Thursday, March 6, 2014

It all started with The Prequels...

You remember.  When that first preview for "The Phantom Menace" came out.  It was stunning.  It looked rich.  It looked like everything you would imagine a Star Wars prequel could be.


Then things started to go wrong.  Other trailers started coming out. Jar-Jar was unleashed on an unsuspecting world.  The kid George Lucas picked above all other children who auditioned had dubious acting talent.  You saw these things happening, but you didn't want to admit that it was going to fail.  You believed.

I worked for Microprose Software at the time, and the company gave everyone tickets to go see The Phantom Menace at the closest theater to the studio in Hunt Valley, MD.  I guess they figured the entire staff was going to be there anyway, might as well make a gesture to appear magnanimous.

It was horrible.  So horrible I felt the good bits of my childhood slipping away as I watched.  The magic was gone.  The Force was no longer with me.  I've since caught bits of the other two movies, but I cannot bring myself to consciously sit down and watch them. Mostly because I have an appreciation for good acting and Hayden Christensen is uncomfortable to watch in general, much less as Anakin Skywalker.  But also because there's no point in trying to get back what I lost forever.

Fast forward to 2013.  Two games on the horizon whose predecessors I was in awe of. The first was Egosoft's "X: Rebirth."


Here's the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bb_jCP1mJo

My God.  Just look at it in its glory.  And all they had to do was simply update the graphics from X:3, come up with some stupid storyline that I'm only going to ignore anyway, and maybe tweak the UI a little and poof! they'd have recreated their magic.

They chose not to do this.

Instead, they decided to "improve" and "reinvent" the series.  They decided to restrict the game mechanics--allowing you only one ship to 'exist' in. (the previous iterations allowed you to have any ship) They reduced the size of the play-universe, obscured the trade functions, and scattered the UI into a hundred unintuituve pieces.  In short, they consciously decided to scrap most of the facets of the game that set it apart from its far inferior competitors. Three years I waited for this gorgeous...  flop.

That was fine, I thought, I have "Thief" on the horizon.  There are few game series that I think on as fondly.  I still play the old ones from the 90's even though the graphics are horribly dated.  Once again, screenshots aplenty.  The rich tapestry of "The City" in all of it's glorious squalor...


This time it was a yet different developer, as Looking Glass Studios made the original two, then Ion Storm made the third, but keeping to Looking Glass's canon.  Eidos Montreal took the baton and promised to keep the game's integrity intact.  And it seemed promising.  They rejected third-person perspective, favoring first-person, as all the other versions had.  Although they were including options that, to me, made the game a bit more like "Dishonored" than "Thief," they made sure these were options that could be disabled at the outset of a new game or within the settings menus.

I preordered.

Then I read this article reviewing the game.  I cancelled my order only hours before the launch, figuring I can borrow it from a friend first to see if it's worth the $50 price tag.

I've since done so, and I did buy the game thinking that modders could correct all the problems with it.  The level design is atrocious, the voice acting is uninspired and stilted, and the storyline is unengaging.  All of these things I expect from a lesser game.  All of these things are fixable once a title leaves the developer's hands.  All of these things make this a game I'll eventually get around to finishing some day, maybe.  But once again, the magic is gone.

Eidos Montreal has since laid off at least twenty of the people that worked on the Thief.  This doesn't look good for official DLC or patches, not that I want them...

My gaming soul has been killed.

But look how pretty the new Dragon Age screenshots are!  I really liked the first one...


...I refuse to get my hopes up.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Video Card Cookies


So my graphics card died on Saturday while I was playing a game. I've had various computer components go caput before, so it's never surprising when this happens. What gave me anxiety was knowing that we paid about $700 for this card a few years ago, and that we'd have to pay this again. And again, since my wife wants an upgraded video card for her computer for her birthday.

Today, I was looking to see if anyone had a similar problem with their nVidia 8800 GTX card. (The problem being short red and blue lines appearing on the monitor screen--even on the initial BIOS screens) It turns out they had! Curiouser and curiouser.

The solution:
Bake it in the oven.

I'm not kidding here. The logic behind this is that solder goes back to 'squishy' around 350 degrees. Melting point is typically 361 to 460 degrees. So I baked the card (after stripping away the heat sink) at 385 for 8 minutes. Long enough to heal the alleged 'microcracks' in the solder which were causing my problems.

I waited an hour for everything to cool, and lo! It appears to have worked! For how long remains to be seen, but I'm not complaining.

...I wonder if this would work on some other things around the house?

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Pattaya Thai Restaurant & Canned Lychee


607 Johnnie Dodds Blvd.
Mount Pleasant, SC 29464
(843) 856-1808

The meal here was okay. The Pad Thai wasn't as good as the one I had at Taste of Thai in West Ashley. The staff were friendly.
But then there was the dessert.
Now, I'm a fan of lychee. Or at least I'm a fan of the lychee drinks one can find commonly in Asian markets. I never had the actual fruit before. So when I saw it on the menu as a dessert option: "Lychee with syrup" I thought, "Great! I get to try the real stuff--I hope it's fresh!" Mind you, during the dinner we spotted a sort of mini Asian market in the dining room in the display case under the check out counter. Imagine my surprise when my dessert was can of the lychee on display rather unceremoniously (and without even a garnish) dumped into a bowl. The 'syrup' portion being the juice in the can.

Seriously?

Sprinkle some cinnamon over it? Garnish it with a sprig of something. ANYTHING! We were charged over $5 for this.

I don't think we'll be going back.