Lavonardo

Participated in the Sörkka Pinball Open contest yesterday evening, and have absolutely no illusions whether I’ll make it to the finals today. Managed to suck so bad at the tables, that a decent ranking would be nothing would be downright insulting.

The setting of the qualification part of the tournament was simple - score well on six tables, half of them old, half of them new - the watershed being the year 1988.

Started the effort with the oldest game of the bunch: Surf Champ, and managed to get a respectable score (meaning that it beat at least the two guys who’d been playing before me). But the old table never felt comfortable, and I wasn’t looking forward to the other two old pins at all.

I’ve never got Indiana Jones figured out, and this time the goings on were further complicated by the very fickle mode-starting cup - out of five hits four bounced out, and the lone completed mode (path of adventure) didn’t really rack up the score. The new Indiana Jones pinball (to celebrate the arrival of the fourth movie) was no longer news to anybody but me - I’d completely missed out its delivery to the two multiplex theatres in Helsinki. Definitely something to check out later today.

My turn at Cirqus Voltaire turned out even worse. I’ve never played so bad on that table - managed no ringmaster defeats at all, and I can’t even remember the resulting score. No explanation, just managed to blow through the game without achievements - which is uncharacteristic, this is a game I actually like, and have played quite a bit. At this point it was pretty clear that the final sixteen would require comprehensively serious heroics on the remaining three tables.

And the fourth game wasn’t too bad. Despite initial misgivings (and two very nasty side-drains) on Fireball, the last few balls gathered a positive outcome from the old table. Too bad the game broke under heavy use, and the scores were disqualified in the ranking.

Next to Fireball stood Mr. and Mrs. Pacman, a game I’d never seen before. And the first encounter wasn’t really positive as I managed to get the three balls drained in record time (no ball-saver was obviously employed). This ranked as the lowest point of the evening, and I spent the singular replay on the video-game inspired table. To an even lower score, and probably a position in the very lowest group on this table.

The last qualification game I played was Junkyard, and despite a low score, this was by far the most enjoyable of the six.

The tournament tourned out to be a bust, that was certain at this point, but the rest of the collection was available for casual play. The biggest new entries in my playbook were Popeye and No Good Gofers.

The former was a pleasure to play, and despite the largish upper playing field blocking sight on the top half, I didn’t feel it was too much of an impediment - the lack of information provided for the shooting gallery and search for sweetpea, on the other hand were quite distracting.

The latter was yet another Pat Lawlor game I hadn’t tried out before, and I was quite impressed by it. Definitely not in the league of Twilight Zone or Addams Family, but then again, few games are. The slam ramp (for quick hole in one-shots) didn’t get exercised enough, but all in all there was enough variety in the game to keep the interest up.

Next to the Gofers stood Banzai Run, and early Lawlor design, which I’d only seen powered-off before. This is the only pinball that has additional flippers on the backboard. Unexpectedly I found the game rather tedious - and especially the vertical playing field felt like a tacked-on gimmick. A view which I’m more than prepared to change upon repeated exposure, the first few tries just weren’t that convincing.

I’m sure the less than appropriately named, but otherwise well-crafted flash-powered scroller WTF! contains much more in-jokes than I, as a total WoW-virgin, am able to understand.

Been a while since I last advertised new things that got dropped into the “read often”-pile:

• Roger Ebert’s movie blog.
• Planet IF - a very convenient aggregator for interactive fiction related blogs (and news sites).
• Next Big Future - things that shape the next decades, if not centuries. Mainly technology-oriented.
• Still haven’t got an “internet tablet, but if I was planning to, the Tabletblog would certainly be religiously read. Now, it’s just merely interesting.
• Somehow, I’d dropped Fimoculous. Easily rectified.

Action scenes from Halo.

Pretty.

And not just heavily photoshopped screengrabs - at least some of the images feature bona fide plastic models.

Purchased GTA IV last night (shops started selling the game at midnight).

And finished the first mission before going to bed.

Based on a sleep-addled ten minutes - the game is pretty, the soundscape once again magnificently realized.

Should consume quite a few hours in the immediate future.

Been playing a couple of games of TypeRacer, and politely reminded that learning the 10-finger system is not a mandatory part of the finnish curriculum.

My rather unorthodox typing style does not lend itself well to scoring high in the game. Though let it be known that the incredibly low score in the first game was due to capitalization confusion (blatantly missed the immediate and pointed feedback provided by the game).

But it can only improve with practice.

And the act of racing a car with your wpm (to lyrics of random songs and many other sources) is actually rather a pleasant way of getting typing exercise.

By far the biggest news in recent times in the interactive fiction community is Andy Baio’s uncovering of the unpublished sequel to the 1984 game published by Infocom.

That’s right. A whole unpublished game. Or actually just a duo of prototypes with very limited functionality.

But it’s not really the game (playable on the page with an embedded Z-machine interpreter) that’s the highlight of the show, but the story of the game - told both in the blog entry, and the long string of comments to it.

The comments are worthwhile indeed, as the writers include several Infocom implementors (and also quite a bit of extended flaming). The game spent a long time in pre-production, including a stint when it was to be co-developed by their worst rivals, Magnetic Scrolls. But in the end it did not really go far, as Infocom was scuttled by Activision’s closing of the Cambridge office in 1989.

The game design is also featured on the page, detailed to a level on which a programmer could easily take the basic plot and whip it to a shape in a couple of evenings. Obviously, filling out the details and otherwise productizing the game would consume a whole lot more. And there would be the nasty issue of copyrights to consider…

Well, I alluded to my utter inexperience with World of Warcraft (and actually all Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games altogether) yesterday.

That’s not my only omission, another significant chunk of games that has gone almost entirely unplayed are Japanese role-playing games.

I tried out Final Fantasy VII back in the original playstation days, but found it not too interesting. The story was a total railroad, the random battles far too frequent and time-consuming and all in all the game just rubbed me the wrong way. Any semblance of actually playing a “role” and making meaningful choices was very limited, and the proceedings seemed to be nothing more than visually exquisite number-cruncher’s dream. With bucketfuls of teen angst piled on.

However, despite my misgivings, I’m still interested in the genre, and the recent Lost Odyssey seems to be a possible entrypoint. After all, a game that uses a similar entrypoint to the almighty Planescape: Torment can’t be all bad.

On the other hand, my backlog so does not need yet another long game, and reading the Gamasutra article on the top 20 japanese RPGs is a far easier way to get better acquainted with the history.

The entire world, not just the WoW-addicts, breathes relieved.

[via slashdot. ]

Got Matt Barton’s definitive history on computer role-playing games the other day, and have been quite impressed by it on a couple of momentary glances. Apart from the screenshots that are darker and murkier than expected in a properly published book.

A proper review will follow, once I’ve progressed through the different ages of the CRPG.

• Kansainvälisen Seikkailijan Opas, the Madventures-guys’ travel book: Short on destination details, long on quality writing.
• Tropicana Red Berries: No mango, interesting taste, deep purple colour.
• Halo 3: Too many chapters with Flood, will go back for the vehicle scenes.
• Blink, off the third season of Doctor Who: Probably the best televised science fiction in ages.
• Sam & Max comic: Not as good as I remembered, and I’m glad I got the reprint instead of forking out megabucks for the original on eBay.

Fantasy Flight Games has posted the first release update since their acquisition of the roleplaying-related Warhammer IP from Games Workshop.

Both games have significant entries in the immediate future. Two Thrones is the first adventure for the fantasy game in ages. And the duo of Purge the Unclean and Inquisitor’s Handbook will go a long way in defining what kind of a game the Dark Heresy will shape out to be.

While the news is good, there’s absolutely no data on what will happen once the GW-relics run dry - these three products were pretty much ready when the original publisher turned off the juice.

Mattel’s entry to combat the 8-bilion-pound gorilla known as Scrabulous has not been well-received.

In addition to alleged bugs and other issues, the application is marred by the inability of americans to play. Due to distribution agreements, Mattel’s application cannot be played by US citizens, and that clearly cuts down the potential players a lot.

Haven’t touched the game yet myself, but will report upon getting exposed to it.

The details of the eagerly-awaited European release of the Rock Band game have been published. That is, the Xbox 360 release alone, as the other consoles will follow “later in the summer”.

The date is as close to optimal as they get - the 23. of May being my birthday also.

But the price is steep, the currently very cheap dollar is not reflected at all in the 240€ cost for the game and the initial set of instruments.

The only 2000+ point word in Scrabble continues to pull in visitors.

Found out the definition for singhiozzerebbe at the very source, the discussion board for the Scrabulous-game in facebook.

What does it mean, then?

Simply: “She/He would hiccup”. Quite efficient, packing all that into a single word. And before anybody asks, yes, the Italian Scrabble game actually has TWO Z-letters.

Didn’t play much pinball at the semi-irregular gamenight on saturday. And the games that got played, were nothing to write home about. Certainly not that good training for the Sörkka Pinball Open looming on the horizon.

On the other hand, the video games-side of things was a wee bit more successful. Against all odds scored a goal in NHL 08, and managed to both assist and shoot several in Pro Evolution Soccer. Even Halo 3 multiplayer was not an utter disaster. For that we have to go for driving games, once again. Though nowhere near as terrible as Moto GP, I was not really that efficient at the fourth installment of the Project Gotham Racer-saga.

Yeah, the name of the game is a blatant rip of the first song off Pearl Jam’s third album.

But that doesn’t diminish the appeal of Alejandro Guillen’s Spin the Black Circle.

Simple controls, addictive gameplay, effective physics model - what’s there not to like. Apart from the fact that once addiction sets in, the inertia/gravity combo is pretty hard to let go.

Yeah, it’s not game of the week still, and this is not the interactive fiction-dose that was promised (still haven’t finished Lost Pig.)

Finished the first episode of Forumwarz, the massively single player online game of forum domination and pwnage.

Had plenty of fun, was impressed by the implementation, and will definitely be back for episode 2, as soon as it is released.

The troll was probably not the easiest character class to play (having to rely on lots of supplies on harder runs puts a crimp on the wallet), but conceptually it was way more appealing than the other choices.

Interactive fiction - that is: games that use pure text for input and output - seems not to be the topic of a snazzy movie.

But against all odds, GET LAMP, a documentary film on the very subject looks to be very interesting indeed. Jason Scott, the director, has previously put together a well-received documentary film on the bulletin board systems communities.

The recently released trailer for GET LAMP is not exactly action-packed, but a neat dissection of the first ever internet community I actually participated, back in the early nineties, when USENET was king of the hill.