all things me

The terrorist are threatening to release a small pox virus all over the United States. Sam Fisher has to, as usual, save our (or theirs… the Americans’) butts. He’s equipped (in addition to a limber bod ) with the good old silenced pistol, SC-20K with nice sticky shockers to buzz out the enemies, and all the gadgets from the first game, as well as a new type of grenade to shut off those nasty turrets.

It didn’t take me long to finish this game. That’s pretty much the only bad feature about it: it’s surprisingly and depressingly short (good games that are too short make me sad). No wonder it’s been reviewed as being a sloppy and careless job from the makers of SC between the hit of a first game and the upcoming 3rd, Chaos Theory (March 2005 says the site).
It also seemed easier even though there were some tight spots that made me re-try over and over. I didn’t use many med-kits (I couldn’t have stood his suspicious sounding ‘oh yeahhh’ anyway…) but then again, if you get shot in Splinter Cell you usually get shot for good.

Nevertheless, there are 8 missions in the game and I’m happy enough with that. Sam Fisher has learned a few new tricks — and they said old dogs don’t learn new tricks! Well, his appearance has got more youthful as well. (Where was the stubble? I love the stubble!) Now he can split jump in a narrow passage and jump to a higher platform. Also now there’s a SWAT turn in his repertoire. It makes getting past illuminated doorways so much easier. Once, in Jerusalem, there was a guy sitting right in front of a barred door, probably 50 cm away from the door, and I (*cough* I mean Sam) swirled by. He didn’t notice a thing!

What I missed was a nice oomph of an intro movie and as catchy theme as in the first one (Crystal Method’s Name of the Game).

And of course, it’s Splinter Cell I’m talking about. The amazing, breathtakingly beautiful, refreshingly non-shoot-em-up, wonderfully clever sneak-in-the-shadows Splinter Cell. Finding an alternative route through airshafts or window ledges always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

There’s probably some re-playing value in this “thanks to” the fact that it wasn’t too difficult. In the first game I got stuck in the annoying library ambush and got tired with that (but I played the first levels over and over). I’ll have to see. I don’t have anything better to play anyway, unless I take down the whooping monster in Painkiller. (Jafer, help!)

Website

Here are two nicely compact enemies from Painkiller. I’m stuck at the latter one at the moment because my computer started doing chipmunk music all of a sudden and then it wouldn’t load a quicksave.

That’s a crazy game right there I tell you.

Being a big fan of the first Half Life and its expansions (except for Counter Strike as I don’t do online gaming — there should’ve been a single player version of CS, too) I of course had to get my hands on the sequel. Luckily Dad gave it to me as Xmas present (it was a 33% chance).

Compared to the old HL the graphics have come a loooong way (duh, it’s been a loooong time since the 1st game). I was a bit afraid how my Simon could handle the game the minimum specs being 1,2 Ghz (Simon’s 1,4) but I didn’t notice too much disturbance. Surely, the loading times were unusually long and there was the occasional stutter which seems to have been a problem for many. Also, sometimes in more hectic battles there were moments of lag and pause. I’m just over the moon to have got the game working so I’m not bothered by the small glitches.

The install was a pain in the butt for me. The first decoding and launching went ok and the game started but then I wanted to play it offline, so I exited the game and Steam and disconnected. When I re-started Steam and wanted to launch Half Life — after Steam assuring that 100% had been downloaded and the game was ready for offline play — it complained that offline game is out of the question. So, I deleted all local files (as instructed in the HL forums) and re-launched HL only to see a 6847 minute countdown. The next day I tried to launch it again but the countdown was around 4000 this time. Then I realized that maybe it’s trying to download the whole game. I uninstalled HL dreading that it wouldn’t allow me to re-install it or some stupid thing but luckily it re-installed nicely and when launched, started to decode the files again. This time I was smart enough to set it to “Do not update this game” and was finally able to play it offline. Ahhhhh…

Anyway, I finished it in 5 days — it was the easy level, though — often noticing the time had strangely flown to 3 am or later.

It is an intense game. I’m sure my pulse quickened when I was zooming on the hovercraft (or something) trying to escape a helicopter that was dropping bombs on me or when soldiers or other creatures just kept streaming out at me with no end in sight.

It’s nice that Half Life 2 isn’t all shooting and killing but there are often “puzzles” to solve to get forward. I can’t remember if there were similar things in the 1st game — maybe there weren’t because I don’t remember them.

Of the enemies, I absolutely despise the Barnacles (the long-tongued creatures that hang in the ceiling). I developed a “phobia” for them in the 1st game when they suddenly snatched me and started slurping me up like a ground meat on spaghetti. Their tongues are really difficult to see, too! Of the new enemies the striders and gunships are the most annoying because they must (?) be destroyed with the grenade launcher which can carry only 3 (!!!) grenades at a time. The only times when I felt sure I would never get past a fight was with those things. *shiver*

I’m sure I’ll go back to playing HL2 with a more difficult level and I should try to explore the area a bit more now that finishing the game is not my priority.

Website

This looks a bit better:

I uninstalled Half-Life 2, re-installed it, and Steam started to decrypt the files immediately like it should. I bet it was downloading the game files (as you don’t need to install it from the CD) the last time. Why, I have no idea, because the game was installed already.

[edit] IT’S ALIVE!! ALIVE!! Ok, have a nice time, see you in Easter. [/edit]

I thought countdowns were supposed to count down (oh what a linguistic revelation! This is what my education has always aimed at…). My Half Life² “Ready to play in approximately:” counter is counting up… 4253 mins 53 secs — 4254 mins 39 secs. It started from around 3700 so I was feeling optimistic.

4264 min 41 sec
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4275 min 49 sec
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*getting back to the Da Vinci Code*
At least this counts up as it’s supposed to: I’m on page 151

I’m waiting for Half-Life 2 to get all done — now it’s decrypting game files (oh what a draaaag this is! If it wasn’t Half-Life that I’m talking about, I’d probably be put off by all these nuisances) . The most annoying thing is that it has to be done online (first creating a Steam account and then updating files and this decrypting business), and with my 56k modem (in theory, 46,6 in practice) it’s not very quick.
[edit] Now, at 22:50, it has taken me over an hour. [/edit]

What did I get for Xmas? Well, Half Life 2 as you probably guessed. Also a terrestrial digital receiver. Both from Dad, and he was the one telling us to get only 2 gifts max this year. Apparently we didn’t talk about the money limit… Not complaining though, I’ve been meaning to buy a digital tv and a VCR because my current one (combo) is kaput, now I only have to buy a regular tv and a regular VCR — money saved is money earned.
[edit Dec 25] Dad cleverly pointed out that I don’t even need a TV, only a VCR and I could get a VCR-DVD combo while I was at it. I have been using my computer as the DVD player so I have to think about that, but the current cable that connects the tv and the computer is too short. [/edit]

What else, well a nice new blanket, Da Vinci Code (which I asked for), a USB memory (it was a company present to Dad though but he’d already bought a memory stick), new clothes (RED pajamas and a RED t-shirt/top from Grandma and Grandpa, Grandma’s really thinking I’d wear that top some time. I’d be responsible for a few heart attacks — I’ve worn black for 8-9 years. Well… who knows. At least this was a change from the usual blue (I don’t care for the regular blue))

Only a few centimetres left of the decrypting metre so I think I’m going to get back to it, grab a chocolate while I’m waiting. Enjoy your Christmas! I know I will — while shooting evil creatures.

[edit on Dec 25th, 0:28] Still not getting it working offline… [/edit]

It’s nice to see (no use clicking that link; the site just upgraded WP and apparently the old posts aren’t coming back) that I’m not the only “girl” playing Half-Lives and Painkillers and Dooms and what not. I would’ve left a happy comment on the post but the form was closed so I’ll trackback it

I’m itching to get back to Painkiller but a) my eyes are tired so I probably wouldn’t dare push my luck, b) my sister’s still online and I don’t want to overload poor Simon who’s acting as a Master to that little slave over there.

I recently finished playing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Boy, had it changed since its early days. I have the first PoP on Gameboy (the “black-and-white” (more like grey and green) version, even) and I’ve also played it on PC.

But the Sands of Time blew me away with its graphics — almost. Beautiful scenery, nice movie clips. But the enemies were a bit clumsy (especially the harem girls).

I love the Prince’s acrobatics. Running along walls (no, it’s not really possible in real life), jumping from flag poles… Sister got tired of the wall-to-wall jump never going the way it should be, but I didn’t have such difficulties. At first I thought that when I had found an effective way to attack, that’d work through the rest of the game. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.

Some fights started to feel hopeless and I probably would’ve given in and tried a cheat if there was one. Luckily again, there wasn’t. Usually I got stuck in a difficult fight when it was late and I’d been playing for a long time but the next day (or the next time I played), with fresh eyes, fresh mind, and better reaction time, I eventually kicked the sand creatures’ butts and felt really really good about it. So, lots of sighs of relief and cries of excitement are expected.

The Prince receives a useful set of special abilities with a dagger he finds at a palace. Rewinding time is most useful, and most used, I’d imagine. Slowing time (super-freeze?) was something I managed to get going only by accident and I never used it. There was a difficult situation where my sister had to use it; strangely, I never got stuck in that place. I tried to help my sister, but it wasn’t as easy on her computer as it was on mine.
A bit like this jump I thought was very easy in Splinter Cell but Dad, whose computer runs a “little” faster than mine, had serious trouble with it (me too, as I tried to help him). Praise the slow machine!

Then there’s the puzzles. Almost every step you take is one. There’s never a straight-forward way from point A to point B (unless you place your points a really short distance away, you cheat ).

The music is a delight. The soundtrack is entirely Stuart Chatwood’s doing. The tracks are a mix of oriental strings, disco pop (I don’t know!), and quite heavy-ish guitar rock at times. I especially like the short introductory music that plays when you fall in the prison. That should’ve gone on for longer.

What annoys me is the way the camera works. Its course is somewhat limited and when you roll the camera “too far” it comes back to an awkward angle along with a swoosh sound. Also, the camera may change place suddenly, and because the directions are relative to the camera’s angle, you end up going back and forth if you’re not careful and take it slowly. Camera angles also make it difficult to determine which button you should press to jump to the right direction. Not a nice feature when you’re dangling from a stalagmite (dripstone) that will break apart fast.

On the second round (which is on-going) the game was easy-peasy at the beginning because I’d learnt all the tips and tricks I would learn later if it was my first round. The enemies probably didn’t even realize what hit ’em! But still, I got stuck again.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the next part, Warrior Within. I hear it’s got so amazing graphics, that it’d be worth even to just *watch* someone play it. [Pelit]

Game’s website (displays the newest, there’s a subpage for Sands of Time)

For a moment I was panicking. The database connection didn’t work on my or my hostess’s site (so the problem was with the server) and it seemed to go on forever. I updated my index page already, telling about problems, but then suddenly everything works. Phew.

Now, what was I supposed to write before I was cruelly denied access.

First of all, my sister spotted a silly sight while playing Splinter Cell:

That handsome chap there is Sam Fisher — the one in black. There’s a slaughter house at one point in the game, and one of the soldiers my sister (or Sam Fisher) shot, froze with his hands still holding the gun. Also the grimace is awfully funny but you probably can’t see it well. You can see the other corner of the mouth being darker and thus being drawn downward. (speak of the devil: Splinter Cell music just started playing on Winamp)

I saw two episodes of Dr. Phil this week. He’s supposed to be some really popular tv “shrink” but I don’t know… He sounds exactly like the guidance counsellor, Mr. Mackey, in South Park!! Hoookay? Sorry, it’s more like “m’kay” with Mr. Mackey but “hookay” with Dr. Phil. They sound the same, nevertheless.

I wanted to show the last update on my Booklog, but I’d removed the date of the post from my static pages. Well, running php from a post is not possible on WP. I found a wonderful plugin by Mark.

Also, “installed” Customizable post listings plugin (from Coffee2Code; wonderful site and wonderful name!!) and put a list of 5 most recently updated posts (including static pages, which is actually really good) and 5 most recently commented posts (currently there are only 2 though… ) on the menu.