New Year

Master of the obvious...

I am not expecting much this year. Last year was pretty awful really and this 2010 I expect to be no better. More job threats and with that, a whole boatload of hassle. As the year progresses I should know more but I do not expect a lot of notice. Since I joined this company it has lurched from problem to problem. It seems to be addicted.

On the creative front I am working on a set of tracks for a kind of mini-album. I am still not completely satisfied with the feel & sound of the music. I suspect I will not have real satisfaction for quite sometime. Time. That is the thing that will ultimately shape things. I just need to keep banging away at it. Eventually I will find what I am looking for.

This mini-album is a noise-fest. I will work on more musical stuff later in the year... when.. I hope... I have a decent mic for recording vocals.

In terms of software I have all I need. Yes, there are always extras but honestly... I have what I need.

Reading? I have ground to a halt. I just cant get into books at the moment. I dont understand why. A friend would say: stress. Aye, possibly. Whatever.

I have been reading lots of Charles Bukowski poetry. I must get some of his novels soon. When I have some dosh! His poetry doe not even remotely conform to classical form. But they are quite wonderful. One moment funny, the next disgusting. And the next profoundly sad. They are like streams of consciousness.

My own early efforts as a teenager followed a similar pattern - without the depth & meaning - as I struggled with my circumstances at the time. What is inspiring (by Bukowski) is the 'punk' attitude. Got something to say? Then say it! And classical poetic form be damned!

Games? I find so very little fun in games these days. Most are simply rubbish. The few good ones are too short. There are a few new games coming out in the New Year which might be worth grabbing. First up is the new Splinter Cell. This looks like it will be well worth having. Its from the Montreal team I believe and if the series follows the pattern so far then it will be a great improvement on the Shanghai teams efforts (they did 2 & 4 - I think). One of the more enjoyable features of the 3rd instalment was the mickey-taking of the previous effort. That and the 'in' jokes (heavily armed heating engineer - fans of the film Brazil take note).

On the interesting list is Global Agenda, Mass Effect 2, and some others that I cant remember. Oops.

Global Agenda might just turn out to be a Tribes rip off complete with straight jacket classes. So team death match with a monthly fee if you want the extra functions. I remain unconvinced but I will give it a go since my sons want to try it.

The biggest problem with games is the XBox effect. Most developers do not make sufficient effort to make a decent port over to PC. The consequence of which is a short, limited gameplay, over simplistic game that might pander to XBox lovers (attention deficit types like my sons!) but which fail to address a more demanding gaming palate.

WH40K? Still ongoing. I have so many models to complete & paint it is silly. And I still want more. I have become a real collector. Sigh. Gabe and I still play but it has been a few weeks since we last visited the GW. I expect to be back this coming weekend, weather permitting.

And it is SO damn cold at the moment!

Speaking of games, DAW2 was very disappointing. The forthcoming WH40K MMORPG will be interesting. I wonder what approach they will take with the game. Surely they cant have players as Space Marines? Dark Eldar? Simply being human and playing the role of inquisitor would be quite enough of a game for me. It would combine SciFi horror with cyber- & steam-punk elements. Yeah that would be fun. So that is not going to be the case. Oh well.

Games?

It is or at least occasionally can be, a curious life. Who would have thought I would end up playing a table top miniatures game with the space wombles?

But I am. My fault. I told my sons if they showed that they would genuinely get into Warhammer 40K then I would help, buy into the space wombles and play with them.

I really didn't expect they would go for it. But they did. Big time.

And so I find myself with this vast number of space wombles, tyranids and necrons to build. My eldest is pretty much self-contained - as you might expect. But number two son needs some help. He is pretty much self-sufficient and getting better all the time, but hey... he is nine!

Meanwhile I have this space womble army to build. Why space wombles? When the Warhammer stuff first came out they all had womble heads.

Now the snouts have been cut off so they dont look quite so silly. A fact for which I am very grateful. Of course my sons have never seen the wombles... Again - I am quite grateful!

I tried to locate some pictures of space wombles but I suspect that Games Workshop have had a purge. Then again, the models inlcude some womble heads so maybe I will make one and post up a picture. Meantime check out the space womble second from right. A bit small to see but the resemblance is obvious.

So as I find computer games gradually lose their appeal, I make a return to a more traditional war game. Not quite Advanced Squad Leader but I am not complaining. It will be fun to do this stuff with my kids.

Just gotta work out how to put together lots of scenery!

Steam & UBI

On the face of it Steam is a great idea.

In reality, on new game days their servers are overwhelmed. They never seem to plan for the inevitable much needed extra capacity.

Then there are the numerous very odd bugs that usually require the end user to engage in local butchery of their own PC settings & applications in order to satisfy the god of steam.

And since you cannot play new games until the god of steam lets you, you can be stuck for some indeterminate time waiting for 'activation'.

I have just acquired Dark Messiah. No place on the box does it indicate that I need to use Steam to play the single player game. There is a comment regarding broadband for multiplayer, but no indication of a dependancy for single player.

Currently the god of steam is downloading for Dark Messiah. It is currently at 3% and running at 479 kb/s. Having just installed 7GB from the DVD why do I need to (it appears) download the game contents all over again? And yes this is for the single player game.

Perhaps I should have avoided the multi-player element but curiousity got the better of me.

And then there is UBI. I have an account with UBI. It is quite old and I cannot remember my login details. So I attempted to retrieve said password. I was told 'no such account'. So naturally I attempted to create a new account and was told 'already an account with that email address'.

UBI ahd EA have reputations for being incompetant. I guess this remains true. It is a shame that these companies have developed such arrogance that they have utterly lost a customer focus (assuming they ever had one in the first place).