I had hoped to play a bit of Portal while I’m stuck on the ship for a duty watch tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I will have to wait until sometime next week.  Guess I need to find some other entertainment for a long, boring day   Hopefully Sea Training doesn’t decide to make it more interesting.

• The “game over” screen, which will kindly allow you to return to the battle in which you just died.
• A cutscene.

I haven’t done the actual timing or math, but I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more time watching cutscenes than playing.  In fact, as I am blogging right now, a cutscene is playing.  To be fair, I just restarted the game (for reasons that I will explain below), so this is the opening cutscene (which I apparently skipped before).

In the game, you control one of three characters: Terra, Aqua, or Ventus.  Actually, while I say that you control one of the three, during the course of the game you will control all three.  Once you finish the game with one character, you play it again with one of the others, then again with the third.  Only by playing through with all three characters will you get the entire story.

Additionally, I learned (after I started the first time, and the reason for the restart), if you play on the standard difficulty level, you need to find every secret in the game to get the storyline-tying final scene.  I’m playing instead in proud mode, in which I take more damage, but don’t need to read guides to ensure that I find every secret before I reach the end.

I do wish, however, that cutscenes played much less of a role in this game.  Maybe I’m spoiled by other game series (the Half-Life series comes to mind) where cutscenes are either non-existent or play a minimal role in the game.  Oh well; to each his own.

As with the first time I played the series, I’m starting with Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar.  This was one of the games responsible for giving CRPGs a story, rather than a goal of “kill all the bad guys, who aren’t really doing anything, then kill the ultimate bad guy, who’s just hanging out.  On the way, you can lie, cheat, murder, and steal your way to victory”.

One huge difference between my current run-through and my first one, I’m old enough and experienced enough to understand the different game style.  My first time winning, I had to cheat, because I didn’t understand that you couldn’t lie, cheat, murder, and steal, so I’d get near my goal then lose virtue points, making the game unwinnable.

Another difference, this time I know (most of) the answers, having played most of the series at least once, so it should be an easier time through the game.

My “20-minute workout” took me about 45 minutes (including training videos).  I decided to try a high-intensity workout.  They aren’t kidding when they say intense!  I think it’s meant to make sure I’m either fit or dead by the time my 30 days are up.

It was a fun game while it lasted, but it has no replay value.  Once the game is finished, you can restart again but you’re looking for the same objects in the same locations.

Somewhat better is Mystery P.I., which we got on Steam.  Although the replay value is still limited, there is a wide variety of items to find in each location, so even if you replay a level you won’t necessarily get the same items.

My wife isn’t much of a gamer, but she loves her searching games.  Now we just need to find one that will last her more than a few days.

The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you’re running.  Check your computer’s system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher

Now, I’m not an expert on Windows, but as far as I knew, 32-bit apps were supposed to run on Vista 64 (hence the Program Files (x86) directory)