FIFA10
FIFA10 has been around for a lot longer than PES, so I’ve played it an awful lot more. It’s also had some updates, which did resolve some of it’s initial niggling problems (like not multi-tasking properly). I’ve played a about 7 seasons worth of manager mode, and most of a season in Be A Pro mode. I’ve played in Amateur, Semi-Pro and Pro levels, too.

Pros
– Manager Mode and Be a Pro are excellent additions to the game, increasing it’s longevity and playability
– The variety of button combinations makes for a very in-depth (albeit complex at times) control system
– The game play is fast
– Menu system is responsive
– Good “training” subsystem

Cons
– Mis-hitting controls is easy to do, and it seems to misregister at lot of the time (this is possibly a problem with multi-touch on the HTC Desire – I am investigating further at this point)
– Some moves which should be simple aren’t – double-tap for a cross is very hard to get right.
– “Manager” mode doesn’t really involve much management beyond formation. You can’t see health or fitness levels from the team screen, so you can’t make tactical decisions based on player’s suitability
– Free kicks seem overly complicated to get right – scoring from a free-kick should be an art form, not black magic.
– The change in difficulty between amateur and semi-pro is _huge_; it was bad enough I almost gave up. Semi-pro to pro has been easier to handle.
– You basically run everywhere because the slower option is much harder to achieve

PES2011
PES I have played mostly on the Nook, which has a much bigger screen, which shows off the graphics nicely. I’ve been playing in Regular and Professional levels. I’ve played a European club competition, an international cup and most of a league season.

Pros
– Quick-game – auto-picks the teams and just jumps straight in. Perfect
– Controls are big and simple. Complex passing manouvers are simple
– Scoring overhead kicks! It’s easy, and it’s fun
– Replay system is excellent, and offers saving your replays to a gallery

Cons
– Sometimes it’s hard to select items on the menu.
– No manager mode, despite having better team management system – you play 1 season on a league, and that’s it. No cups, or anything
– Not the real teams – usually find, but surely “Merseyside Red” should at least have a red team strip, not blue…..?
– Player selection is mostly automatic, which can be frustrating
– Penalty kicks are too hard to take (IMO)
– Menu system with slide-then-press is awkward – often it slides when you’re trying to tap; “Tap Anywhere” splash screen is pointless
– Training system only offers free-play and penalties

So – which one do I play the most? Well – it depends on a number of other factors. PES is more “arcadey” – easy to pickup and play a game. FIFA feels more in-depth, but it does require an investment of time to get used to the controls and difficulty level. If PES had a better “manager” mode (seasons, transfers, etc) then it would win outright.

mrBen

• Linux in a Nutshell (4th Ed)
• LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell
• Linux Desktop Hacks
• Linux Cookbook
• Tim O’Reilly in a Nutshell
• Managing NFS and NIS (quite an old copy)
• Programming Python 2nd Edition
• Java and XSL
• Sed and Awk (2nd Edition) (bought from work library but in good condition)
• Learning the vi editor (bought from work library but in good condition)

I also have another book on programming Java from a different publisher. Will confirm details on that later.

Lastly, I may also consider parting with a couple of older commercial games for Linux, namely:

• Heavy Gear II
• Soul Ride
• Hopkins FBI
• Soldier of Fortune
• Doom3
• Quake4
• Unreal Tournament 2003
• Unreal Tournament 2004

All the games are boxed with all the appropriate manuals, although they have all been used. I’m not entirely sure I want to get rid of all of these, but if you are interested, please let me know and I’ll think harder about it.

For any of these items either leave me a comment, or drop me a mail at mrben -at- jedimoose -dot- org.

mrBen

Anyway, enough of the blurb. I got hold of a copy of Uplink the other day, and was a little concerned about how difficult it would be to install under Ubuntu Hardy. I needn’t have worried – it was so easy. But I thought it would be best to lay out how I did it for Google to find. All of this info can also be found on the Uplink Forums which are still active.

How to do it:

1. Download the latest patch. I used the Loki installer version of 1.55 (get it here) but it’s probably worth checking the Patch forum in case there’s a new release out
2. Run the installer – sudo sh uplink-patch-1.55.sh which installs the patch to /usr/local/games/uplink although you can install it to your home directory if you like.
3. Pop in the CD, and unzip the linux version somewhere convenient ( unzip /media/cdrom/linux/uplink.zip )
4. Copy the .dat files into the /usr/local/games/uplink/lib folder. ( cp *.dat /usr/local/games/uplink/lib )
5. Profit!

Once you’ve done all that, you should be able to run uplink just by typing uplink from the command line, or clicking Applications -> Other -> uplink.

Hope that helps someone enjoy the game as much as I do.

mrBen

Hopefully Enzo will have bought the game by the weekend so there should be plenty of gaming done by the end of the year.

“Multiplayer online gaming – you never have to see your friends face to face ever again…”

But there’s a problem.

Neither myself or Ruthy have actually finished any of the three existing games (Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall) and now we have a full expansions worth of gameplay to entertain/frustrate us.

At this rate I’ll be playing this game well in to the next decade.

That is, until they release Guild Wars 2…

BigAl

(This isn’t an in depth review of the game and you’d do better looking elsewhere for that.  This is just a personal grump about it.)

I had a 14-day trial key for the Star Wars online experience from another SW game I had. The key had been unused since I bought that other game as I’m already playing Guild Wars and that nicely fills my online gaming needs.  That, and there’s no monthly fee to GW which cheers me up no end.

But last week I had some free time and I decided to fire up SW: Galaxies and give it a go.
And after faffing around with the account setup on Sony’s website (which seemed to take an age), I finally got the client downloaded and everything setup.

Once I was in the character setup I reviewed the choices, all the ususal Star Wars fare, and settled on Jedi.  A no-brainer really.

I then spent the rest of that afternoon idly hacking at bad guys and doing the usual quest/experience point gathering that you’d expect from any good role-playing game.  And that’s all I’ve done with it.

It’s an alright game but despite its Star Wars link, it doesn’t really seem to have anything really exceptional going for it.  The player experience was, well… blah.  After playing Star Wars RPGs like Knights Of The Old Republic (and Cheezy, I’d like it back please) you can’t help but get the impression that they could have tried harder.

BigAl

Background

It’s possible that I get some of these technical details a bit wrong – apologies in advance
The Nokia N800 is an “internet tablet” – it’s not a mobile phone, or a PDA. If anything, it’s more like a very small laptop. It runs on Linux, using the Hildon desktop, based on Gtk. It has built in wifi and bluetooth, and a beautiful screen. It even has stereo speakers. It has 2 SD Card slots, now compatible with SD cards up to 8GB in size. I believe both of these are hot-swappable. It comes with a web browser, googletalk for IM, and video conferencing with the built-in webcam, plus a media player, and a few other apps. It supports input via a stylus, or using your finger. It connects to your PC via USB, but doesn’t have any syncing software, nor does it charge over USB. There is a stereo headphone jack that also supports a headphone+microphone set on a single jack.

Some Thoughts

The screen is beautiful. It really is. It’s really crisp and bright. The wifi is good quality, and it has become my tool of choice for small bits of web surfing while at home. The clever bit of software that detects if you’re using the stylus or your thumb and displays different menus/keyboard is an inspired piece of work, although if I was doing a lot of typing I’d probably need to get some sort of bluetooth keyboard.
Being basically a Linux PC makes this a massively versatile device. There is tonnes of software available, and most of it is free. I have a few good tidbits installed:

• Maemo Mapper – a free bit of mapping software that can download maps from various sources, including Google Maps and Open Streetmap. If I had a bluetooth GPS and the flite voice software, it could even be a sat nav unit.
• SCUMMVM – for playing old LucasArts games. Great fun! (I am most of the way through Flight of the Amazon Queen thanks to my commute
• Terminal/SSH – surprisingly useful
• AisleRiot – Solitaire with knobs on

There are, however, 3 big things I dislike about the device:

• The N800′s predecessor, the N770, had a hard cover to protect it – the N800 only has a little cloth sleeve which, while being some protection from scratches, etc, wouldn’t stop the screen getting cracked in an impact.
• The battery life is quite poor – even on my short commute usage, in standby for the rest of the day and night, I probably need to charge every 1.5 days. This is very dependent on how much you use wireless, I believe. And it has got better with the latest firmware. However, it’s really a problem considering that:
• You can’t charge the device through the USB port. This was a real plus of my previous media player. Being able to plug in at work (plugging in non-tested devices to the main sockets is prohibited) was a great benefit.

The other thing that I need to get sorted out is Bluetooth networking – the N800 doesn’t support the wireless setup at work, so I’d like to be able to connect through the bluetooth on my laptop, but this is not part of the default setup, which is a shame.

All-in-all, this is an amazing little device. I have lots of things I still want to try on it (installing Django, play with GPS, install a calendar and syncing, etc), but I think it will be a faithful friend for a long while.

mrBen

Well – Heather is going away this weekend to get some R&R at her parents, along with the beautiful Mira, and to sooth the pain of absence, I thought it might be nice if some of the old crew (and any new crew, of course) could get together for a good old shootout.

Server details at http://clan.lugradio.org (if you didn’t know already). The server kicks in at 7.30pm. Let me know if you’re coming!

mrBen

Sure, the graphics are dated and the gameplay is as straight-forward as it comes, but to re-immersed in the Myst universe from the beginning again is a feeling that I can’t really describe.

I’ll put this in a personal perspective for a moment. When I first saw Myst, I was transfixed. The graphics were, for the time, breathtaking. The audio effects, both background sounds and the soundtrack, had an incredible attention to detail. All in all, it was one of the most beautiful gaming experiences I ever had.

I still remember thinking that this was a bright future for the adventure gaming genre.

Of course, having been a fan of the entire series (Riven, Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End Of Ages, the ill-fated Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and the brand new Myst Online: Uru Live) it’s a real blessing to go back to the start and remember why the series has meant so much.

I feel like going to start rambling here, so I’ll quickly sum up…

If you have Myst go back and play it.

If you don’t have Myst, go and find a copy and play it.

And when you play it, play it with an innocence you no longer have.

And when it takes your breath away with it’s simplicity and beauty come back and tell me you’re looking to play Riven…

BigAl

Open Source Gaming is even trickier – all the games I mentioned above are proprietary, although id software do release their older engines under the GPL when they’re out of date. For instance, the Quake 3 source was released about 12 months ago, which has led to a number of free standing FPS games for Linux (Tremulous is one of my favourites, but Urban Terror has just been released, and looks pretty good too.)

However, the other day a new game came on my radar. A game that had previously been released commercially by Eidos, but which was open sourced under the GPL a few years ago, and is now available on all platforms, and with some upgraded graphics now. The game is called WarZone2100, and it’s a top quality RTS (real-time strategy) game. Unlike many of this type of game, there isn’t an overabundance of resource management – it’s mostly about fighting the enemy, and battle strategy, but there is a goodly amount of researching artifacts, and designing new vehicles, and the suchlike.

The documentation is a bit lacking on the website – it took me a bit of hunting to find the keyboard shortcuts, but the game is still great fun. Plus, and this is often what separates commercial games from open source, there is a single-player campaign mode, which I’m playing at the moment.

One thing to note – the only thing they couldn’t open source was the video codec library, meaning that there are none of the cut-scene videos, which have been replaced with text transcripts instead. But you really don’t miss anything

Go and try it out, and maybe we’ll have a fight on-line sometime

mrBen