Dead End Alley

Well, the antibiotics don't seem to have had any effect on whatever is making me cough. After a comparatively good weekend, it was back to business as usual as soon as I sat down at my desk at eight o'clock this morning.
I'm tired too, but that kind of goes without saying these days. Not good.

At least I managed to make some good progress on the collaborative exercise for my OU course, even though some of the others seem a bit confused as to who is supposed to be peer reviewing whose work, even after I helpfully pointed them at the very message in the thread that explains the system that we all agreed on. I also made a start on the revision for the Java exam - I've got a day school next weekend and then a week off the week after that, so I should be able to get to the point of feeling confident. I hope.

In games news, I've finally been able to spend a bit of quality time with Portal 2. The puzzles are tricky, but always logical and don't rely on exact timing or precise jumps or anything like that - once you have figured out the solution then implementing it is not too tricky. Needless to say the script is pitch perfect, with GladOs being as evil and sarcastic as ever. You monster.

Also, on a whim I found an old cd with a copy of Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe (now available as freeware) and installed it on my bootcamp partition. It's a World War II stealth/strategy shooter with you controlling a squad of four SAS soldiers infiltrating various Nazi bases and killing lots of bad guys. Definitely no gung ho heroics here, as one or two shots will kill you, so it really is a case of sneaking your dudes into position and setting up overlapping fields of fire before sniping the enemies one at a time. It's still pretty good, even considering the blocky graphics and occasionally shonky AI (ordering your men to hold fire rarely seems to work). It is also ROCK BASTARD HARD, even on medium difficulty and remembering strategies from the last time I played it six or seven years ago. Worth a spin, if you like that sort of thing.