Too Tense

Not much to say for today so here's an amusing screencap from one of my recent escapades in ESO:

If I had a heart I could love you

So I visited my battle.net account on a whim and what should I find but one of Blizzard's earlier games, The Lost Vikings, being given away as a free download.

I remember the Lost Vikings from 1993-94. It was something of a big deal as everyone played and talked it up a lot. I (eventually) got around to playing it and was won over the game's charm, sense of humor and baffling puzzles. I never did quite complete the game but hey - at least having the game now within easy reach will remedy such a problem.

Looking back at this game twenty years later, I'm surprised just how well it still holds up: The graphics still look great and the humor still inspires more than a few chuckles. Indeed, with hindsight it is funny to see this game from a humble company that would eventually provide the monstrous behemoth that is World of Warcraft.

Funny how things turn out, eh?

Nothing worth talking about

Lets harp on about Quiet some more.
Sure her dress sense may be anything but practical but I find it funny in that she looks very much like characters I was drawing when I was in high school. Is Hideo Kojima constantly driving past my past in thought-reading surveillance van? But what happened to me is that in the years since high school I've grown out of the mindset of a teenager - unlike, it seems, the makers of Metal Gear Solid 5.
I do hope that Hideo Kojima may have something up his sleeve for Quiet (as he seems to claim) but  the more interviews I read, the more Hideo Kojima comes across as being incoherent.

Still I have to give Quiet credit: The game she's in has yet to released and already she's inspiring cosplayers. So she must be doing something right.

Roam Around the World!

Recently I've been having a crack at Rome: Total War.

Funny story: I purchased this game back in 2006 but it is only now that I've been actually playing it. Why the change of heart? Well I found out that if you enter retail codes of certain games into Steam, the games will recognized and added to your Steam account. And for a game a decade old (at time of writing) it is reassuring to know that Steam will make it work - as opposed to hunting down some patch.

Whilst not my first time playing Rome Total War, this is the first time I've tackled the Imperial Campaign. And I have found that this is the first time in a long time that I've been completely absorbed in a game - even to a point where I've lost track of time completely. Clearly I must be playing something good.
And the campaign itself (Julii) is a challenging one. I've made three attempts at it and each one has been different from the last. There have been unexpected developments and times when I have been going well only to have everything fall in spectacular fashion.

Needless to say, this is one game I shall be playing more of in future. Watch this space!

Enjoy the Silence

I've got nothing better to talk about for today so lets talk Metal Gear Solid.
Whilst I resent the presence of the Metal Gear Solid sequels, this is a series close to my heart and one I make an effort to keep tabs on.
So lets talk about The Quiet: She appeared in the trailer of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5 and has been creating a stir ever since.

Personally, as a writer who enjoys creating characters and seeing how they interact with each other, I like the idea of a mute sniper. As as my understanding, the role of a military sniper is one that is vital, dangerous and psychologically demanding - therefore a silent sniper has indeed potential. They can't express their thoughts about what they do or the people they kill so they just sack up and do their job regardless. And being unable to interact with their comrades creates a detachment from them - much like that of a military sniper itself.
And as the saying goes, constrictions inspire creativity (or words to that effect). A silent character then must rely on facial expressions and hand gestures to establish what they're thinking. And it would be a change for an NPC to be a silent character for a change.

But as for The Quiet's outfit, My God... Granted what I've typed in the last paragraph may sound like it has potential but somehow it is undone by the Quiet's odd taste for clothes. Would anyone in a war zone wear that - and in a desert?! Okay so maybe I'm treading ground that has been covered elsewhere but somehow the character designer could've done a lot better than this.

It would've been nice to have a design that reflected the character's occupation as a sniper and allow her expressions and actions to develop The Quiet as a character. But instead her character design seems more a desperate grab for attention.

All of this however is all speculative: The game itself has yet to be released. Granted it will be nice to see MGS5 defy the preemptive criticism and actually prove them all wrong by delivering a character of actual substance but what ate the chances of that happening?

Don't you love you any more?!

Following on from an earlier post, there is something I find strange about my attempt to uninstall Gothic 3- only to have it fail for some reason.
One can only imagine how this is.
Is the game really offended that I want to remove it?
Is the game annoyed that I want to remove it when it's no longer available on GoG?
Is the game insistant that I play it that it refuses to budge?
Or is it crying in corner burbling the words "I thought you loved me...."

Rise of the Goths

I recently obtained Gothic 2+3 from GoG - somehow having them both removed from the catalog for good seemed a good enough reason to grab them both.
However Gothic 3 has been giving me some headaches: Okay so there were some flaws on release? Well I'm all for modding so I don't mind hunting down some mods to fix this.
Okay so now there's some more quests? Well I'm fine with that.
And now there's some additional content? Well I'm willing to wade through some German to get there so why not?
And there's an increase for screen resolution? Well i have recently increased my RAM so hell yeah!

Oh wait the game doesn't work now. Damn. And after all the effort of finding and downloading these mods!

And and now I can't uninstall the original game?! FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-