Garrulous Geek - Games

I'll take a quiet life, a handshake of carbon monoxide

nospam@example.com (Peter Urquhart) — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:01:59 +0100

I only recently found out that the carbon monoxide in that lyric refers to suicide by way of vehicle fumes. It fits with the rest of the song, but it's still somewhat jarring to learn that, not least when it seems so obvious in retrospect.

I've been busy as all hell lately, with work and studying and family and trying to enjoy life at some point along the way. Work has been pretty dire lately, and I honestly don't know how much longer I'll be able to stick it out for before moving along. Likewise studying has been very hard work, though now that my exam is out of the way I feel I've got a bit more room to breathe. Family life is more enjoyable by orders of magnitude, but nevertheless hard work. And even "fun" seems a tremendous effort at the moment. It's much easier to just pass time without regard to whether I'm actually enjoying anything I'm doing.

I came across the video for No Surprises a couple of months back, having not seen it for a long time. The imagery seemed distressingly relevant at the time, and I watched the video several times in tears. It was rather reminiscent of my miserable teenage years, at which time The Bends was a mainstay in my music collection; a time when I felt sure I knew just what the man in the Just video had said, and knowing why he'd wanted to lie down in the pavement and stop...

I wish I could stop. Lie down. Rest.

Anyway...

Alison and I watched Control the other night - the documentary film about the life and death of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. I can't claim to know much of Joy Division's music, beyond the marvellous Love Will Tear Us Apart and even that only due to it's presence on the Donnie Darko soundtrack. I did know what Joy Division meant prior to seeing the film, though that's more to do with my obsession with trivia than any interest in the band. Still, even without my having any real interest in the band, the film was engaging and interesting, and quite moving. The story was somewhat reminiscent of the much more well known Kurt Cobain, what with him being unable to deal with his fame and the pressures of performing. It was quite interesting because it was very difficult to sympathise with the lead character. It was much easier to pity him for his mental problems (depression, epilepsy) than to sympathise with him, as some of his actions - particularly with regard to his love life - were basically selfish and foolish. The suicide itself was well done, and very moving. Quite challenging to think of his situation and how he felt, and whether a person could ever be justified in killing themselves and leaving a wife and daughter behind like that.

Sticking with films, but on a decidedly lighter note, Alison and I are going to see the new Indiana Jones film on Saturday. It's getting some mixed reviews, but I'm sure it'll be good at what it does. I'm sure it won't be a searing critique of the work of archaeologists under the pressures of the cold war, as some critics apparently think it should be, but I'm certain that it will contain the following at a bare minimum:

A hat
A whip
A tomb/cave/other dark place
A car chase
A fight

which should be about enough to carry it really. I've no doubt that it won't be as good as Raiders, or even as good as Crusade, but with the dross that Hollywood gets by on these days, I'd even settle for anything as good as Temple. It'll be 2 hours of thud and blunder led by Harrison Ford, which will definitely do the job.

Alison and I are picking up the new Lego Indiana Jones game for the Wii too. It looks like good fun, and if it's anything like Lego Star Wars which we both had a great time playing, then it should be £30 very well spent. The Wii has been one of our best purchases of late, and I've been amazed at how much I've been able to get Alison playing it. Gaming has normally been my domain, and occasionally a mystery to her, so it's been quite good to find some games we can play together. Mario Kart and Mario Galaxy have been two recent surprises - I'd never have expected to have got her playing those two.

Right. More another time... I'll write about some films next time.

So he just plays on his computer games...

nospam@example.com (admin) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 16:18:21 +0100

What marvellous technological leaps and bounds we make! What a brave new world we live in, that I can sit on the toilet and beat some Japanese guy at Tetris on my DS over some magical wireless Internet thing!

It's all about the Pentiums baby

nospam@example.com (admin) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 23:07:21 +0100

Ooh, look, another Weird Al Youtube linky... tres amusant if you're a computer geek like me.

I've just built a new computer. Dear goodness, it was a faff. I now have two very nice shiny PCs, one of which will hopefully soon be taking up it's station as my media center PC, sitting in pride of place in my living room to record TV shows, play DVDs and music, and generally be useful. I hope. The other is my general use and gaming rig, which proved to be quite an arse to get working for various reasons. Just about justifiable as I now have a pretty fast computer that should play just about any game that comes out this year (Bioshock... oooh!) and last a bit longer besides.

That being said, I think I'm tiring of PC gaming, not least because of the enormous hassle that building computers can be. It was all well and good when I was footloose and fancy free, with few commitments, and a reasonable chunk of disposable income. I could spend money on hardware, build my own computers, and it was actually quite fun to puzzle over why part X wouldn't work with part Y, and figure out a way to get everything working and have a wicked PC to play my games on. These days, I'm rather busier, and I'd rather spend my copious free time after work doing other things, not least the rather pressing issue of maintaining a family. I don't really have time to worry about why I can't get any VGA output from the PCI Express slot, or why that wireless card will work but the other won't, and just how much of this hardware will work in Linux anyway?

No... I don't really have time for this anymore. These days I want to sit down at a computer, read my e-mails, surf the net, then turn it off and play Mario on my DS. I suddenly understand the appeal of consoles... They. Just. Work. You put your game in, turn it on, play, then turn it off. No faffing about building your console from scratch, upgrading it every year, troubleshooting, fiddling with Windows trying to figure out what the hell it's playing it, or any of that hassle.

So, I think this might just be my last serious hardware upgrade. Next time I get a decent chunk of change, I think I'll be spending it on a Nintendo Wii, rather than putting myself through all this hassle again.

In other news, for those of you who care little for computers, here's an opinion of mine: American Idiot by Green Day is one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

Our hopes and expectations...

nospam@example.com (admin) — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 19:17:29 +0000

Right then. It's about time I blogged properly, so here goes. I'm going to waffle about what I'm up to at the moment, and then post pics of Beth at the end, so if you're just here for the baby pictures, skip ahead.

So... life then. Work is going well. It's really quite busy. I've got lots of work to be getting on with, which is pretty cool. It's at a pretty good pace which means I'm always under enough pressure to be motivated, without it feeling too overwhelming. This is a good thing. I've been hearing some horror stories of some of my fellow trainees in other offices not having anything to do. One guy told me he'd spent the afternoon practising how fast he could say "Peter Piper". He got it down to 5.2 seconds, apparently. Impressive, but not exactly what he's there for. I might be off to visit a client sometime this coming week, which would be my first, and I might have a business trip to London a week or so later to learn something complicated. Exciting stuff. I am, as tragic as it may seem, really enjoying this job. For all my concerns about spending my life as an accountant, it's actually pretty good so far. Good stuff.

I spent some of my hard earned cash on a Nintendo DS Lite. It's easily one of the best things I've ever bought. I picked it up on ebay and it came with Nintendogs and that Brain Training game that you've probably seen people playing on the train/bus/plane/helicopter to work. Those two are pretty cool, especially Nintendogs. The whole stylus and touch screen thing is cool, even if it is just a contrived way of getting a mouse onto a handheld console. It's pretty neat to be able to talk to the dog with the mic and teach it tricks, and stroke it to say well done. Nifty. I've since picked up a few more games, including Phoenix Wright, a mad little visual novel type game about a lawyer, which Marilyn Manson, of all people, loves. So there you go. I like it so much I sold a bunch of stuff and bought one for Alison as well. Admittedly there is the ulterior motive that I need someone to play Mario Kart against, but she's been getting into it for herself, especially this mad little game called Cooking Mama which is, as the name suggests, all about cooking. Cooking Japanese meals. As you do. So, that's pretty cool. Heartily recommended. Buy a DS Lite. Or buy me loads of games for mine. I'm not too fussed which.

I picked up the new Muse album too. It's taking a bit of a time to get into, as it's a bit more obscure than Absolution. It's good, just a bit crazy. I think it'll grow on me. It's certainly very musically accomplished, to say the least.

We watched Good Night And Good Luck last night, George Clooney's film about the news reporting on McCarthyism in the 50s. It was very good, well written and well acted. It was quite concise, which bothered me slightly, as I could have watched a lot more of it. The subject matter was certainly very interesting, and I like the sentiment that TV and journalism should be honest and challenging. I found the closing line of the film very strong:

"This instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire, but it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box."

I don't know if I mentioned it at the time, but I remember thinking that sort of thing when I watched Gunther von Hagens autopsy programmes on Channel 4. It was astounding to me that TV could be so educational, when primarily it's just utterly forgettable crap, if I can be frank. As sci fi author Sturgeon noted, 90% of everything is crud. Now, autopsies are certainly different to political awareness, but I think the point stands. It would be nice if TV could actually challenge us once in a while. Anyway. It was a good film.

Things with Ali and Beth are good. Beth has been a bit ill, which has been hard work for Ali. She had some kind of bug or something that was making her sick, which was pretty gross and fairly distressing for her. She's come through that now, and is back to being cheerful, which is good. Ali and Beth are having fun, so that's cool. Beth is getting pretty good at sitting up, as well as picking things up and holding them, and putting everything in her mouth! She's trying to feed herself when Ali gives her pureed fruit and veg, which is entertaining if extremely messy. So... here's some photos!

This is back when Ali first started giving Beth some solid food, nearly two months ago. She's just had some passion fruit and was very pleased with it!

Here's Ali holding Beth, who's wearing a little snowsuit that my sister bought for her. It's really cute. It has a giraffe on it, which you can't see in the photo, and it's really snuggly and warm.

Here's me with Beth who's in a little dress that Ali got for her for like £2 or something, thanks to a handy voucher. Nice.

Here's Beth in her door bouncer. It's a proper life saver - she loves bouncing up and down, and it can keep her entertained for quite a while, so you can get on with something in the meantime. It also helps with getting the burps out of her!

Here's Beth on a swing. She has to be kinda wedged in (hence the blanket) but she really likes it. She starts giggling and grinning. Very cute.

Ali has found that Beth can be quite easily entertained by giving her random items to play with and look at. So, here's Beth having a look at the whisk. Tasty...

Lastly, here's me and Beth out on a walk just this afternoon. We went out to a place called Pennington Flash, which is a nature reserve type place with a big lake, and saw all the ducks and geese and suchlike. I carried Beth round in a little harness on my front and she had a great time looking at everything.

So... there you go. That's about enough for now! See you again soon.

Two princes kneel before you

nospam@example.com (admin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 16:26:17 +0100

If you don't care about computer games you'll want to skip down till I start talking about Sigur Ros... If you do, then feel free to read on.

I finished playing through the Prince Of Persia series over the weekend. As I've mentioned in the past I love the first game in the series, so it made sense to pick up the following two when I had the money. Once again, I'm late getting round to playing them, but that's the way it goes when you have to buy all this stuff second hand on ebay...

So, Warrior Within was OK. I got a bit hacked off with all the emphasis on the combat - sure, it looks fairly nifty to leap over a sand monsters head, steal his axe and then cut his head off with it in slow motion, but that's not really what I'm here for, you know? That's not really my thing. The combat actually put me off the game for a while, as I first tried playing it about 6 months ago, but laid off it until I got hold of a gamepad which actually made it feasible to play. So... the combat annoyed me somewhat. The gothic, dark, angsty setting was a bit too emo for my liking, and the improbably clad, large breasted women did rather make me wonder whether the focus group behind the game had an average age of above 13. On the plus side, behind all the drek the platforming, puzzle solving side of the game is still there. The time travel aspect works well and the level design is good. So on the whole the game probably scores about 7/10 for me, which surprised me somewhat given how negative some people are about it.

Then I moved on to play The Two Thrones. It's better than Warrior Within, but still not as good as Sands Of Time, sad to say. The setting is brighter, and the Prince is less of an angry bastard, so that's nice. The levels are still good, and the plot is far more engaging than WW, which brings things back into line with the quality of the original game. The challenging combat system is still there, but the addition of speed killing (a technique that allows you to stealthily kill enemies before they get a chance to react) means you can avoid much of the frustrating, button mashing combat that Warrior Within often descended into. The game wraps up the trilogy nicely, and ties everything together. I'd give it 8/10.

So, neither game is as good as the original (which I'd give a 10/10 rating to without hesitation) but they're certainly not bad. Perhaps it's just a pity that the series peaked so early - with such a fine start it was almost inevitable that any sequel would have to be truly masterful to live up to it.

Right... let's talk about something else...

I got the Sigur Ros album off ebay for the rather low price of... about Â£6 if I recall. I'd heard people go on about them, but it wasn't until I found out that the brilliant music on the BBC's excellent Planet Earth series was by them that I decided to splash out. It's a bit of a weird one to be honest... If I'm quite brutal with it, it's actually kind of like listening to a baby's mobile that's playing the original, full version of Radiohead's Treefingers. It's nice and relaxing, and it certainly makes a nice change, but I'm still not sure what I make of it overall.

The baby is due in 40 days. That's pretty soon, which is kinda scary. We have our first ante-natal class tonight, so I get to learn all about birth and such like. I'll try to post again tomorrow to let you know how it goes.

Thursday's crush is a Friday night rush and a Monday morning cry

nospam@example.com (admin) — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:01:47 +0100

Man... I'm busy. I'm tired too. I've been sleeping terribly just lately, so I'm knackered.

There's been a fair bit of stuff going on. I've got my BDO interview coming up on Tuesday, so I've been researching stuff for that, and I've got a hotel booked and so on. Should be an interesting experience. Hopefully that'll all go well. I'll be able to tell you by this time next week if I've got anywhere with it.

I saw The Constant Gardener last week. It was really good. Very well written and well acted. Ralph Fiennes was brilliant. The plot was good in a very yarny, rambling sort of way, but it all followed along very nicely and it was comprehensible, which was good. It was pretty challenging stuff too. On the whole, very good. Alison and I just want to see Walk The Line and Goodnight And Good Luck, and we'll have caught up on our Oscar film watching.

In other film news, I must have been quite bored last weekend as I watched The Scorpion King on the TV. It was pretty silly, and seemed a pretty blatant ripoff of Robin Hood to me. Still, it kept me amused for an hour and a half till CSI:NY came on, so it's all good.

In yet further film news, I honestly can't believe that a film like Snakes On A Plane can get made. For those of you in the dark, here's a plot summary: Samuel L. Jackson plays an FBI agent escorting a former mobster to a trial where he will testify, but someone doesn't want him to testify so they hire an assassin to kill the mobster, only for some reason the assassin attempts the kill by unleashing a whole load of poisonous snakes on the plane, and Samuel L. Jackson has to fend them off. Now, honestly, do they not have "What the hell are you talking about?" meetings in Hollywood? I mean, I despair of the films that Hollywood produces at the best of times, but this is just insane. What kind of a plot is that? The mind boggles, to be honest. All that being said, the odds are scarily good that I'll go and see it just out of some sort of crazed curiosity that someone would make such a film. More info at Wikipedia, of course.

Well, I didn't mean to end up writing about films, but there you go. I'm due to go home now, so I think I will. I've been chilling out playing some old skool Amiga games just lately - Dizzy in particular. Who knew solving puzzles as a cartoon egg could be so much fun? See you all next week.

Overdose at Christmas, then give it up for lent

nospam@example.com (admin) — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 16:20:40 +0000

For lent, I have given up any computer games that involve killing people. I just barely managed to complete Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on Tuesday night. For the record, it was an awesome game. Anyway. It looks like all I'll be playing over lent will be my Rollercoaster Tycoon games. Good stuff, nonetheless.

My stomach hurts. I think my thermos is impregnated with poisonous death. Perhaps I should get a new one.

I'm currently working on my big long rant that I mentioned in my last post. It'll take me a few more days as it's getting quite long.

Trains, planes and automobiles

nospam@example.com (admin) — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 13:20:36 +0100

I am in the process of getting hooked on Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe. It's a horribly addictive old game in which you have to transport stuff around a map using trains and lorries and whatnot. You have to get coal to the power station, iron to the steel mill and so on. Sounds simple? Yes, it is pretty much. I figure a lot of people would find it quite boring too, but I'm getting well stuck in to it.

It's kinda funny, because many years ago I was going out with a girl whose dad was hooked on Transport Tycoon, and used to get yelled at by her mum because he was always playing it. Now I'm playing it and Alison is having to vye for my attention and drag me away from my computer. History repeating and whatnot.

Oh yeah, for the record I had a pretty good, relaxing weeked after my nasty week, so that was nice.

Flying visits

nospam@example.com (admin) — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 18:26:37 +0100

Right. I'm back on the Wirral again. I've had the afternoon off work so I could come and see the dentist to have my teeth polished, my X-rays from last time checked, and the weird blue thing in my palate looked at. My teeth have been polished, my X-rays show I need a feeling, and the dentist wants to refer me to an oral surgeon about the blue thing in my palate as it might be a cyst. Well, 1 out of 3 ain't bad. Hmm. More on the filling on the 1st of June, and more on the cyst as and when we get in touch with a surgeon who can X-ray my palate.

So, I've just had supper with my mum and I'm about to head back to Leicester. Another 120 miles of driving. I think my mp3 player is about to run out of batteries too, so I can't listen to my ELO albums. Curses. I got Discovery (disturbingly, the Amazon page shows I am in the company of people who buy Olivia Newton-John records... hmm) at the weekend and I'm in the process of assimilating it. It's good, but it'll probably take a bit of time. Mind you, Out Of The Blue took me a while, and I now consider it one of the best albums I've ever heard, so there you go.

Alison and I watched Vanilla Sky at the weekend. It was OK. I guess in the realm of "it was all a dream" (if you've not seen it, I've just spoilt it, but come on... you're a bit late, huh?) type films it does a fairly good job of things - it certainly goes all out in making the dream dramatic and what have you. It just feels a bit shallow after all you've watched, to find out that that's what was going on.

I finished Half Life 2 as well. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm now looking forward to upgrading some of my PC hardware so I can enjoy it in it's full glory with some nice high detail settings. This, of course, requires money. Time to get saving.

Right. Time to drive back to Leicester. See you soon.

Congratulations, and celebrations etc. etc.

nospam@example.com (admin) — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 13:02:41 +0100

Alison got the job! She is going to start a GTP teacher training course at Beauchamp School in Septempter. It's like a years on the job training which ends up with her qualifying as a teacher. She's going to be teaching secondary school and A-Level biology. Excellent!

In other news, I finished a book the other day. It was a big anthology of Isaac Asimov stories, called "The Complete Robot". I'd link to it at Amazon, only I can't find it there. It must be some weird edition of it or something. Anyway. It was 682 pages of small print that made up about 30 short stories about robots, surprisingly enough. I'd been inspired to read it, after seeing I, Robot for the second time and reading quotes like this about it, and wondering what the original stories were like.

The book was a long read... It took me two renewals from the library to finish it. It was good though. It was an interesting read, and it was - admittedly - much more in depth than the aforementioned film. The stories in the book played much more with the 3 rules, whereas the film kinda copped out and just abused them. The film was similar to a couple of the stories, but the originals were a bit more subtle. The film also took some artistic license, like Susan Calvin (the smartarse lady in the film) being young enough to provide some kind of vague sexual chemistry for Will Smith, as opposed to being about 60 in the books. Hmm.

It was worth reading, though I guess I might not persuade too many of you, as I am something of a sci fi geek.

Speaking of which... I played some more Half Life 2 last night. (For those few of you who have played it, I'm up to the city levels, towards the end, after Alyx and I teleported back to the lab.) I'm leading a little squad of guys round the city, who help me in the firefights we get into, which is kind of cool. I'm mostly fighting regular soldiers at the moment, but I keep seeing these bigass monsters called striders which look like they'll be a problem when I get round to fighting them. I'm also really getting the hang of the gravity gun now. The city levels have these little crazy mines called hoppers which jump in the air when you get near them and then explode when they hit the ground. The trick is to catch them in the air when they spring up, then throw them. It's kinda neat to walk up to a mine, have it spring up in the air, catch it with the gravity gun, then launch it at some explosive barrels next to the little encampment of Civil Protection officers and watch them all go flying.

Physics rocks. Oh yes.

Yes Miss Urquhart...

nospam@example.com (admin) — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 12:53:00 +0100

Alison got a call yesterday to say that she has an interview for a teacher training course tomorrow. She has to have several interviews with various people, observe lessons, and teach some 15 year olds for 15 minutes. Scary stuff, especially when she only has two days to prepare for it.

She spent all of yesterday evening preparing her 15 minutes of teaching. It's about food chains and food webs, which I just about remember for my GCSE biology days.

And while Ali fiddled away with Powerpoint and Clipart and all the rest of it, I was hard at work... playing Half Life 2 . This is the game... this is the big one... this is the one that tempted me back to computer gaming after my 6 month hiatus last summer - I quit to concentrate on my uni finals and get married. The game hasn't let me down either. It looks and sounds great, the levels are brilliantly designed, the enemies are scary, and the physics are delicious icing. There's something quite unique about pulling a radiator off a wall with your gravity gun and throwing it at a zombie... quite a rare and delectable experience in the world of computer gaming.

I need to get back to work now. Bye.

Practically perfect in every way

nospam@example.com (admin) — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:59:35 +0000

No, it's not Mary Poppins. It's... Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time. The game that I've burbled on about wanting to buy, and which I've finally picked up on ebay. I'm over a year late in picking up this game, and to be honest I've been quite remiss in letting it pass me by. I'm not going to go into great detail about it, because as far as I know, there aren't many gamers in my (small) readership, and any among you have probably already heard about this game. Suffice to say, this game is a masterpiece. The graphics, the puzzles, the story, the combat... it's all brilliant - utterly superb. If there are any niggles, it's with the camera position and the controls, but I'm prepared to overlook these minor issues for a game with fiendishly clever puzzles, and that allows me to fight 4 enemies at once with a big hulking sword then rewind time with a magic dagger when I screw it up.

Anyway.

I went shopping on Saturday to spend a bit of my birthday cash, and picked up the Blink 182 and Franz Ferdinand albums. I'd previously ripped the Franz Ferdinand album (though I'm now making restitution for my copyright infringing ways, hence actually buying the CD) so I've heard that, but the Blink album will be new to me. I'm looking forward to it, especially after the recent news that they've split up for now. I also got X-Men and X-Men 2 on DVD. Nice. Looking forward to X-Men 3, but that's not due out till 2006. Oh well.

I need some new shoes sometime soon. My current trainers are disintegrating on my feet as I type. When I was in town, I found out that you can get shoes from a company called No Sweat that guarantees fair pay and treatment for their workers, much like Fair Trade does for food producers. I'm all for that, so I think I'll be picking up a pair next week.