Heathen - Badass technical thrash Posted March 10, 2010
Great old thrash from it's heyday. The twin guitar solos are the stuff of soloing legend. These guys just released a new album that's 110% metal from end-to-end. Check that out ** Here **
System Shock Posted March 10, 2010
System Shock would be one of the greatest games ever in gaming history if it were not for the totally contrived and worthless control scheme. Sometimes I seriously think it was designed as a psychological test to see what a human's stress threshold is. But, despite that, I'd heard so many good things about the underlying story and the scenes that the game puts you through that make it like being thrust into one of the greatest scifi stories ever told, that I came up with the most hackneyed control method I've ever even heard of anyone attempting.
Basically, I'd grab a gamepad and use it for movement in the left hand, and use the mouse to interact with things with the right hand. It's sounds ridiculous, but it did work well enough for me to get through a good portion of the game. But all that is changed now. Enter (after 16 years from it's initial release) The Mouselook Patch.
I have narey a clue on how this was programmed. Either this guy had the source code to the game or, in a scary display of hacking ability, he actually went in and hexedited the machine code to add support for this. I really don't know as it stands, but the end result takes this game and cranks up it's playability by 10. It's game designers clearly took notes from Star Trek : The Next Generation (one of my all time favorite shows) as evidenced by the cyborgs ("Q Who" ), AI gone horribly wrong ("Arsonal of Freedom" and others), and *Spoiler* Destroying a laser by putting up the shields and firing it ("Contagion" ). All this is carried out in first-person as if you're the person living through the story. Hard game, but one of the greatest ever (It later led to and was the spiritual successor to BioShock).
So, in typical fashion, I bequeath this unto you, the gamer :
Also, for a limited time (until id asks me to take this down), I'm offering Doom 1 Mousepads and Mugs ** Here **. Get one while you can and show what a fan you are!
Gun Barrel : German Metal to kick ass to Posted February 9, 2010
To hear some more by this kickass band, go ** Here **. Especially the song "Wanted Man". Check it out. And then go kick someone's ass. Trust me! Better than therapy...
Best site for Indie Games Posted February 9, 2010
This is one of the best sites for sampling Indie Games. You can sort by various categories, so it's easy to find something you'll like. If you play one game a day, you'll be busy for the next year straight.
Doom++ Posted January 27, 2010
Ok, I have to add an update to the previous entry. Tonight I found ZDoom which is literally so good that I had to come back and list a link to it. It has literally none of the problems WinDoom has (though WinDoom is kickass). A note, if you do use WinDoom, is you must delete the file frontend.dbg and set the options Video Mode to 640x480, Check "Use Mouse", and Check "Start Doom and Close Frontend". If you don't, the mouse won't work and my key redefinition will be nonexistent. You'll still need to download the WinDoom link to get Doom and Doom2 wad files. Happy asskicking!
Ultimate damned doom of doomy doom Posted January 25, 2010
Well, it is now 2010 but despite that, I still think one of the best games ever made was Doom. So I spent way too much time over the past week locating a working copy of WinDoom and then modifying it so it actually works. This was, for the record, a royal-pain-in-the-ass. (Begin technical discourse) For one, the front-end has no ability to redefine the keys which necessitated me manually going into the INI file itself and messing with the key-values by raw trial-and-error. Oh yeah, good times! And to make matters worse, the key values don't correspond to any known normal key values, either scan codes, Windows Virtual Keys, or DirectInput key values. (end said discourse). So, anyways, I finally got them to work, and here they are for you to enjoy in all their glory. WSAD for movement, Q for Open. Easy stuff. Run by either clicking on Doom or Doom2.bat. That'll bring up the frontend and you just have to click Run Windoom to run. Best part : Doom can run in more than twice it's normal resolution of 320x200. Metal...
In other news, I also found the MOTHERLOAD of Doom and Doom 2 levels and add-ons. I offer no support on these, so you're on your own if you want to screw around with them. I personally recommend the Doom 2 level voidshp2. It's hard as fuck, so be forewarned. I'll give $10 to anyone who can show me them beating the level with 100% everything in Ultraviolence (PrntScn will save a .pcx screenshot). I'm totally serious. I've done it, though I was on top of my game at the time, and it took me 1 hour and 45 minutes. So, here you go. Fuck productivity!
