Journal

A bit of this and that

Thursday December 11th 2003

Excuses, excuses

I haven’t posted many updates recently – mostly because I’ve been busying myself with various things which get in the way of updating the site.

High on the list has been the new WipeoutZone, which is now in the final stretch of development. I’ve hit a few snags along the way, and even as recent as the start of this week I realised that I’ll need to change the templates due to the stylesheet breaking down when it hits a form in certain browsers. Stuff like that is a pain in the ass, because even working to a plan you don’t see browser bugs coming until they happen and you’re already many hours down that particluar avenue. Only thing to do is rip it all out and find another way of doing things and although you just have to roll your sleeves up and get on with it, it’s hard not to let it demotivate you.
Despite the speed bumps, the site should make it live in the next couple of weeks – I’m saving hardest chunk for last, because then I’ll know that the second it’s working the site is complete. :o)

Playtime

When I’ve not been on the computer I’ve been playing lots of Tony Hawk’s Underground and WRC 3. With the former I’ve completed all but the last challenge in story mode, and I’m mostly playing online now, which is great fun. Sadly WRC 3 isn’t online, but it is the best effort yet from Evolution and I’m really enjoying the game–play this year.

Cant wait for the holidays when I can spend a bit more free time getting stuck into these games – Fliss is apparently getting me BattleStar Galactica for my Xmas too, so as soon as WipeoutZone is done and dusted (for another year) I’ll be hitting the games pretty hard.

Board Stupid

Last night I made it to skateboarding for my second week in a row in ages. I hate missing a week, as it undoes everything I’ve built on the week before and it takes longer to get back into the swing of things when I next go. Anyhow, last night I managed a whole three hours without any extended periods of rest. I was completely flogged when I left the place, but I’d manged to get confident at a few things I’ve been trying.

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Game On

Medal of Honour : Rising Sun

Monday December 1st 2003

Medal of Honour : Rising Scum truly pushes the boundaries of how much excrement you can fit on one disk. I have rarely had the excruciating misfortune to play, never mind own, a “game” as poor as this.

And I use the term “play” so loosely that if watching demo-footage of a game through a telescope counted as “playing”, well, MoH : Rising Scum would rank below that.

Although not advertised on the packaging, the game features “bullet-time” quite extensively. In fact, the whole first mission is spent predominantly in “bullet-time”, yet for some reason, unlike Max Payne or Enter The Matrix, the player character also seems to slow down along with everything else. To the point where it’s unplayably slow – I’m talking “turn around quickly, then go make a cup of tea while the game engine catches up” kind of slow.

It’s like EA wrote a game that could only possibly run at a decent frame rate on that Deep Blue super-computer that gives chess Grandmasters the run–around every so often. Then, instead of thinking “woah – it’ll be PS3 before this sloppy code can run smoothly on a console,” they wrote a Deep Blue emulator for the PS2 and stuck it in the shops anyway.

And this is not the PS2’s fault at all – there are games like the sublime TimeSplitters 2, which is over a year old now and absolutely hoses on anything that MoH: RS even attempts to do.

The reason I happened upon this sorry excuse for a game was due to me returning Need for Speed Underground. Rising Scum was a convenient swapsie at the equivalent price… but… but… I expected to get a frickin’ game in return, not just a collection of poor cut scenes and the worst rendition of a first person shooter you actually need to pay money to own!

Avoid this game like nothing you have ever avoided before. I’m talking suppositories, kidney failure, fallen power lines during a rain storm – that kind of thing. If someone offers to sell you this game, even at half price, run. Run screaming like you would if you were doused in petrol and they were offering you a light.

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