A Gaming Diary
Web
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari (Web)
Jan 30th
Yep, you read that right. This is a free, web-based 3D driving game, in which you drive into raptors. Requires the download of a seemingly harmless and very common plug-in before you can play and the framerate on my iMac is pretty atrocious, but it’s good fun.
Worth a look, and not just because it’s got a silly name.
Play it here.
Cursor*10 (Web)
Jan 4th
Suppose I’ll use “Web” to indicate games played in a browser from now on. Seems a bit daft to label them “Mac” or “PC” depending on what computer I happened to be using.
Anyway, this is a lovely little way to spend ten minutes. Got stuck on the last floor for a while, but that was because I wasn’t paying attention on the way up the tower.
And that’s my first completed game of 2008. Bit of a cheap one, I know.
Little Savages 2
Nov 22nd
I just want to record this, the time I was second on the scoreboard.
I doubt I’ll hold the spot for long and then it’s down, down, down…
PopCap Word Games
May 5th
Gah!
Why do the PopCap word games have such stupid rules on what words are allowed? The two word games I’ve tried – Bookworm and Bonnie’s Bookstore – use different dictionaries, but they’re united by not allowing rude words.
So I’m playing Bookworm and I can’t have CUNT. Why? Because it’s offensive, presumably. (It’s taboo but it’s not slang, according to Chambers.) But , you know, I’m the one making it. I can understand them making sure it doesn’t come up as a game-generated word you have to make for bonus points, but it’s still a real word that should be allowed, damn it!
And moving on over to Bonnie’s Bookstore, I find ORGY is disallowed. Eh? What? Orgy? Actually, that was a case where it refused to use a wildcard tile as the R. I guess it’s got ORGY down as an “offensive” word to not bring up in those situations. Be interesting to see if I would be allowed it if I could make it without wildcards, actually. But still, ORGY seems a pretty normal word to me.
And it doesn’t do British English. That’s the only reason I can think of for not allowing PONCE, anyway. I guess it just can’t be an American word, or something. Well, I suppose it is kind of slang, but still, I should be allowed it.
Because I say so, that’s why!
Also:
Now allowing that could have meant I lost the game and everything! (As it happens I didn’t – I won on the very last turn – but still…)
I mean, I’d still love to see Bookworm or Bonnie’s Bookstore on the Xbox Live Arcade, but only with bigger dictionaries that allowed all real words, whether offensive or not.
At least it let me have PENIS. It would have been very odd if that hadn’t been allowed.
Nemesis The Warlock
Apr 11th
To answer my question, yes, there is a second screen. And a third. And, I assume, a fourth, but I’ve not seen it.
You seem to have to kill enough enemies to take the counter on the left of the screen down to zero and then quickly run off the top right of the screen.
I’m starting to get into it, somehow. Controls could do with being more responsive, mind.
Spectrum Emulation
Apr 11th
Been trying out some Spectrum games I remember fondly. You can play them online, you know.
Turbo Esprit – It’s basically GTA 3 fifteen years too early. You can’t get out of your car, but you can roam the whole city freely and kill pedestrians. I can’t believe how much I played this game when I was a kid. I can still kind of see what I saw in it, but only just.
Batman – Fantasic, even now. Or it would be if the save points were good for more than one use. Restarting gets tedious. But I was so pleased when I worked out how to get the boots so I could jump. I rock.
Nemesis The Warlock – Definitely not as good as I remember. At all. I think I just thought the bodies piling up were really cool when I fourteen. Is there even a second screen?
