I knew it would happen eventually. Once I got an income it was only going to be a matter of time before I found a massively multiplayer online game to play.

EVE Online is such a game. It’s in space, has a single persistent universe (i.e. all players are in the same world - no sharding), has a completely player run economy, has the record for most number of simultaneous players (over 25,000) and is tremendously fun. And now I have an income, the monthly fee of 14.99€ is looking very affordable.

And now could be the best time to join. The a big update is coming over the next year (starting at the end of the month and ending in 2007) called “Kali”. The big part (which won’t be added until towards the end of the updating) is factional warfare. As with most of these games you choose a race for your character to be in. Generally the race itself doesn’t make that much of a difference. There are role-playing elements that are different (different style of missions (think quests) for example) but other than your base attributes it’s not a big factor. If the factional warfare system is done well that could all change.

Anyway, go play now.

EVE, online games, MMORPG, MMOPG

With my broadband connection came a wireless network. So I tried browsing with my PSP. And it is a lot better than I expected. Except when browsing my own blog :(

I figured the easiest way to make it work was to send it the XHTML Basic version. So you should now be able to browse my site with a PSP without any hassle :D

Detecting the PSP browser**

Detecting a PSP is really easy. It sends a custom HTTP header: HTTP_X_PSP_BROWSER which contains the firmware version. Just check if that header is set. In PHP you just need to do:

if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_PSP_BROWSER'])) $psp = true;

Will Wright, creator of the Sims and SimCity is working on a game called Spore. Spore will not only be a god game, but will be the god game. In fact it may become the best game ever.

It sounds like a combination of Sims, SimCity, Civilisation, Populous, Humans, Command & Conquer and 3D Studio Max.

The game starts with you controlling a little micro-organism (a spore perhaps) that has to survive and eat things and not be eaten by other things. You have a nicely textured but relative simple top down view of your little creature swimming around. Survive long enough and get enough food and you can lay an egg. This is the central theme of the game - your creatures evolve. But you choose *exactly* how they evolve. Need another tail or a couple of spikes? No problem. Put what you like where you like. The game works out how your creature should move and attack. Evolve a few more times and the game switches to 3D (well it was actually in 3D before but you were limited to a fixed camera angle and movement in a single plane).

Once in 3D, the goo you were previously swimming in is revealed to be a pond of sorts. You continue evolving and getting more complex. Add legs and you can walk out of the pond. Or maybe you’d just like fins and be the best sea creature around. Or perhaps you want legs and fins and get the best of both worlds. Your choice.

And so the game continues with your creature evolving. Eventually so does their brain. You can manufacture weapons (designed with the same flexibility as the creatures) which your creatures work out how to use (even if that means holding them with their tails because you forgot to give them hands). By this stage you control a whole tribe.

Of course other tribes will spring up and they have to be dealt with. So make some tanks or something, all with an agonising amount of control.

After that it just keeps going. Control the planet, fly to other planets, control the solar system etc. The sheer scope of this game is unbelievable.

Search Google Video for quite a few clips of the most ambitious game ever conceived.

Complete review from GameSpy of their showing at the 2005 Game Developer’s Conference which is more in depth.

I’m getting a new computer. Well most of a new computer. And I’ve been considering whether to get Windows Media Centre Edition or not.

The first two versions of MCE were rather lacking but after reading a lot I’ve decided 2005 is actually quite cool.

What is Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005?

Good question. One I didn’t know the answer to until recently. It’s Windows XP a with range of new utilities for working with video, music and images (as well as bits of hardware associated with them) all wrapped inside one interface. The idea is to have your computer as the hub for your whole home entertainment system.

Digital Video Recording (DVR)

The most useful component is the built in DVR software (sometimes called Personal Video Recorder or PVR). Plug your TV into your TV tuner card and Windows can record stuff straight to your hard drive. But of course most TV tuners come with software to do this. Well MCE does it better to be honest. And you can also get a hardware bundle (ready built systems come with it) that includes a IR blaster. Basically it’s an infra-red transmitter you stick to the front of your set top box (Sky, cable, whatever) to allow your MCE computer to change channels.

Disk space

The lowest quality recording takes up between 1Gb and 1.5Gb per hour. Reasonable hard drives these days are about 200Gb which gives you about 100 hours of video (leaving space for other stuff). Not really suitable for storage but it does allow you to burn things to DVD. Most of the time. The software apparently supports any content restriction specified in incoming media and won’t let you copy such content of the computer that made it.

But it’s still a computer, right?

MCE is actually Windows XP Professional underneath. It took a while to confirm (most references are vague about whether it’s XP Home or XP Pro) but I did find a page on Microsoft’s website saying it’s XP Pro. This means you can do everything with it that you can normally do with a PC.

One final note… you could always install MCE on a Mac.

Think of this as an introductory post into something I may mention more in the future. This way I can just send people here instead of explaining everything from scratch every time :P

Ever heard of Dance Dance Revolution (Dancing Stage in Europe)? Well it’s a funky arcade game you control by “dancing”. Arrows scroll up the screen and when they reach the top you press the corresponding button.

The really cool thing is a an open source PC version of it called StepMania. Generally StepMania has more features and allows you to add as many songs as you want (assuming you can get the media files and step charts). In fact there are arcade machines around that are actually a computer running StepMania inside a DDR cabinet (which is a little overwhelming to play because of the sheer number of songs available.

I just bought one of the games I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (actually I bought both but I’m only talking about one right now): Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in America). You should probably read the other post first.

To summarise, the game is well cool. You don’t need fast reflexes or a large amount of skill as such but you do need to be able to think fast. A lot of the time you have a time limit to do something which is three times longer than you actually need - but it includes the time needed to work out what to actually do. Failing to do something isn’t always as bad as you think since the story seems quite flexible: there are times when you realise just what an impact your past actions have on the story.

The story itself has a lot of depth. While trying to solve the murder (alternately controlling the murderer and two detectives) you also have to deal with relationships of the main characters which adds more to the game than you’d think. In fact there are a lot of mundane task to you have to complete that are surprisingly fun.

Graphically the game isn’t that impressive, at least intrinsically. But the clever use of split screen during important events adds a certain style and grandeur to it. The sound for the most part is simple but many moments have an eerie sound track reminiscent of Silent Hill just to heighten tension.

This game will probably appeal most to point-and-click adventure lovers and anyone who loves story over action. But I strongly suggest everyone have a look at it (if you’re in the UK get it from Game; you have 10 days to take it back if you don’t like it :P).

It’s that day again, April 1st, and boy the internet make it more fun. And of course Google are at again. Personally I don’t think they’ll ever beat Pigeon-Rank but they have to try.

The first thing I have to point out about Google is be very careful around April 1st. They have launched a number of genuine services on April 1st (including Gmail) that turned out to be real. None the less I’m fairly sure Google Romance is less than sincere…

And another thing, GameFAQs have decided it’s bad to cheat.

Version 1.0 Gold of Galactic Horde went live today. Top new feature would be the Universal War. I think it’s top because I helped write it :)

Although I think Universal War is a bit of a strange name - makes it sound like a war that is compatible with everyone or something…

Okay, Galaxia on Rails would my be a more apt name for a version of Galaxia in Ruby on Rails. But Galaxia Ruby sounds better to non-programmers.

This follows the tradition I’ve been recently following of learning new languages by writing bits of Galaxia in them. There is a real possibility I might get a version out this time :P

This version may even have AJAXy goodness and things. But don’t hold your breath…

The creator of Galactic Horde has started a new development and news blog.

Go check it out :P

GH, Galactic Horde, new blog, online games, shockwave, shockwave games