Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma

Because it was so much fun for the NASCAR race, here’s my panorama shot of the Indy Car lineup this weekend. Once again beware, the full image is 14000×1420 pixels big and might take a second to load

More on the race later!

SSI Goldbox Emulator

With all these great emulators to play the old Ultima, LucasArts etc. games in a Windows environment, why has nobody written one to play the old SSI Gold Box games? There’s two programs that update Unlimited Adventures (which I used for ages back when it came out – but I don’t know if I can find any of my old modules today ). But what about a fancy Windows emulator that lets me play Pools of Darkness etc.? Not that I can’t get them to run using DosBox, but I don’t really want to

The Joys of PC Games

Oh…that… I’ve reinstalled the various Infiity Engine games. I want to play them. But yeah, I kinda forgot how difficult it can be to run PC games that are older than a year or two. For one, after all these years there still isn’t an official no-CD patch for Baldur’s Gate 2 and the expansion pack. Worse, the old trusty Gamecopyworld doesn’t have a crack, either! The idea was kinda that I’d be playing these games on my laptop wheverever I am, and having to keep 4 different CDs in my pocket doesn’t sit particularly well with that. Which brings us to problem #2: none of these games support widescreen displays. So now I can either play a stretched game in fullscreen or a windowed 1600×1200 game with woefully tiny sprites and details. I tried the tiny stuff a bit yesterday and my eyes started to hurt – I guess I’ll go to a stretched display next.

Games for PC – Killing Momentum since 1984.

The Evil Pit Light

I just don’t get it. Everybody agrees that Kurt Busch got shafted by the pit light abruptly changing to red on Sunday. Not everybody might agree on whether he should have been given some leeway in the ruling or not, but what’s this discussion about how to fix the problem? “You shouldn’t be penalized when you’re committed to pitting! But wait, how do we decide when you’re committed?” – Put a second light further away from the pit entrance! That might work!” – “Etc. pp.

Am I missing something here? Just add a fricking yellow light phase and don’t abruptly go from green to red. Problem solved! Apparently the idea is so successful that they’ll start using it on all the major highways in the country soon. You know, so that you don’t run down 37 at 65mph and get shafted by the traffic light jumping to red when you’re ten feet away. “I’m sorry officer, but what was I supposed to do at that point? You gave me no warning!” I dunno, maybe I’m missing something…

Now Playing: Titan Quest

I don’t play that many games anymore, so when a game hooks me for more than a few hours that’s a major accomplishment. By that token, Titan Quest has already done an incredible job. But I was predestined to play this game ever since it was announced. I have an affinity for Greek myths and anthropology. Combine that with a solid Diablo-type experience and I’m there the day the game goes on sale. Never mind that it took me almost three weeks just to get through the Greek part of the quest. That’s a different story. My actual problem is that now that I’m done with the Greek quest I don’t have any motivation to go back and finish the game even though I really want to want to. The experience curve in Titan Quest is well paced. It looks great. It’s easy to play. But unfortunately the game just kinda flattens out after a few hours. You just stand there clicking away without ever having to dodge anything (the first Telkin battle is a joke compared to the Diablo II bossfights), losing your companions (who do most of the work for you) isn’t penalized at all, and the economy is so out of whack that reaping in all the gold you find doesn’t add to the feeling of accomplishment. I never finish listening to the conversations because they’re non-quintessential to what I’m doing anyway. There’s only one way to follow and I’m following it because that’s where I get more experience, not out of motivation to further the story. But anyway, it’s hard to make great games and it’s easy to criticize them after they’re done (I should know). The point is this: I’m done playing about a third of Titan Quest, a game I really like – and what’s it’s really made me want to do is play Icewind Dale again.

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Siggraph…

My Siggraph 2006 experience, in glorious 3D 2D boring text. Siggraph was kinda fun, but damn stressful.

Monday: 10 hour workday. Dinner with Victoria on the way to the airport. 11pm departure on the redeye to Boston.

Tuesday: Arrive at 7am local time on almost no sleep. Check into hotel, shamble to the showfloor to hook up with the Softimage people and to take a quick peek at the showfloor. Back to the hotel for A/V setup for the user group. Back to (nice!) hotel room for updates to the Powerpoint and a quick 1-hour nap. 3 hours of user group preparation and the actual show. The Softimage|3D demo was particularly fun, and the future technology preview was cool. My talk went okay, but I could have used some sleep beforehand. Softimage party afterwards and drinking. I certainly had fun there, minus the completely drunk guy who tried to punch Javier as we went back to the hotel for a while. Went to bed at 3am with way too much alcohol in my bloodstream.

Wednesday: Get up only three hours later. Still hung over, of course. Arrive at the airport to find that the nonstop flight back to SFO got cancelled and I’m rebooked on a route with layover in Denver. 45 minutes additional wait for the flight to Denver. Sleep on the plane next to a hyperactive little girl. 2 hour wait in Denver. Finally arrive at SFO at 3:15. Rush hour has started, Airporter and subsequent drive home take another 2 hours. Finally get to our house at 5:30 – only 4 hours late. Thank you United, there’s a reason I don’t fly you anymore unless I absolutely can’t help it (but that’s a story for another time – the amazing E3 2005 experience).

So yeah, my Siggraph 2006 experience certainly could have been less stressful. The Softimage people around Jennifer Goldfinch made up for it, but if there is a next time I’ll do it in such a way that I get to have more sleep inbetween everything.