I have a cold so I couldn't snowboard. I got in a few hours of gaming this weekend, which is a lot for me. I used to be a game junky on the id Software track, depriving myself of sleep and nutrients for Wolfeinstein, Doom and Quake, with a generous helping of Parallax Software's Descent. At some point I burned out and games are an occasional recreation now instead of a full-time addiction.
Games just aren't as imaginative as the used to be. Clever, creative, unique games still get my attention.
I spent some time playing Katamari on the PSP. I love the Katamari games.
Some old friends came over bearing an XBox 360, on which we played some classic Doom, a mile-stone in game history and a favorite to this day. Halo 3 was really good looking but just another FPS to me. I don't know how anyone plays FPS games without a mouse.
(10:25 damn I'm slow.)
Then was noticed Rez HD was available for download. This fact may sell me on XBox. I LOVE Rez and it was one of the games that pushed me to buy a PS2. The HD XBox version was gorgeous with improved resolution and frame-rate. The rhythmic pulsing controllers are an essential part of the original though and I don't know if that feature is included in the XBox version.
But the big game-geek time-sink this weekend was my purchase of a 1981 vintage upright Tempest Machine.I owned one for a few years in my early 20's. Bought it for $200 and sold it for $275 a few years later when I was married. They became highly sought in the in the late nineties and I saw them ebaying for $1600. I still see some asking that high, but they seem to sell for around $600.On a sort of long term whim, I exchanged emails with a seller for a couple weeks, drove about 45 minutes north yesterday, play tested for a few minutes, then handed over $600 and loaded up. Once I had it in my basement I got a bout 5 minutes into the first game and it started crashing. After a few resets it was dead.
....SHIT
My dad was an electrical engineer for 20 years, designing oscilloscopes and signal generators for Hewlett Packard. He stopped by this afternoon, took a look at the diagrams that had been stashed in the machine's cabinet, and after probing with his meter for about 10 minutes he had ID'ed a failed component, had online suppliers and prices on my computer, and handed me a note with local suppliers that should have the widgets in stock during business tomorrow.
....Cool
(11:04. I'll blather more about how cool this game is later.)
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