FTL: Faster than Light

About 14/15 years ago, E, discovered this abandonware DOS based game that involved piloting a cargo ship between various ports of the world. It was part Transport Tycoon (build up a shipping empire) mixed with some slow manoeuvring as the "auto pilot" for docking didn't work every now and then.

I discovered FTL: Faster than Light, via a Kickstarter newsletter. The concept is deceptively simple. You are a pilot of a ship carrying sensitive information, across the galaxy pursued by rebels. Your mission is to hand over the sensitive information, and then defeat the "mothership". Along the way, there are pirates, rebel scouts, aliens who don't like you, lost civilians, storekeepers, mercenaries, abandoned planets etc. which you must help, fight, or flee. The right outcome will provide with opportunities to upgrade your ship; and the wrong outcomes could end the game.

The game is simple to play; and incredibly difficult to beat. Even on the easy mode, I have raked up over 15 hours to beat the boss just once. There are some tricks - but the game's random generator can be brutal. About 5 games before I finally won - I did get the boss to 1 health bar - but then a strike from the boss, caused a fire in my weapons room (when I still had about 40% health), and my weapons just couldn't recharge fast enough to finish the boss off. There are no save points to recover from - it's either finish it, or restart.

It is addictive, and an absolutely impressive strategy game. Like the shipping game from years past, the graphics aren't amazing. It is the gameplay and the strategy that makes it worth coming back to; over and over again.

Diablo 3

I was first introduced to Diablo in high school. There used to be four or five games that were very popular then, and with regular LAN matches after school - Quake, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Diablo and Red Alert. Of the lot, Diablo had the smallest number of players, and I didn't really play the game - but rather watched. I was hooked on the game in 1st year at UCT though, and played through a number of characters (I completed the game with the Warrior and Mage) shortly before the launch of Diablo 2.

Diablo 2 was an addiction. I have completed all the characters through Normal difficulty, playing the Barbarian and Assassin to Hell difficulty. But eventually it became a grind, and bad choices with character builds early in the game had significant impact on Hell difficulty. But it was fun, and the game offered lots of replayability.

So getting Diablo 3 was a no-brainer; but I left it late and missed out the collector's edition. The regret with missing the collector's edition was the loss of the music CD - Diablo 3 has some glorious backing music; although it is a lot more subtle than in Diablo 2. The graphics and design are impressive, with an amazing level of detail; especially in the level design. The subtle environmental effects (setting of traps etc) are fun to play with - especially in the right circumstances, as they can hurt both the player and the enemies. 

I have so far only completed Normal with the Barbarian (only last night), as it gave me the easiest way to compare the differences in skill set up etc. I miss the ability to wield two large swords at one time; but the change in the skill set up is good. The idea of having set skills, with multiple configurations of those skills is good - and a "higher" configuration is not necessarily better. What I did find however, was that I ended up using a particular set of configuration from about middle of Act 2 onwards. I also missed the ability to quickly change between specific configurations; which actually also contributed to me using a specific set.

And no discussion about Diablo 3 will be complete without the always connected requirement discussion. I completely understand why it is there - it is however a big pain. I only play for an hour or two an evening; and to find that the servers are offline is damn annoying. And lag death is not fun - especially when fighting the big bosses. Last night, I died so many times when trying to defeat Izual, due to lag death; that I almost gave up.

There needs to be a better way to play single player without the network - even if it means that there will be no Auction House, or that signing in is required to start the game (like Starcraft 2). Ultimately, physics dictate that South Africans will always have comparatively high ping times to European servers, and unless Blizzard builds servers in South Africa (highly unlikely), I don't see lag death going away ...

Interesting Challenge

Former F1 driver (and now commentator), David Coulthard is going to race against PS3 drivers of Gran Turismo 5. What makes this race interesting - Coulthard will drive a real car (Mercedes SLS AMG) on a real track, while the PS3 drivers will drive the same track, but virtually, using the virtual version of the car. To make it more honest, no one will be able to drive the track before the actual event.

It is an interesting concept, and would raise the interesting question - should there be someone faster than Coulthard, would they give him/her a remote control version of the SLS AMG to race to see whether the physics translate correctly?

The Telegraph will stream it live - hopefully there will be a downloadable version available.

Very busy ... and a new toy

So the plan of backdating posts never worked out ... after a few days of doing not much at work, I have been plunged into a very busy cycle ... with long days, and even some weekends. So, I did not have time to write backdated posts; and I have decided not to bother.

In the meantime, I finally bought myself a new PC; primarily geared for gaming and multimedia use. It has been a long time coming; I first thought of buying one around June last year, but postponed that to buy a car - but I finally took the plunge.

So once again, I have a fairly bleeding age machine - some very good components (first time I have actually bought a separate powersupply for example), quad core Phenom II processor (the i7 was way too expensive, and bang for bucks, the Phenom II delivers); and for the first time - windows as my main OS (I am considering installing Linux - but seeing that I want to primarily use this to play games and watch movies etc. not sure of that path yet).

Installing Vista is a pain, installing Vista 64 is a bigger pain. Microsoft definitely has the stupidest OS installation system - I have installed numerous flavours of Linux, Free BSD and even OS X - and nothing comes close to the stupidity and unusability of Vista - seemingly the most advanced OS Microsoft has to offer commercially (there is Windows Server 2008 I suppose in contention). For starters, Vista installation takes an age to actually start up ... but there is no real feedback - no twirling cursor or even product ads - just a blank screen with the cursor. Secondly, modern Linux installations manage to show an installation screen with the highest possible resolution - Microsoft can only show 800x600 even if the default drivers for my graphics card can actually do much migher resolutions. And then there is the bug (IMO at least) that has been caried out since Windows 95 - first it asks you for your location setting, and then it asks you for the timezone ... surely the default timezones should correspond to at least somewhere in the location you have chosen previously?

I have installed every windows consumer operating system, as well as windows 3.x; I have installed Windows 2000 and Windows 2003; and Vista is by far the worst installation of the lot. As for the OS itself - so far it is quite stable and seems to work nicely. Aero is overrated - and I don't really like the new look; but I suppose I will get used to it (or revert to classic). And maybe, if I have some time, I will try to expoeriment in installing OS X Leopard ... I do have the installation disks afterall.


New "study" desk


The glow of cooling fans in the dark

Perfect Score

The perfect score for the bowling game in the Nokia 6020 (and other phones in the same series/year I suppose) is 300. Once you find the perfect way to roll the ball, it is really easy. The downside of this: I have one less thing to do when bored and with nothing other than a cell phone. I just wish real life ten-pin bowling was this easy.

Railroads

As a kid, I really really liked trains and railroads. While I did not ever own proper model train kits, I had numerous smaller ones, which I regularly connected up to cover large parts of the house. In fact, the large family homes for both my parents in India, has access to large roofs and they all had train lines on them ... and so did the gardens, and ... you get the idea.

I have maintained my fascination with trains, although less with engines and carriages but more with the actual dynamics of making things work. It was the same when I was a kid - designing the route was more cooler than the actual train. Trains was also what hooked me into Transport Tycoon - and they were mostly all what I built (well I had planes to take passengers and mail, trains to take everything else). And the best part of transport tycoon was the complex scheduling mechanisms possible with signaling - although, getting it right was always a mission.

I got hold of Railroad Tycoon II (Platinum Edition) a while back from Dave Nunez's massive collection, but I only started playing it a few weeks back ... and I have been hooked. Initially, I found the game quite slow (until I worked out that you can change the speed ... duh) and quite uninteresting. But the latest scenarios have been eye catching - building railroads through the Alps, or the Orient Express, or across India.

Still there are parts of the game that are very unappealing. Firstly, routing is automatic, so I can't get to play with the signaling. Then there is some of the economic aspects - as an investor you cannot buy stocks of other railroads, nor invest more into your own railroad! And there are no tunnels!

I hear that Sid Meier is developing a new Railroad Tycoon - one with tunnels! Until then I will carry on with what I have ... currently building train lines across Australia ... but it's the last scenario that I am really looking forward to - building Cape to Cairo - a feat, as far as I know was never achieved. There is also a Railroad Tycoon 3 ... but since 4 is aparently so close round the corner .. might as well get that.

Skype Conference and Laura Croft

So I had the Skype conference this morning, and it really went well. At least 3 hours of video conferencing with minimal lag (a few dropped packets here and there) - it was a pleasure. Presenting a 19 slide slideshow from 12 000 Km away was also very interesting, and it all went well. Off course having a receptive conference organiser was also part of the deal, and my thanks to the DMP for great organising!

As for Laura Croft ... totally unrelated really. I read an article at Wired today, where the writer discussed the idea that the success of Laura Croft is not necessarily due to horny teenage guys lusting over big boobs but more of the thrill of rescuing a woman from danger. It's quite an interesting read - and does ring true somewhat. But I still think, that the big boobs do have a big factor ... I don't think small boobs and an ugly face would have sold as well ....

Worst bugs and cooking up a storm

I see that Wired has a few interesting articles on its site this week (its an extended coffee break right now ...). First up - the top 10 worst software bugs so far. There is also a very interesting interview with a Nintendo game architect on a cooking game - perfect for all the budding cooks out there ;)

We have this game with a big wok that you use to cook Chinese food, and it's really interesting to have the meat and vegetables frying in there, and use the controller to flip the food around without it spilling out of the pan