overt.org

This will be a bit short since I’m typing on qwerty. It will also be full of errors.

Yesterday was awesome. We slept in, Doug went out in the morning for his refresher course, diving around an old plane that they wrecked for a movie. While he did this, everyone else got fitted for our scuba gear. Then, impatient for my luggage (it, of course, didn’t make it on the plane that I madly dashed to on saturday), we decided to kill time by getting lunch at a tropical waffle house. It seems silly, but it was cool. There was a steel drum player and a nice ocean view.

Upon returning to our hotel we waited a bit more for our luggage, whihc arrived at last, then we headed out for our first dive. Everything went fine and was beautiful, and everyone had a grand time. We have multitudes of pictures to upload once we get home to a fast connection. At the end of the dive, though, I got what’s called a “reverse block” in my ear, which means that expanding air was trapped in my eustacion (sp) tube, making it excruciatingly painful for me to come up. I tried a few times to fix things without much luck, and finally, very frazzled, made it back up to the surface. Doug noticed I had a little blood in my ear. Doh.

We went home, had showers, then went out to a sweet dinner at an italian place called Sambar. We had wine, great focaccia, and an array of yummy treats. Then we sat out on the patio and talked and rounded things out with some excellent tiramisu. All in all a great day. My ear kept bleeding some, though, and it still a bit swollen insode today, so I’m not going to dive today. I’m hoping it willbe all better by tomorrow afternoon for our last dives.

We made it, but only barely. We got on our plane in San Jose fine, and it left on time. But heading into Houston, we got news that there was a large storm system moving from west to east toward H-town, and that we’d have to swing around to Shreveport and double back to come from the east. So, instead of landing at 5:40, we landed at about 6:15. This was a problem because our plane to Cozumel was scheduled to leave at 6:20. We’d had pretty much given up hope of making it, but I thought I’d try sprinting the sizable distance to the gate, just in case they hadn’t left yet. As it turned out, the plane was still there, but the doors had been closed. I begged and pleaded, telling them that Leslie was coming up behind me. Eventually they agreed and opened up the doors and let us on. Woot. We waited on the tarmac in a growgin storm in a long line of planes. We finally got off the ground. A few minutes later the captain came on to tell us that five minutes after we lifted off, they had closed the Houston airport for the storm. So, we’re here, unlikely as we thought it would be.

And our hotel has free internet!

Last night, I concluded my rocky love affair with the newish Prince of Persia game, “The Sands of Time.” I actually started playing it a while ago, and got about 70% of the way through the game, when I was stymied by a bug. I had recently saved, and a platform that was supposed to rise when I stood on it did not. Since I had no save game since 40%, in order to make it any further, I had to restart play at that point.

The game is beautiful. I think that it my be, graphically, the peak of what the PS2 will achieve (though Gran Turismo 4 won’t be any slouch, either). It has amazing lighting, shadows, and modeling. Part of the effect is acheived by giving the entire game a hazy sort of look, but it works for me. Even better than the way it looks, though, are the controls. I have never played a game with such a rich palette of character controls that was so effortless to use. It’s challenging while not being frustrating, with everything from running along walls to swinging around poles and sliding gracefully down ladders. It just works.

And the controls clear the way for the best part of the game: the puzzles. The game is basically one long string of movement puzzles, with a few fights thrown in. The puzzles usually revolve around getting from one room to the next, either by climbing or descending or opening a gate. Frequently, you’ll screw up, and end up plummeting to your death or impaled on spikes. That’s where another unique aspect of the game comes in: the dagger of time. With a press of a button, you can reverse time for 10 or 15 seconds, and give that tricky jump another try. It removes all the frustration but none of the sense of acheivement from the game.

Last night, I finally finished it. It took maybe 20 hours of gameplay, which in the age of Final Fantasy X seems paltry. But it was very satisfyingly spread over a couple of months, including the time to replay half the game :P. The game is out, I think, for the PS2, gamecube, XBOX, and PC, so there’s really no excuse for not giving it a spin. Probably the best action-based game I’ve played in years.

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Comments

danielabrego — 2004-04-08 17:38:13

Playing Sands of Time made me feel like a kid again hammering away at a Super Metroid or Prince of Persia.

After playing it, I wanted to hunt down of copy Ico for more escaping from a giant castle fun.

bryan — 2004-04-09 08:49:37

i forgot to mention how much easier the sands of time was than the original POP. Wow, was that game hard. They actually have the original game stuck into sands of time as an easter egg.

Daniel — 2004-04-09 22:01:08

Yeah, I think this game would've been a tad o­n the difficult side if it weren't for the time effects.  Playing Jak 2 after this game was a big bad idea o­n my part…that game is evil. I kept wanting to reverse time to no avail.

See?

So, it’s that time again for all our favorite websites to do silly things for April 1st. Slashdot let me down this year, but there were two excellent showings from homestarrunner and maddox. Better hurry; I suspect everything will have returned to normal by tomorrow.