Game: ParadroidZ (PC)

Having looked on Wikipedia about Paradroid (previous post) I found a 3d version.. YAY!

It isnt quite the Doom 3 engined version I had imagined but is nevertheless very playable. Take a look here:-

http://www.jpct.net/paradroidz/

Nostalgia: Paradroid (C64)

There are momentous occasions in everyone’s life.
Losing your virginity, the first time you got drunk, beating everybody you ever met at Street Fighter 2 *cough*. For me the former was actually quite an anti-climax and paled into sheer insignificance to a little known game called "Paradroid".

Created by the very talented Andrew Braybrook in 1985, this game really changed the person that I am today. Yes, I know it sounds like I am insane, but until the time of its release I was very much an arcade playing ignoramus. If I couldn’t hit it, shoot it or impale it with a sword I really didn’t want to hear about it. This was quite reflective of my mind state as a whole (being ignorant that is.. not going around with a sworn off). Anyway, I digress.

The game puts you on a spaceship that has various decks. All the robots on the ship have gone haywire and you have to systematically disable them by errrm blowing them up. But wait! there is more... You have control of an "Influence Device" that allows you to take control of another droid. To win ownership of the new robot you have to enter a subgame. This is the part that fascinated me. You are presented with a series of circuits left and right of the screen that connect to a central connection matrix. One side is yellow and the other purple. The aim is to get more of your chosen colour circuits into the matrix and disable the enemies. You have a limited amount of connections and you must carefully choose the circuits that will yield the best results (see image below).



To add to the difficulty you start off as droid 001 (An influence device) with the biggest and baddest droid being 999. The higher up the food chain, the more armoury and connections available in the subgame. To make it all the way up you must locate lesser droids who you stand a chance of winning against. The added firepower is the only way to survive as 001's guns are about as effective as a spud gun.

So by today’s standards it doesn’t sound complex I know, but the game got my neurons firing in completely different directions. Logic developed where reactions once dominated and before long I started to program and think like Spock.. ok not like Spock but you get the idea.

I have never got around to game programming but if I did, a 3d version of Paradroid built on the Doom 3 engine would be the first thing I would develop.

Andrew if you are out there, PLEASE give me 3d paradroid! Together we can convince the world that there is more to gaming than shitty sport sims! I salut you sir.

FOOTNOTE: I have found no references to the version that I favour named Fast Paradroid. Anyone know why on earth not? This one superseded Paradroid and preceded Heavy Metal Paradroid. It was faster and had far better scrolling...

Rapture: The Weblog Review

Whilst spending a frustrating morning convincing ASP.NET that my overloaded function was in fact correct, an email popped into my inbox that pacified me significantly. The mail informed me that my blog had been written about on The Weblog review

After cursing Bill Gates (nothing like a good deflection) for a few more hours I decided to go take a peek. To my pleasant surprise the review was much more than a few words summary. It was in-depth, articulate and (hopefully) accurate.

Dylan, thank you for the kind words. Comments such as yours will motivate me to update more frequently.

Nebyah, you make some valid points. Some of which I will try to address below, however I disagree with the header comment...obviously :)

"So who should read it? If you want to read reviews of movies and TV and games... but then why not just go to IMDB for movies, and one of a million specialist game sites for game reviews?"

I do take your comments on board and I wish to explain. I often completely disagree with imdb and the wealth of gaming sites. There have been numerous occasions when I have bought a game on recommendation from a site only to find that either A: The reviewers machine is of such hi-spec that they failed to notice that the game was written in turbo pascal or B: The reviewer couldn't be arsed to look at it and got his grandma to do the write up.

When this happens, I feel compelled to voice my opinion in the hope that others will benefit. Ultimately, I am possibly a rare breed. My gaming and film tastes are that of a 31 year old who was bought up on LCD Handhelds and ZX Spectrums. A person who believes that 90 percent of Hollywood films are created solely by a computer called "S.H.I.T." and is physically ill when in the local proximity of a "Spice Girl" record.

There are many people in the world who are far less sceptical and indeed, cynical as I. I urge these nice folks to move along. For anyone else that can relate in part to what I am saying, maybe I will stop them watching or playing another steaming pile of horse manure.

I hope this clarifies things a little, however I could write a minute by minute account of my days coding efforts instead… maybe not eh? :)

Rant: Space Cadets (Channel 4 - Mon 9pm)

Having seen the adverts for this programme, i had pretty much condemned it before I had seen 31 seconds. For those who have a far fuller social life than myself, or simply don't live in the UK, Space Cadets is about 6 or so people who sign up for a reality tv show. In space. *Sigh* My cynico'alarm started ringing more frantically than Gary Glitters pulse when Thai police broke his door down.

How could anyone truly believe that they were going into space for a tv show? Richard Bransons holidays to the moon are still not a reality and yet Channel 4 have the power?

OK so there are two actors amongst the crew who's soul purpose is to keep momentum of the blag going but still.. I am sure my ten month old son would find the whole thing a little dubious, let alone a group of grown men and women. My first thought? They are all actors, it's bullshit.

I shared this theory with my long suffering better half. She thought I was being my usual delusional schizotypal self. I expected this response. All great theories were once ridiculed (weren’t they?). Then like a gift from the heavens it came.

The "Give Blood" advert appeared on the television. As I watched various celebritys tell me how this man / woman helped save their spouse, friend, extraterrestrial being or indeed career. Time seemed to slow. The wrinkly loud mouthed one (Gordon Ramsey) appeared behind this moppy haired ginger dude. As Gordon patted him on the head I realised I had seen his face before.... TEN MINUTES AGO ON SPACE CADETS! Yes.. a supposed contestant on said programme! Maybe it will turn out he is another secret actor, but until that time comes I can at least be safe in the knowledge that some of the stuff that comes out of my mouth is in part, valid.

Rant: Mindless blogs

Sometimes in the evenings I will hop along to blogger.com and click on the random blog button. Occasionally a gem will appear before my eyes and many minutes will be occupied whilst I read through the writers words. Often however, I am presented with something like this:-

6:30 Got up, made my way down stairs for breakfast. We had poptarts this morning. Why do they taste so good?

7:00 Got in the car and started off to college.

7:10 Felt an itch on my left ear..scratched it..

I have a question for these people... WHY THE F**K DO YOU THINK WE GIVE A SHIT?!!! If your day comprises of great achievements, life milestones, or if you simply have something relevant to say, I actively encourage you to share these experiences with the rest of us. Why then do you feel the need to share such insipid bullshit with the rest of the world on a minute by minute basis. Do you think the world cares?

Before you impose your next ground breaking "college lunch break" on the rest of us do me a favour. Read it out loud to yourself, or better yet to a close friend. Whilst mouthing the words, pay close attention to said friends eyes and body. If the eyes appear glazed and chest movement is non existent, congratulations, you have bored your friend to death, just as you do with 99.989 percent of the people unfortunate enough to stumble over your blog.

Game: Need for Speed Most Wanted (PC)

Having played Need For Speed Underground to death on the Xbox, I was rather looking forward to doing the same (but with Cops) on my new PC. Walking home in the freezing cold which is British winter, i was day dreaming about how amazing the game would look on my nice lcd display. Super smooth graphics, crystal clear anti-aliased scenes and break neck speed...everything that made NFSU so exhilarating on the xbox.

With hand trembling (due to thawing from -500 degree weather as oppose to anticipation) I inserted the disc and installed the game. OK, with that done I thought I would tweak the graphics settings... go easy to start with... 800x600 with 2x AA etc.

Start! They are off! well, kinda. The game is jerking like I am running it on a PIII. Ok, turn the shadow details down, lower geometric detail, turn off AA. Resume. Ummm ok, no better, lets try 640x480. Hmmm utter dogshit... 1024 x 768... Same as before.. no worse... no better... you get the picture.

So maybe your pc isnt up to the job I hear you say? To which I reply... 256mb 7800 GTX, 4gig ram, and a Athlon 64 4800+

Bottom line is that this game runs like a 90 year old with rickets. In fairness maybe this is just some wierd issue with my PC, but considering F.E.A.R was running at 1280x1024 with all settings cranked I cannot help but think that the development team let the work experience boy code the 3d engine. Worse still I bet the Xbox version is totally sweet... I would love to hear others experiences with the game. It was so poor I removed it after the second race. Maybe the team could ask the Nadeo boys about their 3d engine?

Verdict: Possibly great on a quad core opteron. 3/10

Game: F.E.A.R (PC)

I was going to review this game quite a while ago but kept putting it off so I could play it long enough to give it as thorough a testing as possible.

Well *ahem* I played it so long that I have now finished it... The fact that I actually finished the game means that it must be of reasonable caliber as I rarely get past the first few levels before deeming a game to boring or simply crap to play anymore.

For those who have not heard of this game, F.E.A.R is a first person shooter similar to the other four billion of them that have already been made. The slight twist in this incarnation of the genre is that a *slo mo* mode ala Max Paine is very integral to the gameplay. There is also a spooky plot (hence the name..um kinda).

I wont bore you to long with the plot.. It revolves around some scientific building with eerie goings on.. Some dood has telepathic control over all the bad guys who inevitably hate you and try to screw up your shit from the first minute. Needless to say the plot does help things along even if it has basically been copied from The Ring in different circumstances.

The graphics are really nice and the guns feel very substantial while you slo-mo blast the hell out of the enemy. My main critism with F.E.A.R is that it does all become a little samey. There are only a handful of different enemies in the game and a great deal of them behave in the same kind of way. But like I say, I did feel compelled to finish it and that is quite a rare occurrence for me.

F.E.A.R is not quite Half Life 2 but it is a good FPS. If you do like the genre I would recommend checking it out.

Verdict: Smokin' 8/10