Sparkie's Junkyard » Computers

Magicka

Sparkie — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 16:21:31 +0000

Do you like wizards, magick spells, blowing up goblins, blowing up your friends, reviving them, blowing them up again, stealing all their things then trying to work together to defeat a troll? Yes? Well buy Magicka then and play it with Adam, Priyan and me!

PS: This comic in no way represents Magicka

Left 4 Dead 2 (After Extra Time)

Sparkie — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 01:19:50 +0000

I got L4D2 for Christmas, but a well-timed sale this week meant that we got over the four-person requirement and turned it into a good sociable game. Now my need to lock myself in a darkened room and swear loudly at people across the internet has been sated

It’s much, much harder than the original, though the introduction of swords/cricket bats/crowbars has maybe something to do with it. I get to kill hundreds of zombies but running suicidally into the horde isn’t great for staying alive in the long-run.

One campaign down, if only they hadn’t left me behind to die

He is Born

Sparkie — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:05:49 +0000

Following on from the excellent example in Rock Paper Shotgun, Priyan, Adam, Sam, Tom and I have started a game of Solium Infernum. This is a turn-based, play-by-email game from an independent developer, and is more of an electronic boardgame than anything else really, with the advantage that being unable to see what everyone else is scheming means that you’re in for some big surprises a lot of the time.

The premise is as follows: old Lucifer has gone AWOL, leaving behind a collection of angry, power-hungry, despotic, back-stabbing, cloth-eared, swivel-eyed, fornicating little gits to scrap over the spoils. However, Hell turns out to be a somewhat more structured place than the land up above, in that you can’t just go invading someone’s country without a good reason – you must earn the permission from the Infernal Conclave to follow up a diplomatic snub or insult. At this point you’ve entered into a Vendetta and pretty much anything goes.

Now at the moment the game is still ongoing, and I can’t go into much detail about anything because I’m sure that anything I say will be taken down and used against me (coughknickerscough), but I can introduce you to my character, Dr Monoculus.

Name: Dr Desmond Olivier Octavius Monoculus
Job Title: Duke of Hell (soon to be upgraded to Ruler, of course)

Likes: Snappy clothes, pulling the legs off spiders, arranging the skulls of his vanquished foes in alphabetical order.
Dislikes: Mess, short people, rain (so he’s in a bad mood at the moment)

Now, unfortunately, I have to remain silent until things finish, but in the mean time I’ll be preparing a series of battle reports to release once it’s all over…

Sales Time

Sparkie — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:14:37 +0000

Quick heads-up, although most people who this applies to have probably already noticed – Steam are having a huge sale at the moment. It’s basically too big to browse through, so someone else has done the hard work for you.

If you’ve ever wanted to snap up some older games, they start at about £1.50 I can recommend the Secret of Monkey Island, Braid and Audiosurf. Have fun!

Following the herd

Sparkie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:10:46 +0000

Priyan’s done it, Adam’s done it, people haven’t complained about it too much, so I took the plunge and upgraded both my operating systems within a week of each other. Vista Mark 2 is ticking away happily on my computer and after a week I have to say I quite like it. I took advantage of Microsoft’s £30 student offer to get the 64-bit Pro version (normally £160) and it installed very easily.

I also switched to 64-bit Ubuntu 9.10, just for a bit of fun, and could recommend that too. Basically, if you’ve got a spare Sunday afternoon, why not mess around with a computer?