Since at least the beginning of this week, Amazon.co.uk lists every PC or console game as “This item can only be delivered within the UK”. Other people are also complaining about it.

I’ve bought dozens of games from them during the last few years, and I had been mostly satisfied with their service, but if this is really a policy change (and not a temporary error in their site), it will be very annoying. There are other stores in Europe, but few have such a large catalog as Amazon.

I buy most of my games online, since I my two consoles are from Nintendo, and Portugal is an anti-Nintendo country; stores seem to think that “Nintendo is for kids”, and skip a lot of games, not to mention having them months behind the rest of Europe.

The French and German Amazons are not an option, since i don’t want games in French or German (I wouldn’t even want them in Portuguese, my native tongue. Games, like anything related to computers, should be in English, thankyouverymuch.).

Game.net may be an option. But let’s see if Amazon has really changed their policy (their “we ship to…” page still lists most of Europe as destinations for games) or not.

BTW, Amazon.com (the US one) has long shipped games to the US only. Maybe .co.uk is following suit? If so… I thought one of the great things of the Internet was that you could order products from anywhere; why is Amazon moving backwards?

I love chess. I’ve loved it since I was 10 years old or so. I’m not a great player, mostly due to laziness, and have never played in any competition, nor been a part of any club. And , sometimes, I stop playing for months, even years.

But I still love the game. It relaxes me, and keeps my mind “in shape”

These days, I mostly play on GameKnot, because 1) it’s web-based, and 2) it’s not in real time (it’s more like “correspondence chess”), so I can just make my moves whenever I’m online, and not worry about them when I’m not.

Unfortunately, I know, personally, very few people who like chess, and yet it’s more fun to play against people you know (even if just from “the Net”) than against total strangers. So, if you’d like to play against a 1250-1300 player, feel free to go to GameKnot (it’s free, though there are some extras available to paying subscribers) and challenge me – I’m “dehumanizer“, there.

See you on the chessboard…

Jets’n'Guns is a shoot’em up. One of the best I’ve ever seen – I’d rather not say “the best” outright, but I sure can’t think of a better one right now.

It’s a mix between R-Type and Tyrian, being closer to the latter. Technically, it’s certainly the best I’ve seen, with fantastic graphics, sound, music (by Machinae Supremacy), and never slowing down in the slightest. It’s also extremely varied, with lots of different scenarios, levels, enemies, mission objectives, weapons, ship upgrades, and so on.

If you like shoot’em ups, you owe it to yourself to at least download the shareware version, from the official site. Me, I bought it in a second ($20), and I have zero regrets.

On PBS: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked. A wonderful article that all the Hillary Clintons of the world should read.

Yup, I’m back. For some reason, from time to time I feel an overwhelming urge to play Puzzle Pirates again… weird, I know. I’m that guy in the center, though I’m now a little more well dressed than when that screenshot was taken.

Maybe it’s because it’s the only MMORPG where progress doesn’t depend mainly on time invested, but on skills.

Or the only one where almost everyone plays “in character”. Avast, ye landlubbers! Shiver me timbers! Yarrr!

What’s odd is that I don’t really like puzzle games (such as Tetris, Bejeweled, etc.) that much…

I have to admit, Mouse 1.0: Escape to Windows, a flash game, is quite fun.

Saw the link on Mário Lopes’ blog.

Apparently, it stinks to high heaven. Who’d have guessed?

Love the reviews.

P.S. – please don’t buy it. Any money that imbecile gets will be used for more censorship and fear-mongering.

P.P.S. – apparently, Jack is now threatening to sue Amazon if they don’t remove the negative reviews!

Those 3 games have arrived, 2 days ago, but due to work (and work and work), I haven’t had almost any time to play them. Still, here are a few initial impressions:

Civilization IV

I love the new interface, presentation and music. And the new technologies narration by Leonard Nimoy is fantastic. However, I haven’t had much time to dwell into the game itself. Most of what I know about it is from reviews.

Civics come from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, though it was called “Social Engineering” there.

Religion is a new concept in the Civ series, and it basically works these way: the first civilization to get to each of 7 particular technologies (e.g. Meditation for Buddhism, Polytheism for Hinduism, and so on) has one of its cities become a “holy site” for that religion (think Mecca or Jerusalem). The religion then spreads through trade routes, including to other civilizations. Cities can have citizens of several faiths, and you can build temples. You can also build missionaries to influence other cities (especially those of other players) more directly.

Both civics and religion are used in diplomacy – civs tend to like other civs with the same state religion, or using the same civics, more – and the other way around. They may even suggest changes to yours – such as Mao asking you to change to State Property. And you can also suggest changes to them.

Religions are, in game terms, the same. Political correctness and all that. Not like Europa Universalis 2, where each religion had particular bonuses and penalties…

Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion

Looks extremely promising, but my puny PC can’t really handle R:TW decently. Although load times are better than Medieval’s, the battles are much less smooth. And I have to lower the detail a lot for it to be playable – which, oddly enough, makes it look worse than M:TW (with maximum detail).

One to “devour” when I get a newer PC. Must… get… rich…

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Only played through the first 2 missions (including the training one), so I have seen virtually nothing of the game. It’s like Final Fantasy Tactics / Shining Force – either a tactical RPG, or a tactical strategy game with heavy RPG elements. Lots and lots of classes, weapons and so on, with a nice story, and turn-based. Looks great, but I’ll only have anything to “report” after I spend some more time with it. Work, work, work…

No, I don’t mean Tetris. Nor do I mean most of the city-building games, such as the Caesar series, where every building is built by, and owned by, the State (have you ever noticed that?).

I mean a game about Communism. A game that promotes it. Made in China.

If you think this is a joke, here’s the article: Game aims to make vintage Communism a hit with children.

Excerpt:
To advance in this game, players won’t gun down their enemies. They’ll mend socks, lots of them, and gain points by getting appreciation letters for doing good deeds such as helping old ladies home in a rainstorm and stopping people from spitting on the sidewalk. The prize is a signed virtual copy of Mao Tse-tung’s Little Red Book.

I’d actually like to see it, though I’m sure it’ll be in Chinese…

Just ordered from Amazon.co.uk:

• Civilization IV (PC)
• Rome: Total War – Barbarian Invasion (expansion for R:TW) (PC)
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GameCube)

Yes, I’m in a strategy mood.
They should be here next week or so…

Really, you have to read this Ars Technica article. It’s almost unbelievable.

Excerpt:

Jack Thompson, a Florida lawyer who became infamous in 1988 for accusing Janet Reno of being a closeted lesbian with a drinking problem and a strong candidate for blackmail, has recently been making waves with his crusade against the video game industry. Earlier this year, he launched a wrongful death lawsuit against Take Two Interactive and Rockstar Games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, claiming that the video game was directly responsible for 18 year-old Devin Moore’s shooting of three police officers in 2003.

Jack recently appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes trying to drum up support for his efforts. However, this publicity was apparently not satisfying enough for him, as he went on to try and create more outrage on his own. Attempting to emulate Jonathan Swift, he issued a “Modest Proposal” that offered a US$10,000 reward to anyone who would create a video game featuring Osaki Kim, a father whose son was beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The game would feature Kim extracting brutal revenge on the video game industry itself, including beating game company executives to death, removing their heads and urinating on their brain stems.

And the best comes after that…

I’ve been in the mood to write about computer/video games – including old, 80s games. But I don’t want to innundate this blog with those posts, so, I’ve created another blog (hmm, that’s a subject for a future “Blogging Tips” article…): The Games of my Life.

In it, I’ll write about games. A lot of nostalgia, but there’ll also be new (or even future) hits. I’ve been a gamer for 25 years, so I think I have a lot of material to write.

It’s almost out… about one week remaining. Here’s the new Civilization IV web site.

And a screenshot:

If it’s as addictive as the first 2 Civs, or as Alpha Centauri… I foresee unslept nights ahead.

Just finished Fahrenheit. It’s not really a hard game. It is, however, a great one.

Amazing direction, voice acting, soundrack, and the first 3/4 of the game are some of the most emotional gaming moments ever seen in a game. The last part of the game, however, feels a bit rushed, and the story becomes much less believable, making me shake my head and say “come on…” a few times.

Oddly enough, I can’t complain about what most reviewers complained about: the action sections. Maybe it’s my natural reflexes, honed by more than 25 years of gaming (and my huge modesty, of course ), but I had no problem with them, never had to lower the difficulty level, and was even able to watch the action and dialogues during the sequences (another thing many people complained about). Nor do I have any problem with the Matrix Revolutions / Dragonball Z fights near the end. They look, sound and play amazingly, IMO.

I just wish that the game was longer (not that it’s a very short game, I finished it quickly because I played it a lot – I wanted it to be longer because I was enjoying it so much.), that the end part was as good as the beginning, and that there were more “what you do now affects what happens later” situations (most are, again, at the game’s beginning).

In short: not a perfect game, but if you like adventure games, or simply good, emotional stories at all, you have to buy this game. Not only for the game itself, but to tell those sequel-obsessed suits that there’s still a market for genres other than FPSs, MMORPGs and driving games. You know, more mature games (and I’m not talking about sex or violence).

One last thought, for those who have played the game and know how its control scheme works: imagine playing it with two Nintendo Revolution controllers…

If you have a relatively recent PC, a Playstation 2 or an Xbox, and like aventure games, or simply great stories, please do yourself a favor and buy this game right now. It’s brilliant, innovative, and will actually make you think (and not just in the sense of solving puzzles)

Tycho from Penny Arcade nailed it perfectly: “an adventure game where you play a murderer and the investigators of the murder set against the backdrop of a Mayan prophecy”.

It plays a lot like “living” a movie – and no, I don’t mean in the sense of the first CD-ROM games back in the 90s, with crappy full-motion video, which weren’t really games at all, but bad movies where you had to do something at some particular times, so that the movie could go on. Believe me, this one is different.

It’s called Indigo Prophecy in the USA, and Fahrenheit in the rest of the world. Most likely, they didn’t want the “Fahrenheit 9/11″ association. The American version is slightly censored – I guess that, after the GTA:SA “Hot Coffee” mod, no (non-Hentai) games can have sex scenes in the US, at least for a while.

What is a speed run (or “speedrun”)? Wikipedia says it’s “a play-through of a computer or video game, the whole game or a selected part such as a single level of it, with the intent of completing it as quickly as possible.” That’s their competitive usage.

But I like to watch them for fun and “education”, as well. Especially older games, which I may have played a lot of, at a younger age but which I am relatively unlikely to invest the time into playing again. Some speed runs skip a lot of the game, and/or show a “perfect game”, but others are more “human-like”, and show the entire game. It’s like watching a great player play the entire game for you.

Of course, that would spoil current games, or games I still have the intention of playing through. But, as I said, for older games… it’s fun.

Here’s a link with a lot of movies at The Internet Archive. Some are small, some are huge, but all I’ve seen so far are very interesting… to me, at least.

In the state of Michigan, U.S.A, apparently a law forbidding the sale of “mature” (you know, what in a movie means PG, but in a game means M or even AO) games to minors passed. Even though it’s unconstitutional.

But, surprisingly, the video games industry is fighting back. For a change. About time, IMO.

From the linked article:

The ESA argues that this bill is an effort to substitute the government’s judgment for parental supervision and turn retailers into surrogate parents. Lowenstein said that the industry’s products were being unreasonably and unfairly singled out. He contends that while there is no question that a few games have content that some audiences will find offensive, the same can be said for some content in TV, films, music, and books. Since the government does not regulate the sales of those entertainment industries, it should follow suit for the sale of video games. Ultimately, he concluded, parents, not government or industry, must be the gatekeepers of what comes in the home.

“In 2004, the average game buyer was 37 years old and the average game player was 30,” Lowenstein said. “Knowing this, our industry creates a wide range of content for a diverse consumer audience, just as other entertainment industries do. And, it’s illogical that video games would be treated more harshly than R-rated movies or music CDs with parental warning labels, both of which can be legally viewed and sold to minors. How can you treat a video game based on James Bond any different than a book or movie based on the same subject matter?”

I think I’m going to play Puzzle Pirates again. I really don’t have time for MMORPGs, but, somehow, that one “feels” different – it’s actually enjoyable, instead of feeling like “work”, and rewards skill instead of spent time.

Also, it works in Linux as well.