A Gaming Diary
PC
Minecraft (PC/Mac)
Aug 23rd
I added a glass-domed tower to my castle at the weekend. Shame I forgot to take a screenshot of it, really. To make up for it, here’s a picture of a duck in my graveyard.
Quack.
This lunchtime I spent a very therapeutic forty-five minutes or so constructing a wine cellar.
Wine racks.
Okay, so the new fences don’t make very good wine racks, but I can’t think of anything better right now.
Minecraft (Mac/Web/PC)
Aug 16th
Yes, I used all three clients over the weekend. I played it on my desktop PC at home (a winter wonderland I forgot to take a screenshot of) and using the Mac and browser clients in the office. (I had to come in on Saturday and Sunday over the weekend, briefly.)
But, today, I’m not going to show off my single-player achievements, instead I’m going to show you some of the stuff that’s been built on the BeeX server.
What you see when you log in.
And this is what you see when you turn round. The tunnel links a lot of the stuff people have built.
A statue I made (which then was added to be an unknown user).
My great beardy tower. You can jump from the top, which is as high as the came lets you build, into a pit that goes down to the bottom of the world. It kills you, but it's fun.
Strange, oddly beautiful towers.
Roads, walls, towers and more.
Castles are popular - and very impressive.
Dimrill's castle is simply amazing.
It's even got a library.
Graffiti, Minecraft style.
And that’s just a tiny fraction of the amazing things people have built on the server.
What’s nice is how well everyone’s been playing together. I don’t think there’s ever been any intentional vandalism, people have found open, unused areas of the world and made their homes there.
Robot Unicorn Attack (iPhone/Mac/PC)
Jul 8th
So, yeah, I tried Robot Unicorn Attack on my old G4 Powerbook the other day. (It’s over seven years old now, is only running OSX 10.2.9, but runs Opera perfectly well for general web use.) I survived for about three hours, by which time I’d reached about seven metres.
So, yeah, it runs, but it’s slow. Like, as slow as a zombie snail. With a broken leg. (Shush.)
My wife plays the game on her Samsung NC-10 netbook and it’s much faster, but still slower than it should be.
Robot Unicorn Attack running at the correct speed. Oh... wait...
To show her how it should run, I started up the iPhone version and promptly got my best score ever and continued playing when I went for a poo. It’s not easy to put down once you start playing, especially with the sound on. And I’m sure my wife enjoyed hearing the tinny sounds of Erasure coming from the bathroom as I wrestled with a truculent stool.
The Sims 3 (PC)
Jul 15th
My review is written. It’s not, I don’t think, the best review ever, but I really wanted to get across the point that the game now works the way I’ve always thought it should and is therefore the best Sims game by a long, long way.
Peggle World of Warcraft Edition (PC)
Jul 10th
I’ve finished the ten-level adventure and the first three challenges, but there’s still a fair amount to do. Seven more challenges, then getting the high scores and 100% of the pegs on each level. Not bad for free, not bad at all.
Peggle World of Warcraft Edition (PC)
Jul 9th
Ten free levels of Peggle with a World of Warcraft theme. Can’t complain about that!
Oh, wait, yes I can – there’s no Mac version, despite both Peggle and WoW being available on OSX.
The Sims 3 (PC)
Jun 29th
Sims now properly autonomous – except for fact they won’t come home from trips out unless you tell them to, as far as I can see. Left to their own devices, they will do what needs doing, including peeing, showering, sleeping and cleaning. This is a major step. My wife likes to micro-manage her sims, I prefer to watch them and then prod them gently or get them doing things they wouldn’t normally do.
Making friends seems to take ages. Acquaintances are easy to get, but building up relationships seems hard.
La’Quisha grew up to school age. Once she’s going off to school each day, I’m going to have Steve explore the town a bit during the days before he gets a job.
Used build mode to extend the house, as it was far too small. Very easy to do, doesn’t cost the earth. Good. Restrictions, though, like not being able to move walls with counters attached to them. Reasonable, understandable, annoying.
The Sims 3 (PC)
Jun 25th
I’m reviewing this – I have an actual free copy from EA and everything – so this post will just be some notes of things I need to remember when I write up the review.
Install takes ages. How much disk space did it take up? I’ll have to check.
Runs like a dog on default settings on my PC, but so did The Sims 2. Taking everything down to low means it runs fine and doesn’t really seem to look any different to my eyes. No different from medium settings, no different from The Sims 2.
Set up a family – Steve and Sasha Beato and their baby daughter, whose name is something like De’Quesha. I let my wife name her and she watches far too much Maury. Steve is evil, Sasha is reasonably good, but not overly so.
Moved them into a small house in town. It’s not a trailer… it just looks like one. I’ve fulfilled a few small wishes for them – a new sofa, a crib for the baby, etc. Steve, though evil, loves his little daughter very much and most of his wishes involve taking care of her.
While he was doing that, Sasha went out to the grocery store – fancy new feature alert! – and bought some food. And a duck. For the bath. The bath they don’t have. Then she came home and got a job on the journalism career track, as she wished. Steve wants to have a criminal career, but I’m keeping him home to look after the baby for now. Global domination can wait.
I experimented with letting my sims get on with their lives themselves and they went to the toilet, ate food, went to bed and went to work without me having to tell them to. That’s an improvement from The Sims 2 right there. I think they were meant to do it in the last game, but they never seemed to actually do it.
When I left, Sasha was still at work – her first day – and Steve was looking after the baby. I think I might get Sasha to invite her co-workers over for a party soon, see some interation.
Steve and Sasha love each other very much and when they can they spend a lot of time talking and canoodling. Sasha wants another baby – they’ve not tried that yet.
Plants Vs Zombies (PC/Mac)
May 8th
Adventure, puzzles and mini games completed. Am now dividing my time between a second tun through the adventure (it seems quite a bit harder this time round), the survival games and tending to my zen garden.
No, it’s not as good as Peggle. Why there don’t seem to be any high score modes when some of the game types are crying out for scores I don’t know. But it’s still ace.
Plants Vs Zombies (PC/Mac)
May 6th
Yeah, I’m playing on both operating systems. Doesn’t seem to be much between them, though the Mac version has crashed a couple of times for me.
Anyway, this is the new sensation sweeping the nation (Internet), so I’m sure you know all about it. PopCap do tower defense, basically, though it’s different from any other TD game I’ve played. (You’re always actually playing – you don’t get to set up your defenses and then sit back and watch. If you’re not adding more plants, then you’re at least collecting sunlight.) It’s very polished and hugely addictive, but the story mode has been very, very easy so far. I’m up to level 5-8 and haven’t died yet. It’s getting harder, though, so I don’t think I’ll be able to complete the adventure without dying.
It’s not Peggle, by any means, but it’s very good.
