• 21Jul 09

  Hallowed Be The Lightning

  Totally random. I recently realized how similar in theme are Iron Maiden's Hallowed Be Thy Name and Metallica's Ride the Lightning. In both cases a condemned man is just about to die (in the gallows and in the electric chair) and both of the refuses to give up at first while finally they accept their fate. Anyway, both are great songs...

  See ya guys!

  • Posted Jul 21, 2009 5:05 pm PT
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• 14Jul 09

  Minesweeper

  Gaming industry has been gaining presence on the last years... maybe cause or maybe effect of this, games and gaming consoles as well have improved in every sense: graphics, gameplay (playability) and even storyline. Yet there comes a time when you feel some kind of nostalgia for the old games, the classics. No one can pretend to not miss at least one classic or the bunch of games they had for consoles like NES or Atari 2600 without lying, unless, indeed, they are too young to even know the existence of games with "crappy graphics". A lot of titles come to mind when speaking about this, but I won't cite any this time.

  Furthermore, I consider a lack of interest in a very simple yet fun and competitive game: Minesweeper. The most known variant of this game was developed by Oberon Games and released as part of an entertainment pack for Microsoft Windows in 1990; ever since, it has been included in every Windows release. Included, yet mostly ignored...

  

  The objective of the game is very clear: you have to clear a board of mines without getting killed by one. The board is full of "white" squares which you have to unveil to find out which of them are indeed mines. To do so, the "free" squares have a number written on them that show up when they are clicked. This number indicates the number of mines there are on the 8 squares around it. You must decide which of them are mines, flag them and open up the entire board to see the cool smiley

  

  Good ol' Minesweeper... To make it a little bit more challenging, the game offers you three levels of difficulty and records scores for best time solving a board. Seems pretty easy, huh? It is, and that's the key for fun (I'm not trying to say new games are bad at all... indeed, complexity is also a compelling factor for casual and hardcore gamers). Why then is this little game relegated to moments of unfathomable boredom and not even taken as a "videogame"? That's a question for everyone to answer themselves... maybe is its lack of multiplayer and even of replayability (meaning, after gaining your own highscores).

  

  But this game is still alive, even though Windows Vista version almost killed it (check out this for further details). There's a group of players that keep Minesweeper going on with tournaments, holding world records, etc. This has made the game even more competitive, instating the creation of the 3BV and 3BV/s measures of difficulty and "ability" (read this article for more information: 3BV). So why not consider getting just a bit more serious on this game and not only use it to kill boredom?

  There are also cool variations of the game, just like Minesweeper 3D, which I will not take on consideration in this article.

  

  All said, now it's up to you to remember those good days with old gaming and join them with the fun of this simple game to click once more on that pretty yellow smiley and start a new board...

  • Posted Jul 14, 2009 3:51 pm PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 8Jul 09

  Nostalgia

  So I was playing Diablo II, remembering good ol' times, and a friend came up with the idea of recording the bosses's dying animations. Thus I came with this new video... Hope you enjoy it!

  See ya soon, hope to see your comments...

  ---

  PD: sorry for the missing final letters, I don't know what happened...

  • Posted Jul 8, 2009 6:33 pm PT
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