Braid for sale on Steam

I dismissed this as yet another stupid platform twitch jumping game. Then I heard the music. Who cared about the game, I just wanted more of that.

Then, thinking I would never bother playing this, I read about the ending and despaired, for this suddenly seemed like exactly the kind of gaming and story I am always looking for.

I tried not to think about it, hoping it would fade (and hit the bargain bin), and I might be able to play it some day.

So here it is, and I can buy FLACs of the soundtrack too!

Thief Collection sale on Steam

Nice, Thief 1 and 2 go on sale, right about the time I'm ready to play the series.

Diablo 2: immunes

This is what I was concerned about: enemies that are immune to both of my magic skills, and regenerate so fast my merc can't do any damage to them. It means I have to lure the monster to a corner, and teleport away quickly.

Not fun, and not something re-arranging my stats/skills is going to solve, I think. Time to do some research. Looks like there's not much I can do about it. There is a rune combination that I can put in a weapon for my merc to use, that will reduce enemy immunities, but it only works in Battlenet, and I'm playing the home game. There's nothing more to do but max out cold and lightning skills, and find the best equipment I can. So I'll go at least a bit further before deciding whether I'm done here.

Diablo 2: 2/3 done

It was fairly smooth sailing to get from Duriel to Baal, though I did spread it across a few weeks. I'm not finding any really cool loot, but I'm getting the hang of my chosen spell combination, and letting the mercenary act as my lightning rod.

I wanted the completion of finishing one more round, this time on Hell difficulty, but not so much anymore. I'll see how it goes. Now that Diablo 3 is out, I should just play that. But, its at full list price and I've gotten really used to shopping in the bargain bin. And Blizzard pricing goes down the slowest of all (though they earned the right).

Let me see where I am on the timeline... looks like next up is Thief or Planescape, but I need a break from dungeon crawling; maybe I'll re-visit the Civilization or Age of Empires series.

suddenly, Portal 2

Portal 2 for sale on Steam, finally under $10!

It must be done.

Got up to about chapter 3 or 4 in no time; sleep required, continue tomorrow.

(days later - I never did come back to Portal. I've temporarily switched to a pair of 1280x1024 monitors while playing Diablo 2, and I don't really want to switch back to my 1920x1200 monitor just yet. Better to just finish D2, then come back later)

Diablo 2: grinding towards hell

I'm halfway through nightmare level just rushing along not really bothering to smell the roses or listen to the voice work.
I'm starting to wonder why I'm even doing this; I finished the game and what's the use in grinding. I guess it's because I originally set out to complete all five acts in all three difficulty levels, so I'm on a bit of auto-pilot.

Now that I'm actually doing it the fun has been leaching out of it. I was especially not looking forward to meting up with Duriel again - last time it took like 20 deaths to get past. But now that I have better area effect spells and a defensive mercenary, I only died once.

So we grind on.