SDCC '08 and what I'm playing in lieu of attending

First off, here's an interesting article from CNN Money, of all pages, detailing the subtle economic intricacies, or lack thereof, behind the annual gathering of homecoming kings and varsity quarterbacks (basically, my people). And uh, I'm talking about San Diego Comic Con, for those of you that didn't play high school football.

Here's the link:

Charity? You mean like how Superman rescues kittens from trees?

Oh, this is bad. If you didn't know me well enough, you could swear from my few blog entries that I was someone who did nothing but bitch and chronically make hypocritial, self-loathy comments. Actually, that's not that far from the truth. Only through extremes can one find middle ground. I'm kind of that way towards a lot of things in my life, ranging from games to music to books and movies. Except for hentai. That shit's just wrong.

Where was I? Oh yeah. My previously non-existent train of thought, or what I'm playing this weekend. I will be playing a sob-worthy amount of WOW this weekend, as things are just picking up for my Night Elf Hunter. I'm currently broke like a joke again, so I'll need to do some grinding and/or farming. This'll also be a good chance for me to level up the polar bear I just caught, which I named Dwight (Dwightkschrute was too long, and for me, it's either all or nothing).

Quick aside: Bear accordingly named so in honor of an opening segment of NBC's The Office where Jim shows up to work dressed like Dwight and asserts that bears are better than beets, and then posits to an already incensed Dwight that bears beat Battlestar Galactica. Hilarious.

Although it's been a while since I've touched the Xbox, what with the house being remodeled and everything, I'm saving my Xbox ju-ju for next week, when Soul Calibur IV comes out in all its boob-jiggling, weaboo-appeasing glory. In all seriousness, very much looking forward to this one. I have a feeling most of the multiplayer is going to be played locally instead of on-line, which I'm very curious to see how it will work out. For anyone who's played an online FPS and lagged out while drawing a bead on an enemy, imagine that kind of frustration when you could swear to God that you just guard-impacted your opponenent's attack and then proceed to get hit with a nasty combo. I'm also curious to see what kind of matchmaking system Soul Calibur IV will use, mainly because I'm currently still stuck in FPS mindset, where you have multiple players that can have their trueskill calculated under various degrees of circumstances. How would a 1-on-1 fighter go about calculating trueskill, where the scenarios are much more controlled and static? Regardless, very much looking forward to it.

I think I might also revisit F.E.A.R. again. Because this is the first time in my life I've ever owned what could possibly considered a decent computer for games, I'm still quite surprised how good F.E.A.R. still looks and plays after all these years. I have yet to come across enemy AI that can top the antics of this game's Michael Bay-appeasing, military jargon-spewing Replica soldiers, asides from the marines in the first Half-Life. The enemies are predictable in their unpredictability, which should be taken in the best way possible. This forces you to always be on the move, and oftentimes having to outsmart the enemy much in the way you would in an on-line match.

That's about it for now. Time to revisit an all too many place, experienced in both my dreams and my nightmares: Azeroth. Lates.