I'm a little behind...

I had an overseas voice conversation using Windows Live Messenger the other night, and the sound quality and delay were painful. Google Talk has proven to be a much more effective and reliable solution in that department.

I'm looking for a replacement 400MHz FSB Socket A motherboard so that I can build something out of the leftover parts from my little brother's computer upgrade, but it's proving to be a real challenge. I've come across an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and an abit NF7-S Version 2.0 on craigslist, but both sold quickly :(

I've finished F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate, and it was a lot of fun. They don't quite explain why this new main character has super-human reflexes, but they hinted at a few possibilities. The gameplay remains the same, but the narrative is getting kind of repetitive as it plods along. While the story has become increasingly contrived, I'm curious to see how they wrap things up... But I hope they do it soon, because it's getting a little frustrating. Perhaps they're saving the big revelations for the sequel, or just mirroring Half-Life's structure, but the fact remains that I may lose interest if this keeps up, and I suspect many gamers already have.

Finishing-up Guitar Hero Encore Rocks The '80s and Guitar Hero III on "hard", but it's proving to be kind of, well... Hard. One song to go in Rocks The '80s, three or four in III. Gave up on Dead Head Fred on PSP; just wasn't holding my interest; Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters is doing a much better job :) Snagged my free copy of Carcassone from XBOX Live during their fifth anniversary festivities, and gave Screwjumper and Undertow a shot. The former seems solid enough as a relatively simple arcade game, but it's not really for me. Undertow's a bit deeper (no pun intended, I swear) and looks absolutely gorgeous, but that Battlefield-style gameplay has never really appealed to me all that much.

Finally, I think I've settled on playable graphics settings for Crysis (how come nobody told me ATi had released a hotfix!?) and Need For Speed ProStreet. I'm about halfway through Crysis, and I keep thinking that Far Cry already did jungle combat well and that Crackdown did the super solider thing much more effectively. While the game is still fun, it kinda drags and the gameplay isn't exactly groundbreaking. Perhaps they're just going for realism, but I can't shake the feeling that I've been disabling signal jammers and tagging air-strike targets for a little too long. While I appreciate the freedom the game offers in terms of how to approach each situation, I'd like the story to be just a touch more interesting between major plot points, please. ProStreet's awesome, by the way. I miss the arcade feel we've gotten used to since Underground, but I certainly don't miss the cheesy cutscenes. It's definitely more of a sim than before, but not quite Forza Motorsport or Gran Tourismo... Think more along the lines of Project Gotham Racing.

I think that about covers it for now...