CatWatch 2008: Hungry Hungry Hippo edition
An upswing on the rollercoaster after the break.
Continue reading "CatWatch 2008: Hungry Hungry Hippo edition" »
An upswing on the rollercoaster after the break.
Continue reading "CatWatch 2008: Hungry Hungry Hippo edition" »
So today is my last day at Apple and my first day back at my old job at Aspyr. I decided after after a fair amount of waffling that I really enjoyed my old job much more than the new one at Apple. It got to the point where I wanted to wake up each morning and look forward to my job - and I wasn't. I don't know if I can go into specifics about what all I've been up to the last few months, but I would stress that it wasn't a "people" issue - Kent, Geoff and John Stauffer were all very kind and very willing to work with me. But Apple is a large company with a focused direction, and it felt like at times Apple was the lover that I was hoping to change to fit my own needs, which is not a good way to approach a job. ;-)
So it's back to Aspyr. I remember when I left Aspyr last year that I was kinda bummed because I loved my job and working with the people there, so it's a very easy thing for me to go back, and I feel like I can pick back up and get rolling really easily and quickly. I've worked with this team since 1999 so it's a lot like going back to family after a summer backpacking around Europe.
Ian's battle with cancer continues, probably more rapidly than we'd like. More after the break.
It looks like I'll be spamming my blog with lots of cat updates in the next month. I suspect it may be difficult to try to follow what looks to be an emotional rollercoaster ride on a semi-weekly basis, so it may be easiest to wait for the final post in the series and then read all these entries in one shot.
Today's update follows the break.
We've been late to the current-generation console party, and it was only in late January that we picked up an Xbox 360. The very first game I rented was BioShock, which I later purchased. I'm a big fan of games with a strong single-player component. Due to an overwhelming hatred towards my fellow gaming man, I could care less about jumping online to get shot at by 14-year-olds with a bad case of Tourette's so single-player games are my first love.
With that said, BioShock well exceeded my expectations. It was easy to get bitter and burned out on games after working on them for 8+ years, but BioShock single-handedly renewed my interest with a vengeance. The story was unique and compelling, and the visuals and graphics excellent. I had more than a few "crap my pants" moments early on as I got sucked into the gameplay. It's also without a doubt a bloody, violent game although the setting is so inventive and otherworldly as to make it work in the context as opposed to games that are violent just because they can be. The send-up of Ayn Rand (in the form of the game's Andrew Ryan) and her objectivist theories really adds to the experience as well.
It's very rare for me to play a game to completion. Often I'll get close but some sort of crazy boss monster (and dozens of repeated deaths on my part) cause me to throw in the towel. So it was a pleasant surprise to me that BioShock was the first game that I'd finished in years (probably since Knights of the Old Republic, I'd guess).
Wonderfully plotted and at times very suspenseful, BioShock is now one of my all-time favorite games.
This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, where you can walk into a comic book store and - wait for it - pick up free comic books.
My friend Shawn runs a comic book store here in Phoenix at 35th Ave and Deer Valley Rd, just a few miles from me - Spazdog Comics. I'll be helping him out in the store on Saturday and trying to cause a scene. I volunteered there last year and a few years back and I've had a pretty good time each time. Shawn, his wife Monica and his kids are fun to be around. Also, Shawn used to work at the Biltmore Apple Store and their point-of-sale system is an iMac. What's not to like?
If you show up, be sure and ask Shawn how he got the nickname "Quickdraw" - he'd *love* to tell you. :-)
I got cozy with Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) this weekend and pulled the trigger on a number of board-game adaptions, then proceeded to play the crap out of them. I'm hoping for more board/card game adaptions for XBLA in the future. Ticket to Ride, I'm looking at you.
I've played the board game several times with Beth. It is, in general, highly thought of as a "gateway" game that you can play with wives or family - easy to learn, quick to play with strategy if you're willing to think. Beth doesn't care much for it, however, so I figured the XBLA version would scratch the itch for me. So far that has proven to be true. In fact, I think I prefer the Xbox version to the real thing. It's easier to get going, easier to play and easier to score. The visuals are very nice for what it is, although the renaissance soundtrack grates after a dozen or so games.
On easy, I can thump the computer badly. The AI never bothers to play farmers, so it's easy to rack up huge scores. On medium, the AI will occasionally play a farmer, but it is still fairly easy to beat. I haven't bumped it up to the next setting yet so I don't know how hard it will get. I also don't have a gold account so I haven't played it online.
Bonus downloadable content includes 2 expansion packs: "The River II" and "King and Baron" (aka King and Scout). I'm not a huge fan of The River II - it doesn't do much for me over the original River expansion which is included with the base game. King and Baron is a nice twist but I wouldn't want to play with it every time.
The first German-style boardgame I played was Settlers of Catan back in the 90's. I haven't played the real thing in a while as it really requires more than 2 people and the folks we played with are now 45+ minutes away from us since we moved to Glendale. I've always enjoyed Catan, so I was looking forward to dusting off the cobwebs and playing it again.
The AI on easy is fairly easy and I had no trouble beating it. I won my first game on moderate, but I've lost a few here and there as well. On hard, I get trounced pretty consistently, enough to where I wonder if the AI is "cheating" by having perfect memory of my cards. One debate online is that because the cards you draw are trackable information, a player with an excellent memory can attempt to remember what you have in-hand. This leads to discussions on if players in Catan should always keep their cards face-up or not to eliminate that advantage.
The graphics and UI are average at best. The game is not going to win awards for presentation. There's an option to enable a 3D animated terrain, but IMHO it just makes the board more busy and distracting, and I have trouble seeing the pieces. I'm also not a fan of the character artwork style or the use of historical characters. I get that Big Huge Games has a history of Civ-type games to their credit and they're big, huge history buffs, but the notion of playing Catan against Caesar or Lincoln makes the experience slightly less exciting to me.
One thing that really annoys me is a flat-out bug: when you finish a game, you can pull up a screen with victory stats. On one of those screens, the text and UI are just completely busted, drawing on other characters and in the wrong spots. It's pretty sloppy and shoddy. It's remarkable that it hasn't been patched by now as XBLA has an excellent patching mechanism in place.
Those minor complaints aside, I really like Catan on XBLA and I'll be playing a lot more of it in the future.
The impetus for this recent spree of Xbox boardgaming was the release of Lost Cities on XBLA last week. Beth and I have played dozens, if not hundreds, of games of the original. It's an agonizing but addictive game that's great for 2. One bummer is that we can't play each other on XBLA unless we get 2 Xboxes and go through LIVE, but since we have the real thing here, that's hardly a major concern.
The graphics are adequate if somewhat tiny - they could have made better use of the screen space I think. Sounds are pretty good. I've unlocked various bits of artwork, but I'm not yet sure if that's anything to get excited about. The AI seems pretty good. I win most of the time on "normal" and soon I suppose I'll try hard or expert or whatever the next step is. Again, I have not tried online play but I suspect that'll work out well.
For $10, like the others, this seems like money well-spent. It's cheaper than the real game which makes it a good introduction or an easy way to practice.
Overheard at a Gamestop store last night:
Guy: I'm looking for a game.
Clerk: Do you remember the name?
Guy: No, but it was for the Xbox.
Clerk: Can you tell me more about it?
Guy: It was a first-person shooter. There was this one part where I ran through water.
Clerk: What else can you remember?
Guy: I wasn't very good at it. I couldn't get past the first level.
Clerk: I need a lot more to go on.
Guy: I rented it. It was awesome.
Clerk: OK, do you think you'd recognize a screen shot if you saw it?
Guy: Maybe.
Surprisingly, this did not end in violence, just the two wandering over to look at box covers. I assume at some point it was narrowed down between the Xbox 360 and the original Xbox, but I won't swear to it.
I promised I wouldn't post more about Ian until there was news, but enough people have asked me what's up that I figure a quick update is in order.
Aside from the cancer reoccurring, my main concern now is his weight. Other than that, his attitude and personality are great. He's doing fine - his activity level is normal to high. I sometimes joke that he's doing "too well" because he hasn't been this active in years, frankly and he can be a nuisance when I'm trying to work in my office. He's eating baby food (and some moist cat food) regularly and he's taught himself how to drink out of a bowl. I don't know if he also drinks out of the special fountain water bowl we got him, but I've caught him drinking out of the regular bowl many times. I can't gauge how effective it is or how much he drinks, but he's not lacking for effort.
I've seen him extend his tongue and at full extension it just barely comes out of his mouth. It's enough that he can actually groom himself to a limited extent. He has a habit of sometimes licking his moist cat food. The latter is possibly also why he hasn't regained all his weight. I'd guess he's still around 13 lbs and he's still pretty bony. Sometimes I'm a little surprised by his boniness, but because he has so much energy it's hard to imagine that it's a huge problem for him at the moment. We'll probably take him into the vet in a week or so to have him weighed and see if anything else has come up.
One fake word I see on the internet a lot is "alot."
Why is it that people write "alot" and never "alittle" or "abunch" or "adozen" or "ametricton"? It doesn't make any sense to me.
These things keep me up at night.