A Gaming Diary
PC
Quake 2 (PC)
Sep 7th
As well as finishing Bioshock yesterday, I also finished this, but forgot to post about it.
It really is an exceptionally entertaining shooter. I was playing it through on Easy with sound off and was never bored or annoyed with it. The look of it still works, too, with the chunky design looking “classic” rather than “eye-breakingly horrible”, even using the software driver (because the OpenGL version is far too dark on my PC, for some reason).
Excellent game all round and one that’s stood the test of time very well indeed. It’s not complicated, or deep, but as a fast-paced run-and-gun arcade shooter it’s brilliant.
Now, if I can find a copy of the 360 version of Quake IV for less than a tenner I might be tempted to get that.
Quake 2 (PC)
Aug 28th
Ah, I remember back in the day when Quake 2 came out and the single player mode seemed like a huge step up from the first Quake. Looking back now, I don’t see that. They’re really very similar indeed. Still, Quake is great fun, so Quake 2 is too. I’m not complaining.
Quake (PC)
Aug 21st
I played Quake yesterday for the first time in many years and seems to be a better single player now than it was at the time. I remember thinking it was a bit dull at the time, but now I’m seeing a lovely quick arcade blast, with some ingenious level design and great set pieces. I think at the time I wanted something epic and huge, but now I’m just happy being able to zoom around at a hundred miles an hour shooting things in the face.
But most of all, maybe, is that now I’m so used to the keyboard and mouse interface I can play it as id intended all along. There’s no interface now, if you know what I mean, and it feels a lot like Doom to me. Surprisingly so.
It’s actually really good fun.
But, yes, it really is as brown as I remember. Maybe browner.
ZAngbandTk (PC)
Aug 3rd
Suddenly, I’ve got a character doing quite well. He got some lucky, lucky equipment early on and that meant he could cut straight through the early enemies and earned him enough cash to get properly started, with scrolls of Identify and Recall. He’s now down deeper than I’ve ever been, killing invisible enemies and even, on one memorable occassion, seeing off a whole kobold army by dazzling them, so that in their confusion they ripped into each other and he managed to kill those on the sidelines and even the leader of army himself. Sweet. So, when Creep the Beastman Chaos Warrior finally dies, as he will, he’ll be top of the scoreboard, easily.
ZAngbandTk (PC)
Aug 2nd
I’m not sure how the scoring works. The character I talked about in my last post – Your Mam’s Face – managed to get more than a thousand points before dying stupidly. (He was killed by cave spiders. Cave spiders! I didn’t even think of them as a threat and so wasn’t paying attention.)
My next character – Mexico Shooter – didn’t do too badly, either, before dying stupidly. (He read a random scroll he’d found and it turned out to be a scroll of summon monsters, so found himself surrounded by dragons and bees without a way out.) However, he only ended up with 24 points, which is about as many points as I normally ever get.
So where did these hundreds and hundreds of extra points come from for Your Mam’s Face? I wish I could find a scoring guide somewhere.
ZAngbandTk (PC)
Jul 31st
So I’ve gone back to this. Tried some spectre characters with no success. Currently have a chaos warror who started off as a beastman, but got turned into a nie… nib… nil… nieblu… type of dwarf by a Chaos God. Fair enough. At least he can see in the dark now.
I wish this ran on OSX.
CastlevaniaRL (PC)
Jul 31st
Okay, I think that’s it. I can’t work out how to heal in the church, with is annoying me more than it should, but, more than that, I keep dying very early and doing the initial forest stuff over and over gets tiring.
CastlevaniaRL (PC)
Jul 30th
Not an official Castlevania game, but a roguelike in a Castlevania skin. At first it was annoying because I kept dying really early, but then I discovered I should be attacking (a) with my weapon and not firing (f) my weapon. Then it was annoying because I kept falling into a lake from which there seems to be no way out. But I discovered the jump (j) key and all was well. Now it’s annoying because I’m in a town, I need to heal myself at the church, but nobody will tell me where it is and I can’t find it. And some people say I need to heal by shouting outside the church, some by resting inside the church, but there’s no church and no key to rest and no key to shout and I’m getting very annoyed indeed.
I’m probably being really stupid, but I just can’t tell what I’m meant to do.
Peggle Deluxe (PC)
Mar 15th
I’m now on the 400,000 point levels. They are really rather tricky, but great fun.
I’ve got my wife addicted now.
Peggle Deluxe (PC)
Mar 14th
Adventure mode was finished off quite quickly, so I’m now working through Challenge mode. I’m currently on the “get 300,000″ points levels, which are very satisfying. I’ve settled on the Zen ball as my preferred power-up.
