At least I have a room tonight. Not the usual conferance converta-room.
20 mins and no sign of my grub. Oh well.
At least I have Juffs Descent to watch.
Oh and 5 quid for a glass of wine? Ouch.
This joint has apparently got new owners. They seem to think using Italian names on the menu is somehow an improvement. It just irritates.
Kents book 'Data and reality' entertains while I wait.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Heathrow again
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Voice in the wilderness
If you are a fan of the Rainbow 6 series on PC then chances are you are crying in your beer right now. UBI seem to have the remarkable talent of taking perfectly good, often unique game franchises and reducing them to dumbed down console kiddie fluff.
It happened with Ghost Recon and now sadly, with R6. Well... except for this guy. Presumably on UBI happy pills or something. Boy is he in for a shock when they wear off.
Fortunately I checked the demo first. The similarities to SWAT 4 are the first thing to impress. If impress is the right word. Well. Actually. No it is not.
Lockdown sports the most incredibly stupid AI ever. In fact I suspect UBI must have had to work extra hard just to make it that dumb. The best thing you can do when you get into the game is execute your team. It will make the mission more achievable.
Then there are the spawn boxes. Empty rooms full of bad guys who pop out when you cross some trigger point. Dear god... this is the 21st century! The previous PC version of Rainbow featured some of the most immersive and complex real-looking environments. And bad-guy placement.
Lockdown is locked-down in console mode.
This bodes ill for forthcoming titles in the Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell franchises. UBI are real hit 'n' miss. But they are not alone.
The PC has far more flexibility and for the most part, a more discerning gaming public. My suspicion is that game software houses and publishers are opting for the cheapest route to market. I don't think they have woken up to the risk of losing one platform for the sake of economics. Then again I don't have the numbers in front of me. Perhaps quick releases of console ports makes economical sense. Afterall these games still sell and perhaps they sell enough - perhaps more than enough - to justify their existance. If this is the case then as far as people like me are concerned, the PC game platform ceases to be of interest.
I will stop buying games. Stop upgrading my PC.
Will that matter? With a new generation of gamers trying PC games for the first time will they notice? Will they care when the experience is little different on a console and that console is way cheaper?
For the first time I do begin to see that there might be an end to games on the PC in the coming years.
Oh well time to get back onto the Apple platform again.
Technorati Tags: pc game, Rainbow 6 lockdown,
It happened with Ghost Recon and now sadly, with R6. Well... except for this guy. Presumably on UBI happy pills or something. Boy is he in for a shock when they wear off.
Fortunately I checked the demo first. The similarities to SWAT 4 are the first thing to impress. If impress is the right word. Well. Actually. No it is not.
Lockdown sports the most incredibly stupid AI ever. In fact I suspect UBI must have had to work extra hard just to make it that dumb. The best thing you can do when you get into the game is execute your team. It will make the mission more achievable.
Then there are the spawn boxes. Empty rooms full of bad guys who pop out when you cross some trigger point. Dear god... this is the 21st century! The previous PC version of Rainbow featured some of the most immersive and complex real-looking environments. And bad-guy placement.
Lockdown is locked-down in console mode.
This bodes ill for forthcoming titles in the Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell franchises. UBI are real hit 'n' miss. But they are not alone.
The PC has far more flexibility and for the most part, a more discerning gaming public. My suspicion is that game software houses and publishers are opting for the cheapest route to market. I don't think they have woken up to the risk of losing one platform for the sake of economics. Then again I don't have the numbers in front of me. Perhaps quick releases of console ports makes economical sense. Afterall these games still sell and perhaps they sell enough - perhaps more than enough - to justify their existance. If this is the case then as far as people like me are concerned, the PC game platform ceases to be of interest.
I will stop buying games. Stop upgrading my PC.
Will that matter? With a new generation of gamers trying PC games for the first time will they notice? Will they care when the experience is little different on a console and that console is way cheaper?
For the first time I do begin to see that there might be an end to games on the PC in the coming years.
Oh well time to get back onto the Apple platform again.
Technorati Tags: pc game, Rainbow 6 lockdown,
Friday, March 10, 2006
If hblogger won't work
Perhaps email will.
Only problem with this if memory serves is the crap added by Vodafone.
[ Wow. No crap. ]
hblogger
Well the Treo has been updated ok. So I thought I would get hblogger to work.
When I first installed it I had problems connecting and in the effort to get GPRS working rather neglected to return to hblogger. Having updated the Treo, trying hblogger was the first thing I did.
First up I discovered that the 'alt' key doesnt work. Marvelous if your username includes an underline character. I got around that using MobileWrite.
Now I find I cannot connect due to my account details not being recognised... no access. No permissions. Etc. I wonder what hblogger uses for the rpc URL? Don't know. And naturally the blogger.com help files do not provide information on that kind of thing. Time to get google at work.
When I first installed it I had problems connecting and in the effort to get GPRS working rather neglected to return to hblogger. Having updated the Treo, trying hblogger was the first thing I did.
First up I discovered that the 'alt' key doesnt work. Marvelous if your username includes an underline character. I got around that using MobileWrite.
Now I find I cannot connect due to my account details not being recognised... no access. No permissions. Etc. I wonder what hblogger uses for the rpc URL? Don't know. And naturally the blogger.com help files do not provide information on that kind of thing. Time to get google at work.
Treo update time
Scary moments.
Anyone else HATE doing ROM updates?
It all has that moment of finality doesnt it?
'Synchronizing ROMUpdater'... argh the tension!
Anyone else HATE doing ROM updates?
It all has that moment of finality doesnt it?
'Synchronizing ROMUpdater'... argh the tension!
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Wot no games?
I can't believe how few PC games are out on a week by week, month by month basis. What happened?
It seems as though the consoles are all-conquering. When PC games do come out, they are shabby, pale console conversions.
More on this soon.
It seems as though the consoles are all-conquering. When PC games do come out, they are shabby, pale console conversions.
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