Worms (and laptop) reloaded

August 28th, 2010 · gaming, kitchen sink

I had best post this quick before the internet dies again! Rogers IS on the case, so it’s just wait-and-see-and-mope territory. Once it manages to be up for more than a few hours at a time and I can achieve less than 20 second lag in IRC, I’m probably even going to pay them for the ultimate level so I can have an upload that isn’t ass. I do have to give Rogers credit for one thing (and one thing only): while their download speeds vary wildly, my upload is almost always near my tier’s cap. Stunning, eh?

Since the puppy keeps me everywhere but my desk with my godly PC, I’ve had to resort to laptops for daily things. It hasn’t been going well. My tablet is ancient and slow and has a max resolution of 1024. I still love writing on it, but sometimes I want to be able to actually read things without scrolling a thousand times. You know how it is. Moving to any laptop is always a pain for those of us with multiple kick ass monitors, the 1024 was just an extra kick in the teeth. Something had to give. There’s been a macbook pro kicking around that I usually loan out to visiting people who want to tool around online. No longer! I went to an Apple Store, paid $36 for the Snow Leopard update, installed boot camp and Windows 7 and hello 1680×1050! I have to give the developers full credit for how the dual booting is handled. Once my new windows install was up and running, I used the Snow Leopard disc in Windows to install all the drivers for this quirky keyboard and its function buttons and everything worked perfectly right away. With everything up and good to go, it was time to install Steam!

Worms: Reloaded

I loved the original Worms. I think Worms 2 is the pinnacle of the series. I hated Worms Armageddon and didn’t buy another for ages. Armageddon added a ton of customization options, and those were peachy (yay Canadian flag), but I felt the controls and aesthetic went the wrong way. Reloaded, thankfully, feels way more like Worms 2 than Armageddon to me. I haven’t spend a great deal of quality time with it yet but I certainly hope to!

Things I loved:

Everything looks crisp and clean

Things I don’t:

Why do we have to scroll through voices and hats and options one at a time? Let me click to open up a larger selection window. This isn’t 1998.

This is one of the few times I’ve wanted cloud saves as an option since I’m rather partial to my main team. I also made the mistake of doing most of the campaign on the laptop and not my main machine. The first half of the campaign is super boring and I have no desire to do it again, despite how easy it is.

That’s it. Wish I had more to say about it so far but I’ve barely scratched the surface! I haven’t even checked to see if my beloved ice stage is back!! Now, if you’ll excuse me, the puppy needs another walk. This would be more fun if she liked walking more than 2 houses at at time. Obedience training starts in a few weeks and I’m pretty excited about it.

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Rock Band continues to rock

August 20th, 2010 · gaming

Rock Band 3 Setlist OFFICIAL Comment from Harmonix on Vimeo.

 

“3 team members from Harmonix respond to “alleged setlists” from the floor of GamesCom 2010 in Cologne, Germany.” Thanks to @Greenspeak for the heads up!

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Obligatory Vacation Recap

August 19th, 2010 · kitchen sink

I lived! Trust me, this is impressive considering my last tubing run. Sit-in tubes are evil. I never should have supported the switch. See, I own a nifty awesome ride-on-top tube that kicks ass. We used that the first two days and all was wonderful. I am the champ. I use the high, not side, handles and ride on my knees. It’s awesome. You can actually shift your weight and make yourself jump on the wake. <3. Sit-in tubes? EVIL. The deep ones are the worse since my knees end up right next to my chin and bailing by choice is near impossible. I knew all this the second I sat down and did that stop me? No. Further proof that I am a moron. A few seconds in I realized that I also had to make sure my butt wasn’t actually at the bottom of the tube. Didn’t matter. It was black and blue anyway. For 2010′s “Embarrassing Family Moments” I nominate being asked to moon people so I could show them off. Oy.

The first time around in the sit-in tube, I was unshakable. I had established my tubing cred the previous days so, aside from the awkwardness of hoisting myself as high up as possible, keeping my toes pointed so my legs wouldn’t bounce around like jello, and keeping my knees from costing me teeth, it was a piece of cake. Of course, this meant that we decided to push it further on the second go. When I was airborn looking up at the water for a split second I thought to myself, “Hmm. I’m not gonna top this. I should bail as soon as I can.” I didn’t bail since I was too busy holding on for dear life. After several more miraculous recoveries, recovering that I really had very little to do with, I was airborn and upside down again and I knew I was toast. This was the first time I hit the water and it HURT. The instantaneous pain along the right side of my neck was worrisome, but thankfully it was gone quickly. I also inhaled half the lake and honestly didn’t know which way was up while I was underwater to start. Yay not panicking and, of course, life jackets.

Most of the vacation, really, was uneventful. I got my kayak and spent a lot of time on the water. I hung out with my cousins. I learned how to play cribbage (gotta do something social during the rain), read a few of the books the cottage owners had lying around, taught my cousins all the secrets in Super Mario World, beat their butts at racing games, won only a single game of pool in far too many tries, managed to avoid all cooking and dishwashing duties (there are perks to being the oldest kid), and played a zillion hours of Dragon Quest IX. Woo. I’m sad I’m right at the end of the main game right now so I keep sidetracking for every possible quest I can grind out. I’m also partial to hunting metal babbles.

My family is still making fun of me for my lack of a tan. I explain to them that this is because I know how to use sunscreen. Sport 30 on the body, sweatproof 60 on the face and top of the shoulders. I also reapply with a spray after I’ve been on the water for a while. Granted, it takes a lot for me to tan even without protection so I should have predicted that being as careful as I was would lead to absolutely zero tan lines. Oh well. My brother is a bronze god. My mom has two colours: white and red. She can get burned walking to the car, it’s ridiculous. My dad doesn’t tan easily, either. I have never been one of those people remotely concerned with a tan — you tanning booth people weird me out — so this is not a big deal. I’m going to enjoy my healthy skin! My main disappointment from all my time in the sun actually stems from kayaking. I was out there a ton and my arms didn’t get that much more defined as a result. Boo.

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Say hello to my little friend

August 13th, 2010 · kitchen sink

The first week I was mostly afk, I was dealing with family stuff.
The second week I was away entirely, I was on vacation.
The third week I was away (this week), I got a puppy.

Kallie7

Woo, puppy!!!! This is Kallie (kal-lee, not kay-lee). She’s an Australian Labradoodle. She’s adorable.

Kallie10

She’s 10 weeks old and has some serious paws. Yes, that’s my hand for scale.

Kallie6

She’s basically a teddy bear, so calm and so quiet, and I love her.

Kallie11

She’s only been here a teeny tiny while and I already can’t imagine the place without her. I have, accidentally, called her Nikki once or twice, so I have to watch that. Hey, 15+ years of habit there! I have zero experience with labs or standard poodles or labradoodles so it’s been a learning experience already. Shadow and Nikki did not care one whit for dirt or sticks or toys or water. Not even a little. Kallie loves dirt, will happily swim if I choose to let her, and LOVES toys. Shadow had one rope bone that we’d play tug-of-war with once in a while and Nikki had a red ball she’d chase when she felt like it. Kallie will play with anything and everything, whether or not it squeaks. The other side of this is that everything looks like a toy to her so I have to protect shoes and, well, anything left on the floor much more than I ever had to do with huskie puppies about. It’s not like I ever leave games on the floor but I might have to stop using it as a closet and I had already rewired everything the night before I went to pick her up.

I’ve given up trying to be at my desk for any length of time, thanks to running around after a puppy (so far accident free! But we all know that’s not going to last), and my tablet’s long slow march to the end continues unabated. Basically I can use it to check mail now. It’s very sad. I’m still pissed that MS canned their Courier tablet. That was a guaranteed day one for me. I have a third laptop that I’m presently using, but it needs a lot of work to be customized to my liking. I’ll get there. And Kallie will learn to go to the door eventually, too, so that everybody wins :)

Also, SCREW YOU FLICKR. WTF, eh? I never deleted pics of Shadow and Nikki so what the heck happened? This is not the first pic I posted to flickr so why were all previous items deleted? I never received notification, no message on flickr, no idea what happened. Did I miss some major announcement? I know I let my pro lapse but MAN am I pissed off right now. update: @XarocRF and @howardthomson pointed out the 200 pic limit on flickr for non-pro users. I’m pro again now, woo.

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Playing with Sore Losers

July 29th, 2010 · gaming

I’ve had precious little online time this week, as some of you have noticed. I’m going on vacation next week for the first time in years and, of course, everything picked this week to blow up in my face. I love you, too, universe. Just let me enjoy my kayaking next week and we’ll call it square ;)

I chose to do something stupid with today’s precious online time. I chose to race a little in Hydro Thunder to ease my stress. And achievement whore. I know, I know. Today’s exercise was a definite smack in the head to remind me to do something productive instead. I’m reviewing HT (spoiler: I like it) but I hate publishing reviews when it’s not truly the final version of the game. Yes, I had the whole game and there were no day one patches, but the online matchmaking was pretty non-existent before release. Makes sense, I know, since only a fraction of the Live population had access to the game, but I wanted to see how that system was going to work when the masses had at it. Answer: not well. Glad I waited to test it out. That, however, has little impact on where I’m going with this.

Dear fellow Hydro Thunder Racers,

Kicking me because I kicked your ass by 3-20 seconds teaches you nothing. Following me around would be a much better strategy so you can see what I know that you don’t. Sending me nasty messages calling me a cheater/hax0r is annoying or hilarious, depending on how clever you are. Man, who is a big enough weenie to cheat at a Live Arcade game?

Thanks,
Jenn

ps: lrn2play. Racing with a Novice boat up against Expert class vehicles is asking to get your ass kicked 90% of the time, shortcuts and proper boosting be damned. Not that you did those latter things anyway.

Oy. It’s a miracle I got to finish 10 online races at all. Half of the hosts would quit after they’d see how far ahead I was at a checkpoint and then all of us get booted to the main menu. This happens to me a lot, sadly, and doesn’t matter the game. I always feel bad for the other people in that situation, especially in Hydro Thunder since their present matchmaking system is a little bit of a joke. It’s also unforgivably slow. Every kick, every time the host bails (I admit that I’m paranoid about these things and it’s totally possible that people just have crappy connections. Used to happen to me all the time, which was why I never hosted!), every time the room fills up while I am in the process of joining the session, you go back to the main MP menu. Then you have to search for games again in what is the slowest lobby I’ve experienced in the last two years, easy. Quick Match is really the only way to go and that still feels tedious. We’re racers, Vector Unit, we want to do things quickly!

Usually I just ignore the mean messages on Live. What’s the point? I leave bad feedback when warranted and go from there. This past play session there was only one person that messaged me and, I don’t know what hit me, but I wrote back. That’s when I thought I’d write this post, just to vent a little. I was never going to release the other person’s tag; one dick move does not deserve another. Besides, I already won. Then, pretty much right after I responded, they wrote back to me again. Gotta say, I didn’t see that happening. Though Xbox Live doesn’t let you save sent messages, I save them anyway, so now I can show a transcript:

7/29/2010 7:03 PM
funny how u jump 10ft in air every race .... friggin canada leave cheat

Getting called a cheater always sucks; no idea why Canada was important there. Also, I wasn’t the host and the guy that DID bail I left negative feedback on. I can only assume they thought I was host since I was in first position on the board, sorted by point tally.

lol. I’m a reviewer; had the game a while. Use an expert boat and boost before&on the ramp. Jump JUST before the end of the ramp for wicked air. Not always helpful, btw. I’ve blown up on ceilings&walls a lot!! Do the ring courses for shortcuts.

7/29/2010 8:29 PM
lol dove sei? scusa i start play an new to it.. <3 it ciao bambina

7/29/2010 8:33 PM
the duck quacks me up

Glad you enjoy it! They did a good job with Hydro Thunder; very fun. Too bad about the music though, eh? Gets sooo boring after a while.

And then, much later:

7/29/2010 9:07 PM
grazie tips help lots ciaooo

This was oddly gratifying, considering they started off calling me a cheater. I'm not going to start responding to every dink on Live, of course, and an apology would have been nicer, but I can certainly get by with this as a conclusion.

As a random question, what does it mean when you view someone's profile on Live and see 'This player has not earned any achievements yet' and 'This player has not played any games yet' and their gamerscore is over 14k? Their avatar shows up perfectly and I can message them, but everything else is hidden. If this is a new privacy feature, that's kinda cool. I've only had that happen with a few people. It's usually people who were super pissed when I beat them and I guess they did the Live equivalent of blocking me. Mwa ha ha. At least that saves me from running into them again :)

ps: managing wordpress from a phone is a serious PITA.

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