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).