February 24, 2004

Random Bits

iTunes
I finally found a place around here that has some of those precious yellow capped Pepsi 20 oz bottles. After an unfortunate first attempt (read: please try again) I made a successful comeback with my purchase today garnering me one entire free iTunes song.

After setting up a store account and having a quick look around I came to a realization ..."There are tons of songs I can't live without".... What to choose what to choose? I could have gone with some Garth Brooks, maybe a little Brad Paisley, one of the exclusive Stephen Lynch songs maybe?, perhaps John Cena's cut off of the WWE Originals album?, some Toby.... Wait, yes that's it I'll get a Toby Keith song. immediately I had it narrowed to three songs, "How do you like me now", "Angry American", or "American Soldier". This decision was tough, those are three of my favorite songs, my eventual decision was to go with "American Soldier" just because it's the new one and it's really really good.

I could not believe the upgrade in quality you get when you actually buy your music. I can definitely see myself using my own money on this service in the future (when I actually have a little extra to toss around that is). I might add, Toby's voice is a good test for sound quality, he really is an amazing artist.

Neverwinter Nights
This game has been sapping up tons of my time lately. I hate to draw comparisons but, think of it as a happy medium between the complexities of the Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale/DnD type games, and the simplicity of the Diablo style hack slash.

I really prefer the more in depth style of the more true DnD style games, unfortunately most of the time I do not have the patience or the time to get too heavily involved in those games. The Diablo games are good, but they lack character development and questing style game play that I crave.

The one huge nag that NWN is giving me is with the henchmen system. I understand it is there to make the game playable, it would be nearly impossible to go through solo, but I would have liked to have a little more control over their actions, also I think it would be nice to be able to equip them and have them carry stuff. I won't even go into the problems I have with the basic AI that they run under.

All in all I would give if a three and a half to four out of five score on my list. It keeps my attention which is good, and it allows me to play for an hour here and two hours there and still not be lost or burnt out, that is very good.