Shot across the bow: Steam vs GoG

(tags online, game, Windows)

Obviously Steam and GoG, who both sell games for download, are in competition with each other, but it has never been more clear than this weekend's deals.

GoG offers for the first time Prince of Persia Sands of Time, Beyond Good and Evil, IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 this weekend, at USD 9.99 each. I got the mail directly from GoG.

Then I learn later through Kotaku that Steam is offering BG&E, IL-2 Sturmovik and Farcry for USD 9.99 combined. (The other game, Dark Messiah Might and Magic is not available in my region!) It's just for the weekend though, but that's enough.

Which one do I like better? Obviously the Steam deal is compelling, since I want to play BG&E and IL-2 Sturmovik (probably with my Xbox controller just for the latter.) But GoG is totally DRM-free, and I can download again anytime I want, working on multiple computers.

Except games for me now are a play-once affair. I rarely get nostalgic about games. I'm currently thinking of going with Steam since it's the same level of convenience and cheaper. I'll think it over one more day though.

However, does this mean that whenever GoG gets a deal just to publish, Steam will try to cover the deal in response? This will be interesting.

Plans foiled again by blogging and the Internet

(tags game, book, Xbox 360, Trusty Bell, windows, English, failure)

I was going to relax by:

1. Playing some Trusty Bell (Eternal Sonata) on my Xbox 360
2. Finish up Shukufuku no Canpanella on my PC
3. Read some English fiction book, The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks

but, no, I had to blog and read up on my RSS feeds and auctions and the like.

BTW, Trusty Bell looks really beautiful. Vibrant colors and cell shading. I can't yet evaluate the game mechanics but at least it's not a menu fighter. And Aya Hirano (平野綾) as the main voice actress, ugh. Wait, no ugh, I need to just listen to her acting, not her.

You almost me had me there, Hello Kitty Online

(tags game, MMORPG, Hello Kitty, Windows)

Just two days ago I bought some Hello Kitty postcards at the post office. On the same day I learned that Hello Kitty Online was opening up their system for free, in time for Valentine's Day. (Thanks Kotaku) It's for stress testing the servers. 

I was going to give it a try for some reason. I don't know, my safety overrides were disabled or something. But I luckily balked at the client install size. 1.3 GB. If that's all graphics, nice, but there's no free space on my netbook anymore arrgh! ;-) Actually the shock had me thinking that I wouldn't play this game for long... It's like The Sims, and I don't actively play a game like that, now or in this lifetime.

Whew, I was almost snared. Let me not forget the plans I have coming up.

One expensive CD single: Mirror's Edge PC

(tags Mirror's Edge, game, Windows, music)

I failed to get the "Still Alive - Remixes" CD back in November. As for the PC version, since I was hyping it up to my PhysEngine-hugging pal, he actually broke down and purchased it (after throwing the controller when playing the Xbox 360 demo version). I think he's just starved to get some game that works with his fairly new graphics/physics card. Ha ha.

I also took a look at it in the shop, and was taken away by the words "特典 ミュージックCD" (Bonus Music CD). Of course.

The CD single must be the same thing that I wanted, and is now being sold for 4000 yen domestically or cheaper overseas. Aah. I'm still alive.

Big Kudo fan(s)

(tags game, goods, Little Busters, Windows, Kudo-tan)

Today was my first day of 2009 to visit Nipponbashi Den Den Town. It was pretty crowded with the people walking around holding tree branches with gold coins hanging from them. According to my fruitful web searches, the local Imamiya Ebisu Jinjya holds the "Tokaebisu" (festival?) from January 9 through 11.

But anyway, I checked up on lots of Comic Market goods, just like I did last year. Except this time I'm not so enthusiastic (crazy) with opening the wallet. Yeah, right, this blog post is proof of the weak will. I will save CM related stuff for another post.

So, yeah, Noumi Kudryavka from Little Busters (リテルバスタース！). I enthusiastically grabbed the Sofmap exclusive telephone card months back. Since then I've been slowly accumulating goods. Just recently I found the Gee Store in Nipponbashi/Den Den Town. Funny that a branch of this store used to be at Gamers Sannomiya (Kobe) but it closed probably because Kobe isn't so profitable. They have a lot of nice goods. Nice:

These are regular Japanese style fans with (our?) my favorite mascot, Kudo-tan. It no longer seems to be available at Amazon, so it must be selling well. Except at the Gee-Store, where there are tons. As shown, I have already pinned to my kitchen wall. 

Kudo-tan saying "Wahoo" just gives me enough pep to keep on practicing cooking. Actually these two fans take the place of my years-old De Ji Charat fan.

But that's not all. Gee-Store has a bunch of other stuff not available at my regular proving grounds such as Gamers and Tora no Ana. That's probably because they make the goods themselves, and don't bother to send it to other stores.

Okay, I wasn't planning on buying the sports towel (shown on the right). But after spending more than 5000 yen on a bunch of (Little Busters) stuff, I received this free A4 sized clear holder (shown in the middle). I did want to get the cheaper shirt design but all they have left was XL size. I'm an M, really.

Truly though, this is a losing battle. The same couple of illustrations are posted onto mug cups, sports towels, shirts, hug pillows, trading cards, mouse pads, hankerchiefs, bath posters, frisbees (!), etc etc. I am sure to be bored. Then again, I haven't swapped out my 2003 Salvador Dali calendar. Perhaps newness is not important to me?

So yes, I actually bought the Little Busters! game (the EX version) but I am not making much progress in this voice-over fighter. I fear that hearing Kudo-tan's seiyuu voice will destroy the infatuation. And there is some infatuation left, see my other Kudo-tan posts (one more coming up).

Diadra Empty music

(tags game, Windows, shmup, Diadra Empty)

The Diadra Empty music is pretty wicked sick. And no, it's not like RayStorm, but more like Psyvariar. Sweet sweet.

I beat the game on normal. The Credits roll show who did the music.

It turns out that the stage music comes from Baby You Can Tell On Me and sentive.net. The latter had some free music to give out. The former has the music in MIDI form. Uh, right.

The others are http://pianodauge.org , http://iconoclasm.info , and something fermate but I'm kinda sleepy now.

Diadra Empty... what is going on?

(tags game, Windows, doujin, shmup)

Just today at Tora no Ana I bought this doujin shmup game called Diadra Empty (ディアドラエンプティ). It's made by a circle called frozenorb (ふろーずんおーぶ) and released back in 2008-06 in time for Comic Market 74. The package had some nice colorful graphics like this cover art. (this is not in game)

The back also showed some really cool danmaku bullets. Check out the sample game play video. There's an easy to read web page at doujinshop.com. For 1800 yen I gave it a spin. 

My old Sega Saturn style USB pad was ready from the get go. First off, this game plays like a modern style Defender, complete with a radar sub view and push button to lock shooting direction. Except there seems to be millions of bullets on the field. I don't understand what will kill my avatar though, because I seem to be able to bump through the whole danmaku barrage without a scratch. This has very lenient shields, which even regenerate automatically.

The background gradients are very pretty, but the foreground sprites don't make much sense. The enemy bullets are really colorful though. Lock on slow lasers chasing you around the screen, millions of dumb bullets flying around. The background scrolls independent from your avatar's movement, so I get confused easily. Frames per second isn't rock solid, at first with 60 FPS, but when the storm comes in, I barely get 15 FPS.

There is an RPG element to it, where you have to power up. Sadly the actually power up only occurs between stages. You have to collect coins, which means getting in close to the enemies to suck up their death release. I was able to collect 4 Gradius chase style Options.

I got up to level 8 which seems to be the last level because it was crazy long with crazy bosses. I couldn't beat the "emerald orb" which shot out some screen covering homing lasers. Crazy.

The music is really good though. It kinda reminds me of RayStorm.

Unfortunately it's really buggy. The game freezes without saving my progress. I am irate, because part of the game's powerups are unlocked as I proceed, supposedly. I checked out the web page and it seems I have to apply a patch. It's not very clear. Plus the patch adds two more EXE files, also unclear. The patch was password protected, wut.

I'll give it another try, because the patch finally allows me to go to the config screen without crashing (!). Perhaps it will unlock some more of the game's powerups. Heck I want to lend it to a friend so that I can compare experiences.

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.

Mirror's Edge PC version has more flying stuff

(tags game, Windows, PC, Mirror's Edge)

Mirror's Edge seems to look better on Windows with the PhysX Engine visual tech. There's an official side-by-side video comparison. Now that I've seen it, the Xbox 360 version seems lacking. Well, only just a little bit. But there is that part where you're on the scaffolds and having the cloth/tarp just fly up from gunfire looks pretty killer.

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.

No longer a game PC: Touhou Chireiden

(tags game, Windows, shmup, Touhou, failure)

So I got my copy of the latest Zun / Shanghai Alice "Touhou" series shmup, 東方地霊殿　～ Subterranean Animism (Touhou Chireiden: Subterranean Animism). A fresh store copy, not a copy from Comic Market 74 a month ago. Install and play. Or try to and fail, because my pad does not work. I try a bunch of stuff, including downloading the latest DirectX, but I finally fix it by making the pad the preferred device "for use with older programs". Oh.

I get my ass handed to me on level 2, normal. No stick control. I'm a gonna turn in.

Serve up my Xbox video: TVersity

(tags video, Xbox 360, Windows, anime)

I've already tried out the Windows Media Player 11 method for streaming media from my Windows XP to my Xbox 360. It works, however I didn't like having WMP11 running in the background. So intrigued by the recent Lifehacker roundup post about doing more with the Xbox, I tried out TVersity.

Actually TVersity works somewhat like WMP11, where you have to add your media to TVersity's database and start the server. But TVersity works better for me because its easier to start and stop the server. Plus its more open in its functionality, however I have not tried stuff like the Internet Media and Media RSS feeds. I still do the old fashion method of auto-BitTorrenting off of RSS feeds, so all my media is on my HDD. At least I have a custom-made client-side filter proxy, made with FeedTools, for the RSS feeds so I don't download "Naruto".

One niggling thing though is that browsing on the Xbox 360 by "Folders" does not all show all the media. I think it's an Xbox 360 problem. The workaround is to tag the videos as they are added by folder import. It's kinda lame but it works. I need to figure out how to meta-tag the videos themselves. I know all about tagging MP3s but videos stupify me.

So I've been watching stuff through my Xbox 360. I almost finished Amatsuki (あまつき), some almost Boy's Life 18th century Japan anime that has seiyuu Romi Park (朴璐美) and Jun Fukuyama (福山潤). These are the same two seiyuu I was falling over back in Princess Princess. This time though, Park actually plays a woman, great. Fukuyama is at it again with his silky voice.

And now I'm running Kurenai (紅). This one is interesting because of Miyuki Sawashiro (沢城みゆき) "manning" the lead character, and Minami Kuribayashi (栗林みな実) singing the OP. There's also the whole loli aspect which I can't deny. The lead character, Kurenai, lives in the fifth room of some apartment, while his neighbor in the 6th room is pretty hot and worldly, while his other neighbor in the 4th room is very mysterious. This kinda setup reminds me of Maison Ikkoku (めぞん一刻), but only in reference. Also Ryoko Shintani (新谷良子), who I was crapping on for her dire Soul Calibur 4's "Xianghua" voice, is singing the ending theme (and also voices a character). I was surprised that I like her singing voice. Did she get better somehow? Because the last time I saw some of her old CDs in the bargain bins, meh factor 6.

Get rid of dusty game boxes?

(tags game, Windows, Starcraft)

Since I am feeling like I will never play GTA Vice City ever again (wait, play the taxi game, then let go), I feel the need to get rid of the box it came in. Darn you Steam and your region tendancies. Then again, I have all the GTAs for the PC, in nice small DVD like sized boxes. Nice set.

Blizzard recently started its own digital download service (thanks Kotaku). I wish they started it earlier. It's not easy to obtain Starcraft in Japan. In the end I had to buy it during my trip in the States. Anyways, the online store's first release includes Warcraft III and StarCraft. I would buy Warcraft II if they had it. That was the only game on my old Mac laptop that fondly recall playing.

Anyways, they also allow registering your CD based serial key, and from then on you won't need to use your discs anymore. I have two keys since I got the game for USD 10 each. I'll try registering one to see if it's Steam-like.

Just a couple of weeks: Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Ubuntu 8.04

(tags Windows, patch, security)

I am dreading this Windows XP Service Pack 3. Well, I am up to date on my Windows Updates, but Service Packs always break something, maybe not on my computer but still. Then I learned that the "Release to Web" version (for hobbyists like me) is currently delayed, because of a compatibility issue with another Microsoft product! Well, okay. I heard there are very little new features. The UI change about removing the search bar in the task bar doesn't affect or annoy me. There seems to be a better version of Remote Desktop Client.

Following this issue in various forums, I came across a recommendation to run Securnia's program version checker, called Secunia PSI. Secunia seems to get some Slashdot play as the place to learn about current specific security threats, so I was surprised to find out they make security software as well.

Oh wait, didn't Ubuntu come out with another Long Term Support release recently? "Hardy Heron". Fire up the torrents... No wait, isn't it just "sudo aptitude dist-upgrade"? Ugh, read "General Upgrade Information".

Still waiting for the Famitsu review: Grand Theft Auto IV, Vice City

(tags game, Grand Theft Auto, Windows)

The condensed meta-review of Grand Theft Auto IV by Kotaku and the perfect 100 picture from Metacritic distills the hype. Yes I want to play this game, but not enough to go to an importer and buy it. Perhaps if Famitsu reviewed it and it got a 40, I would consider it. I'm just saying that to get it off my mind. ;-)

I'm currently I'm trying to ignore it with Vice City. But Vice City isn't so great. I got past the previously mentioned hurdle but now I don't know what to do. I mean, the obvious story-pushing events don't seem to show up on my map no more. Sure I could start buying up properties but I still fear that would make me a dead man on the streets. I already get that kind of reception in Little Havana. And the sky is so blue. It's like Duck Hunt blue, its so annoying.

That said, this PC gaming with Vice City makes me put off my ideas to upgrade my PC. It's been four years since Project Sugar, and it is still serving me well (knock on wood).

I hope I have enough stamina to finish this so I can jump to San Andreas.

Can't make it as a thug

(tags Grand Theft Auto, game, Windows)

Uh oh, GTA Vice City is getting difficult. There's the part where you buy properties, kinda like Monopoly, but it unlocks missions. The costlier the land, the harder the mission. I didn't know that at first. I bought most expensive one first, and then tried to pass the mission like a bunch of times, but with BUSTED FAIL or WASTED FAIL.

So I've been lowering my purchases and trying them out. Maybe I should buy all the cheap shops first.

I yearn to sandbox: Grand Theft Auto Vice City

(tags game, Windows, Grand Theft Auto)

Some of the coverage on the latest Grand Theft Auto game, GTA 4, pulls me back to my mini-game taxi driving fun. Then I remembered I haven't completed GTA 3, or installed Vice City or San Andreas. My exursion into GTA 3 was probably cut down because I did the side missions at the same time as main story, which made some areas of the map very hard to traverse. I think I stopped when the third part of the world opened up. I have the game saves backed up somewhere.

Anyway, I probably have 5 years of game-time entertainment yet unlocked in my room, so I decided to chip away at that, starting with GTA Vice City.

At first, I mistakenly thought that GTA was available on Steam. I did a search inside of the Steam client but nothing showed up. While writing this post, I searched the Internet again but was surprised that "Rockstar Catalog Hits Steam" (2008-01-04), etc, but not available here. So is it purchase region locked on Steam? :-(

I am surprised at myself that the first thing I thought of was Steam, when I already have the PC version. Guess I am totally lazy. I installed this two CD-ROM set. It's been a long time since I've put a "Play" disc in my PC and already I want a no-cd for this one.

I am now 9 missions complete. I set the graphics to 1024 x 768 x 32, and its no problem. Then again this game was made in 2003. The controls are jittery sometimes. I hate my PC gaming because of this type of stuttering. Disabling some noisy gadgets like my wallpaper changer helped. Still, here I am IRC-ing, running Ubuntu on a VMWare on my other monitor, downloading torrents, and playing this 3d game on my primary. PCs have power, heh.

I like the voice acting in this series. Actually I've been English starved for a while, but still these lines don't seem over-the-top.

Okay, I'm going to try to finish this game, really.

Xbox 360 Joystick with nice polygons

(tags game, hardware, Xbox 360, joystick, Windows)

I won an auction recently for the Xbox 360 Hori Dead or Alive 4 edition joystick. I was lucky to get it for less than 1_0000 yen. It's probably because the seller had only 2 seller ratings (of course, 0 bad seller ratings). I got it last Thursday during the Spring Day holiday. If I had lost the auction, I would have gone to Play Asia and just import the no-poly-chick version.

I don't think I've handled the Xbox 360 version of a Hori joystick before, but I do have the Hori Real Action Pro "Special Edition" for the PS2. They feel the same, or more like, I fumble through the motions. I'm just not good with joysticks. The dead zone for this joystick doesn't feel so great, but perhaps its just me.

The first game I thought about to try it out was Omega Five. But that was a mistake because it's an analog joystick affair. I guess I'm too lazy to switch discs. So I brought out the Dead Or Alive 4 and it controls like I expected. I then tried out Shikigami No Shiro 3, and remapped the buttons to the bottom row, and there was no problem. I was able to weave and stick with some dexerity.

Since its a USB, I tried it out on my Windows PC. The Charge and Play kit driver was already installed, so this joystick didn't need any additional software. But I ran into the same "HAT" problem. The buttons worked but the stick didn't move. For some dumb reason, I only realized I could use the Joy2Key remapper. So now the stick works and there's no discernable input lag.

Unfortunately my PC seems to stutter. I couldn't enjoy anything. That will teach me to VMWare and shmup at the same time.

I put the joystick back in the box. Perhaps this April, I will have my Ikaruga.

Enduring with a slow libretto

(tags hardware, Windows)

I'm not yet into getting a new PC or laptop yet. (Those Lenovo B5 size notebooks look tempting though.) So I played around with my Libretto L1. I was updating the Windows patches on it yesterday. The 27 patches (!) took all night to apply. Is this computer really slow or did my speed expectations change or am I running heavier software or what else? Now I know why I don't have Firefox on this machine, heh.

I need a special dialing wand: Asus Eee PC

(tags computer, hardware, Windows)

I had a chance to try out the Asus Eee PC in person this week. It's the "Eee PC 4G-X", which I think corresponds to the Eee PC 4G. As I said before, I am disappointed that the Japanese version comes with Windows XP Home SP2 for the OS. I did want to try Linux on this machine, but it's a minor gripe because I actually like tolerate Windows XP, huh. I think the reason for the Windows XP is that Linux distributions don't have comfortable Japanese input methods for free, and the much heralded ATOK for Linux would add 1_0000 yen to the price (20%!).

However, the most important part, the keyboard, is unusable with my hands. Maybe my fingers are too fat. :-( I've always wanted a small computer to just type with, like a Tandy Model 102, or an AlphaSmart. For a time I had the Palm with the foldable keyboard but it was tacky. Also I have a Libretto L1 which is pretty much what I want, but too bad its slow (too slow for even AJAX Gmail ugh) and obsolete (short battery life, noisy fan, low memory, no on-board wireless or ethernet!). Coming back to the Asus Eee PC, I like the keyboard layout itself. The FN key coupled with the arrow keys are the Home, End, PgUp, PgDw combination that makes so much sense. I don't really like the tilde key (Kanji key) being in the same row as the Esc and F1, but I can deal. I'm an Emacs Caps-Lock-Is-Control-Key and AutoHotKey user, so any other niggling bits I can fix up quick.

Other than that, I found that it gets hot on the bottom, which is disconcerting. XP Home, but with no games installed (sol.exe is not there!) and Windows-F1 has no contents installed! The disk reports 1.3 GB free out of 4GB. I am wondering if I can keep an SD card in the slot for my essential apps like Firefox, Emacs, Ruby, Git, Subversion, Cygwin, etc. I wish I could have tried out Parsec47 on it. I didn't bother figuring out how to install more RAM. And there was no camera application for the camera, that I could find (nothing in the Start Menu or Desktop). Strange. notepad.exe, winver.exe, dxdiag.exe, calc.exe, and mstsc.exe I checked and they are all there.

The screen itself is readable, but just barely. I wonder what the DPI is. Let's see, is it 133 DPI? (/ (sqrt (+ (* 800 800) (* 480 480 ))) 7.0) Oh yeah. Oh this is interesting, set the Windows DPI setting to 80 DPI for mo' better viewing. Probably Japanese is unviewable though.

Now I am viewing the various user threads and wikis about gaming on this machine and I figured out Unreal Tournament 99 and StarCraft are playable. Wow. Oh wait, it's 2008 already. Where's my flying car, hurk hurk.

I gotta wait for Eee PC version 2.0, but at least now I can rest easy knowing that Asus will target the Japan market.

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. :-/

Over too quickly: Portal

(tags game, Windows, Portal)

I want to hate on Portal. It was over too quickly. The puzzles were mediocre at best. I didn't get a headache. The main character walks too damn slow.

I've already played the game 3 times and finished all of the bonus maps. The Achievements show I've completed 64%. Now I have to do the 6 puzzle maps 3 different ways, finish one minor Achievement, and then I'll be done.

I played this on my ol' Project Sugar (Windows XP, 2004 spec) and I had to turn off all the eye candy, play it on 640 by 480 mode, and turn off some background services. At least it was smooth most of the time.

I wonder if it is really hard to create maps that are fun and make sense. If Valve couldn't come up with more content given its multiple year development time, I wonder how effective the game community will be.

Finally joining the Portal hype

(tags game, Windows, FPS, Xbox 360, Idolmaster)

I started off this weekend in the Idolm@ster mood but a couple of hours with the Xbox 360 game leave me cold. Seriously. :-( "Haruka" is a winner but I can't tell if I'm winning or losing. Yes, I don't even feel like I'm making progress. Perhaps I've become more and more impatient.

So I'm buying Portal over Steam, right now. Single player FPS is what I've had the most fun over the last couple of months, and I love puzzle games. I guess I can't stand Mr. Alvin telling me about how much fun it is and me missing it.

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.

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.

Some "new" games: Touhou and The Warriors

(tags game, PlayStation Portable, Windows, shmup, beat-em-up)

I was bored going home Friday night so I made a quick stop into Tora no Ana. Hey I was in the neighborhood to pick up the Koge Donbo telephone card for 30 Gamers in-store points. I saw that Team Shanghai Alice's return to regular vertical shmups, Touhou Fuujinroku Mountain of Faith (東方風神録　～ Mountain of Faith) finally hit the stores, and though I wasn't planning on buying it, here I am already wanting to end this post to play it again.

(BTW, Melon Books had a meter-tall swiveled, stacked tower of the Touhou game cases. Store displays FTW.)

But unfortunately I was restless so when I retired from the computer last night, I started to play The Warriors for the PSP in bed. Wow I am impressed, even though I have to suppress the comparison to a GTA game. I must say I am uncomfortable when the NPCs tell me to steal this or beat this up or mug that, but when actually seeing it (in game) and doing it myself, I have no qualms. Its crazy. Perhaps breaking polygonal glass and ganking floating items or joint-locking a mark or kicking downed bodies to see the blood squirt out just doesn't seem real to me. I am visually desensitized.

Winamp, my old friend

(tags music, player, Windows)

I can't recall the first time I used Winamp but I have some memories of discovering the joy of MP3s with it. After MusicMatch and iTunes though, I rarely installed it. Recently I found out it could read my iPod docked to my work computer without iTunes, so I gave it a go again. Wow its good, fast and stable. The playlist and song info is really detailed too. This feature is due to a software module called pmp_ipod, which is built-in. It is a fork of the optional ml_ipod, and for my use pmp_ipod is better, but compare it for yourself.

Too bad I can't rate songs or have it count my usage. Plus the internationalization on the main window part is still deficient. :-(

Perhaps this type of utility will be gone for the newer iPods, since "Apple kills Linux compatibility with new iPods" (thanks Download Squad).

Echoes strengthes my mouse hand

(tags game, Windows, shmup, freeware)

Retrogaming with Racketboy did a rare Windows game intro with "Featured Free Game: Echoes - Asteroids Meets Geometry Wars". Echoes is a fantastic Windows-based shmup-like game by Binary Zoo studios. I am totally in love with the control scheme: mouse + wasd movement keys.

This is how I spent most of my holiday:

This guy pictured above is a world of hurt.

Actually I bookmarked this game more than two months ago (on a Kotaku link, no less). It also has me thinking about buying Geometry Wars for the Windows XP on Steam, but after taking a look at demo clip, which is more about avoiding homing stuff instead of shmup-hopping inanimate asteroids, I will pass for now.

My best score as of now is 1.2 million on Normal, which seems to be ho-hum.

Ack! Excuse me while I try to get one more game in before I go to sleep.

iD lives on in Valve's Steam

(tags game, download, FPS, Windows)

iD is re-releasing its old games on Valve's download service Steam (Thanks Slashdot). This includes genre defining games such as Doom, Quake but also older classics. I have the Doom series and some of the Quake ones I think on CD somewhere, but I am still tempted to buy this digital thing. I can install it at any time, anywhere (well within reasonable limits). Here I bold the games I am interested in:

• Commander Keen, Episodes 1 through 5
• Wolfenstein 3D
• Spear of Destiny
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein
• Ultimate DOOM
• DOOM II
• Final DOOM
• DOOM3
• DOOM3: Resurrection of Evil
• QUAKE
• QUAKE Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon
• QUAKE Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity
• QUAKE II
• QUAKE II Mission Pack: The Reckoning
• QUAKE II Mission Pack: Ground Zero
• QUAKE III Arena
• QUAKE III: Team Arena
• Heretic
• Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
• HeXen
• HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
• HeXen II

But at USD 70.00 and 17 games and/or add-on I won't play, I think I should just skip it.

This move should put those Epic/DE people to shame. Come on, where's the downloadable Unreal/Unreal Tournament pack? I would definately buy it if its on Steam.

Learning about the Core 2 Duo

(tags Windows, hardware, game)

I'm not yet ready to upgrade my computers just yet, but its always good to be knowledgeable. To run Unreal Tournament 3, my current rig Project Sugar just won't cut the mustard, I think. So I did a Wikipedia session on Intel "Core" processors.

It turns out that Core is at least two different things, a "Core Duo" and "Core 2 {Duo/Quad}" etc. "Core" 1 is a 32-bit processor, while "Core 2" is 64-bit. The Duo or Quad refers to the number of multiprocessing cores on the chip, 2 or 4. Also the Core family has good power consumption behavior, something around 60 W idle, 100W load. And it turns out one can use Windows XP 32-bit on a Core 2.

I've settled on the Core 2 family, because I don't intend to buy another computer within 3 years. What I need to do is find a Core 2 Duo, in my price range which is 2_0000 to 4_0000 yen. Then I can start selecting a motherboard and RAM. Then I keep that configuration data up to date until more about Unreal Tournament 3 is released.

I am totally confused with the Core 2 numbering scheme though.

StarCraft 2 itc (in this chat)

(tags game, real-time strategy, Windows, announcement)

I made the mistake of spending my weekend online on #insertcredit. I had no idea that Saturday, 14:00 Japan Standard time would be so lively.

StarCraft 2.

Announced at a Korean game tournament, but live blogged at IGN and NeoGAF and of course #insertcredit.

As a gamer who has only played WarCraft II, I don't understand what is going on in those in-game videos. Still it seems exciting. "Nuclear launch detected" "GG"

I did say I wanted to play StarCraft, and I even went as far as to put it in my virtual shopping basket at GDEX game online store yesterday. But after reading the Wikipedia page on it, I decided that I'm not really fond of micro and macro mangaging and detail level managing at all. Also the 800 by 600 limitation is annoying.

Will StarCraft 2 be a reason to upgrade my computer? It would have to ride on Unreal Tournament 3.

Manabi-shiki de arimasu! DVD pack-in game, vol. 2

(tags game, MMFlash, Windows, DVD region 2, anime)

The pack-in Flash game for Manabi Straight! DVD 2 wasn't as hard as last time.

It was one of those 4 by 4, 15 tile plus gap slide into order games. I kept on clicking the row expecting more than one tile to shift automatically, but they don't. Frustrating. I failed the four minute game but got it on the second try.