eternalswrdsman

Doesn't really matter the game; I would just want the ability to slap people through the internet.

Generally I find that online game experiences are ruined by other people, so being able to deal with them in the only appropriate way would invaluable.

Considering that current software interface designs are optimized for mouse and keyboard, a touch-screen would be somewhat clumsy and inefficient.  For touch screen technology to really be worthwhile, the software interface must adapt.  The main issue with that is the majority of current software is already locked into the mouse and keyboard design, so moving to a touch-screen model would cause conflict with these programs.

Personally, I think software designers should work on better implementation of keyboard shortcuts.  The less time I spend reaching for my mouse and the more time my hands stay on the keyboard, the better.  It may be a little harder to learn, but is much, much faster to use in practice.  Just look at Vim and emacs.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-05/man-machine

I almost cried when I saw that (maybe the result of watching too much "Code Geass" recently). That is just so incredible; and the guy built it in his backyard. Dang.

So yeah; when do I get my mech?

Alright, just finished "Bioshock". Incredible game, though I wonder about the message. I'm not going to say much, because spoilers are just plain annoying, but I'm not sure if I really want a "Bioshock 2". While the gameplay is awesome and there's lots of cool stuff about it, the story makes it seem like the kind of game that should stand alone. But that's just my opinion. I probably will play Bioshock 2 when it comes out (if only for the fact that it has multiplayer; a plasmid deathmatch would be incredible, especially if there were some Big Daddies roaming around that you could use a certain plasmid on...).

Another neat thing: over the course of the game, you can upgrade your weapons. As you put more upgrades on them, they look more and more steampunk. I really want either that pistol/revolver with the cool extra-ammo mod, or the rapid-fire shotgun. Hmm, maybe a cool idea for a prop to make for a costume...

Next, back to Mass Effect.

So, my Mom is out of town, my sister is at an Art camp/class/thing, and my Dad is at work. Thus it is time to hook up my gaming PC to my Dad's new 42" 1080p LCD television and see just what my machine can do.

First, I booted up the "Bioshock" demo, since I plan on picking that game up soon. It looks really incredible in full HD, and still runs at a very good framerate.

Next, I started up "Half-Life 2: Episode 2", which looks very nice, still keeps a very good framerate.

After fighting through swarms of antlions, I decided to try out Oblivion. It also runs very well, and looks spectacular since I downloaded a hi-res texture pack.

I am very happy with how my PC is performing; I've been able to play fairly recent games at highest settings at the highest resolution I have a screen for. I have not tried Crysis yet (haven't had time to download the demo), but it has run fairly well on my 1280x1024 monitor. It will have to wait for the final test.

And for the record, my PC has the following hardware:

Intel Core 2 Duo (running at 3.00 GHz)
4GB RAM (can't remember what specific kind, oh well)
NVidia 8800 GTX (pretty sure? It's one of the awesome factory-overclocked ones ^^)
750 GB eSATA HD

Anyway, I'm finished with my lunch now, back to gaming!

Oh yeah. So this doesn't happen:

Oh gosh, this is why you never trust the "too good to be true" deals from China...

(you may have to scroll down a bit)

http://web.archive.org/web/20071008195340/http://www.avg-hotgame.net/blogview.asp?logID=185&page=1

First time I saw that, I could not stop laughing.

This time it's not a hoax! From Nintendo's E3 press conference:

http://kotaku.com/5275803/golden-sun-ds-coming-in-2010

Man, everything is coming out this year. Haruhi Suzumiya season 2, FMA series 2, Golden Sun 3, what's next, Duke Nukem Forever?

Since the start of summer, I've been checking back on some interesting game mods that I have been looking forward to, and have been surprised as many projects that have been in the works for a few years are finally reaching completion and are likely to be released this year.

The first is "Black Mesa", a mod for Half-Life 2 that remakes the original Half-Life using the new graphics and physics engine. The current trailer looks especially impressive, and the developers have also announced a 2-player co-op mode. Currently, it's unknown if there are any plans to remake the expansion packs for the original game.

http://www.blackmesasource.com/

The next is a modification for "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords". This was an excellent game, except for one major issue: the ending. While I won't spoil it (especially since I haven't even finished the game myself), most people thought it was rushed and dropped a lot of the plot threads that were established earlier in the game. However, some fans found some unused code in the game's files, including scripts and voice files for story events that did not appear in the game. It seemed that the developer, Obsidian, was under pressure to push the product out the door, and in their haste was forced to hamstring the ending. Thus, a group of fans set out to re-build the ending of the game. They have been working for several years, and now they seem to be on Release Candidate 1 of the patch, which is about 2 releases away from a public release.

http://team-gizka.org/index.html


Hopefully, these mods will be out this year, and I'm looking forward to playing both. And I would highly recommend everyone to check out the original games, if they have not done so already. Half-Life 2 is my very favorite FPS, and the Knights of the Old Republic games are similarly classics of the CRPG genre (not to mention that the first in the series was made by one of my favorite game companies, BioWare). They are fairly cheap now, but generally have to be bought in game collections; HL2 as part of the Orange Box (which also comes with Portal and Team Fortress 2, also excellent games), and KotOR as part of the "Star Wars: Best of PC" collection (which comes with Battlefront, another excellent game).

So I got an e-mail from my Mom today with this link:

http://www.concarolinas.org/index.php

Dang, a convention that close, and it's too late for me to go, since this would require more planning on my part. sigh.