The past week was filled with rave reviews on Left 4 Dead.  Since I already got myself a steam account last week, and since I’m assuming you’ll need Steam anyway to play Valve games, I was considering purchasing Left 4 Dead online so I can finally get my feet wet with multiplayer FPSs.

Two things gave me pause:

1. My PC is a bit on the old side (around 4 years now).
2. FPSs aren’t friendly to lag.  Half a second delay could get my ass handed to me.

I wish the L4D demo was still available so I could test it on my system, but alas, I can’t find it.  The game currently retails at around US$50, so if I’m gonna fork out the dough, I better make sure I can play it immediately.  I do have plans on upgrading my PC, but I’m waiting for Starcraft 2 to come out before I do it.

Fortunately for me, a nice little option came along.

Last week, gog.com started adding Unreal and Unreal Tournament stuff.  I remember Unreal Tournament as the first shooter I really liked because it wasn’t as frantic as Quake was, and it was the 1st shooter that didn’t make me dizzy after prolonged hours of play.  Delighted at the prospect of a shooter my system could handle, I decided that the cheap price is acceptable even if the ‘net multiplayer doesn’t work.  I can accept US$10 for just fragging a few bots when I’m in the mood.  If my ‘net connection can handle the lag, then the ‘net play would be a welcome bonus.

So I made the purchase and started the download.  2 gig don’t download all that fast, though, and I had to redo the download due to a silly thing I did.  So while waiting, I decided to check-out what the other digital distribution sites had to offer.

I ended up being intrigued by the new stuff Greenhouse had.  Hitherland was added a week or so ago, but the demo was available only recently.  Puzzlegeddon was the new game, and it already had a demo available.  I downloaded both.

I installed the Puzzlegeddon demo and played a few rounds.  I wasn’t expecting much, but it ended up engaging me for quite a few rounds!

Puzzlegeddon’s core mechanic is basically sliding blocks in a square grid to make sets of at least 5 of the same color.  The cool thing is that this core mechanic is used as a means to fuel a competitive game between 2-6 players!  Making sets fills a meter of that color.  The meter is used for various special effects like attack, defense, buffs, and disruptions.  Also, you can select among several avatars which give you special bonuses like more powerful attacks, more efficient meter filling when chains are made, etc.

[pic above] A game against 5 bots.  Me (12 o’clock, the castle) and Bit Bot decide to simultaneously fire missiles at  Probot Hector.  The wormhole above Probot Hector is an interrupt I cast, and the ephemeral flexing arms is due to a buff I cast.

One thing that bothers me a tad, and it’s not the gameplay.  For some reason, Puzzlegeddon take a while to load, and it eats-up q big chunk of resources.  Given the game, I was expecting it to be snappy, but it actually takes longer to load than OtRSPoD:E2!  This has nothing to do with gameplay, though, and hopefully an update comes along to speed this part along.  In terms of multiplayer, the lobbies aren’t that full right now, but if others like the game too, this will probably fix itself.

The whole concept, along with the fun and quirky art, and the possibility of multiplayer just gave me a nice warm feeling, enough to get me to purchase the thing!

And so, I now have two new competitive games, a nice old game where I shoot people, and a nice new puzzle game where I shoot people!

• "Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" Demo Review
• Spectromancer, World of Goo at Greenhouse
• Download Firefox 3, Set a Guinness World Record!
• Wishlist 2008.12
• Inquest Gamer Magazine Discontinued

Time to make a wishlist again, and again I am hard-pressed to generate a list of needs.  I have practically everything I need, so there’s not much I can come-up with on that front.  I’ll have to settle with “nice to haves”.

This year, instead of thoughtfully trying to come-up with the list of “nice to haves”, I’ve decided to make it a bit more spontaneous, so I’ll probably be updating the list throughout the holiday season.

[http://darthvid.com/2008/11/wishlist-200812.html]

Here it is, in order of desirability (as of 2008.12/05):

1. [PC game] The Orange Box - Either as a Steam Gift or a retail copy.  Given that Unreal Tournament 2004 ECE’s online play worked for me, this is probably what I really really want in preparation for Left 4 Dead.  I asked a branch of DataBlitz regarding the availability of the retail version, but they said that they were “phasing-out” this particular games due to some problems.  If this is the case, one might be hard pressed to find a retail copy of Orange Box in the Philippines that will work when registered online, unless the other video-game retailers here have good copies (it better have a return policy to be sure).  A Steam Game Gift, though, won’t ever run out of copies (since it’s basically a license transfer) and are automatically registered online.
2. [book] The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks - What I really want is Left 4 Dead, but since my PC can’t take it yet, I’ll have to settle for other zombie stuff to get me in the mood.  I think I saw this at FullyBooked.
3. LEGO Star Wars Death Star, or any bunch of LEGOs that will help me make steampunk stuff (mind you, I’ll be starting from zero).
4. [tabletop gaming miniatures] Warmachine Cryx Bile Thralls Unit Box Set (can be found at Fortress Toys and Hobbies Shop)
5. [book] World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
6. a Moleskine plain notebook (not the sketchbook since it has less pages)
7. solar panels for small electronics projects
8. [PC game] Capitalism II - I was thinking or getting this thru ImpulseDriven to try the service out, though it seems that DataBlitz still has copies.
9. [book] The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks - Something I want to try, but I’d rather try the stuff above.
10. [tabletop gaming miniatures] Monsterpocalypse starter and 2++ boosters (should be available at Fortress)
11. 8 AA and/or a 9volt rechargable batteries with charger (that hopefully can charge several sizes as well)
12. [book] Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
13. [tabletop gaming miniatures] Warmachine Cryx Pistol Wraith (or the Alternate Version) (can be found at Fortress Toys and Hobbies Shop)
14. [RPG book] Iron Kingdoms World Guide: Full Metal Fantasy - This is extremely hard to find, even outside the Philippines, since it’s currently not being reprinted.  Fortress might have had it before.  This guy had it, not sure if he’s sold it already.
15. a 8-16 gb USB stick
16. assortment of resistors, capacitors, and LEDs for small electronics projects
17. 100% cotton socks - Yep, sometimes I’m that easy to please.

• How hard is it to make a wishlist?
• Philippine Online Gaming Summit (POGS) 2006-2007: Learn to Play!
• “1960: The Making of a President” Coming to Game Table Online this September!
• Nomad Log 2008.04/14
• Checking Out "Magic: The Gathering Online"

I’ve been wanting to try Steam out (and ImpulseDriven too, actually) for quite a while now, mainly to see for myself what the concept is like.  I’ve been hearing about it being much better than when it first started out, and quite a few seem to prefer it than purchasing video games from retail.  I almost got Portal, but I keep stopping short of going for it somehow.

Now, I got my excuse.

Getting wind from GamerDad, I learned that until Friday, 2008.11/21 12:00 PST, the original Half-Life will be avaliable in Steam for a measely US$0.98!  This is apparently in celebration of the game’s 10th year (it was released for the PC in 1998.11/19).

An old game considered by many as one of the best for a buck?  Now there’s the excuse I was looking for!  I signed-up and got the game.

Depending on when and what time you read this post, you might still be able to get this deal!  So hurry up!

• Vote for Your Favorite US Postal Service Star Wars Stamp!
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (OMFG!!!)
• Super Street Fighter II Turbo Will Finally Get New Sprites! (and Online Play)
• Grab Good Ol’ Games from gog.com!
• Recent Personal Highlights Bullet List 2008.04/28

I got books all over the place, and that’s partly by design. I tend to want to have a book within reach wherever I am, so I typically have a few at the living room, around the bedroom, at the car (some nearby and some at the back), and a few at work.

Of course, like most avid readers, I have attempted to catalog my collection.  I remember setting-up a little dBase thing when I was a kid, maybe even tried to use FoxPro (but that particular attempt I really can’t remember for sure).  Of course there was the Excel sheet attempt.

When the internet came along, you used online tools.  I first tried it on Amazon.com (the obvious starting point), but the thing just wasn’t built with cataloging in mind, at least in the beginning (and Amazon.com has kept it’s basic layout pretty much stable).  It’s also annoying that the different versions/editions of the same book are treated too separately, efforts to combine them (like links to various editions) are inconsistent.

Now, online social cataloging is the thing.  You just can’t catalog online without the ability to add “friends”.  I think I tried GoodReads first, based on an invite from a friend.  I tried it a bit, but it just didn’t take me in at the time.  Then, I got a Shelfari invite from another friend (or was it the same one?).  I kinda liked it a little better, but it not by a lot.  It had a nice little shelf feature, which I liked, but it also felt clunk to use, and it was real slow.

Yesterday, as I was giving Glue a test run (amusing so far) by browsing around Amazon.com, I noticed that some people checked-out certain books via LibraryThing.  Curious, I took a looksee.  Given that the previous two social book cataloging stuff hasn’t gained any traction on me yet, I decided to give LibraryThing a test run as well.

LibraryThing is supposed to be in beta right now (it went live in 2005! Really?! It’s still in beta? Or did it re-beta itself?), but at first glance, it seemed to have most of what I was looking for.  It didn’t have an exact shelf thing which I liked in Shelfari, but it does have the ability to display your library book as the book covers, which is practically the same.

More important than the exact rundown of features (the major ones being avaliable in the others anyway), I liked the UI better than the two others.  MOST of what I wanted to accomplish I was able to do intuitively and easily, which scores big points with me.  Oh sure, there are nitpicks, like the fact that I can’t click on a book cover when I list my library in book cover mode, but things like that are bound to be easily added in the future.  More importantly, I found that the common things I wanted to do (importing, adding, listing, tagging, rating, and searching) was easier to me.

This was the first book cataloging service I felt like obsessing over, which is a good sign.

One major caveat, LibraryThing has a 200 book limit for free users!  That’s pretty annoying given that the other two (and even Amazon.com) has no tracking limit and they’re all free.  There’s a US$10(+)/year option, and a US$25 lifetime option.  I don’t understand why one would opt for the per year thing, unless the extra US$15 is just too much, or people don’t see the site being around in the long run (in which case, why bother?).  Also, Amazon.com acquired Shelfari.  LibraryThing is 40% owned by AbeBooks, which is being aquired by Amazon.com (or has it already been acquired?).  Will we see a feature merge in the future?

In spite of this, LibraryThing has managed to interest me more than the previous ones I tried.  Let’s see if that’s gonna stick.

In the meantime, why don’t you take a gander at my current library?  I wonder how many of the books from my younger days I’ve left out…

• Nomad Log 2008.04/29
• Free No Limit Hold’em Tournament at Pacific Poker Palace Philippines
• Impact of Impacted Tooth
• Books Galore Next Month!
• Beerkada #8 Available in National Bookstore!

So, what’s been eating my spare time lately:

• Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 2 - Got it from Greenhouse. Finished the game at “difficult” setting.  Now I’m going for “Insane Mode”.
• World of Goo - Got it from Greenhouse too.  I play it as a filler.  It’s definitely a ton of fun and worth the purchase for me.
• Battlestar Galactica - When I watched the 1st episode of the reimagined series a week or so ago and I couldn’t stop!  I’m working my way through the 3rd season now, trying not to rush it so I can savor the story.  (side note: Was that the same Lucy Lawless as the one in Xena? She looks very different from what I remembered.)
• After being benched due to other books, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory steps back to the plate.  I wanted to review my basic physics.  Regardless if you believe in string theory or not, the book does have a reasonably good recap of a bunch of physics theories.

• GWEN and EVE
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (OMFG!!!)
• Have a Good… err… 2006.10/26 Day Without Work?
• Spectromancer, World of Goo at Greenhouse
• Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 (quick review)

People around me are prepping assorted horrors to scare the kids trying to scare them off their hoarded candy.

The only horror I’m experiencing now is that 11 hours after purchasing Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 2, I still can’t download it! T_T

[update]

I noticed that the Nitrogen icon near my avatar doesn’t show up.  I also noticed that when I switched to my mobile internet, it showed up!  I was able to download the game by using my cellphone as a modem, which isn’t exactly as fast.

I don’t get it.  Why didn’t the download work on my DSL (I used the same computer)?  I got the game, and am enjoying my fist few hours of it, but I still want to understand why the download didn’t work for the same computer.

• A ‘net-less Labor Day Holiday
• Nomad Log 2008.04/30
• Recent Personal Highlights Bullet List 2008.04/28
• How hard is it to make a wishlist?
• Busy Week

Been quite a while since my last post.  A lot of stuff ate my time to write posts, but fortunately I was still able to look into a thing or two.  One of those is the stuff at Greenhouse.

I’ve been monitoring Greenhouse the past while for updates regarding Penny Arcade’s OtRSPoD:E2 (it’s supposed to come out this week), and in the process I got to try to interesting games: Spectromancer and World of Goo.

Spectromancer is a fantasy themed card game created by Alexey Stankevich (creator of Astral Tournament and Astral Masters), Richard Garfield (don’t tell me you don’t know who HE is!) and Skaff Elias (original MtG playtester, Harry Potter TCG / D&D Minis designer).  Gameplay uses parts of basic MtG concepts but has randomized decks (if you can design a deck, I havent figured it out yet), default constant “mana” increase across all mana sources, limited cards per deck, fixed slots for placing summoned creatures, and some positional considerations based on those slots (similar to Monsters’ Den: Book of Dread).  Single player campaign is available, as well as multi-player.  Gameplay is interesting enough, but I’m just learning the nuances so strategy is just now being revealed to me.  Yes, you can make combos, but if there is no way to to custom design your deck, card synergy is a bit of a hit and miss.  This game should appeal to MtG/card game fans, and plays quite decently (though I’ve encountered quite a few bugs in the demo), but I can’t recommend it broadly (niche gamepaly)

World of Goo is a physics based puzzle game where you manipulate blobs of goo to create structures that allow you to complete objectives (in the demo, it’s mostly getting from point A to point B).  Graphics are slick and well done, and the puzzles are very interesting, though I’m kinda stuck in what could be the last level of the demo (I don’t know where I have to go / build to).  You’ll easily figure out how to play on the get go (though perhaps the objectives per level won’t always be obvious.  Like I said, I’m stuck), so I can make a rather broad recommendation on this as it should appeal to a lot of people.

I’m currently playing through the demos to determine if I should purchase them or not.  Currently, I’m leaning on getting World of Goo, I’m still deciding if the Spectromancer’s gameplay will be appealing enough for me to be worth a purchase.

You can find download links to the demos at the developer’s website of each respective game and of course at Greenhouse.

[edit]

Crap! I looked around for a hint on the last demo level for World of Goo.  Either I missed a clue (I checked again, none of the signs seem to clue me in) or it just didn’t occur to me that some of the environ items are actually usable!  Demo is officially over. Now it’s time to consider if I enjoyed it enough to be willing to shell out some coppers for the full thing.

• Blue Moon (expandable card game)
• Can’t Sleep (Magic and Warcraft)
• There’s fraggin’, and then there’s puzzle fraggin’
• Penny Arcade’s “On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One” is Out!
• What I’ve been up to…

• Xmas 2007 Find: Battleships Forever
• Can’t Sleep (Verdant Gleancrawler Force)
• Dungeon Runners Chunk #1
• There’s fraggin’, and then there’s puzzle fraggin’
• 2008’s Personal Halloween Horror