Wednesday, 6th May 1998

Well, here I am again. Rob on one of his web episodes....

As I put out on the Fantasm mailing list, Yak has updated his pages again. His stuff is always very funny. The address (just in case you can't get to the links pages) is <http://www.magicnet.net/~yak/>.

iMac - what a sexy beast. And love the Mac vs. PC benchmarks. Cool. And that vector based unit that goes in the PowerPC - makes the MMX look like a toy (it is a toy, its always been a toy .... I mean, destroying the FPU registers...). It will kick some ass, I can't wait to put a 3d engine on it ;->

Here is a thought... "Has the Internet replaced the floppy drive?".... I know I haven't used a floppy for months, if not years, with the exception of some PC legacy software I've used (well almost) on my Mac.

On another note: I've just got my Duo 280c working again. There was a nasty dropping episode late last year. The screen broke, and so, it turns out, did the HD. I replaced the screen late last year, but its taken until now to do the HD. Ok, it may only be a 68040, but hell, its wonderful to be able to move around. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be without my PowerMac desktop but ... FrEEdoM .... wonderful!!

On the programming front, me and Stu have been resync-ing over the last couple of days for a bit of close work, and my, its great to be working on the same stuff. Like with everything, although we are both working on LS stuff, its not always the case that we are working on the same thing.

I notice that the list has turned to jump tables ... I'm not sure if anyone has looked forth, but that is a way of the whole language being a jump table....

Games...

So, apart from Programming (the No.1. activity on this computer) I also get around to a whole host of other things. I thought I'd share one of them with you, my love of games. I suppose it all started as a kid, but my keeness hasn't died.

So, lets have a look at my Current Favourities, both Mac and otherwise. Ok, so current number one game is probably Heroes (of Might and Magic) II.

Second, from a Mac point of view, and probably the one of phyiscally "played the most" until recently was Marathon Infinity. I compare it with Shadow Warrior and Quake (which I own for the Mac) and they are very good, but Marathon 2 and Infinity are better. I've also played may hours of Duke Nukem, Doom, Total Doom, etc, and well, nope, Marathon still wins. Some of it comes down to some of the fantastic multi-player game senerioes - the game seems to rock in this mode, compared with multiplayers on the other games. And even as a single player game, it has many good qualities.

I also have Dungeon Master 2. This is a good game, but to be honest, I never got into it. Rather a pity really 'cause I think it is really worth the money. I also have fond memories of the original DM - another game which made me think differently about the whole D&D type game on a computer - I know several of my friends bought AtariST's simply because of this game. Now *thats* scary. (And I was probably one of those - that and Starglider...).

What else has had a real big impact. Tomb Raider has probably done more to sell Playstations than any other thing (at least in the UK). Claire (my SO) has completed both 1 and 2, so I recon' that it must be addicitive, because she has spent literally 12 continous hours playing it. Talk about long gaming sessions (I know I do it for programming, but that different...).

Other Playstation games that spring to mind at this instance are:- TempestX, which has lots of lovely Mr Minter, even though he didn't write it (!?). Micro Machines... very playable multiplayer.

Must say (again!) though, my favourite game of all time (at the moment) is Heroes (of Might and Magic) II. Its on a par with (if not more playable than) Marathon Infinity. I think I would put it down as one of the classic games all time. If you get a chance, try it out.

I previously thought turn based games were a load of rubbish, but Heroes2 has really proved me wrong. You need turns for the game to work. The basic plot is difficult to describe, but it is a sort of mythical, dungeon and dragons based war-game, where you have several heroes, who adventure around with armies of magical creatures. You capture castles and develop them, and these are normally where you armies (or replacement troups) come from. You have six different classes of hero (and castle) and they all have different characteristics. The level of detail in the game world is fantastic, and the graphics are very well done.

It also has several multipler options, including single computer (hotseat), modem and network, and although you have to wait for the other players to complete their turn, it is still good. It also has a lot of different adventures, which in multi-player you can play cooperatively, and against each other.

It is well worth every penny in my opinion. On depth of game beating most things hands down.

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