10 PC Games you just gotta play

     Most games come and go. Some are entertaining for a while. Some are just a pile of crap. However, every once in a while, a game comes out that you just can’t put down. I’m talking about those games that when you CAN’T play them, you actually enjoy reading the manual to satisfy your urge.

     There seems to be a not so great trend with games these days. They’re being swallowed by the console. There’s a couple problems with this. First, games that could be potentially great, have to be dumbed down for the crowd that only knows how to use a controller. Take the best Halo for XBOX player, and put him up against a fairly decent Halo for PC player and you’ll know what I mean. The reasoning for most companies is simple: There’s more console gamers then PC gamers. In the end it’s a money thing. And what that creates is a game that’s made to make money instead of being a great game.

     PC games were great because back in the day, a guy could just wake up in the middle of the night and say “Whoa… I discovered the Matrix… And… I have an idea for a great game that will be a blast to play.” And the next day he’ll start designing the game on his PC, and we will all rejoice.

     Before you console gamers start the flames, don’t get me wrong. There’s some really fun games for the console. Guitar Hero is a blast! But it’s fun in a Super-Evolved-Next-Generation-of-a-Musical-Bejeweled sort of way. And maybe when consoles come with full support with keyboard and mouse to bring more depth to the games for my taste, i’ll run down the street and grab one.

     Now on to the list. Keep in mind some of these games may not be on par with today’s graphics, but that’s not what games are about is it? To look pretty? They’re supposed to be fun to play! Alright i’ll stop the rant now, here they are in no particular order:

 

X-Com: UFO Defense

This turn-based strategy has gotten quite a following that it has spawned a few remakes. You are in charge of a global UFO defense organization that is funded by the countries of the world. You better be successful in their area or they’ll pull their funding! Research alien technology so you can match your firepower with theirs. The best part of this game is the actual squad based combat. A bunch of your marines land in an alien hot spot and try to take control of the situation. In order to win you’ll need to be smart because those aliens have better technology than you. Take cover in buildings, bushes, fences, garbage cans. Think the enemy has better aim than you? Blow up that gas pump next to him! Is he chasing you through a building? Have your hidden team mate flank him as he runs inside. Try not to blow everything up though, because the more technology you collect, the more things you can research and eventually use against them. Oh, and name your squad mates after your friends in real life (if you have any), because then you’ll pull your hair out when one of them dies.

 

ULTIMA 7

     This RPG gem is arguably one of the best in the Ultima series. The game world is HUGE. When I first pick this game up, I think I spent about 20 hours just exploring the world before I actually started playing the game. And even after spending that much time exploring I had only seen a fraction of the world. Almost everything can be picked up and stored in your inventory in this game, even diapers! (uhg!) The story wasn’t a mindless cliche, but a great story that will hook you in with great dialogue and quests that will test your moral judgement. And then after you actually finish this huge game, there is a sequel and 2 expansion packs.

 

Half-Life

     This game probably needs no introduction. This is the FPS of FPSeseseses. Instead of mindless running around and shooting stuff, this game actually had depth. This was one of those games that made you feel like you were part of the world, and immersion is a great way to make things fun. In order to get to the end of the game you will need to fight through soldiers, aliens, technological anomalies and weird little head crabs that jump out of the dark corners of the vent your crawling through. There’s a lot of intense fights, but there’s a lot of intense puzzles to solve too. If your timing is off, you’ll fall to your death or possible be engulfed in radioactive material. And once you’ve finished it, there’s two expansion packs, and then you can move on to the sequel, which itself has 2 expansions to it at the moment. And even if you get bored of that! Download the Counterstrike mod for the game. Then you can choose to battle it out as a Terrorist or Counter-Terrorist against other real people online who play much better than you.

 

Wing Commander: Privateer

     Two words: Han Solo. You’re a ship for hire. But really, your ship sucks. What are you going to do to get that Millenium Falcon like ship of your dreams? Are you going to be a dishonest sneaky trader smuggling contraband, or ship cargo the honest way? Are you going to be one of those pirates that makes innocent people suck vacuum and then take their loot? Or are you going to help uphold the law and take a bounty on those pirates and religious nuts in a spaceship? Either way you’ll earn your credits and buy some great goodies for your ship, and even buy a new ship, faster and stronger. Oh ya, and there’s a story line you can follow too if you want. When your done there’s some sequels and remakes too.

 

Neverwinter Nights

     If you’re a fan of DnD, this is pen and paper put to screen using the 3.5 Ruleset. The original campain is full of war, deceit, love, murder, mystery, friendship, greed, treasure, religion, politics and some good old hack and slash dungeon crawling. After you’ve spent many hours finishing a satisfying game, are two full blown expansion packs as well as large collection of little ones you can download. And after you’ve spent hundreds of hours playing those, it doesn’t stop there! The well designed toolset lets people make their own campains and worlds! There is literally thousands of user created add on games with custom graphics, sound and stories of their own. In fact, you’ll even find remade games you’ve played in the past. Diablo, Ultima, you name it.

 

Next 5 games coming soon. To be continued…

(feel free to leave comments or flames! I’m always looking for new games to try that I may have missed in the past, and i’m sure others are too.)

 

Banana phone

“Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring… BANANA PHONE!”

 The stupid song is stuck in my head. Someone link me another song to get rid of it. Please!

Don’t mess with fast food

My car is my second office. Being in the IT industry means some of us need to work on-site on occasion, driving around town, working through lunch. Because our work life can include a lot sitting and staring at a monitor, we ideally like to eat healthy to offset our sedimentary lifestyle. Unfortunately that’s not always possible as the only thing available nearby is some nearby greasy fast food. Thank goodness one of my partners in IT crime has shown me some hidden healthy places that we assault occasionally for a meal ( see his blog at jonac.wordpress.com ).
This one day I find the only thing near me for a quick bite is the local McDee. We’ve all seen it: The face of the new fast food employee, taking orders with a shaky voice and looking around desperately for the general manager when a new button has to be pressed on their till. They’re much more obvious when they say repeatedly “sorry this is my first day”. These people I’m patient with. Why? No, it’s not because I’m a nice guy or anything, but just like in the movie Waiting, you don’t screw with the person making your food, ESPECIALLY at a fast food place. So the guy in front of me has ice in his drink when he asked for no ice, or he had a pickle on his burger when he asked for no pickle. Honestly I can’t even remember what it was, it was so insignificant. He then decided to raise his voice and throw out some offensive comments concerning this obviously new female employee’s heritage. So I decided to intervene, not because I’m a nice guy, or a hero or anything, but because I have to finish importing records into a new database in about 15 minutes and I’m damn hungry.

Me: “Hey give her a break, it’s her first day.”
Him: “This is none of you !@#$%^& business so stay the !@#$ out of it.
Me: “You know, this one time, a Church’s Chicken in Louisiana was shut down because an employee urinated in the deep fryer. Is that something you want to mess with?”
Him: He starts to say something, but stops mid speech and gives a disgusted look. He then turns to the girl and says “Just give me this stuff to go.”

He then leaves the restaurant, I take my order and do the same.

I got lucky. I think he was expecting me to start a fight with him rather than try and disgust him out of the restaurant. What I said about that chicken place is supposedly true (I used to live in Louisiana and questioned some of the people nearby about the boarded up Church’s Chicken. I’m sure it was shut down for more health code violations than just that one.)

I ended up thinking about what I had said about that chicken place, and promptly lost my appetite. I chucked my fast food that day and settled for my bottled water.

The moral of this story, don’t expect $50 service from $5 food. If you do you’re an idiot. Do you really want pissed off employees to violate multiple heath code violations while making your food?

The Anime Obsession

Anime is a mystery to me. More specifically, the anime fanatics. And i’m not talking about those who enjoy the occasional anime production or so. I mean, even I enjoyed watching films like say, “Akira” and those old Robotech cartoons on Saturday mornings back in the 80s. No, what i’m talking about is what some may call the Visual Drug of the 21st Century.

So a while back, I start chatting it up with a girl in the lunch room. I forget how the conversation started (something about how our shop forman is a close-talker and has halitosis, but that will be another blog), but somewhere in the conversation, I ask her what her name is. The reply is “I go by Suzumiya”. So a split second of time goes by, but my brain just went through one of those periods when someone threw a wrench in the cogs and skipped a few times. The girl is clearly Caucasian, normal accent, blonde hair, no dark roots. Hmm, well maybe she has a distant Asian relative? Just as i’m about to ask the next question, she adds (clearly having had this response before) “It’s my anime name.” Anime name? She then proceeds to tell me all about the origin of the name, from some cartoon about a special girl who’s in high-school (yes 99% off all anime protagonists are in high-school) and only dates aliens. There was more about the plot but I think I get epileptic seizures from hearing an anime plot summary, and tune it out somehow. Anime name? I’ve heard of nick names, acting names and stripper names, but anime names?

And it doesn’t stop there! From there comes the dressing up in half naked furry cat suits and speaking the 10 Japanese words they learned from their cartoons and then pretending they speak the language fluently! (and then looking down on you when you don’t understand the name of a DragonBall Z fighting stance, no really i’m serious! They look down on you for not having a PHD in kids cartoons!)

 So what is my response the next time you ask my name?

“Conan the Barbarian”. Short pause. “It’s my high fantasy sarcasm name.”