This week was a little bit different from how I would normally spend a typical week. For one I’ve been reading and playing games a bit more than normal, and then I decided to watch a game of ice hockey. Since I’m really not into any sports in general watching a sports game it pretty out of character for me, and this is one that’s not even played in my country so that makes it that little bit odder still.

The Stanley Cup Final (Ice Hockey)

So after seeing a few people tweeting about the Stanley cup final game that was played this week, and also reading about the rioting that occurred in Vancouver because the Canucks lost, I decided to download and watch the final game of the cup. About the only contact I’ve ever had with ice hockey is via the movie The Mighty Ducks and it’s sequel. Given that I felt that was a chance it could be interesting (I enjoyed the movies after all), but wasn’t sure if a real game would be much like the ones portrayed on the silver screen.

I can happily say that the game was enjoyable enough and, assuming most games are similar to this one, I could probably stand to watch it from time to time. The fact it was a grand final probably makes it more interesting that a regular games is though, so who knows. I don’t really want to watch footy regularly, but I do enjoy watching the AFL grand final each year because it’s usually a good game with plenty of action and tension.

More Reading

I decided to read The Redemption of Althalus again (I must have read it at least three or four times now), so I bought it on the Kindle store and have been reading it on my iPad, even though I already have a hardcover copy of the book. Books are nice and all, but I’m more interested in the content that the physical medium so I wanted to have a digital copy. Digital has it’s issues and restrictions at the moment (the conversion of most books seem to have typos here and there, so the quality control could stand to be improved) , but as someone who wants to avoid accumulating physical items that need to be stored and moved I find the idea of digital media to be very attractive and it’s something that I’m planning to make use of for the foreseeable future. Also after a discussion with Doug last weekend, I’m beginning to think that one day I might have to try to get back into the Wheel of Time series, and reread it all the way through. The last book I read was book nine or ten, but with the final book due out later this year it might be time to try and take a crack at finishing the series. I really enjoyed reading it when I was younger, and I must have read all of the first 6 or so books at least twice at one point. Presumably that is one series of books that I should be able to buy digital copies of, which would be great from a space saving point of view. If I bought physical copies of all the books the series would probably need an entire shelf to itself, which doesn’t do much for my goal of reducing my physical item count. Plus, if I have digital copies, I can have them on my phone as well and my iPad, and having the books with me all the time means a slightly greater chance that I’ll decide to read a bit when I find myself with an opportunity.

I wish it was possible to get digital versions of all the old books that I have, though I’m not going to hold my breath on that. I’m pretty sure some of them are out of print, and while the publishers could probably make some money (in the long run) by getting all their back catalog converted into digital format, they aren’t likely to do so any time soon. They still haven’t embraced the digital medium well, despite the fact that adoptions seems to be going well, and it’s quite probably the way of the future. Given the fact that books of recent years would have their manuscripts in electronic form already, there certainly isn’t much of an excuse for not creating a digital version of the book and benefiting from those sales as well as the sales of physical copies.

More Games

So after watching a short video about it from the Playstation blog I decided to buy the platform game Outland. It’s pretty neat. The visuals are a bit different, with your character and most of the enemies, and even the levels themselves, being shown in a profile kind of style, where you see the outline but no real detail within the outline. It doesn’t sound that great when described like that, but it actually presents well and I quite like the look. The running and jumping of your character make for a nicely flowing game and the light and dark spirit switching is something different. There are various obstacles that will damage you only if you are the opposing spirit colour so switching to a matching spirit allows you to pass those obstacles without being hurt, and then in contrast there are the enemies that can only be damaged when you are the opposing spirit colour. The result is a game where you can find yourself fairly rapidly switching back and forth between the two spirits types as your run and jump and fight your way around a level. It’s an unique mechanism that I haven’t encountered before in a game, and so far I’d say it’s one that lets the games designers create some interesting challenges.

So it’s obviously been a while since I posted anything to this blog, despite my intentions to try (once again) to get into making some kind of regular writing effort. I can’t say I’m surprised, as this is what happens every time I have the idea of writing a blog. Perhaps I need to find some way to force me to write on a regular basis, maybe something for work. I’ll have to keep that in mind and explore options if the opportunity presents itself.

What I Have been doing

In the numerous weeks since I last wrote something, what I’ve actually been filling my time with is much of the same old stuff. Work fills most of my time, and when I’m not at work there are RSS feeds, articles and manga to read, the occasional casual game to play on my iPad, and the odd TV or anime show to watch here and there. This weekend I’ve spent several hours playing a couple of new games that I scored for free due to the Sony PS3 hacking debacle. I got WipEout HD and inFamous, and I’ve found them both to be fairly entertaining so far. Neither is a game I would have bought on my own, but having now had a chance to experience them I can say that I’d recommend giving them a go if someone ever asked me about them. Slight mini reviews of both will be below, but since I’ve touched on the Sony hacking incident, I might try to put my ideas down in text.

The Hacking of Sony

As the result of a hacking incident the Sony Playstation Network (PSN) was taken offline by Sony for basically a full month (actually a little more than a month if memory serves). This is a pretty significant event, and I believe it’s the first time something with such a significant impact on the users of a console system has occurred since we entered the real of the modern console era, a time where the consoles are online and many games involve multiplayer aspects, with participants in a game often spread around the world. The PR of such significant downtime is obviously bad, but I think the real damage was probably done by the fact that various branches of Sony were hacked several times after the initial incident that resulted in the Sony deciding to take down the PSN until they could secure it. All these hacking events have no doubt greatly shaken faith in Sony, at least for those who care about such things. It has also shown that Sony apparently may not have put any where near enough effort and resource into securing their infrastructure. If these recent events haven’t shown them the error of their ways, then I don’t think anything is likely to do so. At least Sony have provided fairly decent compensation to the users, providing free games, free trials of their Plus membership (or extensions if you are already a member). It’s this compensation that allowed me to get WipEout HD and inFamous for free.

So now that the PSN is back up and running, hopefully it will continue to do so. I don’t tend to play games that require and online connection (to be honest, I don’t play console games much full stop) so the downtime didn’t really affect me all that much, and I’ve benefited by getting some free games. I imagine that Sony and beefed up their security systems and procedures, and will continue to do so, but given the large number of hacks in such a short period of time, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are more hacks announced at some point.

WipEout HD

WipEout HD is a futuristic racing game, where you fly a hovering ship around a track at high speed. It looks quite nice, and I’ve really liked the soundtrack so far. It really seems to fit the style of the game well. The tracks come in a variety of interesting and challenging designs, and I expect them to get even more exotic, as I’m still early in the game at this stage. I can see this game being one that I will return to off and on, even if my actual play time peters out (as it tends to do with nearly all games I play).

inFamous

inFamous is a game that I’d heard of a some time ago, so I think it’s been out for a while now. I think I’m perhaps still too early in the game to make a call on it’s longevity for me at this stage, but I’ve found it enjoyable so far. It puts you in charge of a character who has developed electricity based super powers, and you get to run and jump around a city, scaling building and taking out bad guys are you try to unravel the back story about some shadowy group that seems to be related to how you got your powers. The graphics look good, and the control mechanism is simple enough. I still haven’t mastered aiming when I shoot my lightning bolts, but I’m not the most dexterous of people when it comes to these things (I found I had such trouble controlling the character in Resident Evil 5 that I took the game back. The difficulty I had in doing even the most basic things totally killed what ever enthusiasm I had for the game).

That’s it for now

Well, this is the most I’ve written in a long while. Maybe there is hope for my being able to produce more written pieces after all. I probably just need to try and sit down and put bits of my life into writing, just for the hell of it. Maybe I could try to do a weekly recap of my life. It probably wouldn’t be too interesting most of the time, but I’m guessing that the more I write the easier I’ll find it to come up with things to write about.