My top 10 video games

my top 10 video games

1 - Monkey Island – 1 + 2 - for Apple/PC - finished 1 + 2

2 - Diablo +Diablo 2 - for PC (also played the demo) - Finished 1 – and 2

3 - Hellgate London - PC - not finished

4 - Heroes of Might & Magic 2 + 1 – lesser 3 - for PC - finished campaign

5 - Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony - for Apple - finished

6 - Ultima 4 – also 3 - for Apple - finished 4 +3?

7 - Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - for Apple - finished

8 - D&D Pool of Radiance – not Baldur’s Gate - for Apple - finished

9 - Dragon Warrior - for Nintendo - finished – new one ongoing

10 - The Lurking Horror – and Infocom games – Zork, Planetfall, Hitchhikers Guide - for Apple - almost finished

Honable Mentions

Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness - for Game Cube - finished

Wasteland - for Apple - almost finished

Thimbleweed Park - PC - ongoing

Death Spank - PC - finished 1 – 2 ongoing

Autoduel (Car Wars) - for Apple - finished

Load Runner - for Apple

Theme Hospital - for PC

Real Steel - for Xbox 360

Astrosmash and Intellivision games plus Pitfall - for Intellivision

Die by the Sword - for PC

Loom and Maniac Mansion - for Apple - finished Loom

Gabriel Knight - for PC - not finished

Dino Eggs - for Apple

Castle Wolfenstein - not 3D - for Apple

Sim City/ World - for Apple

Castleville - until they kept adding buildings but not more spaces - but not Farmville - for PC

Not on my list

Doom/Duke Nukem

Link/Zelda

Final Fantasy

Bard’s Tale

Super Mario et al

Warcraft

What are your choices?

involuntary new laptop

We were broken into early in January. As these things go, it could have been a lot worse. There wasn’t a lot of damage and the only things taken were some American money and our laptops. All of my wife’s jewelry was spread across the bed but they don’t seem to have taken any of it. I guess I don’t buy my wife nice enough things.

With the laptops gone, it made connecting to the internet harder. We still had the old desktop but that is a pretty rough connection for facebook games. It also helps point out how much we are connected – when watching tv we usually have at least one laptop on – which allows us to pop into imdb.com as needed to find out why we know the guest stars as well as to check Wikipedia for information as needed.

We’ve added an alarm system and have worked through with the insurance people to replace the laptops. We didn’t have the boxes anymore but we were able to get copies of the receipts from Best Buy. As long as you have the card on which you bought them and know the date range, they can find it in their system and reprint it for you.

After much going back and forth about my requirements we agreed on an HP NO20CA laptop. The requirements for the laptop had been – DVD superdrive, keypad, at least 500 GB hard drive, 2 USB connections, SD slot, HDMI connection, and a Radeon HD6310 or higher (the old one was HD 7520). The keyboard, superdrive, and video card seemed to be a tricky combination to fulfill.


Which basically means that I am now working through getting used to Windows 8.

Windows 8 - not a fan

With the new year I was finally able to convince the wife to get a laptop of her own. Since she was having issues doing what she wanted on the old laptop and we kept swapping it back and forth (to update our Castleville accounts) a new laptop would start her fresh – and free up the old laptop for me to use.

Because her laptop is new, it comes with Windows 8. My first impression of it is that I don’t like it. It’s app based – like a smart phone or ipod – both of which I am not comfortable with. With some help from the web, I was able to load Diablo 3 on it for her. Now I just have to load Office and she will be set.

Then I have to try and figure out how to get flash working on her tablet so that she can play Castleville away from home.

HDMI to RCA?

It’s been pretty wet and rainy lately.  Which has meant that, except for cutting the lawn twice, we haven’t had to do a lot of yardwork.  This has allowed us a bit of time to try to catch up on the shows recorded on the PVR.  Now we are no longer right at our buffer limit and we even watched the rest of Boardwalk Empire.

I’m looking at connecting the laptop (which has an HDMI output) to the TV (which has RCA connections in front).  I don’t seem to be having any luck finding a HDMI to RCA cable so I might have to check to see if the VCR/DVDR has a HDMI input I can use.  This way we can watch Tabletop on the TV instead of having to crowd around the laptop.  It will also make it easier to watch The Guild as well.

Floating City

Lately I've been immersed in the Floating City.

Thomas Dolby (She Blinded Me With Science) is releasing a new album. He created an online game to help promote it.

It's set in an alternate version of the 1940s. WWII turned out differently with a global energy experiment having gone haywire. The Earth’s magnetic fields have been reversed, and the planetary climate system violated. The world is flooded and we are trying to get to the North Pole.

You create a persona, with a boat, and get items that group together in sets. In trading the items you complete sets of five and that unlocks a code to download the MP3 of that song. Finishing the tutorial trade with the purple ship will complete the song 'She Blinded Me With Science' - Chemicals, Spheres, Trench Coat, Tubes and Wires, and Careful notes. There are nine songs on each set - getting all nine will unlock an album - with three albums being available.

Trading will move you on a Google map of the world, with your tribe working to move their way north. As you complete trades you get points for you and your tribe. At the end of it, the tribe with the most points is supposed to win a free release concert in their area in which Thomas Dolby will perform the entire album.

I'm listed as Frozen North (Canada) so it will probably end up being in Toronto and out of my reach - but so far we are leading.
vate concert at which Thomas Dolby and his band perform the album in its entirety.

This is my referal link:
http://www.floatingcity.com/Register?id32=3ba9a8939870f59b0f...
If you sign in through here I get a few extra points and extra cargo bits. This will put you in the Frozen River tribe though - so central and Northern US and Canada.

Otherwise the regular link is http://www.floatingcity.com/

It's lovely looking from a graphics view with sepia newsletters and design. From a marketing standpoint, for someone who hasn't really released an album in 20 years, it's making pretty good use of technology. I'm not what I consider a big Dolby fan, but the combinations are intriguing me and I'm definately going to noodle around in there for next while.

Check it out.

lil' Tuece coupe

For Father’s Day I got a pair of T-shirts and some movies – including Tron Legacy. We had gone to my dad’s for a barbeque and I climbed up and retrieved my Apple IIc boxes from the garage rafters.

In packing away my Tuece (Apple IIc) for storage my daughter said that my keyboard was “broken”. She is learning keyboarding already in school. I explained that my keyboard was fine – what I had done was changed the layout to Dvorak.

The Apple IIc had two dip switches on top. One would let you change your monitor resolution from 40 characters to 80 characters across. The other would toggle between Qwerty and Dvorak. I had to fix a key and I ended up removing a third of the keyboard to get access to it. At that point I had changed over to Dvorak. My then-girlfriend could touch type when she needed to use the keyboard and I could hunt and peck as it was.

Good times. Good memories of GEnie, and many hours of Lode Runner, Ultima III and Ultima IV, and Moebius.

Spring chores

A few things have interrupted my western town building of late. The first is finally getting a new laptop – which means that I can finally play Hellgate after all these years. So far, I’m liking it!

The second is having the possibility of a game room in our renovation plans dashed by the bank. It was a long shot but as the time went along I got more and more used to the idea. The vision of being able to spread out a game and walk away from it afterwards – cleaning it up later became more and more appealing. With that off the table for now, we’ve had to take a bit harder look at our current set up and have decided we need to put a lot of stuff into storage for now. Not just some of the non-played games (that we want to keep) but also older toys, and other stuff.

That said, we’ve never done off-site storage before. I’m figuring that we probably want a heated/cooled unit. Has anyone out there done this before? Our basic storage unit is a printer paper box. Would these hold up? Anyone have good experiences or is storage always a bad step before just getting rid of everything?

Finally, now that we've gotten some nice weather (and having no renovations to interupt us), we have yard work to do. We did our first mow of the year on Monday. Shan raked the front yard yesterday - we still have the back to rake. We'll have to turn the garden, move the last composter to the back, and see if I can cut the metal pole by the back gate to make room for a shed. I'm thinking about removing the pole for the old pool cover as well.
Then we have to decide if the summer will be warm enough to set up the pool.

fist full of happiness

After finally getting our laptop we went to buy a trackball. While I grudgingly have to use a mouse at work, our computers at home have had trackballs since 1996. They’re harder to find than the mainstream mice but so much better to use. I’m still using the original Trackman Marble I had bought back then. My wife is using the newer Trackman Marble (with the center trackball) on her older laptop and it wasn’t even a question about getting one for our new laptop. (Since we will share the new laptop, my thoughts on changing the keyboard to Dvorak were met with less acceptance).

Since they haven’t been adopted by the masses, the selection is notably smaller. The new Logitech M570 is very similar in style to the Trackman we use on our main computer. It loses a button for a scroll wheel and forward/back buttons. It’s also wireless. Best Buy had the Logitech M570 on display – but again had no stock. We popped over to Future Shop. They didn’t have any stock either. In fact, they only had 14 in their system – 4 in Coquitlam, 5 for the Future Shop online eastern division and 5 for the western division.
We were running late so I had to use the touchpad included with the laptop on Saturday. While passable, it still had issues that would take a while to get acclimated.

Calling Staples however, I found that they had stock – 6 at the location I called and about 18 here in the city. I find it amusing that Staples has more in stock here in this one city than Future Shop has in their system for all of Canada. We picked it up, it installed with no trouble, and works like a proper device should. The back/forward buttons will take a bit to get used to but the thumb ball works just like the old one and the scroll wheel feels nice.



As a note of interest – the trackball was invented over a decade before the mouse. The trackball dates back to 1952 as a result of the Canadian DATAR project and the mouse followed in 1963. Contrary to what I always say, the mouse was not simply a precision tracking device turned over and rubbed clumsily against a table.

Laptop of joy

We had popped into Best Buy last week to get a laptop. After checking out the stats and the feel of the keyboards I decided on the Gateway NV53A63U. It would have come home with us if they had any in stock. Or if they had any at the other location, or even any coming in. But it seems that they didn’t. Which makes me wonder why they still have it on display.

So I spent the week checking options and narrowing it down to my next option. I decided on the Acer AS5253-BZ611. It has 3 GB RAM and 500 GB HD, a Radeon HD6310 graphics card, a SD reader, 3 USB ports and HDMI port. So it hit all my needs. The graphics card doesn’t have any dedicated memory so I won’t be able to play all the new graphics-heavy First-Person-Shooter games – but since I don’t play those, it should be fine.

We went back to Best Buy and, even thought they didn’t have the model on display (they still had the Gateway) they did have them in stock so we purchased one. I turned down the service plan and turned down their ‘cleaning’. They also offered to charge $150 to clean out the ads and load on Nortons.
That’s okay. I spent about 6 hours starting up the Windows 7, creating my backup disks and startup disk, connecting to our network, and setting up the user profiles. I spent another 4 hours the next day installing our firewall, and loading on Diablo 2 and Hellgate. I look forward to playing them this weekend.

Diablo - update

While I still haven’t taken a run at Diablo himself, I did manage to complete one of my goals. I finally was able to upgrade my gems to have all six perfect gems and use the Horadric cube to change them into a resist-all amulet.

On the down side, it looks like the resistances top out at a max of 75%.

On the up side, it clears up a lot of space in my stash.

Laptop - finally?

I got a bit of a bonus so I'm going to put it to buying a laptop. I'm hoping to be able to save up the remainder by the end of March.
My needs are low - I'm looking for a minimum of 15", wireless, 2GB RAM, 250 GB HD, and a decent video card. I'm hoping to keep the cost under $400. I've got my eye on a few models that should work.

With these requirements, I can finally play Hellgate:London, Dawn of War, and City of Villains. As well as finally being able to be online while watching TV. I'll probably load Diablo (and Diablo II) on it as well so my son and I can play online together.

It's been quite a few years coming but now I am so close.

Shan had picked up an old laptop from work - but it didn't have wireless and she wrecked the one usb port because she left the trackball plugged in it. Plus, it was 'hers' and we didn't get to play with it much.

Missing – music player – notes

I’d been mentioning that it would seem to be a simple program to create music on your computer. Simple enough to include as a free program – like solitaire, or mine sweeper. The old Apple IIs had one tone – that you could modify the duration and frequency of – and that was over 25 years ago. There should be a simple program to allow you to choose notes and let you play simple tunes. I’m not talking ‘ode to joy’ or anything, but you should be able to make a simple ‘jingle bells’ or something.

Maybe there’s one in there somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet.

Skate or Die!

Some of the video games from my youth were 720 and Marble Madness. "Skate or die"! Considering that skateboarding has become even more common than back then, you would think it would resurface. Perhaps the Tony Hawk skate games have replaced it – I haven’t tried it so I don’t know how it compares to 720.

I did find myself recently thinking about Marble Madness and why no-one has made a version of it recently. Then, in Dollarama, for $2 we found a copy of Hamster Ball by Brighter Minds Media. It is very similar in look and play to what I remember from Marble Madness. Of course, I’m using my Trackman Marble on my computer so it plays quite well.

Now to find a Missile Command game.

The monkeys are calling!

LucasArts is rereleasing Monkey Island in a Special Edition version. This will have both updated graphics and the capability to use the original pixilated version we grew up with. As adventure games go, this was right at the top of my list. I loved the insult swordfighting – a great concept that still holds up.

My son and I are working through the series even now – we’re up to MI3.


Perhaps the best news about this is that it sounds like they have made up with the original designer Ron Gilbert. This sounds like we will get more new Monkey Island content – and maybe even learn the true Secret of Monkey Island.

Diablo 2

With the computer being flaky, I’m behind in computer games. I haven’t finished Diablo 2 yet. I’ve been trying to find some time to play a bit lately. I bumped up to level 31 and added another level to Natural Resistance. I then bowed to pressure from my kids and made a run for Diablo.

Apparently I’m not quite ready. Luckily, I have a spare axe/armor kit in my stash so I was able to loot my body, and had to get another set to loot my second body. The closest I got was getting him down to about about half.

I ‘m working towards level 32, maybe I’ll give it another go then or wait until 33.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Barbarian needs food badly

So, now that our computer is stable again, I have been able to go in and play Diablo 2 again. I had put it on hold years ago when the kids starting taking up more of our time. Plus, since it’s really Shan’s game, I was waiting for her to take out Diablo first.

Years later, I’m still waiting.


Recently, I have been playing around to complete my maps and trying to level up. I’m playing a Barbarian (Big Axe Man!) as that better suits my playing style. I finally managed to get to level 30 and was able to put some of the skill points I had been hoarding to use. I finally got Natural Resistance and War Cry.

I cleared the entire area, opened 4 of the 5 seals – killed off the specials. I didn’t go after Diablo – much to my kids’ dismay. I do realize that I will have to reclear the area to release Diablo. I was worried about dying and not being able to recover my corpse and get back my stuff. I may try to level up to 31 before I give it a go.

It lives! again

Everyone seems to have a computer guy. That is, a friend or relative who is more knowledgeable than them about computers and whom they ask for help whenever some computing issue comes up. For my mom, that's my brother and I. Shan's the one for her mom.

With us, that's my good friend JP. The 'Franken Puter' we currently use was originally created from parts close to 10 years ago by him. I have swapped out the power supply a few times and added a dvd rewriter and a video card, but any real issues I get him to check.

Shan had gotten an old computer tower from work. It had been free but she figured we could use at least some of the parts - and we have. I hap popped the case and tried to fire it up but had been stopped by being unable to create or find a boot disk.

JP had taken both towers and had been able to upgrade what we're been limping along with. He kept our tower, power supply, dvd drive and video card and replaced the cpu, hard drive, and motherboard. So now instead of a tired and flaky 128mb/20G computer, we seem to have a clean and stable 512mb/40G platform. The memory is not yet an issue - we hadn't even filled half of the old one in the 10 years we were online with it.
It's nice. It's working very fine. I can update this at home now and Diablo 2 plays stable without the video locking up every twenty minutes. We're very pleased. Now if I can just keep the rest of the family from loading tons of games on it.
A very special thank you to JP and thanks to the computer guys everywhere. You guys do good work and we really appreciate it.

a restful week

To no surprise I didn't get a lot done last week while I was off. It snowed more than it thawed so I had a bunch of shovelling to keep up with. While I didn't paint any figures, I did get ready for pre-paint.

I started making a replica gas mask bag for D3 to use as an Indy satchel. G also wants one too. I've ripped most of the seams out of an old pair of jeans to use for the material but need to cut and sew (and dye).

We did get our computer guy to look at our systems. We should be able to take parts from the surplus computer Shan got from work and cobble together with some upgrades we've put into our old computer to keep us afloat in the world wide web for a bit longer.

I still have to draw up some floorplans for our potential upgrades to the house. It could be a very interesting summer.

New computer – hellgate benchmark

Shan thinks it’s amusing that I’m basing the requirements of a new computer as to whether or not one can play Hellgate on it. Especially since we don’t even have the game yet (and even more so in light of their current troubles).

I had ordered a laptop through our internet provider – an HP CQ50-109CA but had to cancel my order when they changed the model to a HP CQ50-100CA. The difference?The 109 has 3 GB ram and a 250 GB hard drive while the 100 only has 2 GB ram and a 160 GB hard drive.
Considering we haven’t filled our current 20 GB hard drive, both would probably be fine, but I’m thinking of the long term value - espically since it's a three year contract through them.

hey mac?

My computer is starting to go. It was a Frankenputer cobbled together by our friend JP close to a decade ago (7 years ago at the least). It’s done well considering that we’ve been running it nearly constantly for the last 4 years. We’ve replaced the power supply twice, added a dvd burner, and I finally added a newer video card last year. Lately, it’s been freezing up and needing to be rebooted.

At the time we built it, we had suped it up as much as we could with a full gig of RAM and 20 gig of hard drive space. This may seem like a tiny hard drive now but we still haven’t filled it. We just don’t download music or movies. I do want to get in and start some home movies though.
My mom recently went through the upgrade with her computer and has a beautiful HP Pavilion Media Center. If we had the money, I would probably buy the same model. That said, since we missed our window of opportunity to get a computer that isn’t loaded with Vista, we’ll probably end up getting a mac. I finally spent a bit of time on the http://www.apple.com/dotmac/ site and am more convinced that this will probably be the way to go.

We’re not big gamers. We do like Diablo, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Monkey Island. We finally saw Hellgate and will probably get it. I’ll definitely take a good look at Dawn of War and another look at City of Heroes when we’ve upgraded. As long as we can co-run Windows to run the older games, we should be okay.

Looking at the site, we may just start with a macmini and see how that works out for us.