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Weeklyish musings: 2022-12-16
What I’m reading
“Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams & the Hitchhiker’s Guid to the Galaxy”, Neil Gaiman (audiobook).
“Siren Queen”, Nghi Vo (audiobook).
“Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor”, Ally Carter.
In progress:
- “Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files”, Jim Butcher.
What I’m playing
Completed - The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. Point-and-click adventure with a folk horror theme, retro visual style, and good voice acting / sound design that combines to achieve an effective sense of dread. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Control scheme worked well on Steam Deck.
Completed - Life is Strange 2.
The Descendant. Had several crashes early in the game on Steam Deck. May have to come back to this one when I can play it on Windows.
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Weekly-ish (?) musings: 2022-12-09
What I’m reading
“Ghost Story”, Peter Straub (audiobook). I was hopeful after having enjoyed his collaborations with Stephen King (“The Talisman” and “Black House”). While I enjoyed some of the prose, I’m not sure I would’ve made it through if I were reading it instead of listening while doing other things.
“The Odyssey”, Homer / Emily Wilson - translator (audiobook). Fairly approachable modern translation written in iambic pentameter verse and narrated by Claire Danes. Includes a lengthy introduction and translator’s note that provides additional context.
In progress:
- “The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse”, multiple authors.
- “Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files”, Jim Butcher.
- “Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor”, Ally Carter.
What I’m playing
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Exult - open-source Ultima 7 engine
So recently I’d been thinking a fair bit about how good some old DOS games were back in the day. The ones that really came to mind were the Ultima series (particularly U6: The False Prophet, U7: The Black Gate, and U7: Serpent Isle). Those were outstanding games. I’d done a bit of research and found DOSBox, which allows you to play a wide range of old DOS games on an assortment of platforms (ie it performs x86/DOS emulation).
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Zelda delayed :(
How lame! I’ve talked about this game a little previously, and it’s looking pretty oustanding. They’ve gone back to more of a realistic look from the cel-shaded cartoony stuff of Wind Waker. Not that Wind Waker wasn’t cool. But it sounds like it’s getting pushed back from November to some time after next March or so (according to IGN). Man, this was announced back in August. Where was I? I’m really looking forward to this game too.
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What the... Nintendo's new controller?
Nintendo’s finally announced the controller for their next-gen console (the Revolution). Does anyone besides me find it bizarre? Sounds like it’s somewhere between a one-handed tv remote and an old power glove? There are apparently a couple of sensors placed near the tv plus a sensor in the remote that detect position and orientation. They plan on supporting other “more traditional” controller types (conventional controller shells, dance mats, bongos, etc) by slipping the remote inside these other add-ons.
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E3 Highlights
The big E3 entertainment expo featured the first real info on the next generation game consoles. Xbox360 features a PowerPC with 3 cores, graphics by ATI, some backwards compatibility. PS3 features a beastly PowerPC-based Cell processor (ie roughly twice the flops of the Xbox360), graphics by Nvidia, Blu-Ray support, and full backwards compatibility (PS1 and PS2). Very limited details on the Nintendo Revolution: backwards compatible with Gamecube games, support for downloading old school Nintendo games (NES, SNES, N64… not sure how the pricing scheme will work for this).
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Zelda trailers
Just tell me this doesn’t look totally awesome!
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LEGO Star Wars
So Lego’s working on a video game set in the Lego Star Wars universe (ie Star Wars setting, but stuff is built out of Legos). They have some coverage over at Gamespot, including screenshots. Looks like it should be a pretty cute game, and the initial hands-on demo is impressive.
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The Kingdom
So what’ve I been up to recently… I’ve been adventuring in the Kingdom… The Kingom of Loathing that is.
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Duct Tape
Looks like someone heard me. There’s now a mod out there for Doom 3 that attaches a small flashlight to the shotgun and machinegun. Claims to be using Duct Tape.