Blog FeedVarious Electronic Stimuli
A week ago I was on vacation floating around in pools and filling large gaps of my day with glorious amounts of nothing. Once you return from such a relaxed lifestyle it takes a few days to really get back into the swing of life. Whether it be work or classes or just picking up where you left off; it is rather interesting to be a little foggy in the head for a day or too. Well along with that comes boredom if you don’t have anything to occupy your time with. In the day I had some work to do but once evening hit I just kind of wandered about. It is an odd situation because while on vacation I really didn’t do much in the way of going places or seeing things (well the normal kinds of things at least, more on that some other time), yet doing nothing at home just didn’t translate into the same kind of ‘nothing’. Being ‘bored’ really hasn’t happened to me in probably years mainly because of the endless content of the Internet and computers. For some reason though I was avoiding my computer. Well anyway that is all over and in return I have been saturated by all sorts of entertainment.
Two new addictions for my life, Ground Control II and DVD Audio. Ground Control II (GCII) is something I’ve been meaning to get for a long time. I played the demo to death and probably would have picked it up on its release date (June 22nd) if I had expendable income at that time. I am glad I finally got it; it is everything I expected and more. I am not going to get into extreme detail because I will start babbling on like a fanboy. Basically it is an RTS game that does away with the previous formula of base building then mass army attacks. It makes it all about combat tactics rather than economic/base strength. The ‘micromanagement’ in the game is no longer making sure your peons or drones are mining and upgrading, but rather making sure that the 4 fronts of your coming attack are all in the proper places and your air strike has been called in etc. It makes it so in battle, if you leave your troops alone with no guidance they will not do as well. There are a lot of factors in each confrontation and things change on the fly because the enemy (both AI or human) moves around a lot and seeks to shift the battle in his favor. Things like elevation and Line of Sight come into play, as well as vehicle weak spots and secondary modes of fire for each unit. Infantry can occupy buildings and take cover in forests where vehicles can’t go. If you are smart and know what you are doing you can destroy a force 5x your size with proper tactics. Good lord its awesome, just get it please, I want the community to flourish but the game doesn’t have a household name like ‘warcraft’. It is actually an evolution for the rather static RTS genre. Check out the demos and contact me if you are ever up for a game.
I was reorganising a lot of my CDs and DVDs yesterday and came across this DVD that came with my soundcard some years ago (Audigy 2). Usually when you buy name-brand hardware you get the drivers disc and then a bunch of extraneous crap programs that are usually 1/2 as good as the stuff you already have or limited ‘trial’ editions of programs. So normally I just grab the drivers disc and toss the rest in a folder somewhere. Well I am glad I didn’t actually throw this disc away. It was label “DVD Audio Samples”. It is loaded with 17 tracks of about 5 genres of music, all in DVD Audio. For those not ‘in the know’ (as wasn’t myself a few days ago) DVD Audio is an experience in and of itself. Instead of just using two channels like stereo, it uses up to 6. It is also 24bit instead of 16bit like normal CDs. This makes listening to music, with the proper equipment, rather amazing. It is so rich and clear the music nearly feels tangible. And since it uses so many channels it kind of flows over you and makes you feel like you are standing in the middle of the band as they play. In short I love it and want to get my hands on as much of it as possible. Unfortunately it really hasn’t caught on and very few artists have released DVD audio versions of their music. Later today I am heading to circuit city to see their selection hoping they have some good classical music (DVD classical makes all other classical music seem flat).
Along with games and music I grabbed the Sealab 2021 DVD, saw probably every movie in the theatres and more. I love technology. It gives a meaning to my life that I would probably have to become a better person or something to receive on my own.
26th July | Reply
Yeah, I have to say that since I became big on gaming, I’ve never had an excuse to be really, genuinely bored. It would have come close back when my internet access was really restricted, and I’d be running out of new games, but now with broadband there are always new sites to go and look at, and I can download game demos at will and try them out - something I’m yet to do with GC2, I have to admit.
Sometimes I do get too closed-minded about what sites I go and visit though. I get stuck into a routine of sites I pass by each day, and I don’t deviate too far from it. So once I’ve been on for a few hours, I sometimes can’t think of what else to do, or what other sites I could possibly be interested in visiting. Google helps with that, of course.