Equally Cursed And Blessed
Hello readers of mainstream magazinedom! I’m afraid I don’t have any big words for you except ones I’ve made up (like cuntabulous) but please, feel free to stick around. It’s great to have you here. Massive apologies for the minimalist look at the moment, I promise I’ll do something with it soon*
I realise that with being so absolutely snowed under recently organising the RR competiton, I’ve not really spent the time I should on this blog except to do the odd big post complaining about something, muttering something about War Twat or to complain that I’m really, really busy. Man, it’s only sitting there looking back that you realise just how unexciting all this really is isn’t it?
To all of you bored off your tits, I’m incredibly sorry I’ll try to remedy this now that the organisation of said competition is pretty much a done deal. In the meantime, there is actually something I wanted to post and dammit, there isn’t anything you can do to stop me. Well, there is, but chewing my hands off isn’t a very nice thing to do.
There was a comment on ever excellent read Way Of The Rodent from a rather drunk Mr Moobaa that held within it a million (well, one, but that doesn’t sound quite so epic a start for a post) truthes. I quote, “Fuck me, we are really blessed. REALLY. BLESSED.”. And you know what? For all my pissing, whinging and niggling, we fucking are.
I’ve spent the majority of what little free time I’ve had this month gaming, and not just doing my usual run of downloading everything in sight and seeing if anything takes my fancy. Actual, proper, gaming. As in sitting on the couch (havat ye PC nerds), controller in hand and playing games. The last time I spent any serious length of time with a gaming addiction was, oooh, around 12 months ago when Space Giraffe dropped into our lucky laps and the shiny freshness of having a new 360 hadn’t quite worn off yet. I have, obviously, played games since then because that’d be silly otherwise, but not had that urge to push myself further and further on a game till I was either forced to admit I was shit at it or to trump some high scores because I can.
As you’d expect from me, dear readers, it’s not been on megabudget huge massive four hundred and ninety six hour epics, it’s been with my much beloved arcade shits and giggles games. And Braid. But I don’t want to talk about Braid because the rest of the internet has covered it in more praise than a Sunday Sermon and if you don’t already know that it’s one of the most beautiful games you’ll play by now, it’s likely you’ll never find out. Primarily, it’s been on both Geometry Wars RE 2 and Galaga Legions, both of which are awesome in their own seperate ways. Unfortunately, as happened with the original GW RE, I hit a brick wall and it’s random nature began to frustrate me more and more as I never felt like I was actually improving my game just flooking it every one game in ten. Yet, I still find myself going back for more. Why is that?
It’s the fucking scoreboard, that’s what it is. Goddamnit if Bizarre Creations haven’t only gone and implemented one of the best scoreboard features in a game since Jeff unleashed the awesome Start Bonus on the world a little over 12 months ago (which trumped the also superb Resume Best option from Gridrunner++ by a country mile) and it’s an insanely simple but utterly brilliant thing. Sitting in the top of the game screen opposite your own score lies the high score. Not your high score by default though, oh no, it’s the score of the person above you on your friends list. Beat that, and it displays the next person above you and so on.
It was one thing being a kid and grabbing a high score on an arcade machine and coming back to find GIT had beaten your score in the intervening 24 hours before your return but to have this displayed in realtime? Such a simple thing but for a high score chaser (and as you can see by my GWRE2 gamertag below, a rather shit one in this case) like myself it’s like digital crack. And that’s the one and only time I’ll use that euphamism.
After playing GWRE2 with this feature (and an honourable mention must go to Braid for it’s near interfaceless game experience), as wonderful as Galaga Legions is, its interface is like being thrown back into the dark ages.
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I fucking love it when something so glorious crops up in a game that it changes the way you consider the game experience. The Geometry Wars RE2 constant updating of your next opponents score is one of those features that deserves to become standard but also makes you wonder why no-one has considered implementing it before. It really is a genius addition and if only enemies didn’t spawn too fucking close to you all the time, GWRE2 would likely be clambering its way up to my top ten of games with ease. But you can’t have everything, right?
Talking of not being able to have everything, I’ve just got my UPS label and my beloved Xbox will soon be on its way to Germany and put an end to this reinvigorated gaming session for a few weeks. Which is cunt. It lasted a little over 12 months all told and I don’t think I’ve had so much fun with a console since the PS1 held me in its thrall. I’ll miss it, but maybe it’ll give me chance to put some proper time into some of those indie titles I’ve been promising myself I’ll devote more of a chance to. Except Trials 2 because that kicks my arse too hard.
*did that sound sincere? It’s the best I can do, sorry.
Vista Frustrations
I’ve been running Vista now for the best part of 12 months, and for the most part I’ve been incredibly happy with it. I know a lot of people don’t see the point, but up until the past week I’ve found it a step up in usability from XP - even despite Aero being unwilling to play ball with my 2900 card properly.
For some unknown reason, a recent update decided that I really wanted UAC back on, despite it being one of the first things I turned off. Sure, I know the security risks but not having to endure endless confirmations makes a massive difference in how comfortably and efficiently I can operate. And despite reading endless bullshit on forums from UAC zealots, it’s my fucking machine and I choose to have it off. And UAC.
Only, since I turned it back off this time, Vista has decided that I really should have it back on. How so? By opting to decide that I don’t have permission to do certain actions on the machine, presenting me with a confirmation box that includes the options “Retry” or “Cancel”, one of which does absolutely fuck diddly squit. Can you guess which one, dear readers?
Now, it wouldn’t be quite so bad if I was attempting obtuse things with the machine or trying to do something a little off the wall. I’m not though. I’m talking about things which you would imagine are pretty darn fucking basic. Copy and pasting, cut and pasting, renaming folders, deleting folders, moving fucking files about. The things which, by all means, are precisely what you should be able to do with a GUI operating system. The whole reason these fucking things exist.
In one fell swoop, Vista has managed to render itself near enough useless as an operating system by deciding that I, the administrator, cannot copy and paste, cannot cut and paste, cannot rename folders, cannot delete folders, move files into folders without some imaginary permission. Precisely whom do I need permission from to use my own computer now?
A quick gander around the internet turns up two solutions:
1. I turn UAC back on so I can request permission to do the actions.
2. I set all the file permissions individually as ownership doesn’t appear to be enough.
Well, that’s just fucking fantastic. I realise that encouraging UAC is a good thing if it keeps people from contracting fuck knows what from browsing shittycockwarez.com trying to download isuckgoats.avi despite a million warning signs, or even helping defend against the recent wave of web page exploits that have blighted blogs and forums but to render the operating system as good as useless for those who choose not to use UAC?
What madness is this and why now, after 12 months of absolute smooth running with UAC off does Vista now decide that I’m not capable of making sensible choices with regards to how I handle my own files?
If you’re lucky enough to have avoided the “You need permission to perform this action” message, thank your lucky stars. If, like me, it’s appeared and won’t fuck the fuck off back to where it came from, I’m sorry. Someone making decisions at MS needs to buy a clue because this verges on the completely intolerable.
War Twat Hi(gher) Vis
[update: apparantly, something went fuck with the packing and upload - that'll teach me to keep plugging at things till I'm beyond tired. Hopefully, should be fixed now.]
A womans work is never done…
After a request from Silly Tuna over at NewRetro I thought I’d have a go at putting together a hi-vis version of War Twat. The original request was for a version of the game that could be played by folks who are colour blind, but I figured whilst I’m at it I’ll go the whole hog and do a high contrast version of the game.
It would have been a five minute job just to make a few changes but with the visuals tightly bound to the game then some changes throw the balance right off. Essentially, I had to tinker with War Twat so that you could actually see more things but it was still War Twat.
The game should, in theory, still be as difficult and blinding as ever. Or at least, I hope so. If not, it’s back to the drawing board. Anyway, none of this will make it into the next official version for a while so in the meantime if you want a version of War Twat that’s high on contrast and low on polyunsaturates then clicketh the linketh below:
:-(
I’ve really got to put some time into this, but my 360 will be going away soon.
Woo!
Today I finished the RR Compo 2008 rules. I’ve been putting off finalising them for about a fortnight now as it’s really just so not the most interesting way to spend a day and turns into an epic slog for a while. Also, all prizes that we have to date are now tucked in nice little prize related bundles ready for the big day when we can unleash them onto the public. In short, bar slight amendments for any additional prizes and a quick cash value tally up, we’re ready to roll on September 1st.
However, the entire day was made all the bettererest by a few folks getting back in touch with Andy late tonight with even more prizes for the competition. Andy has done a sterlingly fantastic job this year and all the sponsors have been more than generous with what they’ve thrown into the pot. So much so that I think when I do the final cash value tally after a brew, I’m probably going to break out into hives.
To restore the equilibrium, here’s a picture of Dita Von Teese.
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Latest Games
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G Force: Boris Baginski's two dimensional take on Tempest brought back to life with insane effects.
IO: The uber-difficult Firebird shooter gets the remake treatment from Trevor Smila Storey -
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