...my email used to be masterlu at gamespot.com :(

also, in my most personal of opinions; why on earth is "To draw (liquid) into the mouth by movements of the tongue and lips that create suction. " a banned word? :(

This makes a change; I'm neither tired nor drunk. With any luck this journal entry will not be about me whining about this or that. Actually, I was thinking I might mention one of my favorite games. Of all time, no less.

The first, the big one, numero uno, the grand poobah and simply the best RTS ever:

StarCraft

I can already see some of my imaginary readers nodding their heads approvingly, while some go "what?! that sh*t is OLD man!" Others still do a fairly good impression of G.W. Bush ("Huh??"). Make no mistake; there has never been a game that is better balanced or easier to access. What I'm interested is in the multiplayer aspect. Sure, the singleplayer campaign was nice and all, but battle.net is what it's all about. I simply can not begin to tell you how much I love beating the living daylights out of people who take one look at my stats and go "hah! noob!". Stathunting is for newbies anyway.

I know I said I wouldn't complain, but there are, in fact, some things that are less than perfect about SC. First of all, everyone is playing either The Hunters (generic star-shaped 8-player map), Big Game Hunters (ditto but with loads of minerals&gas) or then some variation of those two. What it all boils down to is 100.000 people who know and play ONE map. Myself included. In a way this is a testament to how well SC is balanced, if all you need is a single map to provide never-ending amusement it can't be COMPLETELY wrong. Second, the graphics are getting slightly dated... the game was released in 1998 if my memory serves me correct, and I've played it ever since. To me, the graphics don't even make any difference anymore, I can see what unit is where and that's enough.

I can't wait for StarCraft 2.

Streetracing seems to have gone mainstream (old news, I know). Everyone seems to be making racing games where you take part in illegal races, on streets...at night, in the rain. I wouldn't want to whine about this, but I feel I must. I've actually been waiting for just ONE game like this for a very long time, and now they seem to be coming out of the woodwork. I'm not annoyed by the fact that there are several games that seem fairly similar in concept, but by the fact that none of them seems to be portraying a realistic picture of the streetracing scene. No, wait, before you get all annoyed and tell me to take my ricer and take a long drive on a short pier - let me explain.

All games seem to concentrate on having the maximum amount of lights, carbon, stickers and enough aerodynamic accessories to keep a fighter jet on the ground. Which is all good, I enjoy a finely tuned vehicle as much as anyone. What I'm royally tired of is the "Install level 3 turbo" - type of tuning. If someone could at least give me the option to take the engine apart, replacing pistons and increasing turbo pressure and installing dumpvalves I would be a lot happier. BTW, just FYI, IRL this is not something I can actually do :). It's just too much to learn. In a game, however, you don't have to figure out how to get the last goddang bolt unscrewed from under the radiator, which for some inexplicable reason is rusted stuck.
Street Legal and it's follow up, Street Legal: Redline are both games that have pretty much all I could ask for in a driving game - free roam, tuning of both body, engine, and suspension and the possibility to buy a used car, lovingly tuned and cared for and then lovingly wrapped around a telephone pole.
The only problem is: Street Legal sucks. Driving feels like going 200mph in a wheelbarrow with a spoiler and a hangover. Trying to pick apart the engine is almost as frustrating as the real thing, first you can't get the camera to where you want it, then the cursor, which, for some inexplicable reason, doesn't "click where you click", ie. you find yourself unscrewing the transmission when you in fact were aiming for the exhaust manifold. The city you roam in feels as sterile as an empty hospital with just about as much action in it - which I am grateful for due to the handling of the wheelba....cars. And then there plain isn't enough engine parts and spoilers and doors to play around with.

It does not, however, have the annoying attitude of, say, NFS:U. That kind of over the top arrogant "street-credible" banter is nothing but annoying. Where's the relaxed, lousy, poo-based humour brought forth only by smoking too many cigarettes, drinking too much coffee and spending far too much time with your head stuck in a place smelling of oil and paint with likeminded people? None of these games can capture the essence of driving around a few blocks, stopping for coffee every few laps. Nor the adrenaline rush that comes from the smell of burnt rubber and that high-pitched whirring turbo sound and the "Schwump"-sound from an oversized dumpvalve. Or the joy of watching some guy with a civic and an attitude limp off back to the pits after a royal jolly rogering by yours truly. Childish? Very. Stupid? Probably. Illegal? Most definitely. Dangerous? Occasionally. Fun? ...well, sure.

I actually got caught up in the local racing scene by accident. I bought an old Subaru Legacy 2.2 4wd, I got it cheap and it had, still has, a ridiculously huge spoiler and a verrry meaty exhaust note. Which of course wasn't acceptable among the local hooligans-in-cars. The first few weeks I found myself next to some honda or opel or whatnot pretty much every day. Even during the day. Now, all this makes me sound fairly pathetic. Granted, it is quite childish to drift around corners or go 100mph in the middle of the city. It is also not something I do every day, or every week. It's more like a way to let off some steam every once in a while.

I'd like to point out that I never take any "unnecessary" risks and that I VERY rarely 'challenge' anyone, I always seem to be the one on the receieving end.

Enough about this subject, I think I've made a big enough fool of myself already :)

Well, I finally found something to whine about.

The Sims 2

Sure, it's nice enough...kind of like an updated version of the original Sims, minus the expansionpacks plus a small number of improvements. I have to admit that I am a "fan" of the series, I've always liked Maxis' way of doing things, the humour, the little details, the functional interface and so on. Nevertheless, after being used to playing the original Sims with all the expansion packs and extra content and whatnot, this feels a bit...empty.

In my spare time between playing games, drinking, cruising (not at the same time, mind you) and chatting I study business & administration at a university. Now, you REALLY don't have to be a major in marketing to realize that there will be at least five or more expansion packs appearing on the horizon within a number of years. Sure, I would do the same thing if I were in charge of EA...why bother making a great game when you can make 5x the money on making people pay extra for the features that they expected to be in the game to begin with? It's brilliant really, this series of games and expansionpacks will be making money for EA for probably at least a decade to come.

I consider myself an entrepreneurially-minded fellow (No, that's not the queen's english, and I don't give a rat's bee-hind either). Ever since I played the Hot Date expansion for the original Sims I have been waiting for only ONE thing. (Yep, I don't give a flipping fudge about the other content, dating, women, shopping...)

The Sims: Entrepreneur

That's right. I was able to build the most ridiculously huge and expensive restaurant on this side of the moon and then name it "MLu's Place". But I couldn't decide the prices, I didn't have to pay for the furniture, licenses, the building...and most importantly: I couldn't own it. If I wanted to have something to do with the place after I just popped it down on the street I'd have to visit it as a customer... Little MLu, Big MLu, Army MLu and BigFatMommaMLu couldn't make it a family business. Which is sad. Almost as sad as being named "Big MLu". Now, with the possibility of natural death and therefore more natural succession of ownership, I can not see why I would not be allowed to take my hard-earned simoleons, buy a small community/downtown lot and put up a shack selling newspapers and fried stuff. Or why not just buy a cart to push around town and sell hotdogs from? The "crafting" objects in the various expansion packs were a step in the right direction, but, call me picky if you will, pressing "delete" isn't necessarily the same thing as having people actually walk up to the counter and go "Ablahomloblahagliip? Aggabargamobahuu? Tabekee!" and then give you some of the sweet green stuff. You could even employ your neighbour, or your children...set salaries, working hours and how many free lollipops you get per week. Everything goes from your own pocket to begin with...then you can incorporate yourself and get a different account for your business. Aaah....the possibilities. From doing some light farming and selling the produce out of a small shack on your yard to setting up a whole shopping district with clothes, food, magazines, clothes, food and even magazines. And clothes and food. Oh, and video games. It might take a generation or two, but that's why they invented death.

Now, I'm not talking SimAccounting here, but it's always nice with a little number-crunching. The main point is: ....oh what's the point, I'm a sucker for finance.

Oh well. I suppose the mass-market appeal isn't readily obvious.... but it's obviously ready. (see what I did there? funny, huh?)

Before I forget: FINALLY there is a trenchcoat. Oh and the other thing I was going to gripe about....cars. Why am I not allowed to own a car and build a garage? The engine seems to be doing just fine animating moving vehicles, they even got the "I'm driving a ship"-suspension of american vehicles right. Why can't I have a cute little Hoyundabaruyota standing next to my Bavaria 3500 and watch the neighbours go green in the face every time they walk by? There are already overalls and mullets, why is there no "Repair GenericPickupTruck"-action? Or a motorcycle? Or a flipping bicycle for pete's sake.

I probably shouldn't even be playing this game, should I?

Until next time. Signing off at 04:20. AM for those of you who don't know how the clock works.

My first journal entry, makes me feel like having a parade. Or some fireworks. Or a beer at the very least.

I really don't know why I suddenly decided to start keeping a journal, the gamespotting journal edition might have something to do with it - I've always had a craving for cheap attention and this seems like the perfect way. The fact that I have so far posted the staggering amount of three (3) comments rules out any chance of anyone actually reading this, so I suppose I'm fairly safe. I've never been much for keeping journals or diaries, every time I'm supposed to document what I've done I somehow manage to summarize it into something like "Woke up. Went to work. Worked. Came home. Goodnight." which is a lot of information for me, but possibly not for someone who doesn't know what I did at work.

Wow....this journal-keeping stuff is hard work.

Oh yeah...someone once taught me that what you write should have some connection to the topic....
It's an evil circle of sorts, the less you do, the less you do. Let me elaborate: sitting in front of the computer for one week, you know the week after you realize you could have worked for two more weeks and before you notice that your lectures don't start until week 38 or something. Anyway, after spending one week playing games and chatting with your equally nolife friends on irc you notice that once you have your first lecture (in my case, the only lecture that week) you don't really feel like waking up and going to it! You become lazy as hell...I do anyway, and suddenly you find yourself dreading the fact that you actually have to get your lazy ass out of bed and go to school three times a week. For two hours at a time. It works the other way too, though. After school was out I had some trouble finding a place to work for the summer, so the first three weeks I was basically cracking up because I was bored - but note that it's not the same kind of bored. I was bored because I actually did not have anything to do - not because I had stuff to do but was too lazy to do them. End result: I managed to almost destroy my car trying to fix the dang rust on it.

I suppose I should leave something to talk about for the next time I get inspired to write something, don't hold your breath, it makes you blue in the face and dizzy in the head. My rusty subaru, my crappy computer and my collection of relatively legitimately acquired games could be suitable topics.