I set out to do as little as possible this weekend, and Nad was on the same page. I think we got close to meeting that goal.
Friday night we watched Madagascar. It was a funny movie, but had a lot more slapstick-style humor than I expected. I suppose I was expecting the animal version of Shrek. Still, I enjoyed the movie. Especially the penguins.
I should quickly mention that Nad and I watched The Longest Yard last weekend. It was much better than I expected it to be. Check out Kevin’s review of the movie.
Other than the trip to the movies, we generally stayed at home. I played several games over the weekend, but the bulk of my attention was focused on Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (Xbox) and Paper Mario (N64). San Andreas fixes a lot of the controller issues I had with Vice City, namely the use of the right analog stick. VC uses the right analog to go into first person, while SA uses it to pan the camera around the main character (CJ). This improvement also makes drive-bys damn near impossible for me – now the Black and White buttons are used to look left and right while driving. I can’t right Black (or White) and B (to fire) at the same time. The buttons are right next to each other, but I still can’t do it.
Nad has a bit of a beef with the game. After watching me play for about an hour, she was unhappy with the negative stereotypes that the game reinforces. She specifically cited the language used (I think it is a lot dirtier and more racial than VC), but I believe there are several other aspects of the game that bother her. I’ll let her go into more detail about it, if she chooses to discuss it.
At least she enjoys watching a biker get hit by a car and get launched into the distance!
The other game I played, Paper Mario, really couldn’t be more “anti-GTA”. No realstic violence, no cussing, no voice-acting, but just as much fun, if not more. I’ve been working on the original because I want to get the sequel, but I’ve decided to finish the first before doing so. I did the same thing before getting Burnout 3 and KOTOR II.
