Trivia

As much as I loathe to bore potential readers with the daily inanities my mind conjures, today's random mind bullets are better than average, so I'll share. And this is my first attempt at a blog so I feel I've got a lot of catching up to do. They are also game related, so by sticking to my sworn theme I justify their telling.

Random Thought One: Funniest Gaming Experience

I was reminded recently of the funniest gaming experience I've ever had. I'm talking Grim-Fandago funny - that humerous. It was....(drum roll)....Chu-Chu Rocket on the Dreamcast, 4-player, with 3 colour blind participants plus normal-sighted me.

Now, I don't mean to make fun of the colour blind, my best friend is a ...etc. But as my gaming buddy Richard pointed out to me, almost 10% of the male population is colour blind to some degree. Which makes for some hilarious gaming-related hi-jinks. Chu Chu Rocket is the perfect game to play with colour blind people. 4 players, 4 different colours, and the ability to help as much as hinder your opponents (by accident, if not by design).

I can still feel my ribs aching from that day. I lack the vocabulary to accurately depict the chaos. If you ever played Chu Chu Rocket, I'm sure you can imagine.

Random Thought Two: Cutscene Vanity

One pet gaming peeve of mine is unskippable cutscenes. I always imagined (rightly or wrongly), that the decision was at least partly based on the fact that it was bloody difficult to get that cutscene working, so by Odin's Beard they were going to make you watch it. It has been suggested to me that the inability to skip the splash screen on Fish! is my own vanity playing up. I'll plead the fifth on that, and merely say that future versions will behave more in accordance with my own oft-stated gaming principles.

But I warn you, every time you skip that splash screen, a weighted-sum force flocking agent shaped like a fish dies.

Random Thought Three: Bring Back the Tank Rush

I love a good RTS. And by good RTS, I mean 'flashy, unstrategic RTS'. And by God and Sunny Jesus I hate micromanagement. Gaming buddy Richard and I speak of this regularly - he is the world's biggest fan of the unstrategic RTS. As he puts it - 'If I build 40 mammoth tanks, I sure as hell don't want them destroyed by 4 tiny crap 'counter units'. Screw that. The only thing that should beat 40 mammoth tanks is 41 mammoth tanks'.

Amen.