Hitman: Blood Money was… almost fun, if only the enemies hadn’t been so fucking annoying and relentless. It also suffers from this crappy “feature” that Shadowgrounds had, you can’t save in the middle of a mission and continue another time. That is, you have a few save slots while playing, but you can only use them while you’re still doing the mission, once you quit you won’t be able to load them again. Really fun when the game crashes because of some stupid bug in a mission, or you get interrupted. Even though the game got me pretty irritated and I had to restart every mission a few million times before being able to complete them, it was sort of a fun challenge in a way.

Had some fun with Tomb Raider: Legend, the first game in the series I’ve played since the original (which was awesome) came out. Some mixed feelings about this, it provided some level of enjoyment, but it really was too short and easy.

I tried playing Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends the other day, and although it looked interesting and all that, I just couldn’t get into it at all. It did look like it could be rather good, and a nice change from the normal RTS games, but somehow it didn’t manage to capture my attention. Played for 2 hours before I gave it up.

Downloaded Heroes of Might and Magic V a few days ago. I’ve tried the third installment before, but other than that I didn’t have much of a relationship to the series, so I didn’t have any particular expectations to it. When I first started playing it I was enjoying myself quite a bit, but after a while it got really old, really fast. There doesn’t seem to be much games nowadays that will keep my interest up for more than a few hours.

I finished one of the games I recently bought, earlier today: Shadowgrounds. Judging from the screenshots and reviews, you’d might just think it could be a tinsy-winsy bit of fun? Well it is not. What a huge letdown, the voice acting is horrible, and the animation of the characters looks like it has been copied from one of the Monty Python silly walks skits. For the first level or two it is somewhat entertaining, but that feeling quickly fades as you progress through the levels. Also, there’s actually no way to save whenever you want, in order to have your progress remembered by the game you have to finish a level. That could take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour. So if you get disturbed, need to do something else or the game crashes… well tough luck, you’ll just have to start over again.

Today I finished reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (as you presumably know). This was my first venture into the world of Tolkien bookwise, and although from what I had heard I suspected it to be good, I never realised just how wonderful it truly was. I admire him for the immense work he has put into creating everything, from the settings, characters and to the languages he created. When you read The Hobbit, you quickly notice that he has a way with words that exceeds the normal novel, the text flows naturally and it is almost like he plays with the words. Damn I really loved this book, I’m sure that I will eventually re-read this at some time, and now I can’t wait to get started on The Lord of the Rings.

Ordered some more books:

• The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1)
  by Jonathan Stroud
• His Dark Materials Trilogy [Box Set]
  by Philip Pullman
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
  by Susanna Clarke
• I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
  by Tucker Max

Got through the first part of Sin Episodes today, called Emergence. Although the story and plot is just so-so, it makes up for it with some wickedly fun gameplay, I enjoyed myself all the way through it. It’s based on the Source engine that runs Half-Life 2 amongst others, so it’s somewhat similiar in the way you can interact with stuff and not to mention that it’s very hardware friendly. Even though I only have a mid-range system, I have no problem turning the graphics up a notch or two without experiencing lag. I’m looking forward to playing the future episodes that are coming, although I think it’s a bit overpriced compared to other games, when you only get ~8 hours or so worth of gameplay out of it. One thing I loved about it was how the game adapts to your skill level, so if you’re used to playing fps games and know how to aim and shoot, the enemies will get harder and harder as it learns your moves and skill set.

I’m not a big fan of religion - of any kind, and especially these… well what can I call them? The ones that has their roots soaked in aggression, with more of a violent history behind them, like Christianity, Islam and Judaism, some of the bigger religions out there. I’m not much of a historian though, so this is basically just what I perceive them as. I have more respect for the eastern religions and philosophy, like for instance Buddhism. Either way, I don’t like reading about religion and I feel I get frustrated every time I see some religious zealots on TV. But reading Angels & Demons today made me look at religions in another light, Dan Brown puts everything in a way that makes reading about religion and its history interesting.

One thing specially made me realise that those of us that regards science higher than religion (like myself), aren’t very different from those that believe in a god, whether it be God, Allah, Buddha or any other deity of your choice. That thing was what he wrote about antimatter and duality. Like how everything has an opposite; angel/demon, heaven/hell, harmony/chaos, or say matter/antimatter. Antimatter, when coming into contact with matter (pick any element in the periodic table) will annihilate and create energy far beyond that of a nuclear bomb, and by some it is thought to be the reason behind the big bang. If only I had a better way with words, I could have put this in a more beautiful and meaningful way, but what he wrote was basically something along the lines of this: I believe in the big bang (or rather it is what makes most sense to me at the moment), but is it any different from believing in a big source of energy creating the universe, than it is to believe in a god (who might perhaps be made out of pure energy)? I clinge to science and physics laws, which we still know nothing about in the universal sense. The laws are man-made, just as the Bible (Christianity), Qur’an (Islam), Torah (Judaism) or Tripiá¹­aka (Buddhism) is. E = mc² you say, how do you know? Every day scientists finds facts that contradicts old beliefs of physics. In the grand scale of things we are no wiser than those that believe in a god.

Buddha got it right:

• All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
• All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.
• Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
• Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
• Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Today I finished reading Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, after reading and loving The Da Vinci Code, I was looking forward to reading this prequel of a sorts. I instantly fell in love with this one as well, the two books are quite similiar in their style, and I’m a sucker for these semi-criminal, mysterious thrillers that manages to blend in some factual stuff to make it seem more real and believable. I ended up pretty much reading all the 500 or so pages in one sitting, I couldn’t stop once I got started.

Just noticed that he is writing a new book with the same characters, The Solomon Key, I can’t wait!