Nine Muses

After playing Sim games as long as there have been Sim games, sometimes the basic gameplay seems a little too easy. It’s still fun, but it’s easy to burn out quickly. I think any sandbox type game is prone to this, at least for achievement oriented gamers. Once you get to the point where you’ve tried a little bit of everything, and a lot of some things, you have to think up and set goals of your own to keep that successful achievement buzz going.

For the Sims games, this is where challenges come in. Challenges are sets of goals and rules created by players. The goals give you something to strive for. The rules make things tougher.

Read the rest of this entry »

Reading around the web, I’ve seen that I’m somewhat in the minority in liking Dollhouse already.  Granted, I don’t love it like I do Firefly, but it took me a couple of episodes to really warm up to that too, and even longer for Buffy.  Dollhouse is a bit different than Mr. Whedon’s other stuff, so I tried to take it for what it was instead of expecting something like what he’s already done.

In reading this interview with Eliza Dushku, I found an interesting tidbit of information.  It looks like Fox tried to have their way again, but Joss talked them around, and as of episode six, it’ll be more his choice in the direction it goes.

I think some people are hanging on despite their dislike in hopes that it’ll be watchable then.  Me, I’m happy that I’ve been watching and am looking forward to it getting even better.

I have officially fallen out of love with Ghost Whisperer.  I have removed the Season Pass after barely (or not at all) watching the last four episodes.  All traces of it are gone from my Tivo.

The show was never the most believable, the best written, or otherwise fabulous beyond other shows.  What it was, though, was entertaining.  It was like sitting down with a good comforting book that you’ve read before.  It was formulaic, and that wasn’t a bad thing.  You knew that there was going to be a feel-good moment at the end when Melinda would make everything all better.  And I like Jennifer Love Hewitt.  And I loved the relationship between Melinda and her husband.  With all the angst in most of the relationships on TV, it was something sweet and constant.

When they killed off Melinda’s best friend, I didn’t complain.  It was sad, but it was well done.  When they suddenly aged Ned (i.e. changed actors), I didn’t complain.  When Professor Payne, who I loved as a character, left the show, I didn’t complain.

And then they had to go and kill off her husband, Jim.  I almost almost could have rolled with that as well.  If we had a season of Melinda working to get over it before his ghost moved on, that would have been fine.  But they had to have his soul jump into another man’s body, and now they have this angsty unrequited love crap going on between Melinda and sorta-but-not-completely-Jim.  It’s annoying.  It’s frustrating.  I found myself just cringing while watching the show instead of enjoying it.  I don’t have enough time to watch something that I get little pleasure from, so it’s out.

Much to my surprise, our Animal Crossing town has reached Perfect Town status already.

We’d been dutifully planting trees and flowers and checking most every day, and it had not changed from its original mediocre status.  I’d given up asking about it.  I assume J had given up too.  I had these grand plans to map out our town when I could find the time, and do it all scientifically instead of by eyeing it.  I’d only made it through two acres so far.

Last night, J tells me that there’s a Jacob’s Ladder growing in our town.  You only get those when your town is at perfect, I say.  So, I ran over to Town Hall to check and sure enough, Pelly tells me it’s “Sweeeeeet!”

In our efforts to curb the snow deterioration, we’d been planting a lot of flowers in all the bare areas.  I guess it finally added up.

Now we just have to keep it like this for 15 days.

A thing I love about Rune Factory 2: After you move to the second generation, there’s a whole new title screen, song, and movie.

A thing I hate about Rune Factory 2: Running into a boss fight somewhere that was safe in generation one and not having the opportunity to run.  Ack!  (At least I saved.  It really wasn’t that bad.)