Dragonchasers
Archive for August 7th, 2004
Posted on August 7th, 2004 at 3:44 pm under Gaming

I have to retract what I said about Doom 3 being a mediocre game. Once I’d upgraded my video card so it ran well, I started to really get into it. Now, the game mechanics are same as they’ve ever been in FPSers. In fact, the game has really no ‘modern enhancements’ like leaning out around corners or cover moves or anything. Very basic controls.

But they’ve used the nifty graphics engine, and great sound as well, to craft an experience that becomes genuinely creepy the farther in you get (well, at least as far as I’ve gotten). The storyline is pretty thin and the whole motif has been done a zillion times (heavily armed marines on another planet fighting evil invaders) but now that I can see everything clearly (due to a decent framerate) it just kinda works.

I *strongly* recommend you get one of the flashlight mods, though. I suggest Pistol Flashlight Mod. It lets you see and still shoot without totally changing the balance of the game (since as often as not the pistol is a last ditch weapon). I just find switch flashlight to weapon and back constantly really got tiresome.

Anyway, I kinda dissed Doom 3 the other day and now I can’t stop playing it, so credit where credit is due, and all that.

Posted on August 7th, 2004 at 2:26 pm under Books & Writing

Elaine just turned me on to this site:
The Teaching Company - Great Courses That Engage The Mind
We’re going to try a couple of courses from them. The on-sale courses are about $50 and we’ll get them on CD so we can listen to them in the car.

Will report back on whether they’re any good, but some of the instructors are familiar to be from seeing them on TV on The History Channel or Discovery.