Back in the day, I used to be pretty heavy into the death match. A little capture the flag was ok, sure, but I really could get into the death match. David, hated the death match, at least in so far as it was presented a la Quake II.
Half Life changed all that. Here's how.
Imagine a map made up of an indoor play zone. There's me. There's David. There's one health spot. Looking down over the health spot is a mostly enclosed catwalk. The catwalk provides an almost ideal sniping spot. Knowing that a) David is going to need to go to the health spot eventually, this based almost entirely on my knowledge of his ability to hurt himself as effectively as I can, and b) I can hear his footsteps when he runs up puts me in a pretty decent tactical position. I think.
And I continue to think that as I hear his approach. I zoom in my weapon of choice, the Colt Python, hoping the red dot from the laser won't give me away. I inhale, exhale, hold. He's getting closer. I can hear him getting ... closer...
BAM!
Now, imagine the most girly-girl scream you've ever heard.
Yes, that would be me screaming. Yes, he snuck up behind me. No, it never occurred to me.
Now a days, I mostly go for the squad based shooters, Battlefield and the like. But we had a really good run based on that moment. Half Life, Unreal Tournament (two or three versions). And some days, I kind of miss the no bots action.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Friday, May 04, 2007
l33t posts
This was supposed to be a r33l leet post about Sytem Shock 2. About how I'm all impressed with a game that came out the same time David and I were learning the joy of crow bar dueling in Half Life. Which as an aside, is also a great story that I should write down.
And then you pwned by Murphy.
Will Wheaton's agreed (at least tentatively) to be the keynote speaker at the next PAX.
So in a Force = Mass * Velocity kind of way, I neeeeed to go to PAX.
Penny Arcade Expo = Roxor
Tycho & Gabe = Roxor
Will = Roxor
Sum of = pwnage!
I wonder how long it takes to walk to Seattle?
And then you pwned by Murphy.
Will Wheaton's agreed (at least tentatively) to be the keynote speaker at the next PAX.
So in a Force = Mass * Velocity kind of way, I neeeeed to go to PAX.
Penny Arcade Expo = Roxor
Tycho & Gabe = Roxor
Will = Roxor
Sum of = pwnage!
I wonder how long it takes to walk to Seattle?
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Slacker Blog Web Ring
Hi and welcome to the SlackerBlog Web Ring.
Oh , allright, it is a bit harsh, but it would seem that most of the blogs I link to don't get updated all that often. With exception of Wheaton, who updates very regularly (and is an uber l33t god of bloging, not somebody I actually know or anything)(yes i'm trying to buy cool).
Thing 1: I learned about my video card last night. By spending some serious time with City of Villians, it's frame rate tool and config panel, I was able to crank 23 frames per second up to 53. Not bad, eh? I like it. It looks like my card has trouble with their bloom shader (makes stuff glow). I've seen this setting elsewhere (in other games I mean) and I may experiment a bit more tonight in other stuff, to see if its driver/hardware related rather than implementation related. Maybe the x800 has a poor implementation of shaders? I don't remeber seeing that in any of the reviews. It could be that CoH/Cov has a poor implementation of the driver calls/directX.
Thing 2: A face normal is the direction you expect the render engine to draw the side of the polygon on. This is all great unless you get the normals twisted to the inside of the cube. Which make the side facing you transparent and the inside of the othe side render. Which could be a cool effect, I suppose, just not what I wanted. Oh bother.
Thing 3: Bioshock
Cool. Very, very cool.
Oh , allright, it is a bit harsh, but it would seem that most of the blogs I link to don't get updated all that often. With exception of Wheaton, who updates very regularly (and is an uber l33t god of bloging, not somebody I actually know or anything)(yes i'm trying to buy cool).
Thing 1: I learned about my video card last night. By spending some serious time with City of Villians, it's frame rate tool and config panel, I was able to crank 23 frames per second up to 53. Not bad, eh? I like it. It looks like my card has trouble with their bloom shader (makes stuff glow). I've seen this setting elsewhere (in other games I mean) and I may experiment a bit more tonight in other stuff, to see if its driver/hardware related rather than implementation related. Maybe the x800 has a poor implementation of shaders? I don't remeber seeing that in any of the reviews. It could be that CoH/Cov has a poor implementation of the driver calls/directX.
Thing 2: A face normal is the direction you expect the render engine to draw the side of the polygon on. This is all great unless you get the normals twisted to the inside of the cube. Which make the side facing you transparent and the inside of the othe side render. Which could be a cool effect, I suppose, just not what I wanted. Oh bother.
Thing 3: Bioshock
Cool. Very, very cool.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Dustballs and Mutants
I'm must actually really like Auto Assault. I'm certainly semi-obsessed with the theme. Mutants, cyborgs, cars with missile launchers.
I can't remember how playable Carwars was, but I'm very tempted to seek out a copy of it and inflict it on my regular P&P victims. I wonder if there's a GURPS post-apocalypta?
I listened to Steve Jackson's "State of the Company" podcast recently. The good news is that SJ Games is rolling on. Munchkin has put them way over, and they are in serious jeopardy of making money. Assuming they can keep enough copies of Munchkin printed. The down side of this is that keeping Munchkin in print requires that all new development be effectively shoved to the side. That doesn't make me feel good about gaming as a whole.
He also mentioned that Eagle Games, who produced the board game adaptation of Sid Meier's Civilization, closed their doors. This is bad for me, because it means my supply of super fancy cheap figs just dried up. I guess that could be why they closed the doors.
Car flying.
Bullets screaming.
Cybers dying.
I can't remember how playable Carwars was, but I'm very tempted to seek out a copy of it and inflict it on my regular P&P victims. I wonder if there's a GURPS post-apocalypta?
I listened to Steve Jackson's "State of the Company" podcast recently. The good news is that SJ Games is rolling on. Munchkin has put them way over, and they are in serious jeopardy of making money. Assuming they can keep enough copies of Munchkin printed. The down side of this is that keeping Munchkin in print requires that all new development be effectively shoved to the side. That doesn't make me feel good about gaming as a whole.
He also mentioned that Eagle Games, who produced the board game adaptation of Sid Meier's Civilization, closed their doors. This is bad for me, because it means my supply of super fancy cheap figs just dried up. I guess that could be why they closed the doors.
Car flying.
Bullets screaming.
Cybers dying.
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