Gothic 3

So, Gothic 3 ist draussen und anscheinend leider (noch) recht Bug-verseucht. Was mir doppelt und dreifach leid tut – zum einen hatte ich die Jungs von Piranha Bytes vor einigen Jahren getroffen und dabei viel Spass gehabt – ich wuensche ihnen also alles Glueck der Welt. Zum anderen sind sie jetzt in Essen, wo es sich natuerlich automatisch besser lebt Und letztendlich finde ich die Gothic Reihe einfach geil und will den dritten Teil schnellstmoeglichst spielen.
Nunja – noch nicht wirklich ganz fertig, hier und da ein bisschen gedreht und geregelt, um das Spiel wie mit dem Publisher vereinbart rechtzeitig zu releasen – alles schon erlebt, alles schon mitmachen muessen – passiert halt immer wieder in dieser Branche.
Im Grunde bin ich nicht traurig, dann werde ich mir Gothic 3 eben wie eigentlich geplant erst zu Weihnachten schenken, wenn Victoria und ich hoffentlich wieder in Deutschland sind. Bis dahin hat es bestimmt den einen oder anderen Patch gegeben, der die Probleme behebt. Und ich kann vorher noch Gothic 2 zuende spielen. Dazu bin ich naemlich irgendwie nie gekommen.

Now Playing: Half-Life 2

I have finally finished Half-Life 2. The original game, that is, I guess I’ll continue with Episode 1 now. Somebody give me a medal or something!

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Well, that was unexpected. HL2 Episode 1 just sorta ended. It was fun, but not quite as long as I thought it would be. I guess now I’m really done… And Victoria can stop complaining about the loud shooting noises eminating from my office

Moving stuff around…

TGS has come and gone, and as far as work is concerned, I’m back to the usual can’t-talk-about-it stuff. I cleaned up the post below a bit and added some links to the top section. There’s a lot more videos, interviews and other stuff around if you search places like Gametrailers, Gamevideos etc.

Where’s the bodyguards?

Poor Brian Vickers. He gets his first win, something that every NASCAR driver dreams of, and then the dream turns into a nightmare. He can’t even catch a break on Inside Nextel Cup (which was entertaining to say the least, though). Victoria might disagree, but come on – it’s racing and things happen. Get off your rabid Dale Jr. soapbox. End of story.

iTunes

I’m not a huge fan of iTunes, I use it because it’s the best way to access Apple’s music store and there’s probably worse music players out there. But what’s with all the dependencies? I have to download and install iTunes 7 just so that I can buy the new Beck album? WTF? I just want some new music for my iPod, and don’t really care much for all the video gimmicks that come with it. I’m pretty damn sure that the old iTunes could already do music, can I please download it like I used to be able to? Ah well, I’ll just suck it up as usual and be annoyed by the additional Quicktime installation that Apple automatically forces on me. I already had that too and didn’t feel like upgrading, you know…

Update: Oh great, and now, with iTunes 7 installed, most of my purchased songs fail to authorize and transfer to the iPod. Thank you, Apple! I don’t mind DRM, but if you’re doing it, but better make sure that it works!

Update 2: Took a few days, but customer support has fixed the problem.

New Computer

I used to upgrade my desktop computer every year or so to have a machine that could always play the latest PC games. Consequently enough, that was when I myself was working on top-of-the-line PC games and I thought those kind of things were important. In the last few years I’d let the upgrade cycle slip badly. I just don’t play that much anymore, when I do it’s mostly on the console, and as long as XSI keeps running at a satisfactory speed I’m fine with what I have. Or so I thought. With an onslaught of good PC games about to arrive, most notably Neverwinter Nights 2 and Gothic 3, I figured it’s finally time to upgrade my computer. Of course you can’t just ugrade your computer if you’ve been out of the game for such a long time. Oh no, that would be way too easy. I want a new graphics card, but the current generation requires PCI Express. So I need a new motherboard. Which means a new CPU. And a new cooler. And new memory. While we’re at it, let’s just get a new case and some other niceties!
I strictly went for the sweet spot this time around, something else I would never have done a few years ago when it had to be the latest and greatest. But $1000 later I have a pretty neat new system without spending my kids’ college tuition. 3Ghz Pentium, GeForce 7800GTX, 2Gb of RAM – not great, but better than average. So far I (re)installed Oblivion, Quake 4 and Half-Life 2 Ep1, all games that should take advantage of the faster system. When I was done with those I copied Baldur’s Gate 2 from my laptop and resumed playing that instead. It will prepare me for NWN 2, I guess. Yes. And the colors…well, they look twice as pretty when rendered on a 7800GTX card. Yep. I totally needed this new computer.