Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Gaming, sweet sweet gaming

Thinking back, my computer gaming career started with Diablo, in autumn 1999. Patrick introduced me to it, and over the course of the next few years I literally wore out the CD-ROM drive in my laptop playing it. I think I can find our printout of Jarulf's guide... I usually played a Rogue, Patrick a Warrior, and Edgar a Sorcerer. Both Edgar and I racked up a good number of ears from Patrick's Warrior, because he kept wandering into our lines of fire, the silly boy.

I almost wore out my anticipation gland waiting for Diablo II. I asked for it for my birthday, as it was close to the predicted release date, and actually received it six months later. (Darn software developers.) Played the snot out of DII and DII: Lord of Destruction, though we didn't get as much multi-player goodness out of that.

About the time I got tired of DII (Gasp! yes, it can happen) I found Dungeon Siege. (Oddly enough, I saw Patrick playing it... there may be a pattern developing here.) Hmmm, hacking and slashing (and spell casting and bow shooting). Plot? Whatevs. Tasty. :D Same goes for Dungeon Siege II. Now I just need the expansion pack. And the PSP game. (Not sure about the movie. Pluses: Jason Statham! Ron Perlman! Minuses: Burt Reynolds! Uwe "worst movie director since Ed Wood, and I think Ed might have been better" Boll!)

Then, in December 2002, came the big one... Neverwinter Nights. Though I'd only played 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons once, I fell in love with this game. Made a point of trying to play all the main classes, prestige classes, and interesting class combinations. Bought all the expansions. Started writing maybe 13 zillion mods. Got involved on the forums. Seriously thought about getting a job with BioWare in Edmonton. (I was tickled pink to be able to put "Started playing D&D in 1978" on a resume. And you said gaming was a waste of time, Dad! ;) )

Then we got an Xbox. So much BioWare goodness! Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic! Played thru light side and dark side, tried all the character classes. (Haven't finished KoToR II yet -- ran out of thumbs.) Bought Jade Empire the second it came out and finished it almost as quickly. Gave Morrowind a shot, but it was almost *too* big. That and Fable await me when I return to gaming.

I shan't even mention the PSP. :D

Our latest project is to get the kiddo's PC set up and networked for family gaming. Dang, I've got to get well...

4 comments:

kimalanus said...

By the time I got all the PC's in the house networked, everybody had pigged out on Diablo, Diablo II and the expansions. Been a lot of Civilization played at our house, but not multiplayer. I got hooked on Total War series with Medieval: Total War. But the multiplayer game is just the one off battles, no strategic build-the-infrastructure/economy buy-the-troops side so I never even bothered.... Miniatures games scratch that itch better. Right now I am trying to conquer EVERY territory in Rome: Total War instead of just meeting the victory conditions (50 territories plus Rome) which means I have to leave Rome alone until the last turn. I've been quashing revolts and trying to build enough troops to take the last provinces in out of the way corners for decades now...

Kim

Ab_Normal said...

The impetus for finally getting our network done: E and A want to play Heroes of Might and Magic III multiplayer. I should really get them a slightly newer game, eh? Problem being the kiddo's "new" pc has a 64MB video card, and I'm afraid newer stuff would just bounce...

kimalanus said...

IIRC, 64 MB gets you 32 bit color and 1024x768 resolution. Bandwidth (PCI, AGP, 2x, 2x/4x or 4x/8x or PCIe) actually is more important. Frame rate suffers with slower transfer rates and GPU speeds, not VRAM past a point. There are some pointless (as in there's no point to that much VRAM) video cards out there....

Other than games desperate for frame rate (first person shooters) most stuff just needs hardware Texture and Lighting and 64mb of RAM. It's the hardware T&L that blocks most laptops, not the VRAM requirements.

If A's PC meets the CPU and RAM requirements, you could probably update the software.

Yes, I am a bit of a hardware geek.

Kim

Ab_Normal said...

a *bit*? :D

Thanks!