Dec 25, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Games
The wonderful gift of the [Atari Anthology](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ tg/detail/-/B0002VS8T2/theusualsuspepat) (more on that tomorrow) inspired my relatives and I to talk about (and play) some other retro games on various emulators. When I fired up Richard Bannister’s Mugrat, I got the following splash screen…
…complete with animated snowflakes and “Winter Wonderland” playing in the background. Since I don’t think the Colecovision actually had a clock and battery, I can only assume this was Richard’s easter egg, specifically for mugrat.
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Dec 24, 2004 · psu · 4 minute read
Games
As I mentioned earlier I bought Half-Life 2 last week. Here is a short meditation on why the game is perhaps the perfect shooter. First Person Shooters are characterized by fairly simple gameplay:
1. Enter area. 2. Kill everything that moves before you die. 3. Exit area.
Ultimately, no matter how dressed up a shooter is with narrative, cut scenes and interactive non player characters, the key to the game’s success is how well it delivers on this core mechanic.
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Dec 23, 2004 · peterb · 2 minute read
Games
This week Salon published an especially depressing The Year in Games article, full of various commentators saying obvious and, for the most part, untrue things.
My favorite had to be the “he’s usually smarter than that” Greg Costikyan talking about how there’s “no indie games industry.” I’d be willing to bet that any random game by Ambrosia software has sold more copies, than, say, any Nokia N-Gage game. Would it be accurate, therefore, for me to say “there’s no mobile gaming industry?
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Dec 22, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Web
For those of you taking off for the holiday, have a great time doing whatever it is you’ll be doing. I plan on continuing to try to update regularly through to the New Year. If you’re travelling, drive safely, and please remember to drink only homemade egg nog, never the store-bought stuff. You have my permission to use pasteurized eggs, if you worry about that sort of thing.
Dec 21, 2004 · peterb · 3 minute read
Games
Here’s another game that I vividly remember playing, but could not recall the name of. A little research has helped me figure it out, however. (Yes, I’ve updated this article since last night, when I still didn’t know the name and was bemoaning my fate).
AWACS (Click to enlarge)
It was an Apple ][ game. My memory of it was as follows: The game was played on a map of Europe, with the Soviet Union on the east and West Germany and environs on the west.
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Dec 20, 2004 · peterb · 11 minute read
Games
The Lost Admiral Returns
The best game I’ve played in my recent spate of reviewing is, without question, The Lost Admiral Returns. You’ve heard the cliches applied to other games: easy to learn, hard to master. This time it’s true.
Some purists divide games into two camps: those that involve random chance (typically through rolling dice), and those that don’t. The latter type are sometimes called “pure” games.
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Dec 17, 2004 · peterb · 7 minute read
Games
One of the mainstays of computer gaming over the years has been translating board games to videogame form. Boardgames are a popular pasttime in their own right, and their constrained playspace and (hopefully) unambiguous rules are a nice change for the developer: there’s a whole class of game design and balance issues that you just don’t have to worry about. It’s all about implementation.
One of the more popular games for translation is the simple and addictive wargame Risk.
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Dec 16, 2004 · psu · 5 minute read
Games
I went to buy Half-life 2 this afternoon. Up the hill from where I work, there is a huge EB Games. What I forgot is that every time I go in that store I have a crappy experience. So I ended up getting the game at a smaller local chain store across the street called The Exchange. Since this is Indie game week, here are some thoughts on why EB Games blows.
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Dec 15, 2004 · peterb · 9 minute read
Games
I’m a huge fan of text adventures – the name “interactive fiction”, it seems to me, is way too general, since it could cover any number of similar-but- different media – but they are possibly the most unapproachable genre in the world of computer games. There’s a lot of really interesting work being done with the medium, but it’s pretty much impossible to get anyone who does not already accept the strictures of the form to try them more than once.
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Dec 14, 2004 · peterb · 11 minute read
Games
There is nothing new under the sun.
Nearly every videogame (or, for that matter, board game) one plays borrows mechanisms from one or more previous games. Innovation is rare. When we describe a game as being “novel” what we’re often referring to is a novel way of combining elements of previous games. I often complain about corporate games that blow their budget entirely on graphics and sound, but part of me understands why: it’s easier to innovate visually (or, to a lesser extent, in telling a story) than it is to develop a brand new type of gameplay that is still fun.
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Dec 13, 2004 · peterb · 4 minute read
Games
Welcome to this week’s first article focusing on independently developed games.
The funny thing about being a ninja is how really, it’s all about the basics. Sure, sure, you can learn advanced jutsu to channel your chakra into a deadly weapon, or distill a lethal poison for slipping into the drink of the man you’ve been hired to assassinate. There’s the parties with other ninja, the endless fashion parade of simple black clothes and ever more expensive accessories (“Oh, didn’t I show you my new shuriken?
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Dec 10, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Web
Next week will be Independent Game Week here at Tea Leaves. Ron at Grumpy Gamer is having his own micro-protest wherein he is not playing the blockbusters. In solidarity, all next week I will be highlighting and showcasing Windows and Macintosh games produced by small teams for not a lot of money. Games will be featured because I think they’re fun; I’ll be focusing on games that are comparatively new (however much I might want to evangelize System’s Twilight to you, the goal here is to showcase games that were developed recently, not “old classics”.
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Dec 9, 2004 · psu · 2 minute read
Food and Drink
Occasionally, people ask me about cooking rice. I always say:
“First you get out your rice cooker.”
At this point, they might ask, “Well, what if I don’t have a rice cooker?”
In that case, my answer starts:
“Well, first you go buy a rice cooker.” I will state without proof that if you ask most people of East Asian heritage how to cook rice, the first thing they’ll tell you is to get a rice cooker.
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Dec 8, 2004 · peterb · 4 minute read
Games
[](/ weblog/images/articles/dale2_screen010.jpg)
Branches That Don’t.
I’ve been playing a bit more Icewind Dale II recently, and I have gotten a bit further in to the game. The game is so soulless and uninteresting that it takes my breath away. Only a committee could have taken such a simple concept and turned out something so completely lacking in fun. As I plow through the same Forgotten Realms setting as the Baldur’s Gate games, using the familiar D20 rules that I enjoyed in other games, I am overcome with ennui and want to lay down and take a nap (or, more accurately, play BGII or bg1tutu instead.
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Dec 7, 2004 · peterb · 2 minute read
Computers
From time to time, I share certain terms that I find useful in my space-age- au-go-go career as a software developer. This is one of those times. Idimpotent - An operation is “idempotent” if it can be safely attempted multiple times. An operation is “idimpotent” if it should be idempotent, but instead it brings your system to a crashing halt if you try it twice. (Variation: idemimpotent).
Implementation detail - This term is usually used to describe the requirements of any given project.
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Dec 6, 2004 · peterb · 4 minute read
Games
I recently started re-playing the Baldur’s Gate games – the originals, for the PC – as well as the somewhat newer Icewind Dale II.
What motivated this was a little bit of hackery over at the Pocket Plane Group called [bg1tutu](http://www.pocketplane.ne t/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=143&Itemid=98). Put simply, this is a project which takes the Baldur’s Gate data files and converts them so they can be played with the Baldur’s Gate II engine. It’s a neat hack.
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Dec 3, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Games
This is last year’s ESPN Basketball game, and you can pick it up for about $7, or less, from any number of game stores. It’s essentially the exact same superb game Sega was making for the Dreamcast 5 years ago, except now I can play it on Xbox Live and have my 76’ers humiliate psu’s mispronounced Celtics, 60-36.
Dec 2, 2004 · psu · 4 minute read
Culture
Dear NPR,
Your recent series of radio stories entitled “Digital Generations” is clearly the most ignorant, juvenile, cliched and simply lazy reporting that you have done all year, and that includes the coverage of the election. Where to start.
Let’s start with the profile of the “digital child” and his “digitally challenged” parents. This piece presents us with the wide brush generalization that “kids these days” have some sort of subconcious connection with technology that their parents simply do not understand.
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Dec 1, 2004 · peterb · 6 minute read
Computers
It was just last week that my friend told me he was going to build his own computer. I asked him to understand in advance that in the weeks to come, after he put it together and it either didn’t work or suffered from a string of ongoing stability issues, I would mock him cruelly. But I would be doing so out of love.
Last night he IM’d me: “OK, you can start laughing now.
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Nov 30, 2004 · psu · 3 minute read
Games
As I outlined before, a large part of my life is spent shopping. This is not to say that I buy a lot of stuff. Mostly I just make mental lists of what I would like to buy, in an ideal world, depending on what my current obsession is. Since my most recent obsession is game consoles, naturally I have been shopping for them latey.
This, of course, makes no sense at all, since the Xbox that I have is perfectly adequate.
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Nov 29, 2004 · peterb · 4 minute read
Games
It’s hard to know how to shop for a videogamer. How do you find something that’s appropriate for their age, fun, and not too expensive if you don’t play games yourself? The answer is: you bend to my will and let me choose your gifts for you.
My goal here is to recommend games beyond the “big names” – the fact is, most gamers are more than happy to go out and buy the big marquee titles themselves; if there’s a gamer in your family with an Xbox, for example, she or he probably already has Halo 2.
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Nov 25, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Food and Drink
If you just eat turkey and salad, and green vegetables, and skip the mashed potatoes, stuffing, candied yams, and so on, Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t actually make you feel so full that you might die.
I say that L-Tryptophan is just a convenient excuse to deny that gluttony makes you sleepy.
Nov 24, 2004 · peterb · 2 minute read
Food and Drink
I listen to NPR, as required by my “urbane liberal” membership. If you listen to NPR also, you know that the passage of the seasons can be marked not only by the weather, but by the reappearance of certain set pieces, regular as clockwork, like old friends.
Or, in the case of Susan Stamberg’s cranberry relish recipe, mortal enemies. Stamberg recites this little bit of culinary performance art – originally inflicted upon the world by food writer Craig Claiborne – every Thanksgiving, without fail.
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Nov 23, 2004 · peterb · 4 minute read
Racing
Around Thanksgiving, in my house, the pheromones that men emit while bonding flow thickly and freely. In the haze of their L-tryptophan enhanced post- prandial stupors, men move slowly, so as not to alarm their pack-mates. Belts are loosened. Talk of politics is avoided. Attention focuses, inevitably, on whatever sport is on TV. Often, this ends up being football, naturally, but every so often I’ll walk into the room only to find all eyes focused in rapt attention on a golf match.
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Nov 22, 2004 · psu · 2 minute read
Games
I found out today that the title of this piece is sadly not original. In fact, much of what I have to say is even told [more concisely here](http://www .penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2004-11-19). But I figured, why let lack of originality stop a good rant. So here we go.
The new Metal Gear Solid game is out, and I noticed that aside from the exception above, all the game review sites seem afraid to tell their readers the truth, which is that if this game is anything like the other two in the franchise, then it completely blows.
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Nov 21, 2004 · psu · 3 minute read
Games
Just finished the single player in Halo 2, so I feel like I can talk about the game in more detail. Good:
The single player campaign improves on the first game in almost every way. For example, in the first Halo, there was a load screen for every large chapter of the game, but then none within each level until you got to the end. In Halo 2, there is a load screen when you start the game but then there isn’t another one until you quit.
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Nov 19, 2004 · peterb · 6 minute read
Games
I have a friend who won’t play The Sims. She won’t even try it.
This is someone who likes whimsical videogames, who enjoys nonviolent, nontraditional games. So it seemed to me that even if this wasn’t her cup of tea, it would at least be worth trying. I asked her why she was so sure it wasn’t for her.
“It’s like this,” she said. “In Kindergarten, we used to play ‘house.
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Nov 18, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Computers
Work has been super-busy, so I haven’t had any time to hack on Bonaguil. Therefore, I’m releasing the source code for people to look at and/or play with. All right are reserved at this point; consider this free (as in beer) for personal use, but not in the public domain or GPLable. If you produce a derivative work based on Bonaguil, please give credit accordingly and include the URL of this weblog.
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Nov 17, 2004 · psu · 3 minute read
Culture
There was a discussion on our local chat system a while back about the genesis of the frenzy over Halo 2. Pete suggested that the pre-release hype for a game such as Halo has its origins in the hard-wired obsessive addiction that hard- core gamers have for the next big hit, having been searching for the next big hit since their first exposure to games as young men.
This, of course, does not apply to me.
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Nov 16, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Web
Time at which I deployed the new, custom designed category icons for Tea Leaves yesterday: 7:38 pm.
Time at which the first reader complained that I took away their favorite icon: 7:49 pm.
I love the little fruit-lover as much as the rest of you, but he’s not mine. I always felt a little guilty about my icons; they’re grabbed from all sorts of random places. I wanted something that would give the site a little more consistent feel.
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Nov 16, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Games
I have no point here, I just like saying “343 Guilty Spark”.
Nov 15, 2004 · peterb · 2 minute read
Photo
If you’re able to borrow someone’s child for a few hours, you should visit the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum. Although their web site is vile, the installations at the museum are nothing short of superb. Nearly everything in the museum is interactive, interesting, and playful in visual, aural, or tactile ways.
[](/weblog/imag es/articles/DCP_1272.JPG)
Click to enlarge
There’s a studio space where you, can make paper, silkscreen prints, paintings, or pottery. There are interesting interactive visual exhibits like the one pictured to the left.
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Nov 14, 2004 · peterb · 3 minute read
Games
Dear Robert:
Here’s a question for you. It’s inspired by the knowledge that the demo for Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox release Forza Motorsport is circulating amongst the gaming press, but is not yet in wide enough circulation for any of the game bloggers I know to have played it yet. The question is “Why aren’t demos like this going to the blogosphere first?
One of my primary interests is game blogging. I write intelligent, straightforward, in-depth, and (I think) fair commentary on video games, their design, and implementation.
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Nov 12, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Games
Tonight I discovered that Halo 2 lets you define custom variants and name them. So, as a test, tonight I’ll be rolling out Glock 19, a very simple variant: Players start with a pistol. There are no weapons to be found anywhere on the map, and no vehicles. And you have no shields.
It’s about as close to Counterstrike as I could make Halo be. You also have the option of making players sit out for up to 2 minutes when they die, but I figure I’ll see how the rest of the group takes it before adding that little rule.
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Nov 11, 2004 · peterb · 3 minute read
Games
My praise of Halo 2 on this site has been pretty lukewarm so far. This is unfair, because it really is a great game. I think the issue is that some of the improvements from the first game are so subtle that they’re hard to notice, and then once you notice them they’re hard to describe to someone that hasn’t played both games. Because of this, Halo 2 is perhaps missing some of the “wow factor” that some of us expected.
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Nov 10, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Games
Apparently, I’m not that good at it. And not just the online version, either. I started the single-player campaign of “Heroic,” which is one notch above normal, and am now ruing it. I’m considering restarting on “normal,” or perhaps even looking to see if there is some easier setting, perhaps named “creampuff Casper Milquetoast”.
But it sure is pretty.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I like Halo, a lot. It’s pretty much a rock solid implementation of “the 3d multiplayer deathmatch shooter.
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Nov 9, 2004 · peterb · 2 minute read
Games
Today, I bought the Collector’s Edition of Halo 2.
In a cruel twist of fate, the box I got had only one disk in it – the “making of” DVD – and no game disk. So I had to trudge back to Huge Corporate Chain tonight to exchange it for a box which actually, y’know, had the game I paid for. So, expect the first look review tomorrow, instead of today.
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Nov 8, 2004 · peterb · 2 minute read
Places
It was just this past summer, and I was in my favorite French bistro in Toronto: La Palette. It is small, comfortably crowded, and quirky. It was a wonderful day. Kensington Market was closed to auto traffic in a “take back the streets” sort of moment. Live music blared from three different bands. And a summer shower forced us all inside – wet, but happy. I was looking forward to a simple plate of steak frittes.
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Nov 6, 2004 · psu · 6 minute read
Food and Drink
Chinese dumplings, or the fried variation called Pot Stickers (more literally, the stuff that tears up because it is stuck to the bottom of the frying pan) were a fixture of my youth. My mom brought them from China to the U.S. and I remember huge get togethers where a dozen friends and family would crank out hundreds of these things for all of us to gorge on.
Although I was never much help making them as a child, one of the missions of my adult life was to figure out how they are made, and at least be able to create a reasonable facsimile of the dish in my own home.
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Nov 5, 2004 · peterb · 9 minute read
Culture
You’d think that having an iPod would be an endless parade of musical bliss. And, mostly, it is. But the one worm in the apple is that now that you have 5,000 songs in the library, and you have to rate them.
“Oh, come now,” you say. “You don’t have to rate those songs.” And maybe you’d be right in a sort of narrowminded, positivist, literal way. But when you’re talking about me, you’re talking about someone who eats all of the green M&M’s first, and is convinced that they actually taste better.
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Nov 4, 2004 · psu · 4 minute read
Games
Last week I found I was in my local GameStop and happened to browse past Prince Of Persia: The Sands of Time. Since Pete was pretty hard on this game and I tend to believe Pete, I had avoided it until now. But I figured (1) it was cheap and (2) I could return it in a week if I hated it, since it was used.
Prince of Persia is not the type of game I usually get into.
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Nov 3, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Culture
I promise, I promise, the political articles will stop, soon.
In anticipation of the continuing disaster that is our electorate’s (apparent) choice, I present, for your delight and consumption, the I Blame Ohio line of fine clothing products. Coffee mugs, T-shirts (for you or your budding little politicians), mouse pads – if you’re bitter, have we got the products for you. Just stop by and visit the store.
If you haven’t tried blaming Ohio yet, start today!
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Nov 2, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Culture
Today’s the day. Place your bets, make your choice, and vote.
Four years ago, the cant among the hipper-than-thou was that it didn’t matter whether Bush or Gore was elected, because they were both corporate drones with indistinguishable policies.
Today, it is clear to everyone: it matters whether Bush or Kerry wins this election. It matters a lot.
Nov 1, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Food and Drink
[](/weblog/images/artic les/DCP_1207.JPG)
As American as apple pie
Not a lot of sugar, an amazingly fantastic whole wheat crust, and a ton of Northern Spy apples. It was yummy. Still, I maintain my position that sour apples are perfectly fine to eat out of hand.
When I was a kid, we had a sour cherry tree in our backyard. Every summer, we were overwhelmed with baskets, buckets, crates of sour, tangy cherries that would make you pucker like a persimmon.
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Oct 29, 2004 · peterb · 2 minute read
Culture
Here’s a photo of a 1949 political billboard from Pittsburgh. The photo, courtesy of the Pittsburgh Courier Archives, is by Charles “Teeny” Harris, who took over 80,000 pictures depicting black life in Pittsburgh. The billboard is by the Republican party, which I guess hasn’t changed much in fifty years. I originally saw this on [Orcinus](http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_dneiw ert_archive.html#109899640189526198), who credits d. eaton with pointing it out to him.
I think this image serves as a cogent and simple reminder that the political appeals to fear – by either party – are not some sort of new technique.
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Oct 28, 2004 · peterb · 1 minute read
Web
Due to a power outage at our ISP, followed by a hard drive crash, Tea Leaves was unavailable for most of the day. But, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the folks at Telerama Internet, we’re back online without even having lost any data (other than perhaps a few comments.)
Here’s a big plusplus going out to the team at Telerama. Thanks, guys!
Oct 27, 2004 · psu · 2 minute read
Culture
My first Red Sox World Series experience was in 1975 against the Reds. My dad didn’t let me stay up for game 6 and Carlton Fisk’s home run. Of course, they lost game 7.
In 1986, I was in school and didn’t even realize the Sox were in the series until we tuned in on game 6. For game 7 I was at a Billy Joel concert. He’s a Mets fan.
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Oct 26, 2004 · peterb · 4 minute read
Culture
[](http://www.amazon.com/exec/ obidos/tg/detail/-/1582344167/theusualsuspepat)
[Strange and Norrell](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1582344167 /theusualsuspepat)
I’m currently reading Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I’d characterize as Jane Austen meets Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.
Most reviewers have compared the book to the Harry Potter series, undoubtedly because the book is “about” magic, and takes place in England. This isn’t any more accurate than comparing Catch-22 to A Farewell to Arms simply because both are “about” war and take place in Italy.
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Oct 25, 2004 · peterb · 3 minute read
Food and Drink
One of the best features of the Xbox home console system is that you can rip music from music CDs to the hard disk. Some games then allow you to play that music back in-game. The classic street racer Project Gotham Racing is one such game. One of the first things I did upon acquiring an Xbox was to rip a whole bunch of surf music on to the hard drive.
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Oct 22, 2004 · peterb · 4 minute read
Culture
This morning on the way in to work I made the mistake of tuning in to NPR. Steve Inskeep was interviewing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) about partisanship. In so doing, Frist made the point that the Democrats have blocked 10 Federal Circuit Court nominees from consideration and that, and I quote, “the blocking of 10 justices, has never been done in the history of this country.”
My mouth dropped open, because this is a lie.
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