Somewhere, somebody is having a giggle about that-

Played one more Anno 1701 scenario this morning.

The queen is crossing the ocea, to spend her vacation on her brother's island.
The brother is incompetend, and his city is all screwed up.
He asks for help : reconstruct/improve the city before the queen arrives.

This one made more sense than the previous one.

Except for the obvious question : where do the inhabitants come from?
Build houses, and they get populated automatically.
Since this happens a lot faster than the queen's crossing of the ocean, I see only one explaination : the settlers come from somewhere else... somewhere unspeakable.

I played an completed Call of Duty 4 yesterday. I quite enjoyed it, aside from a few minor niggles.

I installed COD4 the other day.

It crashed on first launch.
On second launch it offered a fail-safe mode, which I selected, and nothing happened.

I tried again, and gave up.

I guess I had a bad crack.
But... when did Razor1911 ever fail me? That team has already with me, since my early teenage years.
I refuse to believe that released a lame crack.
Must be a problem with the game, yes.

Then again, I'm pretty sure most people did not have that problem.
I guess it's a problem with my configuration.

Too bad, I really like the Call of Duty series.
Always likely to provide a few hours of immersive fun.

I didn't have any problems at all, but I played a retail copy.

I don't like Call of Duty enough to actually buy the game.
Especially with the added risk of the crash being caused by my setup, and not the nocd.

The games I buy are those that I intend to play online.
And I already have BF2142, ET:QW, HL2 -> more than I can play

been playing Chess a lot lately....

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
I don't like Call of Duty enough to actually buy the game.
Especially with the added risk of the crash being caused by my setup, and not the nocd.

The games I buy are those that I intend to play online.
And I already have BF2142, ET:QW, HL2 -> more than I can play

I didn't buy it either, I borrowed it off a friend.

I played some Hidden yesterday :
It's got some potential.
The 'invisible' player is indeed very hard to see.
That makes the whole business of tracking him very stressful, and also frustrating : the maps are designed so they contain a lot of hiding places for the Hidden (dark corners, steam vents, ceilings...).

It's definitely best played in small groups.


Played some more TF2 too :
It is still the best game ever.
I tried playing a spy, and managed to stab two enemies. But it's hard work, and it's so very tense... I'd rather stick to being a medic for now.

I also tried playing a heavy, and sucked at it...

Practice makes perfect.

Just more Re-Volt for me. I seem to be all about quick (both action and loading time) fun games these days. Any suggestions?

(heavily edited)


Two days ago :

One of the guys from work claims he saw an Assassin's Creed PC version.
I told him it wouldn't be released before 2008, and that I couldn't find a PC version on any P2P network.

He laughed and said he did.

I was puzzled...


I just asked him : he saw the game on sale in a shop. But it's a shop that always displays upcoming games, so people can pre-order them. He didn't know that, so he assumed the game was out.

quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:
I installed COD4 the other day.

It crashed on first launch.
On second launch it offered a fail-safe mode, which I selected, and nothing happened.

I tried again, and gave up.

I guess I had a bad crack.
But... when did Razor1911 ever fail me? That team has already with me, since my early teenage years.
I refuse to believe that released a lame crack.
Must be a problem with the game, yes.

Then again, I'm pretty sure most people did not have that problem.
I guess it's a problem with my configuration.

Too bad, I really like the Call of Duty series.
Always likely to provide a few hours of immersive fun.

Check for an updated crack. I don't remember if it was Razor1911 or another team that released a crack recently that was bad. A day later there was a "good" crack they released with their appoligies, and a thank you to all their rival teams who pointed out how much they suck lol.

quote:

and a thank you to all their rival teams who pointed out how much they suck lol.

I love it when crackers act all gentlemanly.
You gotta stick to the Pirate Code, you know...

Speaking of Assassin's Creed, I'm done. It was fun, but it had a hell of a cliff-hanger ending. My biggest complaint would be that they could have used a few more mission types. There's basically:

- Pickpocketing
- Informants (usually you have to kill a couple of his enemies to get him to cough up info)
- Inquisitions (or something like that? you have to beat him up when there are no guards around)
- Evesdropping

Informants are the most fun & challenging, but it would have been cool to maybe seen more variations. Thefts or something--maybe you have to sneak into the palace unseen and enter a guarded room and get a document, etc. Or maybe one-offs, like an Informant who wants you to catch his cat which has escaped (pitting your mad parkour skillz against those of a cat) or maybe deliver a message across town before a certain time.

At any rate, I'm selling it to a buddy for $30 and for $30 each, I think we'll both feel pretty good about the $$$ to entertainment ratio.

quote:

Originally posted by heavyboots:
Speaking of Assassin's Creed, I'm done. It was fun, but it had a hell of a cliff-hanger ending. My biggest complaint would be that they could have used a few more mission types. There's basically:

- Pickpocketing
- Informants (usually you have to kill a couple of his enemies to get him to cough up info)
- Inquisitions (or something like that? you have to beat him up when there are no guards around)
- Evesdropping

Informants are the most fun & challenging, but it would have been cool to maybe seen more variations. Thefts or something--maybe you have to sneak into the palace unseen and enter a guarded room and get a document, etc. Or maybe one-offs, like an Informant who wants you to catch his cat which has escaped (pitting your mad parkour skillz against those of a cat) or maybe deliver a message across town before a certain time.

At any rate, I'm selling it to a buddy for $30 and for $30 each, I think we'll both feel pretty good about the $$$ to entertainment ratio.

I heard it had some sci-fi thing going on, was that cool?

Dear WGB'ers
All you gamers out there, here be an "Interfering Bitch From Hell question". How do y'all feel about moderation?
I ask this in regards to being a single parent with a fourteen-year-old son who became enamored of the game Halo 1 this.
Past year.
My folks initially bought him the game Myst that he would play on their computer when he would go over to spend the night, by and large he has pretty good self control, he would play a few hours once or twice a week with some pockets of excess. The Myst and Revelations games were recently followed by Halo this past year. He is "Over the moon" enamored of the Halo games, and most of his experience has been garnered on-line, using the Apple computer and really enjoying the exchange.
In the past I have not let "Games" into the house, much in same manner you don't let your kids smoke, (yeah, burn in hell I know.) I preferred to see him use that time for reading, playing music, sports and the like.
Two years ago he had a serious eye injury that resulted in his having to give up sports for a while, had to quit playing the Saxaphone for a year (Eye pressure and the like). Last year he asked me from a post op haze (fourteen surgeries later, and milking it baby!) "Hey Mom, could we revisit the whole "no games discussion?"
Well, hell yes. So here is the deal, he is a straight A student, reads a lot books, and has varied and excellent taste in what he reads. He plays music several hours a week, he runs cross-country, races 5k, is fit and healthy. He is socially very comfortable with people. So all in all, great kid, no worries.
Here is the rub.
His sister gave him an Xbox 360 with Halo Three for his fifteenth birthday, he is in heaven with this thing, and I can see it taking over the world, his world, and with sad certainty his conversational topics.
My question to you all (You pack of game playing WOLVES). Do any of you have kids? Do you put limits on how much they play? This is uncharted territory for us. I can see it is important to him, I can see he is good at it, (the game thing.) I suspect that he may "need" to live and breathe it for a while. What works for you guys? Has anyone got some feed back for me on this topic? I need help understanding the import of this foreign world. I have no map for these territories shall we say. [Braces self]
Signed, Sincerely,Burning Mom.

Gaming is just like everything else he might become interested in... just let him discover it, try it, and see how it goes.

If he is smart and genuinly enjoys the activities he has been doing up to now (the music, the reading, the sports) i don't think he'll be looking to drop any of those because of the gaming. He'll likely find some balance between them all and gaming (maybe play games on times he'd otherwise just sit in front of the tv).

So i'd say, let him at it and see how he does. There'll be a period where having a console will be all new and exciting, so he'll want to play a lot. But after a month or so it should settle down.

I wouldn't moderate him beside the usual stuff: make sure he doesn't stay up too late, make sure he does his work for school and doesn't miss any appointements he might have for sports or music. Only if you notice that he really can't switch off the thing, then you should lay down the rules for him.

oh, and no i don't have any kids myself... i'm just sort of thinking what of what i'd do.

(I had typed a very long and very personal post, but I've reconsidered : shorter is better.)

If he's a healthy intelligent kid, he will stay so.

Video games are a lot of fun and can sometimes take a lot of time.
Of course, he's bound to talk about them : the stories and experiences we get from video games are shared by all other gamers. And sometimes, they're as thrilling as any other media.

Video games are not a bottomless pit where people drown.
Any game gets boring after a while.
Some people do get addicted, but they're the same as those who get addicted to gambling, or whatever.... it's a personality disorder, and it would come up, even without video games.

Let him play.
Keep reminding him of all the other stuff he could be doing.
But don't be too heavy on that : you don't want video games to become his statement against you during his teenage crisis.

Since you don't know much about video games, there's a good chance he sees them as a way to separate himself from you.

Finally, don't be too sad about his world being taken over by gaming : he will come to realize that gaming discussions are nerdy and bore 'outsiders' to death.
He will also find out that the best stories can be found in books.

I know what I'm talking about :
I spent my Sunday morning playing computer games.
I'm 25, and I think I'm healthy.



I don't know if any of that made sense or helped...

Oh, and I don't have kids : I'm talking about my own experience.

Restrictions on gaming frustrated me a lot.
I sincerely think I wouldn't be this awkward with my parents now, if they hadn't tried to control something they didn't know anything about.