This is cribbed from a couple of posts I made in this Quarter to Three thread but I may expand my picks further here.
Best Game that Works With a Gamepad But They Actually Mean an Xbox 360 Controller and Good Luck with Emulation and All the Voodoo Required to Get It Working With Your Logitech RumblePad and Oh Yeah Even With no Gamepad Connected it Flashes ‘Press Start’ on the Main Screen: Renegade Ops. Bonus: the keyboard/mouse controls are awful, too.
Best Alpha Game Investment This Year: Minecraft
The Why Do I keep Playing This Stupid Game, Anyway? Award: Bejeweled 2, which I play nearly every night on my iPhone when I go to bed.
I Never Knew I Could Get so Sucked Into a Portable Game Award (not counting Bejeweled 2): Dungeon Raid
Best MMORPG I Downloaded the Trial for But Never Actually Played: RIFT
Favorite Class in a Beta Test of Diablo III Before They Wiped All of My Characters *Again*: Monk. Huge electric kick to the face!
Blandest MMO Test That Still Has me Slightly Interested: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Lifetime Achievement Award for Worst-Looking Human Males in Any MMO or Possibly Any Game Ever: World of Warcraft
The You’re a Big Fat Liar Because You Promised Not to Add More Games to Your Backlog in 2011 and Did It Anyway Award: Me
Fuzziest Warm Feeling for Supporting An Indie Dev and the Game was Pretty Good, Too Award: Dungeons of Dredmor, made by the local Gaslamp Games.
Indie Game With the Name Most Likely to be Misspelled Award: Dungeons of Dredmor (not Dredmore/Dreadmore)
With the release of Minecraft 1.0 our little multiplayer group has started over on a new world based on the number 3. After establishing a main base of operations beneath a floating island we set out on individual projects. Circuit is building a giant house surrounded by Minecraft’s patented Wacky Water®, Q has been making rail lines in the sky in every direction, Postal is making his usual assortment of towers and castles and elf has burrowed underground where he has constructed a fiendishly efficient monster grinder. I’ll document all of those in a later post but for now, here’s my first big project.
I was inspired by Q’s pyramid on the last world so I built my own on a 64×64 grid on the desert not too far from our main area. When it was done I decided, like an unsatisfied Pharaoh, that it was too small, so I built another one beside it on a 128×128 grid. Having completed the second and massive pyramid I am beginning to understand why it too the ancient Egyptians twenty years and thousands of men to build these things — and mine was only made of pixels! On the other hand the ancient Egyptians never had to face creepers, either. The pyramid’s outer shell was completed with only two creeper incidents causing minor damage.
This is the view from the high point of the sky rail line that comes out to the pyramids.
To the left you can see a stone bridge and path connecting to the main base, with the rail line in the center of the shot. Next up will be the pyramid interiors and everyone else’s kooky stuff.
Minecraft is strangely soothing as you work out the most efficient ways to build silly things. And smiting creepers is always good fun, too.
Tonight I went bowling for the first time in a million years. Jeff, Jason and I went to Dell Lanes in Surrey (whose slogan sounds like a parody — “The future starts here”). Dell Lanes is part of the Dell Shopping Centre and features Dollar Giant, Al’s Vacuum Superstore and a check-cashing outlet among its retail jewels. Like most bowling alleys, Dell Lanes is below ground where the sound of pins being constantly knocked down will not upset the neighbors.
This was to be five-pin or sissy bowling, as I call it. I knew that such advance mockery would later come back to haunt me.
For some reason the interior of the bowling alley is done up like a disco. I mean, there are actual disco balls, colored lights, black light, everything you’d expect to see from Saturday Night Fever. And music, though not necessarily music. There was instead a digital jukebox, which looks somewhat like an old-style jukebox except it has an LCD screen, no records and probably costs a dollar a pop (I didn’t check). The maker of the jukebox was advertising on the screen to like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. Yes, I’m going to do that straight away. It also showed popular choices and it seemed the local folks favored “Jessie’s Girl” and a whole lotta country. We got to listen to Willie Nelson and Clint Black (the latter identified by Jeff). Yee and haw.
I bowled about as expected. Some gutter balls, hooking to the left so often I ended up overcompensating and hooking to the right. I think 5-pin may actually be tougher than 10. The balls are lighter and there are fewer pins but the pins are spread apart further and it seems easier to knock over just one without convincing any of the others to follow along.
Jeff, who said beforehand that he might get one strike per game, opened with a strike. This proved not to be beginner’s luck as he went on to amass an impressive score of 187 in the first game. I managed 110 and Jason was right behind with 108. I should point out that Jason is eight years old. Yes, I was almost beaten by someone who was born the same year Iraq was invaded.
First game scores:
Jeff – 187
Me – 110
Jason – 108
Jeff and Jason cooled off for round 2 while I improved a statistically insignificant amount:
Jeff – 153
Me – 116
Jason – 33
Once the official games were over, Jason improved remarkably, getting several strikes. He nearly threw the ball about a half dozen times while the pins were being reset, though. To his credit, his reflexes were fast enough to stop (except once, but the speed of the ball was just right, so the pins reset just as it arrived).
Jeff, meanwhile, seemed to favor a ‘launch the ball into the air and let it crash onto the alley’ approach. It actually seemed to work, too. None of us managed to go down the alley with ball in hand, so I consider the evening an overall success.
The pizza was entirely decent, too.
I’d like to think I’d do better at ten-pin (more stuff to knock over) but I know I’d probably goof up on that as much as with the 5-pin. No matter, bowling is silly and fun and that’s all that matters.
I’d like to say I grew up on text adventure games, even though that would identify me as olde, but in reality the genre was already well-developed when I was in my teens. Still, I fondly recall getting nearly all of the Infocom games for my Commodore 64, during the period between 1984 and 1988. By 1989 the market had shifted, Infocom was making games with actual graphics and the text adventure pretty much died. It would be many years before freely-available interpreters and languages for writing text adventures would lead to a minor renaissance of the genre.
A text adventure was simple to learn–type your actions at a command prompt, read the results, repeat until you have solved all the puzzles in the game–but often the biggest puzzle was figuring out which words or commands the game could understand and the proper way to present them.
Back in that mid-80s era when computer graphics were less sophisticated (ie, crude, terrible) I spent many hours working through Infocom’s games. This was also my first bit of co-op gaming as I usually had a friend assisting me. Two brains will theoretically solve puzzles more capably than one. Until both brains get completely stuck, that is. That’s when you mail order the Invisiclues hint book and wait weeks to finally get an answer. It was the gaming equivalent of walking to school uphill in the snow both ways. And we liked it!
One of the key requirements of playing an Infocom game was making a map. Sure, you could try memorizing the game world and with some simpler titles it might even work, but making a map was essential for nearly all Infocom games. I’m fairly certain that utter madness was the only reward for successfully mapping out all of Zork I and its mazes.
I took to making most of my maps in a sketchbook and recently scanned in some of the more detailed maps. By the end I think I was playing the games more to make the maps than to play the actual games. Going back and looking through the maps also made me realize there are more than a few of these games that I left unfinished. Now they taunt me and I consider re-playing them using programs like Gargoyle or Windows Frotz to help make the experience more pleasurable than those halcyon days of yore with my Commodore 64 displaying 40 whole characters of text on a single line. 40! And I always knew I had successfully solved a puzzle because the 1541 disk drive would start grinding away madly to fetch a new chunk of game. Today I can use Trizbort to automate the mapping process entirely but I know if I do go back I’ll have that sketchbook at hand and start doodling again because it was part of the magic.
And a game without magic is just a game.
Here are the maps I’ve scanned so far.
First up is Zork I. The maze in this game (twisty passages, all alike) requires you to drop items in order to successfully map it out. Following all of these lines still gives me a headache. I never finished the game but I did finish the maze!
Next is Infidel, featuring ASCII hieroglyphics and even a start and end date for the game playthrough. How nerdy.
I have two Enchanter maps, the first image being from the start of the game and the second being the next area. I like the turtle.
And the follow-up area:
Finally the maps for Spellbreaker even includes 3D shading. Fancy!
I have a co-worker who bears a strangely strong resemblance to the character I played in Tabula Rasa. I guess that means Tabula Rasa was fairly good at creating realistic-looking humans. That’s what probably doomed it.
Reference pic is below. The resemblance creeps me out a little. Note: my co-worker does not wear power armor.
One of the random things that pops up in The Sims 3 are Opportunities. These can come from work, an acquaintance or based on your reputation/skills. They give various rewards when completed, sometimes including good old-fashioned moola. As Ferris has continued to cook, his skill has improved to the point where he actually successfully prepared waffles that were not burned black. Hooray!
Waffles, not scorched!
This, in part, led to him getting asked to make a group dinner for some neighbor and deliver it. I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I think I lacked a proper group recipe or ingredients or something. All I know is Ferris never runs out of cereal or waffles but neither is apparently acceptable for a group of party guests at the neighbor’s. Oh well.
Eating and dousing flames
Continuing on the food theme, Ferris’s eventual success with waffles may have made him overconfident, for his next meal ended up with the stove on fire. As you might imagine, this is not a good thing, as expressed by Ferris’s reaction below.
A little too well-done.
Fortunately, Ferris keeps his cell phone in his boxer shorts and called the fire department immediately. He then ate ice cream on the couch for dinner instead.
Getting Ferris a job was easy. He searched online and chose a medical career that is described as ‘organ donor’ and talks about working with bedpans. I am kind of glad the description doesn’t go into more detail than that. I think he’s supposed to be a candystriper. I wish I could login to a computer, click Choose Career and get started in a shiny new job. Stupid reality.
Once Ferris had a weekly routine imposed on him, things began getting trickier. For example, he was always sleeping until fully rested, which rarely gave him enough time to prepare anything beyond a bowl of cereal for breakfast. He likes to eat cereal, usually in his underwear. And not just for breakfast, almost anytime he’s hungry.
Breakfast of champions
Several times I had him attempt to make waffles. For some reason he puts them in a pan and tries to bake them in the oven. Each attempt has resulted in something blackened that almost set off the smoke detector.
Charcoal waffles, anyone?
Waffles, theoretically
He has had more success with Mac & Cheese and delicious grape pancakes. While Ferris is a mediocre cook, he is an even worse cleaner. The first batch of briquette waffles were left to fester on the counter until the odor was making him nauseous and bringing him down. I then instructed him to clean up and he obediently did. I’m hoping that he’ll eventually get into the habit of doing it on his own. His autonomy slider is all the way to the right, after all.
Wishing
Periodically wishes appear in your, uh, wish bucket, which can hold up to four at a time. They offer lifetime happiness points when fulfilled and enough points lets you buy a perk from a menu like this:
Lifetime rewards
In this case I chose the somewhat sucky Office Hero, which makes everyone at work like Ferris all the more. If Ferris continues to burn more than cook I make get him Discount Diner next — free meals at restaurants forever!
The wishes range from things like Read 3 Books to Visit the Art Gallery or Cook Waffles Without Destroying Them (actually, that last one is not a wish, just a vain hope). Ferris has visited the local graveyard, art gallery and more as part of his wish fulfillment and has taken tentative steps in learning how to better cook and do simple repairs. The latter has seen limited success, as evidenced below.
Sinktastrophe!
This resulted in a call to the plumber, though Ferris did mop up the kitchen floor on his own and without setting anything on fire in the process.
Artistically, Ferris is working on a painting (after getting an easel) and a novel, The Loneliest Yeti. I expect great things from these, especially after getting a lamp to put next to the easel so he could actually see what he was painting.
Socially, he has chatted with a few people and they are now listed as acquaintances, including Stiles. I had Ferris call Stiles up and invite him over, but bumbled the whole ‘going to the door and letting the guest in’ part because I thought Ferris would do that on his own. By the time I figured it out, Stiles had left for work. Oh well, he can always hit on him later.
Er, I mean, invite him over for a nice drink. I should probably get Ferris a stereo so he can play soft music, but he’s getting a bit low on funds. Cleaning bedpans doesn’t pay well.
Finally, the shower. I discovered that you don’t need to follow the normal morning shower ritual, just shower when the ol’ hygiene bar gets low and the reports of stinky start coming in. And yes, I applied the nude patch. Not because I have a prurient need to see naked video game guys, more because I wanted to see if Sims were virtual Ken dolls. Turns out they are. I think I was better off not knowing.
I bought The Sims 3 when it came out over a year ago and like most games let it promptly gather dust. It seems I’m more a collector than a player.
That said, I recently re-installed and patched the game and decided to give it another go. I like sandbox games as a rule, so being able to create and manipulate some poor slob’s world has an undeniable appeal to me.
I created a young adult Sim named Ferris Wheele. I’m a sucker for bad names, so I make no apologies here. Ferris was given five traits, ranging from Good Sense of Humor to Artistic. His favorite color is blue. His favorite food is sushi. He loves computers and longs to become a world famous author. He seems very easily excited.
Ferris wants a PC
After being given $16,000 in starter funds, I bought Ferris a dumpy little house in Sunset Valley for about 12 grand and moved him in. The tutorial advised that Ferris wanted a couch. As the house was unfurnished, I bought him a couch and had him sit on it. This made him happy. Ferris is a simple man.
He then wanted to go grocery shopping because there was a 20% off special that day at the store. Apparently Ferris is psychic, too. So I went and bought him food fit for a king:
Mmm, tuna and apple
An impoverished king banished from his kingdom, that is. Hey, I needed to save money for the rest of his house’s furniture. Ferris has no job!
After buying the groceries Ferris bumped into Stiles, another young man. Ferris told him amusing stories and made funny faces. Stiles was entertained and I think they may be friends now. Aw.
Once home, I bought a desk, chair and computer so Ferris could begin his writing career. Instead he sat down and began playing a computer game.
All work and no play make Ferris something something
With barely enough food for a single meal, a nearly unfurnished house, no job and no prospects, Ferris was very happy. Ferris is a strange man. I fear his bubble is going to burst soon.
Next time: Ferris and his wishes, trying to get a job and having a shower.
This isn’t a Starcraft 2 review since I don’t have the game and have no plans to pick it up, but a Quarter to Three thread in which the original poster wonders where all the reviews are (reviewers did not get access to the game until yesterday, when it went live via Blizzard’s battle.net player portal/matchmaking service) has some nice riffing from various posters on the most trite soundbites from potential reviews. The banter dies out after the first 50 posts or thereabouts in favor of the usual Internet arguments, so I’ll just highlight some of my favorites:
Of all the games to come out this year, this is definitely one of them!
It’s Blizzard’s best game ever as Wing Commander meets Warcraft in the white-knuckle thrill ride of the summer. It’s a visceral, seminal tour de force that’s part comic, part tragic, but all magic.
It’s more good than fun.
If I get my novel published, I can only hope someone describes it as “more good than fun”.
One of the pieces of info you are typically asked to provide on a profile for a dating site is your height. I had measured my height long ago and recalled it as being slightly under 5′ 11″. Don’t ask me what that is in metric, it’s one of those things my head never wrapped around, probably because the closest equivalent to a foot in metric is the decimeter. Now think of how often you hear people talking about decimeters.
Today I whimsically decided to measure my height using the good ol’ ‘mark a line with a pencil on the door frame’ trick. It turns out I either mis-remembered or mis-measured, as it seems I am actually under 5′ 10″ — about 5′ 9¾” to be a bit more precise. I may have to start using metric instead. 177.8 cm kind of sounds impressive.
I am not sure how I feel about being a full inch shorter than I had always thought but I don’t think I like it. I feel slightly less manly now.
Scott Jennings has some interesting thoughts on social networking on his blog Broken Toys. You can read the entry here. The included quote he references is especially worthy. Sites like Facebook allow people to share every mundane event in their lives — and furnishes them the ability to create many more — but does so without the context that comes from everyday conversation that occurs face-to-face, so you are left with a jumble of random updates that don’t resonate or particularly inform. And yet some people post these non-essential bits of personal errata to the point where they wonder if they are becoming addicted to it. (I also realize the irony of talking about all of this on a personal blog.)
When I think about why I post the occasional update to a site like Facebook — which I clearly have a tepid like/hate relationship with — it basically comes down to one thing: attention whoring. I know there is a built-in audience of at least 29 people (my Friends list) and that others via proxy will also see my updates. Everything that’s posted is done in easily-digested chunks. There is no need nor even desire for in-depth discussion. In fact, discussion just gets in the way — it bogs things down and clutters up the page for the next update about not much of anything.
When I write a post here, it is either as a journal entry to myself — the jogging updates, for example — or because I want to muse on a particular subject or experience. Occasionally I post something that fits the Facebook criteria but that occurs less often. And on this blog, I do all of this with the knowledge that the audience is minuscule or accidental. The only time people are likely to see a post here is when I specifically link to it elsewhere. But here I can provide context, I can expand and ruminate. It doesn’t seem so much like attention whoring as genuinely sharing ideas and thoughts. How worthy those thoughts and ideas are is, of course, open to debate.
If I Like R.E.M. on Facebook, it’s a piece of trivia that is irrelevant to people in a general sense, if I write about R.E.M. here it will be something like my recent review of Accelerate that attempts to convey information or opinion with a smidgen of substance behind it.
Ultimately I don’t object to social networking because I can’t articulate why sharing a bunch of random trivia, photos, links and simplistic musings is a terribly bad thing. It just seems unnecessary.
