I think I should begin with saying there is a level of being frustrated with my lack of focus and consistency at the moment. Though it is more to do with having experienced that for maybe a few months, hoping it would continue. Over the years I've experienced this pattern again and again where I get into the zone with something i'm working on, only to have to walk away after trying to fight to stay afloat with it. I seem to rarely be able to stay with something until completion and i'm not sure why or what is to be done or what can be done. Just something in my head clicks.
I decided around 10 to 11 days ago that I needed to get off the nicotine. Even though I haven't smoked any tobacco since early may last year I have still been on and off vaping for long periods. I know that it has been having an impact on my heartrate, blood pressure and digestion and with me having a change in some medication recently I really need to put some energy into locking down a new routine in regards to my physical health. It's been pretty tough on a few levels not having any nicotine in my system and although the worst of it is over, my body is still needing to do all that chemical rebalancing which will be ongoing for a while. I don't really want to focus my energy on my health at the moment but I think i'm going to need to get a grip on it.
I decided that I would try and beat Tomb Raider IV recently as it was one I had played around the time it got released and gave up on even though I would attempt and restart it (in the hope I would be able to push on). I was streaming a few times a day for a few hour sessions. After pushing past the point where I would historically give up I realised I was actually the best and most enjoyable part of the game. After having push passed this section into the new unfamiliar parts of the game it became a frustrating grind. It did make me think that the developers had to rush out the last part of the game. Visually though it is beautiful and amazing to see far they upgraded and iterated on the game engine. I feel that perhaps the way they integrated static and animated 3D models into the environment goes under appreciated and put me in mind of those early Source games like Half Life 2 and Counter Strike Source and their approaches to adding detail to levels. Sort of around the time the visual busyness started increasing as technology allowed for more detail. It was the Alexandria section I would give up part way through historically and having got past it I really appreciate the approach to the level design where everything was sort of connected by a hub. It put me in mind of the same approach they took in Quake 2 with an interconnected design. I did encounter some pretty crazy bugs which I can imagine would of been really confusing and would of caused people to give up if they were only using one save slot through the game. It is possible to trigger a bug and have no way to continue the game if a save was made after it was triggered. I had to actually use a level skip cheat at the end of Cairo because I was sure I had just figured out a puzzle as there was some kind of sound trigger only to having to resort to looking up a guide which mentions the bug and gives caution. The other bug earlier in the game was where I opened up an underwater door but couldn't swim through the opening, so it was like even though the door was open whatever was controlling the collision hadn't been triggered so I was able to load a previous save and was fortunate not to encounter that again. Looking at the level list it does look like i'm close to the end and I will get around to finishing the game. I am using a PlayStation 1 copy with an original console, I can imagine some of those bugs don't exist in the modern version available now. I may attempt to put together and upload some kind of retrospective on YouTube as I have a lot more to say.
I will get around to creating a page with where you can find me but it's really just YouTube now. howardTALKS Where I haven't actually talked in a long time!
I have decided to do another update in about a weeks time on a few other things I haven't touched on in this post. All the best as usual, Howard.
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