同事們玩Sega Genesis的Mutant Hockey League, 懷緬一番.
面對最近十分繁忙的工作, 頭兒某天捧來一個大紙箱, 一看裡面是一套中古Sega Genesis (日稱Mega Drive, 又稱世嘉五代)加上Mega CD和大堆遊戲. 頭兒說他是自己掏腰包把整套買來放在公司裡舒緩工作壓力的. 效用果然是有的, 大家熟手地抬來一部大電視(當然不用LCD), 幾下手腳接好電線, 吃著午飯的我就看著兩位同事在他們兒時常玩的Mutant Hockey League上重拾刺激了. 後來更有同事把私伙的Genesis遊戲也帶回來分享, 而我後來也玩了原祖NBA JAM, 以前經常到朋友家玩的. 說起來我現在做的工作跟這遊戲的關係都可算根深柢固, 每次想起來都有點難以置信.
其實自那次之後, Genesis便進入封塵狀態了 -__-|| 工作實在做不完, deadline又不能一拖再拖, 變成吃飯不離工作了. 完事之後, 定必要在Genesis上大玩一場!
暑期算是正式來臨了, 我的房間晚上平均室溫從20左右到了現在的23.5.
放在臺上的PC, 開機後除了很吵之外, 最重要是運作大概一小時後便會令房間溫度升至25以上. 一點都沒有誇張, 我用的9800GTS出了名是發熱能力超班. 如果不是自行裝了兩個case fan, 還有可能導致超溫而底板未免損壞而自動關機. 換來的就是額外的噪音了.
心想每天開電腦, 除了收發電郵/上網看看新聞, forum/開個itunes為ipod touch下載podcast之外真的沒有其他. 之前安裝了C&C4但受不了玩一個小時便開始出汗, 遊戲可以冬天再玩.. 但現在情況, 似乎一台bare bone機器便能應付我的需要. Mac Mini看來不錯, 夠小巧之餘就算整天開著亦不需要為散熱或噪音另外處理. 如果弄台Intel Core2的以後還能把玩xcode. 去Bestbuy看看價錢, basic model五百出頭不算貴, 心裡想著的卻是數數年頭Apple好像有一段時間沒發佈新Mini了, 現在買會不會幾個月後同價能購入新款?! 由於不是逼切需要, 所以不能套用早買早享受這個想法, 必須買得精明一點.
最後都是決定先平價買部舊款的, 幾個月後如果覺得真正好用再投資一部高spec的, 說到底其實就是過了暑期再說. 幾個身為蘋果用家的網友們也推斷新款Mini應該會年內推出. 經過幾天的ebay shopping, 以兩百塊的合理價錢買了一部PPC G4 1.5Ghz + 1Gb Ram的初代Mini. 雖然年資不少而且dvd rom開始運作不靈, 但賣家一直妥善使用所以性能是不錯的. 賣家把Mini包裝送出前format並重灌了隨機附送的Panther (10.3). 問朋友借了隻花豹安裝, 想不到頭一次接觸Mac desktop便學到不少技能..
Hit the link to check it out!
Or if you wish to read a “lite” version that contains no pictures, here it is:
From VDIGI Electronics, the company that brought us the VD-W2 Wii VGA cable, this time they surprised us once again with another breakthrough – VD-W3, the world’s first ever Wii upscaler that brings graphics output to a whooping 1080p from the current max of 480p.
Right now, the Nintendo Wii system offers users the Wii component cable for purchase, which cost about $29.99USD and allows user to enable 480p mode display on their Wii. Back in 2004 this would have been sufficient, when HDTVs were beginning to come into people’s homes and most people were still gaming in 480i or even S-video display. Nowadays the two major high definition enabled consoles offer up to 1080p resolution, which is widely supported in any recent HDTVs. Is 480p really enough for the Wii? Is the Wii really limited to output of last-gen HD graphics?
Well, maybe not anymore with the help of VD-W3.
[Read the rest of this entry...]
It has been forever since I wrote something. It’s not because I ran out of things to say, it’s not because I’m too busy to write, it’s not because I forgot, it’s not..
See what I did there? I just sugar-coated my excuses. Anyhow, definitely would write more often again now. But I’m gonna just warm up with a photo this time. Until then!
好友占占曾對我說, 希望我能在523講多點有關遊戲開發的大小事情. 「血淚史」就談不上了(可況事業在這個階段, 「血淚」要成為「史」還有一段時間呢 :P), 但的確在上班之後, 有很多東西是連在Art Institute讀遊戲開發都學不到的. 各大機種的開發專用機就是一個好例子. 一來它們訂價不便宜(PS3剛推出時一台dev kit要賣美金五位數字), 二來也不是說有錢就買得到(ebay上面二手的不算), 畢竟主機的公司也需要知道什麼人在開發該機器的軟件, 軟件內容是什麼等等.
先說我使用經驗最多的360吧, 我從做part time時已經主要在這個平台做測試的工作, 其間有些日子也會在不自願的情況下轉到PS3去.
Xbox360開發機有分兩種, programmer專用的dev kit還有比較普遍也比較便宜的test kit. 我的經驗主要在test kit方面, 所以對dev kit的特點也不能說得太清楚. 很多人在雜誌看到360的開發機圖片, 大部份應該都是dev kit. 原因是test kits很多時候外表是與retail版沒兩樣. 當然開機後進入了開發OS這點是最大不同, 但雜誌很少會公開這些畫面.
雖說FFXIII占據了我大部份玩遊戲的時間, 但只限家中遊玩. 上班休息時進行的攻略在這兩個星期內也進展不少:
Call of Duty Classic (XBLA)
我都不知道為何我會有veteran難度全破的能耐, 只記得有太多次我氣得退出遊戲回到360的dashboard, 然後差點在菜單中選擇’Delete Game’.
Veteran難度屈機, 相信大家已經聽過我說無數次了. 正如我說, 我也不知道自己為何有如此被虐傾向.. 明明玩到完全不像一個以玩遊戲來放鬆身心的情況, 卻不玩不行. 雷射眼AI+每版只有一條能源(第一代沒有Halo式自動補血)也沒有補血包+checkpoints saving經常出錯.
強橫的AI經常暗算我, 我走快兩步也立刻會被遠距離以輕機槍headshot. 最後, 我沒辦法了, 你做初一..
話說Sony Playstation部門有個新點子, 就是以reality show形式來挑選遊戲測試人員. 剛公佈的那一天, 公司討論版已經出現嘲笑的留言. 前兩日看到一些trailers和節目的細節, 更加忍不住要講句該show甚至整個構思都實在是「柒到無朋友」
My room in the new house, before anything done. As seen here the new sofa is confusingly placed.
Eule log burning on every available monitor at work starting from weeks before Christmas.
上一次的Work and Play是在上年九月寫的.. 所以說這個blog人流少得可憐我也沒有投訴的份兒.
由於搬屋的關係, 當有時間和精神開機的時候都不免要用幾分鐘思考一下自己最想玩哪隻遊戲 – 時間實在太寶貴了! 經統計後發現, 從十一月起開動過的遊戲一隻手可以數盡:
Silent Hill Origins (PSP)
Happy New Year!
For the past 20 days or so I was off work, but there wasn’t a moment where my hands weren’t full. Moving is an ass fusioned with a biatch, I’ll just say it out in the beginning. After moving four times over the past 8 years, my family has finally decided to settle down (for a relatively longer period of time anyway) in a nice little townhouse in Richmond.
While the new place looks promising and ready to be occupied by its new owners, we aren’t. The “big moving day” which involved a moving company was on my last day of work before the break (18 Dec), and I just finished transferring the last of my stuff from the old place to the new one about five days ago. Major reasons for the slow progress are 1) That moving company my dad hired brought a truck the size of a clown car which of course was only able to move the major pieces even after two runs, leaving a bunch of smaller items that we thought “can pick them up ourselves over the next few days”. 2) The fact that we are stuck with renting the old place until February 2010 due to a stale contract makes us all lazy and unmotivated. Not one moving experience was ever pleasant to me, but at least in previous moves the process had to get done within a day or two no matter how ugly, because we had to return the keys to the building manager. 3) My mom always come visit in December, and this time her and my aunt arranged a three-day ski trip to Whistler and a day trip to Seattle over the break. The first trip annihilated my lower back/upper butt area (first time snow-boarding) and the second trip was just twisting the blade.
While I’m extremely glad that the move is almost finalized now that I have to get back to work, I feel that the vacation passed by without me being able to lay down to relax and just truly enjoy the break for a few hours. Almost no movies watched and no video games played in my new room which is still half empty (I was able to finally watch one of my favorite Christmas movies “Home Alone” last night while waiting my cat to dry off after a bath). I was excited to get Final Fantasy XIII in the mail on the 29th but so far I was only logging about 2-3 hours in the game, a LOT less than I would’ve liked. I’m sure if I choose to, I can drop everything else and just start enjoying my new room by cruising on the new sofa, but the unsettling feeling that the shelves and closets are empty bothers me so much that I must unpack and arrange everything before I can sit comfortably and explore the world of FFXIII while watching “Home Alone 2″.
Also apparently I wasn’t able to write in my blog a lot, given that half the time during the break I didn’t even have internet in the house (kudos to the Telus tech guy doing a great job installing cable and leaving his card on my desk even though I was not able to be there during installation, the guy from Shaw who’s supposed to come and install TV just came and left a “we missed you” note on the door even though everyone was in the house at the time. We miss your dumb ass too, so come quick and this time knock on the door instead of whispering outside the building while writing up your little “we missed you” card, you lazy son of a bitch).
Cleaning the old place and changing a bunch of addresses still have to be done, but I’m sure things will get back on track within a few decades, eventually. For now here’s a bunch of photos taken during the break:
