At this point, it’s probably pretty obvious that I am an unabashed lover of trashy first-person shooters. (If not, just wait until my review of Rage!) With that in mind, here’s the rather unexpected sequence of events that leads me to this post: 1. I finally give into the digital distribution model after much resistance. My first purchase on GoG is the original Rise of the Triad. 2. Shockingly, I don’t like it. 3. Several years later, I purchase the new Rise of the Triad without a second thought.
Author: scwiba
900 Deep in the Dead
I’ve done a small amount of modding across a few games in the past and found that one of the most rewarding things is seeing what you can do within that game’s limitations, to see how far you can push it and what tricks you can come up with to fudge it the rest of the way. In the Doom community, this is high art. Actually, they take it a step further. The Doom engine is already pretty confining, but Doom people like to take it to new heights by imposing their own artificial limitations. The limitations of Doom aren’t
Exile Goes Free
Just a quick heads-up post today. A bit of breaking news, if you will. (Please note: my working definition of breaking news here includes anything I just found out about, regardless of how long it’s been public knowledge.) As of <some time in the semi-recent past>, the greatest RPG trilogy of all time is now freeware! That is, Jeff Vogel has released his classic RPG series, Exile, for free on his website. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty big news for me, even if I own the trilogy twice over already. Since time immemorial, I’ve considered it one
Proper Theming
I have a theming problem. With this blog, I mean. I also don’t have a very good eye for design. I had originally planned on going a while without caring, but that didn’t pan out. For some reason, people started reading this and then I suddenly felt like I had to make the place look nice. So I ate through half a dozen themes in a couple weeks before finally settling on one. Believe it or not — once upon a time, we looked like this:
That New Book Smell
Writers of the past, take heed! I’m sending this message back through time, from a world that may be difficult to understand. Everything is different here. In my time, books are a dying breed. People don’t read books on paper; they read them on devices like this one in my hand. It’s called a Kindle, and this is one of the very first models, one of the very first digital book readers that I think was ever released, and it’s already thinner than any novel and probably about the same weight. It can store over a thousand books. No, really.
The Technophile’s Curse
In the Digital Age, there is a new affliction sweeping the globe. A condition that affects millions of computer nerds and gamers alike. It’s called the Technophile’s Curse (well, it is as of right now): the complete inability to keep a normal sleep schedule. My mother always used to claim it was from looking at screens — CRTs back then, LCDs now. Something about too much light too late at night screwing up the body’s internal clock. That might be true, but I ain’t a scientist. Besides, I’m always the last person asleep even on nights when there isn’t a
Quest Accepted — 0/40 Hours Complete
A while ago, I posted about how I was looking for a job. I got one. You know that “I have no idea what I’m doing” image macro? That’s me at this new job. There’s probably a list somewhere of the jobs computer nerds aren’t really cut out for, and I’d say selling power tools is on that list. There is nothing more out of place than me in a hardware store. How did I get this job, again?
A Date with Save the Date
Warning: This post is entirely Save the Date spoilers. If you haven’t played it, please go do that before you read this. Here’s a link. At the request of a friend, I played — or read, or whatever you do with visual novels — Save the Date a couple weeks ago. That recommendation may have been the biggest reason I took Save the Date the way I did. “Play it,” was basically all this guy told me. No explanation or disclaimer or anything. All I knew was that he had just lost his best friend, and — with that in
Far Cry 2: A Photo Diary
Here I am, knees caked in dirt, creeping between blades of grass as long as my arms. At one with nature, you could say — except for the silenced pistol in hand, or the arsenal packed on my back… or the GPS that led me here. Diamonds this’a way, it said. I was expecting some gruesome sight, of course: a deal gone bad, a transporter dead from heatstroke. Something like that. Instead, I ended up on the perimeter of a camp — the kind with actual, live people in it, and most people are pretty protective of their diamonds. There’s
I Got a Game Boy!
A Game Boy Advance SP, specifically. Yes, welcome to 2003! I have finally arrived, and let me tell you — it’s a pretty rad year. Shame I missed it the first time around. This may be a little weird, but I’ve never owned a handheld console in my life. Ever. I once played Link’s Awakening on someone else’s Game Boy back in the ’90s, but that’s about the extent of my handheld experience. I was always a Nintendo kid. We had an NES since before I can remember; maybe since before I was born. I remember going to the store