I played through a little freeware game called Digital: A Love Story, which is available here:
http://www.scoutshonour.com/digital/
I really liked it. It's a story that'll stick with me for a while yet, I imagine.
Its execution was really interesting; it's set on the desktop of an Amiga-esque home computer in 1988, and is a story that unfolds through reading various BBS boards... looking for new numbers of boards to dial onto and read...
I'd recommend it to anyone who craves a spot of .hack or cyberpunk or simply anyone who is just very very nosey.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
I got an Xbox 360 from Microsoft
I came home on Friday evening to see a large box containing an Xbox 360. It's not the one I sent off to them, it's a replacement one. Seems to be a refurbished old model because it doesn't have an HDMI port on the back.
Pretty quick turnaround! :)
I've tried it out and it seems to work fine (but is maybe even noisier then the last one!), but I have been too busy playing Uplink and Pokemon SS to think about playing anything on Xbox 360 anyway.
Pretty quick turnaround! :)
I've tried it out and it seems to work fine (but is maybe even noisier then the last one!), but I have been too busy playing Uplink and Pokemon SS to think about playing anything on Xbox 360 anyway.
Things you should never think about while playing pokemon
1. The people in the pokemon world are sometimes seen playing pokemon, sometimes even trading pokemon with each other. Does the game they are playing contain a pokemon world where people play pokemon? And does that world contain another a pokemon world where people play pokemon? Where does it end?
2. Is it really ok to let children think it's ok to go off on a journey around the world, giving out their phone number to just anyone... especially people who want to fight them?
3. Cubone is a pokemon who is described as wearing the skull of its deceased mother on its head. How come they can come out of an egg like that?
2. Is it really ok to let children think it's ok to go off on a journey around the world, giving out their phone number to just anyone... especially people who want to fight them?
3. Cubone is a pokemon who is described as wearing the skull of its deceased mother on its head. How come they can come out of an egg like that?
Saturday, 29 May 2010
My Pokémon SoulSilver / Pokéwalker adventures
I bought myself a copy of Pokemon SoulSilver when it came out... and a month of waiting and an insurance claim with the postal service later... [sigh...] I got the game (and HeartGold for my brother).
I really like this remake. Well, I confess - I never actually played Pokemon Silver on Gameboy Color, I started playing Pokemon Crystal sometime last year, which was the culmination / enhanced version of Gold and Silver. And still, that game is so clumsy and the interfaces are so bad compared with recent pokemon games. So, compared to Pokemon Crystal, this is a great remake.
The original games on the Gameboy Color were severely restricted due to memory constraints on the cartridge, and it really showed. Names of items were abbreviated, making them somewhat cryptic sometimes. I found myself having to choose what to discard from my backpack far too often. I found myself having to choose which people to delete from my phone book, not knowing whether the next person would be a useful contact. And there wasn't nearly enough space to store pokemon if you were seriously collecting them. Biggest of all - and I might be wrong about it because I didn't play far enough to see and this is what I've heard - the story in the game included a massive disaster in the Pokemon world... because it was a convenient way to exclude half a region from appearing in the game.
It was clear to me that Pokemon Crystal is a really good pokemon game, and it was massive and advanced for a Gameboy Color game, but here in the 21st century, the awkwardnesses of the interface meant that after a while I stopped playing and waited for these remakes to come out in English.
Pokemon SoulSilver was worth the wait. The game is just that much more pleasant to play, and the balance has been struck well - everything from the original is retained and mini-games and things have been added for fun (I am addicted to the Pokeathlon), but they are completely optional if you don't feel like doing them or want to play in the same way as with the old games. The memory restrictions I mentioned are lifted. And, there is the Pokewalker accessory, for exercise and free pokemon / items!
So today, I finished the Johto region Pokemon League for the first time. I even spent the last week carefully training up a "swinub" from hatching from an egg right the way through and looked up how to evolve it through a "piloswine" to becoming a "mamoswine", just to defeat a trainer with dragon pokemon. (My mamoswine is named Calippo, but I think I should have called it SlushPuppy because its type is ground ice).
And... I watched the end credits, but I still have a long way to go in the game! I have earned one more badge since then, in the Kanto region.
Fun times! The Pokemon world is just such a nice place. The pokemon fit in their environment for the most part very thoughtfully (considering real-world wildlife habitats and behaviors), everyone in the pokemon world is so obsessed with pokemon... but that is an important part of the magic of making the pokemon world constantly feel like somewhere really special.
And so, onto the Pokewalker. I love the pokewalker. It's a little pedometer that you can download one of your pokemon to, and go for "a stroll" together. You can catch pokemon or search for items in exchange for "watts", which are kind of like a payment you are rewarded for walking. Very simple interface, three buttons and an old-style black-on-silver screen. All the same, it comes with a 200+ page manual if you're in Europe, telling you how to change the batteries in every language ever. :P
The pokewalker is just a brilliant device, for me. In my mind, as I walk in the real world with my pokemon literally being a "pocket monster", it gives the real world a little bit of the pleasantness and magic of the pokemon world which just makes me feel lighthearted. And, you get rarer / better items from walking further each day. There has never been quite as good a motivator for a bit of exercise than being given free rare pokemon items! Haha, this beats Wii Fit hands down! I've walked nearly 200000 steps already! Ok, maybe I'm a bit pokemon-crazy, but I really think the Pokewalker is a great addition to this game. :)
I really like this remake. Well, I confess - I never actually played Pokemon Silver on Gameboy Color, I started playing Pokemon Crystal sometime last year, which was the culmination / enhanced version of Gold and Silver. And still, that game is so clumsy and the interfaces are so bad compared with recent pokemon games. So, compared to Pokemon Crystal, this is a great remake.
The original games on the Gameboy Color were severely restricted due to memory constraints on the cartridge, and it really showed. Names of items were abbreviated, making them somewhat cryptic sometimes. I found myself having to choose what to discard from my backpack far too often. I found myself having to choose which people to delete from my phone book, not knowing whether the next person would be a useful contact. And there wasn't nearly enough space to store pokemon if you were seriously collecting them. Biggest of all - and I might be wrong about it because I didn't play far enough to see and this is what I've heard - the story in the game included a massive disaster in the Pokemon world... because it was a convenient way to exclude half a region from appearing in the game.
It was clear to me that Pokemon Crystal is a really good pokemon game, and it was massive and advanced for a Gameboy Color game, but here in the 21st century, the awkwardnesses of the interface meant that after a while I stopped playing and waited for these remakes to come out in English.
Pokemon SoulSilver was worth the wait. The game is just that much more pleasant to play, and the balance has been struck well - everything from the original is retained and mini-games and things have been added for fun (I am addicted to the Pokeathlon), but they are completely optional if you don't feel like doing them or want to play in the same way as with the old games. The memory restrictions I mentioned are lifted. And, there is the Pokewalker accessory, for exercise and free pokemon / items!
So today, I finished the Johto region Pokemon League for the first time. I even spent the last week carefully training up a "swinub" from hatching from an egg right the way through and looked up how to evolve it through a "piloswine" to becoming a "mamoswine", just to defeat a trainer with dragon pokemon. (My mamoswine is named Calippo, but I think I should have called it SlushPuppy because its type is ground ice).
And... I watched the end credits, but I still have a long way to go in the game! I have earned one more badge since then, in the Kanto region.
Fun times! The Pokemon world is just such a nice place. The pokemon fit in their environment for the most part very thoughtfully (considering real-world wildlife habitats and behaviors), everyone in the pokemon world is so obsessed with pokemon... but that is an important part of the magic of making the pokemon world constantly feel like somewhere really special.
And so, onto the Pokewalker. I love the pokewalker. It's a little pedometer that you can download one of your pokemon to, and go for "a stroll" together. You can catch pokemon or search for items in exchange for "watts", which are kind of like a payment you are rewarded for walking. Very simple interface, three buttons and an old-style black-on-silver screen. All the same, it comes with a 200+ page manual if you're in Europe, telling you how to change the batteries in every language ever. :P
The pokewalker is just a brilliant device, for me. In my mind, as I walk in the real world with my pokemon literally being a "pocket monster", it gives the real world a little bit of the pleasantness and magic of the pokemon world which just makes me feel lighthearted. And, you get rarer / better items from walking further each day. There has never been quite as good a motivator for a bit of exercise than being given free rare pokemon items! Haha, this beats Wii Fit hands down! I've walked nearly 200000 steps already! Ok, maybe I'm a bit pokemon-crazy, but I really think the Pokewalker is a great addition to this game. :)
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Too much faith in Microsoft
Over the past weekend and up to today, I've been reading up on the ASP.NET MVC framework and trying it out using Visual Studio 2008 at work, and marvelling at how nice it is, how nice the tools are, and how together Microsoft are about development compared with their attitudes just a few years ago.
It used to be a case of "do things our way or not at all!", but now it's "do things the proper way, here are some tools to help make it easier!"
After a long time battling with certain other technologies to try and do things in a well structured way [sideways glance at php], where you have to jump through firey hoops to get things done in a way that can best be described as a compromised and roundabout way of intending to do things properly, it's just... beautiful.
I feel like... I've been building houses out of toothpicks, and all of a sudden I get to design and build skyscrapers where they just get a crane and pick up entire staircases and slot them in. Y'know?
So I come home, have some dinner, talk on the phone, switch on my Xbox 360 and... hmm. I seem to have one of these. So I start swapping round AV cables... but later notice that because the red flashing lights were so bright, I had not noticed that only three of them were flashing, which means it's one of these.
So I went to the website, tried filling in a form to get it repaired... the website is a bit clunky and the area I live in isn't in the drop-down menu of counties so I am forced to select "England". That goes to an error page, which gives me some phone numbers.
"Oh..." I thought to myself. "I have been showing too much faith in Microsoft! There must be a god sitting somewhere on a cloud going 'see, you have been getting far too enthusiastic about Microsoft things today! I will show you the painful truth of how bad their systems are!'"
The phone number gives me an automatic machine to talk to, encouraging me to use the website. Argh!
Eventually I got to talk to a woman. She was so nice and friendly, and I had no trouble at all! I read out the serial number and some details, and she said the console was going to be repaired under warranty, and that they will pay to have it shipped to them, repaired and sent back, via UPS as a courier service. All for free. With a turnaround of probably 2 - 3 weeks. Plus they'd give me a new 90 day warranty and a month's gold Xbox live subscription as a bonus. I thanked her a lot and told her I was very impressed, and she was just really nice to talk to.
I am actually glad I got the infamous RROD error rather than the 4 light "your AV cable is broken" error, because I get it fixed for free rather than having to buy a new cable!
What can I say? My faith was tested and already it has been restored! XD
It used to be a case of "do things our way or not at all!", but now it's "do things the proper way, here are some tools to help make it easier!"
After a long time battling with certain other technologies to try and do things in a well structured way [sideways glance at php], where you have to jump through firey hoops to get things done in a way that can best be described as a compromised and roundabout way of intending to do things properly, it's just... beautiful.
I feel like... I've been building houses out of toothpicks, and all of a sudden I get to design and build skyscrapers where they just get a crane and pick up entire staircases and slot them in. Y'know?
So I come home, have some dinner, talk on the phone, switch on my Xbox 360 and... hmm. I seem to have one of these. So I start swapping round AV cables... but later notice that because the red flashing lights were so bright, I had not noticed that only three of them were flashing, which means it's one of these.
So I went to the website, tried filling in a form to get it repaired... the website is a bit clunky and the area I live in isn't in the drop-down menu of counties so I am forced to select "England". That goes to an error page, which gives me some phone numbers.
"Oh..." I thought to myself. "I have been showing too much faith in Microsoft! There must be a god sitting somewhere on a cloud going 'see, you have been getting far too enthusiastic about Microsoft things today! I will show you the painful truth of how bad their systems are!'"
The phone number gives me an automatic machine to talk to, encouraging me to use the website. Argh!
Eventually I got to talk to a woman. She was so nice and friendly, and I had no trouble at all! I read out the serial number and some details, and she said the console was going to be repaired under warranty, and that they will pay to have it shipped to them, repaired and sent back, via UPS as a courier service. All for free. With a turnaround of probably 2 - 3 weeks. Plus they'd give me a new 90 day warranty and a month's gold Xbox live subscription as a bonus. I thanked her a lot and told her I was very impressed, and she was just really nice to talk to.
I am actually glad I got the infamous RROD error rather than the 4 light "your AV cable is broken" error, because I get it fixed for free rather than having to buy a new cable!
What can I say? My faith was tested and already it has been restored! XD
Monday, 10 May 2010
Green Man Gaming launches with 1p games
There's a new PC game digital download service available, the site is called Green Man Gaming. Their special gimmick is that you can buy games via their site, download and play them through a special app, then trade them in for store credit.
This means you always have to play the game through their client (called capsule) and I suppose that also means that playing offline must be impossible? I don't know.
I do know that they have some special offers for the launch of the site; certain games are going for only 1 penny. The games are:
Darwinia, High School Dreams, NecroVisioN: Lost Company, Uplink, World of Goo.
Now, I already owned Darwinia and World of Goo, and they are pretty good games. I especially like Darwinia! (note that World Of Goo was also available in the Humble Indie Bundle from Wolfire the other day... DRM free! That offer is still available for the next few hours!)
I just bought Uplink and it's pretty interesting. It's pretty much the way that hacking is depicted in films. You have an account and a server and some software, you get missions to break into remote servers and do stuff, delete all traces of your visit, and get your reward and reputation. Use the money to buy new software and servers, etc. If you get caught, you might get fined or have your server confiscated, or get put in prison.
It's got retro-futuristic interfaces and cute little password breakers that decode one character at a time, and percentage bars to show you how close authority is to catching up with you, giving you that cosy Hollywood-fiction feeling. Sweet!
I would feel far too cautious about handing over my card details to Green Man Gaming since I had never heard of them and the offer sounds too good to be true, but I have seen this promoted on some mainstream news sites so I am inclined to believe that this company is above board.
This means you always have to play the game through their client (called capsule) and I suppose that also means that playing offline must be impossible? I don't know.
I do know that they have some special offers for the launch of the site; certain games are going for only 1 penny. The games are:
Darwinia, High School Dreams, NecroVisioN: Lost Company, Uplink, World of Goo.
Now, I already owned Darwinia and World of Goo, and they are pretty good games. I especially like Darwinia! (note that World Of Goo was also available in the Humble Indie Bundle from Wolfire the other day... DRM free! That offer is still available for the next few hours!)
I just bought Uplink and it's pretty interesting. It's pretty much the way that hacking is depicted in films. You have an account and a server and some software, you get missions to break into remote servers and do stuff, delete all traces of your visit, and get your reward and reputation. Use the money to buy new software and servers, etc. If you get caught, you might get fined or have your server confiscated, or get put in prison.
It's got retro-futuristic interfaces and cute little password breakers that decode one character at a time, and percentage bars to show you how close authority is to catching up with you, giving you that cosy Hollywood-fiction feeling. Sweet!
I would feel far too cautious about handing over my card details to Green Man Gaming since I had never heard of them and the offer sounds too good to be true, but I have seen this promoted on some mainstream news sites so I am inclined to believe that this company is above board.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
My PS3...
I haven't switched my PS3 on in a long while. It's going to seem a bit weird, but... I just can't bring myself to let it connect to PSN and upgrade the firmware. It's been ages since the firmware came out that removed the ability to install "Other OS" (i.e. linux), and I have never used that feature, nor am I sure I ever want to, but...
I just feel bad about knowingly disabling a feature on my console.
I mean, I try and look after my possessions, make sure they don't overheat or get scratched up, and I have a nice import console that can even play PS2 games natively... I can't bring myself to let this console... harm itself like this.
I know it's kind of like... removing its appendix, and I know that not using it at all is worse than having one unused feature removed, but, ugh. I can't do it. :(
I keep hoping it'll get over its self-destructive phase and go back to normal. And hopefully before 3D Dot Heroes comes out.
I just feel bad about knowingly disabling a feature on my console.
I mean, I try and look after my possessions, make sure they don't overheat or get scratched up, and I have a nice import console that can even play PS2 games natively... I can't bring myself to let this console... harm itself like this.
I know it's kind of like... removing its appendix, and I know that not using it at all is worse than having one unused feature removed, but, ugh. I can't do it. :(
I keep hoping it'll get over its self-destructive phase and go back to normal. And hopefully before 3D Dot Heroes comes out.
The Humble Indie Bundle
http://www.wolfire.com/humble
This is a really good deal. As in, financially good. Ethically good. Diversity good.
You get award-winning games and you give money to charity. Cross platform. DRM free. As much as you want. The money is divided any way you like.
The games are: World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru and Penumbra Overture.
I already owned World Of Goo and Gish through some deals on Steam but I put in $10 anyway with the full donation to charity just because it's nice idea.
This is a really good deal. As in, financially good. Ethically good. Diversity good.
You get award-winning games and you give money to charity. Cross platform. DRM free. As much as you want. The money is divided any way you like.
The games are: World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru and Penumbra Overture.
I already owned World Of Goo and Gish through some deals on Steam but I put in $10 anyway with the full donation to charity just because it's nice idea.
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