PixlBit

So I don't remember setting it this way, but I looked at my 1% save file for Arkham Origins, wherein the first boss, Killer Croc, had been kicking my ass, despite most bosses in Arkham games never giving me much of a problem. Lo and behold the file said I had it on Hard mode. I was wondering why Batman's armor was so dramatically less useful than in previous entries. I mean I knew it was a prequel, so it made sense it would be weaker, but damn. But now I know. 

Unfortunately, as Tomb Raider did on higer settings, playing only a few minutes of Origins causes my laptop to shut down. Just need to know what settings to adjust so I can play it longer. Only where Tomb Raider had an Ultra setting I obviously knew to set back to Normal for its graphics, I'm not really sure what to do in the Graphics options for Origins. As always, any feedback on this is appreciated and I'll be sure to look at forum posts about how to resolve the issue tomorrow. I only got as far as a beat-em-up challenge called 100 to 1 in the batcave after the Killer Croc fight, before which I skipped most cutscenes, when the game decided to shut my laptop down. I don't think it's a space issue, since I've only used about 69 GB of the 279 available on my laptop's hard disk. At least now I know it's not unsafe to download a few other games while I figure this out. It's weird though, cause to me it doesn't look that much better than the first two Arkham games, which I've played for hours straight with no such problems. Oh well.

Speaking of settings, I set Resident Evil 4 to play at 30 FPS and it seems to run just fine now. No more slow-as-molasses bullshit, though I will say they probably should have sent a better runner than Leon to track the President's daughter. Thanks for the suggestion, Blake! So far, I've only hit the second save point in the farm area before being killed and stopping, and the heightened music that accompanies the not-zombies is freaking me out a lot more than the not-zombies themselves, probably because I'm wearing headphones while playing. Still, I'm intrigued to find out what the deal is with said not-zombies. No spoilers, please! Also,  got really frustrated with the damn pause screen not letting me refill my gun's ammo, only to find out via a not-so-timely Game Manual update that reloading is done in-game. Way to be slow with the info, woman on the other end of the Metal Gear Solid codec. Oh and I swear half the times the not-zombies start grabbing their chest, they should really be exploding from what I think are clearly headshots! But I digress. This is my first non-kiosk Resident Evil experience and it's already creeped me out a couple times, so I'm intrigued to see where this goes. 

In other news, this is the first day of at least this week where I've not gone to sleep right after I get home from work around noon. I actually managed to be productive and half-assedly clean my apartment and car, even finally finished watching the original Karate Kid on Netflix after watching bits and pieces for the last few days. I think I need to stop getting on Facebook and following links to quizzes and small stories from there, cause my attention span has really gone to shit lately. God help me if I can finish so much as a 20-minute television episode without pausing it in one sitting. Then again, I wrote two articles for plus10damage.com earlier and plan to write (or record, cause I have an idea to make my next articles mini-podcasts) at least one or two more by tommorrow, so I guess my newfound ADD hasn't affected my ability to write ... poorly. Hell, look at this blog. Still haven't gotten back on the diet and exercise train, but that may just have to wait until Fall while I indulge myself as much as I can the rest of summer. See: my earlier blog post today.

For those of you wondering what I thought about The Karate Kid, I um ... thought it was just ok. I actually prefer the remake with Will Smith's son and Jackie Chan. Both have their own strengths and weakness though, and I'd say they're pretty even quality-wise. But with no nostalgia for the original and having been surprised by the emotional depth (especially in Jackie Chan'sperformance) and cinematography of the remake, I have to hand it to the remake as being my personal favorite. I'm not interested in the sequels really, but Netflix suggested Rudy, which I've only seen parts of, so that may be what I watch next. Oh and I haven't yet caught a fly with chopsticks, but I have killed several around my apartment with my bare hands this summer (hence cleaning or at least taking out trash as often as possible; damn flies), so I guess I'm capable of anything according to that crazy and wise Okinawan who teaches karate by having skinny white boys paint his house for him. 

Well, it's two minutes to midnight where I am, so I better set my alarm and go to bed. In closing, wax on, wax off or jacket on, jacket off? You decide.