Happily (or not, depends on your point of view) I am now back at Uni for my second glorious year of LEARNING HOW TO MAKE COMPUTER GAMES. This semester we have networking, C++ and Maya.
I will continue to update my site with my own personal brand of bile and unreasoning hatred against all things, when I can think of something to talk about. Early reflections thus far include: Maya is covertly trying to destroy my computer. My networking lecturer is an international criminal. My C++ unit is scarily similar to last years JAVA unit, only with even more confusing syntax.
Todays favourite Quote: "Let's blow these bitches away!". From Dominion Tank Police. Hurrah.
Exams are bastards. Ban them. As it happens, the blood, sweat and chair-fort building of the revision period all paid off dividends. Things seemed quite easy, with me happily scribbling away for a couple of hours with nary a care or thought in my slightly cloudy head.
I may have been suffering from Sun-stroke, of course.
E3 then. Turning away from my desktop with blurred vision, my eyes red raw after marathon downloading sessions, I am pleased in the way only a fanboy-geek could be. Half-Life 2? Staggering. The New Zelda? Life-affirmingly brilliant. Whilst I may have suffered some serious retinal damage after staring at my monitor for too long, I nonetheless feel... satiated for the time being.
As a final (and slightly random) note - I downloaded the first episode of the The Legend of Zelda cartoon off the net. And it really, *really* is terrible. It's amazing how nostalgia can play tricks on you, because it really is that bad. "Excccussseee meeee, Princess" and all that.
Dreadful.
Again, it isn't too good, but it keeps my brain from switching off entirely, and thats the main thing.
Furthermore, I've become a games reviewer/previewer for videogameslife.com where, due to various clerical errors, you will *not* see any of the work i've produced. Soon, hopefully. Still, go see, and contribute while you're there.
I had forgotten the sheer number of different ways you could find to off yourself in these games - death seems to occur so much that it starts to esculate to an hilariousley dreadful cresendo where EVERY BLOODY ACTION THAT YOU TAKE THAT ISN'T EXACTLY RIGHT CAUSES PRINCE FUCKING ALEXANDER OF FUCKING DAVENPORT TO DIE! Damn you, Roberta Williams, Damn you!
Still, visit the 'Many Deaths of...' site and wallow in ever-so-slightly-painful nostalgia. Here.
Aside from that? Well, theres a unit on the internals of computers. From the evidence presented thus far, It does seem highly likely that the heady cocktail of two hour lectures and one hour tutorials may in fact cause me to lose the will to live. We shall see. Lastly, theres 'Project Management', a wonderfully vague name for a unit thats point currently alludes me.
If theres one good thing so far, a video we watched during a lecture actually punctured through my thick walls of stubborn superiority and actually taught me something I had been previousley unaware of. They actually make good 'edu-tainment' games. Shock.
Strangely - and rather irritatingly, I now have something of a gnawing cyst in my brain thats causing me to really want to make a videogame about a 60ft yellow robot that wanders a desert island, solving puzzles using his encyclopedic knowledge of AS-Level Physics. Weird.
Not much happening at the moment. In the face of seemingly endless piles of Uni work, I have had to curtail my computer game playing time - a quite horrifying prospect, i'm sure you'll agree. So, instead, heres lots of websites you should go to:
1) I was almost orgasmic with delight (well, not quite) upon coming across this. It's the insult swordfighting from that most ageless of classics - The Secret of Monkey Island. Revel in it. And remember, you DO Fight like a cow - http://66.193.119.177/
2) Created by some of the bods who write that most glorious of publications PC GAMER UK, here is Big Robot, a site I most enjoy. Full of interesting short stories, editorials and some most unique comice-style finery. GO HERE
3) A well known site, but one that nonetheless makes me giggle like some stereotypical schoolgirl whenever I got there. There are Laws, and then there are Dumb Laws! YOU MAY NOT WORRY THE SQUIRREL!
Anyway, enough of this foolishness. my brain feels tired and I can't be bothered to write anything the slightest bit pertinent. Tune in next time, for something hopefully vaguelly related to computer games.
6TH OCTOBER 2004
Lord, It's been months since i've updated my website. Sitting at home all summer being happy and content tends to rid you of things to complain about.
19TH MAY 2004
I've abandoned giving these posts indivdual names, on the basis that I have a tendency to meander violently between subjects like an alcoholic trying to ice-skate. Regardless, in my continuing quest to inform the public of the realities of computer games courses, I give you.... exams.
17TH APRIL 2004
Yes, i'm still here...
Well, in spirit at least. Exhaustive, rather dull Project Management assignments dominate, clearly proving that - as if there was any doubt - the educational system can even make computer games irritating. By way of a minor protest against useful work, i've written yet another short story - this one about talking to strangers in bars.
20TH MARCH 2004
Another Update
My site updates, with another short story with the gloriously cheery name of 'Dead'. Read it, please. As it happens, i'm not especially pleased with this one, so don't expect great things.
11TH MARCH 2004
Seriousley
I need a new website. Looks like a child made this.... an exceptionaley ungifted child. Who can't spell.
9TH MARCH 2004
Perfect Moment
Another very short story - entitled Perfect Moment - can now be read here. A simple tale of an assassin standing by the window, it was written mostly due to the deeply philospical reason of being fucking bored.
7TH MARCH 2004
Events as of late
Workload coupled with laziness coupled with playing Golden Sun-ness has meant that routine updates are a bit on the slide. However, to make up for that, I have produced a little short story, an example of my unfortunately rather limited literary talent. Go and read it, and I promise it is short.
4TH MARCH 2004
Sam and Max: Freelance Police...
....Has been cancelled. Weep for the children, for they shall not know a truly funny adventure game ever again.
13TH FEBRUARY 2004
Citadel
Bloody hell, another level in Goldeneye. Its amazing what you can dig up if your clever and know your way around a cart. Shit to play in, of course, but still... Bloody Hell!
9TH FEBRUARY 2004
Quest for the Crown
This was drawn to my attention on the PC Gamer Forums. Quest for the Crown is an ingenious action adventure game made entirely in FLASH. The sheer levels of depth, and the almost regal majesty of this game make it an example that even many commercial products should look up to in stupified awe. Once you play Quest for the Crown, you will remember it long 'till the end of your days.
IT WAS A TIME OF LEGEND!!.
6TH FEBRUARY 2004
Quick Link
For anyone whos had the poor, sad misfortune to actually play any number of the Space Quest or Kings Quest Games (which, thankfully, Sierra appear to have stopped doing), I found a link to this site, and thought it fun enough to pass it on via my site.
6TH FEBRUARY 2004
University Academy 3: Back in Training
Yes, I'm still here. Semester B - or the Spring Term as I insist on thinking of it as - has started, meaning its back to the same old grind of lectures, practicals, sleep deprivation, mild starvation, drinking and LAN Diablo-ing that makes up every students life. Or, at least, the students I associate with. Hmmm.
Most compelling prospect this Ter- Semester? The Game Theory and Design Unit is the sort of theoretical, involving finally-an-excuse-to-be-pretentious-in-public thing that I just love to be part of. As evidence of this, I was inderectly responsible for causing an arguement as to the relative merits of 'Myst' about ten minutes after the lecturer arrived.
Why? Because Myst is clearly rubbish. It does seem that one million sales can be wrong , in fact. If you think that Myst is good, feel free to wallow in foolish erm... wrongness for the rest of your days.
13TH JANUARY 2004
Happy New Year
It's practically obligatory to write 'Happy New Year' to the people who may - theoretically - be reading this site. Well, hope you appreciate it. It comes from the heart.
Anyway, I'm deeply impeded in exam hell, making vague attempts at revision inbetween longer bouts of brooding in a rather depressed state. I'm not actually depressed at all, it's more... generic brooding. Non-specific brooding, if you will. Exams do that to you. The prospect of spending 3 hours writing about JAVA is not a pleasent one. Thank God I have Jefferson Airplane Tracks to see me through.
A slighty pointless update, I feel, but there you go. It's my damn site, so i'll do as I please. Enough, it's time to hit the books. Very hard. With my head.
15TH DECEMBER 2003
Fallout 3.
Screenshots. May I just mirror the sentiments of a certain forumite when I say 'Interplay must be DESTROYED'. Because, frankly, they should be.
10TH DECEMBER 2003
Black Isle Studios - Goodbye.
It's happened again. While trawling the net as you do, the news came on Gamespy. Black Isle Studios, creators of such seminal classics as Fallout, Planscape Torment and Icewind Dale, had gone under. It's really a sad day - its arguable that while they never made as high profile games as their sometimes-partners the mighty Bioware - they may have been better writers, with Planescape Torment possibly being the most literary piece of interactive entertainment ever made.
Not to be pompous about it, but these gentlemen were artists frankly. It's a shame to see them go.
6TH DECEMBER 2003
It's not all bad
So, I've been hanging around the Official Ion Storm message boards more than seems healthy for me, just - y'know - reading the comments therein with great interest. What essentially seems to have come across is the amount of bile and hatred that surrounds Deus Ex: Invisible War. Much more than seems healthy, people have been complaining about how this game has suddenly become insulting to their intelligence - Go there.
Of course, I realise this is rich coming from a man who recently went and wrote reams of verbal diarrohea about the decline of intelligent gaming - but I feel many people on that forum and around Pc Gaming in general - are somehow *missing the point*. Deus Ex is not about numbers, nor is about how damned clever PC Gamers are, and how superior we are over our console toy wielding cousins. Deus Ex was and always will be about Freedom within a computer game environment, and the ability to - as it were - express yourself through your own actions. It was ambitious, it was brilliant.
People on these forums, they complain about the loss of the skill system, the unified ammo system, the slot based rather than space based inventory and you realise they are arguing semantics. All that Ion Storm have done is - in my not so humble opinion - is cut the wheat from the chaff (or however you spell it) and slim down the game systems, so that everything you do is now an expression of what you want rather than fiddly maths or barriers within the interface. Now - if heavy weapons are your bag - you CAN carry a flamethrower, and a GEP gun and LAW all at the same time - whereas previousley such gun-whore dreams were deined. In DX:IW - your dreams are satisfied. People feel the skill system is dumbing dowm to the console crowds but - for gods sake - think about it. In Deus Ex, despite being an nano-augmented super agent - you were actually weaker with a handgun than a *normal member of the bleedin' public*. Terrible, and now its remedied.
I'd be the first to complain about the dumbing down of the videogame world - really, I would - but DX:IW isn't really it most of the time. Videogames should mean something about enjoyment, escapism, and maybe mean something more. Videogames aren't about juggling menu's or engaging in minor arithmetic, and some people seem to want to fight tooth and nail to make sure that they are. Removing numbers isn't removing the fun, surely it's just removing the barriers?
In other news - apparently that bestseller The Bible can be used to predict the future. I wonder if it can tell me whos going to win the Grand National. That would sort out the Tuition Fees.
IN NEXT WEEKS ISSUE: The horror of being a computer games student.
1ST DECEMBER 2003
Stuff...and Things
It's December, which means we draw perilousley close to Christmas time, when there will be lots of Holly, and people will be Jolly, and many other things ending in 'Olly. Anyway, soon the shops will spontaneousley combust under the strain of hyper-powered shoppers, grabbing armfuls of products and thrusting them trolleywards, as if The Rapture will soon be upon us and we all need to hurry down to our concrete bunkers and hunker down for when God comes.