30 January 07 - 15:36
The Story Comes to an End
So, it looks like, after more than two years of puzzling, fun and story, Perplex City's first season may well be coming to a close this evening.
And I can't wait.
The cube was stolen three years ago from the Perplex City Academy during their annual ball. It was traced to the Earth, and as a result the Academy contacted the company Mind Candy to co-ordinate a search for the card on the Earth through the release of 256 puzzle cards. Meanwhile, Academy members contacted us through their
many,
many blogs,
newspapers companies etc. etc. A story unfolded of conspiracy, intrigue, death, treason and lost love.
Tonight, Kurt with the help of the Police are going to raid Ascendency Point, a huge building found to contain the Third Power's headquarters (the third power originally planned to take the cube themselves, but failed because
CT got there first) and rescue Scarlett, Violet's sister, who they believe the by CT herself, and know where the cube is.
All very confusing, but it kicks off at 7 tonight. It'll be a hell of a ride.
Nathan - Personal -
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18 January 07 - 10:20
Windy
It's ludicrously windy and rainy today, I'm glad I can stay inside in the (relative) warmth. Still, must revise for FP1 this afternoon though.
Infoworld is carrying one of the more extreme German-anti-game pieces of news that I've seen recently.
Violent video games have
not been shown to be an especially "dangerous" medium which causes violent people.
Threatening games such as the tame Battle For Middle Earth 2 (12 rating) and probably therefore, rather un-violent titles such as Dynasty Warriors, LOTR: The return of the King etc. is absurd. Utterly, utterly absurd.
Nathan - Personal -
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16 January 07 - 22:00
Tech diary
Linux is looking better. After a previously mentioned mostly failed attempt to move from FGLRX/XGL to radeon/aiglx in one move; I now have beryl fully working! Mostly... I have a problem where various windows don't have any content, and I really don't know why. My current train of thought lies down various KDE incompatibility problem, so I'm slowly recompiling KDE core packages (kdelibs is down, I had some error yesterday on kioslaves which prevented my next big target: kdesktop compiling) I might also try to get aquamarine looking as nice; but I really prefer emerald.
Updated software to 1.4, now with clouds, better user management (like I need it) and some other mostly-under-the-bonnet-stuff. Changed to 2 column layout (I figured the right hand one was... for the moment... I waste of space). I'll implement the cloud soon.
And actually, the proper new design is actually taking shape...
Nathan - Development -
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16 January 07 - 21:51
February!
Is a great month, especially for games, by the looks of it. So great in fact, that it's going to be painful not to enjoy it in full.
First, the long, long awaited release of Clover Studio's
Okami. This has received nothing but huge critical acclaim. The graphics look absolutely stunning, and much better in motion. It really has a unique style of artwork which... takes me to another world more completely simply from the screenshots, even than games such as Half Life 2 have. (I was on HL2:EP1 earlier...). I've been waiting for this game for at least a year (it's been my avatar for about as long), and have to just hope that it'll come with a beautiful box, such as the Japanese release with traditional handmade-paper manuals.
Then out comes
Final Fantasy XII on the 23rd. The twelfth iteration of this series (err... plus a few more, such as X-2), and somehow - it's still going strong; indeed, the 12th is supposedly one of the very greatest so far (it must be good to pick up Edge's Game of the Year award). I simply cannot wait to play this game either; every Final Fantasy that I have ever played has been a lasting, gripping and enthralling experience from start to finish, with the characters, the battles, the plot and the music. Apparently in FFXII,
especially the plot and the music.
Finally (sorta) there's
Supreme Commander, also on the 23rd (supposedly, though I sense a slip). This one, I don't know so much about, other than it's by the esteemed creator of the flabbergastingly amazing
TA; and looks to be one of the most singly unique RTSs recently... (COH aside). Technically, it looks and sounds astounding. Its
USP is likely the
scale of the map, some are kilometres by kilometres. They're so big that there are two distinct display modes - tactical and strategic, to allow you to comprehensively order your plan of battle. Even better, multi-monitor support allows you to keep an eye on both displays simultaneously... not that I have money to spare for a new graphics card and monitor.
That all said, there's a gaming gluttony here of late. Guitar Hero 2 is sublime, though owing to a recent lack of time, I only just completely Freebird on Medium a matter of hours ago (5 Stars and about 260,000 points on my first attempt, however). Phoenix Wright and 42 All time classics (Clubhouse Games) have also come into my possession lately, and have both provided much needed comfort on long coach and train journeys. FFIII still demands attention, MGS3, Kingdom Hearts (err... newly purchased
aamof) and Shadow of the Colossus all beg my PS2 attention. On PC, I'm a fair way through HL2:Ep1 (about time) but also have the recently acquired challenges of
COH, Warhammer: Dawn of War (freebie) and X3: Reunion to face.
Man, I need to work less.
Nathan - Gaming -
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