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Posts tagged with "Gaming"

Good Old Games

Thursday, 11. September 2008, 14:54:41

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Work is getting me down today. Some of my past work has come back to bite me, and is causing some havoc/additional cost getting it sorted. Not entirely my fault but looking back it wasn't the smartest work I've ever done either. :frown:

On the plus side, a new site offering older PC games for download, Good Old Games, has emailed me a link to the non-public, invitation-only beta-test of their new service. There is one in particular I'm looking forward to trying, hopefully for the magical price-point of approx £5 (or less), Freespace 2, but I could see myself purchasing a few more if the service proves easy enough to use. Freespace 2, widely regarded as a true classic of the genre, is a space sim[ulation] in the old style, meaning a joystick is the preferred method of flight control*. This gives me a good excuse to pop in past PC World on my way home tonight for a spot of Retail Therapy.

Current Mood: Wanting to go home. :wait:

*Newer games switched to a mouse-and-keyboard method of flight, easier for the wider populace to get a grasp of but much less authentic. Predictably, we space-smitten die-hards prefer the innuendo-laden Stick of Joy.

2 comments

Lesson Learned

Thursday, 4. September 2008, 13:29:27

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It is with considerable smugness that I read the reviews of game developer GSC's latest not-quite-as-good-as-its-forbear addition to the excellent S.T.A.L.K.E.R franchise, Clear Sky...followed by the bitter comments beneath the review of people bemoaning the bugs present in the game and settling in for the long, frustrating wait for a patch to arrive that magically restores the game to something like its intended glory.

I went through this with the original game, the stunning Shadow of Chernobyl. It took approximately four months and five or six patches to get the game stabilised and running without technical issues, which for many of us early-buyers were preventing us from enjoying one of the best games we'd seen in years. We knew it was there - we just couldn't get at it. And GSC, at least initially, seemed quite adamant that the fault lay not with their code but with our machines!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky
This was not the first time I'd heard this, however.

Egosoft, a german games development unit, also pulled out the excuses (Your PC, not our game) when their hotly anticipated next-gen space empire-building game, X3: Reunion, arrived on PCs around the world in shoddy, early-beta form. Patch 1.4 - after around six months of waiting and testing successive patch releases, was the one that not only polished the game to a smooth and playable state but revealed those words to be utter nonsense.

X3: Reunion
On PC, When games don't work properly the usual result is for the game-player to then begin a long process of troubleshooting, tweaking and diagnostics, looking at the underlying OS, the hardware and any troublesome device drivers that might be acting up. Braver souls will also start fiddling with the games' configuration files. Thus it was particulary insulting to be told that OUR carefully maintained gaming rigs were the problem. And the fact that 99% of the other games we owned worked without the horrendous sound and graphical issues didn't seem to occur to either developer until much later (after many venomous comments left on their forums and message boards).

I bought both games on the day of release. The X3 experience stung in its own right, but when GSC/STALKER did the very same thing to me I decided enough was enough. No longer was I going to support developers/publishers releasing buggy, unfinshed code that we, the paying public, would be forced to test for them at the expense of enjoying our purchases: I would wait until the games significantly dropped in price or had even reached the secondary markets, like eBay or Gamestation's secondhand bins where I could both pick up a bargain and deprive the devs of their direct revenue. By that point in time all the bugs should have been squashed.

It is terrible that it has come to this in modern PC gaming; I'm actually beginning to envy the simplicity of consoles(!), and have learned to despise publishers who shift things out to market too early to make a quick buck. Looking at Clear Sky such hostility and cynicism towards the business end of my favoured pastime feels entirely vindicated.

Hallo, little boy. *hiss* Want to buy an unfinished game...?

3 comments

Mental Mental Chicken Oriental

Thursday, 10. July 2008, 08:01:16

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I vote today’s title as the Most Random and Nonsensical one yet. You’ll agree with me by the end, I promise. Catchy though, huh? Try saying it a few times. :wink:

A very quick one today, my way of saying I'm still alive – I’ve had no time to write any of the vast and elaborate blog entries I’ve wanted to due to my week being so gosh-darned, all-fired busy! Since last Friday I’ve:

  • Looked after my GF when she got ill with one of her horrible Migraines
  • Welcomed Dr’s Lenny and Sarah back to the ‘Deen from their homes in deepest, darkest Wales
  • Finally started the first part of my filming for ‘Capsized’
  • Collecting a pair of new couches from the tiny village of Fyvie, owned by a scary pair of Mad English people (Well, SHE was Mad, and possibly the most annoying woman I've ever met. HE merely had that tragic look of long-suffering tolerance that Husbands get when they're trapped in a marriage with a dominant mad wife...:left:)
  • Spent a day and a half being poorly myself
  • Spent some quality time with Dr Lenny playing the fabulous Ico on his PS2
  • Gone back to work and very much wished I hadn’t bothered; I got humped, to use a phrase I’m particularly fond of...:cry:
  • Bought myself the eye-tearingly gorgeous Unreal Tournament 3, and really enjoyed it despite the predictable fan backlash suggesting it wasn't as good as its predecessors
  • Wined and dined in a Greek restaurant where I fell off a perfectly stable chair startling everyone in the place. Oh yes, and also introducing my friends to my lovely new girlfriend! (They all loved her, naturally :wink:)

Phew! So many stories, so much fun, so much wine...:drunk: ...all of which has left me no time at all to come here and tell you all about any of it! Bah!

So yeah, before I go, I’ll leave you with some info about the filming (couldn’t drop that little gem into the post and run off leaving you with nothing to look at!) You might want to check out Zoffin film’s website – the latest blog entry is about what we did on Sunday. There’s also a gallery of snaps taken by yours truly (meaning none of me, sadly – sorry!)

...and that’s all, folks. See y’all soon!

PS: I appear to have been added as an Opera 'friend' by a pair of Sarahs. If you're quick you can see their pics in the recent visitors box below. Hello, Sarahs! *waves*

13 comments

Unreal Tournament 300!

Sunday, 6. July 2008, 17:37:05

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ZOMG - I love the Internet! :D

Some random genius somewhere has welded together two of my very favouritest things:

  • The first spectacular fight scene from Frank Miller's incredible historical fantasy, '300'
  • Music and in-play reward announcements from the first pc multiplay phenomenon, Unreal Tournament (released 1999)



The second example has no music, but upgrades to the beefier, more varied Unreal Tournament 3 announcements (released late 2007)


As growly-cool and uber-macho as these new sounds are, I prefer the first one. :smile: How about you?

18 comments

Uh-oh

Thursday, 27. March 2008, 08:49:15

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Fans of people (namely, me) becoming lighter, fitter and more beautiful should be advised: there is next to NO chance that I have lost any weight this week. My weekly exercise has decreased, while my food intake has definitely increased. Over Tuesday and Wednesday night Ranald and I spent our evenings co-operatively tackling Lego Star Wars II (Original Trilogy) on the Gamecube while scoffing shop-bought Pizza and takeaway Special Fried Rice respectively, and quaffing moderate quantities of wallet-friendly non-apple ciders.

This is not how people lose weight.

Thus, I am preparing myself for a Gain. Hopefully only a pound, but it feels to my keen body-sense like there may be more - they do say that when weight comes back it does so with reinforcements...:wait:

PS: I'm not sure I'm happy with my new banner image. Expect it to change shortly.

22 comments

Winter-een-mas! Woot!

Thursday, 24. January 2008, 13:45:38

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You get two posts today, by way of an apology for this week's paucity (Yes, it's an unfamiliar word being given a richly-deserved moment in the spotlight. Don't be scared, it won't bite :wink:).

Following hot on the heels of my Gaming Coma revelations, and also something of a tribute to Kirsty finding my new blog, for she introduced me to the whole concept that I am about to introduce to you; feast your optics on this little gem of a website:-

WINTER-EEN-MAS!

What is Winter-een-mas? A seasonal holiday for Gamers! Woot! It lasts a week and starts on the 25th of January - tomorrow! What better way to deal with the short days and bitterly cold weather than settling in front of a TV or PC and immersing yourself in some fine gaming. (Okay, I meant for SINGLE people, smart-alecs!) Hmm, I think I feel another Gaming Coma coming on!

If you get the chance, take some time to go through the CTRL-ALT-DEL comics, too. You probably need a background in gaming to get all the jokes but plenty are universal in their appeal. It's very well drawn, too.

Tomorrow also happens to be Burns Night in Scotland so I'll also be trying to track down a Haggis and some neeps and tatties for a traditional Burns Supper. I may go Veggie Haggis this year as I seem to have developed a fair old taste for it - yum! That, and they take only ten minutes to cook in a microwave as opposed to an hour or more for the traditional Haggis! :chef: I honestly can't think of a better way to start a Winter holiday!

4 comments

The Scales O Doom!

Thursday, 24. January 2008, 11:11:41

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"A Blog Post in which the Hero relates his week, welcomes an old friend to the blog, and explores some of the eccentricites of his behaviour, both in general and using some recent examples..."

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10 comments