Oooh, a beta for New Zealand scenery just came out - I should try that. Seems like the island should have some really nifty terrain to fly over. That and Hawaii, come to think of it. Hmm, need to find a good island-hopping plane.

I subbed for a month of EVE. For the moment, something a bit more in-depth, analytical and a bit slower (although when you get locked by a battlecruiser on a milk run and hit with a missile for 80% shields and 35% health it feels nothing but!) seems to be better suited to the hectic fun that is the Facebook work day. Ahh, Facebook. You and Internet Explorer are a match made in the deepest bowels of Mount Doom. Wish you'd stayed there (although our app is gonna be pretty durn awesome!). They've added a ton of features and content while I was away, and it feels much more gamey this time around - tutorials, freebies, more things to do, career paths and advancement tips all around.

In between warps and purchases I'm still hacking away at Prototype. I don't care how "bad" of a game it is, it's still ridiculous fun, even more so now that it's full-on zombie genocide. I can't wait to restart the NewGame+ mode; I'm going to try and avoid civilian casualties this time for as long as possible; now that I have a full assortment of powers it's possible to fight battles on MY terms - or so I hope to find out. Much to my surprise, it might turn out to have longer legs than Red Faction, although RF *is* coming up with some downloadable content already, which might be worth revisiting Mars for.

Still waiting on the rest of the (hopefully healthy) server parts to get here. The upcoming 3 day weekend will hopefully serve me well for installing and transferring fun times.

I picked up ArmA2; just couldn't resist the allure of freeform full-scale warfare insanity. So far the most fun has been in the mission editor, and I've barely tapped any of it - just put down 2 squads of opposing forces on opposite ends of town and let'er rip. Then I added a tank. Then an APC. Then a couple of snipers and anti-tank guys. Then an AA guy. Once I had anti-aircraft in well ... I had to add some choppers. Before long there was a full-blown war going on in that town, and that was maybe 5 minutes of effort. Can't wait to see what kind of mayhem missions the community will create.

I had to make a Twitter account for work. There will probably be nothing there, but ... there it is, if you want it.

I re-tested the hard drive in another PC yesterday. It seems to work fine and even stopped making noise, but the moment I put it back in the MSI Wind it started up again. I took it out of the Wind to make sure it wasn't the chassis, and it persisted in emitting the high-pitched whine. I'm really uncertain as to what it is, but it's going back for a replacement. This is supposed to be a quiet server goshdarnit, and the whining is really oppressive.

I guess if it comes back and is still doing it when it's near the Wind (sympathetic vibrations? resonant frequency cascade?) ... I don't know what I'll do.

Tried the ArmA2 demo, and it was GOOD. They fixed a lot of the annoyances of the first game, and even threw in a few tutorials to get acquainted with the concept. The UI seems more straightforward, there are some tutorials to get a handle on things quickly, the voice commands actually make sense this time and give a feeling of being involved - the AI now speaks to YOU, and responds to things YOU say, your squadmates are competent and easily findable, and there's a whole slew of handicaps to help you overcome the whole monitor + non-3D audio issue of finding your enemies and your friends. So yeah, two thumbs up and I'm eagerly awaiting a sale. In the meantime I'll mess around with the mission editor a bit.

No time to build the airport, what with work (things are heating up as we get closer to release), server woes and ArmA2. I got some tips on the X-Plane forum, though, so it'll definitely happen.

Server arrived, and the good news is that it's completely silent. Unfortunately, the hard drive I chose for it is not, and emits a piercing high-pitched whine. I'm pretty sure none of my other 4 or so do, so ... back to NewEgg it goes, after I make sure that it's the HDD and not the enclosure. Darnit, I hate it when parts come in dead. Rawr!

Ah well. I guess I'll wait a bit longer.

... is quite a few hours. Yeah, I can throw what I made into XPlane and most likely nobody will be able to tell, but if I'm having aspirations to contribute to the Open Scenery Project - and why not - I should probably spend a bit more time figuring things out.

Anyway, here's a preview. It's textured with just the one image for starters, and that's going to be the next part of the fun - figuring out how to paint the thing using just one image.

Oh yeah, the new server came in - it's so tiny and cute! I should've done this ages ago ... now I'm just waiting for the HDD and RAM and then will try to install Ubuntu on it from a memory card (it doesn't have a CD drive, and I'm hoping I won't need to put one in there).

Well, I've placed 50 buildings or so and 20-odd planes at KEUG; unfortunately there's no easy way to add roads or make custom shapes in the Overlay Editor (I guess that's why it's called that, and not Overlay Editor and Shape Maker ) so I have to get a bit more advanced now - that's right, a new career in 3D modeling is in store for me Still, it already looks lots better than just a barren runway!

And SketchUp (which I just checked out this morning) looks much more approachable than Blender, so maybe it won't be all that difficult to create some nifty buildings. Roads will be a different matter; not sure how to go about that.

I should really be tapping people at work for drive-and-hike ideas: this spot looks lovely, and the rest of the drive doesn't look half-bad either. It's high time to start tapping what's available around us rather than keep thinking about trips farther out. In fact, erm, now is probably the best time. Heh.

Prototype - still excellent. I'm eyeballing ArmA2 and its supposedly powerful editor now, though. Hmm.

Edit: Ok, SketchUp rocks. 5 minutes and I have a passable and different building. Sure the scale might be a bit off (although not if it's a hangar haha!) and the windows not lining up, but I wager another 5 minutes and it'd be perfect for placing into X-Plane. After all, you mostly will NOT be examining these structures up close anyway.

Crane Wars is out!

I finished Red Faction, and it was quite satisfying all the way to the end. I'm glad I turned the difficulty down to Easy though - it's basically the button that turns off the "if shit goes bad, run away and try again later" method of playing, which I just plain don't have time for. It provides a longer pause between respawns, and enemies that don't hit quite so hard - so all you need is a breather to regain the upper hand, not a full-blown run-away-and-regroup. Which is nice.

I did download, install and patch All Aspect Warfare, but I was so focused on finishing RF that I had no time to fire it up. Perhaps tonight, although the manual is a tad bit intimidating. Fortunately I have a second monitor on which I can display the docs while I go through the tutorial.

Blackberries are blooming, chestnuts are starting to fruit, and we went strawberry-picking. Life is good here in the state of growing things. ^_^

roBurky's on a roll, this time with a homeless Sim 3 family. I used to write game diaries, but they were way too wordy, not enough pictures-y, and well, not very clever. Here's a Dwarf Fortress one, also very good.

I'm almost done with Red Faction and started up Prototype. Now I'm finding it difficult to go back to wrap up RF ... the power of upgradeable superjump (with midair moves and glide) is undeniable. The entirety of zombie-infested Manhattan is nothing to sneer at either, even if it's the most lackluster rendition of a city that I've ever seen. I'll have more thoughts later, but in short ... Red Faction is definitely the better crafted game all around, but Prototype's movement and batshit insanity makes it REALLY hard to not rate it higher in the fun department.

Edit: Wow. The RPS crowd turns things around and actually contributes to Derek Smart's game. Cool. I gotta read the whole thing tomorrow. And try the game!