So, Beemer’s in town. Went over to Tortuga to hang out, and play some games. We ended up playing something called “At Wit’s End”, which is pretty much like Trivial Pursuit, but with different types of questions. The board structure’s somewhat different, but not in a way that seemed to really matter (though some cards have ‘side effects’ that can change the course of the game pretty severely). Fun times. Beemer asked why I haven’t been posting very much, and the answer’s sort of sad – not much is really going on. On a day to day basis, there just isn’t a lot of interesting stuff.

I mean, okay, so there’s the diet thing, which I’d been doing pretty well on. Today was a bit of a ‘setback’ in the sense that I ended up eating a huge-ass steak, ’cause we bought a ribeye at Safeway, and the thing was freakin’ ENORMOUS. Still, it’s one of the better steaks I’ve ever cooked, Ei-Nyung and I split it, and she wisely kept half of her half for lunch tomorrow. I wish I’d done the same, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Oh, well. Tomorrow morning, I hit the pool, so I’ll just have to swim a little harder. By and large, I’ve been able to stop with random snacking, I’ve been making myself a little something for breakfast, and I’ve been bringing in lunch every day for the last week or so.

So, that’s been going reasonably well. Not terribly interesting or anything, but there you go.

Finished Rainbow Six: Vegas, and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The developers have really streamlined the squad mechanics to the point where they actually feel like a help, rather than a hiderance. Not once in the game did I ever feel like they were “stupid” or that they made the game worse. In fact, being able to quickly and simply direct them around, and the way the levels were designed, the teammates added a level of strategy that wouldn’t have been present otherwise. Very impressive.

One of the things that I found was interesting was that (mild spoilers coming) the game’s not structured as a standalone story. Sure, it has an arc of its own, and interesting things happen. But the overall structure *clearly* puts this as the beginning of a series of games – to the point where when Vegas 2 comes out, I’d suspect that they’ll have to have some “Previously, on Battlestar Galactica” style segment to bring people up to speed. Not that it’s deep, or overly complex – merely that it’s clear that the story from Vegas will continue into the next game as though that was how it was designed from the start.

Given Ubisoft’s pretty well annual (or shorter) schedules for their major franchises, this actually comes to me as a welcome change. It’s like they’re taking the positives of episodic gaming, and combining those with the epic production values of a “standalone” game, in a way that I haven’t really seen previously.

I mean, sure Halo -> Halo 2, but Halo had an “end” that felt like an end. Halo 2’s cliffhanger didn’t even feel quite the same. Vegas’ ending simply sets you up for the next chapter. It’s more like “Insert Disc 2” rather than “Coming Soon: Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (which is a pretty stupid name, but then again, they shipped a game called Rainbow Six 3, so there you go)”.

Anyway – I’m glad to see some sort of narrative linkup between the annual installments of these games. I’d even like it if the Splinter Cell series and Rainbow Six had some narrative crossover, where appropriate.

Anyway. It was good to see Beemer, and hang out with the rest of the peeps at Tortuga. Gotta get out of the house more – maybe then I’ll have more things to blog about, eh? Anyway. Off to sleep. Gotta get to the pool in the morning.