Outside of binge sessions of Company of Heroes (best game ever) I've been looking for something to relax and play. Something with a story, puzzles, where I can put my feet up and my heart rate doesn't go out of control. I'm not sure if I was looking for that or if I started playing some adventure games lately and have just been enjoying the experience to think that it's what I needed before. Either way, they're good times.

A few quick notable ones then I'm watching "The Good Shepherd" while I try to fall asleep. It all started when I looked at my Grim Fandango disk, and decided I didn't want to get into something really long right now. This was a few weeks ago. As some may know, I'm a subscriber to Gamespot.com, and they've been reviewing these games over the past year that have looked different but I thought they might be like Ratchet & Clank or whatever that game is called on the PS2. But then I watched a gameplay video and realized that "Sam And Max" is indeed an adventure game. So I bought the first season for $35. Six episodes in all. I played the first 4 over a weekend, and the next one a few days later, and the last one is now available for download. These are short games because they're just episodes. Each about 3-4 hours long if you don't cheat. Sometimes I have to though. The reason I'm not downloading the last episode right now is because I'm playing another game. The Longest Journey.

The Longest Journey is cool. It's a full adventure game as opposed to episodes like Sam and Max. You start out and there's truly nothing that you *have* to do right away. You are in the future, living in Venice as an art student. You have two weeks before you have to get your painting done for the show. It's an interesting story so far. I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I also got the sequel for when I beat it. Should be good times.

Adventure games are very hard though, for me. I sometimes don't examine every nook and cranny, and so sometimes they're harder than they should be, because some puzzle might be obvious if I just checked a drawer and found some item that would make it so. Some of the puzzles just seem downright impossible though. I have to open up a walkthrough to help out on some parts. It's brutal. A lot of the puzzles I figure out though. An example of one that I didn't figure out was in The Longest Journey, you talk to the land lady and she found a ring of yours. You go outside and there's this machine, and on it is a severed wire. Just saying that now, though, you'd be like "Use the ring to connect the two ends of the wire, dumbass!!" But it doesn't even enter my mind. Some people maybe, not me. I guess I'm not creative or imaginative. Who knows. It's a testament to the variety and creativity found in Adventure games though. You never see the same puzzle.

DOH! I recently began to question my wisdom when looking at the best games for the two common hand held gaming systems on the market. I have the Sony PSP which has games like Tiger Woods and Virtua Tennis. The other one is the Nintendo DS. It of course has two screens, hence the "DS" for "Dual Screen". And one is a touch screen.

I was checking out the list of the best games, obviously sorted by rating descending. Out of the top 10 or so games for each system, I found myself wanting more from the DS and already having all the ones I'd want on the PSP. That blows. I'm not going to get a DS soon because I don't really have the time for either anyway. But I chose the wrong one or I am in the wrong profession and should have been able to buy both and determine for myself which one is better. This way would likely be the best way. Oh well. That would surely be a luxury item and I can't buy luxury items now. Only after I have tons of loot saved for a house.

Speaking of luxury items... I'd love to have a file server running on Linux or Mac (preferably something cheap to set up), with tons of space on it, like a terabyte or two. For one thing, I'd love to be able to import all of my DVDs and store them on there, and of course have all of my music on there. Then buy an AppleTV and have my Mac reference all of these things in iTunes. Then of course be able to watch any movie I own with a click of a button on either my TV or my Mac. That would be ideal. I've researched ways to import DVD into a format that iTunes and AppleTV can understand. It's possible but the legality is questionable. They're my movies though, and as long as I keep the disks I should be fine. Although the MPAA and RIAA want to make it as difficult as possible to do that, so Apple really isn't allowed to provide the means, I have to find a hack.