Ennui, party of one

At least it didn't take me an hour to get home today. Well, it did but we stopped by Trader Joe's first.

Played a bit more of Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes. Now I was a huge fan of Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation. Played it a ton, beating it enough to get the stealth and the secret costume and the unlimited ammo, etc. But this version...?

OK, it's pretty. It may, in fact, be the best-looking game on the GameCube, even more stunning than Metroid Prime or Mario Sunshine. On the other hand, either I am just too used to the PlayStation controller, I'm too old to do these games anymore, they've seriously upped the difficulty of the game, or I'm just drinking away too many brain cells. Because it's not as fun.

With all the graphic improvements, they've added in the things about Metal Gear Solid 2 that I despised. The first-person shooting is pretty neat, but in order to do anything with it you've got to move three controls simultaneously. If you're going to make using the first-person aiming mandatory, make a first-person game. Do something Half-Life or CounterStrike or any of the hundreds of other games out there. Don't make players whip back and forth between first and third.

And if you're going to remake the game, fix the things that are weird and annoying, like the fact that all the bad guys can walk around with machine guns, but you don't get one until an hour or so into the game. Blah. (On a side note, I want somebody to bring back the first/second-person goodness that was Shining the Holy Ark for the Saturn. And Saturn Bomberman. And Dragon Force. And...)

We got our estimate back from the painter on the house. It's double what I expected. Granted, my expectations were probably unrealistic. I dunno. There are options, of course. Though some of them (like say a realistic-paying job) are unlikely.

I'm beginning to feel like I did a year ago. On multiple levels.