Update on Games I’ve Played

Added Jura’s ACT I playthrough. It’s a short one, but I expect many great things from her.

Games I’ve Played Update

Added a new character to my Diablo games. Meet Jura.

She’s already completed Act I, her write-up will be coming soon.

Tales of Dulcea Part 1

The first part of Dulcea’s adventure is up. Find it HERE

Apologies if it’s a little rough. First time for everything. I also vastly underestimated the time and effort required to take screenshots, edit and crop them while writing something coherent.

Let’s talk about DLC

Let’s get one thing out of the way. DLC (as people call it now) isn’t a new concept. It might be new to console gamers out there, but us PC gamers have been used to DLC for a long time now. It’s just that, until recently, we called them expansions, patches or modules

DLC has proven it’s worth on the console, extending the life of games, generating extra revenue and more importantly, putting a dent in the used games and rental market (incidentally, as of last year it has become illegal to rent games in Belgium). The result is that almost any game from any decent developer/publisher will have multiple pieces of DLC available at launch and in the months after its release. Some of it will be for free but most of it will force you to fork over some dough.

This incredible wave of DLC has, as far as I can see it, two huge and annoying flaws. First of all there’s the fact that you can get royally screwed if you buy a game and then dilligently buy every piece of DLC that comes out. You see, in most cases, publishers will eventually release a Game of The Year edition, which usually includes all the DLC but at a far lower cost. I experienced this myself with Fallout 3. I had bought the game, bought every piece of DLC and was quite miffed when I saw the price of the GOTY edition on STEAM recently. I essentially paid double the price.

Money is one thing but when the DLC starts to negatively affect your gameplay, it’s a whole nother story. I’m adressing games like Mass Effect (1&2), Fallout 3, Dragon Age, Oblivion and Fable in particular. If you install the ‘vanilla version’ of the game and know that there is DLC out there, you’re constantly feeling like you’re missing out on something. It get’s worse when the DLC doesn’t properly integrate or integrates clumsily with the game. For example, if you wanted to play the Mass Effect DLC ‘Bring Down The Sky‘ but had finished the main quest, you were forced to load up an earlier save to be able to acces the new content. Fallout 3 handled DLC in a similar way but with a twist. The first two pieces of DLC forced you to reload an earlier save to play it unless (and here’s the wicked part) you bought a third piece of DLC that gave you an expanded ending and allowed you to keep playing, open-world-style, after you finished the game.

Dragon Age might just be the worst offender of this bunch. At a certain point in the game you encounter an NPC that blatantly tells you that he can’t give you a quest unless you buy some real world DLC. How’s that for breaking the illusion? It’s not even as funny as a LOOM advert.

There’s also the issue of exclusive DLC. Although there’s nothing wrong with that, it becomes an issue when you have to go crapware like EA’s download manager.

The lesson I take from this is that, in this case, good things come to those who wait. If you can, wait for the GOTY edition. It’ll be cheaper and the whole thing will be better integrated from the start. Of course being patient isn’t always an easy thing now is it?

Let’s talk about Diablo

One of the reasons I changed the blog theme was to be able to write a bit more in depth about certain games I own. One of these games is Diablo II. Diablo II is in my opinion as close to a perfect game as you can get. Alongside Half-Life 2, Red Alert 2 and some others it’s a game that offers you the most amount of fun with the least amount of frustration. It’s also addicting as hell.

It’s also an old game. It was released in 2000 and it’s expansion (Lord of Destruction) was released in 2001 so it’s about 10 years old. It’s safe to say I’ve played this game to death and have had the occasional Diablo burnout. One of the ways I’ve tried to make this 10 year old game more interesting is through variant play. Variants are character builds that are somewhat restricted in all sorts of odd ways in an attempt to up the challenge or spice up the game. I first learned about this type of play when I stumbled upon Sirian’s Diablo II page and then clicked through to Sullla’s (with three l’s) page. The type of variants they played just seemed so cool and their write-ups were amazing. So I’m going to try my hand at it. Initially I’ll restrict myself to Diablo II, but I hope to expand this to other games as well. Variant play, I find, can be adapted to almost any type of game and almost always ups the fun factor.

For now though the game of choice is Diablo II (currently at version 1.12 with 1.13 in the making). I thought I’d try my hand at completing the game, full clear style (all enemies killed and all quests completed) with a No-Teleport Sorceress specializing in Hydra and Thunderstorm. After reading Jaffa Tamarin’s experience with one, it seemed like a fun character to try. Also there’s the fact that although I’ve played a lot of this game, I’ve never actually completed Hell difficulty. A few years ago, when I played on realms back in the 1.09 days I got a Frozen Orb Sorceress halfway through Act 2 of Hell, but that was about the time when online play (with strangers anyway) really didn’t appeal to me anymore. So in some way this would also be a journey into the unknown.

Her skills will be Hydra and Thunderstorm, with max points into Lightning Mastery and Fire Mastery. Extra points will go into Warmth and if I were to max her main skills at some point I’ll start pumping one the synergy skills for Hydra (probably Firebolt).

Itemwise she has a few restrictions as well. As far as boots, belts and gloves go: no metal of any kind, she’s a mage not a warrior. Leathers will have to do. For headgear she’ll wear circlets, and will be prohibited to wear anything else until she obtains one. She’ll use a staff and is forbidden to use an orb/shield combo. Since defense is practically useless for a Sorceress I’ve based her choice of armor purely on aesthetics. She’ll wear scale mail. Looks don’t count for much in single player but still you’d be amazed at how many items in how many games I’ve passed up just to get the ‘look’ of my character right. Jewelry is unrestricted. Statswise she’ll invest just enough in Energy and Strength to get by, invest nothing in Dexterity and will put as much as she can in Vitality

Her name will be Dulcea (points if you know where I got the name from). Any updates on her travels will appear on the front page of the blog as well as in the Games I’ve Played section. If anything mentioned above seems like gibberish to anyone, don’t worry, I’ll be linking heavily to the Arreat Summit.

Here’s hoping I have the discipline to keep playing and keep updating.

Let’s Talk About Weight.

Ok, here’s the situation. I weigh 105.7 kg and am about 193 cm tall. That winds out to a BMI of 28.6, which is way too much. It’s a problem that’s been growing for a while now. I am now officially the fattest I’ve ever been. Although I know some people have it worse (looking at you Americans – no offense) it’s not a fun experience. I get tired faster, I start to sweat, my clothes don’t fit anymore and in general, everything’s harder. In other words, it’s a situation that has to be remedied.

Why did I get this fat? Mainly because I ate anytime I had the urge to and never did any physical exercise. Boredom is another factor. You’d be amazed at how much you can eat when you’re bored or when you’re ‘doing’ things that don’t involve your hands. For example, while gaming I would never eat. In fact, I would often go hours without eating a thing. Anytime I’d watch TV or read a book though, I’d stuff myself with whatever I could find. Also: I like to eat. I love the taste of food. I love chocolate, cheese, soda, pizzas and junkfood. Depriving yourself of a thing you really like is hard.

This isn’t saying that I never tried to do anything about it. On two occasions I lost about 10kg. Once on my own, once with the aid of a nutritionist. Losing the weight was hard, but I managed to do it. Making sure my weight remained stable however was harder. You never know when temptation will strike and soon enough you’re trapped in old habits.

Well as of this writing, I’m making another attempt. I’m once again following my nutritionists recommendations, and forcing myself to do some kind of daily physical activity. Today I went on a two hour walk which luckily was made bearable  by listening to podcasts. I’ll alternate those long walks with regular activity on an exercise bike.

I’ve got a great new scale (no, it doesn’t tweet), that remembers my weight and automatically tracks my progress.

My first goal is get below 100kg. After that 95 with the final goal to get under that magical BMI limit of 25.

I’ll be updating the blog when significant progress has been made. Here goes nothing.

State Of The Blog

Changed the design of the blog today. My reasons for this are fourfold (is that even a word?).

1. The text field on the old blog theme was too narrow and the font was too large.
2. The blog was becoming a repository of social network badges.
3. There was no tabbed navigation up top.
4. Some things (PC Specs) were wrong or outdated.

I just want to get back to basics. Less is more. I’ve dumped all the widgets that I don’t think are important.  I’ve just been handed about a week or so of free time. Among other things I’ll dedicate this time to writing on the blog, preferably one post a day. Just a simple test of discipline.

I’ve got a few ideas for blog posts, some of my making, some inspired by others. In any case what appears on this page come straight from my brain, without filtering. The new design will also allow for larger images which should be nice. It’s also got an new name: The Moldy Tome (points if you can guess where it came from, hint: you can usually find it in a Stony Field)

Stay tuned, whoever you are out there.

Retro Gaming 1: Half-Life (part 2)

check out part 1 HERE

I can easily see how in 1998 this game was heralded as revolutionary. Much like it’s sequel, Half-Life introduced gameplay elements that were widely copied and implemented by other games. Half-Life presents a complete universe. From start to finish, you believe you’re in a hightech research complex where hell has broken loose. From the intercom to the sounds of shattering glass: everything either creeps you out or makes you run for your life. Where Half-Life 2 made you a messiah figure leading the human resistance against the evil Combine empire, Half-Life 1 is all about survival. Your goal is to stay alive and escape the deathtrap that is Black Mesa. You’re besieged from all sides: be it alien wildlife, invading Zen shocktroopers or HECU soldiers out to silence you. Sure, the character models for the guards and scientists are repetitive and the dialogue knows little variation, but remember that this is 1998. In an age where multigigabyte harddrives were the stuff of dreams it’s understandable that compromises had to be made. (Also if you think back to the release of  Oblivion in 2006, it too was heavily derided for it’s extremely limited voice cast. In many ways we really haven’t come that far)

Graphics are graphics: they age. Any game that chooses a realistic artstyle (which, apart from the alien abominations, Half-Life does) will age far more easily than deliberately stylised games. World of Warcraft technically looks like crap, but that doesn’t really bother anyone apart from the most hardcore geeks because of the wonderfully stylised and cartoony graphics. No game is immune to this. Well maybe Crysis is, but that’s besides the point. Quake II, Unreal, Sin,… all of them look pretty crappy today.

AI however is another matter entirely. Often the weak point in many games (from Daikatana wallwalkers to endless armies of motionless samurai in Dynasty Warriors), AI makes or brakes a game. Your game world may be incredibly engrossing, but if you see NPC’s jump of a cliff because their AI code couldn’t figure out to use the stairs, you pretty much lose all immersion.

Like many I’ve heard of the legendary tales of Half-Life’s enemy AI, but I never would have thought that it would be that good. In fact, the dirty little secret of Half-Life 2 is that its AI is worse than it’s predecessor. Sure the Combine feel real and menacing and a Strider is a true terror on the battlefield but if they ever had to fight the HECU marines they would be royally screwed. Never in my entire gaming ‘career’ have I experienced such tenacity as the enemies display in Half-Life. They duck around corners, call for backup, wait to attack until you reload, throw grenades when you’re in a fortified position, the list goes on. The different AI behaviours are also very well divided amongst Half-Life’s enemy menagerie. Bullsquids, houndeyes and headcrabs feel like zoo animals that were suddenly dropped in the middle of Times Square. They’re scared, territorial and ready to defend themselves. The alien invasion force that follows later in the game (Grunts, Vortigaunts and Gargantua) is far more determined. Far from just defending themselves, they’ve come here to take over and wage a full on war on any humans they find. Combine this with the incredible marine AI and this three-way conflict is a marvel to behold. Many times the best way to survive is to let everyone else spread mayhem and destruction while you shoot down any surviving stragglers. In short the AI is incredible. The only game that vaguely reminds me of this kind of artificial thinking is the original Halo, played on one of the higher difficulty levels.

Sadly all is not well in in Half-Life land. What in 1998 were acceptable annoyances, have often become blatantly irritating. Prime suspects are the many platforming elements and jumping puzzels. You often don’t realise it but nearly every seperate area has at least one of them.  Maybe it was the age in which the game was made or maybe it was due to the fact that this was Valve’s first attempt at a game, I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against first-person platforming. Half-Life 2, though toned down, still has it’s share of platforming. Heck, games like Mirror’s Edge and Portal are the proof that first person platforming not only works but can turn out amazing. The problem is that if you don’t have a robust physics system (like Half-Life 2) or if you don’t build your game around it (like Mirror’s Edge) it can often be reduced to a total crapshoot. If you don’t hit that one pixel or texture just right, it’s over. Punishment for a missed jump usually results in death (be it being torn to pieces, dunking yourself in a vat of radioactive goo or falling in a flame filled fane). The ladder climbing in particular is so bad it’s funny. The innate finnickyness of Half-Life combined with the walking turret nature of Gordon Freeman (you never see your legs or chest, just a hand and a gun) make climbing ladders, if not done just right, a twitchy nightmare

In the end, having finished the game, I must say that I’ve had a grand old time. I was frightened, fascinated, bewildered and amazed all at the same time. While you don’t really NEED to play Half-Life to enjoy it’s sequels (unlike say The Legacy Of Kain series) I would really recommend that everyone (especially younger gamers who never played this game) ignore, if only briefly, the zombie slaughterfest of Left 4 Dead or the class-warfare of Team Fortress 2 and give the original masterpiece a whirl. It’s cheap, it’s on Steam and it has earned its title of timeless classic.

Now, on to Opposing Force!

Retro Gaming 1: Half-Life (part 1)

You know, I often sing the praise of Half-Life 2 and its various episodes, I love Portal and I’ve read nearly every page on the Combine OverWiki. So how is it possible that me, a self-proclaimed hardcore gamer, has never played through the original Half-Life? I mean, it was quite literally the best PC game ever (at least until its sequel came out). Since I was spending the next two months at home (exams) I thought it would be a great idea to finally start up that copy of Half-Life: Source and play it from start to finish. Just an hour or two a day, a nice leisurely pace in between intense mental labor.

So why didn’t I play Half-Life? First problem: Half-Life came out in 1998. I was 10. Although I had by then already conquered Europe in Red Alert, built the Roman Empire in Caesar III and scared cows in Earthworm Jim (iTunes link), I had never played a first peron shooter. If I remember correctly, I originally bought Half-Life in 1999 or 2000 in tandem with a new pc. Strangely, that wasn’t my first encounter with Half-Life. I first saw Half-Life being played live (as in on a computer, in front of me) during the holiday season of 1999 (or was it 1998?). I was visiting my nephew (well, we call him my nephew even though he isn’t) and he showed me the very first chapter of Half-Life: “Anomalous Materials“. You can understand, at 10-11 years old, I was blown away. I assume this is how geeky college kids must have felt when they first saw Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. I think the memory of that first playsession pushed me to buy Half-Life in 2000.

Even then I didn’t really play Half-Life. To be honest I was scared out of my pants: the lack of a traditional soundtrack, the creepy science facility, the aliens, the dead scientists and guards. I only wish today’s games had as encompassing an atmosphere as Half-Life had in 1998. The other stumbling block was my lack of experience with first-person shooters. Half-Life was my first FPS. With it being so different from it’s contemporaries (Quake II, Unreal) and it’s advanced AI, it was a tricky baptism of fire. Suffice to say I gave up.

Flashforward to 2004: Half-Life 2 comes out. Although carrying on from Half-Life 1 and an incredible game in its own right, it was very different from its predecessor. Wide-open environments, lots of dialogue, completely new enemies, higher stakes, vehicles, physics, realistic NPC allies, etc. If you equate Half Life to DOS, than Half-Life 2 is Windows 95. Same rock solid gameplay, remade, enhanced with a nice user-friendly facade alongside a whole slew of graphical and gameplay innovations. Although chronologically I owned Half-Life before Half-Life 2, it was the sequel that drew me into the Half-Life universe.

Of course coming into Half-Life in 2009 is quite different than doing so in 1998. I’m playing this on a modern rig using the ‘remade‘ version running on the Source Engine. This means widescreen resolutions, modern water graphics, a new skybox, limited physics, full 5.1 surround sound, maximum AA & AF, etc. I will never have the experience of running Half-Life on a Pentium MMX with a Voodoo 2 at 800*600. I’ll never see low framerates or hear thinny audio. You could say that playing Half-Life: Source in 2009 is like watching the Star Wars: Special Editions (without the wimpy alterations). Same core game, polished to the extreme.

Up next part 2: The Good and the Bad. (will appear in some future blog post)

Tower of Power

Here’s the deets on the new(ish) PC.

• Intel Core i7 (socket 1156) processor @2.80 GHZ
• 8 Gigs of DDR3 RAM (@1333 MHZ)
• Corsair HX 620 Power Supply
• Zalman CNPS10X Quiet CPU Cooler (massive!!!)
• Gigabyte P55  UD4 motherboard
• Three 1 Terabyte Samsung F1 drives
• Reused my ‘old’ 8800 GTS 640 MB (until a decent sub 150€ Fermi card comes out)
• Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer
• Antec SOLO case (with hard drive suspension and sound proofing)
• Windows 7 Professional

Overal, not a killer gaming rig but then again I only payed about 800 € for this build. The graphics card will see an upgrade in early 2010 (gottta find one that fits in the SOLO case and isn’t too loud)

Overall, I’m satisfied. Mass Effect, COD4, Fallout3 are all running at max settings at 1920 by 1200 (with at least 4 levels of AA and AF)

DVD encoding time has seen the most improvement: in some case four times as fast. Windows 7, so far, does everything it set out to do.

Here are some (crappy iPhone) pics for your enjoyment.

edit (23/11/09): After upgrading to the F3 Bios to fix the P55 iPhone syncing bug (and spending a few frightful moments wondering why my pc wouldn’t boot up until I realised the boot order had changed), my CPU multiplier suddenly became unlocked! I slightly bumped the clockspeed from  2,8 to 2,93 GHZ (in the vein of the old Conroe x6800 processor) which is also the speed of the pricier, but otherwise identical Core i7 870. A modest overclock to be sure, but stability, low noise and low temperatures are more important to me than raw speed. Saving about 200€ is nice as well.