status 2015 October

2015.10.01

Random Steam sale, Minerva's Den DLC for Bioshock 2 for $4.99. It reviews really well, and I liked Bioshock 2 well enough. And its short, so maybe I'll just play it now.

The Tomb Raider reboot from 2013 is also on sale for $3.99, also reviews really well. I'll take 'em both.

2015.10.11

So, Minerva's Den was scarcely a minor diversion.

I should note that I've been watching the Teens React: Gaming series for The Last of Us. For some reason their mix of reactions is compelling, even though its technically a lame playthrough. It comes out every couple of weeks, has been running for 8 months, and I guess has another month or so to go. I wonder if this game will ever be ported to PC, and if so, will it be a good enough port to care about.

I'm still looking up at the stars on clear nights and thinking about Mass Effect. Like poking a fire the next day and still finding coals glowing under the ash, my anger at the ending of ME3 is still there but going away slowly. All that work, all those carefully made decisions over three games, and the ending boils down to a simple A, B, C choice no matter how you got there.

I watch "ME3: Extended Cut Analysis + Leviathan DLC". Good conclusion that if that was the original ending, most of this controversy could have been avoided.

2015.10.12
It is remarkable that as I read various game sites and forums that Planescape is still coming up. Someday I might revisit the mods.

The weather is starting to get wintry. Soon it will be RPG time, specifically Fallout New Vegas.

2015.10.18
Checking in on Steam occasionally, I see some promotion for Grey Goo. Looks interesting, getting back to the roots of Starcraft and Command & Conquer. I've been increasingly disappointed in where Starcraft is going (action per minute, rock paper scissors, no walls or base defense etc.), and this looks hopeful.

A few things I've been thinking of the past few weeks, but haven't written:

I've been listening to the Retronauts podcast, and I just caught up to where they're talking about video game magazines. I have boxes of such old magazines in the attic, but haven't thought of them in a while, let alone looked at them. They didn't mention Dragon magazine, something I especially payed attention to when they mentioned a game.

I recent installed and showed World of Warcraft to someone. I kept telling myself that I'm not really playing this, I'm just demoing, then I'm moving on. Like an alcoholic wistfully spitting out the mouthwash, I uninstall and feel relieved. Not that the grapes are sour (or even fermentable), but what I saw wasn't all that intriguing. WoW is a riot of blocky colors, a place as noisy, crowded and empty as a shopping mall.

That got me thinking of why MMORPGs give me the shakes - my dormant mud addiction from the 90s. I wonder if I should post about Mystic Adventure here, or make its own mini-shrine. I'll probably just start another blog.

2015.10.24
Still slowly going through videogame withdrawal. I miss the light and the noise, Real Life is too slow, too quiet.
Thankfully, I don't have to decide anything right tonight, as Teens React: Gaming The Last of Us: Part 18 is out. These kids barely understand stealth play, listening, or inventory management, let alone searching every last pixel of the screen for resources. But they seem to be getting better.
Checking for any news of a PC port... no, and extremely unlikely for console exclusivity reasons. But you never know, Halo eventually got to PC.

2015.10.30
GTA V on sale for $40, something that rarely happens. So tempting, GTA would be perfect right now. Time to check video card requirements: 9800 minimum, GTX 660 recommended. Right now I'm using a GTX 460. I found a chart, and my card is right at the bottom, better would be a 780, or even better 970 or 980. My cpu and ram are OK.
What's the best card I can put in my aged Dell XPS 730x? A quick look and there is some trouble getting a 780 to to work. Looking at prices, it seems like around $300 at minimum, not including whatever extra I need to do for power.
I'm finally beginning to see the end for this computer for new games. But I have so many older games to play, I shouldn't run out any time soon.

Speaking of old games that won't stress my video card, there's a big Steam sale right now. Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines and Grim Fandango for $5 each, and there's a lot more single digit priced games to check out.

2015.10.31
Let's not give up so quickly - what does YouTube have to say on the video card question? I watch a video of someone running GTA V on a GTX 460 with 2GB VRAM, running at decent size display with at least normal settings. Frame rates are not high, but they are acceptable for driving, and that's what you need.

I grab a few other sale items, and a recent discovery, and its time to go back to San Andreas.

2015.11.27
Checking out the Steam sales, I check out the Saint Row series again. It looks like a mod of GTA from several versions ago, yet highly produced. As a completionist, I find it highly annoying that Steam starts with game two in the series, yet some reviewers say its actually good to start the series here. Also that the GOG version is better than the Steam version, checking GOG, there are many contradictions to this. Since this series looks about as silly as the Borderlands series, I'll probably continue to ignore them both.

status 2015 Feb.

Whatever I may think about the Bioshock series, at least its behind me now. That was a big unknown hanging over my head, and a great missing piece in the repertoire. The other big piece, just as glaringly obvious, is Mass Effect. But I don't want to just rush right into it, I need some space between. Time to update the game list.

There are some other really big titles I must play, especially Fallout New Vegas. But I think I know what Fallout 3.5 is going to be like, and it will be good and I will like it. Same thing for the Elder Scroll series, and the latest GTA. I almost don't even mind spoilers for those games, because I know what I am getting, but I am still bothered by any hint of Mass Effect spoilers.

Its time to fix that.

status 2014 December

I finally knocked BioShock off the list, and it feels great. I want to clear even more titles off the bucket list. Before I move on, I wonder if I can activate this on Steam. Open client, Games -> Activate a Product, copy key, Invalid Product Code. Oh well, would have been nice. Its still $20 on Steam, and I don't want to buy it again at that price. After 7 years, it should be further down the bargain bin in price. As should the rest of the Bioshock series; maybe I will pick this up again later.

While reading various game forums, I see a notice that Good Old Games (now gog.com) is giving away a copy of Age of Wonders. I'm not sure what that even is, something like Civilization or Age of Empires? I've been meaning to sign up with GOG, but I still have such a backlog of stuff in boxes and on Steam that I haven't gotten around to it. This is a good a time as any. Should be a lot of sales coming up this holiday. I already have Torment and Arcanum, but its nice to know I could replace them for $3.99 and $1.49 respectively.

Because I have such a backlog I haven't been keeping up with game sites, or game sale sites. I check out CheapShark, and what do you know, Bioshock 2 for $4.99. That's quite reasonable, but most of my library is in Steam, and I'd like to keep it there.

---

2014.12.23

I had high hopes for this year's Steam sale, and Steam delivered. The whole Bioshock series $10.19; they're practically giving it away.

Mass Effect 1 and 2 are available for $17.49; it would be really nice to be able to pick up all three, but I heard there's some business reason why 3 wasn't released on Steam. I'll make a note on my calendar to purchase it before January 2.

There are no achievements for Bioshock (1). The runway is clear for Bioshock 2.

Bioshock (2007)

I've been avoiding Big Daddy (and creepy hypodermic girl) for years, trying not to get spoiled on what I hear is one of the best games ever, and something I must play. This game is one of the reasons I went all the way back to System Shock 1 and 2, because I kept hearing that they were at least spiritual predecessors.

I bought this game so long ago its got a bargain bin sticker on it, not to mention its actual physical media. I put the DVD in the drive. There's a small paper manual in here, I turn a few pages, some immediate spoilers about a city called Rapture and a quote from somebody name Andrew. I stop at a page of keyboard commands. Even that is a bit spoilery, telling what kind of weapons and actions there are.

I've delayed playing this game so long there are two sequels, and the series seems to be done. All three are available on Steam, so I can probably continue there, but for now I'm sticking with this DVD which has been waiting in the attic for a long time.

G:\setup.exe.
Custom
It will install to \Program Files (x86), so screenshots and saves will probably be in a shadow directory.
There's an nVidia logo; I'm OK with that.
Nothing much else to look at during the InstallShield session.
I feel confident that this game will run just fine with little to no graphics problems, and after dealing with 1990s software, I'm OK with that too.
Long install, I hope the DVD is not accessed ever again.
Some of the map names going by during the install are spoilery.
It's checking for a patch all by itself, downloaded and installed.

I need a serial number, its on the back of the manual. How much longer could I have delayed before there was no server out their to register with? There's still a lot to be said for old games (not that they don't have some weird copy protection, but at least they've all been cracked years ago).

Load main menu screen. Version is 1.0 - I thought this game already updated itself. Options -> Graphics. Resolution is 1024x768, crank it up to 1920x1200. I alt-tab out to take a screen shot; not only did it not work (alt-print screen), it got stuck  and windowed itself. Close and restart.

Nothing left to do now but New Game.

Lately when I play a game and blog about it, I've written pre, post, and game notes; I'll continue with that.

status 2014 October

Finishing Planescape: Torment is a big milestone, maybe the biggest, and I'm glad its behind me.

Its time to review the past, and plan the next step. I read my way through this blog backwards all the way to the beginning, fixing the odd typo as I go. I leave a few typos because I'm reading on a pad and its too annoying to edit, and to leave something for the next read through.

I have so many more old games to knock off the bucket list, but I just don't feel like tackling long-obsolete UIs, pixelated art, or glitchy graphics just now. I go to YouTube and watch a compilation of Blizzard movies from Starcraft 2. Someone put them all into one vid; I'd put a link but it will probably just dissapear, and then get posted again anyway.

That was kind of interesting, so I start watching a new cinematic edit of The Last of Us, and as good as it is, and seemingly edited down, its still five hours, and not something I need to do again.

I find an Age of Empires 3 shortcut and click it, what could it hurt to take a quick look. Well, there goes two hours of staring at a screen. I don't need life's fast forward button right now. Uninstalled.

One of the things that struck me on the blog read through was how much time I wasted covering old ground, while there are exciting new worlds to visit. If there's a lesson in here somewhere, how about not wasting time?

status 2013 December

Nothing much going on.

Stopped playing Starcraft 2 a while ago.

Occasionally I still think about the story of The Last of Us.

Tried Plants vs Zombies 2, got bored, got sickened by the money grabbing 'pay to play' model, didn't go back.

Played a round of Left 4 Dead, just the first map No Mercy, got a little nostalgic, but mostly bored.

Paged through my nearly 500 Fallout 3 screenshots. Got a little more nostalgia, but mostly I'm glad to be done with it. I sure would like to crack open Fallout (3) New Vegas, but Real Life won't allow that level of commitment right now.

I've lost the plot, what was I supposed to be doing, playing from oldest to newest?

I read back through the blog, following my bread crumb trail, fixing typos. Sometimes in my daily life I think about some aspect of gaming I really should write down. I am relieved to see I have already written many of these things down, sometimes even more completely than I am thinking about them now. I've been wondering if all this blogging would ever amount to anything, and now I know it has, at least for my memory continuity.

status 2013 July

Since watching The Last of Us, I haven't done much. Mostly just plodding through Age of Empires 2, just so I can finish and be done with it.

Starcraft 2 expansion (Heart of the Swarm) went on sale, $10 off. Blizzard hardly ever has sales, until the product is years and years old, so I bought it. The reviews are not good. But its a Blizzard product - so I have to buy it! But I didn't buy Diablo 3, because of all the bad reviews, and I'm still not regretting that.

I better stick with the game plan though, of finishing off the oldest games first. At least, I better finish AOE2, or I never will.

---

Some weeks later, and I've chipped away at AOE2 for so long that its gone. It definitely made a pleasant diversion here and there, but it was starting to wear thin. I can say I'm well and truly done, except that they re-released the game in HD. I guess I'll check that out some day if it is on a good sale.

What do I do with the AOE2 Gold Edition box and cd? I think I'll start a new box called "SELL", and later when I have more downtime, I'll sell off all my retired games.

But now where do I go? Something recent, like Starcraft, which I've paid good money for and is just sitting there waiting for me on my hard drive, or keep on going through those old games?

BTW, I still think about The Last of Us sometimes. Its the sign of a good game, or at least the sign of a game with good hooks, that you're still thinking about it weeks and months later. And I didn't even play it, I just watched a playthrough. This is about as close as I've ever come to wanting to get a modern console, even though I know I would probably be endlessly annoyed by console issues.

Age of Empires 2... now in HD?

While eating breakfast in front of YouTube, I'm watching some random AOE vids just to see what's out there, and I see "Age of Empires II HD". I'm thinking that's cool, some dedicated fans went back and upped the graphics of a beloved old game. I've seen that a few times now, like with System Shock - fans have created a whole slew of modules and add-ons, and even a loader to manage them. But AOE2 HD is no fan work, its an official release! And its coming out on Steam this week! And its only $20! What crazy timing. Life is funny that way, but usually the butt of the joke is you.

As cool as this new development is, its not what I'm doing right now. I'm saying goodbye to old games forever, and either tossing or selling the material components. I'm also trying to close out the older stuff before it becomes inaccessible forever, like the first System Shock game that I couldn't play and had to try to experience through playthroughs.

I was going to dive straight into Planescape: Torment, but I was concerned it might be too much of a mental shift in user interface, graphics, and even standards of what is a good game (a standard which moves slowly, but noticeably over this long a time interval). I'm trying to get back into the 1990s mindset, so I can experience it the way it was meant to be. Of course that can't truly work, but I think I can meet it part way. If anything, this newly updated AOE 2 reminds me of my mission to catch up.

I wonder if I should play some Fallout (original) first, since Planescape is also an RPG. I've always meant to replay it, and if not now, then when? But then that makes me think I should go back as far as Wasteland, but that might be pushing it too far back. Its tough enough to get back into 1990s games, let alone 1980s games.

---

I still don't feel quite up to Planescape, but I do feel like Age of Empires 2. I check the software archive, and it looks like I never imaged my discs. I check the retail boxes, but the discs are missing; I don't feel like digging around in the attic for them. But I do have one more box, Age of Empires 2 Gold Edition, and its heavy... and unopened! Not sure why I bought this, it must have been on sale, or maybe the "bonus maps" attracted me, but I never used it. So now I will be playing something both old and new.

Age of Empires 1, and the ROR expansion, installed and played fine (except for some minor color problems in how the sea looked), so I'm expecting no trouble running AOE 2. First, to create a disc image, so I don't have to play with the disc in the drive (which is just noisy and slow). I/O error, perhaps some old copy protection? Looks like it might be a software error with my ISO maker. A quick investigation doesn't yield an easy solution, so I'll just play from disc for a little while; at least I can make sure the discs are OK.

So, I install the two discs, and it feels like they just bundled the original and expansion in a new box. The two games don't seem to be integrated into any whole, the way the AOE 3 expansions built upon each other. Not that it probably matters much, I think AOE 2 was a much more standalone game, whereas in AOE 3 you manage each civilization over time (Home City, cards, etc.). Let's see what software versions we have, and if there are any patches. Oh that's lame, I have to re-insert disc 1 to play the original game, and I did a full install. I really need to image these discs.

Flipping through the manual - this game seems more sophisticated than AOE 3, in some ways. I don't remember that it had this much detail. I remember this main screen; and letting the background sounds of a medieval town loop for a while (I think AOE 2 Conquerors did it even better).. I create my profile, set my screen size to the max, 1280x1024. I'll start with the tutorial, why not try everything. Uh oh, graphics glitches worse than anything I saw in AOE 1. And finally I can check the About - this is version 2.0a.

Already I am remember why I loved AOE 2, its got all sorts of historical trappings. Now to check on that patch level. I don't have anything in the archive. OK, 2.0a was the last. Now about that graphics error. Set desktop background to black? Restart game, no. Open control panel, display, screen resolution - change nothing just leave it open. That works. I remember this worked for Diablo 2. I don't even want to know why. And finally, to stop the intro movies from playing, add NoStartup to the shortcut.

No, not quite done, need to find where the game is storing my screenshots. Oh, of course, they are in= "\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II". Strange, screenshots from the story boards are in 800x600, but in-game shots are at the 1280 level I selected; I guess the former are a fixed size. I'm already looking forward to seeing what this will look like in the HD version.

trouble saying goodbye to it ; Age of Empires

Do you ever read or watch a classic, and decide that's the last time I'm ever doing that in this life? Doesn't that make it, by definition, not a classic anymore, something that doesn't warrant a lifetime of revisits? And yet that's what I'm trying to do to my classic games. I want to play them one last time, say goodbye to them, and never come back. Usually, you never know the last time you ever did something; the unconscious thinks its immortal, and can always come back this way again. I'm trying to say the opposite. There are more games than I can ever play, and never enough time. I have to make a list, and keep it short, so I can focus on playing only the classics.

Down from the attic, a giant stack of Age of Empires, spanning over a decade. Simplest thing would be to make an ISO out of every CD, test them to see that they work, maybe even play them, then toss the whole pile. The games are likely worth nothing, I wonder how much I could get for the Collector's Editions? Seeing as how they are now used, not much, maybe $20-$40. Probably not worth the effort, considering the hassle that eBay has become. I'll table that for now - I just want to play.

There are so many horror stories when it comes to installing ancient software on new machines, but Windows 7 has been really good with the backwards compatibility. I make an image and install quickly. The intro video was cheesy, but brought up some nice old memories of when this game was hot; when it drew me away from the similar but quieter Civilization games.

I haven't even started yet, and there is history. This is what I missed in Age of Empires 3, this sense that you are reliving history, recreating it, and heck, maybe even just learning something. It doesn't take much, just a few paragraphs, and it affects enjoyment of the game, and gives it a little deeper meaning than just gathering berries.

Wow, this is even cruder than I remember, and it brings back memories of many computers ago. Oh, ok, I can at least turn this up to 1024x768. It actually makes a big difference, unlike the differences betwen 1440, 1680,1920, etc.


Other things are crude as well; I miss the many little aggravation saving features that have been added over the years. Checking the patch - yes, one of the best of these features is added: being able to find idle villagers by pressing a single button.

There are many little charming elements, especially the quirky sound effects, but I grow quickly weary of the game. I've gotten used to good unit pathing, being able to issue an attack-move, being able to give defensive options for groups, etc. My units stand around slack-jawed unless I tell them every little thing. I like how the villagers gather resources, but they do stupid things like when their farm runs out, they don't stand still so I can easily detect them, and tell them to rebuild their farms. Its all coming back to me as I play, all these little things I have to keep an eye on. I'm looking forward to moving on to Age of Empires 2, but I'll continue on with this for a bit.

It's getting more tedious, even as I finish up the Egypt tutorial. The game mechanics seems more and more clunky, and distracts from the thin veneer of history. I wonder now if even Civilization will stand the test of time. Civ and AOE used to make me feel I was replaying history, at times, but maybe I wasn't separating out my infatuation with the game and with history. Either I'm not the same, these games are not the same, or the usual somewhere in between.

---

What, no auto heal? No clicking the alt key to see the health of all units on the screen? No follow? No patrol? I can't trade for anything except gold? Pathing remains a constant pain. Also, the historical aspects are fun, but with increasingly questionable accuracy. Yes, I know its a game - I always know its a game - my commentary is always in that context. And despite all these complaints, it is surprisingly still addictive after all this time.

So that's it then, end of the Egyptian intro campaign. I've probably seen all that Age of Empires "1" has to offer. Maybe I'll try the Greek campaign. Its not hard to believe this game is 15 years old, but its strange that no other major game makers have revisited this concept. I think the makers of AOE are defunct now (unless you count the travesty that is Age of Empires Online), but how cool would that be if they took the AOE3 engine and started over in ancient times.

This dredges up some old memories, of Civilization but mostly Civ 2, which helped me make an easy progression over from simulation games to real time strategy games. I recall at the time thinking this is just like Civ 2, but everybody is moving their chess pieces at the same time. But the action came at the cost of the history lessons, and the economics. They're still here, but ever diminishing. Maybe another fork would have been better for me, maybe something with more thought and less action. I remember looking into the Anno series, but it seemed a little too dry at the time. Reading the Wikipedia pages... even with all the sequels it sounds only vaguely appealing.

I try the Greek campaign. The difficulty level is ramped way up, with you under constant attack. Fortunately, you can build unlimited towers. This is something about video games that is just assumed, that you, the player, are always looking for exploits and loopholes within the system (just like real life!). If I can build a ton of towers, and my enemies want to repeatedly smash themselves against it while I sit back and lob arrows, that's not my fault. Of course it strains believeability  and sometimes its so bad you have to restrain yourself or it gets into cheating territory, which makes the game pointless (unlike real life).

Somewhere during the next episode of the campaign, I realize I'm mindlessly chomping through this like its a bowl of chips. This game was great in its day, and helped me get into RTS, but all it remains is a draft for AOE 2. Let's call this one done. Before I go, I may as well load up the expansion, Rise of Rome.

Rise of Rome is noticeably smoother and more refined than AOE, but its still the same game. The history I want is there, but its doled out in bits before and after each round - its not integrated into the experience. I remember AOE 2 did this better, and its time to find out. I'm finished with AOE.

when games are like crack

I uninstalled Age of Empires 3 because I was wasting bucketfuls of time on it. Its safe and mindless entertainment, but a little too much so. Its one of the closest equivalents I have yet to find to a fast forward button to life. I think I could waste many more hours trying out all the combinations and permutations of different nationalities, maps, tactics, difficulty levels, etc. It would be fine, but I am left feeling empty afterwards. I pay my time and have nothing to show for it.

I was doing this with Starcraft 2 for a while, some time ago, and I thought I learned my lesson then, but it didn't stick. This is the dark side of gaming, or any hobby, where it becomes mindless rote, instead of an experience. Something to keep watch out for, I doubt this is the last time.

retro vs vintage

Is playing old games retro or vintage?

For a long time, it was just me being too poor to afford to keep up with the latest PC hardware, and the high price of new games. Wait a few years, and it becomes affordable. Now stay there, a year or two behind the curve, and now your gaming hobby is quite affordable.

By definition, my old hardware and software are vintage, i.e. old. Some of it is old enough to be antique, at least in tech reckoning. If I actively sought to play or make games in an older style, that would be retro. But I'm not consciously choosing old styles and techniques, just for the sake of being different. I'm choosing to spend time on it now because I've always wanted to, it just took a while to get to it.

But some old games I skipped on purpose, or didn't know about them at the time. Is that retro, for me to be interested in them? I don't think so, I consider it filling gaps in my history. This distinction is of minor importance to me, because I keep seeing references to 8-bit gaming being somehow cool, and it makes me nauseous, like anything to do with fashion. We used the tools we had at the time, to do what gaming we could. If I nostalgia for anything in the past, its because its attached to some element of lost and fading youth, not because of fetishism, and certainly not because things were better in the old days.

Anyway,  I wandered off on this tangent because I am trying to listen to the "1UP.com Retronauts" podcast. Good podcasts are hard to find, and even more so good gaming podcasts. I listened to a show about Double Dragon, which was one of my favorite arcade games. Sadly, most of the podcast was devoted to console ports, so this may not be the podcast for me. And now I see in the queue an episode about Day of the Tentacle - something vaguely familiar, that I will need to research before listening to.

So I read up on Lucasfilm Games (now called LucasArts) and its like discovering an old room in my house that I never knew was there. I completely missed out on Maniac Mansion, and its successor, Day of the Tentacle. I don't think I missed it, but more avoided it. I played almost everything Infocom ever made, and I think I was about done with text parser games. I remember as they began to decline they started experimenting with graphics, and I dismissed it as an act of desperation.

Games like The Secret of Monkey Island didn't help, as it made attaching graphics to adventure games seem even more stupid. Of course, more and better graphics in games was inevitable, but I didn't get the impression there was adequate attention to story and atmosphere, or at least gameplay. I think this is why my gaming went into such dormancy during the 90s. It was a time of transition, from the experimental days of the 70s and 80s, to the commodity nature of gaming now. A lot of accepted standards and conventions weren't quite set yet, and there were a lot of evolutionary dead ends. But I can see that I missed a lot of good stuff too.

By the way, I think cultural decades don't begin and end necessarily where the calender does. What I refer to as 90s gaming actually started in the late 80s, and ended in the late 90s, probably with Half-Life. Thinking about that some more... I think Wasteland (1988) was one of the last such games of the 80s. Fallout (1997) and Fallout 2 (1998) were good games, but they belong to the quirky UI and pre-3d graphics of the 90s. Fallout 3 (2008) is what a standard 2000s game looks like. Its too soon to think of what a standard 2010s game is going to look like.

I missed out on Loom (1990), which used music in the UI. I think I actually tried one of the Indiana Jones off a demo disc (from a gaming magazine?), but it made no good impression. I still don't know what Sam & Max is. And of course I missed Grim Fandango (1998). Like System Shock, its often near the top of the list of all-time best games, and like System Shock, I will probably not be able to play it. And that was pretty much the end of Lucasfilm Games, and adventure games, for me at least.

I see an explosion of to-do items from here. I should see if I can find and play Grim Fandango, or more realistically, find a video playthrough. I should see what other adventure games I missed and add them to my list (I already bought Syberia on Steam). There's a lot more to say about the various ages of gaming, and what we thought about gaming at the time. For now, though, I have read at least the Wiki entries, and can listen to that podcast.

{days later}

I listened to the podcast and it was more and less then I expected. They got the original creators of the game on, and it was an interesting fun time, but I didn't really learn much about the game. Sometimes you don't get what you expected, but you still get something good anyway.

on hold

Real life calling, can't get into any big time commitment game now. But I still want something with the substance of a sim or strategy game. I was thinking of revisiting the entire Age of Empires series, so I checked out some vids on YouTube. I got some good nostalgia out of the sound effects, but the visuals were kind of too small.

The small visuals reminded me just how far the Age series has come; those old games might be too crude to play now, other than for brief nostalgia. But there's some good stuff in there, and it might be enough to draw me in for a few weeks. So I won't go there just yet. Maybe I'll play a little Age of Empires 3. Its not an especially deep game, and its somewhat boring, so I think I can pick it up and drop it with little risk of accidentally losing a week or a month.

Grand Theft Auto 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony

Nice intro - starts by showing Niko's story, with plenty of guest appearances from Johnny's story. It's sad to think that this is the last chapter, but it has to end or all these guest appearances in each other's stories could get exponential.

I like the style of this game so far. Everything's kind of bright and neon, yet fake and empty. Its a melancholy mix that reminds me of Vice City in some pleasantly updated way. I wonder if the addition of the 80s radio station was from this add-on, not the previous, and it was just made retroactively available. One of the downsides of retro gaming - your timelines tend to get compacted, if not outright squished.

This game has the P90! I haven't carried one of these (in-game, that is - I'm not likely to ever even see one in real life) since Fallout 2. I'm liking this add-on more and more.

I steer Luis to his Mom's house, and receive a sharp reminder that the Grand Theft Auto universe is a cruel one. Nobody loves anybody for long before it is inevitably ruined by jealousy, fear, and/or betrayal. I just met Luis' mom and I already want to take her on a helicopter trip over the city and bail out in mid-air.

Watching some TV and it occurs to me that GTA games used to be a sometimes subtle satire of our culture; now GTA 4 is almost as blatant as the movie Idiocracy. Yet another reason why GTA 4 feels like a sequel made by different people than the GTA 3 games. Usually sequels tend to lose original key players, subtlety, depth, and quality as they go forwards. Like Fallout 2, and Deus Ex 2. And yet strangely, there was a Fallout 3 and Deus Ex 3 that were better than their immediate predecessors, but still not as good as their originators. Maybe there is something to this, or maybe just coincidence.

I've got the power

There's nothing like a week plus power outage to make you want to do a running jump off the pier and cannonball back into video gaming. Let's get to GTA 4 and finish it before GTA 5 comes out - I should have about half a year.

First, some housekeeping. While running all my updates on my long dormant computer, I notice I still have a lot of game shortcuts in my Favorites, for long since finished games. I should really trim those out of there, but not before "packing" each one away. That means following the "saves" and "screenshots" shortcuts, extracting any content, RARing it up, and filing it away in the archives. Then I can uninstall the games.

I can't quite delete the screenshots taken in Steam games, yet, if ever. It leaves big gaping holes in the screenshot window in Steam, as files are not found. What I've been doing is zeroing in on the screenshots that matter, naming and uploading those to Steam's cloud, and deleting the rest from within the Steam screenshot manager. What will happen when I re-install - will those uploaded shots come back down to my machine? I guess I'll find out on the next re-install, which I'm getting due for. In the meanwhile, I can clear the shortcut from my favorites, letting me know I'm done with it.

My Fallout 3 saves are 8 gb - why would I need to keep this. Let's see how it compresses. The compression ratio is about 33%, but that's still a fairly big chunk to file. I'll take a dir snapshot of it, and toss it, saving only the first and last save, and the few administrative files.

character choice in RPGs

When I start playing a game, I play along. I want it to succeed at bringing me in to its reality, so like some hypnosis victim, I am predisposed to believe. So I always try and play in character. If the story is lacking or weak in explaining something about the world, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. If there are in-game flaws that I can use to cheat the system, I try not to abuse them. I am a willing co-conspirator in the story.

I like to play the mage in RPGs, but all to often game mechanics are so complex its easy to end up very frustrated while trying to figure out the game and to also figure out the magic system at the same time. Now I'm trying something new in the game I'm currently playing - I'm taking the fighter role that I have always ignored. If the game offers the usual RPG roles of fighter, mage, thief, etc. then you can probably finish the game as any of them. The role of fighter is always the baseline, so I'll take that to learn the game. Assuming the game is any good, I can do another playthrough as mage.

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but the game I'm playing right now (System Shock 2) pushed me over the line. This game has a ton of choices, and if I can learn most of it without having to try and master the magic of the game (psionics), maybe I can enjoy the story that much more.