In other news — After hours and hours of patching the beta, I present to you a lovely screenshot of a death knight elf. See how the shadow is cast over her face? That’s something special right there.

I can also reveal that as a death knight, all races (except undead) can choose to either have a regular or undead appearance, which make for some interesting race hybrids.

Update: Here’s what I look like after three more hours of gameplay.

Take a look at the screenshot above. Notice anything different or unusual? Really? You don’t?

Look again - it’s a red train in a green station!

You may be saying “OMG” right now, understandably so. Want to get in on the track-sharing goodness? I know you do.

Download OpenTTD TiPP FSC (.zip 13.8mb)

You don’t even need hamachi anymore.
The server address is: openttd.flamescape.com

Vent me up for a game and I’ll let you know the password.

Read more to see how track sharing works and other features.

(more…)

Now, I like trains. I really do like trains - more than a normal person should be allowed to like them - but thankfully, not as much as those freaks in museums. I just want you to realise that this non-review is not skewed by my train-liking amount.

This game is boring. Mega boring.

I suppose that is a bit unfair, as this non-game was designed to simulate what some people do for a living. As a game concept though, it has failed.

There are two goals you can aim for with this game:

1. Do it right. Pick up passengers and drop them off.
2. Derail. Crash or roll it.

The game is almost playable just for the ability to derail — if only those very short moments of glee weren’t woven together with loading times akin to Postal 2 (back in the day).

If all of this hasn’t put you off already, here is one final very good reason not to install this game:

It really does take that long.

I do have a plan.

Want to hear read it? No? Fine, whatever.

Behold! A three step plan to my ultimate success in the games industry.

1. Get qualified
2. Get noticed
3. Get paid

Read on to learn of the intricacies….

(more…)

Looking back at the recent OpenTTD related goings on, I thought I should post some post-mortems on our empires.

It’s all here - from terraformed graffiti, retarded rail networks, huge cities and the effects of global warming.

To begin, let’s have a look at the four-player game of Miku, John + Adam (Finningbury Transport) and Mark (Mark Transport).

(more…)

The game is set in the future and involves killing Germans and other aliens.

Yeh, it’s an old game - but it’s fun, right? Find me on the Ventrilo and let’s play a game!

Regarding WoW BG AFKers:

You honour leechers should be ashamed of yourselves! If you’re not willing to stop for the good of other players then stop for the good of yourselves. Here’s the blue response:

…purposefully avoiding the “AFK” tag in a battleground, regardless of the method used is an actionable offence. Anyone found by us to be leeching honour in this way will be first removed from the Battleground, and then action will be taken on their account, up to and including permanent account suspension.

If you should see anyone avoiding AFK in a battleground, please report them to us in game, and we will try to witness the offence and take appropriate action in accordance with our policies.

Would it be fair to say that maybe over half of all battlegrounds are made up of leechers now? Check out this screenshot and see for yourselves. I count 26 horde AFK, leaving 14 horde to win a 40 vs 40 battle. Needless to say we lost that one, with a score of 599-0.

Assholes.

Was playing OpenTTD with Alsamus yesterday. I’ve got a small craving for it now.

Want to join in the Chris Sawyer-based funtimes? Here’s a shopping list and some instructions:

1. Install Transport Tycoon Deluxe
2. Install OpenTTD 0.5.3
3. Extract FSC GRF Patch to your OpenTTD directory.
4. Install Hamachi, connect to the following network:
   • network: flamescapecult
   • password: fsc

Ok good. When you’re ready, seek me out and we’ll set up a game.

Yes, ok, I know this is getting quite tenuous now but the pictures are so pretty. Last one, promise.

Play PORTAL!

Still I speak to people who haven’t played portal yet. What’s the deal with that?

Forget what you’ve read and the trailers you’ve seen.

Not only is Portal canonical to the Half Life universe, but it also has a story of its own. This is way more than a puzzle game. It has everything you’d expect from a FPS and even more still.

If you haven’t already - Play it!

Preloading complete; I am excited.

I am only two thirds as excited as I should be though, as it feels like Team Fortress 2 has already been out for a month. However, I’ll be sure to make up for that empty space inside of me by playing Half Life 2:EP2 twice (to hear the commentary track of course).

As a black box owner, I do not share the frustration of having to re-buy the earlier games that you orange boxers are forced into. Better yet, my black box came free with my new ATI card.

So consider this a big, fat, massive gloat to all of you.

Does anyone remember the Tower of Goo? Of course you do. Here’s something new that is very much like that. It’s called the World of Goo.

(more…)