A. Wake. I see what you did there.

I loved this game: the story, the atmosphere, the flashlight combat system. It's just a very different game. I haven't played survival-horror games in a while but this is one of the few games I actually found scary. Well, maybe not scary, but creepy. The fact that I have a fear of the dark didn't hurt either. I'm not as bad as Alice though. When enemies are coming up the game starts to get blurry, the music changes, but you don't see anything yet. Then they jump out at you. It really gave me a sense of peril. Even worse are the poltergeists. Having a truck flung at you and being unable to dodge it easily adds to the "Holy Crap I Don't Want To Die" feeling.

Having to reload while surrounded by enemies in cramped spaces balanced out the abundance of ammo, a thing some people frown upon in the survival-horror genre.Who cares that you have a chest of unlimited bullets if you're getting hit to much to shoot.

I've got a funny story. During Episode 4, after the car crash you and Barry are separated. He is armed with a flare and he gets attacked. When he kills a Taken an achievement popped up for me.
-Collateral Carnage: 20 Taken have been drowned, electrocuted, or dispatched by some other indirect means.
I guess Barry counts as indirect means. But the fact that he gave me the achievement was hilarious to me.

With a game like this where I'm trying to follow a story I just like to play through it and immerse myself. I don't go through and try to get achievements. I really only went out of my way to get...
-Carny: You have heartlessly knocked over five defenseless can pyramids.
,which I did.

There are collectibles. I HATE collectibles. As mentioned above I didn't really try to get all of the collectibles. If I saw a thermos I picked it up. And who are all of these people leaving their thermoses everywhere. The manuscripts I tried to collect because I wanted to read them to get more of the story. And the hidden chests were just useful but I guess I didn't get them all.

I played on hard knowing I wouldn't go back on nightmare. So getting all of the manuscripts wasn't going to happen. Some of the manuscripts are only found on nightmare difficulty.

Stats:
Kills with revolver: 260/100
Kills with flare gun: 19/50
Kills with shotgun: 88/50
Kills with hunting rife: 32/50
Kills with flash bangs: 61/50
Kills with vehicles: 23/15
Indirect kills: 72/20
Poltergeist objects destroyed: 87/20
Birds Killed: 646/1000

Batteries used: 193/100
Manuscript pages found: 86/106
Coffee thermoses found: 81/100
Can pyramids knocked over: 5/12
Chests found: 27/30
Radio shows found: 10/11
TV shows found: 13/14
Signs found: 15/25

35/50 a
560/1000 g
0/2 dlc - aside from the price these actually look pretty interesting. If I owned the game I might have bought them. Well one comes free with the purchase of the game.

Blood of the Gods

I finally tried Mountain Dew Throwback. I love that little hillbilly. Then I found out that all Mexican sodas have cane sugar rather than High Fructose Corn Syrup. So I go down to my local supermarket to buy a MexiCoke which I actually had a few weeks before. While I'm in the "ethnic" aisle buying ramen because I'm as broke as an HP laptop, I see bottles of Jarritos Mandarina and this Sangria flavored soda.

I drink the Jarritos and it's just ok. I actually think Orange Crush is better. Then I drink the Sangria Señorial. This stuff is awesome. It tastes a lot like my favorite carbonated beverage of all time, Black Cherry Faygo (reppin' the D). In fact it might taste even better. It is more expensive unless you count the cost of shipping it takes to get to Colorado.

Sam Fisher: Not So Stealth Assassin

Despite what people have been saying I liked this game. It allows you to be as stealthy or as run-and-gunny as you want. My poor memory is keeping me from remembering why this game sucks compared to previous installments.

It wasn't that long but I didn't expect it to be. Deniable Ops is really fun. I found the level design of Deniable Ops better than the campaign.

It definitely needs more suppressors. Half of the pistols aren't even silenced. I would like to have a suppressor on every gun. Hell, give me silenced grenades.

Weapons unlocked through Coop? When will these companies learn that I don't like multiplayer and start catering to me instead of the millions of people who do.

*Update*
So I cheated and played through the multiplayer game by myself. Unlocked and upgraded all of the weapons and beat all of the levels by myself. Take that social interaction. Let it be known that Nic is very good at playing with himself.

*Update 2*
I finally beat all of the P.E.C. Challenges. It took longer than the game did.

35/54 a
700/1000 g

More Nic In More Places

On my half-birthday I decided to spread the awesomeness that is me to even more sites on the internet. I have new links on the sidebar:
True Achievements
Gamefaqs - A long time coming.
Wikipedia - I was supposed to do this on my last birthday.
Steam -Which is funny because I have yet to find a game my laptop can actually run.

I also have a couple of new Gamercards.

Past Affect 2

First improvement I noticed was the Lazarus Project Facial Reconstruction Code. This allows you to find a Shepard you like and import them instead of messing with the appearance sliders. I had a difficult time getting my Sara Shepard to look right in the first game. Yes I play a female Shepard. Wanna fight about it? This time I just found a Shepard that looked like I wanted mine to and changed it a little bit to be perfect. Well as perfect as you can get in this game. Most of the female Shepards look awful.

My Code:
731.Q9G.A1F.F8W.IDC.16W.1HG.716.LD6.C17.2G6.337

Modified From:
Ora Shepard
Jane Shepard

Like Darksiders I finished this game with abilities left to upgrade. Unlike Darksiders you can't grind for experience. There are a specific number of missions and you don't gain anything from killing individual enemies, except for ammo.

I finished all the missions with 49 Experience before I reach the next level.

3 unused Squad Points
25 Squad Points left to get.
I would have 15 if I didn't get the bonus power from Advanced Training.

Another problem is that you can't go back and collect stuff you missed. So anything you can't buy in a store is a missable item. The one thing I missed was a Heavy Pistol Damage. Also since there is a limited number of missions there is a limited amount of credits (money). And any extra credits to be found during a mission is also missable. So there are a few things I was never able to buy because I didn't have enough credits.

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OK I officially HATE this blog post. I stopped playing this game almost 3 weeks ago and I still haven't finished writing it. I tried to motivate myself by not mailing it back. Then came Harmony of Despair. I finally decide to work on it and I find out half of it is gone. I had a huge rant about the Cerberus Network and then my internet died so I couldn't save it. I waited for it to come back on. Then I copied the post, repasted it then saved. I thought it was fine, but no. So I'm done. No Cerberus Network rant (I don't like it), no long story review (I don't like it) and no clever closing (it wouldn't make sense now).

Final save is 111.
65h.02m
28/7/2010 5:00

44/54a
830/1000g
No DLC.
I sit corrected.