Nostalgic for computer games?

Well I was after talking about Speedball 2 on the iphone yesterday, and I wasn't feeling 100% today (thanks to M for the dodgy tummy, it's great fun...) so I was looking around on wikipedia and the web and came across "Cannon Fodder" - from the guys at Sensible Software. This was a great game, another one I was very fond of on the Amiga.

It's downloadable, and according to this link, it's freeware*. Great fun, really, as you lead a small squad of small-looking soldiers through a map, throwing grenades and dodging rockets - planning for one squad to cover while another moves. It's all very simple really, and that's what makes it such fun. Infuriating too, at times, as it can take many attempts to get a level finished off if you're impatient, or no good at driving jeeps full of your squad.

So take it for a download it's only 1 Mb and great fun. Nostalgia is free and enjoyable!


*(if it's not, I apologise and will remove the link).

App recommendation...Speedball 2.

Those of you with smartphones might play games on them. This might be a useful recommendation!

I remember fondly the first computer Dad bought for the house. It was a Commodore Amiga 500, and I can even remember the cartoon packaging it came in, complete with a "Simpsons" game and a "Captain Planet" game. There was a lot of great games enjoyed on that machine, and to be honest, there was some worthwhile typing and printing of letters as well.

One of the games I remembered recently was Speedball 2. This was a game by the Bitmap Brothers (remember others, like cadaver, gods, and magic pockets?), and it was (is?) great fun. A team of 9 robots and 3 subs (you'll need them when your players are knocked out) chasing a steel ball around a closed court. The ball could be electrified for harming your opponents, you scored as many points for knocking out an opposing player as for a goal, and there was no such thing as a yellow card system. Brutally simple, and great fun.

After every game you win some money which you can use to upgrade your players in the gym, or save up for higher quality players on the transfer market. This will be needed after you graduate to the next division!

Now it's released on the iOS for iPhones and iPods and presumably iPads as well! You can download it from the appstore, and it plays really well on the iPhone - one thumb to move and another to throw/tackle (or you can use the accelerometer and tilt the phone) is a joyous way to play. Download it and enjoy racking up 300-10 scores against the baddies!

Another helpful hint

If your computer has been having some bad performance lately, particularly in the internet side of things, I recommend that you look at your spyware, antivirus and firewall package.

2 hints: Don't try to run too many packages for the same job, they'll interfere with one another, and the other hint is to not install (or uninstall) the Zonealarm spyware toolbar - this caused me a headache after I upgraded zonealarm a couple of days ago.

Of course, that's not to criticise the performance of any of the software I'm running, and Zonealarm seems to do a perfectly good firewall job, just that toolbar (which runs in your browser) doesn't seem to help my system.

Any beer-watchers will note I haven't done any brewing lately....I've not been getting through it quickly enough! I've finished pouring the failed Fixby Gold down the sink, and I've some Gallia to get through, though it's brewed a long time now so I hope it'll not have gone off.....

Reinstalling Windows

It might come to that. PC isn't working great, it keeps dropping the internet connection and not running important programs like Dawn of War. So I'll also need to go buy a backup hard drive - which I've been meaning to do for a long time now anyway. I hope I don't kill it....

Just back from a lovely weeked in Portmagee, Kerry. More on that later when I've downloaded pictures. Suffice to say, Skellig Michael is a must-see.

Pressure

Positive pressure being exerted by fermentation vessel means that there's definitely something happening. I think I killed the yeast yesterday by exposing it to temperatures that are incompatible with life, but I got another batch of yeast today and threw it into the mixture - it's just about to start bubbling!

The Initial Gravity read at 1.052, which is a little lower than it said on the tin, but that'll hopefully just mean a little less alcohol in the final product rather than taste. Well it's working away now, whatever will be will be.

Incidentally, I got a Logitech Cordless Laser mouse MX620 for my laptop yesterday - a fantastically comfortable piece of input device - I heartily recommend for anyone who's looking for the ball-less, tail-less mouse of their dreams.

Wow, that was quick....

I ordered a puter from Dell on Wednesday at 4pm. I had it in my hand at 1630 on Friday evening, and it had been to my house at about 1200 that day aswell! Top marks for efficiency to the boys and girls at Dell. 17/17 for efficiency.

Be careful when Dell-shopping. Always check the machine you want by configuring it a couple of different ways - I found that the exact same machine could vary in price by up to 25% (which is a lot!) depending on which starting point and discount package you chose.

All in all, I'm happy though, I got a good machine cheaper than I would have bought in a brick and mortar and/or portal frame and block infill and/or timber frame and/or steel frame and (stop it, they get the picture) shop, and it only took 2 days to get here. Yay.

Prey.

I've just finished a game called "Prey," which is a First Person Shooter with a twist - literally. Manipulate gravity as you battle against, yes you've guessed it, nasty aliens. Kill them all, and you win. And it's fun, too! Some interesting weapons, excellent graphics, and the gravity thing mucking with your head throughout the game add up to a very atmospheric game, and a real feeling of achievement finishing it. Recommended by both of my thumbs.

In other news, I'm happy today. For some reason.

Dawn of War - Computer Game Review....

For anyone who's interested, Dawn of War is very good. It's a real time strategy based on the Warhammer 40k universe - this helps makes it good, as the game's universe has been well set up, and anyone who used to play the 40k game, or even just buy White Dwarf occasionally will be familiar with the units and races in the game.

It's good fun, as usual, setting up your bases and defences. Controlling troops is quite easy too, as they're arranged in squads rather than single units. You can customise the squads too, with a variety of heavy weapons, some good against vehicles, others better for mowing down enemy soldiers.

One criticism is that the main game is quite short at only 11 missions long, but there's a skirmish mode where you can set up a one-off battle against the computer, not to mention the multiplayer mode which I didn't play with. So a good review for Dawn of War. 7/11 we'll say.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Blog - I'm still doing this after a whole year!!!

Fixed!

Thanks to the clever computers in work! Uninstalled the u3 stuff, and its now a vanilla, plug and play flash drive. Yay.

That's all for tonight, except we have a comedian in the audience. A worthy comment indeed. I couldn't have done better myself.

A new word has been invented.

Qwertyfaced: Noun: In a state of fatigue, esp. near a computer. From the pattern on your cheek when you sleep on a keyboard. I wanted to get this down before anyone else did. I'll be onto the Oxford English Dictionary people shortly.

Irritating Flash drive problems...

I bought a flash drive recently, a USB key thingy. This is a cry for help. It has a new U3 feature on it, which enables you to run programmes from the flash drive rather than the pc's own hard disk. But whenever it tries to load this up, my PC freezes! AArrrggghhh.

I'm hoping that somebody might stumble across this post and help me out. Some hope, huh!? Right, it's that time. Blog again soon.