Family, Cool Stuff and Assorted Geekery; the finer things in life. Updated when I have something interesting to write :)
I did a post about all the games I played in 2014. The only source of data I had was the total play-time from Steam, but I really wanted a way of getting more detailed information (like when I played them and how long for).
I thought about it and I what I wanted was script that would record the time processes that were running on my system and write them to a file. The script would stay running and update the file at periodic intervals to record how long the processes had been running for.
My kids are getting into computer gaming and they often ask me what certain gaming-related words mean. I never really think about how byzantine some of the words are until someone asks so I thought I’d note them down as best I kind. I’ve tried to keep the list as generic as possible (if I included all the MMO slang it’d probably be several dozen more pages).
So here’s the list, and my best attempt to make sense of them;
Steam is awesome. It keeps all my games organised, makes it easy to play with my friends, lets me buy games for cheap and has a library of information about the games I like.
The client also tends to run like a dog.
Or at least, it did. Read on to find out how a average man sped up Steam with one simple trick! Origin marketers hate him!
I’m really enjoying Elite Dangerous, but sometimes I think I’ve got a mild case of Stockholm Syndrome as sometimes playing the game seems like being in a long-term relationship with a sociopath.
One of the best/worst things about the game is that failure has consequences. If you lose your ship, you lose it and everything in it – there’s no reload or roll-back. If you’re careful you always have enough money to cover an insurance claim; that allows you to rebuy your ship and equipment at a fraction of the cost but you’ll still lose anything you’re carrying or have accumulated as data since leaving port.
But as long as you’re cautious you shouldn’t die too often, right?
Continue reading “Dumb Ways to Die : Elite Dangerous Edition”I was thinking about how when I got into one thing as a child it often got me interested in something else. So how to did I get from Lego bricks to System Design, PowerShell and Sci-Fi?
What we need, is a flow chart! To the Bat-Publisher! (below the line).
Happy New Year!
Through the magic of Steam I can look back and see all the games I played in the last year. Of course not all of them are 2014 games, but still 🙂
The list and some very brief thoughts are below.
I’m about 80 hours into Dragon Age : Inquisition and having a blast with it. Lots of good stuff in the game and they’ve obviously taken the criticisms of Dragon Age 2 to heart in a big way. More details below the line.
Having evaluated the different options from the various information sources available I opted to get the CH Fighterstick and Throttle as my HOTAS of choice. It arrived in a pleasingly huge box and I got to grips with it straight away. I’ve noted my totally unscientific and subjective opinions below 🙂
Continue reading “CH HOTAS (Fighterstick and Throttle) Review”
As part of the long list of preparations for the release of Elite : Dangerous I decided it was time to get a new HOTAS system. Hands On Throttle And Stick means exactly what it says; a joystick and throttle with so many buttons you don’t need to take your hands off to fiddle with the keyboard. They can be expensive bits of kit, but after a lot of searching and reading I settled on getting the CH Fighterstick and CH Throttle.
This post will break down why I went for the CH and I’ll do a follow-on post about what I think about the HOTAS system itself.
There’s nothing like a LAN Party. Being able to get together, meet your friends face-to-face and then shoot them is brilliant fun. I’ve been going to these since the second ever Insomnia, though now we all pile around someone’s house rather than a large room in Swindon Football Club.
The games we’re currently playing at LANs are here.
Herring's Fishbait 