The Hunger Game

Finished reading the first book of The Hunger Games today. I enjoyed it and want to watch the movie very much now, lol.

The vocabulary of this book is at a moderate level, much much easier than read The Game of Thrones. So it’s a more enjoyable reading experience. It’s a little hard for me to understand why this book has been so popular. It was said to be the successor of Harry Porter. But I don’t think the fictional world in Hunger Games is not as spectacular as HP, neither is its story. Maybe it’s popular because it’s more close to real life? Or because it’s more bloody?

As a Chinese, I do realize some similarities between the model in Hunger Games and in the famous novel “1984”. And some descriptions did remind me of my life in China, especially in the middle school. Fortunately those uncomfortable memories are only memories for me now.

Mass Effect 3

Finished it just now. Normal difficulty, Sentinel class, 31 hours.

The ending was not as bad as I expected, maybe because there had been too many bad words about the ending of this game so my expectation couldn’t be lower. I don’t think its ending is especially bad, compared to other parts of this game. In my opinion, the whole game is quite boring.

The battle system is too similar as ME2: barrier/shield/armor, fast weapons, slow weapons,  skill system almost stays the same too. I can hardly find any new interesting places in ME3 battles, after playing through ME2 for 3 times. Actually, I think it’s even worse because of a few glitches. For example if you want to stay behind a cover of “L” shape, you’ll notice Shepard turn to some directions you don’t want. It turned out to be a very annoying problem because this is not a game encouraging you to rush and melee. So at most times you have to stay in cover and deal with glitches. And those cool melee skills don’t seem very useful to me.

In the ME3 story I feel almost everyone died. I got 4 companions at a very early stage, and ended up with these 4 comrades.. Tali joined a while then killed herself. I guess there is some way to get more companions alive, but I want to experience the “original” gameplay in the 1st pass. And my feeling is the story is very simple: need to gather power => [get a mission => mission accomplished, someone died] x n => final mission. The structure is so simple that I don’t see any suspense. Again, boring.

An obvious improvement in ME3 is there are much more weapons. And grenades become more useful. I can see they built a pretty big gun system, maybe for online play, maybe for catering shooting game lovers. But I don’t really like this. If I want to use 100 different guns and throw grenades, why not I play CoD?

Anyway ME3 gave this trilogy an ending. Maybe I’ll try another pass or online play. But now, after finishing the 1st pass, I’m not in the mood.

Took another wisdom tooth out

Yesterday, at Garden Dental Arts again. Surprisingly cheap, 16.80$.

Then I realized my teeth count is less than my age now…

Recent Watching TV Series

Still following TBBT, not that interesting anymore after watching 5 seasons. It’s just a habit to follow it.

“The Game of Thrones” is the hot one now. I’ve been enjoying it a lot, to see characters and plots in book picturized. Xw doesn’t like it very much though, as the TV series get rid of too many stories from the book.

“The Office” is a good one recommended by Netflix. We watched 2 episodes and found it very hilarious. People in my office look much more reasonable compared to those weirdos in this TV serial.

北京爱情故事(Beijing Love Story)……I can’t fucking believe I’m watching it!!!

冰火第五部

经过长达数月(可能得有半年。。)的阅读,终于在上周读完。大部分是在地铁上用手机Kindle App读完的。这书在iPhone Kindle上长达两万多页,囧。有一次在地铁上看见一个女生捧着第五部的原书在读才知道这书这么厚。而且词汇对我来说还是很难的。。基本上每页都会有不认识的词,虽然也可以跳过不认识的词来读,但大部分时候还是不停的查。好在有触摸屏查词还比较方便。

读英文版的感觉跟读中文版还是有些不一样。感觉好像写得更细致了,其实应该是因为读得慢所以读得更细致了。不过有些章节人名跟以前读的前四部中文版对不上的时候真是一头雾水。

以下轻度剧透