Sunday, February 28, 2010

Holy Busy!

Latest acquisitions: Gate Of Thunder for TurboGrafx CD (Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, and Bomberman are also included on the CD). I also have Final Soldier, Lords Of Thunder, Super Star Soldier, and Violent Soldier on hold. I picked-up Command & Conquer: Renegade and Diablo: Hellfire on Windows, and they're still great fun after all those years :)

I've also gotten back into Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines on PSP. Playing through Assassin's Creed II and seeing some of the flashbacks really tied the PSP game's storyline into the overall mythos of the series, and I'm feeling much more connected to what's happening. Yes, the graphics and voice acting are a step down from the main entries in the series; and yes the areas are smaller, the population is less dense, and the assassinations are less complex; but it's still pretty impressive to see, given the hardware. Without the story integration, it'd ultimately be a mundane exercise, but alongside the revelations of Assassin's Creed II, it really draws you in quite effectively.

Speaking of Assassin's Creed, I purchased Sequence 13: Bonfire Of The Vanities from XBOX Live after seeing the ad for it on the welcome screen. Unfortunately, it wasn't until after I'd purchased that content that I checked-out the XBL marketplace and saw the Bonfire Of The Vanities & Secret Locations option. Having already purchased the advertised version that didn't include the secret locations, there was no way for me to get those secret locations without buying the more complete package (essentially re-buying Sequence 13). I felt misled, so I called Microsoft's customer support. Long story short, the third person to whom I was connected ended-up deflecting my questions with circular logic, telling me they'd really like to help me and that they could, but that they weren't going to. Then they wished me a great day! I assured them that I would not have one. Sequence 13 was fine, and totally worth $4, by the way.

Finally, I'd like to bitch about Epson's nozzle cleaning process on my Stylus Photo R300 printer. Because two of the six ink cartridges (cyan and magenta) were low on ink, Epson's software would not allow me to perform a nozzle cleaning. I had to replace the two low-running cartridges (even though they were not empty, and I was only trying to print in black) just to clean the black nozzle. That's not cool, Epson.

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