Too long

So not much happening in the last, well damn, 4 days. Seems I'm failing on all fronts, once again. I just can't seem to do anything consistently, or with any purpose. I haven't really worked on any tracks this week, but I might be able to get one done.

I played Half-Life this week. I've been wanting to get into Half-Life 2 again, but decided to play through the first again. It's not really as great as I remember it being. Sure it was a genre defining game back in 98, and a fine GOTY, but it doesn't hold up as well as I remember it. In my opinion, Deus Ex, while not quite the same, has aged a little better. Not so much in graphics or gameplay, but in terms of storytelling.

I have fond memories of a semblance of a story from Black Mesa, but replaying it seems to crush those memories. There's no backstory, you get no depth, no character development. Whereas JC Denton goes through a immense transformation and comes out a changed man by the end of the game. Half-Life 2 has a much more fleshed out story. There's life in that game. There's just not as much in the original. You seem to make your own story in Half-Life, which isn't a bad thing by any means.

But now I'm playing through Opposing Force, and then Blue Shift. Gearbox seemed to give you a little more atmosphere - or maybe just giving the world more flesh. After all, in the intro you get to relive a few moments from HL1, and get to see a few memorable, key events through the other end of the spectrum. I especially enjoy playing a GOOD marine. Some guy was testing a scientist for information and wouldn't let him leave without it, so I killed him and let the scientist go. Well, he kinda sat there saying he was wounded, but in my head I let him escape.

And school is getting on my nerves. Scheduling is turning out to be a total pain in the ass. But I'll get into that tomorrow, hopefully with good news.

And some music...