You gotta be kidding me

I decided to boot up Red Faction: Guerilla the other day and by boot up I mean pop in the DVD and start the game (ah I love not having to install games with consoles). It took me a while to get accustomed to the controls once more and to bring up the map figuring out where I had left off. Well I see there is a demolition mission on the top left of the first zone the game places you in. I set it on my GPS or overhead map UI and I'm embark on my adventure. I continue to demolish and just wreck havoc (what would this game be without this great physics engine) with the pre-supplied Mech getting a satisfying time yet not gold. Then the game goes black! After I hit A from the points/time screen and I wait for 4 minutes before deciding yup my console just froze (or maybe the game for that matter).

Restart the console and go back into Red Faction: Guerilla. My save file just disappeared, it's not there! I can't continue where I left off because magically it just got erased from my FREAKIN HARD DRIVE!? WHAT? This is the problem with auto saving systems in a game. If the auto save is always present you shouldn't have a problem but hmm I'm guessing I should have made a manual save as a backup. Instead I'm thinking ok ok I just have to wait for the game to read that my hard drive is attached. Click load game, back to the menu, go back to load game, then back to the menu again. I did this like 4 or 5 times along with selecting the hard drive as the device to find my save and/or the device to save my game on.

I then back out back onto the dashboard and check out my hard drive's memory. Scroll down to the Rs where Red Faction should be and just like I had feared the entry wasn't on the list!? I mean how the hell can a game just eat a freakin save file! Oh man I'm so pissed off right now. I mean I have to do all that over again, (think I unlocked the third zone in the game). If I remember correctly I had just found the mercenary outpost base and acquired their crazy sweet Mad Max looking contraption of a vehicle. Wow what an anti-motivational process for your game. Forget this, I'm going back to playing DiRT 3 because it remembers my previous races with its auto save. psssh

I'm on a pile of games

(+1 for google images eh)

You know when you were a kid, you just jumped into a pile of leaves and you feel like you're on the top of the world, yeah I feel like that with games. It's great really, I have a plenty of games to keep me entertained (many years of acquiring great entertainment), wowed, enthralled and even aggravated/challenged. Recently I dove back in to the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion because quite frankly I did NOT want to play it during the time I was attending college online due to the distraction it would cause. Yeah I'm boring right? Wrong, I'm smart (I played for 5 straight hours last night without even knowing it (thank you Raptr))!

The other night I played a little bit of Oblivion (the main game) and then decided I should travel to the Shivering Isles, since I bought it when the expansion was an Xbox deal of the week a while ago. Man I got side tracked with side quests along the way, haha, as I made my way to the new opened gate. Ok after I did a few dungeons and got the local quests done, I'm trying to get recommendations at all the Guild Halls for my magic heavy character, I swam across the lake and hopped onto the island. This shinning blue light is coming out of a rock face statue, apparently it is the gates to the Shivering Isles.

Hence a new world awaits, after fumbling around in the new island I come across a motivated hunter and townsfolk of a little village in the middle of nowhere. Yeah this reminds me of my little town (I live in a very rural area haha). There is one mayor (even though all the other residents wouldn't call him that), one item's clerk and two individuals living with each other. That's the town, probably 6 people total (haha ok maybe my little town is bigger). Well I was tasked to take down the big and dangerous Gatekeeper, who was made out of bones and flesh with the keys bound inside of him mind you. Quite story driven the keys that you need to pass into the world of the Shivering Isles. See this town is sort of like Purgatory as many await or pass time for a chance to enter the Gates guarded by the Gatekeeper. This was a nice little touch for new content for Oblivion.

Long story short (and to side step any spoilers) I finally took down the beast with the help of a motivated hunter and when I walked into the Gates and into the world of the Shivering Isles, I was blown away. Such beautiful art direction, scope and literary contrasts in this game. See the island is split in half with the Gates of Mania and the Gates of Dementia. Decidedly I went into the Gates of Mania because I wanted a bit of the brighter side to what some could say is a dull RPG to begin with (the consequence of re-creating a realistic universe) but ironically chose the path of Dementia due to it being a shorter distance to the castle (my designated finish line). Well I met the Lord of the Shivering Isles and he is quite a character. Oblivion amazes me still even putting in many hours of the PC version and then again buying the CE for the 360 (don't have to worry about re-installing (space on pc/just put in the disc and play whenever). I have so many games and a lot of time to play them (currently unemployed yet looking for work in the games industry) and I still don't have enough time to visit every nook and cranny in my collection lol.

Sadly as I play I keep thinking man I need a job.