Careful with this Steam

(tags game, Windows, Steam, Unreal Tournament, puzzle)

The end of the year Steam sale has me filling up my cart... but I haven't checked out and purchased. Yes I wanna buy more games, virtually even.

I fixed my problem with buying stuff through my Steam Client. It turns out that my overzealous security settings in Internet Explorer 7 were blocking the Steam's Store from recording my additions to the Cart. Now I can keep stuff in my cart while shopping! huh.

So I want to get the ID super pack, the Unreal Pack, the PopCap games, and one indie game:

I've already experienced much of ID. Unreal stuff goes without saying. My mom had lots of fun with the PopCap series. She demoed Peggle to me. Also I really liked my time with Bejeweled 2 and Insane-aquarium (sp?) which I previously bought for my now dormant Sony Palm Clie. Finally I wanna try out either World of Goo or Aquaria. The World of Goo was declared contender for Game of the Year by Coding Horror's star programmer and extreme gaming enthusiast Jeff Atwood, so it deserves a look.

In total, I'm looking at USD 150.00. That's a lot for things that doesn't have a real physical presence. But I really like the convenience of Steam. I recently confirmed that the games are tied to my ability to log in, not just to a specific computer. I can move around with freedom and sponteniety. I can play the low-performance games on my laptop, then switch to higher-performance desktop to play the FPSs.

But I still haven't purchased. I've got till January 2 to decide, right?

Finally I've been looking at Good Old Games for their DRM-free selections. Steam is good, but still DRM-laden. Currently GOG's selection is paltry, but there were able to snag Unreal Tournament and also Fallout 1 and 2, so they are worth watching. Hope still burns for Sinistar Unleashed, hint hint hint.

Fun gaming (or maybe not)

(tags game, Unreal Tournament, Ketsui, Kumatan, Xbox 360, Dual Screen)

I am just having a blast playing the Unreal Tournament 3 on the Xbox 360. Sure I miss the keyboard and mouse controls, but the analog joystick controller is way fun all the same. I'm still an offline gamer playing bots in Team Deathmatch. I discovered the Kill Slow Time mutator, which slows time down Matrix style after you get a kill. I am surprised how fun it makes the game.

And I'm still playing Ketsui. Even on the bus, but I get mad at the bus driver for actually moving the bus while I'm trying to squeeze through a danmaku gap. The game says 7 hours in, and I've uncovered probably a little more than 70 panels out of 110. I still die readily on the Very Hard difficulty, but I suprise myself sometimes by going through a boss battle or two without a scratch. I guess I'm figuring out the boss patterns subliminally.

One guy at the new forum I'm frequenting, Gaijin Gamers, told me that Breakdown had the first person gimmick down way before Mirror's Edge, so I nabbed a copy of this Xbox 1 game. After half an hour I didn't feel much of pull towards this game. The environment feels so static and the gameplay feels a little too formulaic. Not very fun.

Kumatan still makes me smile. But I noticed I need to at least play this game two times a day to maintain my "totemo suki" love level.

Welcome to before Mirror's Edge

(tags game, Kumatanchi, Ketsui, Unreal Tournament, Tiger Woods, golf, Mirror's Edge, Dual Screen, Xbox 360)

Portable gaming and Xbox gaming, and even PC gaming. Can he stop?!?

Ketsui DS rewarded me for playing 5 recorded hours. All of the videos for the "Welcome to Special Round" second loop clear for the second ship have been uncovered, but I have at least 40 panels out of 110 to uncover. This game is winding down for me, but I still love the feel of trying to avoid all the bullets. It's just impossible for me.

I'm still playing Kumatanchi. About a week ago I thought I was done, but there was one more furniture set revealed called "Future" (未来). And the prices were from the future, fully inflated. :-/ This game is getting long in the tooth, but I love how Kumatan smiles. Plus I don't think I uncovered all of the drama bits. One good thing is that Sumomo is now inviting me to her place, ha ha. Words only.

Xbox 360 is getting some love. According to my records, I've picked up at least 5 games for it in the last month! The latest conquest is Unreal Tournament 3 for cheep. It was fun to play it on the controller actually at a Sofmap demo unit. Of course, I was only playing Team DM with Experienced bots in Deck 16. Sweet Deck 16.

And my trend to getting the Tiger Woods continues. I got the 2006 version, thinking I was done, but then the game I was playing was the 2009 version. I found the 2008 version and I bought that one cheep as well. 2008 is graphically improved, but it's so hard to improve my career stats. Argh!

And yes I did try the Mirror's Edge demo game. I want more! But, I was let down. You know that first part where you jump off the billboard onto the crane in demo movie mode? That was my first let down. Tell me that you have to actually do in game some time, instead of watching her do it automatically. That would be pretty wicked sick.

Hero worship d00d huge

(tags game, design, creator, Unreal Tournament, Gears of War)

I don't know why Cliff Bleszinski is called Dude Huge by the Kotaku's editor. Maybe it's just a reaction from the man trying to disassociate himself from his old nickname CliffyB. Anyways, The New Yorker had a wordy interview with the Gears of War designer and long-time Epic Games employee. It's a pretty good read, even if I didn't get all the references. I always liked the man, especially when he introduced Gears of War with references to the old Bionic Commando.

At least my personal programming hero Tim Sweeney gets a line or two in, even though the spotlight is focused on Bleszinski. And yes, Unreal Tournament gets a mention, but only as "an uninspired but popular game". WTF, oh okay, so my vapid entertainment is uninspired. *fume* :-)

The last take-away quote was pretty good.

"You tell people what you do for a living," Bleszinski said later, "and they’re like, 'Oh, you play video games for a living.' No, I play a game that’s not as fun as it should be, that’s broken, until it’s no longer broken. Then I give it to other people to have fun with."

Great!

Eee PC and Unreal Tournament (1)

(tags game, Windows, Unreal Tournament)

My Project "Tama" is a Asus EeePC. (I'm going to keep backwards-introducing this computer I suspect.) A couple of days ago I tried out Doom. Now I have tried out Unreal Tournament 1. In a word, sweet. Except the space bar as jump is ass, because I hit the touchpad and that messes my aim. Still getting some Shock Arena on 31 bots all on a laptop is pretty sweet.

Region this: Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

(tags game, Xbox 1, Unreal Tournament, GTA, Xbox 360)

On a whim I bought Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict. Oh that was last year.

On a whim I bought Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict today at Sofmap for 780 yens. Yes this is my second copy, and no I didn't forget about the first. It's just more convenient to get this one that digging through my cave. (!)

This software was marked as "overseas version" (duh), and I was under the impression that "overseas" Xbox 1 games are not playable on Xbox 360 JP. But I bet with my money and came away a winner. Yes I will accept the update to this game.

I played the single player campaign for about 45 minutes. The controls fit the Xbox 360 perfectly, but aiming is still like painting a Seurat with bricks. I like how the first levels bots sound just like those breathy heavy armor robots from UT2004. Graphics aren't too bad, but the screen is all letter-boxed, which skews the ratios.

Oh, and today I also bought Grand Theft Auto 4 for 4000 yen new. I might as well get this English version while there is still some stock sitting on the shelves and there is a lull in interest.

Purchase or not? Epic on Steam, Echochrome, Bangai-O Spirits

(tags game, Unreal Tournament, download, PlayStation Portable, Echochrome)

I said I would buy Unreal Tournament on Steam. Well according to Joystiq and Steam's official press release, I may have to follow through. Epic's Unreal series on Steam for about USD 60.00. I think it's pretty convenient. Well I do have all of these games on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM though. And I haven't been playing them in a long while.

But look, the yen is strengthening against the dollar. 99 JPY to 1 USD! Japan is feeling the pinch.

And Echochrome (無限回廊) (PSP) is out today. But I just realized I probably need a new PSP if I want to keep the old ones at their respective firmware versions. Definately I would like to get the lavender color. I'm still not done with Contra though.

But I am not swayed from Bangai-O Spirits. That's coming home with me.

Extracting the rest of the fun out of Unreal Tournament 3

(tags game, Unreal Tournament, FPS, failure, programming, quotation)

Well Saturday afternoon was altogether a disappointment on the Unreal Tournament 3 front. I can't play UT3 and have fun at the same time because of my slow computer Project Sugar. For example, on the first campaign map, which is just one-on-one deathmatch with your character's sister "Jester", my computer freezes then revives then freezes, in about 2 minute intervals. If I turn off the ATI video card "VPU Crash Utility", I can complete the map but with these painful 30 second black screen interruptions. :-( Never mind that the graphics are rendered at 320x200 with double-sizing and the mouse feels laggy. At least I can log in with my "CD-KEY" so its not pre-h4XX0r'd.

So I decided to see what else I can do. I ran the Credits, probably the last thing I would do if ever. Now I know why the install directory is 6+ GB. There's pictures of all the developer and artists in there. Heh.

Tim Sweeney: "It is easier to change the world than to adapt to it."

Tim Sweeney is one of my personal programmer heros. I would personally rank him over John Carmack because the former is frequently thinking about higher-level programming idioms as well as making game engines. Well it's my humble opinion that making programming easier for people has more priority than tuning to the machine. Maybe this is an ivory tower versus everyman battle, since John Carmack is also very inspirational with his code-for-all open-source stance.

I was a bit surprised with his low-key presence in UT3. Then again he's reportedly off in the clouds thinking about the next game engine, Unreal Engine 4.

Instead of thanking his support, Sweeney chose to be inspiring. This seems to be a rephrasing of a George Bernard Shaw quote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man." Go progress!

Cliff Bleszinski: "Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."

Cliff Bleszinski is also one of my heroes, not just because we share first names. He's a gamer turned game dev and is really good at map flow, speeches and hyping. But I don't know if he programs or what. I do know he's pretty artistic with his CliffyB's Ownage Map selections from UT99 and UT2004 (sadly dead link?). His quote is acutally directly lifted from H.L. Mencken. I still wonder why Mencken said that originally.

In any case, UT3 will be sitting on my hard drive unused. And, no I can't extract the music because its locked up. Looks like I'll have to buy the soundtrack. Whoa, this site has all the soundtracks I have been wanting recently, Halo 3, UT3, and Mass Effect.

The only fun I'll have: Installing Unreal Tournament 3

(tags game, Windows, FPS, Unreal Tournament)

I was surprised again when just this morning my Unreal Tournament 3 Collectors Edition box came. I payed by bank transfer yesterday at 1300. Then again the shop is based in the Kinki region.

The back is mainly in English with some French. Then again there's a ESRB label. Whoa it looks scratched up. And I open it but the "tin case" is dented in some areas grumble grumble. And what's this? The case has places to put the discs, but the three discs are in paper sleeves. Um. Is this copy pre-h4XXor'd? :-/

So I started installing about 40 minutes ago and it's still going. Language selections that remind me of a Euro release. Let's see if my DVD key works. :-/

SystemRescueCD got my back, Unreal Tournament 3 runs but...

(tags game, Windows, Linux, Unreal Tournament)

I had to download Unreal Tournament 3 twice, and then re-verify it with a torrent before the installer ran. Huh. Then the installer said I didn't have enough space to install. Well I knew that going in so that was my fault.

My back was to the wall so I transferred the contents my boot drive from the ol' original 120 GiB (from 2004) to a newer 300 GiB (2007) hard drive. I have a really dumb partition scheme. It is 1 GB for an empty C:, 20 GB for D: (boot), and 90 GB for the program install partition F:. I want to get rid off F:. I used SystemRescueCD 0.4, which is really useful. The copy command was dd with options "if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sde conv=noerror,sync". I did the partition resizing with GParted, which was to extend the extended partition containing D: and F:, move the F: to the right, and expand the D: partition fully.

I can't believe I haven't yet re-installed Windows XP, even after 3 years of use. Well maybe I'm used to the sluggishness? The Program Files is really crufty. :)

So after 3 hours of dd and 6 hours of gparted and 30 minutes of Windows XP at-boot chkdsk, I finally was able to install UT3. It runs. :) It looks terrible and stutters. :( My rig barely meets minimum requirements. The menu screen seemed to be false colored! Imagine VGA resolution, with 50% effective size (320 by 240 effective rendering?!?) and texture detail 1 and world detail 1. Its torture. Anyway, it feels like 20 fps or 30 fps at spurts but looks so so pixelated and murky. Due to the visual and input stuttering, advanced shock rifling is out of the question. In fact, I haven't even played one complete Deathmatch game. I'm still tweaking, believing that its not finding my hardware acceleration card. I suppose I'm in denial. The game crashes and the ATi software says it had to reset the graphics card so I suppose it is using it. :-(

Well I am disappointed, but I'm not going to fix the problem. I'm so satisfied with FPS/TPS gaming on my Xbox 360 that I don't think I'll upgrade my PC this year. Heck I have at least 3 games I want to finish on the Xbox and countless more on the PS2, et al. And the PC version of UT3 I will buy but install it for the OGG music. Music is kewl.

Let's get los, Let's get los: Unreal Tournament 3 Demo

(tags game, Unreal Tournament, FPS)

OMG the Unreal Tournament 3 demo came out!!!!

I am downloading this 750+ MB file as we speak!

But its taking an hour to download so let's watch Angry German Kid to get me in the mood.

Viewing (and hearing) Unreal Tournament 3

(tags game, Unreal Tournament, FPS, Windows)

Gaming right now consists of Halo 3 on Legendary and Rubik's Cube "speedcubing" (pretender status, though). But on the blog front its all Unreal Tournament 3 anticipation. The next front is figuring out the specs. GameLife seems to have some info, but "citation, please?"!

I barely meet the minimum requirements. I need to free some HDD space, ha.

What is a ATI Radeon 9600+ video card? DXDIAG.EXE on Project Sugar shows my old dependable ATI Radeon 9600 Series AGP video card (whoa this card's tech is almost 4 years old!). Does this mean I can "enter" the Tournament? It probably means I am all ready for the slide show. Heh.

No specs confirmation at the official site, but they had some great mixes of the UT franchise music. "Mech B Mix", "Go Down Mix" are my favorites, but there is representative Onslaught music from UT2004 as well. Frankly it just sounds like they added more instruments and put more percussion, but I put away my critical ear and just bob my head all the same. I hope these tunes are a format that I can put in my music player, and past trends show Epic not locking down on that (UT99 == .MOD, UT2k3,4 == OGG).

I doubt I can play Unreal Tournament 3 but money can be parted

(tags game, Unreal Tournament, Windows)

Nothing has been announced about the specs, but I salivate for the Collector's Edition of Unreal Tournament III in a tin case with extra DVD and artbook (as reported by GameSpot UK). And the Tokyo Game Show report of the demo play on the PS3 sounds enticing. 2007/11/19.

I tried looking at my go-to importer GDEX but they don't mention any limited edition I am ordering right now! :-)

I remember buying Unreal Tournament 2004 from them and I got a free strategy guide, not that I needed it but still.

:-(

I just remembered I won't be able to run this game. My video card is too old.

Team DM, 32 inhuman bots, Shock Arena, DM-Pah

(tags game, FPS, Unreal Tournament)

I must also mention I'm passing the time playing Team Deathmatch in Unreal Tournament (1999). I really can't wait for Halo 3. The Halo series has that reload sequence and rifle butting that I just can't get enough of, and as an alterative, there is Half-Life 2, which I still haven't finished. But the Touhou this weekend reminded me that I wanted quick "arcade" action that makes me feel good about myself.

So there it is: Team Deathmatch, 32 inhuman bots, with mutator Shock Rifle, and starting off with map DM-Pah by David Münnich.

The rest of my Team DM map list:

• DM-Deck16][
• DM-Distinctive
• DM-Morbias][
• DM-Malevolence
• DM-Nitro

My team almost always wins, and sometimes I even get the most frags. Yea me.

I notice that on some of the maps, the bots congregate in specific areas and don't move around. This is sad from an action perspective but barrel-o-monkeys fun. (Ducks in a barrel, doofus). Come on, shock rifle makes lots of gibs. I like it. I also love the first spawning on some maps. 32 bots == telefragging and missed First Blood opportunities.