John

8:45am: A good week for retro rpg
I've been playing the old-skool Diablo clone Torchlight (and praised it in a previous post).

I've now got Dragon Age Origins.

Initial impressions are extremely positive: this may well be the first decent take on the old-style party based rpgs (Baldur's Gate etc.) in many years. The UI (I'm playing the PC version - this is somewhat different to the console versions) is pretty slick: you can be zoomed in and play it like the typical current third person rpg, or you can zoom out to a more 2d view and play it very like the old rpgs.

I've not got far enough to really comment on the game. So far the story isn't as gripping as some of the best rpgs, but it's not bad.

The only other negative (though it doesn't really affect me) is that I really don't approve of their add-on policy:

At shipping time, there are some pieces of extra downloadable content. The game ships with a code for one of the more expensive of these. The problem with this is that this is a one-time code. This is a blatant attempt to A) force people to register with them and B) harm second-hand sales and rentals.

I'm also annoyed that there is another launch add-on that is useful and charged-for, just to get more money out of people. This really should have been in the game already.

Conversely, I'm not too upset about this, as the PC version was only 25 quid from Amazon. Given the length and quality of the game, it's great value. I might be more upset if I were playing the worse and much more expensive console versions.

6:47pm: Wedding
Last weekend, glittertigger and I were married.

Under the cut is a somewhat rambling account. This is under a cut as it's partly for future reference, and so rather long...

( Ramblings )

10:57pm: Diabloesque
For those of you who were keen Diablo players (I know there are some of you), check out Torchlight. It's sadly single-player only at the moment, but it's a lot of fun, and only 15 quid from Steam.

12:23pm: Married
Safely married.

Will give a proper update later. :)

7:51pm: Windows 7
I'm currently posting this from a newly installed retail version of Windows 7. Seems to work, apart from the usual hassle with Creative Labs drivers. It seems to have fixed a bug with the RC version where it wouldn't enter sleep mode correctly.

Not sure how much I'll use it as I've still got most of my software installed on my XP partition, but it does look a lot better than XP. At least this means I've managed to skip Vista. :)

5:57pm: Steampunk
I've just been to the Streampunk exhibition at the Oxford Museum of the History of Science. This is a remarkably good collection, and well worth a visit if you are in Oxford.

8:10pm: Laptop woes
In a less fun happening this weekend, my trusty PowerBook G4 may finally be dead. It no longer charges its battery (or runs off mains power). If anyone still has a round-plug pre-magsafe Apple power adaptor I'd be interested to borrow it to check whether it is just a power supply failure. However, given the fact that the charging light comes on I suspect it's a failure somewhere in the DC circuitry.

Normally this might be a good excuse to buy a shiny new laptop. However, I've been holding out in the hope that Apple will finally release a core i7 based MacBook Pro. Some PC vendors (e.g Alienware) do them now, but not Apple yet.

The PowerBook has survived for around 5 years now which is pretty good going for a laptop, and the facts that I was still regularly using it and I'm annoyed by it failing are a tribute to how well it has lasted.

8:00pm: Partied
This weekend I managed to survive my stag party. This was a lot of fun, though sadly my best man (Roo) was too ill to make it.

Given the large concentration of geekery, we went to visit Bletchley Park. This was fascinating, though it's clear that they've got a lot of work to do in restoring and maintenance. Assuming they do manage to get funding it will be interesting to see how things change over the next few years. We also visited the National Museum of Computing while there. This was also good, though they are clearly still in the getting started phase.

After this was a more conventional time of getting drunk, though this also involved games.

It was great to see many old friends.

2:03pm: Back from Scotland
Back from a lovely week in Scotland exploring distilleries, scenery, castles and stone circles.

I'm now physically tired, but mentally much relaxed.

2:13pm: Scotland
I'm currently in Scotland for a week. We're staying is Castle Deltgatie which is a mad tall thin castle.

Already I'm relaxing a lot. I'm at this moment eating fudge in the Duff house tea room.

7:03pm: A new series
I've not posted for far too long, so to get back into it I'm going to post a series of thoughts on various things I've done recently.

Before that, in case anyone is wondering, I'm doing pretty well at the moment. glittertigger is now mostly recovered, and preparations for our wedding are well underway.

First up: The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition:

While testing out Windows 7 on my home machine (I may post about this at some other point), I downloaded this off Steam.

This is a remake of the classic original, which completely new graphics and (I think) sound.

I suspect many of you will have played the original, and the gameplay is identical. In fact, the reason I'm commenting on this, is that the remake has one feature I was particularly impressed by, and think more remakes should consider: at any point you can press a button and the game smoothly morphs between the remake and the original, changing the graphics, sound and interface, but leaving you at exactly the same point in the game. It's really slick. What's slightly less slick is that there are a few bugs in the PC port. For instance, the mouse control of selecting conversation options doesn't work properly.

The new graphics are really nicely done, though in a slightly different style to the original so perhaps not to everyone's taste.

If you've not played the original I highly recommend this as a classic point-and-click adventure. However, if you have, it's personal taste if you want to pay again to play the same game. Personally I'm having fun.

Edit: on the subject of controls, it seems that it does work a bit better with the 360 controller for PC, probably due to the 360 being the primary target for the remake.

6:46pm: So how does that work then?
(Warning tech geekery ahead):

I had a rare moment of 'I can't believe that actually works' at work this week.

What I was doing was running the 64bit Windows 7 Beta on a vm hosted on a 32bit XP machine. So yes, running a 64bit operating system under a 32bit one does work (assuming you have a sufficiently recent processor). Several of my colleagues were rather surprised by this too. Kudos to vmware for implementing this.

9:40am: Watchmen
I went along to see Watchmen with last night's posse, and was pleasantly surprised.

I thought the increased level of graphic violence was rather unnecessary, but otherwise it was remarkably faithful to the comic. Most of the significant changes to the plot actually made rather more sense than the original too.

It seemed to work well as a film, with rather more substance than most recent superhero adaptations.

It's biggest weakness is probably that it is a bit too faithful to the comic: given the amount of stuff in it it may be hard to follow if you haven't read the comic, and if you have it hasn't added a great deal.

8:35am: Good news...
... for a change. :)

glittertigger and I are now engaged. I had planned to ask her on Valentine's Day, but had my plans scuppered (see my last locked post). Fortunately the next weekend seemed to work too. ;)

We are at very early stages of planning, so don't expect more details imminently.

We will probably be having a party to celebrate, but that may have to wait a few weeks.

10:17pm: LittleBigPlanet: Big disappointment
I've finally spent some time playing LittleBigPlanet, which I've been looking forward to for a long time. It was supposed to herald a new era of player creativity.

Unfortunately, it seems to be one of the most over-hyped games of recent times.

It's amazingly polished, extremely cute, and has an astonishingly sophisticated level editor.

Sadly, the game itself doesn't seem to be very playable. At heart it is a fairly basic 2d platformer (though one with a nice physics engine). This is no bad thing in itself, but the developers seem to have missed the point of a 2d platformer. The controls are imprecise and frustrating. The story levels are also frustrating - I've no idea what they were thinking with having a small number of lives and making the player start from the beginning each time. This was acceptable in the 80s but everyone else has moved on in game design since then.

It's possible that I've rather missed the point myself. I'm sure it's possible to have a lot of fun messing around with it in multi-player and coming up with new levels. Unfortunately, to unlock most of the objects for the editor requires you to play though the story levels, and I suspect that I can't be bothered.

I just hope that another developer will be inspired by the ease-of-use of the LittleBigPlanet level editor to do something similar in a game that is actually worth playing.

12:25pm: Initial thoughts on the G1
I've now had the chance to play with my G1 for a bit, so here are some initial thoughts:

So far, I've been very impressed, but this may be because I had specific requirements (I'm more interested in it as a pda/web browser than a phone).

I was also pleased to be able to get it on what is (for my usage), a much better deal than advertised on the web. All the web adverts say you need a £40 a month 18-month contract (though you get the phone free). However, I got it on a £20 a month contract for a £100 up-front cost. Admittedly, I get much less call time, but as I'm not really using it as a phone I don't care.

There are some serious flaws in it that I've come across, but they don't affect me too much:

1) The battery life is rubbish. It's not as bad as I initially thought, as it turned out that the battery monitor wasn't calibrated properly, so the phone ran for longer on 0% than it had on the rest of the battery. It's still rubbish though.

2) The camera has no flash and is very poor in low light (I've not tried it in daylight).

3) The GPS doesn't seem to work very well, and the maps rely on having a data signal, so this isn't a replacement for a proper satnav.

4) It has a pitiful amount of internal storage (70MB free). This is a problem as apps can only be installed to internal storage. Fortunately, apps are in Java, and at least so far seem to be tiny.

On to the good:

The web browser works well. There are occasional problems due to resizing for the small screen, but I've successfully used most of the web sites I care about. Even the hotmail web interface works. It still has some limitations (such as no save-as or search in page).

The other apps (google mail, google maps) etc. seem to be solid too.

The UI doesn't seem to be quite as slick as the iPhone, but it's not as far off as I expected.

The keyboard is pleasant to type with (though I've got tiny hands for a man, so experiences may vary).

It really is an open application platform. There are two limitations: apps must be in Java, and there are a few limitations on the apis available. Other than that, it does seem that anything goes. I've downloaded the free sdk, compiled the test app, and stuck it on my web-site. The phone initially refused to install it, but it turns out you just need to set a check-box in the phone settings. After that, it installed and run it without trouble. If you just want to use the apps yourself, you don't even need to register.

The apps available are a bit crude (and the phone doesn't come with many), but they seem to be getting there and there are some gems. I'm particularly impressed with the SSH client. :)

5:05pm: More tech
I succumbed and got myself a G1.

I'm posting this from the phone while shopping in Sainsburys. I'll post a proper review at some point.

7:50am: Quick Update
My new job continues to go well. Though curiously, despite having been there two today and Monday I have induction sessions.

As a treat to myself, I've upgraded my PC's graphics card to a 9600gt. Though Dell have many problems, I give them high marks for their current case design: replacing the graphics card was trivial as these things go, and required no tools at all (though I did use my anti-static strap).

For a cheap-ish graphics card, I've been pretty impressed with the 9600gt. I mainly got it so I can run recent games well at my monitor's native 1900x1200. It seems to do this job well, and I can finally play Bioshock properly. I've also just got Fallout 3 which runs well, and seems to be a good game (more on this when I've actually played it more).

6:25pm: New Job
I started my new job today. I'm not going to comment on the details (at least not in an unlocked post), but I'll be working with ao_lai again (though he's on holiday at the moment).

The first day went ok, though it was mainly taken up with admin things, and the frustration of trying to install XP on a new machine where the XP drivers clash with the power management.

10:00am: Chrome
Following discussion on bateleur's journal, I've been playing around with Google Chrome, which is Google's attempt at a browser.

It's not a completely new browser as it's page renderer is WebKit (as used by Apple).

So far, I've been pretty impressed. Its general UI, particularly handling of tabs, is way ahead of any of the other browsers I've used (though I've not significantly used Opera, so I don't know how this compares).

However, it's clearly still a Beta, and missing many features that I'd consider essential for it to be my main browser. For example, there seems to be very little control over scripting or plugins for particular pages.

6:15pm: glittertigger and I are back from New York, where we went to Tony's wedding. This was a great event, though I'm now very tired having flown back over last night.

For those of you who claim that I over-cater for events, I've now seen what real over-catering is like. :)

4:43pm: Travelling
On Tuesday, glittertigger and I are off to New York for Tony's wedding.

I'm looking forward to this a lot. I've never been to New York (though I've been driven past it).

However, it does mean that I'm likely to be almost completely out of contact until the following Monday, which is a little unfortunate while job hunting. Oh well.

8:48pm: Puzzle games are not dead
I've just been playing Braid (http://braid-game.com/) on the 360 (though apparently it will be out on the PC later this year).

I've solved the first couple of worlds, and so far it's been utterly brilliant.

1:03pm: Jobs
As many of you already know, I'm in the market for a new job.

Though I'm obviously also going through the usual channels, this is a post to ask if any of my many techie friends know of anything suitable going.

My main area is embedded systems and middleware development, architecture and project management. I'm most familiar with C, C++ and various assembly languages, but also will consider Java. I've no experience with C#, but how hard can it be. :)

I'm mainly interested in the 'hardcore' technical end of development, but will consider other things.

Drop me a line if you want a copy of my CV for reference.

12:19pm: Update on the stuck cat
A quick update:

We decided to leave it on the roof this morning to try to teach it. A while later it was in our back garden playing with the old football. A little later it was back on the roof again.

So yes, it could get down, it was just being scared.