Archive for the ‘Computer Games’ Category
Test Chamber
In addition to finishing Half Life 2, Episode 2, I also completed one of Valve’s newest games, Portal. Both games were great, great, great. A couple of the most memorable gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
The end game screens and song for Portal are really funny as well (provided you’ve played the game and know the storyline.)
(Playing this is somewhat of a spoiler…but worth it…)
Way Cool Zork Map
This is like the geek version of the holy grail.
I spent an hour over at Web-Zork after seeing this map again. The first non Apple pc game I played was an Infocom title named “Suspended” on a Digital Rainbow 100 (and yes, I had the “mask box“, which I later foolishly threw away.
I ended up playing all 3 Zorks, Enchanter, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Planetfall, Deadline, and Infidel (which rocked, btw.)
Image link sent by Bribo
Fallout 3
20 Fallout 3 Questions answered. On the one hand I’m totally stoked that there’s going to be a Fallout 3. On the other hand, I’m leery of any game that uses the Oblivion engine. My big problem with Oblivion was the scaling enemies. Foes that adjusted difficulty to your power (or lack thereof) in the game. That game dynamic just killed all of the fun and challenge of Oblivion for me.
Fallout is all about tweaking your skills and perks. If the enemies scale based on how powerful you are, then what’s the point of all that glorious tweaking.
That’s right – there is no point. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they don’t blow it.
Shuffleball
Wee Ninjas
The Wee Ninja’s arrived from Shawnimals yesterday. They join the Squids on the back of my car and computer.
Last night before the torrential rain and thunderstorms, I prepared a basalmic and rosemary marinated pork loin, roasted green beans and carrots, and fresh corn on the cob for dinner. It came out well…you roast the loin and veggies in separate pans at 350 until the meat comes up to 150-160 (depending on your preference. The veggies you kind of coat in a bit of olive oil, garlic and salt & pepper. You’ve got to be real careful with pork loin…almost no fat on it, and it can dry out in an instant. Stay after it with that digital read thermometer.
It came out pretty good, the only thing with pork loin is, it’s real hard to get any kind of flavor going. Marinade is fine for the outside, but it’s a big chunk of meat and without any fat marbling the inside can be pretty bland. So I guess I’m still searching for the optimal recipe.
Gazebo 2.0 stood up pretty well to the first real night of rain. We left the cover on, and it’s still standing strong. The heavier construction and the inclusion of grommets prevented the formation of the deadly water bubbles which doomed version 1.0.
In other news, I’ll be taking on a friend of mine Thursday in an online battle of DEFCON. I’ll report back on how the game plays in multiplayer, until then I need to do some serious practicing.
DEFCON
Jeff Harrell has a great review of Ambrosia’s latest game “DEFCON“. If you were a geeky kid in the 80′s, you loved the movie War Games. DEFCON puts you in the war-room, and the “birds are in the air”.
It’s dead simple, and I doubt it’ll have much staying power after a half dozen games (although the 6-way multiplayer holds promise), but when you first see that world map, it’s absolutely evocative.
$25, for Windows and Mac. (!)
Gear
Yesterday I picked up a 500Gig Western Digital SATA drive for the Mac Pro. Installation couldn’t be easier with these things. You just pull out the drive sleeve, screw on the drive, and slide it back in. No cables. Then when you boot up your system, you tell it how you want to format the drive and off you go. This brings me up to 1 Terabyte of storage.
I also picked up a Razer Copperhead, which works remarkably well with the stock OSX mouse drivers. Far more accurate than the old Logitech MX-1000 I had been using. I just don’t get the level of accuracy I need from a wireless mouse (bluetooth or otherwise) under OSX.
Later, I downloaded Bootcamp, partitioned a 100Gig slice, and installed Windows Vista Home Premium. Everything worked like a dream, except for the fact that I had to spring for the full (non-upgrade) version of the software in order to get it to work. The Mac Pro gets “rated” by Windows Vista as a “5 out of 5″ for performance, and after installing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and giving it a go, I can see why.
It blows away my old Windows box in every concievable fashion. Vista is also a very pretty operating system…
So now I have a “1 box fits all” solution. An OSX video and photo editing monster with 900Gigs of storage, and a Windows Vista machine with 100Gigs for gaming. This should keep me going for the next 5-6 years or so. 
Mucked around with iMovie for awhile after midnight. Made a simple DVD which displayed some photos in a slideshow fashion (the photos were from a paintball tourney a couple years ago.) It’s easy to get some pretty nifty looking results, but I can already see that the limitations of iMovie will force me to move on to Final Cut Express rather quickly.
…
Still struggling with my cold. Missed work on Friday with a temperature, and now I’m in the “infinite nose drainage” stage.
And now Lauren is symptomatic too. 
