A Word of Advice ~UPDATED~

Dear Reader(s),

Here is a word of advice regarding office/job etiquette. Did you know that showing up 40 minutes early to your interview/temporary assignment is just as bad and annoying as showing up late? What's worse than showing up early? Showing up 40 minutes early, then taking a 45-minute-long shit in the unisex office bathroom, forcing everyone else to suffer during the promotional event at which you've been hired to work.

True story. Don't do it.

UPDATE: This was a funny post I wrote on my other blog at the end of 2010 about an incident I was unfortunate enough to witness  when I was working as a receptionist at a production company. It still kind of makes me laugh, so I thought I'd share it here too.

Post Holiday Post

I took a wee hiatus for the last couple of weeks, mostly because of Turkey Day, among other happenings. Brief recap: Boyfriend's laptop was stolen 2 weeks ago while he was working a gig at a swanky hotel chain (which will remain nameless for now, lest they decide to not reimburse him, then the Internet smearing campaign will commence). We were both furious about this theft. I have a desktop that I can use at my office where I work, but Boyfriend's job/office is his laptop; it's a major part of his livelihood. I was so angry on his behalf, that I couldn't even bring myself to write about it, and I usually do some of my best writing when I'm upset/angry/feeling some strong emotion.

Boyfriend has since gotten a new laptop on a payment plan while we await the hotel claims department's decision on how much/if they will compensate him. We also visited my family for Turkey Day in Colorado. We had a grand nerdy time too! We went to the Museum, we went indoor skydiving, we went cowboy clothes shopping at Sheplers ("the Disneyland of western stores") where Boyfriend got his self a real cowboy hat, and then we ate delicious food like gluttons!

Now it's back to work, grinding away so I can buy Christmas presents for everyone.

Radio City Christmas Spectacle

Last night Boyfriend and I got to go see the final dress rehearsal of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. One of the perks I get from one of my jobs is I get free tickets to the shows I'm promoting, and we happen to be promoting this show. I was really excited because I had seen the Rockettes on tour in Denver many years ago, but I'd never been to Radio City in the 5 years I've lived in NYC. The lobby had beautiful crystal Christmas tree chandeliers and the art deco style of the architecture has been well preserved in the building. We had decent seats in the orchestra section, and when the curtain went up, I got all excited like I was a little kid again, but it was to be bittersweet excitement since the clusterfuck of an audience ruined the magic a little bit.

I know it was only a dress rehearsal, and so the people who paid for their tickets probably got some serious discounts, but many of them  seemed unable to grasp the fact that we were not watching a movie, so if you talked through it, the people on stage could hear you, and it's not like at home where if you miss something, you can pause and rewind it. This is a live event. Why is this concept so difficult for some people?!?!

Here are just some of the issues I had with my fellow audience members:

-Loud talkers
-Babies crying, and not being comforted, only ignored by their "parents" (seriously, there were toddlers roaming the aisles wailing)
-The child having a tantrum sitting behind me who was kicking and/or punching the back of my seat while his "parents" ignored him
-The people in front of me taking pictures during the show...of THEMSELVES (thus the flash would blind me for a while, thus I missed bits of the show)

W. T. F?!

I think Boyfriend said it best: "That audience was what I imagine it would have been like to see Shakespeare in his time, with all the groundlings peeing, farting, yelling during the performance."

Now, the show itself was quite enjoyable. I'd seen it in the past, so I remembered a lot of the classic Rockette numbers and was pleased with the new ones they added this year. The costumes were lovely and it's always amazing to see the Rockettes do what they do.

Something new that was added this year were several 3-D elements to appeal to the little kids. They were well-executed, but I would have been fine without them. So, if anyone does see this, I hope your audience is better-behaved than mine was, and I hope you enjoy! (Check your cynicism at the door though, it's a family show, and it's Christmas. No Christmas Grumpuses allowed!)

Tragic Day Part Deux

My beloved PS3 displayed the Yellow Light of Death recently, and it was a sad sad day. Thanks to a neat little kit from iFixit, Boyfriend successfully repaired the PS3. Then, to hopefully avoid future YLoDs, he replaced the original 15-blade fan in the PS3 with a 19-blade fan, which made it a little louder, but seemed to move hot air better. All in all, I believe he took the PS3 apart and put it back together at least 4 times. This concerned me slightly, but Boyfriend is fairly technically savvy, so I was confident enough in his abilities to not make the PS3 worse. And it worked!!! For about 3 weeks...

Last night, after a particularly frustrating day at my job, all I wanted to do was go home, sit on the couch with a snack and play Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. I'm currently about 2/3 of the way through the game, and last night I planned on beating the game, but the PS3 had other ideas. Right in the middle of an intense fire-fight on a quickly sinking cruise ship (spoilers?) the PS3 chirped 3 times and shut down completely. Fuck.

Today is a new day, but only in the sense that the day itself is different. I'm still at my frustrating irritating job, I'm still broke as a poke, and my PS3 is still not working. Boo. But, I'm trying to be positive today. I'm currently working on applying at Sony and Naughty Dog and some other companies in the gaming/entertainment industry, since that is where my heart is, and not at my current place of employ (but shhh, don't tell them that). So to end on a hopeful note, the PS3 might be fixed by next week, and maybe I can find a job I love before I turn 30. For now, I'm just going to keep on plugging away, and doing my best, since that's really all anyone can do each day. Update: 11/10/11- The new Icy Diamond thermal Paste arrived in the mail this morning. We shall see if it lives up to it's name...
I flipped off the power switch on the back to let it cool down a bit, and then attempted to turn it back on several times to no avail. Boyfriend got home from work not long after this tragedy part 2, and we did some research online to find a better thermal paste and method of applying it since the first time around it was only a temporary fix. We also seriously discussed the inevitable: buying a new PS3, something neither of us can afford right now, especially with the holidays quickly approaching. After my colossal shit of a day, and my favorite activity blowing up in my face, all I could do was sit on the couch and cry.

GameStop Thinks I'm a Big Deal

So, I had a funny and quasi-irritating experience with GameStop and my pre-order of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. I tweeted about it, not angrily or anything, but just to be funny and kind of call them out on their miscommunication. Well, GameStop either thinks I'm a bigger deal than I actually am, or they somehow have the manpower to respond to every tweet that mentions them, because they responded to my tweet with a mention, asking me to take an online survey about "my experience" at their store. I laughed so hard I was in tears. Hooray! I may have just made the jump to minor Internet celebrity-dom (or at least GS thinks I have)

So, no hard feelings, GameStop, I have shopped with you for years, and will continue to patronize your store.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Another Nerdy Review)

I finally got to finish playing Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception over the weekend. Thankfully, my PS3 seems to be working just dandy thanks to Boyfriend's love of tinkering with things and some new thermal gel. Naughty Dog really seems to have outdone themselves as far as game-play and graphics go in this game. The cut scenes transitioned so seamlessly and beautifully into the game-play that there were, in fact, times when I didn't realize I was supposed to actually play. This was both amazing and had unfortunate consequences (i.e Drake death). The subtle and dry humor that was present in the previous Uncharted games was back with a sharpness that made me cackle with glee quite often, especially since some of the subtler jokes were throwbacks to the previous games.

(Warning: thar be spoilers ahead)

I was glad that Chloe had a smaller role in this game than in Among Thieves. I liked her character just fine, in small doses, but she got on my nerves after a while, so I was glad to see her back, but pleased that she had a minor role to play in Drake's Deception. I was also quite pleased with finally getting a more thorough back story on Nate and Sully by playing as young Nate and seeing how he and Sully first encountered one another. It was also nice to see Elena and Nate's story took a rough turn between the 2nd and 3rd games, but was resolved in the end. I also liked that the sub-plot focused more on Nate and Sully's relationship rather than the Elena, Drake, Chloe love triangle thing.

Overall, the narrative followed the usual Drake formula with twists and subtle reveals as to "what's really going on" but, I must say, as much as I wanted so badly for this game to be my favorite of the Uncharted franchise, it just wasn't. The story was seriously lacking towards the last 1/3 of the game. The climax felt rushed and was a bit lackluster. In the previous games, as well as this one, there was always an element of the supernatural involved and it was hinted at throughout the game until the big reveals came and Drake found out he was dealing with some sort of ancient evil that he had to defeat before it escaped and destroyed the world. Drake's Deception hinted at this supernatural element throughout, with the jokes about Marlowe's age seemingly alluding to her being unnaturally old, and that combined with the deep desperately sinister air of her ancient organization and the scene where (SPOILER) Carter shoots Talbot in the face, but then Talbot appears moments later to attempt to kill Drake et al, it all got very confusing, and made the supernatural element feel a bit like a red herring. Also, there were flesh eating spiders. Those were never connected to the rest of the story, they were just sort of there as an additional challenge. I kind of felt a little strung along, almost like the big reveal was cut actually out of the game at the last minute.

In one of the final cut scenes of the game before the final "boss battle," drake and Sully find Marlowe and Talbot drawing out the brass canister containing the Djinn that cursed/poisoned the water of the lost city with a giant crane. I was certain that they would successfully open the brass container and Marlowe would become cursed by the Djinn and Drake would then be forced to fight her as the final battle of the game. I imagined Marlowe either purposely or accidentally unsealing the brass tomb holding the Djinn and a cloud or tornado of dark purple-ish shapes with barely-discernible facial features swirling out of the canister and forcing themselves down Marlowe's throat. Marlowe would then writhe around in pain on the ground and possibly stumble into the water, then after a brief moment of stillness, she would burst out of the water creating a thundering vortex beneath her. She would then unleash hordes of the flesh-eating spiders at Drake, Sully and any other unfortunate bystanders. the spiders would devour her cronies and Drake and Sully would have to run and climb around the structure to find her weak spot to defeat the evil Djinn-Marlowe. THAT is how I envisioned it.

I don't know if something like this was originally in the plan, but for whatever reason, it just couldn't be done and the game designers went another direction, or if that was never the plan at all. I'm certainly not accusing Naughty Dog of being lazy, but I know that in game development, unexpected things can happen to change the game especially with a high-profile release. Either way, the final battle with Talbot was seriously way too easy and anti-climactic at best. I found many of the gun battles earlier in the game to be far more challenging and frustrating than the final boss battle with Talbot.
Even in the first two Drake games the final boss battle was very challenging and sometimes uber-frustrating to figure out the key to defeating the boss. With Talbot, it was a hand-to-hand combat battle that required some quick reflexes when the dodge or grapple icon would prompt you on the screen. Once I got the hang of it and found the pattern, it was quite simple, just tedious. I remember the final battle in Among Thieves to be far more challenging and difficult to figure out than this one.

Speaking of simple, I also found the puzzles and platformer elements of Drake's Deception not as mentally stimulating or elaborate as in games past. I found that I solved the trick or the key to the puzzle long before the characters would prompt the cut scene to move the game forward, so I would be stuck just waiting for a (non-Drake) character to walk over to an object and activate it so I could continue the game. Maybe my skills have improved and I just found it easier in this game than in the previous two, or maybe...yeah, we'll just go with that.
 

With all that critique being said, I want to make it clear that I still loved this game and had a great time playing it and I plan to play it again. It was just not my favorite of the Drake series. I have not yet played the co-op or multi-player missions yet, and I have heard good things about those elements of the game, and I look forward to them. I also have mad respect for Naughty Dog, they're a small company, but with the Uncharted games they have definitely helped pioneer gaming in the past decade. I also have new-found respect based on their reasoning for not making any single-player DLC for Dake's Deception. According to the game director, Justin Richmond, "There's a very specific reason, whenever we sit down and we think we should do some single-player DLC, someone pitches something and we realize-that's a five hour level. We would rather build out another game than we would do episodic content."

I can completely respect them not wanting to dial back their ambition and creativity. I hope this means that we may see a fourth Uncharted game in the near future, but I will look forward to anything Naughty Dog comes up with next.
So, is Drake's Deception worth your hard-earned $60+? If you love the Uncharted series as much as I do and really like collector's stuff/strategy guides, then yes, I think it is worth the price. If you're more of a casual player and just want to check it out, I suggest renting or buying it used.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Naughty Dog has done it again! I finally got to start playing Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception last night and it is all I could hope for and more! Thanks to Boyfriend and iFixit, the PS3 is working beautifully.
I had pre-ordered the special edition from GameStop last month, and the store called me twice over the weekend to remind me to come pick it up at Midnight on 1/1/11. (Like I needed reminding.) But on Halloween morning, the GameStop called me again and the girl on the phone said I could come by at 10pm to get my game! My excited gamer brain took over and did not stop to think logically about what this girl had just told me (it's a midnight release, why would I be allowed to get it before midnight?). So, I went to the store at 10pm as instructed and was told I could only pay for the game, but could not take it out of the store until midnight. Balls.

Well, maybe I'm just old and boring, but I needed to be asleep by midnight so I could go to work at the ass crack of sunrise the next morning, plus go to PT for my leg (oh, yeah, that's still not better). So, I opted to just wait until after work to pick it up.

It was totally worth it! I stepped up to the counter and gave them my account information. the goobery guy behind the counter went to "the back" and brought out a big-ass box: my special edition of the game. When he plopped that box down on the counter a collective "oooooo" from the dudes in line behind me filled the store, and a ridiculous grin spread over my face. "Whoa."

I hurried home as fast as my gimp knee would carry me. Once I got settled in my apartment, I showed Boyfriend my new toy and his reaction was something along the lines of "It's huge!"
I sat coddling the box and savoring the experience of owning something I'd waited so long for, and then explored its contents. The game comes in an awesome metal collector tin/case. The collector's edition also comes with Drake's belt buckle and ring on a leather cord, plus a Nathan Drake figurine. All of this is housed in a neato burgundy box with gold etching. While the box is made out of what feels like cardboard, everything else is very solid. There is also an Explorer's Edition" that includes the strategy guide and comes in a treasure chest/suitcase. I didn't get that one since I'm not made of money.It finally came time to play!!! I only played for about 3 hours (that whole eating dinner and having to sleep thing kind of got in the way) but it was a great 3 hours. The puzzles so far have been easy enough, but I didn't get super far into the game (mostly because I still really suck at FPS). I really liked playing as 14-year-old Drake in the beginning and I'm so glad Sully has returned yet again! I can't wait to get home from work tonight and play some more. Boyfriend has to work late tonight, so I told him not to worry, that Nathan Drake will keep me company.