Kerbal Space Program

Ahhhh Kerbal Space Program. How I both love and hate you at the same time. Never before has failing been so fun. For the uninitiated, KSP is a sandbox style game in early development that has adapted the Minecraft style business model of selling early access to the alpha version of the game for testing (and fun). Currently at the time of this post it's in version 0.19.1 and they have just released the rover parts and re-entry effects.

You control the little green guys above, the Kerbals, who live on a planet not unlike our own. The Kerbol system currently has 7 planets and 9 moons (the majority of which are above Jool). At this stage the goal of the game is whatever you make it, so much like Minecraft, you set a goal and then work toward it however you can.

Obviously this game has rockets (otherwise it'd be pretty hard to get to space), and to make them you take individual parts and snap them together to create a rocket. According to the wiki there are currently 128 parts in the game and they range from rocket and jet engines to probe control modules and the aforementioned rover wheels. You can make epic space stations, or just fly a one man capsule to the Mun and bounce around on it.

Jebadiah... Why did that chute deploy?!

However the thing I find most fun about this game is the designing of rockets. There are some elegant solutions to even the most complex of problems and I have lost literally hours trying to figure out how to get something into space in one piece. My current mission is to get a rover and lander module into orbit without two rockets and I have spent maybe 3 hours so far changing designs to see if it can be done. So far no luck but there have been some spectacular explosions.

Anyway as mentioned the game is still in alpha but seems to be pretty stable from what I've seen. If real world space travel interests you, I'd recommend picking it up to have a look.

GAME ON!

A tiny Eve story

So it seems yet another theft has gone down in Eve Online. It was a relatively small amount of around 50B ISK. The full story can be found at themittani.com here. However I wanted to make a small post about how stupid the corp CEO was. Take this for example:

[ 2012.12.15 12:46:59 ] Tad Ghostall > i should warn you in advance that im very flirty
[ 2012.12.15 12:47:25 ] Tad Ghostall > i like to say "playful"

Knowing that in Eve you trust no-one this CEO decides to throw all that out the window simply because the person he was dealing with was female. Even though the corp was warned about Tamzins history, he still lets himself get manipulated into a position where he thinks he loves her (which in itself is ridiculous), and then drops all pretense of security by assigning roles to a new member. As the article by Bagehi notes, this is the fastest way to find yourself in the middle of a massive loss. No matter who that person is, the first rule of Eve is TRUST NO ONE. I've seen it extended to say that even your own alts are out to get you. But at the first sign of a pretty voice on voice comm's it seems this CEO decided that it was worth it. If I were in that corp, I'd be getting my assets out now so I can GTFO out of there.

Game On!

PCs vs Consoles

So I touched on this in the first post I made here, but I feel I should probably explain my stance on the whole PC gaming vs Console gaming 'debate' that so often rages in comments sections across the internet. I use the quote tags around debate because in the end, it seems to descend into one side calling the other sides mothers names. So here goes:

I have always been a PC gamer first and foremost. The first game I ever owned was Need for Speed 2: Special Edition if that helps to date me as a gamer. I enjoyed the SimCity series (if I was a little young to be any good at them) and then came Starcraft. The game that got me into gaming as a serious hobby. Through all of this, my Dad, who is probably the most anti game person I know, encouraged me to get into the actual hobby of building and maintaining a PC. I made my first upgrade when I was ten or eleven (a GeForce 4 MX I installed myself) and built my first complete system when I was fourteen. If it wasn't for that side of the hobby, I probably never would have continued gaming on the PC in any serious fashion.

Then in late 2006 I moved interstate in Australia, basically from as far on the east side of the country as you can get to as far West as you can. One of my new friends was selling an X-Box 360 and I tried it out. It was fun and I could have 4 mates playing at once without needing to LAN! I bought it, and ever since I have owned at least one console.

As far as the whole PC vs Console debate goes, I actually find myself sitting on the fence these days. When I was fifteen had you asked me the same question I would have replied instantly that PCs were the best and that consoles needed to all be set on fire or something to that effect.

The X-Box did always have that overheating problem after all

But as I grew older and I started to manage money, I realised that in today's market, having something that you can pick up for under $1000 and plug into and existing piece of technology was a good thing. Let's face it, gaming now is more socially acceptable than it was 10 years ago and we owe it all to consoles. Back then when I told adults I played video games it was like I told them I did crack. Now everyone plays games and the majority of them aren't playing on a custom build PC.

Now when it comes to some of the things people say, lets face it they are pretty silly. For example, I saw a comment on a YouTube video the other day where someone swore black and blue that his PS3 had graphics to rival any "current custom built PC". For anyone who knows even just a little about technology you probably just had a laugh to yourself. The very idea that something made back in 2005 would be technologically equal to something made in 2013 is absurd.

The fact is what consoles do well is gaming on budget AND for the layman. Anyone can plug a console in, not everyone is willing to build or even try to setup games onto a PC. Ask any PC gamer about the joys of installing a game only to find that you need to update drivers, install a hotfix and then the damn game doesn't like Nvidia cards so you need to turn all of the settings down to let it run at anywhere near acceptable frame rates and you realise that we are all slightly insane to go through all that for some extra graphical fidelity.

What does any of that mean anyway? I just want to play some more Call of Duty!

I guess in conclusion I should probably say that both side of the debate have valid points, but we all need to take a breath and realise that in the end we are all just gamers. Any time you meet a gamer, no matter what they play on, you'll have something in common with them, so be happy that both forms of entertainment exist... Unless it's on a PS3. You can keep your tiny controllers.

Game on!

My First Post

Picture by PixelGeezer

G'day,

I'm Tetris is so Unrealistic, or as most people call me just Tetris. I've been a gamer for almost as long as I can remember and I have always enjoyed discussing issues that gamers around the world face. Australia is my home country and for anyone who lives here, I'm sure you understand just how hard being interested in games can be for us sometimes. For those who don't, let's just say that for a long time we have not really had anyone to represent us for laws regarding game ratings, we are consistently overcharged for games and most MMO's don't localise servers for us.

I'm primarily a PC gamer, but I do play on the X-Box 360 when I feel the need to play something on a console. I don't have anything against the Playstation with the exception of the controller (nothing I can't get used to I just find it small for my hands). As far as games go, I really don't have one particular game that I stick to. I love Eve Online, Guild Wars 2, Kerbal Space Program, Counter Strike, Starcraft and many many many more. I do suffer from a whole bunch of game ADD, as I tend not to be able to play one game for extended periods of time.

As far as the blog is concerned, I'm pretty opinionated on a wide range of gaming issues, and if something interests me, I'll probably throw a post up about it. This might include something I feel a developer or publisher is doing wrong (maybe even right sometimes haha), a scam or story from Eve Online, or a review of whatever game I am playing at the time.

So for now, I will just leave it at that.

Game on.