Gaming frustration

It seems like I complain about the Metriod Prime games all the time, and the complaints I have are valid. The save point system SUCKS. I hate jumping off some ledge, knowing that I need to loop around a long path of rooms to get back to the save point that I was at, and then real life interrupts my gaming, so I have to either turn it off, and lose the rooms I just finished scanning, or leave it on for god knows how long. The multi-stage bosses are so damn annoying. It chains in with the save system, being that if I could save anywhere, I could defeat "Giant Bug Boss: Larva stage", then save, and deal with the adult version later. Instead, I have to grind through the larva, then the adult, then the dark adult. It is really tiresome after a short time. That said, I keep coming back to them, because Samus is such a badass, the story is told in such an engrossing way, and the gameplay itself is really fun.


Civilization 4, especially with Beyond the Sword, may be my favorite game of all time. I am trying to get a second turn-a-day game started up, and this one should be huge. Sixteen players, on a map meant for 9! It doesn't look like there is anyway to get all 16 people on-line at the same time, so no getting a huge number of turns in at once, but hopefully everyone can dedicate some time over the weekend. The first few turns of a Civ game are so boring, but so crucial. Also on the Civ 4 front, I did not manage to be the first to sail around the world in the other Turn-a-day game. In fact, it was done by the last guy who needed it, the guy who has a 30% point lead on the next guy down, and almost a 5x lead over the guy in last place, points-wise anyway. I can't decide if I'm more impressed, frustrated, or pitying of this guy's Civ skill. He seems like an all-around good guy, so I'll feel bad when I start burning his cities down. That's the price you pay for being out in front.