First off, before the actual gaming, the swag of the week. I picked up a few records, some vinyl from my used record store and a CD from a library. Then I picked up a game. Picture below.

Caravan's In the Land of Grey and Pink is an English prog rock album from 1971 and a really good one. I only discovered Caravan fairly recently from a box set I used to have collecting random tracks from a lot of prog bands called Supernatural Fairy Tales. I used to own In the Land of Grey and Pink when I still had my large vinyl collection. I'm not sure why I don't have an album rip of it on my hard drive. So I had to buy it again.

Next to it is Traffic's Last Exit from 1969. It also has a prog descriptor on wiki even though they are kind of jazzy and sort of pop. I always used to listen to them alongside all my prog stuff anyway back in the day. I'm glad to have it again and, sometime soon, add the tracks to my '69 prog playlist. 

Then I picked up Supertramp's first self-titled album from 1970 from a library at the extreme edge of my normal stomping ground. It was worth getting though. Traffic, along with Kansas, is one of the few American bands with a prog descriptor. I listened to them with my English proggers back in the day too. That cover makes me think of Peter Gabriel dressed as a flower when he was with Genesis around the time this album came out.

Then, I wasn't going to go game hunting this week, but I gave in because I could pick up Metroid Other M for under $10 at Gamestop. I got it complete too, which is usually difficult at those Gamestop stores. 

And now gaming.

Yesterday I did my usually all Sunday gaming with my friend Mark. I started out trying to finish Uncharted 2. I thought I was near the end by entering the mountain area near Shambala, but no way. There was a lot more game, and I stayed with it all afternoon before I really got super fed up with the combat. It was just as I entered Shambala and had to fight those local "scarecrows" that I just threw the controller down. I couldn't hurt these guys at all and they would kill me in just a few hits over and over. I quit in disgust, then calmed down and restarted, turning down the difficulty to Easy from Normal. This enabled me to take out one of them and grab one of their crossbows to more easily take out a second, but then a grenade chucking enemy came in and finished me off quickly with just a few near hits. Another controller hit the floor. It was frustration that had been building for many hours fighting through the combat in this game, whch, in this last long segment, is constant and furious.

I don't know if I'll go back to it. I could turn it down to Very Easy just to finish it, but I'm so angry with the combat and how this game just seems way out of it's own identity (at one point I literally had a flashback to playing one of the WWII CODs when the tank showed up), that I just don't know. All that being said though, the game is visually spectacular and meshes cut scenes with action incredibly well. I don't know. Maybe I just need some time away and think about it. I'm really angry I couldn't finish it on Normal difficulty. I was really close to the final parts of the game. Who knows. Maybe I'll recover and dig in again for those last bits. 

So then I dove back in to Skyrim. I played through to the end of the first dungeon in the game and came to a locked dooor I couldn't solve. I had the key but there are these rings with animals on them you have to align in a particular way and even after scouring the area for clues, and trying half a dozen combinations, I gave up and backtracked through the whole dungeon to return to town. Of course, on the way back I got lost. I saw what looked like an elf skinning a bear in the forest. I snuck around him because I'm only level 3 and he'd probably kick my butt. It was pretty neat to see a random event like that. I was tempted to use fast travel to get back to the town I needed to be at, but that just seemed like not roleplaying it, so I continued to fumble along until I decided to rest at this meadhall, or taproom, or bar, or whatever it was called. The one guest was a grouch though. No fun at all.

Skyrim is way cool, but it was time for dinner and I switched to Wheel of Fortune so I could eat at the same time. Mark and I played it and he destroyed me. I always overthink the word puzzles in that game and miss the obvious answers. 

Then we were looking around the marketplace for other board or card game and chose the Risk trial. While we waited for the download, I jokingly suggested Minecraft. Never joke about Minecraft. Once you start it, you won't want to stop and that's what we did the rest of the night. I joined his saved world where he had built a large castle and minecart travel system. I tried to stay outside though and survive the day building a simple building to keep out creepers. It didn't work. I had to remember how to play this game, and it took a while. I finally found a randomly spawned town away from Mark's castle and used that as a base. I figured out how to burn wood for charcole to make torches and craft tools. Minecraft is really cool, but once I managed to survive the night time, I wasn't sure what to do next. But we may play it again tomorrow for a while. 

That'd be it. Hope things are well for y'all.