Wallsy's Blag

[19:02] <+Tiggum> Actually, I just had a great idea for a computer game. You play as a compulsive murderer, and you have to research ways of killing people without getting caught and then go carry out the murders, and if you go too long without killing someone then you go berserk and just kill someone in broad daylight or something, and the police pick up any evidence you leave and hunt you down.
[19:02] <+Tiggum> There would be no way to win, you'd just see how long you could go without being caught.
[19:13] <+dnc> Tiggum, sounds quite good actually. id like that - especially if it was a wide-open world - with lots of free form tactics you could try out
[19:13] <+dnc> could even make it better by branding it johnny the homicidal maniac and making him use their blood to paint the walls in his basement
[19:13] <+dnc> although that would be more comic and much less dark
[19:14] <+Tiggum> I picture it with a GTA style world, where you could follow your target, find out their habits, etc.
[19:16] <+Tiggum> If you've played any of the Hitman activities in Saints Row 2, picture that, but where it's the sole focus of the game, so it has hugely expanded possibilities, and just gunning them down in the stroot would be a bad idea. But you'd be able to find out about the targets, figure out where they were likely to be found, follow them home, etc.
[19:16] <+Tiggum> (So not really anything like the Hitman activities, that was just my starting point 'cause I've been playing it today)
[19:22] <+browncoat> So could we do political assasinations or just just crazy killings?
[19:25] <+Tiggum> I'm thinking the targetting choices would be fairly open, so choosing politicians etc. would be acceptable.
[19:25] <+browncoat> Yay!
[19:26] <+Tiggum> Now I just need to find a games company willing to make my vision a reality!
[19:28] <+browncoat> Preferrably one not in Germany, seeing as there are plans to ban "murder simulations". And those plans do not include games of the style you are proposing, yet...
[19:28] <+browncoat> Apparently any game where anybody dies is a "murder simulation" in some people's eyes.
[19:28] <+Tiggum> Yeah, I have a feeling it would be pretty hard to convinec any company anywhere to make it, because it would generate a lot of really bad publicity. "Not just simulating murder, teaching you how to get away with it!"
[19:29] <+browncoat> You could combine it with "Animal Crossing", the Nintendo game. So it be very cute and harmless looking ^^
[19:31] <+Tiggum> That would detract somewhat from the appeal. It's supposed to be very realistic and confronting.
[19:32] <+browncoat> But... it would be cute!
[19:32] <+Tiggum> I'm not really looking for cuteness in games about murder, TBH. ;-P

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Current Music: Sinéad O'Connor - The Healing Room

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Was and I are the greatest cooks alive.

( Look on my food, ye mighty, and despair )

1.5kg of beef. 1.2kg of cheese. 1.2kg of tomatoes. 1 bulb of garlic. 400g of pasta. Some water, some herbs and some cheese sauce. Let's call it 4.5kg of lasagne. Glorious.

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Current Music: Eurythmics - Who's That Girl?

I was playing around with some stuff in Paint Shop Pro and thought these two looked pretty nifty:


(Click to enlarge)

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Current Music: Robbie Williams - Sexed Up

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Current Music: Outkast - N2U

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Current Music: Liz Phair - Girls! Girls! Girls!

I got an email, the other day, from amailing list I signed to ages ago and forget about (they don't send stuff out all that frequently). It was about a new game that's just been released. It's really an updated version of an old game (the gameplay is essentially the same, just tweaked a bit and some stuff added), but with a new name and shiny new graphics.

It's called Spectromancer and it's a strategy game with a fantasy theme. You cast spells and send your minions out to attack your opponent in a manner somewhat similar to Magic: the Gathering, but unlike in Magic you don't get to choose your cards and every spell you know is (basically) available to you right from the start of the game.

What you can cast is limited by your available mana, which gradually regenrates over time, and is divided into five categories (the four elements, plus your chosen specialisation).

In some cases there's an annoyingly high element of luck (if you don't get any mana acceleration or mass-destruction effects you're essentially screwed) it's mostly fairly balanced and the computer AIs provide a decent level of challenge.

Plus, it has multiplayer (network, hotseat and internet) so even if the computer opponents aren't enough for you you can always go online and find a real person to play against.

The story mode is pretty lame, though it does include some nifty modifiers to some games (random effects and penalties and bonuses for each player) which can be fun, but mostly the focus is on just playing quick matches.

The demo limits you to 10 matches plus the first chapter of story mode, which should be enough to give you a fairly good idea about whether you want to bother spending money on it or not, so go download it. It's great.

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Current Music: Puscifier - Indigo Children

A comment by Daniel O'Brien on this blog post by Michael Swaim:

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Current Music: Usher - Superstar

It's a FPS where you get to have a light sabre. That sound fun already, right? And the first few levels are. You run around using the force and cutting people up with a laser sword. Awesome.

The game is broken up into sections, each one containing a number of missions which you can do in any order (though it doesn't really seem to matter what order you do them anyway, except that the last one is optional).

As I said, the first set of missions are all fun. Fairly easy, and the one on ice-planet Hoth was a bit annoying because of poor visibility and the fact that Force Sense is utterly useless at level 1, but still not too bad. And killing those Hoth yeti things was pretty awesome. One picked me up by the fet and I chopped its arm off and it dropped me. :-D

Then I advance to "apprentice" level and suddenly I'm in a terrible motorbike racing game where I'm being shot at by infinitely respawning bastards whose bikes are all better than mine.

And I say terrible racing game because the bike's steering was incredibly bad and it was impossible to get away from your enemies, you just had to wait for them to get close then try to hit them. Then they respawned.

But, all was not lost. You don't have to do every mission. At each level of training you can choose one mission to skip. So I skipped thi bike one. And got one where I had to rescue groups of incredibly stupid NPCs from an infinitely respawning monster that can kill you in one hit.

Much better. :-|

And so, like Jedi Outcast before it, I abandon this game because the designers decided to suddenly replace "fun" with "incredibly irritating shit".

Attention game designers: If you're making a game, and you think "You know, this game is the same basic thing over and over, just getting more difficult. We should put in something different for a bit of variety." Punch yourself in the face and stop being so stupid. An FPS is supposed to be a lot of shooting dudes. That's what defines the genre. Making me race motorbikes in the middle of it doesn't make me think "Oh, what clever and innovative people these game designers are!" it makes me think "What the fuck is this shit? Who are the fucking wankers responsible for ruining this game? I hope you all get cancer."

Don't play this game. Sure, you'll get some brief enjoyment but then you'll have the enjoyment beaten out of you with a spiked club of shitty design decisions.

Multiplayer looks pretty fun though.

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Current Music: Led Zeppelin - Bron-Y-Aur-Stomp

Review with Myles Barlow is a new show on ABC2, and it is the best show on TV right now. Myles reviews aspects of life such as being a drug mule, believing in yourself and divorce, and is absolutely hilarious.

If you're in Australia you can download it (or watch it on ABC2 if you have digital TV), but you should download the first two episodes either way, because they were brilliant. It's on 21:30 on Thursdays, and I cannot stress enough how great it is. Watch it.

Edit: Turns out you can download it outside Australia too.

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Current Music: Josh Joplin - Camera One

My mother seems to have had a minor heart attack. She's at the hospital right now, but is apparently OK, though they are keeping her there until the morning at least.

It's strange that my mother should have a heart attack. For one thing, heart attacks happen to old people and I've never thought of her as old. I guess she is over 50, but that's not old these days.

But the thing that's most surprising is that if you'd asked me which of my parents were more likely to have a heart attack, I'd have said my father. He has a family history of them and my mother doesn't. In fact, not only have none of her siblings (several of whom are older) had heart attacks, but her mother is still in great health. Healthier not only than people her age but probably also healthier than most people the age of her children.

I was also quite surprised by the time it took the ambulance to arrive. Well over 15 minutes. I thought they were supposed to have under 5 minutes response time or something?

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Current Music: Opeth - The Leper Affinity

Imagine a chain. Not particularly big, each link is about 1cm wide, maybe 2.5cm long. It's tethering a dog to a post.

The chain breaks and somehow the last link ends up looking something like a C. Let's say you pick up this chain, to see what's happened and figure out if you can reattach it somehow and keep the dog from running off. And let's say that as you do, a child kicks a ball nearby and the dog darts off to chase it.

Imagine that as the dog moves, the chain also moves, passing over your hand until that last, broken link, really more of a hook now, catches on your finger, digs into your finger, gouging a hole right in the middle of your GODDAMN FINGER. And imagine that the dog, still eager to chase that ball, is pulling on that chain, pulling on that hook, digging it deeper into your finger.

Do you know how much that hurts? I do.

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Current Music: Bone Thugs-n-Harmony - Money, Money

Unmoderated internet forums invariably turn to shit. If you're in a group, having a discussion in real life, and some wanker starts loudly singing, the room will usually become a very hostile place for him, but on the internet that just doesn't matter. That person can just go on drowning out all other conversation with their utterly pointless noise.

That's where moderators are needed. There's nothing wrong with everyone having the freedom to express whatever views they like, but your opinions on American politics are perhaps not suited to the comments section of an article about the best time travel movies ever made. It may be a far more important topic, but it's not one we're interested in discussing here and now. Here and now we're talking about time travel movies. And that's when you need a moderator to step in and say "You. The one who's annoying everyone. Fuck off."

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Current Music: The Cranberries - Dreams

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Yes, more MUDmeet photos. If this is spamming your friends page with stuff you don't care about, sux2BU.

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Current Music: Alice in Chains - Man in the Box

NuggieWuggie's photos are on MySpace, which is almast as bad as FaceBook, so I've rescued them and brought them here.

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Current Music: The Doug Anthony All Stars - Throw Your Arms Around Me

Zeur posted his pictures on FaceBook, so I'm reposting them here so that no one need endure that horror.

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Current Music: REM - You

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Current Music: The Temptations - Lean on Me