Thread:Deathstalker666/@comment-5641163-20150522174501/@comment-5641163-20150525174332

I've only played Thief a little, but the selfsame friend I keep mentioning (he's pretty much my only one in this town, the other two are back where I used to live) is a huge fan of the series and has been going on about it for years. I started my stealth gaming with Splinter Cell, and being a bit of a weapons and technolgy fan I've found I prefer the more high-tech stealth games.

I did play UT for a while, only because everyone else was at the time. We used to spend hours screwing around with the "redeemer" weapon, trying to steer missiles through impossible places in the levels (or playing "goalkeeper" and trying to "catch" them mid-air). Other than that and the low gravity levels it didn't seem that appealing, the maps all seemed to be geared towards about 8 players and there were usually only three or four of us, so Quake and Doom 2 DM was so much more fun.

Unreal I played and liked reasonably, although at the time my hardware struggled with the engine and I couldn't understand why everything had to be so "pretty". Unreal II I still play, a game that could teach Halo a great deal about storytelling and level design (Halo having some of the worst in the history of gaming, as this diagram I made years ago demonstrates).

I slept for 15 hours yesterday, it's what I normally do (and easy after being awake for so long), it sets me up nicely for the week ahead. In sync with the world, stacks of gaming done, and well-rested as hell. It's not a bad system.

I like Android simply because there's no limits to what you can do with it, I dislike the restrictions Apple put on their stuff. I could write my own apps if I wasn't so staggeringly lazy, and if there's something my phone does that annoys me (or I want to change or customise), chances are there's an app to sort it. With iOS you're kinda stuck. Plus over here iPhones cost about three times as much as the equivalent Android phone, so I'm always amazed they sell so many.

I followed a guy the other day in a £30,000 Mercedes. He was going about 35 miles an hour on a dual carriageway (think small freeway) and being overtaken by trucks. Some people are literally too stupid to deserve nice things. I should've pulled him over and said "by the power invested in me...." ;-)

To his credit, the guy with the gaming rig did at least spring for SSD, so he can access his photos faster. Because we all know how slow they appear normally. Sure.

The only text adventure I put real effort into was Gremlins on the C64. It was the first one I'd ever seen that had real-time events, meaning if you took too long to do something or solve a puzzle, you'd get mown down by a snow plough or electrocuted by Stripe. It made the thing really tense, when you'd type "LOOK" and it'd go: "You are in a street. There are houses festooned with Christmas lights. Exits are to the N and S.

In the distance, you hear an engine starting."

My job turned out to be a bust, by the way, I went out to do some shopping on the way there, and just as I was about to head his way he texted me to say he'd forgotten it was a Bank Holiday and could I come back on Friday. Gee thanks. His wife's pretty stunning too, but she probably won't be there on Friday either. Spoilsport.