Anno 1404

Since the second week of July I have been playing the computer game called Anno 1404. It is a city building game in which you set up an island colony to medieval standards.

The challenge of the game is to keep your inhabitants supplied while sometimes doing some quests for other players on the map and once in a while shoot a few pirate ships.

I really like the game, although I already finished the campaign mode within a week. The infinite game mode is somewhat more interesting since you can make it as hard for yourself as you want and set your own game goals.

Especially the last phase of civilisation you can achieve on your islands is hard to keep up and running since the people’s requirements go wild. Almonds, Copper, Gold, and all kinds of other obscure materials that only can be harvested or mined in the southern island of the map, where there are oriental islands instead of the islands you start on in the north.

A good game that can keep me occupied for hours on end. I think it is a bit easier to play than previous versions (anno 1602, 1701 and 1503).

Magic for sale

Since yesterday night, my entire Magic: the Gathering collection is for sale on the internet. I recently decided that I don’t want to start playing again, since it takes too much time and money.

I still love the game, since it is simply a very good and complex game which never gets boring. I stopped playing some three years ago because I didn’t have time and many people in the area dropped out which made local tournaments a little uninteresting.

I looked up the value of every card on the internet, except for some obscure promotional card and foreign versions of English cards. According to www.findmagiccards.com, which looks up the lowest prices on some 20 different American webshops, my collection is worth over 5000 dollars. Of course, I won’t sell it for that amount, but it would be nice to get something for the entire lot, including everything that goes with it (binders, card sleeves, boxes and so on)

I know that for a lot of players that are trying to get into the hardest tournament type of Magic, there are some very interesting cards in it, that usually sell for insane prices.

 

 

Nintendo DS

Last week, I started to worry a bit about the flight to San Francisco. Since I am nearly two meters tall, I have trouble sitting comfortably in an airplane, and I am simply unable to sleep in there at all.

You can, of course, pay extra for a more spacious seat, but I refurse to pay anything for some 5 centimeters, that will otherwise go to little kids or Asian people (nothing against Asian people at all, but they just happen to be a bit shorter than the average Dutch guy). Especially when it comes down to 100 dollars, per seat, per flight. 400 bucks, while the tickets weren’t too cheap either… Not happening.

So to pass time apart from watching a movie or two, we decided to buy a Nintendo DS. A collegue of mine has one and is very enthoused about it. And he more or less an authority on console / handheld gaming (for me he is). Of course, I bought a couple of games with it:

• Professor Layton and the Curious Village
• Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass
• The New Super Mario Brothers.

Of course, we also have some of those brain training games that are more or less synonym to Nintendo DS.

The worst thing about the Nintendo DS is that games are rediculously expensive. The average playing time needed to finish console and handheld games is somewhere around ten hours, as far as I know, and to pay 45 euros for each game you want with it, is just too much. Especially since you cannot play demos of the game anywhere, apart from illegally downlaoding then and playing on an emulator, which just sucks compared to the real thing.

But all in all, we have some very cool games with it. I can get quite addicted to the most rediculous and monotonous puzzle games, as well as to Role Playing Games which are available in heaps for this device.

Now, since I have plenty to do in the airplane, I am more or less looking forward to the flight. I just might catch up on some magazines I had lying around, maybe a few books during flight and the vacation, and gaming as well… I don’t think I even want to sleep anymore ;-)

Roborally

Yesterday a few friends and I played RoboRally. One of them played it before and the others didn't, but since we're all software developers and the rules of the game are rather simple it is quite an easy game to play.

How to win the game is rather hard, though. I needed a few trial-and-error situations to get my bearings, before steaming on for the win. In the end, everybody got their act together and started making real progress. Good game.

We played in Terminus, which used to be one of my favorite bars in Den Bosch. But since the ban on smoking in bars in Holland, that is one of the few where the owners still allow smoking. You really get used to a smoke-free environment, and when I got home I smelled like an ashtray. Which sucks.

I still regret not getting the original English version of the game, since that one has a lot more features, can be played with more than 4 people, more boards. All in all, it is a bigger game, with more cool stuff. Might have to check eBay for that...

Playing Magic?

I have been playing Magic: the Gathering with my friend JP this week. After about two years of no card gaming at all (too busy, too few people at tournaments, and so on), I simply missed the cool game.

Does this mean I am going to get back into it, as I was a few years back? Hell no. I don't want to spend any money on it, I just like the concept of the game, its dynamics and gameplay. The complexity is something to keep your mind a little bit awake...

It is way too expensive to restart, since I have nog been keeping up the last two years, and the value of my cards has dropped considerably, because of Magic's waning popularity. I play with cards I own, and fake the cards I do not own. Maybe, and that is one big maybe, I might visit some tournament, if I am confident enough of my skills and cards. I play to win, not to compete...

But anyway, I loved playing again and will probably spend some time on it from now on, just having fun every now and then.

Best of 2008

I have been trying to determine the best album to be released (and noticed by me) of the past year. When I found everything that was up for another run I started listening to all those albums in my mp3-list. In the end, some 100 and a bit albums were listened to over the past two weeks and the following ended up scoring highest (in this order, highest first):

	John Butler	One Small Step
	Fleet Foxes	Fleet Foxes
	Sigur Rós	Með Suð í Eyrum við Spilum Endalaust
	Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds	Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
	Calexico	Carried to Dust
	De Kift	Hoofdkaas
	Belle and Sebastian	BBC Sessions
	Tindersticks	The Hungry Saw
	Amanda Palmer	Who Killed Amanda Palmer
	Ane Brun	Changing of the Seasons
	Paul Curreri	Songs for Devon Sproule
	Portishead	Third
	Willard Grant Conspiracy	Pilgrim Road
	The Tallest Man on Earth	Shallow Grave
	O'Death	Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin
	Lambchop	Oh (Ohio)
	Conor Oberst	Conor Oberst
	Cloud Cult	Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying through Tornadoes)
	Shearwater	Rook
	Russian Red	I Love your Glasses

I think the best movie I saw this year would have to be Hellboy 2, but the best acting was definetly The Joker in The Dark Knight. The Batman movie was not too great, with many mistakes and things happening that were nowhere near logical, but the Joker is something worth an Oscar, in my opinion.

The best whisky is something for another post, and the best comic is something I will probably not figure out, since I can barely remember what is of this year and what is of the previous.

Selling old stuff

Since last week, most of my extensive Dungeons and Dragons book collection are on the internet to be sold, as well as a rather large amount of comic books.

Yesterday I sold all the Dungeons and Dragons book all at once, to the first person who got in touch through the ad. I hoped that I was going to be able to do that, since usually you sell some of the more interesting books and not the other ones, which you can only get rid of by throwing them away.

I got nowhere near the amount I payed for those books, but since the system changed about half a year ago, they all of a sudden were old books, which are not useful for most players anymore. Except for a few from Tilburg, who picked them up nicely.

I only kept some precious books like the Forgotten Realms Campaign books, which I still really like.

Now, lets hope that someone wants to buy all my comics at once, so I can get this over and done with before Christmas. I have had some reactions, so who knows...

Another new PC Game!

And one I was looking forward to. The second expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2 called Storm of Zehir. It is another adventuring game, with magic, dragons and all kinds of other fantasy stuff.

I have always loved the Dungeons and Dragons based computer games, ever since Baldur's Gate was released in 1998. This one looked very promising, with enhanced graphics, better performance and some other in-game changes including a new 'overland map' on which to travel from location A to B.

After a few hours of playing I had some serious trouble solving quests. I could not find everything I was supposed to find, some quests did not seem to have any possibility to be solved at all. What else to do then than look it all up on the internet.

I found the official NWN forums with everybody ranting about the newest expansion, with heaps of bugs and the quests I was talking about. It seems there are some serious bugs in the scripts with all kinds of 'checks' (when the game checks if your character spots an enemy or not) that were nowhere near achievable, and missing game elements. It seems that this expansion was released too early, but there is always the patching system.

Which I checked yesterday. It seems that since the release 8 days ago, it was already necessary to release a patch of 350 megabytes, almost the size of the game itself. For the patch to have maximum effect, it looked smart to start the game anew, instead of continuing with an old save-game. But, after another two hours of playing I found that the main story bugs are not even fixed...

This really pisses me of, apart from making me wonder why in heaven's name this game was already released with so many hick-ups, bugs and other missed options in it. I just might have to wait  a few weeks before playing, hoping there will be a proper patch release in the near future.

Pity...

Red Alert 3

For those who have never heard of Red Alert. It is a strategy computer game. You build a military base, build tanks and shoot your enemy.

Last month, the third part was released, about 12 years after the first saw daylight. I have always loved these kind of games, and Red Alert in specific, so I bought it and started playing.

I noticed at once that, in accordance with previous versions, there are plenty of actors in the sequence movies between missions, the story is utter bullocks and there is a geeky focus on hot chicks in those movies.

Red Alert has always been quite corny in the story. Time travel, to kill Hitler or Einstein before they became important factors in world history, the Cold War completely escalating and world domination by either the USA or USSR. Nonsense, of course, but so much fun!

This version was exactly the same, with a third addition made to the armies you could lead to victory: Japan, or the Empire of the Rising Sun.

Yesterday I finshed the last mission of the game and I must say, I am a bit disappointed. The game is fun, the movies in between are cool but it is just too short. Another example of games being focussed on playing online, since there are many many multi-player options. The missions are quite easy, 8 missions per faction is too short, and the mission in their own are too simple.

I had hoped that this game could keep me interested for a long time, since that is what happened with all previous versions and expansions. Pity. Let's hope that Neverwinter Nights 2's second expansion is more interesting.

Dungeons and Dragons

Yesterday we played the first Dungeons and Dragons session with my second group. I am tag-team Dungeon Master (DM) in this group as well, and since I have the most experience with the new edition, I started out as DM.

I made up a story about a suppressed people in a small town. The players should do something about it. I had written quite the story, but I forgot one little thing: what would happen if the players just started killing several of the town's soldiers. Stupid, because that is exactly what happened.

Of course, I had to make up some stuff quickly, and I am not too happy about what I came up with, some ghosts terrorizing the town's lake and fishermen. I have the luck that I did not tell the players too much, so I still have some story-telling escape routes.

I think I have to crank up my DM-skills a little bit for this group, since for some reason the other group works fine. There I have a continuous discussion with my co-DM, just to stay on track and move the story towards the bigger goal. I might have to start doing that for both groups...

Back in the game

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about wanting to get back to playing Dungeons and Dragons. Unexpectedly, I got a lot of replies from my friend who had the same idea.

Actually, I got more replies than there is room for players in a D&D group. So now I have two.
In both groups I am the 'Dungeon Master', or story teller, or what you might call it.

Last Tuesday we started off with one group. I am the current DM there, but we agreed that we all do short adventures, since nobody really likes the long epic quests in which you lost the main story and will likely never finish. So, this is only temporary story telling. After that I can play as well.

I have created a Shadowcaster. Some kind of dark wizard who uses shadows as his domain and can do really creepy stuff. I probably will piss some p eople off on a regular basis, but that is all part of the fun!

The other group will play this Saturday. I have decided to do not much story writing myself and will just use a big adventure I've had lying around for a year now. I have read the first few chapters and really like it. I really am curious to see how things go. Sure hope I have at least some time to prepare for Saturday.

Being a bigger nerd

I have always liked stuff that typical nerds like: comic books, card games, board games, computer games, star wars, lord of the rings, dungeons and dragons, you name it.

Until early 2006, I still played Dungeons and Dragons on a semi regular basis. We stopped that, because most people had trouble reserving the time in their agendas, and Anneke started to finish school with her final internship. Since we played at our place that was a bit troublesome.

Now, about a year later, I am starting to miss it. I really enjoyed spending time with good friends, the game itself and just the fun we had.

My love for Dungeons and Dragons has been sparked to life again, by reading the accompanying novels. I have almost finished the six part epic saga called "War of the Spider Queen". The story in those novels is just die hard Dungeons and Dragons and since reading the first book I have wanted to play again.

Of course, this could not come at a less practical time, with our marriage and our vacation coming up. I still will be trying to get a group together and start playing again. Who is interested? Leave a message or send me an email!

Almost Christmas

Not that I care too much for Christmas, but since I haven't really been on a proper holiday this year, I had some days off left. So, after this week, I won't have to work until January 2nd. Nice.

Anneke has to go to work next week, so I have a full week on my own. Expect a lot of sleeping in, watching movies, playing some computer games, reading books, and all kinds of other stuff I wanted to do before.

I have started playing World in Conflict last week, a nice new computer game. I expect ot finish playing that game somewhere next week.

Also, I have started downloading all seasons of Alias, since a friend of mine recommended it and I have heard some positive rumours before. It's just that 29 DVDs aren't downloaded that quickly.

I have planned to build a proper website, again. I have been planning to do that for about 2 years now, but so far nothing happened. I might just do that next week.

Of course, I wouldn't be me if I had a vacation of 2 weeks in which I didn't plan to do things that will take two months...

Last weekend I had the second part of my 30 euro project tastings. We had two tastings since I stopped buying more bottles, just to determine which ones we were going to drink as a closing act. The list has been completed now, and we are quite satisfied with the quality of the whiskies you can buy for 30 euros per bottle.

While drinking we decided we hadn't been playing board games for quite a long time and started playing RoboRally. Great game, I can recommend it to everyone, especially to all IT dudes!

More on the whisky project coming soon.

Mask of the Betrayer

About a week ago I received an email from my local computer shop. They have specified newsletters for specific types of games and hardware that you are interested in, and by that letter they told me that Mask of the Betrayer was to be released.

Mask of the Betrayer is the (first) expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2, one of the best Role Playing Games that I can be remember. I pre ordered, as every self respecting rpg adept would, and on Saturday I picked up the game.

Then the shit hit the fan. I finished Neverwinter Nights 2 about 9 months ago, so it was not installed on my computer. I installed it, downloaded 200 megabytes of patches (no kidding)!!!

After patching and updating I installed the expansion. Which seemed to work fine, until I started the game. Everything new was installed without text. So the adventure was called "unnamed module", with a new base class "unnamed class". All dialogue boxes were empty too.

About 2 minutes of Googling later I found out that one of the patches I had just installed locked the dialogue and language files, which I had to delete and reinstall the expansion.. Happy happy, joy joy...

On to playing!

The game itself is pretty OK. Nice adventures, a storyline that is interesting from the start, everything you need for a good game. A lot of improvements have been made to the engine by Obsidian (the creators of the game). It runs faster, saves and loads faster, less bugs, and so on.

Except in the game scripts. I have had to reload old savegames a couple of times, because I got stuck "between actions". By this I mean that I once had a situation in which I could not walk out of a building, because it was not allowed (I was in a fight). I could not finish my fight, because everyone thought I had already finished it...

Autosave is a BITCH. The game automatically saves every now and then. This is not time based, but on action. Whenever you enter a building, or walk through a portal of some sort, you get a savegame.

After a huge hard fight, which I just won, I entered a town (reason 1), I went into the second chapter of the story (reason 2), and I did a major area transition (reason 3). No savegame, and of course, I counted on the autosave, since it saves about every time your character moves one screen, and I died.

That sucks! Big time. I even thought about not finishing the game, and just put it away, deinstall it and read a book. Luckily I didn't, because now I tought myself to save quite often, and I really really like the game. A worthy expansion of a fantastic game (this far).