A Gaming Diary
PC
World of Warcraft
Oct 26th
Tried two different servers tonight and had problems on both.
Let’s play a game of ‘Spot The Fuck Up’, shall we?
Here’s Spinebreaker -
Pretty obvious there. Now on to Twilight’s Hammer -
Hmm, see the trouble in that one?
(I know I missed out 2 and 3. They exist but, bizarrely, they look okay on my PC but fucked in a browser. Tried both Firefox and Safari. And I’ve tried saving and uploading the images again. They only show the same problem as the first image, anyway.)
Spot the problem there? Look closely.
And this the same problem as 5 really, just more obvious.
World of Warcraft – great!
World of Warcraft
Oct 26th
It’s a good thing I’ve got the day off tomorrow.
I just started it again for a bit and… got lost in time. Suddenly it’s one in the morning.
I completed a couple of easy quests and died a lot trying to do a quest that I just don’t think I’m ready for yet. Not alone at any rate. And these newbie areas are amazingly empty on this server. I guess there aren’t that many new characters being created these days. I ran round a whole group of islands for ages and only saw one other person, who ame and went very quickly. In a way it’s quite nice, but it’s also nice to have a load of people around to take some of the heat.
I can’t defeat all those trolls alone!
I’d forgotten how beautiful the art design is while I was away. There’s a a group of shipwrecks near the orc starting area that’s just breathtaking. And running back into Ogrimmar at the end of the session was like coming home.
And even more like coming home when the auction house was empty of NPCs, which was followed by a disconnection message and an inability to get back into the game for five minutes. Ah, random outages, how I’ve missed you.
Gerplex, lovely undead level sixty man that he is, gave me some cash too get me started, so I’ve bid on some more bags in the auction house. The most annoying thing about WoW is the lack of inventory space.
Well, most annoying apart from corpse runs, possibly.
Oh, and I went trick or treating a couple of times and got a flimsy elf mask and some lollipops. Cool.
World of Warcraft
Oct 25th
I’m back, baby, I’m back.
On March 25th I logged into World of Warcraft for the last time… until today. Obviously. Otherwise this post wouldn’t be here.
My old character, Revenant, an undead warlock, was on a server long since abandoned, so I started a new character on Twilight’s Hammer. It’s a full server, so I really shouldn’t have, but that’s where the remains of my old guild are. And, as luck would have it, one of my best guild buddies was online when I whispered to him. So I was added to the guild (who are now called Shin Seiki Evangelion, whatever that means) and therefore had people to chat to as I did the newbie quests. Which is a good thing. A very good thing. Not that the game’s not fun, but it’s more fun when you’re chatting. I even had some people come over to say hello, which was nice.
Got my new orc hunter (as in an orc who’s a hunter, not someone who hunts orc) up to level six in about two and a half hours of play. Wasn’t power-levelling by any means, but that’s good enough for me.
Oh, and by the way, it took me an hour and a half from first putting the install CD into my PC to logging in to the actual game. An hour and a half! That included downloading a 243MB patch, too. WoW is not for people on dial-up.
Space Rangers II
Oct 17th
Well, we’ve got a problem here, haven’t we?
And it was all going so well.
Okay, so I got message that Johan had died in combat, but he wasn’t much use and I barely mourned.
Wait, wait, back to the beginning. Where did we leave it last time?
Ah, yes, I was trying to get to the planet Banana to snap up some cheap luxuries, but the system I had to go through was plagued with Dominators. So when I started tonight I gave up on the idea. And came up with a new one. I bought a high capacity fuel tank and warped into the dangerous system. I flew round for a bit grabbing some of the debris that was scattered around – systems at war are a great source of spare parts – and jumped back out the way I’d come in. Two trips and there wasn’t anything else I could safely get. The big fuel tank was using up a lot of space on my ship, so I sold it and went back to standard one.
Not sure I made a profit in the end, but it felt good to snatch that stuff from the jaws of danger. Went back to my home system to give the ranger boffins some of the Dominator tech I’d grabbed. They were happy with me, which was nice. Went over to the medical station and bought some medical supplies, thinking they’d be cheaper there than anywhere else. But nowhere else in the system would give me a profit on them. About to sell a loss, I was, but then checked the news and saw that a planet in a neighbouring system was desperate for supplies. Result! Quick warp over and some nice profit.
Warped back home, went to the scientific station and bought my first probe. Basically, you can land on an uninhabited planets and send the probe out to search for stuff. I searched one planet and found medical supplies, weapons, a ship’s laser and some other bits. (It was while doing this search that Johan died, somewhere off in space.) Went to the nearest planet and sold everything (took a couple of trips) and asked for a mission. They asked me to deliver some special asteroid stuff to another system within a time limit.
Piece of piss!
I thought.
It’s a shame that the system I have to fly through to get there on time is under Dominator control. Not even being attacked by the Dominators. They’re there. They control the horizontal, the vertical and every other fucking thing in the system.
I warped in without knowing this. I looked for a planet to refuel on, but they were all under Dominator control. “Shit!” I said. Luckily, the remains of some ships were nearby, notably some fuel pods. I can use them to get out, but making my delivery on time is looking to be out of the question.
My first mission and I’m going to let my employer down. This is not good.
(Note: I’m playing the game in a semi-hardcore way. If I die I don’t restart the game from the beginning, I load my last save. But I’m only keeping one save, so if I discover I made a bad decision a while back I have to live with it, not just jump back a couple of saves and do things differently. It makes the game more tense and stops it turning into a constant quick save fest. I recommend it.)
F.E.A.R. & Call of Duty 2 Demos
Oct 17th
Played through them both before, of course. But I recently set up my living room so I can play PC games with the keyboard and mouse on a table instead of on my stomach and a tottering pile of books and newspapers.
Anyway, they’re both very good. Like F.E.A.R. more than I did, actually. The controls don’t seem quite so over the top now that the keyboard is in a good place. Wasn’t nearly as difficult as I remember, either. Moderate difficulty? Pah! I feel sated now, though. I no longer feel the need to spend thirty quid on the full version. Hurrah!
Call of Duty 2, however, I want more. I love running around with teammates I don’t have to bother issuing orders to. Rather shocking moment this evening when a guy got shot in the head and his helmet flew off and landed at my feet. Poor bugger. I wouldn’t mind the original, actually.
I wouldn’t mind a PC with just a bit more grunt, though. Not a lot, just a little more.
Space Rangers II
Oct 13th
Phew. Right. That was a major session. Let’s see what I can remember.
Okay, I started again and this time Roger was called Johan. I had a chat with him and we took down the robot ship together (I had to repair myself and a reload or two may have been involved) and after that he became my partner. Being my partner seems to consist of two things -
1) Appearing near me at random intervals.
2) Stealing minerals I wanted, dammit.
After killing the robot (lesson learned: avoid all combat) the tutorial was pretty much over. So I decided to look around for something to do. In the news bulletins I learned of a planet called Banana, which was apparently overflowing with cheap luxuries after an archaeological discovery. Another planet in the same system had recently had an alcohol ban lifted and was begging for booze. Can you see a cunning plan forming? I could.
There was, however, a problem. My ship can only jump 17 parsecs at a time, which meant there was one system I had to go through to get to the system with Banana in. And this system was under attack by uber-baddies The Dominators. I tried to get through it, many, many times. And I died many, many times. I soon gave up on the idea of flying to a planet in the system to refuel, so bought an upgraded fuel tank that held enough for two full jumps. But you still have to fly across the system to jump out again and The Dominators always found me, even when I tried skirting the edge. Once, I took Johan with me as a human shield – okay, he just happened to follow me – but after killing him The Dominators still killed me.
I’m beginning to think I’m not meant to get to Banana. Especially as, well… The galaxy map is divided up into sectors, each with four or so systems in. You start off in a sector which contains our solar system. Well, you do if you play a human, might not be the same for all races. Anyway, there are two ways out of the sector on my current map and using my current engine. And both of these exit systems are under attack by the Dominators. I don’t know if this is just a cruel result of the random map generation, or whether this is a gameplay mechanic designed to keep you in the starting sector for a while.
I might start a new game to find out. Otherwise I can scrape a living for a while and try to buy a bigger engine. (There’s one I can get, but it only gets me jumps of 19 parsecs and I need 20 to bypass the dangerous system.)
Like I said, phew!
This evening has been really good. I’ve learnt how the game works, basically. Things like taking notice of your grapple capacity and checking what a ship can carry before buying a new one. (I thought I’d got a bargain on a new ship until I found out it couldn’t hold scanners or shields. Oops.) And some things still seem odd. Sometimes you can seem to choose to go somewhere and the game won’t take any notice. And the interface is a bit clumsy and does need learning. But I’m more or less there now, I think.
Overall this is looking really, really good. I love this type of open-ended gameplay. And it’s worth noting I’ve not seen any of the other gameplay elements yet, just the main map section. None of the arcade or RTS or text adventure bits.
Space Rangers II
Oct 13th
Okay, this is getting weird.
One part of the tutorial is to destroy a robot ship. Last time I tried I got blown up by that transport I’d attacked on the way into the system and so died.
Now, this time I tried again and was being constantly followed around by Ranger Roger. Apparently I have good relations with him. Now, I’m not one to judge, but I think there must be some backstory missing here that I should have been filled in on.
Anyway, this robot ship was, somehow, kicking my arse. (Maybe I’m meant to ask Roger to help, eh?) But I flew back to a shipyard for repairs, took off again, resumed shooting at the robot ship (well, I think I was, it’s hard to tell) and then a nasty pirate ship flew up and killed me.
Oh.
I get the impression this game isn’t going to be won any time soon…
Space Rangers II
Oct 13th
Two more deaths without completing the tutorial.
How was I to know transport ships (a) have weapons and (b) bear grudges and (c) have friends?
I’m getting into this, though. And I’m quite glad about the last death. I forgot to change my name and everybody called me Timothy, which was very odd.
(The other death was me trying to help a ship in distress. I won’t be doing that again.)
Space Rangers II
Oct 13th
Okay, this is slightly complicated. Space Rangers and Space Rangers II are both games for Windows PCs. They’ve both recently been released on one disc under the name Space Rangers and so some people are reviewing Space Rangers II – which is, obviously, the game of choice to play – as Space Rangers. But I’ll be calling it Space Rangers II in a desperate effort to try and minimise confusion.
Basically, it’s Elite meets, oh, something else. God knows. There’s an excellent review up at Eurogamer, which is the reason I bought it in the first place.
Anyway, I just installed it – it’s got Starforce copy protection, be warned – and started a game. I was pottering around trying to find my way around the interface and doing the training missions, when someone said we had a duty to kill another ship hanging around. Not being one to shirk my duty, I joined the fight. Long story short, all my shots seemed to leave my ship at a 45 degree angle and miss the baddie ship completely, but all his shots hit me. He offered to let me live if I gave him money, I cut the connection to his ship. Just like Captain Sisko would have done.
So he killed me.
Dead.
Before I’d even got through the tutorial.
And I’d been feeling so clever about buying some machinery on Venus when I dropped off the medicine I was told to take there.
Ah.
I’d not saved, either. So, well, I’ll try that again sometime, eh?
Call Of Duty 2 Demo
Sep 27th
Whoa. Now that was rather intense.
Whether it’s more than Call of Duty with a graphical tart up I couldn’t say, having only played the Call of Duty demo about fifteen years ago (give or take) on a machine that could barely handle it.
And talking of barely handling things… CoD 2 (ah, we’re into the acronyms and this diary is only a few days old) selected 640×480 as the recommended resolution. But it also decided on 4x AA and a few other things I can’t remember and when I started it up I was shocked by how good it looked. Shocked, I say. And it ran decently, too, with a minimum level of shuddering.
I died lots. Gunfire and explosions all around. Many deaths – but that’s okay, especially as the checkpoints are well placed and the reload times are tiny. Men flying past me and crumpling to the ground in front of me. Orders, English and German, being shouted out over all the noise. Grenade warnings, cries of warning and of triumph.
Or, to put it another way, you get to run around a town shooting Nazis in the face.
I’m mostly avoiding PC games these days, because they’re more hassle than they’re worth and my Bluetooth keyboard isn’t great for gaming, especially as it has to rest on my stomach as I slump on the sofa. PC connected to TV, you see. And, yes, I generally slump a bit, except when I’m leaning forward to peer at tiny text that wouldn’t be a problem on a monitor but is annoying as hell on a TV six foot away.
You’ll notice I said ‘mostly’ and that’s because I think I’m going to have to get Call of Duty 2. I might wait until it’s on budget, but it shall be mine.