Games

This section is all about games. Computer games, board games and whatever.

Non-Computer Games

Yes they do exist and yes some of them are still fun. Here's a list of some I still get to play occasionally.

Computer Games

Games I'm currently playing. I'll go into my retro-gaming and other such things another time.

Skadi - goddess of winter
www.Up-The-Khyber.com

Age of Mythology

Age of Mythology

I got into this one through work. I wouldn't normally want to buy anything with a M$ label on it. As RTS games go the single player game wasn't as much fun as Warcraft III. However, we have been playing it as a team game. Typically 2v2 or 3v3. In this context it comes into its own. Lots of variety to the play and various combinations of cooperation and competition. I was inducted into the carry_on clan with the rather dubious name of carry_on_girls. The clan's homepage can be found at the rather more dubious URL www.up-the-khyber.com

One problem with this is crappy network code. Sometimes people just cant get in a game together. Sometimes the game goes out of sync. For me it does this if I use teamspeak though the rest of the clan can use it while playing just fine.


World of Warcraft

worldofwarcraft

I avoided getting this for fear it would ruin my life. I heard rumours that people who don't normally get addicted to computer games get addicted to this. As someone who routinely gets addicted to a game and is currently trying to work from home and start a business I knew this was a bad thing. Anyway, my resolved lasted until I recieved the game for my birthday. My life is now over. I'm fighting the urges though. This site is the first non-WoW thing I've done for about 2 weeks. The game itself is more like diablo II than Warcraft. Actually I find some of it quite dull especially the fact that you spend an awful long time running around to get from one place to another and particularly back to your own corpse when you die. One particular problem is that you level up more by the amount of time you spend playing than as a measure of skill and levels dictate who can kill who in a player versus player situation. Typically you find level 60 'gankers' (that's the technical term) picking fights with people they can kill with a single shot. Blizzard have not introduced any penalty for this yet. The PvP experience will be vastly improved when they do. You also have capture the flag it a similar vein to the unreal/quake style of play.

Another problem I have with this game is the monthly subscription fee. Software in general is a service industry masquerading as a manufacturing one. In the case of games however it is more of a manufacturing one. Game publishers make a bomb selling shrink wrapped products to the mass market. They don't need the extra money from subscription as well. I'm ignoring the smaller companies here. Whose games don't sell so well (sometimes because of poor advertsing rather than poor quality). Some game makers also suffer at the hands of publishers who want derivative products rather than innovation. The games industry is in danger of going down the road of the hollywood film industry with manufactured products that all follow they same formula. But I digress...

Links to online games

Please report any broken links.


  • Jubilee - 5 minutes worth of fun stealing the crown jewels from her Maj. queen

    Quite amusing but possibly doesn't have much long term playability. No idea how long it will be around for either.


  • Robo-bombo - a scrolling arcade shoot-em-up. robobombo

    This game is an internet classic. Its been around for ages. Quite polished and quite fun. A bit too easy for me. One thing I do like is that unlike many games in its genre you get warnings about things coming from behind so you can win by skill rather than having to remember the patterns to the waves.