[Minecraft] Survival Island - Day 1

I thought I would do a little Let's Play but in Blog form, kind of like I started with Order & Chaos before I got bored of it. I've been playing Minecraft on and off for about a year. This entry won't be of general interest unless you're a Minecraft player, or are just wondering what Minecraft is all about. A YouTube video would probably show you that much more clearly, in about 10 seconds, but why watch a convenient video when you can read my long-winded and boring adventures in excruciating detail, right here?

The seed I used was  -8320668148713193150 which you can copy-and-paste into your own game to try this island for yourself. It's small, with 1 tree, 1 sugar cane, some grass and sand, and a (deep) cave. Perfect!

I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Flat ocean as far as the eye could see.

So first thing's first, I chopped down the tree. It only gave back 1 sapling but that's OK. So I replanted that, harvested all the grass and got 5 seeds, grabbed some sand, and headed into the cave entrance to set up my little base.

Ah my new home! A virginal cave, waiting to be entered and defiled. Or something.

I built a workbench. As opposed to a "normal" game of singleplayer, where you can't walk 5 meters without bumping into a tree, this island made me value every last plank of wood. I made a wooden pick-axe, dug out some cobblestone for a living space, and then used that cobblestone to build a furnace. I burned some wood to make a single piece of charcoal, which I delicately turned into 4 torches. So at least I could stop mobs spawning inside my cave tonight. These torches were worth their weight in gold. They were protection from the darkness, the certain death of sitting in a dark cave waiting for a monster to spawn and slaughter you like a pathetic little lamb. I would treasure each and every one of these 4 torches!!

I carefully climbed down deeper into the cave, and quickly came across a few blocks of coal -- I can tell you, I've never been so relieved to find coal. I made some spare torches, chucked a couple around the place to brighten up the mood, and headed back up to the surface to check where the sun was.

It was just past midday and to my surprise, the sapling had grown into a tree already! Bonus. So I chopped the bastard down and replanted the 2 saplings it gave me. Now we're cooking with gas. I made a stone pick-axe, stone sword, and stone hoe. I carved out a little garden space inside my cave and planted the grass seeds. With the 1.8 update, it's more important than ever to have a steady supply of food to keep your health regenerating. I'm not sure if any cows or sheep are going to spawn on this little island and if they don't, I'll need to bake some bread.

Here is my little cave at the end of the first day:

Home sweet home. Workbench, furnace, indoor wheat farm and a hole leading into the depths of the Earth.

Stay tuned for Day 2 tomorrow.

[iPhone] Review - Pinball HD

[This is an opinion piece on "Pinball HD" by Gameprom. The official website is here.]

Let me just say I've never actually played real pinball. Never interested me before, but I will now jump on the next machine I see -- Pinball HD is awesome!

It's pretty much a real pinball table created inside the iPhone, rather than a pinball game created for the iPhone. The difference is, everything exists in 3D and the camera smoothly zooms, swoops and pans to keep the action on the screen. The ball behaves with completely realistic physics. If the table has a spinny-whirly thing, it doesn't just use the graphics of a spinny-whirly thing -- it actually spins a 3D plate within the table, which sends the ball flying. As far as I can tell anyway. Even the sounds are realistic. Even the little dot-matrix scoreboard animations at the top of the screen are realistic.

For $0.99, you get 3 complete tables. Wild West is the most simple. You can tag targets to get the Bank open, then send the ball up that ramp to bounce around the bumpers, robbing the bank and collecting loads of points. You can hit the tricky entrance to the "gold mine", you'll blast along the rail-cart track and end up with loads of points. You can tag other targets, then hit a hole and you get to "Shoot Dirty Harry" -- if you aim the ball just right, you can hit him and get loads of points. He is actually a little figurine that moves out and along a track. Just like a real pinball table -- the illusion never gets broken.

Ah, wooden surface and cheesy cowboy music! I love this table.

The Deep is my favourite table. You have the gentle ambient soundtrack, the dark-blue colouring, and sweeping ramps, voices that talk to you when you get missions, or hit certain goals. A circle in the middle of the table lights up to track your progress as you complete the "missions", which involve just getting the ball to a certain target or ramp on the table. It's awesome.

Again, this is juts the top-third of the table or so.

 Then there is Jungle which I haven't learnt yet. It almost looks too chaotic, but still seems to be awesome. Wish I took a full-table screenshot for you.

This is only a small part of the table. It's zoomed in, man!

You can force a static complete-table view just by swiping outwards, and re-enable the dynamic camera at any time. You can tilt to landscape and it will seamlessly shift your perspective to a low-down, full-table view, if you prefer. It's all very smooth and polished.

I think the enjoyment of pinball comes from the heavily-themed table with sounds and music, the "pachinko" or luck factor of the ball bouncing around the bumpers, and the skill of completing tasks. Yes it's obviously a skill-based game, since my high scores have been increasing massively as I play more. And it's completely non-violent! Brilliant change of pace.

Finally, I have to mention the scoreboards -- you get local scores, and Game Center worldwide scores. Keeps you motivated to shoot for the top 10! Also, this game has loads of achievements which discreetly slide in from the side when you get them. They are interesting too, like "Pillage $X from the Indian village" and "Hunt and kill 10 sharks" and stuff.

Pinball HD - 5 out of 5
Brilliant!

Increase your power levels, then blast down the ramp and smash open the treasure chest!

-Gray

[Bike] 5 - 6 hours in a day

Can anybody tell me if this is legal and/or safe?

Obviously I'll cut the rope and tie it off. Seems a bit iffy but I'd prefer to not have a backpack on my back for the entire trip.

Also here is my newly-installed aftermarket thermometer:

Ambient air temperature readout -- because you can never have too much information.

All it needed was a spot of blu-tac.

And finally, here is my newly installed "ride timer", aka "stopwatch", aka "wrist watch strapped to the handlebars":

Never forget to take a rest break! Brilliant.

Tomorrow is the ride.

-Gray

[Games] "Dead Island" thoughts

I haven't played this game, I've just watched leptir1's Let's Play on YouTube. Well, the first couple episodes anyway. If I had a good PC or Xbox360, I would buy this game instantly. The combat looks brutal and awesome. I'm not saying the game sucks. But honestly, it just proves how "dumbed down" modern games are becoming, "spoon feeding" every single little thing to the player. Dead Island, if made with some open-world style gameplay, could have been absolutely epic. Instead you find yourself picking up 2 energy drinks every minute, for "health boosts". You drink a shot of alcohol, immediately you're drunk and have blurred vision. Don't worry, in 30 seconds it will be worn off. Oh that's nice and realistic. Imagine if you could wander around the island as you wanted, trying to survive and find a way off, talking to the odd NPC but not being restricted by them ... Not doing stupid little jobs for them. "Bring back the keycard from location X" Oh SHUT UP! We've been doing stupid fucking missions like this for 20 years in games! Give it a rest.

Anyway, here is the bullshit things I saw in the first 20 minutes of gameplay:

- Bags everywhere in the hotel. Each one has a few dollars in it. So stupid and repetitive.
- Screen flashes up "Find a Weapon". Right next to you, a boat oar starts glowing. I mean come on! Let the player find a weapon themselves! Put them in a scary, survival situation, and then let them think and improvise their way out of it. Don't say "Find a Weapon" and then immediately shove it down their throats, "HERE IS YOUR WEAPON, IT'S GLOWING! PICK IT UP!" We're not idiots.
- Audio recordings to "collect". <sigh> This is being done to death in some many FPS now.
- You go outside to save some guy. Doesn't matter how long you take to actually go outside, he will still be alive and fighting off a zombie. Then he gets stuck in a "struggle" animation with it, while you kill all the nearby zombies. Then when you're ready, you help him out. Don't rush -- he won't die ....... Why don't they make it realistic and if you don't rush, he dies? Then have consequences in the storyline? Everything is so fucking A to B to C, no deviations, YOU WILL DO EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE SCRIPTED FOR YOU! .... Pathetic.
- The accents. Are they supposed to be Australian? I don't know. They're absolutely PAINFUL - go and watch leptir1's video if you haven't heard them. (leptir1 Dead Island on YouTube).

Cheers all, I'm out.

- Gray

Why do Pears still exist?

Somebody tell me what is the point of the pear? We have the apple. The pear is a weak imitation. It's like a mushy, bad-tasting apple.

Why doesn't somebody say, "Right, let's get rid of all these pear trees, and replace them with apple trees." Suddenly the world is flooded with apples, they start selling for about 10c per apple, and now everybody can enjoy cheap, healthy apples! Even unemployed people.

There is literally no need to keep growing pears, and it offends me.

-Gray

[Games] "Halo 2" is still awesome

Just replayed a level in Halo 2, for shits and giggles. I must have forgotten how good this game is. I'm attacking some ruins, shooting little aliens left and right with my machine guns, and the nearby Marines are backing me up, making funny comments in their Australian accents. It's brilliant!

Then some drum music kicks in, and I'm driving over some mountains in the old Warthog 4x4 thing. Then I'm fighting a massive tank thing, somehow kill the guy driving, now I'm driving it! Some purple things called "Ghosts" or "Banshees" or something, start swooping down from the sky, so I'm blowing them up with massive balls of plasma from my tank, being careful not to run over my 2 little Marine friends who are shooting wildly between wisecracks. It's all very entertaining stuff.

Now my tank is half crippled and shooting sparks as it drags along the ground. Eventually I jump out, leap up onto a wall and hijack a Ghost, immediately I get rammed full speed by another Ghost and he's pushing me along, while my gun blasts the absolute shit out of the big alien riding it, suddenly BOOM it blows up, and kills me with it! Epic. You don't get flexible gameplay like this in today's games! (At least, I assume you don't ... Well maybe you do, what do I care?).

If you own it, go back and give it another play. It was 10 out of 10 back in the day, and it's just as good today.

Dual wielding energy pistols. Cortana talking shit in your ear. Elites circle-strafing you. BAM!

-Gray

[Games] Original Xbox - Top 5 Games

I bought a 360 but it died within a year, so I plugged in my original Xbox. Still running strong after all these years. So I've had it going again for the last 18 months or something. I don't play it often, but it's there when I need it.

I have 58 games, but here are my top 5:

Doom 3
  More atmosphere than a London dance club, and monsters more gruesome than Wizard Discount Pharmacy customers. You just can't beat this game for sheer adrenalin. Keep your Silent Hills and your Resident Evils -- exploring a darkened base on Mars with a torch is unbeatable.
  People either love it or hate it, though.
 
GTA: San Andreas 
  I don't need to explain this choice. Vice City is also still enjoyable to this day.


Sonic Mega Collection
  Classic gaming at it's best. Sure, I spent a few years with the Atari 2600, but I really remember the Sega Master System as my first proper console. My mate had a Mega Drive. Sonic the Hedgehog was just as great on both platforms.

Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast
  Brilliant arcade racing. Don't worry about silly things like "realism", when you can power-drift for 30 seconds around a ridiculous track with graphics that are good even by today's standards. It's a winner.

Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly
  I don't play this often due to it being slow-paced and a bit too scary, but I have to include it just for being so damn creepy. Explore, follow clues, and occasionally snap photos of horrific ghosts to dispell them. And they have cool names like "broken neck woman". Yes, her neck has been broken.

I also want to mention Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, which I just repurchased and is being shipped from an eBay seller. Looking forward to replaying that old chestnut.

-Gray