New Rating System

Posted on by Nimgimli

It came to be in a blinding flash that knocked the scales from my eyes and let me See once more.

All game rating systems (I’m talking ‘review ratings’ not ESRB ‘who should play?’ ratings) are flawed! 1 star? 5 stars? A? B? D-? 86%? What’s it all mean?

From now on, I’m going to use my own rating system, and here it is:

DNFB: Did not finish – bored. A game with this rating was, well, boring. I lost interest in it and drifted off to something else. Frankly most games will get this rating.

DNFD: Did not finish – difficulty. This is a game that got too hard for my poor old reflexes to handle. I was enjoying it and intending to finish it, but was unable to master the skills needed. A good example of this would be Viewtiful Joe

FWR: Finished with relief: I got to the end of this game and was relieved to be done with it. The game must’ve had *something* going for it, but by the time I got to the end, I had HAD ENOUGH! A good example? Knights of the Old Republic

FWM: Finished wanting more: My highest rating. Very few games will get this rating. Its *possible* that this rating indicates a game that is too short, but to be honest I find very few games that are literally too short. More likely, this just indicates a game that I was really enjoying when I got to the end. This very rarely happens for me. A good example of this is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

It just occured to me there is one flaw with this system. How do I rate a racing game, or a sports game? Essentially any game without a campaign or a story doesn’t have an “ending” so my new ratings can’t really apply. Hmm, will have to keep working on this.

Pressure?

Posted on by Nimgimli

So last night I was watching an old Nova program called Mars: Dead or Alive. It originally aired, I believe, on Jan. 5th, but my Tivo is majorly backlogged.

Anyway, it’d been a pretty crappy day at work (big surprise) and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. Then I learn, from this program, that the programmers working on the Rover AI software didn’t have it finished in time for launch. Instead, they had to finish it up while the vehicle was en route to Mars, and uploaded it via radio signal. Now, the software to handle the flight and landing was all done..this was just ‘on the ground’ stuff. But still, can you imagine the pressure? Knowing that you have to finish this project in the alloted time, and can only test (presumably) on a simulator? If you don’t get you code fixed in time, the mission ends up a failure. Sheesh!

After hearing that, I stopped feeling sorry for myself. Heh.

In other news, I’m at the 95% mark in that infernal Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time game. So close…but the farther I get, the harder it gets. I know reviews have complained the game is too easy, but I’m the first to admit my twitch gaming skills are pretty weak. This has been a real challenge for me.

As for this site, I’m looking at some new blog software that will, I hope, give me more features that I’d like to include. I actually thought about writing something from scratch…then I had a rare moment of honesty with myself and admitted I’d never finish such an undertaking…

Rebirth of a Dragonchaser

Posted on by Nimgimli

Three and a half months since my last post here. Man, the place is dusty…again.

Consistency has never been one of my strengths, but undaunted, I’m ready to try this again.

I suppose my first project should be to get a more robust blogging package. I read other blogs and drool over the cool features. b2, as far as I can tell, isn’t being developed anymore (though in all honesty I haven’t checked lately).

There’s no point in trying to recap the last few months right now. But to bring things up to speed, I’m currently playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on the XBox. I’m intending to play Horizons on the PC, though I never seem to get around to actually logging in. I’m re-reading O’Brian’s Master and Commander after seeing the great film adaptation (and I’m enjoying it much more this time around…I guess I’m getting a bit more patient with age). I’ve been watching A&E’s Hortatio Hornblower movies (bought the collection at Christmas) and…I guess that’s about it.

Very much looking forward to Champions of Norrath on the PS2, btw…

Ultima X: Odyssey

Posted on by Nimgimli

Back when Ultima Online first came out, I got absolutely lost in the game. For 6 months or so, real life all but ceased to exist for me. How I didn’t get fired from my job, or dumped by my girlfriend, I still don’t know. I was blissfully, gleefully addicted.

So now, six years later, Origins is getting Ultima X: Odyssey ready for launch in (as of now) Winter 2004. This is a much different game: it uses the Unreal engine (and so is 3D rather than the top down ‘pseudo-3D of UO), and claims to have fast paced combat. No crafting or housing, at least on release. How could I not put such a game on my watchlist!?

I’m intensely curious about the combat. I mean, are we talking Diablo? Or just lots of styles, spells and special attacks? Time will tell, I suppose.

Anyway, here’s some linkage about the game:
Gamespy Preview from August 24th.
Homelan Preview from August 24th.
IGN Preview from August 25th.
Gamespy Dev Diary from Oct 22nd.
Homelan Interview from Oct 22nd.

Put on your tin-foil hats!

Posted on by Nimgimli

A co-worker is…let me say “enthusiastic” about weather and she sends out a weekend weather report every Friday. Today’s held this snippet of info:

In other news, a strong geomagnetic storm is expected to hit planet Earth today, “with the potential to affect electrical grids and satellite communications,” Associated Press reports. “One of the largest sunspot clusters in years developed over the past three days and produced a coronal mass ejection, similar to a solar flare, at 3 a.m. EDT Wednesday, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The disturbance was expected to produce a geomagnetic storm rated G3. A G5 storm is the strongest.”

“In area, [the sunspot cluster] is 10 times larger than the surface of the Earth,” BBC notes.

Devil Whiskey

Posted on by Nimgimli

Devil Whiskey is an old school RPG, complete with a window into the 3D world and lots of text. 🙂 There’s a demo available, and they’re pushing for an Oct. 31st release date. I d/led the demo but haven’t had a chance to try it out yet.

Fileplanet says:
In the spirit of classic RPG’s like Wizardry and Bard’s Tale comes Devil Whiskey, a graphical and text based RPG with nine races, 3D environment window, stats, monsters, adventure, and more stats!
If you’d like to use FP’s high speed servers to download the demo, here’s the link.

MMRPG Primer

Posted on by Nimgimli

Gamespy is running an ongoing series on Massively Multiplayer RPGs.. If you’re already an afficionado of these games, you won’t find a lot of new material (though its still an entertaining enough read) but if you’re wondering what this genre is all about, this series is a good place to get started learning about where MMRPG’s came from, and what to expect from them today, and perhaps in the future.