#6 – Sins of a Solar Empire (PC)
I got this one during the deployment. It's a 4X-ish, in that you research stuff, you colonize planets, you find other planets, and you kill the other races, except unlike all other 4X games I've played, this one occurs in real time. There are three races; one whose units are cheap (the Advent), one whose units are hardy (the TEC), and one whose units are destructive (the Vasari).
It plays a lot like other 4X games that I love except that everything seems a little more tied into itself. For example, if you want to research trade ports, you need to build enough research facilities to get up to that level. In order to build research facilities, you need logistical slots on your planet. If you're all out of log slots, you need to colonize another planet. Once you get up to the level of research needed, then you can research trade ports. Once you've got that researched, you need the required amount of materials to make them. This is just one item.
It makes for some interesting strategies. When I play Advent, I take advantage of the cheap units. I'll crap out a ton of the cheapest frigates they have and zerg rush every planet until I have more than the other guys, which will drain my credits but give me a pretty big resource advantage. You can station your fleet in the way of trade lanes and just blow up enemy traders to disrupt their credit flow. The same goes for refinery ships. If you raid an enemies research facilities, they lose the ability to use what they've already researched.
The one main detractor this game has is that one game can last a long time, even in real time. My longest game so far has been five and half hours; a medium size map playing 2 v 2 against easy AI. You can selectively choose to increase the speed of research and travel and whatnot though.
In February Iron Clad released a micro-expansion called Entrenchment and that name is no joke. It added star bases (huge structures you can build for defense that can't leave a planet's gravity well), mines, and anti-structure frigates. The star bases are ridiculous. You can upgrade them with bigger guns, more armor, hanger bays, frigate construction bays, and other such things. Mines are also rather nuts. You can drop as many mines as you like, so I littered my heavy traffic areas with them and they were well worth it. Nothing got past a heavy minefield.
I'm definitely looking forward to the upcoming two micro-expansions for this one. It's a ton of fun to send my enormous fleet of death into an enemy colony only to find they've snuck some planet-bombers beyond my frontlines and scramble to stop them.
Mega Man Shoes
Puma is making Mega Man shoes.
That's pure balls. I just bought shoes. I need to save up for more awesome things, like this watch, and they drop this shoebomb on me. Life sucks.
Fuck Fisty’s Bog
So I bought World of Goo on Wii a month ago. I was enjoying it, it's a fun puzzle-physics game. I got to a level and was stumped so I stopped playing. I came back to it tonight, youtube'd the solution and it's even more straight forward than it looks. I cannot for the life of me get this one right. It's annoying and it sucks. So fuck you, Fisty's Bog. You can eat my ass.
Nerd Project: Linux through the ages
I have an OLD boxed copy of Red Hat Linux 5.2 from 1997. I'd like to take a computer, install this old ass linux distro on it, and go through the process of updating everything (EVERYTHING) in it's up to modern standards without resorting to reloading the whole OS. Something tells me this would be easier than I'm making it out to be but I think it'd be fun to see how everything transitions from 1997 to 2009.
Doing Nothing
I'm on day four of a four day weekend. For the last three days I've done absolutely nothing. Nothing. I've wasted all three days. I feel pretty miserable about it but I'm having a hard time coming up with ways I could've spent my time better.
I can't say I did absolutely nothing. I played some Freelancer. I played some Starlancer on my dreamcast. I watched a half hour of Southland Tales before I had to turn it off. I kind of cleaned up my office in an attempt to find a phantom smell. I kind of organized my closet when I was looking for the video cable to my dreamcast. The sum of all this, though, is basically zero.
I've got two more four day weekends coming up. Hopefully they'll be better spent. This one was basically a waste.
Time for party hats?
ABC News: Gates Announces End to Army Stop-Loss
This is easily the best news I've read since President Obama took office. Though the article says stop-loss will be phased out over the span of two years, this gives me a huge amount of hope that I won't be stuck on the next bullet train to hell. Stop-loss is a despicable practice that turns volunteers into conscripts and I am undescribably happy to know it will finally end a nightmare that has affected countless lives.
Robotica (SAT)
Last night I dug out my Saturn and it's required cables and controller, hooked it up to the TV and played 20 minutes of Robotica. Why did I do this?
Way back when I went through a glut of Robotica questions on Giant Bomb trivia. It got me interested in the game, since I can't get enough Japanese robot corridor shooters. I tracked down a copy at Game Exchange in Springfield while shopping with Jim. He's got it and said it wasn't bad.
I beg to differ. It's awful. It's slightly better than Kileak: The DNA Imperative. I got 8 levels in before I realized that there would be no saving my game. It's one long run through or you're playing the same levels over and over. In those 8 levels I saw four different enemies, two tilesets, and one ultra-shitty cutscene. Each level played exactly the same; find the key, find the exit. One key, one exit, nothing compelling you to search the rest of the level.
I'm not giving this game a "finished" number but I am finished with this game. Probably forever. I'm more likely to play through the rest of Kileak before I pick this one up ever again.
Apple sucks
Apple Adds Still More DRM to iPod Shuffle - eff.org
People at work ask me all the time why I don't like Apple. This is why. Everything Apple designs has an expiration date. Say you buy your iPod. You buy a lot of music through iTunes because it's easy. Your iPod breaks. It just stops working or you dropped it, whatever. You need to buy a different iPod because you've invested so much into iTunes. So you get this new iPod Shuffle to find out your headphones and accessories are all paperweights now, thanks to this new "authentication chip". Apple has fucked you, it's customer and supporter.
This kind of treatment is universal at Apple. You pay for everything. You pay for every new minor version of OS X. In the Windows world, we get those for free. It's called a service pack. You can't fix your own hardware, you've gotta take it to a "genius" at the Apple store. Apple hardware also has a tendency to inexplicably fail. During my last deployment I helped troubleshoot at least two iPods that had be purchased, taken out of the box, and failed on startup. Common users who bought them because they "just worked" were absolutely baffled.
I have no doubt Apple can make fantastic hardware and solid software that's easy to use and hassle-free. They choose to through these wrenches into the machines of their customers to keep the cash flowing. And that's why I hate Apple.
Here it is
The definition of clueless leadership.
The single notion that repeated, long deployments are not the source of the increased number of suicides is absolutely ridiculous. That "resiliency" that develops is apathy. It's depression, and anger, and loss. It's knowing that even though you're putting in your time overseas, the Army needs one more body to fill up that plane going back to another meaningless fight so you can watch as the world you know disintegrates. It's the hopelessness of knowing that the deployments will never end for you. "Resiliency" is what's driving us to suicide.
#5 – Unreal Tournament 3 (PC)
Another multiplayer game but this one actually has an extensive single player campaign. It was a lot of fun, the bots are actually kind of helpful, and there's a strange card system where if you can't beat a match because the odds are really stacked against you (such as you're playing 4 vs 6 and the enemy team also has vehicles), you can play a card with some kind of bonus like more teammates or better weapons or vehicles. I had to use one and only one for the afore mentioned 4v6w/v but that was only because I had gotten really close to beating it a couple times and was tired of playing it over and over. The last match is a 1v1 deathmatch and thankfully the last boss isn't Xan Kriegor because fuck that guy. I trounced the last match pretty easily and that was that.
There's a lame storyline in there somewhere. Try to ignore it. But buy the game, it just had a huge patch released that added Steam achievements and new weapons and maps and mods. It's making me replay the campaign for the achievements but whatever. It's fun and definitely worth the $11.99 being charged for it this weekend on http://www.steampowered.com/.
Edit: How could I fail to mention my biggest complaint about this game? WHY IN GOD'S NAME DO I HAVE YOU PRESS ESCAPE FIVE FUCKING TIMES TO GET THROUGH ALL THE INTRO MOVIES?! Seriously everyone with a line of code in the game or gave Epic a dollar to see it made got an intro movie. Everytime I start the game I have to hammer the escape button just to get to the main menu without waiting for the five minutes of intro movies to finish. What. The. Fuck?