I’ve been programming ever since I was 12, when I cracked open a copy of C for Dummies and tried to figure out what all the weird curly braces meant. I loved the style of that book: the first thing it told you to write was a program that spat out “Goodbye, cruel world!” in an attempt to cast off the shackles of convention, and then it told you to ignore half of what you’d written and that it’d explain it later. Perfect for a 12-year old with the attention span of a hyperactive butterfly.
The second issue of the magazine has only just hit the news stands and there’s already a drastic civil war being waged inside the dungeons of Another Castle. A certain Samir reviewed DICE’s recent first-person platformer for Issue 2 awarding it two stars, essentially pointing out that whilst Mirror’s Edge is a good game, the repetitious sound of breaking bones as you plummet 40-floors to your death and the designers’ decision to make combat mandatory later on in the game made for an experience too frustrating to be worthy of glowing praise.
I got back from a Dungeons & Dragons session a few hours ago, and it provided some insight into just how far behind computer-based RPGs are. Let me give you an example: in World of Warcraft, you might cast a dizzying array of pre-prepared spells in a precise order, so as to inflict the most amount of damage on your terrifying foes. But at Nick’s place today, our new fighter suddenly dropped into JRPG mode as he ran circles around what our DM, Jen, portrayed as a terrifying, violent, and most importantly, hungry dungeon-dweller, and what Jon described as “Aaah, fuck.” Trailing his sword along the stone floor, he launched into an aerial spin and whipped his sword round straight into the vile creature.
And promptly missed.
20:21
Oblivion… and On, and On
by Jen
Sometimes, in the absence of anything better to do, my mum and I sit down with a cup of tea and play Oblivion. (Obviously, that’s a cup of tea each, otherwise things would rapidly become unpleasant.) We alternate who gets the controller. Two pairs of eyes often work better than one, if you can stand the backseat driving – the person who isn’t currently being flayed alive by imps often notices things the other would have missed. Mum is a pretty nifty console hack’n’slash fighter, which I hate, and I have good directional memory, which stops her running around the same room eight times looking for the way out. Plus, wisecracks are always a lot more fun when there’s someone other than your character there to hear them. It’s actually a pretty fun way to play the game.
Thank God, because otherwise I really hate Oblivion.
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Tags: Oblivion, RPGs
Posted in Comment, Hindsight | 4 comments »