What is it about Januarys that makes them the most depressing month of the year? I wonder if it's just me, but I seem to get this feeling at the start of every year and it's hard to describe. I think it's to do with the fact that the "new beginning" of the year is such an anti-climax and all that's left after the "excitement" of New Year is the realisation that it's just the beginning of the same cycle with little changed since last year. Here we go again.
So, what have I been up to in the first one-twelfth of the year?
On the gaming front, I finally managed to finish the excellent Fallout 3, and being a massive achievement-whore, complete all the trophies to 100%. It's the first time in ages that I've felt motivated to fully complete a game, which is testament to the inspired open world setting and the vast number of things to do. My only complaint? The bug that freezes the game and crashes your PS3 on a regular basis once you reach higher levels (and the game save file grows above 500Mb. Incredibly this is too big for a current generation console to handle!). Perseverance and the conditioned behaviour of saving the game every 5 minutes got me through, but not without massive annoyance at every reboot.
I'm a little worried that Skyrim will have the same issues. It's been suggested in the media that the same bug is there in Skyrim but even at lower levels, and that the patch released to fix it only makes the problem worse. I haven't seen strong evidence of this yet, but I'm only a few hours in so far. Yes, you heard it right! Straight after finishing a 100+ hour game, I launched into an even longer one! My other games sit on the shelf for months at a time, wondering when they'll get a look in. Sorry guys, for the forseeable future I'll be killing dragons and listening to the woes of guards who used to be just like me, until they took an over-used meme in the knee.
Along with the rest of the country I really enjoyed the three Sherlock episodes earlier in the month. I loved the way Andrew Scott channelled Heath Ledger's Joker in portraying Moriarty. It might not have been deliberate but that was the vibe I was getting. Such an improvement on the tired and boring Moriarty from the recent Downey Jnr film. That guy, with his plans to profit from starting a war was only one white cat away from being a Bond villain cliche. My only gripe with Sherlock - we need more of it more often. Make the episodes shorter if necessary.
I've moved onto Dexter in the last couple of weeks, but I'm still playing catch up as I didn't start watching it until last year. Currently I'm half way into Season 5 and very much enjoying it - might post my thoughts on that in the future. Alongside that I'm reading the original novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, which the missus got me for Christmas.
Speaking of reading, last week I finished off the first Gaunts Ghosts omnibus by Dan Abnett. Nobody writes Warhammer 40K stories like that guy, and his Ghosts characters are really likeable. I might think the game itself is garbage these days, but the 40K background and setting make for amazing fiction.
That's about all I've been up to this month (apart from a disastrously timed car breakdown and the ensuing financial problems! Mostly under control now though). Currently hoping that February features a bit of good fortune to raise my spirits!
Mike
0 comments:
Post a Comment