Computer gaming stuff
Feb. 24th, 2008 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterI've been a little too busy to do much updating here over the last week or so, so I'll bring you up to speed on what I've been doing.
Largely, it has to do with the computer. I recently obtained the final piece I needed to complete my weapon of mass destruction, bwahahahahaha…er, I mean, my computer. I had been waiting on the perfect video card to drop in price by $50 opr so, and finally it did. Now I have my new MSI NX800GT video card (factory overclocked to 660 MHz instead of the usual 600, I should note) and it's great! City of Heroes looks like a whole new game; I can run it in full desktop resolution of 1680x1050 pixels with the graphics sliders all the way at max anywhere, even Grandville (I occasionally have to crank it down a notch there, but only there).
But mainly I've been playing BioShock, which I could barely even get to run at very tiny resolution on my old card. With the new one…wow. It's an amazing game. It's the soul of System Shock 2 clad in new flesh: it keeps all the good bits from the game, ditches the sucky bits (such as having to repair your weapons), and sets it in a marvelously atmospheric alternate-timeline 1960, in a setting that can only be described as pulp superscience gone horribly wrong. It has a great soundtrack, too, full of 40s and 50s-era jazz and swing. Who would have thought that a hit game in this day and age could feature the Andrews Sisters, Patti Page, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bobby Darin, Cole Porter, Django Reinhardt, and the Ink Spots? Anyway, I beat it, and it has a great ending.
But last night I got into a game that some friends of mine had been playing: Audiosurf. It's described as a "puzzle racer," and I was curious enough to check it out. (Actually, I went ahead and bought it sight-unseen, but it was only $10 and my friends seemed to like it, so…) It's a cross between a block-stacking puzzle game like Tetris or Bejeweled, a roller coaster, and an MP3 visualizer. The object of the game is to run your little race car through rows of colored tiles, building up groups of them for points. The interesting thing is, they're on a kind of roller-coastery racetrack that is built around the tempo of a song. Any song—including the ones on your hard drive. The game has an on-line registration system and leaderboard so you can compare your scores in songs to those of all other players, other players in the same state as you, and people you set as your friends.
It's a really ingenious and well-made little game. The ability to play in rhythm to your favorite songs is really addictive.
Oh, and did I mention that for $10, it includes 192-kilobit MP3s of the Valve "Orange Box" Soundtrack (which heretofore cost $20 as a standalone)? (Granted, if you have the Orange Box you can extract the songs from the game files, but it also includes the Jonathan Coulton version of "Still Alive" from Portal, which isn't in those.)
I've found a number of great and challenging songs, too. It seems like the most challenge can be had from electronica and jazz—things that have a very high beats-per-minute rate. So, songs like "Tank!" by Seatbelts (the theme from Cowboy Bebop), or the theme music to Read or Die can be really tricky. Another good challenge can be had from any of the Dance Dance Revolution tracks, or songs like They Might Be Giants "Sensurround" or "Happy Birthday to Me" (the theme to All-Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku-Nuku) by Megumi Hayashibara.
The game is available through the Steam game purchase and management system for $10, and there's a free demo that is functional for four songs if you just want to try it out. If anyone installs it and wants to play through some of the tunes I use, let me know and I'll make some of them available to you.
Largely, it has to do with the computer. I recently obtained the final piece I needed to complete my weapon of mass destruction, bwahahahahaha…er, I mean, my computer. I had been waiting on the perfect video card to drop in price by $50 opr so, and finally it did. Now I have my new MSI NX800GT video card (factory overclocked to 660 MHz instead of the usual 600, I should note) and it's great! City of Heroes looks like a whole new game; I can run it in full desktop resolution of 1680x1050 pixels with the graphics sliders all the way at max anywhere, even Grandville (I occasionally have to crank it down a notch there, but only there).
But mainly I've been playing BioShock, which I could barely even get to run at very tiny resolution on my old card. With the new one…wow. It's an amazing game. It's the soul of System Shock 2 clad in new flesh: it keeps all the good bits from the game, ditches the sucky bits (such as having to repair your weapons), and sets it in a marvelously atmospheric alternate-timeline 1960, in a setting that can only be described as pulp superscience gone horribly wrong. It has a great soundtrack, too, full of 40s and 50s-era jazz and swing. Who would have thought that a hit game in this day and age could feature the Andrews Sisters, Patti Page, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bobby Darin, Cole Porter, Django Reinhardt, and the Ink Spots? Anyway, I beat it, and it has a great ending.
But last night I got into a game that some friends of mine had been playing: Audiosurf. It's described as a "puzzle racer," and I was curious enough to check it out. (Actually, I went ahead and bought it sight-unseen, but it was only $10 and my friends seemed to like it, so…) It's a cross between a block-stacking puzzle game like Tetris or Bejeweled, a roller coaster, and an MP3 visualizer. The object of the game is to run your little race car through rows of colored tiles, building up groups of them for points. The interesting thing is, they're on a kind of roller-coastery racetrack that is built around the tempo of a song. Any song—including the ones on your hard drive. The game has an on-line registration system and leaderboard so you can compare your scores in songs to those of all other players, other players in the same state as you, and people you set as your friends.
It's a really ingenious and well-made little game. The ability to play in rhythm to your favorite songs is really addictive.
Oh, and did I mention that for $10, it includes 192-kilobit MP3s of the Valve "Orange Box" Soundtrack (which heretofore cost $20 as a standalone)? (Granted, if you have the Orange Box you can extract the songs from the game files, but it also includes the Jonathan Coulton version of "Still Alive" from Portal, which isn't in those.)
I've found a number of great and challenging songs, too. It seems like the most challenge can be had from electronica and jazz—things that have a very high beats-per-minute rate. So, songs like "Tank!" by Seatbelts (the theme from Cowboy Bebop), or the theme music to Read or Die can be really tricky. Another good challenge can be had from any of the Dance Dance Revolution tracks, or songs like They Might Be Giants "Sensurround" or "Happy Birthday to Me" (the theme to All-Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku-Nuku) by Megumi Hayashibara.
The game is available through the Steam game purchase and management system for $10, and there's a free demo that is functional for four songs if you just want to try it out. If anyone installs it and wants to play through some of the tunes I use, let me know and I'll make some of them available to you.
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Date: 2008-02-25 04:53 am (UTC)