Wow, my craptacular MAME box actually looks pretty sweet when compared to some of these:
When MAME Cabinets Go Bad. Pretty funny (NSWF) commentary.
Wednesday Jan 04, 2006
Sunday Dec 11, 2005
The Amanita Designs guys came out with Samorost 2, an addictive Flash based puzzle game, this time attempting to monetize its popularity by charging $10 to continue to the 2nd chapter.
The first chapter is easier than I remember the original Samorost being- maybe because I've learned to just click like mad when I get stuck- but the music and sound effects are at least as good, and there's more "character development". A worthy sequel well worth the 10 or so minutes it'll take to complete.
I was planning on kicking up the $10 for the 2nd chapter (although reports on the interweb say its shorter than the first chapter) to support Amanita Design's efforts. When clicking the purchase link, I see its no longer Flash based- you choose a Windows or Mac version. :-/ Ok, I'm willing to give up my platform independance for such a small purchase... drilling further into the checkout process sends you to a random (swreg.org) ecommerce site that wants all kinds of private info- even though they checkout process just sends you an email on where to pick up the bits! Erg. Ok... But the final straw was that they charge $3 for Paypal payments- its only $10 if you give them your credit card number. No thanks.
Amanita, if you're listening, make purchasing easier! You're scaring people away with that sketchy checkout process.
Thursday Dec 08, 2005
Via the inactive blogger, a write-up on Joust over the Xbox 360’s Live Arcade service. Glad to see they're paying homage to the old sk00l. Gotta love how curmudgeonly people get when someone dares to touch a classic game:
...there is some debate at Joystiq HQ over the fidelity of the loft-to-button-press ratio. There is a delegation that believes this version plays poorly because it is too hard to keep your trusty ostrich afloat while another thinks this is exactly how the original played, that the other delegation has poor memory, and that this is all a result of using an ostrich as a vehicle.
Friday Sep 23, 2005
I made it to round 21 of Duck Doom, thanks in part to the BFG- and no thanks to my primitive rollerball mouse. Check it out if you've got a Windoze platform available and like reminiscing about the Golden Age of gaming.
Wednesday Aug 24, 2005
Friday Aug 19, 2005
It seems the salt marsh trail outside my campus (Menlo Park) is home to the Geek Cache geocache. I'll have to bring my GPS and report back on my findings...
Saturday Aug 06, 2005
I've had a couple people approach me about my blog entry on Star Control II, so I thought I'd recap it here in hopes of drumming up some competition. Star Control (or StarCon) is one of the best games EVAR!
The Ur-Quan Masters is certainly a pretty accurate dupe of the original, but thats also its downfall. No network play means you're forced to crowd over the same keyboard, or worse, play the computer. (I whomped the 186 point Balanced Team 1 with a mere 32 points in ships. :-/)
Enter Timewarp. Unfortunately, the project hasn't had a new release for about a year now- probably around the same time I played with it last. It had its issues, but I vaguely recall if you remove certains troublesome ships, all was well-- perhaps thats been fixed since last I tried... I didn't have a single issue with it when I battled the computer. And there's a metric asston of new ships!
So... any takes for some networked Timewarp?
Saturday Jul 30, 2005
The news evaded me for 2 months, but I've finally caught wind of the new release of the greatest [public domain] game since Spacewar.
Monday Jun 13, 2005
While catching up with a friend in the halls this morning, I stopped to admire someone's pushpin happy-face arrangement on a hallway bulletin board. It reminded me of the classic toy of which I couldn't remember the name. Luckily a few choice terms ("Light" "toy" "70s") fed into Google came up with this nice list of 70s toys, of which Lite Brite was a part of. Ahh, the interweb...
Wednesday Apr 13, 2005
If you're looking for some no-skills-needed mindless entertainment, check out the flash game Kitten Cannon. I was able to launch the furry projectile 1058 ft on one attempt. W00t.
Thursday Jan 27, 2005
Ritilan turned me on to the super addictive game, Rocket Bob a game more addictive than Archer- and he's right, although I think what he's referring to is Bowman.
Wednesday Dec 29, 2004
Kids of the PlayStation generation playtest classic games from the '70s and '80s.
A collection of their thoughts on these classics. Priceless.
EGM: Do you feel badly shooting the humans?
Parker: No, that's my only amusement in this game. If they were like more detailed, maybe I'd feel something. But it looks like I'm shooting a popcycle. (sic)
Wednesday Nov 03, 2004
KevinRose.com links to an addictive flash puzzle game called Road Blocks.
Good thing it provides passwords to continue from each level- this is one time suck.
Wednesday Sep 01, 2004
This interactive puzzle made the rounds about 6 months ago, then quietly died off. Supposedly the server got swamped and taken offline. These guys were kind enough to mirror it. The game aspect is not very difficult (probably not the intention), but it's seriously tasty eyecandy.
They also mention there's a new one out by the same developer. It was produced for the Polyphonic Spree band, which I incidently heard a review of on NPR's All Things Considered a couple weeks ago.
Talk about the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!
Tuesday Aug 31, 2004
Roy sends me news of a bug in ATI's drivers (no! who woulda thunk?!) related to texture filtering. Techreport has a thorough write up.
If ATI fixes this driver problem quickly, it'll go a long way towards keeping me as a customer. Their lack of support in the Linux PVR world for the AIW cards has kept me from getting too involved in that time-suck. Dunno if I should thank them or switch back to Nvidea...
