Silent Storm: finally something better in the X-Com genre.
Silent Storm kicks ass. Well, at least that's my opinion from trying the demo last night. Finally a game that takes the X-Com genre (*) to another level. They managed to put it into 3D while still retaining the tactics and refrain from being just a third-person shooter.
* Note: I call it the X-Com genre because that's the most recognizable game in this genre. In actual fact it's the Turn-Based Tactical Squad genre, or as the developers of Silent Storm put it: Tactical Turn-Based Role-Playing-Game or TTRPG. Yeah, I know, sounds like technobabble, which is why I say X-Com genre.
Sure, Silent Storm still has much of what I complain about with the other X-Com-like games, the organization and micromanagement of your squad. I suppose that's the RPG element, but I haven't seen many leaps and bounds to make it interesting since Jagged Alliance or Wages of War.
What it has got is a great interface, amazing 3D environments, much better use of height (multi-storied buildings were a pain in X-Com), good AI and an involving story.
Unfortunately there are no multiplayer options. Apparently the designers decided that long turns would bore people to wait for, but I wish that they would have taken into account play-by-email turns.
They do support making mods (a map editor is included with the full game) so I wonder if it's possibly to hack in some sort of turn files for multiplayer. If I had the time, knowledge and resources I would seriously look into it, because I can think of a ton of multiplayer uses for their engine.
Maybe the UFO: Alien Invasion folks should consider switching engines.
GPS & FRS combined
I've been wanting to participate in Geocaching and other GPS games for awhile now, but I just never got around to getting a GPS Receiver (in large part due to the cost), plus my transportation is limited (another situation I plan to resolve soon).
I want one of these: The Garmin Rino (Canadian version here and here). It's a combo GSP & FRS radio. Perfect for multi-car roadtrips (ala the convoy to Fragapalooza) or hiking/camping excursions. It would work well for Geocaching, two buddies could scout out an area quicker and combine efforts easily.
The big feature of course is the peer-to-peer positioning: You can broadcast your location to other Rino users within range. It even comes with a few games to play based on locating others.
Actually, it makes more sense to want two I guess, heheh.
I prefer the Rino 120 model because it has additional memory for uploading extra maps (probably a good idea for us Canadians, I doubt the built-in maps cover Canada very well), but there's a cheaper 110 model that makes sense as the second (or third or fourth) unit.
Ming 0.3beta1 compiles!
I'm sure that most of you could care less about this, but I finally got Ming 0.3 to compile on my LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) server. You can't see me at this moment, but I'm doing a little happy dance right now.
Ming is what I use to make Flash apps such as my webcam viewer ---->
Plus I just made this little flowery woot thingy here, woot woot. =)
I love Ming because I often hate Flash. See, I like some of the things that Flash can do as a nice media compliment to websites, but I hate that whole design-trendiness and the obfuscuated unintuitive interface of Macromedia's Flash creation software. I like to code Flash/SWF files in a more direct, coder-friendly fashion and that's what Ming allows me to do.
I've been using Ming for eons and I've mostly been happy with v0.2 but that has limited me to creating Flash 5 files. That leaves out a bunch of dynamic content potential that Flash 6/7/MX adds.
Ming 0.3 has frustrated me until this point though, it's been in rapid development and every few months I've tried a broken compile with numerous and various errors due to missing resources and just plain bugs. Finally I've grabbed a CVS snapshot that has compiled cleanly (albiet as an external module, not my first choice but usable) and that makes me happy. I should finally be able to complete a few pet projects (including Gameslate's chat app) and maybe fix that annoying flicker effect on my webcam app.
Now if I can just clear my head long enough to do some coding.
Music for geeks
It strikes me that music has become more and more specialized, especially when bands concentrate on specific pop-culture references. I think the first time I noticed this was with Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, who are dedicated to musical representation of Lovecraft & Cthulu. That went beyond the previous joke material such as Buckner & Garcia's Pac-Man Fever.
And then along comes the 80's videogame bands. No, they don't just play videogame music from the 80's, nah-uh, they specialize even further! Press Play On Tape concentrates on Commodore 64 tunes (Oooooh Arkanoid! Though occasionally pushing their limits to the Amiga with the theme to Monkey Island) while the MiniBosses stick primarily to early Nintendo material.
I can just take a guess about what Optimus Rhyme is about.
Incidently, tattoos that I've always wanted include the C=64 logo, the Amiga checkmark, a Space Invader and an Autobot (DeeAy beat me to that one). Heheh, I'm a 70's & 80's consumer whore.
Happy Bunny
Well maybe they got it backwards:
congratulations. you are the kiss my ass happybunny. You don't care about anyone or anything.You must be so proud
which happy bunny are you? brought to you by Quizilla
UFO: Alien Invasion & UFO2000
Ever played Microprose's classic X-Com game (UFO Defense)? I was addicted to EMail X-Com a little while back and occasionally I get urges to play a little turn-based squad tactics.
Two recent projects have popped up, attempting to revive the classic X-Com.
On one hand there's UFO2000, which clones the original X-Com for multiplayer play (a great idea, but a bit of a pain getting setup with the old graphics: requires a copy of DOS X-Com).
And on the other hand there's an attempt to update the X-Com style of play with 3D graphics using the (open source these days) Quake 2 engine with UFO: Alien Invasion.
Both games are free to play and open-source code is available.
Friday Five: The First One
Since Friday Five has been on hiatus lately, I figured I'll answer a few of the ones I missed previously. So here's the first one they had way back Sept 21, 2001.
1. Where were you born (city or state or just country)? Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
2. What is your favorite number? I used to always say 7 just like some knee jerk response, but the truth is I don't really have a favourite number. I suppose π (Pi) is very useful and supposedly 8 is lucky.
3. Vanilla or chocolate? Chocolate.
4. What section of a bookstore would I find you in? Sci-Fi/Fantasy.
5. What kind of mattress do you have on your bed? soft? firm? water? Firm.
Eating another single-bite brownie
According to CNN, chocolate is addictive, along with pizza and chicken. How about telling us something that we didn't already know?
God Hates Lobster
And to prove that everything found in the Bible is open to interpretation, designed for the times or just plain shouldn't be taken literally: it's the God Hates Shrimp page.
I can basically summarize the whole thing right here. If you have a Bible nearby (and if you don't just grab one from your local motel room next time you're buying sex) turn to:
Leviticus 11:10 : And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you.
So much for crab and lobster too. Hey wait a minute, I go swimming in the sea now and then, last I checked I didn't have any scales. Ugh I wasn't aware that I was an abomination.
Oh dear, No Name Yet apparently is an abomination too, paraphrasing from Leviticus 12:2 & Leviticus 12:5: If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days ... But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks.
Don't forget to sacrifice a turtledove at the end of those two weeks, eh.
When someone else says it best
Kudos to Darren Barefoot for his take on iTunes and the whole DRM issue. I couldn't have put it more succinctly than his comments. Although, he first quotes another, I think Darren's own words are equally as clear:
"DRM represents and maintains the status quo. Artists still get shafted while studios make more profit and we get less control over the music we 'own'."
