UT soundtrack

Funny thing, after writing about music and mentioning Unreal Tournament i couldn't help thinking about that game and its music. It's only been about six months since I introduced it to my friend and played for a few last times, but exactly like before, I only listened to the music as the background, ingame music. Now that I thought of it, I tracked down the soundtrack and listened to all of it just as music. It was an interesting experience because the music did not sound quite like I have remembered it. It's not the same music without the game. But it's also not bad, although out of my genre range. I was surprised that it was created mostly by just two men, specifically for the game (when I had played UT I hadn't thought its music had been an original composition).

My Lame Dream Wolf Game Stuff

Now that I have a few minutes to spare, I'd like to write a little about a game, which I have never played. But it is the game I was most curious of back in 1994. It is the game I dreamt of.

In said 1994, I was eight, uninformed and poor. I enjoyed computer games very much, but I only had those brought by my father, an increasingly reluctant gamer at the time. He was also the one to bring me few computer and gaming magazines, which I started buing regularly later. But until that time, the few (three or four) computer games magazines he gave me back then were like my bible for about a year. Of all the games I read about over and over, I found 'Wolf' most promising.

Sociobiology for dummies

Well, as you may have noticed, I'm having trouble posting anything here, mostly because: a) I'm going through another life-death issues' offensive, so simple stuff (like blogging) often seems... trivial;  b) it's been over three and a half months since the last time I played any video game, so they're beginning to fade away in my mind (the blog's name and general concept should probably change in near future); c) reason a) keeps me occupied.

But I still think a lot, and that probably won't change anytime soon. I can share an entertaining (funny, if you share my twisted sense of humor) thought.

Sociobiology for dummies.

Thorughout billions of years of life's struggle to exist, males have developed two main reproductory strategies: domination (rape) and cooperation (gang rape).

I shall catch up with all your blogs when I have the time and resources, presumably soon.

A lesson

When I was just starting my warcraft 3 career (btw it didn't last too long), I would occasionally hear or read about some super powerful tactic that is imba and a no-brainer and lets you win everything. So when I actually tried such a tactic and got brutally owned, I was very surprised.

Joke themes 2

Ok, I'm still getting the same feeling when I see/read jokes - that I can identify it's theme, and also that the number of themes is actually pretty low (compared to what one should expect). Well, easier thought than done. I perceive each theme a bit like I perceive a color. Try casually explaining the similarity of same-coloured objects, or telling how many colours are there. But since it's a great excuse to post even more of my xkcd favourites, I'll try presenting some theme examples (or just some pairs of similar comics) of different detail levels. Every theme contains more specific themes, and is a part of a wider one.

Game music, part 2

Following some of your suggestions, I listened to Final Fantasy music by Nobuo Uematsu and I really enjoyed it. Especially FF3 (I couldn't believe it ran on snes) and FF7 (cd quality music holding midi references). Did not like FF8's and FF13's. FF11's surprisingly had some folk-like notes, which was also good. Twilight Princess' sounded similar. Now none of them sounded really like a game soundtrack to me, and I see two possible causes:
  1) place of origin: while most games I played were western-made, those were totally eastern
  2) platform: I have never really accepted anything other than a PC, and the FF culture is a console one.
Anyhow, listening to these soundtracks made me regret never playing the FFs (tried with ff7 once, but the version lent to me proved damaged).

The best cRPG game ever created

Computer rpg games are one of the most prominent genres and have been for about twenty years now; they probably are also the genre most commonly combined with others - mostly action games, but also adventure and strategy. This happened due to two factors:
  1) never was there a clear and widely agreed upon cRPG definition, so use of the term was arbitrary, and
  2) cRPG was considered one of the 'thinking' genres, so for an action game to be classified as rpg was very ennobling, suggesting that a game about slashing monsters is something more; traditional, mostly turn-based cRPG fans opposed such activity, naming diablolike games hack n' slash.


Now you understand that being named the best of such a noble game genre puts you in good position for being named the best game of all. By now you could have also predicted that 'action rpg' (as the 3D hack n' slash with some more rpg games are called) is not my type. I have nothing against them, really, but they are just something to rest hands and mind on, not the adventure that slower rpg games offered. Action rpgs are centered around optimized entertainment (based on enjoyable fights, breathtaking views and satisfying quests), while classic crpgs offered genuine entertainment (based on a great world or storyline).

Game music, part 1

Games have music. Most of the game's climate is generated by audio; quality of playing also varies depending on it, so let's just say that music is a very important part of any game. It also plays almost exactly the same role in the movie industry, and even the same people start to create both.


Game and film music's role is primarily to create a background, set the viewer in proper mood, but sound is also a piece of artistic work. I require my game and movie music also to be good for listening separated from the product it is made for. Most fail at this task, as they become boring, often only thing they communicate is epicness and that makes them trivial.

More on Tetris

So much interest on the tetris jokes has made me think about on the subject. Firstly because some of you might have missed out on those russian duel cartoons, one of which features tetris (maybe I should call it the tetris machine - it's not disappearing levels that are fighting) . You can watch or re-watch it here:

I looked up some more funny tetris pics:

Joke themes

Jokes on the same subject tend to gain depth or funniness if presented together, so I joined together some xkcd's (also I needed an excuse to share them, as they're in my top100 of the ~900 he published.

Expanding or limiting fps games:

Also the one I posted on Jokes and Violence belongs here.

Nacho

Warning: this post is not about mexican food. If you are so desperate that you try to read about food then just eat some. If you read about food because you ate so much you can explode, but still think about food, then eat some more. Now, if we have that sorted out, let's get on with the subject.

For the last couple of days I felt too philosophical to think or write about games, I thought of something else instead and decided to put it on paper (and by paper I mean blog). Another warning: this post is mostly about men.

Part one: macho.

There is the macho stereotype - a man determined to posess and present some classically male, testosteronic  qualities like physical strenght, but more importantly, is overly competitive against other males and his attitude towards women is sex-oriented (unless of course our macho is gay, but let's forget about that possibility for now). That brings us to my two-point macho definition:
1. Macho's main purpose is to be an alpha male.
2. In his pursuit of said purpose, he is most likely to employ traditional means (physical qualities) and views (conservative).

Macho's hypocrisy: as a conservative, a macho typically wants a virgin-type woman (in the virgin-whore dichotomy) as his wife, which leaves his raging sexuality basically unattended. In order to have both a sex life and a family life as he likes it, he separates them, trying to engage in multiple romantic relations, often, but not necessarily sticking to just one family (it's probably related to the known fact that a secret family is harder to hide than a secret lover).

For further opinions and a little information look up macho, machismo or marianismo in wikipedia.

Part two: nerd.

To me, the word 'nerd' seems strictly attached to US culture, in which I don not participate, so I speak of nerd portrayals I have seen in films/tv and of nerd-like type of people I have seen within my own, polish culture (ha ha ha poland!). Also for this post I will be using a wide definition of the term 'nerd', which means that my nerds do not have to be interested in computer science (they're nerds not geeks), but tend to be socially and physically awkward, to be interested in some scientific or intelligence-based activity as well as having hobbies regarded as childish by typical others (I hope no specification is required). Again, visiting wikipedia's page for 'nerd' can provide further info and some background if needed.

Part three: nacho or maerd.

It stuck me recently, that I have not met as many machos and nerds as one could expect, but instead I often find something between them. A combination of opposites, a nacho - or a maerd (I cannot decide between these two names; nacho is lovable due to the food association, and also refers to latin origin of the word 'macho', while maerd looks a little celtic and sounds almost like french word for shit). Nacho's ambition is to be(come) an alpha male, but he does not stick to exploiting physical qualities in order to achieve that goal. His education can range from plain high school through technical up to PhD in science or in liberal arts. A typical maerd can be a historian or a surveyor, but could also be a bank analyst. He's not unfit, but also isn't muscular; he manifests his traditional male role mostly by fixing and adjusting stuff; he tries to present it as the most manly quality and does not attempts direct physical domination of other males. Most of the time, a maerd is right-wing, embracing both the socially conservative and the economically liberal parts, but I've seen some specimen with socialist attitude towards economy or even socially liberal (but always in a manner that would serve them). Maerds are the people who have many hobbies, and who advertise hobbies in general ("do something with your life, find out what are you interested in").

Part four: where I stand.

Nachos repulse me as much as machos do, or even a bit more, but I'm afraid they're the type of man most likely to start a family. After all, they almost always manage to acquire a steady,, at-least-average income as they manage to build a widely understandable (but challenging to many) image of self-superiority. My personal problem with them is that they do not acknowledge the existence of people too compicated for hobbies. They are the intelectual extension of the non-intelectual, typical, plain, simply competitive, brutal world. They also share the said world's love towards judging everyone else.

Part five: interaction.

I'm really sorry that you had to read all that, but am happy to announce that you have almost reached the end. I only want to ask you, how you feel about maerds (nachos) - do you know people matching the description, do you like them, are you them or are they your life partner? Do you know any professional texts on the subject that I should be aware of (I freely admit that I only spoke my mind without being a member of the sociology guild)? Do you have a comment that does not fit any of the above questions (:D)? Which name do you prefer: nacho or maerd? Or maybe would you like to propose your own?

P.S.: I chose the name 'nacho' as prime, because I wanted to write the first paragraph.

Dream game

Being a little bored and a little depressed I didn't feel like talking to anybody yesterday, so I drifted about wikipedia articles about some interesting places and times. Soon enough it turned into reading about ancient conflicts, subject I used to love as a kid (Mithradates VI was such a badass), and that had to lead to a desire to conquer something once more. Having no such opportunity anymore, I could just reminisce about the beautiful times when I had been playing Medieval: Total War. It was the second and last game of the total war series I have played, it's hard for me to believe it's already ten years old. It had many successors and even a sequel, so probably nowadays nobody remebers or is interested in it. The whole total war series is renowned mostly for its battle engine, which allows quite realistic real-time battles with large quantities of soldiers, but I cared more for the campaign engine, since it was turn-based. One turn could take me a long time (tens of minutes, maybe even above an hour), spent on deciding what forces to send where.

For me it was more rewarding to plan a good military campaign and lead to battles computer could easily win for me than winning these (often epic) battles myself - at least in time it became so. It just seemed more real, just as a king of a big country should rather send generals to battles and oversee the whole at all times. But having absolute control over a country for hundreds of years gives such a big advantage that it's child's play to conquer everything the game offers for conquering. For many years I have longed for a game that would present the ruler's struggle for maintaining support of major powers within their country, dealing with succession issues and other political problems on top of the usual country control offered by games, and all that within the limited time of your ruling/life.

I don't even know if such a game exists or not, since I don't really follow the market for some years now. Before complete moratorium on gaming I've been investing less and less time, money and attention towards it, focusing mostly on 'games I have to play one more time' and not the new ones.

I not interested in playing anymore, but just for satisfying my curiosity, can anyone tell me if said game has been made?

The Warcraft evolution

On the presented screenshots you can see W1, then W2 and W3. Each of those screenshots shows player's base and I didn't differentiate expansion packs, since they didn't provide any significant change. I think it's safe to say that w1 looks crude - very little detail, terrain all the same. W2 is much improved - terrain looks a little less all the same and there are more types of it to choose from, units and buildings are full of details, as much as resolution allows it. With w3 a lot changes, since now we're in 3D environment, gameplay change is more significant than from w1 to w2 (heroes, recalculated economy).

Now, w3 is almost a different game type than w1 - the general idea remains the same, but it doesn't feel the same. Some important differences:

1. Fonts. W1 has everything written in capital letters, whilst it's successors offer normal writing. It adds crudeness.
2. Notice the increase in alignment marks (colored elements) throughout the series. In w1 you basically see buildings that are someone's base, in w3 you see someone's base that is composed of buildings.
3. This is only partially visible on these screens, but you know it's right: the icons get shinier, the objects on them exaggerated, buildings start as buildings, but in time they become more statue-like, more distinctive-looking, but less real (if this adjective could ever be used in reference to any warcaft product)
4. In w1 there are just 2 races fighting each other, but from w2 they are great alliances consisting of 5 races, and from w3 there's a total racial pandemonium.
5. Sounds. In w1 and w2 they're recorded without special effects, they're plain, but creative. In w3 they're there's more effect than sound and it's boring.
6. Most important: roads! In w1 you built road to expand your village and connect it, and you built walls around your village. No towers, just clever wall-building and tactics. In w2 and w3 you can (with some exceptions) build anywhere on the map, so in w2 your base is a set of loosely standing buildings ranging as far as the terrain under your control. In w3 it can go either way, but there is no roadbuilding option.

Conclusion: w1 was a game about building your village and defeating rival village, it depicted something. W3 is primarily a multiplayer game aimed at providing some visual representation of a sporting event, that is a w3 match. And also to attract young age players, who like all the demon-dragon, shiny and colorful magic world-destroying (and saving) mayhem, who need all uits to be special, interesting and likeable - unlike real military units, which are plain, stupid and definitely not likeable.

Now I'd like to mention that I do not consider w3 worse game than w1, even though I miss the w1 kind of games, which had mostly died, I think. The roadbuilding and beautiful villages were absorbed by town-development games like settlers, knights & merchants or anno 1602 and their sequels (but don't get me started on settlers above 2). W3 achieved its goal of being very enjoyable and fair multiplayer game and I loved owning people in it (I almost liked being owned too). WoW shall not be spoken of on my blog, not now, not ever. Unless I'll have some interesting thoughts about it, of course.

Time for some lame pun: the best way to get completely stoned is to drink liquid concrete.

Situations

I've been neglecting the whole blogging world lately, and, frankly, all the other worlds too. For some time now I have been dealing with a family illness issue, the whole 'people who raised you dying' thing. Writing this blog has provided a nice distraction for me, but there are days when you don't need distraction, but to decide something. And lately there are more and more days completely filled with making errands for my whole family as I am the only healthy person with a driving licence.

But I often play games in my dreams. It was the same when I was quitting smoking - I dreamt that I had forgotten about quitting and smoked, and then felt guilt (still in dream). My friends also had such dreams when they were quitting, so I guess it's a good thing now.

One last piece of thought: if there is a person who wouldn't get depressed by their friend or close relative dying, it's probably me. I care about people, but I'm okay with death, probably even more than with life. But it has so many aspects and accompanying events/situations that the whole package is almost bound to depress anyone, even me. So unless your parents will die suddenly in their sleep or you really hate them, don't expect to go through their death unconcerned. Or maybe you will? Or already did? We're thought to be all different after all.

The earliest RTSs

One of the most popular genres of PC gaming is real-time strategy. It's been born in the year 1992, when Dune 2 saw daylight. It was a little revolution compared to the completely turn-based games, but it wasn't a thunder from a blue sky. I remember Centurion (1990) had a battle module which did not allow much to do, but played in real time. Anyhow, Dune 2 is widely known as the first RTS. It looked like that:

Now, it wasn't until 1994 that a second most famous early rts game was released, and that game was Warcraft.

The two games started two biggest rts cycles - Command & Conquer and Warcraft series, each of which had their declared fans who engaged in harsh discussion in order to find the better game.

The Great Schism of the Strategy Games, which should be basically dated 1990-94, has led to a great decrease in the popularity of turn-based strategies, almost killing the genre (that may be why so many of you didn't play any).

The comparison between early rts and advanced rts will be presented in another post due to lack of time today.
Piece of wisdom:
 Experience is a wonderful thing. It allows you to recognize the mistake when you make it again.

Jokes and violence

Today I would like to post an example of a good joke, by my taste of course, and taken from xkcd of course.

(click to enlarge it)

It's funny mostly because peace, life and progress are considered good itself by our whole culture, but they're boring when achieved, and also static - social roles are given and hard to change. During wartime and other crises there are great losses, but also great (social and financial) gains. What I'm trying to say is maybe we like action (violence) so much not only because the feeling of danger keeps us from boredom, but also it brings us hope of radical changes (i.e. us becoming the wealthy, happy and loved, which most of us - by definition - are not).

At least I find this kind of motivation in myself - one of the biggest pleasures of gaming for me was to start as nothing and become everything.
Compared to that, life is slow and boring as we have little power over what we are (or at least I say we do). So today I'm not nostalgic of any certain game, I'm nostalgic of a certain world built with dreams. Also note that this great progress I had with games (and remember that strategy was my favourite genre) often involved finding solution to many social, financial and government problems and creating a happy city/nation/universe. But the hope of radical changes I mentioned before (connected with violence, crises and all the movies about them) is a selfish one: we dream for the social order to shake so that we wind up on top.

It has probably been a tiresome read, but it was an enjoyable write. As a piece of wisdom for today my thought of lately (I highly doubt if it's original, might be a movie or famous person quote that I subconciously remembered, so if you recognize it, let me know):

Manipulating opinions is quite easy, I'm doing it right now.

Mouse on the Keys

Busy and sad yesterday ended with going to see (more like hear, actually) Mouse on the Keys, japanese band starting as trio, playing as a quartet a year ago (previous time I saw them) and as a quintet now. Since they're not terribly famous, but are incredibly good, I decided to recommend them to any audiophiles. I'm not really good at specifying music genres, but remember MotK being called a jazz - post-rock combination, which might not be wrong.

The basic trio consisted of drums and two keybords, one of which always played as piano, the other sometimes as bass, producing a strong, rock-like sound - for me the perfect term would be 'juicy', mostly because the later on, with the aquisition of two brass instruments (I didn't figure which exactly) they experiment towards the increasing 'dryness'.

Here is an example, one of their more famous compositions (also the 'juiciest' one):

Also the newly created club didn't figure it's acoustics yet, so yesterday's concert sounded a bit like crap (you know the sound of crap, don't you? :D). Anyhow, that would be all.

A piece of wisdom: if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving probably isn't for you.

All-time classic

One game, two names, one of the biggest influences in the gaming history. Ufo: Enemy Unknown or X-Com: Ufo Defense, that's the game I'm talking about. Every gamer, even ones starting their gaming adventure today, should play this in my opinion. Two sequels (Terror from the Deep and Apocalypse) are optional - they're more challenging, but not as big part of gaming history as the first one. Later there were many UFO clones and remakes, I played one of them, seen another, but liked neither. Recently I've read of a strict remake called UFO: The Two Sides - from the screenshots it looks really nice, if anyone played it, then should tell if it's worth it.

You might also know it, but it still need saying, that UFO wasn't a fully original game - it's most famous part, the combat system, was taken from an earlier game called Laser Squad.

Laser Squad could be called the mother of all tactical games, since it had two very famous lines of descendants, one being the UFO franchise, the other - Sabre Team and then Jagged Alliance.

One of the interesting facts about UFO was that most of in-game messages and texts were written in a readable file, so translating the game into your language was really easy, and not even too tiresome (it took me one evening I think and it worked)

The looks of UFO:

And thus this quick post ends, I'm totally out of time today, so visiting all your blogs will have to wait for some hours, maybe even till tomorrow.

A bit on smoking

Right now I'm quitting gaming, but I also quit smoking only recently. I did it because it wasn't good for my finances, but I must also admit it wasn't very good for my health. After I had decided to quit, I still let myself smoke every once in a while when I was particularly happy or stressed. Generally, I still liked tobacco smoke, I still liked dark pubs where vision was impaired due to smoke.

Yesterday, contrary to my prior plans, I went out for a couple of beers with some friends I like, of which only one girl was smoking, and only a few cigarettes throughout the whole evening (back in my smoking days, social drinking events had always been a good reason to smoke like a volcano). Today I woke up feeling crappy, and it was due to my hair and yesterday's clothes still smelling a bit like smoke. I was never fond of yesterday's smoke, but it didn't bother me so much - now there's been a difference made in the universe. So from today I don't really feel like a smoker anymore, and I think it's both a good thing and a bad thing.

Of course I still support smokers as a discriminated group.

Today I'm feeling generous, there will be two pieces of wisdom connected to the subject:

"Quitting smoking is really easy, I did it like a hundred times"

If you smoke after sex, you're doing it too fast.

Dominus

Games from 1994 mostly had either early rendered graphics (simple geometric shapes seen as environment) or drawn graphics at their best. One of the latter was Dominus - real time strategy game, which allowed you to become a ruler (probably an usurper) of some fantasy land, invaded by foreign armies of strange creatures (who might also be freedom fighters). You had to eradicate them with your armies, traps or even slaughter them yourself, risking death in battle. Other activities included (magically?) breeding your own kind of soldiers, producing traps, spells and interrogating captured enemy soldiers. I think Dungeon Keeper took many of its ideas from this game.

Dominus was also very difficult, at least to an eight year old. But I have one great memory with it - evil lord (me) stranded in a besieged castle, his troops all wiped out, with no more traps or spells, asking himself: "do I really have to lose?", watching the besiegers breach the castle and take floor after floor, he meets them for one last massacre. This happened several times, once the besiegers were also the last enemy army and when I repelled them on the top floor of the castle, I won.

When I think about Dominus today, first thing that comes to mind is: "I wouldn't name my game that, unless the main character is either roman or wears a lot of leather"

A piece of wisdom for today:

It's lonely at the top, but you eat better.

Views

Today I don't feel like writing some hard-thought and hard-to-read post, I think I've done so enough in the last couple of days. Instead, I'd like to place some photos I made recently. They're a bit crappy, raw and idiotically spoiled by my phone's targeting device - in a word, they're just how I like 'em. I'm not generally interested in photography, I'm still not bored of sunsets and silhouettes, I don't know the rules of composition and I like the picture taken within 15 seconds after I thought: "this might be a good photo". It's may be the only spontaneous thing I do.

And a random piece of wisdom for today:

A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.

xkcd's accidents

Everybody knows or should know xkcd. I consider him probably the funniest guy on the internet (actually, by that I mean his jokes... don't know the man personally), and like him even more because he clearly states that he allows bloggers and other non or low profit pages to place his comics without asking, while many others deny it and want money.

Anyway, I was looking through his older works I have saved and found his accidents chart:

I've decided to re-do his research to see how things have developed. Here's what I got today (i kept the original order):

"died in a skydiving accident"....................4 700
"died in a elevator accident"......................200
"died in an elevator accident"....................8 900
"died in a surfing accident"........................2880
"died in a skateboarding accident".............6270
"died in a camping accident"......................874
"died in a gardening accident"....................214
"died in a ice skating accident"...................41
"died in a knitting accident"........................3970
"died in a blogging accident"......................4540

and for comparison, the generals:
"died in a accident"...................................240 000
"died in an accident"..................................5 170 000

Conclusions:
1. Every number is increased so much it suggests rapid growth of internet or difference in methods.
2. The increase in knitting and blogging accident results must be caused by the chart's popularity.
3. The increase in skateboarding accidents is so big, it may mean that
         a) skateboarders don't know how to skate anymore.
         b) they're being ridiculed by the whole internet now.
         c) there's just an awful nuber of skateboarders.
4. Correct articles can mean the world.
5. Due to global warming, ice skating is losing popularity (or people finally got good at it).



EDIT: Valid points made in the comments made me try some more possibilities, just for fun (yeah, I do find odd things funny):
"died in a car accident".........1,860,000
"died in a diving accident".....69,600
"died in a sexual accident"....7
"died in a music accident".....2
"died in a musical accident"..1
"died in a reading accident"..1 (only result related to xkcd, so reading's pretty safe)
"died in a drinking accident"..600
"died in an eating accident"...2

Also, if you don't believe that people can die out of a blogging accident, here's a completely made up proof:
"Thomas Harrison, age 34, has been found dead in his house. The direct cause of death was cardiac arrest, believed to be induced by massive rage attack Harrison has suffered while reading comments on his blog. He is believed to be the fourth victim of the blogging wave America's been struggling with lately"

Defined

   After my father got a decent 486 with vga graphics (finally! it was around 1994 I think) I would sometimes find new games there. Shortly thereafter he dropped games (not instantly, but eventually succesfully), but during the said time I once found a folder called Warlords 2. I figured out how to start the game, but at first didn't get the concept. It was my first turn-based strategy.

    Later on I learned everything about it and for about a year I considered it the best game of all, until I got acquainted with other turn-based strategy games, which became my favourite genre of all times. Apart from having the perfect balance between narrations and thinking, they offered effective multiplayer with just one computer ('hot seat' as it was later named in heroes of might and magic). But sometimes we (me and my friends) would just play the single player mode: one being the high commander (actually playing), others nominated advisors or rulers of some parts of land.

   So what I'm reminiscing here is not only a great game, but also a checkpoint in the transformation from a world kids come out and play to the world kids connect via internet and play.
   And of course I'm reminiscing my youth because we all do.

Here's how Warlords 2 looked:

And also to explain what I meant earlier:

Alienation Wave

Yesterday I met with some old friends. Host's idea was to talk while playing xbox and drinking beer, so I had to ruin everyone's mood by continuously refusing to play with them. I've never liked neither owned consoles (that's why I speak of computer games instead of video games), but normally I would fit in just fine. I would also talk mostly about gaming stuff. Now I feel alienated. Yesterday's meeting was kinda boring for me. Only the lawyer friend (who earns more now than I probably will in ten years) understood me, since had not drunk until we were in high school.

I don't have anything to talk about anymore. Looks like gaming was the last normal thing about me.

PS. Note to self: running 500m for the bus during a cold, winter night is not good for your lungs.

Organ solo

I listened to the organ solo from Dead Man OST again. By the way, it's a great movie and the soundtrack is a kickass piece of music.

The organ solo starts with a slow, high-pitched sound that reminds me Modoc in Fallout 2. Its music theme also started with a slow, high-pitched organ sound. I think Modoc was the most stylish among all f2 places, partially because the music. Well, at least until it was all covered in excrement, then it became... too stylish.

Game music is also an interesting issue in general, I shall return to it.


The organ solo from Dead Man (second half of the video):

Game dreams

Recently I was dreaming, or daydreaming (I just cannot tell - isn't it funny?), about Diablo 2. It wasn't a great game, yet I commited a lot of my life to it. And it is important to me because it shows the two ways a PC gamer can take: single or multi. When you play d2 in single player mode, you are a loser, trying to feel the game's dramatism, which is really trashy. You follow the story, which is painfully schematic. You treasure items, which wouldn't be worth picking up on battle.net. That was me. Second way is multiplayer, especially bn. There you become a player, you save time, skip quests, go only to places with best exp to time ratio or item dropping chance. You enjoy the item market and try to profit. That was also me. Path one is substituting your life for your game, creating inner life, while path two would be treating the game as a part of your life, an extension. Even a way to socialize.

Right now I'm really nostalgic about the single part. I dream of searching all the tal rasha's tombs, out of sheer curiosity. I dream of the moment I first saw rain over the meadows of act I, and I told to a friend: "wow, that wasn't in d1". By the way, that friend was just sitting next to me while I was playing, occasionally letting him play for a few minutes. We used to play a lot like that, or together in turn-based strategy games, which allowed hot seat, because he did not own a pc for a long time. But more on that later.

The point is: we're most nostalgic of the times when we were the lamest. Now, from the time perspective, I'd call my early d2 experience... innocent. Funny, isn't it?

The game that made me a gamer

So around 1990-91 I was occasionally playing some out-of-date games like Bushido or Alley Cat, then one evening I walked in on my parents, all excited,  sitting in front of the computer (actually, they were just sitting in front of the monitor, but you get the point), watching the intro to Prince of Persia, and then struggling with the first level, learning their way around the game. I joined the team, we switched, I jumped some ledges, tried hard to pass the first guard without getting the sword, then let my father play again. It was his idea to pick up the sword, then we fought the guard and found some mysterious door. As I remember it, we tried to open it for hours (it was probably just minutes), searching the whole level for a clue or a switch. I had to give up, and the next day my mother told me that they finally found a switch, opened the door and entered it, but surprisingly it did not mean winning the game. It just meant getting into level two. God, that was exciting :)

Then we played some separately, but I remember that beating level 3 required the combined force of my family - well, except for my sisters, who were just spectating. In time, I was more and more commited to the game, while my parents were less and less, so they only got interested when there was something unusual, like the fat, well-fencing guard on level 6.

I don't remember how long it took me (us) to finish the game, but it was years. I must have stopped playing at several occasions (some hard riddles or duels) and gotten back to it a few months later. One of those occasions was certainly level 8, which I remember as the hardest in the whole game. I couldn't solve the final riddle, someone had to tell me to lower the sword.

I played it many times after finishing, tried to do it without killing anyone (I think I found that impossible) or with least kills. It was the first game that told a story for me, a story in which I took part. I fell in love with games and it lasted many years.

The Beginning

I started playing computer games when I was four or five. My father used to play them back then and one time I tried too. The earliest game I remember was Dig Dug, but it was some less popular version of it so nowadays I can't find any screencap. It was probably some sequel or clone, since the original Dig Dug was made in 1983 and I played mine no sooner than 1990. If you are not familiar with the dig dug concept, the internet is full of old games' descriptions.

During the first years of my gaming adventure I didn't choose my games, I just played whatever I could find at home and understand. I've had some fun with Space Commanders, which was a Space Invaders clone. I tried tetris, but I think it was too difficult or too boring (no fighting) for me. I've seen, but did not play, some arkanoid-type game. Back then we had a CGA graphics card, so everything was displayed in just 4 colors. Why cga around the year 1990, when even vga was available? Well, not for home computers affordable in central europe.

Two Pyramids

Last night I caught myself thinking about a funny paradox I found in my behaviour, and the general idea behind it. There is this picture I found among various internet jokes some time ago. I mean, this one:

I naturally remembered it when thinking yesterday, because the thing I want to present is also a three-way choice between personal traits. I didn't bother to draw a new triangle, so I used the above as a template.

 This one is not meant to be funny or strikingly accurate, it's more of a problem I observe. Let's call the image pyramid of expectations, because it represents what we expect another people to be, so that we can fit them into one of the common stereotypes, such as the examples. It's not a law that would always be true, it's more like a tendency.

And now the funny paradox: having this in mind, I often hide the fact that I care so much about the world. I learned that once people know it, they tend to overlook either my success or my logic. So caring is best shown when your succesfulness and logical thinking are already proven. Still, people will perceive you less normal.

I'm also pretty sure this mechanism is really connected to revealing the fact that you care and not to me overcompensating social rejection or being in other way narcissistic. I'm only narcissistic in my spare time.

Gamestalgic?

Yeah, the name's kinda stupid. I can almost hear criticizing voices speaking about today's youth being unable to communicate with already existing words. Do you really think that combining two words into one will make you unique? Well, I don't. But I also didn't want any numbers in the blog's title and all the normal words were probably taken. This one just looks good enough for me.

As the title suggests, I feel nostalgic about computer games, which have been my main hobby (and, in time, addiction) for about twenty years (that would be something around 82% of my life). Quite recently I've decided to quit playing, but the games I played are still part of me. Such feeling gave me the impulse to create this place, where I can peacefully think and write about them, but also about many other stuff that comes into my mind - mostly life and excuses to avoid it. I also like to draw stuff in ms paint, and some of my drawings are so bad, they deserve to be shown to a wider public. One day I might show some here.