Learning to play

I couldn't resist Resident Evil 4 for long. I played a little dystopia, tried some new HL2 mods, and quickly booted up RE4. This time I abandoned the mouse altogether, and just played with the keyboard. At this point, I have basically picked it up, but its very awkward to play with just a keyboard. Still, an AMAZING game. Combat is both fast and deadly, and somehow methodical. Ammo is extraordinarily scarce, yet there is just enough to get you through.
Oh, and the shotgun, even base shotgun, is the most fun weapon ever. It just BLOWS enemies apart, 5-6 at a time. Great game, god awful port.

So THAT is what a 65% means

I did end up getting RE4. Now, please remember I have seen this game on the GC, and it is amazing. But it is the WORST PC port I have ever seen. I tried playing with the keyboard for awhile, and that is hard enough. The fire key is enter, you use both shifts, and move and move camera with WASD. Its basically terrible. I eventually got a mouse hack working, but it is so jerky and imprecise it is actually WORSE for aim than keyboard. I REALLY need to get a controller up and working.... Then it would be just RE4, but on the PC. (and with terribly compressed cutscenes, they seriously look worse than the game itself)

Also, Mario Cart DS is amazingly fun, my friend and I played download play during school. Every race was close and fun.

Well lookee there

So I have been checking up on Resident Evil 4 (PC) for about 5 months now. I really enjoyed what I saw of the game on the gamecube, and was eagerly awaiting the port.
It finally came out a week or so ago. The reviews were flatly terrible. Bad graphics (loss, not no addition of, LOSS) of particle engines, fog, lighting etc. And apparently the textures were terrible. Sure, the bothered to make it support every resolution known to man, but it looked like crap. And here is where it gets REALLY good. NO mouse support. Zero, none. Now, a week and a half later, (and a 70meg patch) it is looking better, and the community has hacked most effects back in, and rather amazingly, total mouse support. For $20, I really can't overlook it, but it will mean buying either an adapter for my GC controller, or a new PS2 controller and adapter.

Another interesting note is that the Tomb Raider: Anniversary demo just released on Steam. Now, I remember playing the demo for TR2 back in the day, and it was HARD for me. The demo for TR:A was not much of a problem now, but it was a real blast from the past. I had totally forgotten the really epic and amazing feel of a correctly done Tomb Raider game. And dear god the control sceme, it is so freaking intuitive, I never ONCE fell or jumped or ANYTHING that I didn't want to, whoever put that together deserves some real praise. Last note on it is that it looks damn pretty too, and has good physics and guess what, on max settings it runs at like, freaking 100FPS on my box. Who the hell is working on that game, and why are they not putting more quality like that out?? (seriously, go play it, its rather amazing)

Thems be fighting moves

I had read (on Megatokyo and elsewhere) about a new doujin fighting game called Big Bang Beat that was reasonably heavily anticipated. A few days ago, one of my friends was playing the demo on his laptop at school, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what it was. I gotta say, its a spectacular game from what I have seen, and its a fighting game for the PC. The demo only has 2 characters and 2 stages, but still, its pretty nifty stuff. A good combo system, passive blocks, aerial comboing, 2 different power charge meters, and multi-life combat. Graphics leave a little to be desired, but they look fine in motion.
The sad part is that I can't get it. The game is being released in Japan, and there is NO way it will ever come NEAR the US. I often wondered why there were no fighting games for the PC, turns out they just never leave Japan. Anyway, its nifty, got check it out.
The third section of DLs is what you want, most of the mirrors are down, but some work fine.

Back again, maybe more?

So its been awhile....
Basically, I had stopped updating cause CS season was over for me, and I was annoyed that we didn't make im. But enough about that.

I have since gotten Oblivion working about 90% (best yet) and it runs mods smoothly. Quite a bit of fun, but just as I started to get into it, my friend started playing Baldur's Gate II again. And he just HAD to tell me about it. Its not long after some one mentions BGII that I get the urge to play it again.
See, when I first played it, I spent most of a week at the beach on a laptop eating sour cream and onion pringles and drinking mountain dew while I pounded through the game. In retrospect, I was a poor RPG player, and I really had no feel for fully understanding what was going on and appreciating it. To compound matters, I had played until the final part of the final battle with the final boss of the expansion to the game, and was completely and utterly stuck. Now, with BGII urges stirring in me once again, I would have gone and dug up those saves (which I have kept for YEARS, across 2-3 computers!) but I lost my HD over spring break, and that entire part of my life is gone.

So here I am, pushing aside Oblivion (which finally works), ignoring CSS, playing a little Starcraft and Dystopia, but mainly I'm back to Baldur's Gate.

It really is one of the best, if not THE best game I have ever played. Nothing like it. You want character interaction- I've seen my party erupt into sides and actually fight after issues got bad enough. You want combat- AD&D epic, by the rules. Now graphics, its years old, I give it that.
But anyway, I now have a thief I am running through named Edofix Gen. (damn I love that name)

As for other games, I actually started playing starcraft again about a month ago at the urgings of my old team. We hang out and SC these days. Turns out I blow. Enormously. Terran, which is the race I study to play well, is even worse than my Protoss. But still, great game. Which made me all the more excited when SC2 was announced, not that I hadn't called that weeks ago. If you haven't read up on it, go do so, and watch the 22min gameplay video, its really worth it. Over here.

Anyway, I hope to keep putting updates on here in some fashion resembling regularity.

End of a season

Well, the CS season ended rather un-satisfyingly. We lost our last match on de_cpl_fire because we hadn't practiced, and we played a good 1/3 of the match with 4 players due to........ emotional strife between players. Not that it mattered. We had 4 forfeit wins, 3 too many to make playoffs, and someone didn't schedule makeups. So yea, season over, and we had the skills to make CAL-im.

On a brighter note, I upgraded my fans and re-wired my case, and things seem alot more stable, though Oblivion with mods still hates me. Will try NWN2 soon.

Mostly spending my time working on my WC3 map.

Forfeit forfeit and more forfeit

And yes, its another week of forfeit. Thankfully we also did our de_nuke makeup match. I played near my worst ever on CT side, but PerfeXion and 3k more than made up for it. 17-13 us.

Monday forfeit was a pain... I really like de_contra. It is a hard map for both sides, with lots of mindgaming and a ton of hard shots, but it is fun. Too bad the other team just couldn't make it for unknown reasons. This means we should have 3 makeups left, but we forgot to schedule de_strike (all the better since we blow at it).

On the CKD front, I haven't had alot of time RECENTLY to work on it, but it is plodding along. I hope to have heroes implimented tonight, and soon a variable 3rd section (scaling by players and random pathing) Then its onto better squads and spells again. Also, something is wrong with how it handles tons of zerglings (8players or late game 4 players) and they can suddenly become non-aggressive. I THINK this is an engine limitation, but I will be looking into it more.
Remember, tjhsst.edu/~dkohlbre for the map and updates.

Week 6 and moar!

AAAAnnnd another forfeit.... bastards never even contacted us for the match.
We are scheduling make up matches for the ones we have missed, hopefully that will help our RPI.

In totally CS-related news, I have started working rather hard on a WC3 map. It started as a direct port of a Starcraft map (in korean, so we called it crazy korean defense) but has become much, much more.
Our first testing session was tonight, and we ironed out (I think) almost all the bugs. All that remains is actual content addition. Those of you that have WC3, please check it out and post me bugs/suggestions.
Newest version should regularly be at http://tjhsst.edu/~dkohlbre/Wc3/index.html
Seriously, people actually like this, and I intend for it to go somewhere.

Weeks 4&5

4 went wrong... We currently have a bye loss (as do they) but we played a match (which we lost, thanks to Wu and I really playing pretty damn bad.)

Week 5 was one of the best experiences I have ever had with CSS. de_Train is very far from my favorite map, it is very CT sided, and very AWP friendly. The saturday before we played, we practiced for hours, and Wu and (mainly) me blew. alot. I worked hard, and by practice on Monday I was doing ok, not great, but ok. We played the match, won 5 T side (which we played first) and it was looking good, till they took first 3 on our CT side. We pulled it together, and were 15-14 our favor on the last round, which we promptly lost. After a bit of a scramble to find out the OT rules, we started up OT (3 rounds on each side, 10k starting money.) OT we pull some good stuff, and then screw up CT again, tying 3-3. So it goes to OT-2 same thing again. And yet again, we (Wu, me and Tao) promptly pull some stupid stuff, and it goes 3-3. So we go to OT-3, seriously, the match had gone on way longer than any of us expected, and even our good players were a little nervous. We take only 1 T. CT round 1 we win, with the best cover I have ever seen. (Perfexion literally stood ONTOP of Wu while Wu got the defuse... they both died, but we won) Sadly, we lose 2, and then it goes to the last round. Looking like another OT, but it goes bad from the first few seconds, and the other team (U238) wins in triple overtime.
I have to say, most fun match I have ever played, and the most stressful. Still, THIS is why I play CSS. For those moments when they come inner, and I dick the awper with a well placed pick shot, nade the planter, and pick the guy going for the bomb for the win.
THAT is what CS is about, split-second timings, teamwork, and flashbangs. Nothing like it in the world.
Also, gratz to PerfeXion, he pulled some of the best rounds I have ever seen him do.

Round 3

And, after a week of solid practice, lots of school work and other work put off, and time spent memorizing strats; the other team does a no-show.
Thats right, we are now 2-1-0 with one forfeit win. de_nuke, after all that work turns out to get us a no-show match.
Next week is de_strike, a map I have played a grand total of two times. Thankfully, its a simple map. Unfortunately, I have to spend alot of time doing the work I have neglected.
Other games are 100% on hold these days. Though I might be buying a DS in the next month of so. (Then its Phoenix Wright time!)

Round 2

Well, our player got banned, and the match overturned to 0-16 loss.
Good news is we won the next match (bit of an upset really) 17-13. Bad news is we got nailed again (someone's computer had problems and couldn't record, they naturally disputed him.) Looks like we got around it though.
All I have to say on the matter is:
Freemoneymatches.

FFA continues to be fun, sadly I have no time for anything but CSS these days. Will update as season continues. (next map is de_nuke... should be interesting)

Post-Week 1 CS:S

Well, first match SHOULD have gone well. In fact, it did. We won 26-4.
But there have been some complications. One of our standard players had misunderstood the time of the match, and we had to use our alt. (perfectly legal.) Our alt. is a former CAL-i player, and pretty much dominated the other team. Half-way through the match, the bug where the server boots everyone cause too many switched teams at once happened, and everyone had to rejoin. The problem was that our alt. forgot to start recording the match again in second half. He is good enough that he got disputed by the other team for hax, and now he has NOTHING to show to prove that he wasn't. As of now, it looks like he will be kicked off, and the match will be overturned, but otherwise we will be fine. I will post more updates as I find out.

On another note, I started playing Final Fantasy Adventure again. Quality game, and damn annoying. Its like zelda, but FF style. Also, all the items have a name, an icon, and NO DESCRIPTION. You tell ME what a "pillow" or an "eyedrp" is supposed to do. Still, interesting weapons and a good magic system make up for it.

X-COM is back in my life as well, I got it working on my laptop, and I play it on the bus these days. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING has come close to that game for me. It is such a brilliant tactical game. All I can say is go find a copy online (abandonware these days) and play, play until you have seen every aspect of it.

Catching up...

So I haven't been updating.
Just too much to be doing these days.
Here is the quick version:
I found out how to make Oblivion stable, so I have started playing it again (post on it later)
Vista is... not happy with games like DMC3, so those have kinda been put to the side.
I am playing CounterStrike Source CAL-o Season 7. This will be taking large amounts of my time as I am the weakest member of the team (free money watches | f$w) by far. Should be a blast though. To help with that I have bought my first monthly cost gaming related thing. ESEA. $6 a month for access to their CS servers, and worth every penny.

Another high point was the updates to PCSX2 (a PS2 emu) It seems it can now run commercial FMVs with no trouble, sadly, framerates are still unacceptable on most games for actual play. MAJOR advances though, they deserve praise for this release.

PS: Go watch ALL videos of Crysis you can find, looks to be a real winner for DX10.

Almost forgot, GS2 is nearing an end... gotta love power leveling.