Cubic

I always enjoy a good video game. I don't get a whole lot of time to play them but when I do, I tend to enjoy playing them. My reason for playing video games is to relax and enjoy the game. Mostly to relax though. Relieve stress. That sort of thing. I'm going to simultaneously review three different games I've played over the past few months in regards to how they SHOULD have been developed. The three games are Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, and Crysis. There are LOTS of spoilers if you haven't played them. I tried to not ruin the final bosses though. Which brings me to my first point: If you are designing a video game and the person playing the game selects the "Easy" difficulty, it should be nearly impossible to die. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting for a game to reload the last saved game for the 10th time just because the character died again....on Easy. I'm not the greatest gamer in the world, but I'd like to think I am better ...

This blog entry isn't technically about software development, but every once in a while, we all need a shiny new computer. With all the latest overhyped buzz about the economy and gas prices (I've heard predictions that gas could easily be $10/gallon next summer - there is no "ceiling", but I've never deluded myself into thinking there was), if you are thinking about getting a new computer, it might be time to take that thought a tad more seriously. If gas prices skyrocket, then today's $3,000 PC could be $10,000 tomorrow. Maybe. Maybe not. Just a thought. At any rate, I'm not wanting to talk about the economy. What I want to talk about is the infamous question, "What computer do I need to buy?" I get asked this question frequently. There are a LOT of choices, so it is no wonder that people get confused and just want some guidance without being made to feel "dumb". Most people buy without thinking and then later regret the purchase. Th...

So I was playing a video game called Team Fortress 2 yesterday (I don't play games often - except as a breather between releases) and it dawned on me that it took nearly five minutes to get to the main screen of the game, about another five minutes to load the level for the server I was joining, then another two minutes to find another server with the same level after getting kicked off for "filling a reserved slot". The major companies out there, particularly Valve, make moderately fun games...but they take forever to load. Back in the DOS days, if we had to wait 12 minutes for a game to load, we'd be hitting the reboot switch. Compared to today's games, those games loaded nearly instantaneously. Even if there was a "Loading..." screen, we knew it was only a few seconds delay before we got to go blast our way through stuff. Console game makers such as Nintendo about the same time weren't sitting around twiddling their thumbs on "Loading......