They call me the seeker.

Watched the latest Harry Potter last night. Good god damn does Quidditch get me going. So much so that I rented that Quidditch: World Cup game a while back. You know what? Not so good. One would think making a game with rules as simple as Quidditch would be easy peasy, and I still maintain that it could be great game if made properly. The developers seemed to focus a lot more on the funky, kid-pandering graphics than on gameplay. A lot of precious geek time is spent watching little cutscenes of special unblockable moves, which were pretty cool but very repetitive. You can't end a game without catching the snitch, but some weird combination of events have to take place for the snitch to be released, which took me a while to figure out.



Now, if we could get the guys who made ESPN NHL 2K5 to make the next Quidditch game, we'd be getting somewhere.

No one to stop me this time.

Bad day today. Real bad. So what does one do to relax in a case like this? Dark Side Therapy, babies. Throw in KOTOF'NR, head to Korriban, and show those bitches why they call me "Dark Lord". People are going to die.

It's raining rubber.

In an attempt to unlock some gustav in ESPN NHL 2k5, I have set the North America All-Stars against Kazakhstan and set all the sliders in all the right directions. The score is currently 33 to 0, and I haven't touched the controller in several minutes. If you thought Sergei Gonchar couldn't score six goals in a game, you were wrong.

My record is $3.

Boy did I get it last night. At a party with some friends, I revealed the nature of my new PC and was met with revulsion and disrespect. While this was deserved, I felt the need to defend myself by stating quite clearly that I am done with PC gaming. From here on out, it's either PC classics or console titles. I hold the singular claim of being the cheapest gamer out there (I've had the PS2 for several years now and have never once paid full price for a game) and PC gaming just ain't cheap. Buying a game-worthy rig and keeping up with upgrades hits the wallet too hard.



I've paid my dues, and am moving on to easier and cheaper things.

Weak.

I went through the agony of downloading a couple things from Fileplanet the other night. One was the Tron 2.0 demo, which upon install came up with an "are you joking? Seriously, dude. Come on." error, mocking my lack of respectable videocard. Looks like I'll be waiting for the X-box version. What do you say, Byte? I thought you'd say that.



The other file was a video of the blitzball action in FFX-2. Eff that ess. If I wanted to put the controller on the floor and watch as figures throw balls at each other, I'd watch basketball.

Nav was curious.

So, I checked out the hydroball mod for JK2. I have issues with it.



#1 - No bot support. When I loaded up the map and threw a few bots in, they tried to kill each other at the spawn points outside of the arena instead of playing. At a couple points, one of them wandered into the tank and flopped around, unable to figure out the throw-the-ball-into-the-goal strategy. So, if I want to play, I need to find a multiplayer server. This is a dangerous game indeed, as people seem to go completely loco when online. Either that, or as people discuss their lives instead of playing the game we're all here to play, it comes out that they're twelve. I did try to find a server, but it looks like the hydroball scene has moved to Jedi Academy.



#2 - It's only barely blitzball. There's no stopping and picking your action by the numbers, just swimming around. Pbttthtt. If I can't use a venom pass, I can't be bothered.



So, looks like I'll have to borrow Greg's copy of JA and go from there. Again with the keeping you posted.

Just call me Nav.

Greg said we could talk about videogames here. It's on.



I just learned Final Fantasy X-2 has blitzball. Why didn't anybody tell me? Everyone knows I'm the biggest blitzer on the Eastern seaboard. Is it that the game sucks? I mean, that's what I would have to assume. I played a demo of it a while back, and the whole Barbie aspect didn't sit well with me. Gun Barbie. Sword Barbie. Scarf Barbie. No thanks.



I guess the new blitzball doesn't allow you to actually control the players, only act as owner and manager of the team. Screw that. I mean, drafting was one of the cool parts about the FFX version, but come on. I want to be in on the action.



I seem to remember something about a Hydroball mod for JK2. I'll keep you posted.

If I'm not one myself.

Dude. It's here. The biggest Geek Day since the holiday's inception. Firefox and Halo 2 on the same day.



A brief history. The Geek Day tradition started long ago with the release of the Star Wars: Episode I trailer online. This event was the first recorded example of a date with attributes we now associate with Geek Day. Work is cut, internet usage spikes, and the IT guys are all abuzz. Modern historians state that the combination of the availability of high-speed internet access and genius marketing decisions made a for heady cocktail the geeks of the world were all too ready to try. Geek Day has been observed recently with midnight vigils at Best Buy, marking the release of Doom III and the extended editions of Lord of the Rings.



November 9th, 2004 marks the first full release of Firefox, the geek's choice of web browser. It's safe, fast, and easy; it's not well-known to non-geeks, thus granting uber-nerd status to those that use it; it's not by Microsoft. The kids are loving it. A pre-release version has been available for a while, but today's the day to sport your Mozilla polo shirt and celebrate. The website was frickin' mobbed this morning.



Also, Halo 2, the highly hyped sequel to one of the most successful games in recent memory, was released at midnight. There exists no decent reason for it to be anything short of unspeakably good.



Now that I've downloaded Firefox 1.0 and posted, I'm off to play Halo 2. The geek priests would be pleased with my observance rituals.