Author Archives: Filemon

May 09 2009
Technology

The Hunger

It builds.  Slowly.  Like a wave miles from shore, barely perceptible.  Easy to miss.

Then, building in intensity, it results in a flurry of activity, an unstoppable force focused on one thing:

Building a new computer.

I don’t know why, considering there are about three of them in the house right now.  I suppose I could get away with just rebuilding one of them, updating the internal components into something a little faster, with a little more RAM, a lot more hard drive space, possibly one of those quad cores.

I think I look at it as a research project, mainly out of wanting to keep up with technology, but also to see how far I can stretch the dollar.  Right now I’m thinking something small that fits properly in my entertainment center that can actually be a media center.  It’ll be different than the three other rigs I’ve built, but that’s a good thing, as I seem to have fallen into a rut with the piano black Sonata Antec cases.

I think part of this is really just getting fed up with not being able to find a suitable HDTV Tuner slash DVR combination.  Market forces have not provided me with a satisfactory solution, so I guess I’ll just have to roll my own.

May 08 2009
Games

Rune Factory Frontier is not Casablanca

Rune Factory Frontier is something else.  I’ve already logged over 20 hours.  To put that into a little more perspective, that’s longer than most games from start to finish.  To make that wide angle, let me put it this way:  I think I beat the first dungeon, but I’m not sure.  I didn’t consult the internet to make sure, but there was certainly a “Boss encounter” with a life bar and everything.  And it was pretty exciting, albeit straightforward.

I was not ready for it, but to be fair, the game did ask if I was ready for it.  Being overconfident, I went ahead anyway.  I came out on top but the life meter was flashing red.  Furiously.  There may have been a pixel of green in there somewhere, but I’m surprised that my character didn’t just wake up in the hospital with Sister Lara tending to his wounds.

It’s very open ended, so I’m not sure I’m doing it the right order.  Not that there is a “right” order.  I’m convinced I could spend the rest of Laguna’s life being a farmer.  Planting turnips in the Spring, and then growing grass for fodder for the buffamoos and the indentured servants befriended monsters that work the farm.  Maybe working enough nerve to ask Rosetta to marry him.  Spending summers on the beach, playing lazy beach games with the townsfolk.

But let me start with a summary.  Rune Factory Frontier is a game about farming.  And about dungeon crawling.  And dating.  And time management.  And monster raising. Continue reading →

Tagged
May 07 2009
Uncategorized

N97

The N97 is on sale for under $450 and I’m really tempted to purchase it.  Even though I just got an E71.  There’s definitely no way I can justify the purchase, the nearly $300 savings is slowly sapping away at the resolve.

Tagged
May 06 2009
Uncategorized

No Duke Nukem. . . Forever

This is an announcement that will probably surprise no one following the twelve (12, that’s a dozen, over a decade) year development saga of Duke Nukem Forever.

Executive summary:  3DRealms is shut down, finally killing the project, although Take-Two holds the publishing rights to the “title.”

Analysis:  One would think after ten years in development, this project would be scrapped.

May 05 2009
Games

Plants vs. Zombies (PvZ)

Popcap has combined two of my favorite gaming past times:

  1. Tower Defense
  2. Zombie Killin’

And added a little bit of their own Popcap spin on the genre.  They even added a bit of “card collecting” to the mix, although thankfully that’s only a limited implementation.  (Because it would end me.)  Essentially, you can only take a certain number of “units” into the next stage.  You have to pick and choose from your seed packet collection, which gets larger the more stages you progress through.

There are zombies attacking your yard from the right hand side of the screen.  Your job is to plant different kinds of. . .  plants. . . that prevent them from getting to the left hand side of the screen, which is your house.  They plants basically replace the towers of Tower Defense, and perform many of the same functions, such as shoot zombies, slow zombies, eat them, etc.  Zombies are limited to single rows, and there are five rows.  Think spreadsheet.

Essentially, I think someone with a bit more excel knowledge can probably hack some sort of PvZ action for some clandestine gaming at the office.

The graphics are incredibly cute, and it’s rockin’ the whole Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe from the designs.  Certain zombies are wearing buckets over their heads.  Which means they’re nigh invulnerable until the bucket is knocked off with enough damage.  Other zombies are wearing traffic cones.  It looks like there are about thirty different zombie types and nearly fifty plant types.  Which sounds like enough depth that I wouldn’t mind the purchase price.

The end result: Plants vs. Zombies is an incredible time sink.  My limited time demo came and went without me noticing so now I’m left with only one, surprisingly difficult question to answer.

Which platform to buy it for.

Update: I’m thinking Steam.

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