In a fit of apparent masochism, I have tried playing Demigod using my laptop's glide-pad.  It actually works, but . . . well . . . why?  Anyway, last night I encountered a bug, and I'm not sure if it is with Demigod or if it is some sort of "gotcha" with the glidepad-and- Demigod combination. Basically, the mouse cursor worked fine for clicking on, say, the Citadel or right-clicking to tell my character where to go.  No problem there.  The problem was that the HUD sto...

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been having problems with my wireless connection with my laptop, which is running Vista 64, and my FIOS connection (using a Verizon-provided Actiontec router).  Basically, I connected a Linksys wireless router to the Actiontec router, and I'm connecting to the Linksys. First problem is that Vista keeps trying to initially connect to the Actiontec.  This makes sense, as that was to what I was connecting all this time.  I think I might have f...

I decided to try Battleforge , as the idea sounded intriguing.  I've only played the first two single-player missions, so I don't really know what to think of this game.  So far, I'm seeing some interesting ideas that might or might not work . . . This is basically a combination of a trading card "Magic: The Gathering"-type game and an RTS.  Unlike other games of this sort that I've tried, this isn't a "straight duel".  Once you use a card to, say, summon a monster, the m...

My shiny new laptop runs the 64-bit version of Vista Home.  I started noticing some oddities with connecting to the wireless network.  It would start up and connect, but it would say "local only".  No biggie: click, go to the necessary screen, click on the "X" in between the icon representing the network and the Internet, and tell it to repair the connection.  Except . . . I would have to do this several times before it would work.  And I seemed to have to do t...

The other day, I purchased a new laptop.  When deciding which-one-do-I-want, I did the "graphics adapter search", going down the shelf to see the cheapest one I could find that had a real graphics adapter.  I wound up buying the Asus G50VT-X5, which has a Dual Core 2 and an Nvidia Geforce card.  (So far, my only problem with this laptop is that when I boot up, it connects to my wireless adapter for "local only": I need to reset the wireless adapter each time in order to get Int...

Cutting to the chase: my favorite gaming podcast is "Three Moves Ahead".  There's one big reason for that: this is a gaming podcast that actually is about gaming.  On occasion, I do enjoy the informal a-couple-of-friends-together joking-around-and-occasionally-talking-about-games podcasts, but lately I have found I lack the patience for them.  "Three Moves Ahead" talks about gaming, and talks about gaming in depth. This podcast, by the way, is responsible for two recent ga...

A little bit ago, I stumbled across a "game" called The Linear RPG .  I thought this was hilarious: it had the essense of the gameplay for most J-RPG's in the form of guiding a stick-figure person on a line.  I started thinking: how could other game genres be simplified to this form.  The other day, I was chatting with a friend about my thoughts of RTS's.  Here is what I came up with: First, here is my definition of the " Starcraft Model": the game gets super-popula...

As I wrote before, my intention this past weekend was to work on my rented-games-backlog.  Specifically, I wanted to get back to Dead Space .  I had the best of intentions, really.  On Saturday, I made the decision that I wouldn't bother with Demigod : I would concentrate on Dead Space .  I did that.  But, as I was playing Dead Space , I was thinking about Demigod .  It felt dirty to keep on playing Dead Space . I can always go back to Dead Space another ...

This isn't strictly a problem, just something people considering FIOS should know. This morning, I first noticed that Internet service was down.  I went downstairs and found that cable TV was down too.  And the phone line was dead.  I called Verizon and they ran a test.  That little box they put in the basement?  It had no power.  I clicked the circuit breaker and in no time at all, everything was back.  FIOS was running in all its glory, so to celebrate I b...

I was just at a Gamestop, and I saw Demigod sitting on the PC games shelf.  I asked a salesman if this was out already, and he said "it seems to be."  Odd. 

Tonight's biggie: I'm trying a demo for a game called Space War Commander .  I think I will probably wind up buying this.  This game seems like a streamlined RTS done with simple 2D graphics: by some amazing coincidence, recently I was actually putting on my game-designer hat and pondering the same concept! (Actually, I was inspired by a little joke-game called The Linear RPG , which streamlines the gameplay of a Japanese-style linear RPG to the point where you are walking a stick...

Okay, so why am I starting this blog? First, it's free.  Second, I rather like Stardock and Impulse.  I have Galciv 1 & 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire , and I can honestly say that Stardock has yet to have let me down.  Of course, I haven't tried Demigod yet (innocent whistling).  Impulse also works very well.  I especially appreciate the fact that it doesn't need to be running all the time, like Steam (which I also love).  Third, did I mention this ...