Tag Archive for 'computer'

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Exclusivity sucks

Published by Cody on December 4, 2007 in Gaming and Rant. 1 Comment Tags: BioWare, computer, console, games, Gaming, multiplayer, Rant, Star Wars, video games.

I’m unintentionally continuing on my gaming post trend. I was watching G4 earlier and saw some stuff about a new action/role-playing game called Mass Effect developed by BioWare. It looks pretty interesting, and I’ve played games by BioWare before. They tend to have a big emphasis on story-telling, and I love games with an engaging story.

Unfortunately, the game was released only for the Xbox 360. What’s worse is that BioWare has no plans to develop the game for the PC. Another good game ruined by what I see as a lazy developer. I mean, the PC is still a good gaming platform. Why, then, do so many developers come out with games exclusive to certain consoles? I don’t want to buy a freakin’ Xbox. If that means I’m not going to buy a game like Mass Effect, then that’s the loss of the game developer. Ignoring an entire (and rather large) portion of the video game market is about the best thing you can do to get people to dislike you.

BioWare used to develop games for the PC, too. Even the most recent game they developed before Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was made for both the Xbox and the PC. Before that, they were PC-only, since no one thought an RPG could really work that well on a console.

I really don’t have anything against consoles. They have their uses. I don’t want to be forced to buy one, though. I already own a decent computer. Buying something else that only plays games is a bit…redundant. And to have to pay for multiplayer? Seriously, no thanks. But it seems like PC gamers are being left behind, especially now that gaming consoles can look better than high-end PCs without costing nearly as much. Of course, if you add in the gigantic HD television set needed to fully appreciate the look of console games, the cost can go up quite a bit. Realistically, though, the PC gaming market isn’t dead yet. It’s not even close. But when good games are made for consoles and not for PC, it can be just a little bit irritating.

Dammit, that G4 review is really making me want Mass Effect. It looks like a sweet game. Curse you, BioWare! You might make me buy an Xbox 360, but I won’t like it… I know, I’m weak-willed. Sometimes.

Arcade games

Published by Cody on December 2, 2007 in Gaming and Rant. 2 Comments Tags: arcade, computer, Dragon's Lair, games, Gaming, old school, Pac-Man, Rant.

I don’t know why video games today are popular. I mean, look at where they started. The original video games were all arcade games like Pac-Man and Asteroids. Boring and hard. When they got stories, the dropped the boring part, but some of them were still freakin’ impossible. A very good example of that is the game Dragon’s Lair. It’s an old game, but you can still find CD-ROM copies for the computer. I recently discovered my dad still had a copy, so I’ve been playing it. Well, trying to play it is more accurate.

Dragon’s Lair is seriously the hardest game I’ve ever played. When it comes to gameplay, it’s rather simple. You don’t always control the main character. You don’t need to know where to go. The trick is the timing. It’s a rather fast-paced game and if you screw up, you have to start over. You start off walking over a bridge. Your character falls through and these tentacle things start moving toward him. You have to mash down on the spacebar to make him swing his sword and then frantically push the up arrow to get him to climb up through the hole in the bridge while the tentacles are distracted. Easy, right? Wrong. If the timing is off by even a second, you’re dead. This sort of action does not stop any time soon.

It’s even worse that you only get 5 lives throughout the entire game. You don’t always start over at the beginning if you die within that limit, but once those 5 lives are up, you have to do the entire thing over again. This would make anyone go crazy.

I just don’t understand how games got past this point. In all honesty, I would have stopped playing after half an hour of a game like Dragon’s Lair if that’s all there was. Even Pac-Man can really piss me off. Games today can actually save your progress and have adjustable difficulty levels, but these old arcade games have nothing of the sort. They all had one difficulty level: impossibly hard. And yet video games survived. Boggles the mind.

Mac vs. PC

Published by Cody on November 27, 2007 in Rant. 3 Comments Tags: Apple, computer, laptop, Mac, Microsoft, Rant, Technology, Vista, Windows.

The more I use Macs, the more I wonder why they’ve got such a reputation for being stable. It’s getting to the point where I hear people espouse the wonders of Mac OS and wonder if they’ve ever actually used one. Same goes for people who claim Windows crashes all the time.

I own and use a PC regularly. It’s a Dell laptop and it runs Windows Vista. What’s more, it runs Windows Vista without crashing. Amazing, isn’t it? Excuse the sarcasm, but I’ve been told a number of times that I’m a fool for using both a Dell and Windows, but I’ve never had any more problems than I had on any other brand of computer or version of Windows. Heh, I’ve actually had more problems using Macs. Anyone who says Macs don’t crash has never seen me use one. And no, it’s not because I’m an incompetent computer user who clearly doesn’t know how to use a Mac. Indeed, I get hung up on the command key (what, exactly, was wrong with the control key?) and I hate how closing a window doesn’t quit the program running it, but I know what I’m doing.

Continue reading ‘Mac vs. PC’

Alma mater and such

Published by Cody on November 24, 2007 in Personal. 3 Comments Tags: college, computer, football, high school, Linux, Personal, Random, school, Technology.

I never thought I’d be around to hear that the football team of my old school (Burlington-Edison High School) would make it to the state championship game. I mean, the last time they won a state title was back in 1986, before I was even born (and long before I came to Burlington). But now? Now the team is one win away from being state champions. Amazing. And not just a little annoying that they get a bunch of good players after I graduate and go to a school that used to have a good football team (I say this in the nicest way possible: the current Husky football squad sucks, and yes, that includes Jake Locker).

Anyways, I also never thought I’d be writing a personal post again, but I don’t really have much to rant about. Bagel from RationReality wrote me an email about something I could write about, but I didn’t get back to her in time so I must now live the rest of my life regretting my inability to check my email more than twice a day. (“I coulda been a contender! …er, blogger!”)

More on the home front: know how my last post was about building a Linux distro from scratch? Well, scratch it. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but I’ve been given more grief from that project than all my other Linux-related sojourns combined. I blame the instruction manual, which assumes too much. I can understand the assumption that the reader knows the basics of navigating in a Linux console (copying, removing, etc.) but I don’t get the assumption that the reader knows what file the manual is talking about when it refers to it by a vague name. If any of my readers has dabbled in Linux From Scratch, leave me a comment to ask me just what part of the manual I’m referring to. I’d ask about the problem in some Linux forums, but I don’t wish to be told to RTFM. I did RTFM and it didn’t help me, so STFU. Now that is a retort worthy of a nerd such as I.

Next big project

Published by Cody on November 20, 2007 in Personal. 1 Comment Tags: computer, guide, Linux, Personal, project.

After messing around with a triple-boot configuration on my laptop (Vista, XP, and Ubuntu), I decided to can the Ubuntu installation. It worked fine, but I wasn’t using it for anything. It was taking up valuable space, too, so I deleted it and allocated the space to my XP installation so I could install more games. Games > Linux.

Anyways, I’m not completely done with Linux. I came across a rather interesting-looking project called Linux From Scratch, which is basically a how-to guide on compiling your own distribution of Linux. It looks pretty daunting, but it provides a good in-depth look at how Linux distros actually work in addition to building a custom distro with everything you want in it and nothing you don’t want. Perhaps I’ll be releasing the Mad Rants Linux distro sometime in the future…

I’m a bit worried about breaking my computer again, but I do need an excuse to reinstall everything. My computer is getting gunked up. Heh, perhaps I’ll learn Dvorak while I’m at it…too bad I wouldn’t be able to come up with a sweet name for my computer like my roommate and his DvorMac.

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