http://www.planethalflife.com/features/motw/fortressforever.shtm

A nice article, including some new media. I wonder when it will be released, I wonder.....I wonder.

I've been thinking about this subject recently. Thinking if I should actually watch Doom. So far I've never been able to finish a movie based on a game. I tried with Tombraider, mostly because parts of it were shot here in Iceland and I was interested in seeing the results. However, I never made it to those parts. I never played the Tombraider series anyway.

It goes both ways for me. I am never interested in games based on movies, and the few I've tried only strengthen those beliefs.

I read on a movie site that "Half-Life, the movie" was being planned. I can't find anything about it, I am pretty sure the author got confused with Doom and Half-Life. Making Half-Life the movie is probably the worst idea ever. Both games have a very specific storyline, a movie wouldn't have anything to add. All it could possibly hope to accomplish would be to destroy the games.

I am playing Half-Life 2 for the fifth time these days, and will post my thought on it later, don't want to get sidetracked here.

The thing is, Hollywoods think tank has been empty for years, and their ideology, to make sequels, remakes, and now to make games into movies just isn't working. Check this out: http://www.hla.info/ 

Machinima is something a bit more interesting. I have to admit I haven't been following this trend for long. Check out http://www.machinima.com/ for more info. The most interesting part in my opinion is the fact that game developers seem to be picking this up and paying the artists formerly known as fans to create what Hollywood can't really do, game based films :)

The entertainment industry is changing fast these days, but very few are keeping up. Certainly not mainstream Hollywood. The blockbusters get more and more disappointing every year. I've stopped bothering seeing most by now. I believe games will be hugely dominant entertainment form in a decade or so, while movie makers will have to find ways to cut their budget. At the moment, there is much more art envolved in games than in the mainstream movies, this is a huge part of the reason. Game developers also aren't as greedy :) People are tired of being sold the same stuff over and over and over. When you buy a ticket to see a movie, why doesn't the ticket work as a discount of the same value when you buy the DVD?

Well getting a bit sidetracked as usually. More later.

It turns out that the lag I was complaining about in an earlier post might have been partly client side.

After fooling around with the config the game feels quite a bit smoother.

I can't see I will get much gaming done for what remains of this year. Hopefully we can squeeze in 1 or 2 sessions.

I saw a great show about the "violence in computer games" on TV this morning. A couple of guys around the age of 20 were on the show explaining why kids like to play those awful and horribly violent games. It turns out they are feeling badly and this is their escape. In short, this was what those guys were saying. One said he played games because his mother (single mother) had to work 2 or 3 jobs, which made him feel so awful so he had to turn to those evil computer games.

As if this wasn't funny enough for not just an over simplified but mainly wrong explanation, the interviewer couldn't stop commenting on how fascinated he was by this newfound truth.

What I can't get over is that there are never any hardcore gamers on such shows. Most of the time the reporters themselves haven't played a game since Pac Man. It's like I would go on TV talking about ballet, spouting out my ignorant beliefs. Of course most people don't know much more about ballet than I do, so they would probably buy my stupid analogy, no matter how weird it might sound to someone who is familiar with ballet.

It's both funny and sad to watch the media turn games into one of their favourite subjects, along with things like drug abuse, modern slavery and possible ends of the world (birdflue is currently fav). News is business and there is no profit in selling simple truth is there?

Leisure Suit Larry

I've been somewhat nostalgic these last days, searching for a bunch of old games I played years ago. This is the first real game on PC I remember playing.

It didn't even look "this good" when I played it, since we only had a monochrome screen, so everything was yellow :D

What made this game so hugely popular was the original idea behind it. An idea game developers are still using today. I havent yet checked out the new Larry game. I feel kind of cheated that they didn't stick with the original character. Guess they felt he was to old to be picking up young girls. Poor Larry has been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.

What's weird about many (similar) games from this early era of computer games is all the guess work included. You had to type in your actions, and therefore guess what commands the game might respond to.

I will continue my blast from the past posts while in the mood.

 Game: Shannara (PC)

I am sure nobody remembers this game. Don't think many actually played it.

I believe this was my first experience with rpg's. Not really that good, but it had it's moments.

We had our weekly friday night HL2DM session last night. It's getting harder and harder to find lag-free servers it seems.

UCT's Biowaffen servers were the only almost lag-free servers last night. The thing is, the lag seems to be machine based and not bandwidth. It's not that you have so high ping.

So, are these modern games such comp killers it isn't possible to run a 16 players servers, or are the comps used just not up to the task? Many servers seem fine until they get a certain amount of players, then it all goes slowly to hell.

The worst part about lag is obviously how it sucks the fun out of the game. Last night I played for 5 hours or so (quit ahead of the guys, they kept on playing) and only had serious fun for about 1 hour. The rest was spent dealing with lag more than other players.

Still, I am sure there will be another short session tonight, hopefully we can manage to find some unlaggy servers this time...

* Edit *

I can go on and on about this, but I think I will eventuate in Rav's analyzis of the situation. Rav is a man of few words, he said: "Same servers, new game". :D

Not gamerelated post this time, but still computer related.

A friend of mine was sending me a file, mp3 file to be exact. As usually it took over and hourto receive this file over msn, even if it was only a few mb.

When it had finally arrived, I of course clicked the link. Instead of launching Winamp, I get a message window from my dear friends at Microsoft. They had come to the conclusion this file might possibly be harmful to my computer, so it was decided to "block access" to it.

Blocking access in this case seems to mean to permanently delete the file. At least I can't find any trace of it on my hdd.

This by definition is how a virus behaves. Msn messenger is a virus that spreads through the internet, when people click a link to download what they believe is an IM program.

Instead they get adware that deletes your files.

Think I will stop running this horrible horrible **** and settle for Skype and googleTalk. Please give me back the good old ICQ over this damn horror, no matter how annoying it may be.

One of those games I knew I shouldn't try. Knew this from past experiences. Tried it and been playing it somewhat when I have the time. I was thinking about rating it, but I can't find it on GS.

I can find it on all other systems, including mac, and the game cd actually has both mac and pc versions........

I can find something called  Worldwide Soccer Manager 2006 (PC)  which seems to be the same thing, but it is marked as "Release Date: TBA"

So my conclusion is: As everything American, GS is to damn American.

P.S. It's football not soccer! Football is played with feet, get it?

This must be the game title of the year :D

Info and review here: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/rebelwithoutapulse/index.html

Every now and then I visit the Fortress-Forever website. This isn't really a smart move. Brings back memories of the good ol' clandays :) - and I get all excited about the possibility of reliving those days, when Fortress-Forever will be released.

But when is the big question here. The FF team has chosen to take the Valve approach, releasing no info regarding the launch :(

The wait is a killer. Until then we always have HL2DM.

Things as they were
You might have to paste this url in the browser: http://www.angelfire.com/vt2/catzeyes97/tfc/tfcscreenshots/rock20009.jpg

Things to come