Assembly

Three builds in the past week:

1. 2.4GHz "Prescott" Pentium 4 on an ECS PM800-M2 with 1GB of 400MHz DDR RAM.
2. Core i7 930 on an ASUS P6X58D Premium with 6GB of 2000MHz DDR3 RAM.
3. 2.53GHz Pentium 4 "B" on an ASUS P4T533-C with 1GB of PC800 RDRAM.

I built the Prescott machine out of some parts of my own and parts that a client insisted were broken; it works, but the CPU fan is ridiculously noisy; it'll be used to power a basic surveillance system. The i7 is my new personal machine, and it's ridiculously fast. The motherboard has one of those nifty Linux-based virtual machines for instant-on access to the Internet 'n such, but it boots Windows almost as quickly, so there isn't much point to it once you get over the novelty. The Rambus machine is a nice surprise that I pieced-together out of spare parts from various broken machines I had lying around. That one's going to a friend of mine whose desktop died - bad sectors, burst capacitors.

Jeebus!

This thing is fast!

QTE FTW

Finished God Of War II. It was a lot of fun with just the right amount of challenge, though a little too cheesy at times. My only real complaint is with the quick-time event button cues; single button presses and stick motions are indicated in the centre of the screen, but repeated presses or motions are indicated on the bottom-left of the screen. That inconsistency made the final battle awfully annoying...

Anyway, I've decided on the rest of the parts for my new computer:

• 60GB OCZ Vertex SATA 3.0Gb/s SSD
• 1TB Seagate 7200.12 SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD w/32MB cache
• Plextor PX-880SA 24x DVD+/-RW
• Antec TP-650 PSU

30 Seconds

Okay, seriously, Half-Minute Hero is amazing, and I can't put it down... It's a great blend of RPG, critical thinking, and self-referential humour that keeps me coming back for more. I've only played the Hero mode so far, and while I should be bored of it by now (~50% complete), it mixes things up just enough to keep me grinding away. The quest-specific sub-challenges are great incentives that significantly add to the replay value.

Anyway, I bought some more of my new PC today:

• Intel Core i7 930
• ASUS P6X58D Premium
• 6GB (3x2GB) 2000MHz DDR3
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5850

Fun!

PSP

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines didn't provide the revelatory backstory I'd hoped for. While it is a solid title and certainly impressive on the PSP, the played-it-safe nature of the plot really devalues it in the series. I should also mention that the sidequests are essentially optional, as you can power-up your character quite effectively along the way by simply completing the main quest and ignoring everything else. This strictly-optional nature of the sidequests may be a response to the negative reaction that they received in the first game, but because they now offer so little added-value to the experience, they become trivial and provide no compelling reason to complete them; especially since the PSP controls aren't nearly as tight as the console games in the series. I wonder if the DS Assassin's Creed titles are any better...

Anyway, I snagged a few more PSP games the other day:

• Age Of Zombies - Amazingly good, almost entirely on account of its hilarious context for otherwise classic gameplay.
• Echoshift - I never did finish Echochrome, but I had a lot of fun with it and this one seems like a nice addition to the series.
• Everyday Shooter - Pretty cool, not as tight as the hype had led me to believe, but definitely worth checking out.
• flOw - Always loved this one, and it's very pretty on the PSP.
• Half-Minute Hero - Great concept, charming presentation, nothing else quite like it... Definitely worth your time.
• Lunar: Silver Star Harmony - Cheesy voice acting, but a real slick update to the classic game... That I've still yet to finish in any incarnation.
• Patapon 2 - I love the Patapon games because they're so engrossing, beautiful, and endearing, but I always feel overwhelmed by the depth they offer and never seem to get very far with them... I'll change that one day.

Not sure where I left-off...

...but I've since picked-up Deadly Premonition for XBOX 360, Metal Slug XX for PSP, Confidential Mission for Dreamcast, D for 3DO, NBA Jam TE for Jaguar, and Ys Book I & II for Turbo Grafx CD; I ended-up passing on Violent Soldier.

Oh, and from that Lynx lot, I kept Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Electrocop, Gates Of Zendocon, KLAX, Pac-Land, RoadBlasters, Todd's Adventures In Slime World, and Zarlor Mercenary.

Lynx II, Part II

I snagged a Lynx II, power adapter, and 15 games off a local buy & sell for $60. The system has some dead rows on the screen, and I already had or didn't want many of the games, but I should be able to make back most of my investment by trading-in what's left.

The games (all loose) were: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (surprisingly good!), Chip's Challenge (flat cart; I'll keep my original ridged copy), Electrocop (impressive game, albeit hard to keep track of what's going on; includes an awesome selection of mini-games), Gates Of Zendocon (ridged cart; decent, though primitive-looking shmup), Gauntlet, KLAX, Pac-Land, RoadBlasters, Robotron 2084 (good conversion, but the control scheme is sorely lacking), Rygar, Todd's Adventures In Slime World (love this game), Ultimate Chess Challenge, Xenophobe, Xybots, and Zarlor Mercenary.