It's a different game from what I expected, but was unsurprising given that I have little idea what sort of game it was supposed to be other than a testing area.
Moonbase Alpha is really a game about organisational skill, an important aspect of leadership. You begin in a damaged moon base that was struck by some sort of meteorite. Because the life support system was hit, your oxygen is now limited to about 25 minutes of it (I think). The mission is to repair everything before you suffocate.
Repair work is simple but, at times, difficult. It's mainly just getting the right tool of the available two, the wrench and the welding torch, and clicking on the machine that needs attention. It will then automatically repair for you within minutes, but at regular intervals you are given a puzzle that would save you several seconds.
The puzzle is the sort where you have to move your cursor from one point to another without touching the border.
Follow the red lines from one point to another without touching the green borders. 9.6 is the number of seconds left. Level 4 is easy, fyi.There are many parts that have been damaged to various degrees and in some places, you cannot access the faulty machines without the aid of a robot due to coolant leakage.
The game is in the 3rd-person view. This screenshot shows the player holding the pink and white robot and the Robot Control Unit (RCU) which is in the black suitcase.The robot has limited power and has limited movement because it's on wheels. Also, there are two robots available - one with a welding torch and one with an arm for picking up objects.
To make things slightly more convenient and complex, there are several spare units of all the parts that need repair. Players can walk some distance and pick them up to replace the parts or go straight to the dirty work and hope it's faster than taking that short journey.
That was the simple part.
Each game has a leader who tells the others what to do. Basically it's identical to that test Singaporean recruits were given in BMT in which the officers look for potential cadets for OCS. The challenge is there, the objectives simple and the tools are freely available. How efficiently and effectively the leader get his team to get things done is the real game. All the times in multiplayer games are recorded and ranked so that there is a form of competition.
However, players are also given an additional problem - a machine somewhere would require immediate attention during the round. The leader is then tested on his response in emergency situations.
I have a feeling NASA is going to use that mmorpg to find new recruits for their space missions in the future, just like how the game America's Army was used to by the US military to advertise career opportunities within the game.
It seems Mount and Blade: Warband has a lot of mods that I'm not aware of, and it has already been updated to allow multiplayer mode.
I really need to check them out. L4D2 and Alien Swarm are getting boring, and Hammer is too tedious.
I think my penis has finally got big enough today. They finally stopped sending me those penis enlargement ads and are now trying to get me to look at retirement homes.
Introducing the "No One's Pleasure" condoms.
Contraceptive manufacturer Trojan unveiled its new line of “No One’s Pleasure” condoms Wednesday, the first prophylactic specifically designed to intensify sexual dissatisfaction among bitter and resentful couples.
“These condoms feel extremely unnatural, and their sandpaper-like texture is so rough and gritty it rubs everyone raw."
“These things are great,” said test subject Jerry Morelli, who explained that the condoms have helped him find new ways to loathe and disparage his wife of 15 years. “If I’m not gonna enjoy myself, I want to make damn sure she doesn’t either.”
Want to have angry sex? Here's the solution. Put on a “Ultra-Chafe: Super Dry” and it will turn your romantic night into an abrasive nightmare both of you will never forget.
The Wikileaks documents were apparently seriously big. They have been claimed to show that the war in the Middle East is going worse than the US revealed, not that it's a big surprise. That doesn't matter though because it still hurts Obama's popularity after all the shit he's been getting for the BP oil spill.
Obviously he's not going to serve a second term... or is he?
A black couple has a white baby. It's not even mixed blood, but all white without being albino. What is going on?!
A medley of most, if not all, the music in Oblivion. Somehow it's much better than I remember. Maybe it's because I'm not distracted by monsters and quests now. Great stuff for Oblivion players, interestingly calm music for those who haven't tried this excellent game. Interestingly calm because such things don't usually appear on this blog.
Brings back memories.
If you have the money, these guys deserve to be paid.
Natural Selection 2 is out... in alpha phase. Only those who pre-ordered at double price (US$40, normal price US$20) got to play it.
Now the anxiety begins. I'm really interested to see what it's got but at the moment it's way too early to tell. The commander modes are limited and their is only a single map at the point of development. However, I'm already considering buying it when it's out on Steam, especially since new games always have a week of discount when they initially become available on Steam.
I'm kind of sure that it will be out on Steam only after beta phase, so I will see enough feedback to decide by then.
Starcraft 2 is out today. Big day for Blizzard. Not going to buy it since I'm 80% confident it's seriously overhyped and doesn't fill the shoes of the original SC. From what I've observed of WoW's heavy advertising, I can tell Blizzard has a formidable marketing department.
Therefore it's expected that we should all feel more anxious to buy it than we should really be.
Even if that's not the case, I'm not really an RTS gamer. I know for sure I won't be playing it all the time whether I buy it or not. In short, I'm not buying. At most I'll get a copy just to find out its story but there's no way buying a copy is going to be worth my money.
Frankly speaking, I think the RTS genre is dying. The most popular games out there are mostly FPS and RPGs, sometimes both. Behind these are racing and other sports games. Lagging somewhere behind are the horribly inane Flash games that the true casual players enjoy.
Even in South Korea where Starcraft is very big, I don't believe it's the most popular game there. The thing is that there's nothing to watch in a mmorpg combat. Trust me, the excitement of watching two characters fight seriously in WoW can be ranked somewhere between watching paint dry and reading my blog when I first started typing shit here.
The reason IMHO that SC has so many sponsored tournaments in S. Korea is because it's actually watchable, albeit only by people who have tried the game before.
Afghanistan whines about how the US doesn't do shit when Pakistan was revealed to be betraying the alliance by helping the enemies. I hope they aren't going to blame Obama for this war since common sense says that Bush is the guy who caused all that. But after Bush got voted for his second term, I'm not sure if the Americans have any common sense.
I really wonder how this war will be seen in the future by historians. Very curious. It's so damn obviously unjust with a casus belli that's clearly bullshit like the one used by Nazi Germany to invade Poland, yet nobody can do anything about that.
This war makes me think that we aren't actually living in a peaceful world. We're just living in the peaceful parts of the world. We aren't anywhere close to achieving world peace; it's just that we're so far away from the frontlines that the fighting is nothing but news reports to us. Real humans are dying everyday in the Middle East because of the invasion, both civilians and soldiers, yet to us they are just numbers.
Sad, isn't it? Admit it, your work/studies at the moment are much more important than the innocent lives being lost on a daily basis just because they're living in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Which is more important?
A) Doing something to stop the war.
B) Work you need to finish by today.
If you argue that if there's actually a way to accomplish A you would, then please answer to yourself honestly the following question:
Did you even bother to google for A before answering the above?
I don't need to know your answer, and neither is it important whether Google can actually deliver. What is important is whether you have tried to find a way before justifying your inaction by convincing yourselves that it's a lost cause.
All life is sacred my ass. Life is cheap and you know it. You and I can die today and life will still go on. A few tears may be wept but a year after, everything will be back to normal. I guess with six billion people around, even a hundred thousand deaths are merely a negligible percentage.
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