Journals

A snippet from Urby's first game of Fallout 3

I emerged from the subway and stepped out into a ruined courtyard. In the distance I could see the Washington Monument, my destination. It's still a good distance away, but I'm definitely getting closer. As I start to move toward it I notice something move to my left. About 200 meters down the road, I see a makeshift barrier which is most likely concealing some sort of a camp. Probably raiders. I pull out my hunting rifle and crouch down, slowly approaching the camp. I'm low on health but if I can take them by surprise I might be able to take a few out before they know I'm even here. Should be a good haul of stimpacks and other meds in there too. Besides, I need to get past them anyway and there's no way I can do it without getting noticed.

Suddenly, to my right, a horrifying roar. A huge green figure steps out of the ruins and charges toward the raider camp, firing a huge honking minigun. Then his buddy joins him, barreling towards the shouting raiders with a massive sledgehammer. There's no way I can take on these guys in my condition. A creep backwards into a pile or rubble and watch.

Without warning, a fusion powered car caught in the crossfire bursts into flame and then explodes, throwing up a miniature mushroom cloud and relieving the two nearby raiders of their legs, one of which slaps wetly onto the tarmac a few feet away from me.

It's not going well for the raiders and all and it looks like the super mutants have this in the bag, then the one with the minigun stops and turns to face me. I'm still crouching down so it takes him a second to notice me but I can here the unmistakable sound of his gun winding up just as his head explodes and he slumps to the floor. His melee buddy turns around just in time to see the rocket heading towards his chest. It hits home and sends his ragdoll flying backwards, slamming hard into the concrete wall behind him and falling to the floor, dead. Three Brotherhood of Steel paladins charge forward now, out from their cover in the ruins a little further down the street. The stop at the entrance of the raider camp and unleash hell, sending all manner of rockets, bullets and indeed fire into the base. Then everything falls silent. One of the paladins approaches me, his rifle at his shoulder. "What the Hell are you doing out here? This place isn't safe."

"Hnnnng" O_O

I have the biggest stiffy right now.

A snippet from Urby's first game of Battlefield 3

I am standing behind a wall, shooting at a bunch of guys charging at me. I don't have a destination because my orders are to stop this counter attack. I shoot down 5 more guys and the commander barks my next order through my radio. Move to the position to the east and defend. I move and take cover behind another wall, shooting at all the guys that are running towards me because I was told to. Then an explosion knocks me off my feet. I'm not sure what caused it because the guys running toward me don't seem to be making any effort to take me out. There was nobody left standing to throw a grenade or fire a rocket. Huh, it's a mystery. What the hell? ...Now I'm stuck lying on my back and I can't move my head. I'm stuck staring up at the sky, just as a friendly helicopter takes a hit from a mystery rocket and crashes into a building, bringing it toppling down in front of me.

Fuck me, I am so fucking bored right now.

HOW ARE MODERN FPS GAMES STILL FUCKING THIS UP!?

This morning, I attempted to set a personal record for pull-ups.

It has been 4 years since I last upgraded my computer, and now it is not efficient enough to work with programs such as Maya and Max anymore.

I have been using a "ASUS P5Q SE" motherboard with "Intel Core Quad CPU @2.83GHz " and also with a 3326MB of RAM. Yes, they are quite old, they still work perfectly, just not very efficient.

I recently won a "Asus Geforce GTX 650Ti" from a video game competition. So I decided to go for a complete new PC. However, I'm not sure where to start and I'm not familiar with new type of motherboards and CPUs. What type of motherboard and CPU would you suggest to go with the new GPU? Or how powerful hardware are you using for your CPU-heavy software?

So I tried out malle's medal of honor(TM) game and I thought it was gonna be like MOHAA (you know, all old school fps) but turns out it was a call of duty modern warfare clone. That's fine, since whack a mole: modern warfare was pretty fun and all. Basically I'm just walking along, completing this mission and that, and it's moderately better than COD in one part where you use a scoped m249 trying to suppress fire on a machine gun so your unkillable squadmates can advance close enough to mark it for airplane bombs. But then at one part you take cover in this house as fifty terrorists come down from the mountains all around you. And your house gets progressively more blown up until it's practically a single wall between you and the 50 guys. One grenade and I'm dead. My squad mates were yelling about how they have no more ammo, even though one of them just handed me 900 bullets for my m249 and I still have like 600 left. Way too be script huggers.

At the end we got saved by 2 apache helicopters similar to the ones in Half Life that have rockets onboard. Then in the next level I got to control the apaches and this is where the fun starts. Basically you helicopter is indestructable and can tank multiple RPG7 shots, but it kept telling me to destroy something like a rock wall and I couldn't kill it because I didn't see what I was supposed to destroy. Then it just said Mission Failed. I didn't get blown up or anything, just 'mission failed' and fade to black. LOL.

I couldn't get thru that part after like 5 more tries. And this brings me to the main point of FPS's these days. Control is taken away from the player almost completely, so that in the end it's not so much a game you are playing but an interactive movie. And that's just what it is, a movie. Because if you run off the script, the 'game' will restart till you get it right. Kinda like the director yelling CUT over and over again until you do exactly as he says. I'm not kidding, many times I see enemies that take 20 rounds and simply refuse to die until they did their scripted sequences.

Back when scripting came out on Half-Life, it was groundbreaking and made games incredibly interesting. But nowadays, scripting has been abused just way too much. So much so that the player has practically no control over anything and it's not really a game anymore. Sad, I know, but everybody seems to like it that way, so, you know.

Incidentally, I kinda ran out of HL1 mods to play, and I dont feel like playing those HL1 messup type mods since they tend to not have any new maps or anything. Just waiting for the core to come out, though I'm not pushing for a fast release or anything. Take time to fix all the little things and I'm sure the modding community will appreciate it. If there still is a modding community by then.

Just watched "Jobs" at the theatre. Its really inspirational. Though I think all of the Windows ads that were on before the previews was just lulzy.

It's really interesting seeing the life of someone who believes in the same philosophies as I do. I'm no Steve Jobs though, hell I never really knew the guy. Yet we have a lot in common. I think there are lots of people out there (maybe you?) who share that same spark.

My friend has taken up Tarot. As an scientifically educated person, I tend to think such things are, for lack of a better word, bullshit. He agrees with me. But he also told me things about things that happen in my life (or my other friend's lives) that I never told him, or anyone.

Truth or superstition? Discuss.

I re-dubbed Habboi's playthroughof my map sp_justice from almost ten years ago. I was experimenting with a new video editor.

It was my first Half-Life 2 map. I started making this map even before I played Half-Life 2.

If only money wasn't the problem, we could probably happily travel across the world to have a TWHL meeting. I've literally changed about 6 means of transport( not as in "diversity") to get home. I started this morning by travelling across the Cyprus island with 2 bus routes, taking the airplane, bus from airport to city(though only half an hour) and now on the train. And I still have to change yet another train.
Total time left till home if I wouldn't stop in the city wherr I change trains to sleep at sombody: 14 hours.
I feel a weird inner peace now that I managed to travel so much time alone.
I read half of the first volume of "Mermoz" on the road.

Quick vote; Who thinks I should change my username? I've got one in mind, but I'm unsure if I want to go ahead and do it.
JeffMOD is what I'm known as far and wide across the Valve/Modding community, but, as I'm sure you've noticed, it's always been kinda...lame.
Since I'm about to start a new chapter in my life, so to speak, I'm wondering if it's time for a change.

Game 5 of the International grand final is the most exciting thing I have ever watched - that's including seeing my countryman win Wimbledon this year. The only sour part was that we lost, but not for lack of effort.

I am exhausted.

Half-Life 1: November 19th, 1998 (2 years after Valve's founding in 1996)
Half-Life 2: November 14th, 2004 (5 days short of 6 years later)
HL2 Episode 1: June 1, 2006 (19 months later)
HL2 Episode 2: October 10, 2007 (16 months later)

On October 6th this year we will have passed the longest time between official Half-Life releases.

Now, some crazy speculative mathematics:

Half-Life was completed in nearly 2 years / 24 months. 24 divided by 4 equals 6. Half-Life 2 was developed in nearly 6 years / 72 months. 72 divided by 4 equals 18.
Half-Life 3 will be developed in 18 years (After 2004) so will be released in 2022.

Which means unless Valve does more episodes for HL3, we won't be seeing HL4 until 2076, and if the Fallout Series is to be believed the world will fall to nuclear devastation in 2077. I wonder how many mods will be released before the apocalypse...

Greetings from Cyprus!(yeah, didn't take photos with my camera yet, this is with my phone)

It's quite hot here.

Unboxing a portal device.

I suppose I should introduce myself at some point since I haven't.

Hi guys I'm La, or Volpe, or C. (I may be [definitely] using this whole introducing thing as an excuse for the next part.)

I'm bored and I was wonder what your guys favourite MALE and FEMALE video game characters? Because when I get bored I draw, and I can't think of anything to draw~ So please feel free to tell me your favourite characters so I can draw them. =)

From train travelling on long distances(I get to travel almost 10 hours in a few days by train, alone(with strangers), I wonder what I will do to keep myself from being bored...), I somehow arrived through clicking on links to the squat-toilet:

This is interesting(skip the question post, look at answers)

You know what the sad thing is after you've been horrified reading stories about this?

This is the correct method.

[EDIT] I will also travel in a few days by airplane for the first time in my life. Any tips and advices?