Games:

Picked up Ghost Recon 2 a couple days ago, and it’s quite good, but a little … weird, given that it’s set in North Korea, and my fiancee’s Korean. So it’s a little unsettling. I’ll probably be sticking mostly to the multiplayer aspects. Halo 2’s been still the mainstay of my multiplayer time, by far. Awesome stuff. Also picked up Doom 3 at EB’s Black Friday sale, which was a cool $20. Figured I’d see if my comp can run it. Can it? Just freakin’ barely. I get maybe 15 FPS when it’s slow, and 30 FPS when it’s “fast”. The lack of an AGP slot in this machine is a killer, ’cause otherwise, it’s pretty quick.

Also been playing a lot of Need for Speed Underground 2. Good game, but the rubber-bandiness of the AI is getting to me. I can be ahead by 7 seconds going into the last lap, and what happens in *most* circuit races is that on the last turn, I get nudged into a 180 by a competitor. It’s getting… frustrating, because there’s essentially no way to really be “good”. I understand the need to keep the challenge level relatively high, but I fucking HATE these stupid rubber-band AI’s, because they really kill the notion of being a “racing” game. I want to get better. I want to dust the opposition when I do well, and get spanked when I don’t. With the rubber-band AI, neither ever happens. It’s always close, whether I drive like a blind idiot, or Ayrton Senna. It just doesn’t matter, and it kills a lot of the fun of the game. Still, even though it’s frustrating, the customization is pretty cool, and the sense of “progress” as you level up the parts in your car is nice. ‘course, that AI kills it after a few races, but what can you do?