Good to be home

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. All last week I was on a business trip at Lake Lanier, Georgia. When I got back to the office the mountain of paperwork that had accumulated on my desk made me want to run and hide.

 

As far as business trips go, this one wasn’t to bad. The flight down was pretty smooth, but flying out of Atlanta was a pain in the ass. I’ve flown out of Atlanta before and it’s always a madhouse, but I’ve never seen it this bad. It took me longer to get to my gate then it did to fly home. Anyway, back to the trip. Three meals a day were provided, which is pretty standard, but each meal was a fairly big buffet in the hotel restaurant. If we didn’t feel like having the buffet, we could order off the menu. It was nice not having to leave the hotel to find a place to eat. During the day, another buffet was set up right outside the conference room with muffins, donuts, cakes, fruit, coffee, tea, and sodas. At night, a hospitality room was set up with an open bar. I usually don’t drink in the middle of the week, but since they were giving it away I figured I’d take advantage of the opportunity. They also provided cards, poker chips, darts, a putting green, and a big screen TV. The room was pretty sweet and had one of the nicest bathrooms I’ve ever seen in a hotel. It would have been nice to have some free time during the day because I would have liked to have gotten in a round of golf or maybe do some fishing. I could have gone in the evening, but I was so wiped by the end of the day I just didn’t feel like going anywhere. However, I did have the foresight to bring the Xbox 180 with me on the trip.   I’d intended on playing some Halo 2 over live while I was down there, but the room only had a wireless connection and my Xbox isn’t set up for wireless. Each night, I’d retire to my room and play Knights of the Old Republic for a couple of hours. 

 

Speaking of KOTOR, wasn’t that just a great game? Sometimes I forget how good some of the games on the 180 were. When I first played Oblivion on the 360 I thought, “This is the best RPG I’ve ever played.” After playing KOTOR again, I have to change my opinion on that. Even though I like Oblivion and the wide-open game play, it just didn’t hold my attention like Knights did. I once played Knights for 34 hours straight, but I have yet to complete Oblivion. Not once playing Knights did I ever grow bored with the game. There have been plenty of times I’ve been playing Oblivion and eventually get tired of it after awhile. Oblivion is a great game, but honestly, I think KOTOR is better (admittedly, I’m a Star Wars fanatic so I may be a bit biased). Speaking of great RPG’s, I’m really hyped about Mass Effect. I didn’t start getting excited about Halo 3 until the day before it’s released, but I’ve been excited about Mass Effect for a few weeks now. I’ve always liked RPG’s better then any other type of game and from everything I’ve read, Mass Effect is going to rewrite the book. The storylines in RPG’s are usually what I like bets and Mass Effect sounds like it has a pretty good one. Game Informer gave the game a 9.75 with the only flaws being a couple of minor combat and AI issues. I can live with that. The RPG that I feel was the most fun (not the best; the one that gave me the most pure enjoyment) would have to be Dragon Warrior (or, if you prefer, Dragon Quest) on the Nintendo. Then again, I haven’t played it since I was in high school (i.e. a very long time ago). I wonder if I’d enjoy it as much now as I did then, but since it doesn’t seem to be showing up on Wii I guess I won’t know anytime soon.