Dwarf Fortress

Somewhere along the line I stumbled across a "succession game" thread (here). This is where people play a "round" of some game and then pass everything off to another person to pick up where they left off. This thread is particularly interesting because of the care the players have taken to write "in character" as a person in the game.

So on to the game: it's called Dwarf Fortress. It's an ASCII adventure game. Yep - colored blocks is the limit of the graphics. I've read a lot about it, but it's daunting. The learning curve is something like 5-10 hours. I'm a little fearful of just digging in because of the micro-management involved. You start with just 7 dwarves, which seems easy enough to manage. But you need to do things like dig out a home in a mountain and start managing food and defenses with finite initial resources. Like I said, it's daunting, but then you have bad guys coming in, winter 6 months away, and trading also. It's an immensely deep game. See some stories from players here (it's a blog, so you'll need to dig around for DF posts and stories).

What has me fascinated about the prospects is all the logical choices you need to make. It's a game, but it's not one where you need to figure out the trick to get to the next level. You just need to make good choices to help your clan survive. Infinite possibilities.

There's a wiki to check out for more details. And some graphics packs (I'm using this one) which help get you over the ASCII hurdle, especially if you're running higher resolutions.

I want to get hooked on this game, but I'm not sure I have the time!

Toughest Mario Level EVER

OK, I've just spent the last 5 minutes laughing my butt of at this video

It walks through a level that severely frustrated me many years ago. Somebody found the original movie and added a commentary like he was playing. The guy's commentary is very entertaining. Of course, the player is obviously very capable and familiar with the level because once he uncovers a new trick, he just works around it. But the running commentary is priceless. Strong language, so NSFW. If you watch the whole 23 minutes, your frustration level will be high -- but nowhere close to what it is when actually trying to play insane levels like this.

For completeness, here's a video of somebody actually finishing this. Of course, he kind of cheats using some issues with the ROM emulator (passing through walls) and exploits the breakable ceiling, but at least you get to see the whole world in like 4 minutes.

Forza 2

I've been playing Forza Motorsport 2 for the last week or two. Unlike other racing games like PGR3 which are largely arcade-style racing, Forza is really more of a racing simulation. The idea is that it keeps track of lots of various aspects of physics and tries to model tire friction, weight balance, etc. Overall, it does a pretty good job. Running around in a Lotus Exige, if you lift the throttle slightly mid-turn, you feel the car start to oversteer, which is what you'd expect in real-world cars of this caliber. It also has various things like ABS brakes, traction control and stability management to keep the car planted; but you can turn these off and the difference is quite accurate to real life. This is much different than the arcade racers where you keep the gas pedal floored and bounce off the walls or other cars.

So if you're into racing sims, FM2 for the XBox 360 is a good one. But what prompted me to write today isn't my addiction to this type of game where I must win every event as quickly as possible before I go insane.

It's some of the artwork I've seen posted online of how people are painting their cars. At first, I thought, "pretty cool" and wondered of various themes I could possibly create (limited though they may be being my artistically-limited self). But then I read a tutorial, and my thoughts changed lines. First off, because the tutorial will easily draw out a TLDNR for those not interested, the primary point is that you cannot upload pictures to the game. That means all of this artwork you see of fancy cars was done by hand.

Now, there are some very talented people out there doing this stuff. And I certainly respect their talent. However, I'm just not on their page. Given my limited XBox time, I would rather play the game rather than draw pictures using primitive shapes and basic effects. Having said that, my kids will spend an hour or more in front of Microsoft Paint making random things, but I for one cannot. Sure, I'll pick an appropriate color for a car I've purchased -- dark blue for the Audi RS 6, please. And yellow for the Lotus of course. But beyond that, I'm just not going to spend the time.

I'll admit that if they let you upload graphics from the network or a thumb drive that I would be slightly more tempted to create something original (well, kind of, because I wouldn't have drawn the original source). But I refuse to use my gaming time to draw rather than race!

Violent Games and TV

Article: Study: Violent Video Games Only Affect Unstable Youth

Interesting, but not surprising. It's good to see that someone is actually looking into this. I'm pretty tired of reading how evil violent games are whenever some idiot goes off half-cocked and hurts himself or someone else. Reminds me of all the heavy metal things back in the 80s with Ozzy and Judas Priest. And probably similar to the whole "rock 'n' roll" thing in the 50s. It will always be something with these people.

This reminds me of something a colleague said when I was in Colorado recently. He was discussing his kids (about 8 and 12 I believe) and their parental controls in what TV and movies they are allowed to watch. He commented at one point that anything rated 'R' for nudity or language they are very careful about. Then almost as an aside he says, "but I guess they can watch all the violence they want." This is pretty consistent with most parents I think. There may be levels of violence (e.g., staying away from horror and gore), but the general premise is that we're desensitized to violence but won't let our kids see boobs or heavy petting.

That brings up a pretty cool experiment. (Well, a thought experiment anyway since you don't really want to warp innocent kids just to prove a point). But what if you take two sets of kids and control what they're watching on TV and movies at a level consistent with normal parenting. So they will be exposed at some level to everything (commercials, friends, etc.) but you strongly guide their regular and repeated exposure. For one group, you avoid all sexually explicit materials and movies but let violence slide. For the other group, you avoid all violent shows but let the nudity and sexuality go. You should also have 2 more groups -- one that can see anything (sex and violence) and one that doesn't see anything. I'll let bad language go here because I think that's really just a side note and not related to potential future behavioral problems.

Here's the thought: raise these kids like this throughout their childhood, then release them into the wild at 18. Who will be the better adjusted? Is there any correlation to their exposure and future behavior? Specifically, do kids who have seen R rated violence grow up to be violent people? Or do they abhor violence? Do kids who have group up with sexually explicit scenes and nudity grow up treating women as objects and become introverted perverts? Of the last two groups, who is more ready for modern Western society? The ones who have seen it all before or the ones who believe life is all Charlotte's Web and Judy Blume novels?

I have my own gut feelings here, but to tweak the question more: Do you want your kids exposed to sex and violence through their friends on the 'playground' or would you like to be present while they're being exposed to this on TV (or in real life) so that you can help explain the nuances and how these things fit into real life. In the end, I won't argue for either side but will argue that parental involvement is the key to a healthy childhood.

Tyson (Mike, not the chicken)

I'm not a boxing expert. I wouldn't even really call myself a fan. But I do enjoy occasionally staying up for a decent, hyped HBO fight once in a while. I know a few of the names, especially the heavyweights, and enjoy watching a good fight. With that said:

I turned on HBO tonight to see "Boxing: 2006: Corey Sanders vs. Mike Tyson" (in high def). First, I had no idea this wasn't a very recent thing, but it was from Oct 20, 2006. It was just an exhibition fight against a 300lb punching bag wearing headgear. Basically a huge waste of 20 minutes.

I can't say I was ever a Mike Tyson fan. He was so hugely popular, you had to love to hate him. Rooting against him was kind of silly for a while though -- those punches were among the hardest ever in the sport. Plus, he was the youngest champ ever. So credit where credit is due, the guy is tough. But he's also a rapist. And to boot, he was found with like 30 pounds of pot and coke. That's 30 pounds. These are drugs people buy by the gram. If you're a hardcore smoker, maybe you buy a "qp" = quarter pound (4 ounces) to sell to your friends. He was busted with 30 pounds. I know he's a big guy, but c'mon. Some of my fraternity brothers were big guys too. And a quarter ounce could get a good number of your friends baked. Anyway, where was I? Oh, he's also an ear biter. That goes beyond dumb. He didn't get into a bar fight with Holyfield -- it was a scheduled, real boxing match. They were professional fighters, doing what they do professionally. And he bit the guy's ear. Took a chunk right out. There's a chemical imbalance going on there. Did I mention he's also a rapist?

So WTF is this guy doing on my TV at 10 pm at 40 years old fighting a lardass in what should have been a gym fight, not a pay-per-view event. Of course, I never heard about this to start with, so clearly it wasn't that huge of a deal. It went the scheduled 5 rounds, with Iron Mike landing a few good ones. But a waste of 20 minutes. And I justed wasted 10 more writing this. Hopefully you read faster than I write :>

But a little more: my fondest memory of Mike Tyson is really Mike Tyson's Punch Out for the original Nintendo (NES). I spent a lot of time kick Glass Joe's ass, but between my brother and I playing on a 13" TV at the end of our dining room table, we did eventually get to Mike himself. Like most video games, it's really just learning enough of the secrets so you can get to the next level. No. Wait. That's Scientology. Video games too, though. With the right amount of patience, anybody can fight their way through and the finally kick Mike's ass too. Then there was the way that most 30+ year old guys could rattle off like their first girlfriend's phone number: 007 373 5963. I doubt the NES would ever have been as popular as it was without cheat codes. I'm kind of glad I don't know anything like this for my XBox 360 games.

XBox Flash update

I usually edit my blogs to add updates, but that one was already too long.

To start, my blog on flashing should point out that I have the Toshiba-Samsung TS-H943 (25s) DVD drive inside -- this is the original and easiest to flash. The 28s requires some extra steps, and the Hitachi-LG drives also need some extra work. Being an early XBox adopter helps in this case, so if you have questions for this easy case, feel free to ask me -- but if you have those other drives, be sure to read the guides carefully because some are drive-specific.

On this note, a recent Microsoft announcement indicates they're replacing all the existing models with a new BenQ VAD6038 model. The topic of the announcement concerns the loudness of the original drives. This is of course bypassed with the updated low-speed firmware . But of course this new drive is supposed to be quiet and fast. If you get one of these new ones, you'll need to keep an eye out on the modding scene to determine if 1) these are flashable and 2) to get updated guides and firmware. But for me, I'm still a happy camper with my slower drive that will read DVD+R discs.

And finally, there's a lot of hub-bub around concerning brands of media for XBox 360 backups. Almost everyone swears by the Verbatim DVD+R DL 8x burned at 2.4x. No doubt this is excellent media, but it can be hard to find and kind of pricey unless you buy a spindle. Taking this to heart, but having no local stores that carry it, I opted instead for Memorex DVD+R DL 2.4x burned at 2.4x. A 3-pack cost me $15 at the local Staples. I'm happy to report this media works just fine. I figure any high-quality name-brand DVD+R DL will be OK. Be sure to burn with CloneCD too.

XBox 360 Flahsy Flashy!

I just couldn't resist any longer. I had to break open my XBox 360. Yes, it voids my warranty (but I want a Wii anyway ). On the longer range agenda, I'll be replacing the bright white case with something black, maybe with a cool blue LED to match the Onkyo. In the shorter term, I've been reading a lot about flashing the firmware for the DVD drive. Basically, you can't play back-up copies of your games because the DVD reader checks what type of content is on the disc, and then what type of media the disc is. IF (game && !pressed) THEN no play for you! The idea of flashing the firmware is that the check always returns a condition that allows the game to be played.

There are various guides and YouTube movies out there, so Google for yourself (I'm not going to try to keep links updated). The short of it is that you crack open the case, plug the DVD drive into a PC (SATA support required), run a program that re-writes the DVD drive's firmware with a modified version, then put it all back together. The latest version of the most popular firmware is 5.2 and is pretty mature. It comes in 4 flavors that has to do with the drive speed. I want options, but I also want to preserve the life of my drive, so I selected the "d" option that defaults to a slow read speed, but you can use the faster speed if needed.

All in all, it was an exciting afternoon to break open what's basically a small computer and play with its guts. The flash part hiccuped at first because I couldn't identify which drive was which. So I disconnected couple to help narrow things down. Note that the maturity of the software really shows here because I was successfully reading firmware, but it wasn't the size expected, so I got lots of warnings. Finally I got a good backup copy of the original firmware for my drive, then I flashed it with the 5.2d version. I closed everything back up and went to test.

"Open Tray"

Every disc I had -- original game, backup game, original DVD, backup DVD, audio CD -- EVERYTHING -- gave me this "Open Tray" error. So I started reading some more. Turns out, flashing the firmware can make the drive's laser lose it's sense of positioning and will read areas where there's no data. There's a fix: tie a little piece of rubber band around a rail inside the drive to create a bumper. Which means opening the DVD drive itself -- more that what I had bargained for. And the thing is, version 5.2 was supposed to fix these errors. Did I have a bum drive? Right now, the drive was useless, so I had to try. Later in the evening, I broke the case open again with the intents of doing the rubber band fix. And what did I see?

The Xbox's SATA drive cable just dangling loose. I plugged it back in, and before putting it all back together again, tried out all the various media. EVERYTHING WORKS! Closed it up, and all has been well.

Game load times are a little slower with this version of the firmware, but the console doesn't sound like a jet airplane getting ready for take-off anymore. So that's a win too. Will post more when I upgrade my case.

PS3 vs Wii

PS3 vs. Wii
Best Video Ever.

Adblock

Adblock