Monday, December 22, 2003
2 in a few days. This is truly a record. I have an hour and a half until I must be at choir, help orgainise the biggest service of the year, bitch to people who are there about how they aren't trying at all, then come home and phone all the people who weren't there to bitch about why they weren't there. Oh yes, I love this job. -_-;;
Anyhow, nothing much has happened today. I've come to the conclusion I should quit trying to make fangames, because they are either a) quite the awful or b)completely unfinished. Its just to frustrating to continue. Even making previews for it is beyond me.
Speaking of previews, I saw the featurette for the new Aliens vs Predator movie. It looks badass. I have always loved both the series', and this looks to be a brilliant movie. The featurette shows some interesting concepts, such as the pyramids being built with the help of the Predators, and the manhood rituals the Predators undergo. The aliens look killer and I can't wait to see the humans get ripped apart by them. Anyhow, if you have dismissed it from the trailer, find the featurette. It is immesurably better. And if you are a MAME fan, grab yourself version .77 and find the AVP rom. (If you didn't understand that, don't worry, you probably aren't missing anything!)
Oh, and just for good measure- goddamn Interplay bastards. It will be a while before I have purged the hatred from my system. Bear with me.
Anyhow, nothing much has happened today. I've come to the conclusion I should quit trying to make fangames, because they are either a) quite the awful or b)completely unfinished. Its just to frustrating to continue. Even making previews for it is beyond me.
Speaking of previews, I saw the featurette for the new Aliens vs Predator movie. It looks badass. I have always loved both the series', and this looks to be a brilliant movie. The featurette shows some interesting concepts, such as the pyramids being built with the help of the Predators, and the manhood rituals the Predators undergo. The aliens look killer and I can't wait to see the humans get ripped apart by them. Anyhow, if you have dismissed it from the trailer, find the featurette. It is immesurably better. And if you are a MAME fan, grab yourself version .77 and find the AVP rom. (If you didn't understand that, don't worry, you probably aren't missing anything!)
Oh, and just for good measure- goddamn Interplay bastards. It will be a while before I have purged the hatred from my system. Bear with me.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
This is a shocker. MORE then a month since the last entry. Anyway, I've been playing a multitude of new games, been watching some movies, and messing around at the beach. Good times, my friends. Holidays truely are a godsend. Some impressions of various things below.
Starting with the movies. Matrix Revolutions is what everyone expected- better then the second (not by much though) and far succeeded by the first. Interesting movie, but a shocking ending that almost ruins the series, and a strangely hollow feeling throughout (perhaps not enough time in the actual Matrix? No agents? Morpheus doing absolutely nothing?) led it to be a little disappointing. Good to watch once, but I can't see myself watching it over and over again.
Freddy vs Jason...I don't know. It's not deep or thought-provoking, but its not really meant to be. It just does exactly what it was meant to do....give us doses of our two guys bashing the crap out of eachother. Perhaps it could have done without the stupid teenager characters, its great to have them in the background as no-name characters, but as mains? There is nothing more irritating and cringe-inducing then an annoying blonde character spewing out a crappy line like 'place you're bets.' parts of the movie are hillarious and fun to watch, and others are just strange.
Master and Commander is incredible. I can't say anything, just go see it. NOW.
And games-wise I have been messing about with a few new titles. All for PC:
Halo. I honestly don't know why people love this game. The original XBox version was good, not incredible. It had co-op, but the actual game wasn't that good. It felt watery and strange. Now the PC port is here (2 or 3 years later? What crap!) and for some reason, it runs like ASS. I refuse that my Athlon 1700+ with 512 sdram and GeforceFX 5600 Ultra cannot run this at more then 20-30 FPS at 800x600, when the Xbox could run it at a constant 30 a few years ago. The DirectX 9 features aren't amazing, and the game really looks better generaly on the Xbox (Unless you have brand new, expensive hardware to run Halo PC on). It just doesn't really do it for me.
Unreal Tournament 2003 is a different story however. My computer runs this at about 40-60fps constant at full detail, 1024x768 and it looks lightyears ahead of Halo. Its fun, its like they took the original, added elements of Quake 3, made it more like a game show, and let rip. I don't know if I prefer it to the style of the first, but the game is easily worth buying.
Max Payne 2 is awesome. Its short (like the first), as I am abominable at games and I still completed it in about 8 hours. The Dead Man Walking mode is actually a lot more fun then one would expect, and the early mods coming out now are actually a lot of fun. I would suggest buying it if you enjoyed the first, and the ending is interesting. Recommended.
Need for Speed: Underground is pure fun. It doesn't offer lan play(unless you use an unofficial patch), and my network prevents me from playing online, but the one-player mode is great, and creating a car from a plain base, having it put on the cover of magazines and gaining respect from fellow racers is an interesting prospect. After the mixed opinions of Midnight Club 2, this is a solid, fun game. And its got nice, shiny graphics too!
Homeworld 2 is fantastic. Granted, I have no idea what I am doing, and I am completely new to the Homeworld universe, but this is a great game. I may have been slaughtered, but my first space battle was truely epic in scale and amazing to watch. The voice acting is of a very high standard, and anyone who enjoys RTS games should definately pick this baby up now.
Duke Nukem Forever has been said to have a final release date of late 2004-early 2005. Yeah, right. I still love the original trailor from 1998 or something, on the original Unreal engine, with the jetbike thingo. If it came out like that at a budget price, then I'd buy it! Finally, I just wanted to say that Interplay are a bunch of bastards. "Fallout 3? What the hell is Fallout? Is it a FPS? Let that go, and fire the entire goddamn team while you are at it." Well, it seems that a lot of people are not happy, so as well as an online petition (yeah, they ALWAYS work), a whole lot of people are going to be personally handwriting them letters/complaints/death threats and the like. Merry christmas, Interplay.
ASSHOLES.
Starting with the movies. Matrix Revolutions is what everyone expected- better then the second (not by much though) and far succeeded by the first. Interesting movie, but a shocking ending that almost ruins the series, and a strangely hollow feeling throughout (perhaps not enough time in the actual Matrix? No agents? Morpheus doing absolutely nothing?) led it to be a little disappointing. Good to watch once, but I can't see myself watching it over and over again.
Freddy vs Jason...I don't know. It's not deep or thought-provoking, but its not really meant to be. It just does exactly what it was meant to do....give us doses of our two guys bashing the crap out of eachother. Perhaps it could have done without the stupid teenager characters, its great to have them in the background as no-name characters, but as mains? There is nothing more irritating and cringe-inducing then an annoying blonde character spewing out a crappy line like 'place you're bets.' parts of the movie are hillarious and fun to watch, and others are just strange.
Master and Commander is incredible. I can't say anything, just go see it. NOW.
And games-wise I have been messing about with a few new titles. All for PC:
Halo. I honestly don't know why people love this game. The original XBox version was good, not incredible. It had co-op, but the actual game wasn't that good. It felt watery and strange. Now the PC port is here (2 or 3 years later? What crap!) and for some reason, it runs like ASS. I refuse that my Athlon 1700+ with 512 sdram and GeforceFX 5600 Ultra cannot run this at more then 20-30 FPS at 800x600, when the Xbox could run it at a constant 30 a few years ago. The DirectX 9 features aren't amazing, and the game really looks better generaly on the Xbox (Unless you have brand new, expensive hardware to run Halo PC on). It just doesn't really do it for me.
Unreal Tournament 2003 is a different story however. My computer runs this at about 40-60fps constant at full detail, 1024x768 and it looks lightyears ahead of Halo. Its fun, its like they took the original, added elements of Quake 3, made it more like a game show, and let rip. I don't know if I prefer it to the style of the first, but the game is easily worth buying.
Max Payne 2 is awesome. Its short (like the first), as I am abominable at games and I still completed it in about 8 hours. The Dead Man Walking mode is actually a lot more fun then one would expect, and the early mods coming out now are actually a lot of fun. I would suggest buying it if you enjoyed the first, and the ending is interesting. Recommended.
Need for Speed: Underground is pure fun. It doesn't offer lan play(unless you use an unofficial patch), and my network prevents me from playing online, but the one-player mode is great, and creating a car from a plain base, having it put on the cover of magazines and gaining respect from fellow racers is an interesting prospect. After the mixed opinions of Midnight Club 2, this is a solid, fun game. And its got nice, shiny graphics too!
Homeworld 2 is fantastic. Granted, I have no idea what I am doing, and I am completely new to the Homeworld universe, but this is a great game. I may have been slaughtered, but my first space battle was truely epic in scale and amazing to watch. The voice acting is of a very high standard, and anyone who enjoys RTS games should definately pick this baby up now.
Duke Nukem Forever has been said to have a final release date of late 2004-early 2005. Yeah, right. I still love the original trailor from 1998 or something, on the original Unreal engine, with the jetbike thingo. If it came out like that at a budget price, then I'd buy it! Finally, I just wanted to say that Interplay are a bunch of bastards. "Fallout 3? What the hell is Fallout? Is it a FPS? Let that go, and fire the entire goddamn team while you are at it." Well, it seems that a lot of people are not happy, so as well as an online petition (yeah, they ALWAYS work), a whole lot of people are going to be personally handwriting them letters/complaints/death threats and the like. Merry christmas, Interplay.
ASSHOLES.
