who was robot pele?
Robot Pele was a legend.
Then, one day, Dieter Sphinxly showed up at Stamford Bridge in a rented tuxedo along with a £10 haircut and a large, black box. His tenure as Chelsea's new manager began with the mysterious arrival of a tall, white-haired figure that never spoke and moved mechanically. And the legend intensified.
After several days with the team, it was apparent that the new recruit possessed otherworldly talent. His kit bore the simple moniker "R. Pele," and his feet moved with a fury never before seen. He could drain a shot from midfield with ease, and his tackles and crosses were always spot-on. It wasn't long before speculation began that he was, in fact, a robot.
But FIFA could not stop him. Nor could any defense. His one weakness - a dismal left foot - was consistently overshadowed by his all-around prowess. While the electric bills at the Bridge escalated, so did the footballer's stamina, and his dominance continued unabated.
And the legend grew.
Sphinxly would not reveal the player's origin, or the source of his immaculate skill. But the tabloids would reveal his training regimen: practicing "the robot" dance move for hours on end. When this came to light, other teams in the premiership became irate, insisting that no human being would be able to keep up with the pace of the league without ever touching a football on an off-day.
After a bout of tough losses, Sphinxly was sacked, and he took his player with him. Some claim to have witnessed the robot embarrassing schoolchildren in pick-up matches in rural U.S. towns, but nothing has been substantiated. The truth behind the story of Robot Pele's arrival to, and disappearance from, professional soccer may never be fully known.
a pick-up day
We all know that "good days" should not be qualified by what we have gained in that day...but today was a good day. It's been a day for products with numbers in their titles. Allow me to explain:
I now have Windows 7 Professional x64 running, complete with virtual Windows XP. Having not played around with 7 since one of the early betas, I never really got a feel for the added functionality and it's been a good experience so far. I had no problems with Windows Vista, but with the $29 student deal the upgrade was impossible to pass up. Installation was painless; I downloaded an installer, did a clean install, and updated a couple of drivers.
And during the installation, I've been playing my newly-acquired FIFA 10 on the Xbox 360. It's undoubtedly more fun to play with multiple teams in different stadiums and weather conditions - far more than the demo would allow me in the weeks that I played it non-stop. The virtual pro addition seems well implemented, even if it requires an Xbox Live account for the 3D game face functionality (which I finally managed to get working only to find out I couldn't import it into the game).
Finally, Rune Factory 3 has also come out in Japan, and it's quite fulfilling from a portable farming adventure perspective. Now, if only I could keep playing around with this new software without the real world creeping in...
battlefield carnage
Who needs Battlefield 3 when you've got excitement like this on the horizon?
That's Bad Company 2, which won't be out for a while (March 2010), but it's looking promising. I'll just have to get used to shooters with health regeneration (and possibly infinite ammo), since that's the way the winds are blowing these days. Now, if only everyone I knew had an Xbox 360, since PC gaming is dead...
wishing for more
There's usually an overwhelming feeling of impending doom looming around midterm time. When such concern does not present itself, poor grades often result. But it seems that there should come a time when someone has written enough papers, or taken enough exams, that he or she cannot be held to any further obligations of that nature.
While some are spending their creative juices trying to tie together thrombotic pulmonary emboli and mural thrombi, and others are making vague relational assessments in painstakingly long essays, there are the select few who get paid to imagine scenarios like these:
Jurassic: the Hunted is an epic shooter set on a dark, mysterious island lost in time. Players assume the role of weapons and survival expert Craig Dylan, who has been hired to protect a research team studying the strange temporal energy of the island. Protection quickly becomes a fight for survival as Dylan is pulled back in time through the Bermuda Triangle and finds himself facing the most terrifying creatures in the history of the planet.
Sometimes you just have to separate yourself from a situation and remember that things could be a lot worse: you could live in a country where they don't let you play dinosaur-killing video games.
smokey’s candid appearance
Sometimes studying for four straight days of exams conjures up memories of the games of one's youth.
Harvest Moon games are a dime a dozen these days, but the latest game recently announced for Japan (Twin Villages) has something that caught my eye. In the following screenshot, a female protagonist (male and female options are available) is clearly visible, and so is some wildlife. Two monkeys, and a bear.
Harvest Moon has had some strange animals before (and in this new one you can raise alpacas), but a gentle roaming bear is quite unheard of. It's possible that bears have been in some of the newer games that I haven't closely followed, but I think it's a first for a DS game. What the bear will do remains to be seen; it's good that he gets along with the monkeys, but hopefully you can feed him fish or something. I believe bears should be included in all worthwhile video games, so this is a good design decision.
The U.S. is still waiting for the last two Japanese Harvest Moon releases (Sunshine Islands and Wind Bazaar), so who knows when this one will materialize.
scribbling results
Yesterday I started messing around with a game called "Scribblenauts." It's a bit juvenile, but the premise of the game is highly original. It presents you with a puzzle or objective in a 2D level and then allows you to write in the name of any animal or object...or anything conceivable (with some exceptions), and it will appear. You can then use the properties of that item/creature/etc. to accomplish your goal. For instance, conjure up some pizza and eat it, or put in a helicopter and fly anywhere you want. Certain inappropriate things are excluded.
The game leaves itself open to lots of creative scenarios, many the developers could not have possibly foreseen. One such situation is one of the first things I did - I used the game as a battle simulator. Yeti vs. Bigfoot. Yes, both mythical creatures were in the game, but the Yeti acted more aggressive, while Bigfoot seemed protective. Bigfoot won. I then decided to do best two out of three. Bigfoot won again. Just for good measure, I tried once more. Again, Bigfoot was the victor. So I decided to even the odds.
I gave the Yeti a shotgun. Unfortunately, once he took it he did not know how to use it, so he just held it passively. He still wanted to fight, but simply couldn't. So I started torching him with a flamethrower. It just forced him back, so I had to set some TNT at his feet to finally take him down.
Now there's something even the most open-world game won't let you do.
it lagged BIG time
It may be premature to speak of the death of PC gaming, but the industry at least has some sort of terminal illness. Blame it on uninspired game designers, piracy, or the increased prevalence of console gaming, but that doesn't tell the whole story. There will always be people who don't deserve to use computers until they're old enough to vote. I am speaking, of course, of those who give piss-poor reviews to highly-acclaimed PC games on sites that the average Joe would visit.
Empire: Total War is a strategy game that was well-received by experienced reviewers and gamers, but its somewhat demanding system requirements left the inexperienced 12 year old scratching his head. Those who don't realize that their inferior components may be to blame instead find fault in the game, which leads to low scores and mixed public approval.
Still, if game designers just made their products devoid of "huge white screen errors," PC gaming would still have a chance.
fifa 10 film clips
I wanted to share some videos I made in the FIFA 10 demo, to show off how fluid the game is and how much better it feels than FIFA 08. I had never messed with EA Sports Football World, but they have a very competent system in place for uploading videos and snapshots of matches you play on the Xbox 360. The still pictures are terribly low quality and not worth viewing, and the same could be argued of the flash videos it creates, but they're much better than taking off-screen video of the game.
a fifa 10 fix
There are many gross disparities based on global location. A serious example of this was seen two days ago when the FIFA 10 demo was released in the United Kingdom (and Europe) but not the United States. It would seem that the developers of the iconic football franchise did not want the start of the American "football" season distracting from the availability of their new game. The demo is scheduled for a release next Thursday, September 17th, but who would want to wait that long to try their hand at more realistic virtual soccer?
Fortunately, there is a way around this predicament. By creating a new Xbox profile and setting the system locale to "United Kingdom," then creating a new Xbox LIVE gamertag, the free demo becomes available for download in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. This kind of regional manipulation should not be necessary, but at least it's possible.
It might seem silly to get excited about the latest release in a series of perennial (and often incremental) updates, but since I never purchased FIFA 09, I am looking forward to this newest edition. Having played the 10 demo, it (of course) seems fairly significantly different than 08 but not too dissimilar from 09. I enjoy that players get indignant when fouls are called against them, and the added quick restart and on-the-fly kicker selection for free kicks are nice touches. I also saw, on several occasions, friendly AI-controlled players step over the ball when the pass was not intended for them. I'm not sure if this is new for 10 or if it was in 09, but it's much more realistic than the random deflections in 08. The little things really make up the game.
The demo does not include the new arena changes, which is disappointing. You're still limited to running around with a single player and taking random shots, but in the full game you'll be able to create up to an 11-on-11 scrimmage for training purposes. Also missing from the demo is the custom set piece editor; again, this would have been nice to see. 360-degree dribbling doesn't seem revolutionary, unless I'm just doing it wrong. If I hadn't been told that this was a key selling point, I may not have noticed much of a difference.
bf2 patch 1.5 thoughts
Well those were a few frustrating rounds. Of course I'm talking about Battlefield 2, and its new v1.50 patch that came out today.
I hate the new "prone deviation." Perhaps it's more realistic now - it makes your crosshairs less accurate immediately when you flop to the ground - but it breaks the way I play. It's like needing to learn how to engage in combat all over again, and I'm too old for that nonsense. Ordinarily, if someone's shooting at me, I want to hit the deck and use the added stability of the ground to make my shots that much more accurate. I was quick at it, and pretty good. But now...
I fall to the ground and see my bullets flying awkwardly around, no where near my intended target. So I'm now forced to either just crouch to a knee, which leaves me as a larger target, or hope that I'm already on the ground when someone walks up to me, which encourages camping. Ergo, I usually die.
As for the runway grieving fix, I only tried to force one time, with much success. I'm not sure if it's fixed or not, but apparently it's not perfect (go figure).
The widescreen support has a limited number of resolutions. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep playing on 1920x1280, since it's so taxing on my system, but it's the only one that seems to truly fit my aspect ratio.
For what it's worth, I didn't crash in the hour or so that I played, and there were several opportunities for me to do so. That's always a good sign.
My experiences with the jets, anti-aircraft, and Blackhawks were limited. They don't appear to be drastically different though.
Top it all off with the fact that my mouse sensitivity is all over the place because of the screwed up Setpoint software from Logitech and you've got the makings for a traditionally upsetting Battlefield experience. And that's something we've all been missing.