The Ramblings of Octavo

There are many games out there at the moment that I’m dying to get my hands on, it’s crazy.

First of all, I’m quite keen to get my hands on Star Wars Battleground 2, despite it being a bit old by now. I saw an old trailer for it the other day and realised what I missed. I’m currently re-playing Uplink in my spare time - such a simple, yet engaging game. I wish there were more hacking games like this!

The Spore Creature Creator, has primed me for the release of Spore later this year - that game looks like FUN! GTA IV is coming out for the PC at the end of the year, which is also going to rock big time!

Too many cool games, not nearly enough time.

So, you may have noticed some changes to the blog recently — I’ve upgraded to WordPress v2.2 which is great and I’m currently evaluating various plugins and themes, so don’t be too surprised if the look and feel changes quite a bit over the next week or two!

I still need to upload some of our Kruger park pics to the Dargo Gallery - I’ll try and get to that this week too, but don’t expect too much!!

I’ve also recently reinstalled Freelancer and Ibis and I are busy exploring Bretonia at the moment.

Yes, I’m taking a break from my usual atheist rants Ibis has it covered for today (http://www.ibis.dargo.info). Instead I want to do a short review of this under-rated game.

I first got this game in December last year and immediately played through the Empire campaign, but I wasn’t terribly impressed. I felt the game was too easy, the units were pretty but because the game was stuck with using known military units from the movie, they lacked balance and scope. Recently I picked it up again and tried playing it from the Rebellion side and I’ve since come to appreciate the game a lot more. It’s actually very strategic and yes it IS unbalanced - but that’s kinda the point.

The Empire is supposed to be near unstoppable with powerful units and money to burn. They are the Empire with half the galaxy’s resources behind them. The Rebellion on the other hand, is an underground movement, strapped for cash and technology and this is reflected in the game quite well. Playing the Rebellion is much tougher. Your units get minced by the superior Empire technology and should you take control of an Empire planet, you can bet that sooner or later you will hear the dreaded “Fleet approaching”, meaning a Star Destroyer or two are about to hyperspace in to reclaim their planet.

In all, I’m quite happy with the game now and I really love the way it manages to mesh itself so well into the events in Episode IV - it really tells the story of what went on between the Rebellion and the Empire just before we meet Luke on Tatooine. In fact, playing as the Empire, you even get to capture Princess Leia over Tatooine and witness the destruction of her home planet.

Anyways that’s it for now. Hoping to upgrade this blog to a newer version of wordpress soon and perhaps update the skin again as well.

Ha! I had a good weekend, so I hope you did too. Didn’t do terribly much though. Ibis and I went shopping and Ibis bought some new clothes for summer and some weights. Then we visited Russ to do some media swapping and finally home to watch some tv and play some Falcon4!

You cannot play Falcon 4 without the 715 page manual. Trust me. Since I’m not about to print all that, I play with my laptop next to my pc with the manual open on it — that works pretty well. I learned how to cold start an F-16 which was awesome. The first time I tried, I couldn’t get the main engines to fire up (because I had forgotten a crucial step) and then after that I got everything started but had no idea how to activate nose-wheel steeting (NWS), meaning that I couldn’t taxi anywhere. Anyway, I eventually got it right! I also practised landing (I can do that pretty well now) and flameout landings (no engine) which I’m not so good at. I keep destroying the gear… I guess I need to work on my flare.

So, watchout Maverik! 2nd Lt Octavo is in training!

Hey cyber-strangers! Been a while eh? Yeah, I could do the whole excuses thing, but once again my idea of what my blog is has changed, so… ummm… I’ll just jump into all the news

Well, life has been pretty hectic and really rewarding for me lately. My job is going well and I’ve rediscovered the joy of programming. Yes, CI definitely killed my romance with development and I think VB was slowly driving me potty. In the 6 months I’ve been at CQS I’ve learned tons of really useful and interesting things and made huge progress as a coder generally. I’ve fully made the transition fromVB to C#. Yay for me! Personally things are also great. Ibis and the bunnies and I are doing well and with summer here, we’ve started camping every now and then. We live in such a beautiful part of the world, yet we always take it for granted. That’s why we decided to make the most of this summer and go away as much as possible and really explore the surrounding countryside.

I also recently bought myself a new game — Falcon 4: Allied Force — All I can say is: if you have a joystick, then BUY THIS GAME IMMEDIATELY. It’s the coolest, most realistic, most enjoyable flight sim I’ve ever played. Now, I know nothing about flying, so I set the realism settings way down and took my F16 out for a spin. WHAT A GAME! WOWOWOW! It’s truly awesome and the best is that as you get a handle on all the various controls, knobs, dials, switches and beeps, you can turn the realism up more and more to make the game truly immersive. I mean the damn thing simulates EVERYTHING - like missile malfunctions and IR missles that don’t get picked up by your RWC.

Awesome is the only word to describe this game.

That’s it for now - expect sporadic updates from now on!