It’s been a busy week. I had Monday and Tuesday off, which was awesome. We started school a couple of days earlier than the other grouping in my area, so they gave us a long weekend here. Unfortunately, my teachers still crammed five days of work into three. I had two unit exams, and I’ve felt a little pressed for time. As I’m sure many casual bloggers can relate with, when given the choice between doing something you want to do on the free time you have or actually blogging about it, most will choose the former. That’s why I’ve been playing a ton of Half-Life 2, which I had never really had the chance (read: never really took the chance to) play until The Orange Box. I finished it Saturday night, and was reminded that I had actually seen the ending before; someone played through it to show me. I didn’t really remember it that well, and I surely didn’t ‘get’ it at the time. Another thing I’ve been reminded of while continuing The Orange Box is how crucial Achievement usage is viewed on a Xbox 360 game. Especially for their first outing, The Orange Box is incredible in its Achievement placement, difficulty and display. I’ve never understood why most games don’t let you see stats, especially when they have corresponding Achievements. UNO did it, why not retail games? Luckily, The Orange Box gives you counters for all number-based awards which can be viewed at any time, and even POP up once and a while in-game to display your progress. The difficulty is perfect, too. Some are challenging, but most will just take perseverance and only one play-through, which is important in a game that is really five games. Going back and getting gold medals on Portal will be frustrating, so I’m leaving that until I’m sure I want to go for the 100% completing. It’s nice to know there’s some DLC coming, as well.

That’s all I have in the way of stories to tell right now, my Assassin’s Creed painting for my art class is nearing completion (I’m going back to working on it after I post this) and I’m looking forward to getting to start something new. Our free project is next, there aren’t really any restrictions on what we do, so I’m not sure if I’m going to do another painting yet. Hopefully I’ll get a post up about that tomorrow or the next day along with some pictures of my painting.

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