Clark, Jim, Jon and I played our last run of Phantasy Star Universe on PS2/PC tonight.

It was fun. :) We did a bunch of Crimson Beast and Lab Recovery S2 for old times' sake, since we used to grind those missions really often (back when those were the easiest of the S2s and we were like... 100 levels smaller, or something like.)

I took a whole bunch of screenshots throughout the last couple months of our PSU playing, and made sure to get plenty tonight as well. At the end of our last mission we ran around and shot missile weapons and too screenshots like they were fireworks. We also got a group pic of the veteran Guardian crew standing together looking badass: S0YL3NT-G (Clark), Furry McGrowlson (Jim), Shirai Aires (Jon), Reina Hidalgo (me).

I also made sure to get shots of Reina's room, her final stats and equipment, and even had her do some RP monologue (probably cause I'm a dork). Reina and Shirai shared a last moment together, too. It was sweet.

Jon and I have really been bummed over the imminent closure of PSU for the PC. :( We're continuing to look into replacement games.

I did a google search and found this blog page about "where do we go now from PSU?" It gives a few Korean game suggestions that look great, though I'm a little bit wary since there's plenty of Asian-made games that look very pretty but are lacking in substance...

Of the three mentioned, I'm currently favoring Tera Online. Fun selection of races and classes, and the developers are trying to make it so that all race/gender/class combinations are available. One of their selling points is also the "targetless" gameplay, in other words more like PSU where your positioning and aiming have to be done manually.

And I am SO playing female Castanic. I've wanted to play a demon chick for a while now!! But not completely sure on a class yet. (This is something my MMO group has to work out, as ideally, I'd like us to be a well balanced team like we were in PSU.)

For 3 or 4 years now I've been playing Phantasy Star Universe every Friday and Saturday night (or most nights, anyway) with Clark, Jim and my hubby. Sometimes my sis joined in too. It was something we could look forward to doing every weekend... a constant in life.

By the end of 2009 I'd gotten my main character, Reina Hidalgo, very close to the level cap (160, or is it higher now, not sure). I maxed her levels in 6 classes: Fighgunner (still my favorite ever), Guntecher (my 2nd favorite, yay for bows!), Fortegunner, Fortefighter, Protranser (EX traps rule) and Acrofighter. I'm very close to maxing Gunmaster and was determined to start on Fighmaster next, the melee weapon equivalent to the Gunmaster class, more or less. (Spear is one of their favored weapons... I love spears!)

But now it's all going to be gone at the end of March. :( We knew this would happen, the PC/PS2 servers have such loooowww activity compared to Xbox servers. But it's sad to see. All those hours of play (over 1000), yet even if I did get an Xbox I wouldn't be able to transfer all those levels over.

I'm playing Sims 3 right now, and I have been for 3 days (barred other immediate things needing doing). I'm going on a Sims marathon through the weekend! The game is just that good. [Edit: I forgot to mention, but I'm also taking a RPoL break right now. Partially so I can play more Sims 3 but mostly because I really, really feel burned out creatively.]

I want to write a more extensive review, but I'm still exploring all the options right now. I will say this: I didn't expect the game to improve as much as it did from the last version. This is really THE definitive Sims game, and it addresses a lot of things that made the previous game tedious or slow (both gameplay wise and loading time wise.) It also lets you manage your game content so much better! I can't believe how quickly the game loads and how convenient it is to play. I have PLENTY more to rave about later. :)

God, I'm just so worn out mentally right now. I can hardly think straight, and I have so many things to write. Nnngh. Mostly a couple character sheets (one is just number crunchy fortunately) and I oughta try to actually PREPARE a post for Dynastic Moon, to try to preempt yet another week of FAIL.

I don't know where all my time goes. I always feel like the days are too short. It takes me hours to write relatively short posts.

I am thinking that I'm going to seriously break down if I don't rest, due to the extreme writing fail I've had recently. Not just with DM, but also just in general... after doing Snow Tempest's sheet I've had an increasingly difficult time getting enough inspiration to write anything. (Makes me very sad because I have this Zenith concept I really, REALLY want to create. *sigh*)