ramblings of a meatbag
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "James" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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04:33 pm
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The orange box....
So, I decided I'd treat myself and buy the orange box.. here's what I think..
1) Episode 1
Episode one started with a feeling that I'm slipping back into a lovely comfy jumper that I'd forgotten just how comfy it was.
The level design was pretty damn good, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. My only gripe was that I spent too long with just the grav gun, relying on Alyx to do the fighting..
(Apparently I was supposed to be picking objects up with the grav gun and throwing those at enemies...)
2) Episode 2
This was fantastic.
There's a new enemy which is uber-hard to fight, and you get to see much more of the antlions, and how they live.
The ending can only be described as AWSOME, (well the last fight anyway, I'm still on that....)
3) Portal
Yahtzee was right. This game is awsome from start to finish.
The best thing about it is that there's very few hints, so you really get a feeling of satisfaction when you solve something (and there's sometimes several ways of solving a problem). The ending also ROCKS
Very good ending, very fitting with the game.
Also, at the end of episode 2, you discover a ship that belongs to the Aperture science group, so it looks like the portal gun may appear in episode 3! :)
If you haven't played this game already, do so NOW
Ps I now have a spare copy of HL2 that I can gift to someone, any takers?
Current Mood:  cheerful
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06:55 pm
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this tickled me!
Well, I've been collecting and reading cyberpunk lately, which frankly are uber-cool
Reading the UK sourcebook, it lists the major shareholder of the travel board as one "Derek Trotter, Peckham"
:)
Current Mood:  amused
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01:05 pm
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UFO aftershock
So, after I finished aftermath, I thought I'd give aftershock a go..
it's set about 50 years after aftermath, and assumes that the humans lost the war.
It's got a lot more to it, in that you now have to build base structures, for research, training, and manufacture.
There's several factions you meet, and interact with (crudely anwyay)
The problem is, it's BRUTALLY difficult. It really is. I restarted about 5 times, and the problem is that my people just keep on dying, every damn time. I've yet to reach a point where I don't lose someone on every damn mission
(in this game, people will bleed to death if they go down. Problem is, there just isn't time to save them (unless you want to drop your weapon in the middle of a firefight to help, which usually just leads to more casualties)
I imagine that once I get the hang of it all, it will rock, but I've given up for the time being.
ho hum
Current Mood:  apathetic
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12:34 pm
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finished aftermath
Well, I finished UFO aftermath..
Towards the end I had a squad of UBER-WARRIORS!
i was able to kick the arse of pretty much everything I fought, although there was a few things that irritated me..
1) Even at the very end, there was still technologies that I couldn't research and make.
You get your hands on portable machine guns, rocket launchers, and also twin machine guns. Even though I recovered them from bases, they weren't researchable, so I couldn't make any more. :(
2) I seem to have hit a limit on the number of people I was allowed, so I didn't get any more, which was irksome, as I didn't have enough sometime (people who are training or recovering from injuries can't go on missions)
Still, I enjoyed the game, and the final mission was good.
Current Mood:  happy
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12:48 pm
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Hmmmm.. worrying
Yesterday, we got a leaflet through the door from the BNP, which I decided to take the time to read.
Worryingly, I found myself in agreement with almost all of their policies
(the ones I remember disagreeing with were the re-introduction of corporal punishment, and inducements to send legal immigrants home)
Of all the political parties, they are the closest to what I would implement myself (in fact, most of them I did implement when playing Democracy).
The sad thing is their obvious racism, which I don't agree with.
Firstly, it makes it difficult to vote for them (despite my agreement with their policies), but secondly, they seem to suffer from the same thing that Nazis do, which is the immediate association that as it was THEM that said it, it should be ignored/opposed, and if you agree with it you're clearly evil.
So, their more sensible ideas are completely ignored.
It's no wonder that more and more people are turning to them..
Still, as my vote is unlikely to have any effect whatsoever, it's academic.
Current Mood:  thoughtful
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04:25 pm
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Worrying...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7312708.stm
To paraphrase, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has said you shouldn't drink any alcohol at all while pregnant.
This brings it in line with government advice, replacing their old advice that small amounts of alcohol daily were not a problem.
The thing that scares me is "However, NICE concedes there is no evidence to support the change. "
Let me re-iterate that.
NICE concedes there is no evidence to support the change.
WHAT THE FUCK?
Basically we have government health guidelines that create guidelines NOT BASED ON EVIDENCE, and now NICE are falling into line because they "decided to tighten its guidance partly because of concern that people are now drinking more than in the past"
Sooooo, basically they're lying to us because of nebulous concerns about things that are entirely personal.
Am I the only one concerned by this?
Current Mood:  angry
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10:42 am
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UFO trilogy
One of the 48 laws of power is 'Avoid filling a great man's shoes', and I think that a lot of the negativity surrounding the UFO series is due to its trying to follow the X-com games.
I've played X-com, like what it tried to do, but was constantly frustrated with the lack of refinements. (I think I've played games on my CPC464 that felt more refined). What it appears to have is 'starwars syndrome', where you experience it in your formative years, and imagine it as being better than it was, and much better than anything since.
Having played aftermath, here's what I thought:
The good:
1) Ooh, a 3-d rotatable map.
2) Real time action. Now I can order my squad to advance as one, and their actions and the aliens happen simultaneously.
3) the ability to stack orders. Now, I can create a sweep pattern for an area, and sit back while my troops execute it. If they find anything out of the ordinary, the game will auto-pause and I can re-assess.
4) On the strategic level, you expand your base by successfully clearing areas of aliens, rather than random placement.
5) No more funding to worry about.
6) You start the game unable to even *detect* enemy UFOs. You have to research everything.
7) Missions last longer on the strategic map. Each one lists it's impact, and it's urgency, letting you prioritise. You also have the option of delegating a mission.
8) Given the range of damage for weapons, it's a lot easier to incapacitate enemies.
The bad.
1) The maps do seem a bit bland (but given the post apocalyptic setting, not unrealistic)
2) you can't enter buildings. (probably a limitation of the game engine)
3) Takes a while to get used to the interface
4) Can't seem to order a change of facing. (Or if you can, I haven't worked out how)
5) Often the aliens are armed, but their weapons (things like desert eagle) aren't visible.
Other:
1) Bases now come in three types: Miltary, engineering, science. But, you don't do any specific building.
2) You only have one transport. (a chinook, with a capacity of 7 people)
I started playing at 10pm, and was on 'til 1am. I would have been playing longer, but most of my team were wiped out, and I wanted time to reassess.
I certainly think it's worth playing, and to me is an improvement over X-com.
Current Mood: thoughtful
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09:26 am
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I'd be a good PM 'til I was assassinated...
..according to the new game I bought.
I bought 'democracy', which is a game that builds up a neural net of dependancies that you as PM have to manage..
I played my first game as britain, and set to work. I:
Legalised drugs and prostitution
Relaxed gun laws
Armed the police
Imposed import tariffs
Provided technology subsidies.
Plus lots more...
2 Years into the first term I'd reduced unemployment to record levels, crime was down, violent crime was pretty much nil, air quality was up, and I had a high approval rating..
That was when I suffered an assassination attempt for not being religious. I survived, but was replaced as PM.
How irritating!
My stance on drugs, alcohol, prostitution, gambling, drugs were considered bad, but the real kicker was banning the teaching of 'intelligent' design.
Damn those religious people!
Oh, also I ran the country the way I thought best, and had huge support from patriots and socialists, so it would appear I am indeed nationalist socialist...
I thought I'd have the support of liberals, but I had none at all..
Strange...
Current Mood: amused
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01:08 pm
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once in a lifetime experience..
I was reading an rpg.net forum in tangency, about christianity, and I actually found myself rooting for the christian side of the argument.
It's interesting to see the kind of closed mindedness that christians are blamed for in others. The amount of logical mistakes was astounding, as was the lack of a broader understanding of the wider aspects of the situation.
How very odd!
Current Mood: amused
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11:08 am
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I despair
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6449421.stm
basically, saying how piracy is bad, and it's screwing with PC games.
What makes me cry is the comments section.
Apparently piracy is OK, 'cos anyone who charges more money than you think it's worth is evil, and deserves to be ripped off.
Current Mood:  depressed
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03:55 pm
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Thought experiment
Ok, you have to 'boxes' of arbitrary size. There is a link between them. You control that link, and so control movement between the two boxes.
Each box has people living inside it (let's assume that they can live there indefinitely).
Inside one of the boxes there is an oubreak of a deadly disease (virus/bacteria/whatever), infecting a percentage of the people inside.
Let's also assume that there is no totally effective cure.
As controller of the link, you have a limited ability to diagnose the ilnness (what limitations are left for you to decide), and you can create a holding pen for those you wish to diagnose, but that this is not a trivial task.
Would you allow movement of people from the infected box into the uninfected box?
What factors would affect your decision?
(Would the amount of people in each box matter?, the percentage of people with the disease? How long it takes to kill its victim how infectious it is? etc.)
thoughts?
Current Mood: thoughtful
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03:54 pm
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stalker
So, having finished bioshock, I decided to give stalker a try (based largely on the zeropunctuation review of bioshock).
It's purty, but not in a cartoony, vibrant-colour-and-lots-of-bloom-effects way. Everything I've seen so far is very washed out, and the place feels cold and grim.
I played the very first 'mission', and was thoroughly pwned. Thrice. On normal difficulty.
I think I'm going to like this game! (when I get the hang of it)!
Current Mood: happy
Tags: .
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09:49 am
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Bioshock / System Shock / Deus Ex
I thought I'd add a few musings on the similarities and differences in Bioshock..
1) I like the fact that you don't have to have levels in weapon use. The idea of having a tighter aim with higher skill is good in Deus Ex, but that game is more about slow, thoughtful play, and I don't think it would have worked in this game (especially with the lack of ammo). But, it's better than the SS2 way of you not knowing how to fire anything other than a pistol FFS!
2) The lack of other skills: To be honest I didn't really notice that to be honest. The thing with having skills (like swimming in Deus Ex) is that game designers constantly feel the need to reward every possible skill, so there's snackies to gather underwater etc.. (such as there always being a backdoor into the most secure of establishments!
I would have found that a little jarring here.
I *like* the idea of having skills, but only if they actually add something good to the game, and are properly developed.
PLUS, in Bioshock, there's a very good IC reason why you can use all weapons, etc.
3) Hacking: I prefer the Deus Ex method of hacking, in that while hacking the game world is still 'live', making hacking a risky business. Here it's a damn stupid minigame. (Why do game designers feel the need to add this stuff??). I wouldn't mind if the was actually some *risk* of failure, but you can't die, and you can't be attacked while doing it, so there's really nothing at all to stop you using brute force and just hacking endlessly 'til you get lucky (which I tend to do on some of the maximum difficulty level hacks) even when surrounded by loads of enemies.
Also, what the fuck is 'buyout'??? How can you 'buyout' a security camera? I didn't notice it having a coin slot on the side. Safes are just as bad.. (although it does mean you could create an entire sub-industry of having low value items in hard to crack safes, so people spend more in buying out the safe than what the contents are worth!
4) Weapon modding.
Again, I prefer the Deus Ex method, where you picked up mods, and then chose which weapon you applied it to.
Clearly here, they've stuck to just 2 mods for each so that it's easy to have nice graphics for them (and show off how very pretty things look!), but personally, I'd have liked a way of increasing the shotgun's ammo capacity, maybe adding a scope to a weapon, that kind of thing..
5) Enemy spawning.
Apparently there is enemy spawning in this game, but I didn't notice it. I got the feeling that there was roaming packs of splicers, so I was never totally safe, but I haven't (yet) left a room, gone back in, and found a splicer that just appeared out of nowhere. Maybe they've just set the spawning to be a reasonable distance from you so it's not jarring.
6) Inventory.
I'd have liked to have had one!
Sure, you can look at what weapons and ammo you have, but knowing what items you carry (and being able to actually keep food and drink for later) would be nice. Also, towards the end of the second game I've played I found I was maxed out on my carrying capacity for some items. Some of them where inventor items for stuff I never ever invented, which I'd have liked to have freed up to increase the capacity of stuff I *did* invent.
Also, ammo was a bit odd. For some reason you always have twice the capacity for your standard ammo (normal rather than anti-personnel/ armour piercing).
Personally, I never really used armour piercing, so it would have been nice to have had that extra capacity for anti-personnel (which I was *always* short of).
7) Choice.
Not really a great deal (only 1 choice to make, and I've only been nice). I remember SS2 being as linear (I *really* wanted to join the fleshy collective!), but Deus Ex has a lot more choice, (you even got to *choose* your ending!).
Although, I'd still rather spend an evening playing Bioschock than any of the others, it just *feels* more real.
I've now moved on to Warhammer mark of chaos, which is basically just a prettier Dark omen, but then I liked dark omen!
Current Mood: thoughtful
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02:45 pm
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HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
I passed my driving test first time!!
that is all.
Current Mood:  ecstatic
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08:44 am
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More Bioshock musings. (Contains SPOILERS)
I'm playing Bioshock through again, this time taking my time and discovering all the things I didn't do last time. (mainly poking through every nook and cranny and picking up everything that I missed last time).
As I've been going on, I few thoughts have sprung to mind...
1) Is Ryan dead?
Having read a few plot summarys, they all state that Ryan is dead, given that the vita-chamber in his room has been switched off. (Which I never noticed to be honest). They also say that he's out of range from any others (or at list think that's the most likely)
To me, all that implies is that he won't re-appear in the same room. From my experience of vita-chambers, I've been pretty damn far from them when I died, so it's within reason to imply that range isn't a large factor.
Perhaps he switched it off knowing he would re-appear somewhere else, allowing him to make his escape..
Personally, I'd like that, as it means that we could easily see another version of rapture (I.e. I want a sequel!)
2) Big daddies and little sisters..
Despite it being my second run through, I just can't bring myself to kill little sisters. *Especially* after the level where you see how they're created.. Which is both cute, and incredibly creepy at the same time...
3) Ghosts.
I've met a few ghosts, there may be more, but to me, I felt that they were really under used. I would have liked to see much more of them when they were at the height of their society. For example, at the start of the game you enter Kashmir restaurant, it would have been *awesome* to see a vision of revelry, the place full of people celebrating the end of the year, before slowly fading to reveal the decaying remains.
4) Fontaine.
Man, what a disappointing ending. :(
Current Mood: thoughtful
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10:38 am
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The continued awesomeness of Bioshock
I'm replaying bioshock, and I'm discovering much more of the nuances this time round, making it an even better game! :)
Whenever I play any game first time I always try to play it as *I* would were I in the game. So I'm usually very solution oriented, single minded and dogged in my pursuit of the goal. (Which is the way I approach most things)
I really *REALLY* don't like the leisurely, search-every-room, hack-every-bot, solve-every-program approach that people take, when the NPC is doing their upmost to instill a sense of urgency in you.
(In this case, you have to rescue Atlas' wife and child, who have been trapped by splicers).
Taking your time, because the game is scripted (normally so you *always* arrive just in time, or just too late), regardless of how much time passes is one of those things that scream I AM A GAME! at me, and a classic sign of poor design (or, I suppose narrativist design)
Anyway, now I'm on replay, where I'm more interested in finding out all the things I've missed the first time round, I find the game a lot sadder, seeing (or hearing) lots of different personal tragedies really helps to drive home the fallen splendour of this place...
The only problem is, now I've played this game, how long do I have to wait for another game of this calibre?
*sigh*
Current Mood: thoughtful
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10:58 am
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Who's the DADDY?
Well, I finally finished bioshock...
I wasn't as taken with it as I was hoping (it didn't descend from heaven in a silver chariot and take me to the promised land), but it was damn good.
Probably the best indicator that it got under my skin is that I keep thinking about rapture.
Although you only see it in ruins, I keep imagining what it must have been like at its height, and wishing I could be there.
*sigh*.
Anyway, on to my obligatory gripes:
1) Guns. Overall I thought they were very well thought out, and I loved that the grenade launcher/chem thrower were both bodged together from scrap metal.
BUT, what irritated me was that you could hold twice as much 'primary' ammo as 'specialist'. So, although you can have 48 'normal' bullets, you're only allowed 24 anti-personnel and 24 armour piercing. (ditto for all the other guns)
WHY? given that it's usually the specialist ammo you want to use.
2) The camera. (mild spoiler)
After a while you get a camera that you used for research.
I found it too irritating to use (basically you can take pics of enemies, and 'research' them, gaining bonuses when you fight them). It was just a pain to have to take a pic during combat, and then switch back).
Umm, other than stuff that is massively spoilerific, that's it. (So yes, it is an amazing game).
Current Mood: happy
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11:08 am
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fantastic bioshock review
bioshock review that's really good (and really quite close to my own thoughts)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock
Although two things have come out from this review..
1) he refer's to STALKER as a good game (he lumps it with deus ex and SS2). Maybe I should look into it.
2) Console players are sucking the life out of PC games.
(also, if you have time, read the zeropunctuation review on consoles)
Current Mood: amused
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09:28 am
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Are you rapture ready??
soooo. I've been playing bioshock for a few days now, on and off.
I'm now at a place called 'fort frolic'.
Thoughts on the game..
Clearly there's something I'm missing (or maybe there's something amazing to come), 'cos I'm just not blown away by it.
Sure, it's a great game, but It's got a few little 'quirks' that drag it down.
1) Like SS2, basically all of my goals are given to me by an off screen narrator. Atlas Ryan in this case.
I thought that there'd be a huge amount of freedom in what you can do, but there's not really. It's all railroading, but as the rails are wide it's harder to spot.
2) there's no choice of qhich route to take. Not in getting from A to B, but in terms of who I want to listen to, who I want to obey. Deus Ex 2, for all its flaws gave you 4 different main plots to go through, (plus all the sub-quests), but in this, I've had precisely 1 choice to make.
3) Despite these 2 things, I do think it's a great game.
Current Mood:  impressed
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04:34 pm
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Dinosaur pirates!!
While stood outside enjoying a post lunchtime smoke, I was greeted by a truly bizarre sight.
There was a van towing a trailer, and on that trailer was a model pirate ship, complete with skull and crossbones flag and cannons, and stood inside the ship was a tyrannosaurus rex!!
HOW COOL IS THAT???
Current Mood: amused
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