Brewfest! Whoo!

World of Warcraft has several festivals during the year, and today marks the start of one of my favorites: Brewfest!

Backstory: it's a celebration of the harvest (not to be confused with the Harvest Festival, which is more a memorial of fallen heros and a Day of the Dead-type thing), and what better way than with a festival featuring bread, pretzels, cheese, sausage, and most importantly, beer! Basically, it's WoW's version of Oktoberfest. And yeah, this all thought up by the dwarves - we know how they love their ale.

More importantly, it's a set of quests involving getting drunk (and hunting critters that can only be seen while drunk), riding rams, and hurling empty beer mugs at raiding Dark Iron Dwarves.... all of which can be repeated once a day.

So if I disappear for a few days, you now know why: the World has sucked me in once again.

Brewfest: Kusa tested... Kusa approved!

Give Your Warlord a Charm Bracelet Week

Today, I decided to take a break from writing and indulge in a little World of Warcraft. I've been playing for several years now, but it's been a bit since I last played - October, I think. In any case, I remembered that they should be having their Valentine-esque holiday, so I decided to hop on.

And for the first time in years, the quests are different.

Last year (and the year before, and the year before that...), you bought perfume or cologne, distributed valentines, collected goodies, and spent oodles of time traipsing around Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and Undercity for the quests.

This year? You get to collect charms, make a "lovely charm bracelet," and hand it off to, say, Thrall, who literally says, "Oh, what a lovely charm bracelet." Then you get to turn in your quest while squealing in fangirl/fanboy-ish glee because the great and mighty Thrall loved your charm bracelet.

The great and mighty Thrall probably has a pile of charm bracelets behind his chair and is debating whether or not he can arrange the death of whoever came up with the bright idea of the lovely charm bracelets.

Of course, now I'm wondering what other changes Blizzard's going to make this year. I also need to find out where people are getting the pet pugs, because those are adorable.

Soul Caliber IV

A little over a month ago, I finally got a PS3 as part of a deal with a new TV. It also came with a free movie and game, but alas, the game choice was not something that really got my attention.

Then yesterday, my brother brought over a few of his games. He seems to have an intense interest in getting me to use my PS3 for more than a glorified Blu-Ray player. In any case, he brought over Soul Caliber IV.

Now, I've been a Soul Caliber fan since the days of Soul Caliber II, when the AI in our insanely evil little Dreamcast learned to beat the hell out of just about anyone who showed up. I swear, the thing was conscious. My brother left it on one night, playing itself in an endless battle between the two characters who could be any character, and the next day, there was no beating it until John brought out Siegfried and put its butt back in it's place.

Scariest part was that it actually gave up halfway through that team battle. Went from striking and countering and guard impacting to just... standing there. It recovered a day or two later, once it finished sulking.

Then, it started on the corpse mutilation. You see, once the computer KO's you, it's supposed to just stand there and wait for the next round. Not ours. It started with Cervantes. See, Cervantes has a move where he leaps up into the air, disappears, and comes slamming his swords down on the opponent halfway across the stage. So it started where the KO would sound, and the computer's Cervantes would take one step after. The next time, it managed the leap. The time after that, it teleported, but without delivering the blow. And finally, it came crashing down on my prone character with all the force Cervantes could muster.

After that, it was as if the dam broke. Any Dreamcast-controlled character could just walk right up to you after you'd been KO'd and start beating the heck out of your poor prone body. According to our stunned friends who had their own Dreamcasts and their own versions of SCII, this was not typical behavior.

Of course, those friends also came in, confident that they'd have no problem going through our arcade on Medium when they could beat theirs on Expert with ease. Yeah, they didn't make it too far...

So yes, when John brought over Soul Caliber IV, I could hardly wait to give it a try. Annnnd then proceeded to play it until 6am. -_-;; Story mode's a little... lacking, but it's got the same familiar play style that I love and there's still the arcade mode. I still have another mode to try, which will probably keep me busy tonight. Also: loving the character creation. It's one of those fluffy little extras that reeeeeally aren't necessary, but it is fun. Looks like I can make up to 50 characters, so I've got 48 more to go once I feel like I understand the game better. The over-complication, I'm not too fond of, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon.

Now, let's see if I can keep it to just a few hours tonight. ^_^;;