are good or not.

It's the name of someone's cat. Aww..

He's a character in a children's book. Don't think I ever read it as a kid.

The villain in Live and Let Die. Been a while since I've seen this movie.

Anyway, there you have it, some other alternatives for what Mr. Big stands for. Also, there were many, uh... NSFW pictures of Mr. Big that I'm unable to post in here in fear of revocation of my account. So.. one more level until I'm stuck at Big Smoke for a very long time..