Alden Bates' Weblog

A thread on the NZDWFC boards reminded me that there were a bunch of Doctor Who references in the Apogee game Boppin'. Check it out:

Continue reading "Boppin' Doctor Who screengrabs"

Portal is a 3D game created by Valve based on the same engine as Half Life but based towards logic puzzles rather than shooting enemies. Before I even knew that version of the game existed, I stumbled on a 2D flash version of Portal, as pictured. I don't know how it compares to Valve's 3D game, but it's a fun little game in its own right.

The idea is you have a portal gun with which you can create portals on flat surfaces, then move yourself or objects from one end of the portal to the other. You use this ability to solve logic puzzles in order to get from the entrance of a room to the exit. Most of the early levels are easy - they start to get fiendishly hard somewhere around level 30...

The nastier levels involve small gun turrets which shoot you with lasers if you stand in front of them too long. I think the worst was level 35, which has a wee warning that it "may cause frustration"...

NZ Gamer has some photos up from Video Games Live - you can find the photos here. Including some of the fellow dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog who won the costume competition. For painting himself entirely blue, I think he deserved it.

Unfortunately I also got caught by the camera! That'll teach me for loitering outside the venue.

It was with some surprise this morning that I found out I was going to Video Games Live with my brother. He writes reviews for NZ Gamer and thus had procured two free tickets. I actually knew about this a while ago but had forgotten about it in the meantime...

I wasn't quite sure what to expect (Two hours of Pong?) but as it turned out it was the Vector Wellington Orchestra and Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (I'm a sucker for orchestras with choirs) playing some bloody good music. Though I have to admit that apart from the retro games (they started off with a medley of music from the likes of Asteroids, Defender, and (yes) Pong), I haven't actually played any of the games they performed music from. Am I slack or what? All the same, I very much enjoyed the music (although not as much as some of the audience members, who seemed to be getting a little too excited) and the light show and game footage. Kudos to all people involved.

Unfortunately my good camera is broken, but here's a crappy cellphone photo:

I was especially impressed with Martin Leung's piano playing skills. I've never ever seen anyone play arcade game music on a piano at that speed. If I could play the piano half as well as him, I'd be a happy (and probably rich) man.

Almost as impressive were the audience member who got up on stage to play Space Invaders (by jumping back and forth to move the spaceship), and the two audience members who played Frogger for a $4,000 laptop. Performance anxiety much?

A great (and unexpected) evening!

I gave a friend of mine a copy of Star Trek: Legacy for Christmas. This game, published by Bethesda Softworks, is the latest and greatest in the Star Trek computer game franchise, and he'd been looking forward to playing it immensely.

Alas, it was not to be. After he installed it, the game refused to play. Windows reported an Access Violation and that was that. Then the PC began resetting abruptly at random intervals. Uninstalling the game didn't help. Reinforcements were called in (Unfortunately as both friend and PC are halfway up the North Island from me, I couldn't render much assistance) and it turns out that Star Trek Legacy had deposited a somewhat nasty piece of work named Starforce on his machine.

Said computer is now undergoing reconstruction, and I'm trying to see if I can get a refund.

(via Boing Boing)

S.Korean man dies after 50 hours of computer games

A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday.

Now, that's an insane amount of time to be playing a computer game, but they don't mention which particular game it was he was playing! I'm interested in knowing...

I finally got around to playing this today - my brother gave me a copy for Christmas. I started playing the first park, but had to stop as it was suddenly 4 hours later...

Some initial thoughts:

1. I really like what they've done with the graphics. The whole 3Dness adds more reality, and the ability to ride the rides! They still managed to keep the same level of cusomisation as the previous two games though.
2. The ride creation is basically the same as RCT1 and RCT2, which is good. I much prefer those to the less intuitive method in Theme Park World.
3. Raising and lowering ground seems to be a lot harder. I tried to make a simple pond and ended up with the ground going everywhere.
4. It also seems to be slightly harder to get the people to ride the rides. They seem to either love a ride or stay away from it.
5. It took a while for me to work out how to train the staff - the only place you can do this seems to be in the Human Resources screen, by pressing the "plus" box next to the staff member. Also, staff can now get disgruntled - several entertainers quit before I worked out how to give them a pay rise.
6. More customisable shop produce! Looks more like the options in Theme Park World, actually. Although shops can now break down...
7. A golf course with more than 4 hole types - huzzah! :P
8. There no longer seems to be a people summary screen, so you can't get an idea of what the overall opinion of the guests is, other than the approval rating scale. The new variety of people is a pretty cool improvement over RCT2 though.
9. No sign of any VIPs yet... Must try making a fireworks display. :)

I shall have to waste some more time in this highly unproductive pursuit at some point...