Fatal Frame

Long time, no post. Work's been a grind, and I've been totally wiped out with what little free time I've had. Still, I must be crawling a little way up the slope as yesterday I bought a new video game. It still remains to be seen if I'll get very far in it, but as I've finished Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, and the replay value of that game is pretty weak, I decided to get something new.

I thought I was going to get Morrowind, but after cruising Costco with Kelly, I put the game back on the shelf, resolved to just play something I had at home. Then as we were leaving Costco, I said, "say, that new Game Spot is open, let's go look there."

I can tell I'll be going there too often. Lots of used games, and soooo convenient to my workplace. Fry's has gotten a lot of my money, now it's these guys' turn!

After looking at every stinking PS2 and Xbox game (twice!) I finally settled on Fatal Frame. The sequel is already out on PS2, so the original was kinda scarce when I went looking for it. And here it was, ported to the Xbox. So now I've got it in my hot little hands. This is a fairly arty member of the survival-horror genre, and seems to be in a similar mood mode as the Silent Hill series, which in my opinion beat Resident Evil all to heck.

The very same evening... I got Kelly through all her night time chores and then put both my angels to bed. Down into the bowels of the house I descended, to offer up my silver disk to the green monster. Getting florid, must ... slap ... self!

I was playing through the introductory section of the game when Kelly came downstairs. She does this little shtick on school nights where she appears downstairs and sits on the couch without talking, as if I'm not there, or as if she's not. When I call her on it, she utters the magical phrase "father-daughter time!"

So I just said hi and kept on playing, knowing that this would be a good way to teach her a lesson. Behind me I could sense her progressively curling into a little nest of clustered pillows and comforters. Eventually, I reached the part where Miku is introduced, saved and quit for the night. As I was getting ready to nudge Kelly toward bed, she emerged from her pillow fort (a little) and in a peeved voice, asked "what exactly is the point of that game?"

So I explained the mechanics of using the camera to weaken ghosts and the goal of collecting clues to find the lost people, even though I could tell her question was rhetorical. I just had fun pulling her chain. But she got back at me. She said she was a little too scared to go back to her room with no one to protect her. So I ended up coming up stairs and reading a book in the den, so she could see the light.

I'm looking forward to the next pass at the game, but maybe not tonight. I'm pretty exhausted. In fact, doing a quick pass over this post, I can tell it's a little incoherent, but I'm gonna let that ride, as I'm too tired to do editing, and I wanna get a post out there so family and friends know I'm not dead.

I'm not dead yet! I'm feeling much better! I think I'll go for a walk! ...