I’ve been playing WoW a lot recently — so much so that I’ve neglected ALL other games.

So my apologies go out to: Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, GTA4 (PC version), Call of Duty: World at War and Left 4 Dead. I am sorry for not playing you yet - you are on my to-do list.

Anyway, back on to WoW — It really is a lot of fun. Among other things, I have just bought my TTM and I’m now saving for a CWH and a sweet hog.

So thank you WoW for such a great year. I hope the next one is just as fun. I leave you with this picture of my one minute at the top, when I achieved Realm First! Grand Master Angler

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.

It’s a hybrid of the words coding and programming, but it also has an extra meaning of its own…

Ramming, being another word for intercourse, makes coderamming sound like “sex with code” — which in itself is quite an accurate definition.

Here I shall use it in a sentence:

“I was coderamming all night long — my input device is exhausted.”

I am a coderammer. That is all.

At this time of year, I like to look back and remember our patriots that stood up against those filthy traitors in the late 18th century.

In July 1780, Benedict Arnold obtained command of West Point, New York. His scheme to surrender the base to us, the British, was detected when American forces captured British Major John Andr carrying papers that revealed Arnold’s plan.

Benedict Arnold avoided capture by sailing home via the Hudson River on the British gunship, Vulture.

Arnold received a commission as a Brigadier General in the British Army, a huge annual pension of £360 and a lump sum of £6,000.

What a hero!

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.

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So I was listening to some of Kate’s B-sides. I had to hunt them down because I am such a huge fan of hers. There’s some pretty good stuff that she’s done that really should have made it to her album.

Here’s one of my favourites, Stitching Leggings.

Enjoy!

Here’s something new and exciting (for British people only) which I have developed. The FilmFour Movie Database. It combines the nature of TV listings with the data from IMDB to create a powerful search tool.

It is currently hosted on my home machine, so it will be offline at night.

You can try it out now at ff.flamescape.com or READ ON for more details.

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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.

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….

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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).

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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!

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.

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.

If you’re still running the ancient 2.3 version of ventrilo, it’s time to update. The server is running version 3 now, so go get it!

Play PORTAL!

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!

Thanks to a certain app on Facebook used to “compare people”, I am well aware that I have terrible taste in music (but then again, it also says that I have the best hair and that I’m the most dateable of all my friends).

So if you don’t mind transgressing into my world for a second, you must listen to the music of Emma Pollock formerly of The Delgados. She has recently released her debut album, Watch the Fireworks. Once again, no reviews from me - I’m not that deep or sophisticated. Just listen and hopefully you might like it.

You can hear a few tracks for free on her website.

Some researchers say that men can have ‘women’s brains’ and that women can think more like men.

Fascinating stuff, I know.

Anyhow - as I am a bit of a girl sometimes - I was overly curious to know my own brain gender. I took their online test and I think I received someone else’s results. The test placed me perfectly in the centre of the male brain classification and they made the following insights based on my answers:

• I fight well because of the way I cross my fingers.
• I can’t empathise.
• I have really manly hands.
• I like girls.

I do like the girls.

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.