Yessir, I play Xbox.

Here's just a small image of my Xbox controller (S type) hooked up to a USB cable. It should be enough to prove I use my Xbox controller to play PC games. I haven't used it much yet, but I have got it working with Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode One.

In other news, I have been studying the Ogre3D graphics API, and I think I may be able to make a decent playground game with it. This will be my long-term goal this year, as I try to move my focus away from Flash-powered games. This shift in focus was inspired by my realization that I won't be able to cough up the cash for the latest Flash and that 3D in Flash still sucks. (Shockwave, why did you have to die!?)

Oh, and yes, this blog is dead. I just used the picture as an excuse to post here again. If you want to keep track of my work, visit my website.

Finally got to play TES4.

I thought I'd show some screenshots of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on its highest setting. The game looks gorgeous in my opinion. It looks like crap on the Xbox 360, and it loads very slowly as well, but the PC version, which I started playing yesterday, is always so pretty.

Yesterday, I installed a video card, and that allowed me to play all sorts of neat stuff, including TES4: Oblivion and the Orange Box Games. I started with Oblivion to test the card out, and it worked flawlessly, but I was really more interested in Portal, so I quickly moved on to that. Portal has some odd loading issues, and it actually likes to crash at random times (only done it once so far), but I love the game to death. It's just so addictive.

Before I got my card, I was already playing a very watered-down Half-Life 2: Episode 1, so I will probably get started on that game again in a few days, that's if I can put Portal down for a while. I may also try the Halo trial (again), but I don't think I care much for Halo any more. I played it too much in the Xbox glory days.

All these screenshots are of Oblivion... obviously.

Weekly Game Bash #4

This week, since I'm very interested in programming games, I thought I would point out mistakes the professionals have made in their best and most popular games. This isn't as much a bash as it is a quick reference of common game design flaws, and you shouldn't think these games are bad just because I have pointed out their flaws. Try the games if you can.

Just because I'm obsessed with it, let's start with Sauerbraten. Its biggest flaw is the lack of control over what players do. Almost everything is done clientside. This means that you could use as many macros as you like online and get away with it. There is no security. Furthermore, not as much of a flaw as it is a missing feature is the ability to make intersections in the cubes. This feature isn't really needed, but it would make some small tasks a lot easier.

Moving on, I have been playing Sim City 3000 again recently, and I noticed that I couldn't find any way to use the onramp tile. It confused the heck out of me. This is a flaw in the design of the game's menu. There should have been some tooltips or something.

One of the most popular games today is Halo, well, the Halo series. One major flaw in the first game was the lack of online play, and you can fix that by either playing through XLink Kai or playing the PC version of the game, which brings me to the major flaw in the series: The PC version comes out later, but it always has more features. Halo 1 got a very nice level editor and a ton of features you could only find in Halo 2 for Xbox. Halo 2 recently got its PC counterpart, which also got a level editor, which was even better than the Halo 3 Forge. Halo 2 was also visually more appealing than anything before it in the series, and Halo 3 didn't look any better. When you make something exclusive to Xbox, don't port it to anything! And if you do port it, give the extra features to the console version as well.


Half-Life 2. Yep, that game everyone says is awesome but never even plays. I have two issues with this game. First, the system requirements are way too high. Second, why the heck do I need Steam!?

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, often referred to as just Oblivion, is off the charts when it comes to system resources. I can't even run the game unless I fully support DirectX9. There's a feature I could easily support software-side, but Oblivion requires it to be run hardware-side. I can't even turn the feature off. However, I think I may have found a hard-to-use workaround.

One more, Runescape, often referred to as RS, is one of the most accessible online games ever. It can be played through your web browser as long as you can run Java, but there's a major flaw in the accessibility of the free version of this game. If you pay to play, never stop paying, because any pay-to-play items you had will not work in the free version, and your bank will become stocked with tons of items you can't even hold onto until you pay again. The big flaw here is your bank will be overflowed with useless items you don't want to lose, and you'll be forced to stop playing that account until you can go to the pay-to-play servers again.

Weekly Game Bash #2

In the past few years, I've started to consider Halo my favorite first-person shooter or FPS. It was the first FPS I played on Xbox, and few games in its genre ever topped it, on consoles or PC. It was presented as an exclusive Xbox game, which made it very alluring for most Xbox owners. Seeing the "Only for XBOX" stamp on the case made me think, "Oh, a game the PC gamers will finally miss out on!" Obviously, that theory didn't hold true, because a version for PC was developed, and it was much better. I regretted buying the Xbox version of the game.

Then, Halo 2 was released for Xbox owners. Wow, did it suck major balls compared to Halo PC... but I still enjoyed playing the campaign stages, even if the story was complete crap, and I still play Halo 2 online today, well, sometimes... when I'm not playing Sauerbraten.

I know, I know I've mentioned Sauerbraten constantly. That's just further proof of how awesome it is. It even beats Halo 3's Forge, which was hyped to be a marvelous level editor. Forge was, instead, a spawn point modifier. Granted, it has better gameplay backing it, being Halo 3 and all, but Sauerbraten can be played constantly, day and night, never running out of challenges for you.

A quick note: I know I was a few days late with the second video game bash. I'll post another bash topic in about three days to make up lost time.