Category: Games

Sacred

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I am a huge fan of role playing games, the ease with which you can get lost in them forgetting reality is simply awesome. Diablo series is just a case in example, more to follow that I played were Dungeon Siege series, KOTOR, The Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind and Oblivion), et al. Gimme any RPG and I will spend days on end happily clicking away at the monsters that otherwise would have spiralled the world into doom. I am a RPG-whore :-) (Sharma and Ashish, PG-13 levels reached??).

So, I could not help myself from downloading and installing the Sacred series (awaiting the release of Sacred2: Fallen Angel :-) ). The game is pretty much like a Diablo2, with a choice of six different races, and spells and different skill trees, et al. What sets it apart, and I feel it is the money making factor here, is the ability of the character to get into a non-linear game play style. What I mean by non-linear is that the player does not necessarily have to stick to the main game plot ala Diablo, but can go on the side plots and keep on playing them ala Oblivion. How cool is that!?!

The environment graphics are not that well done, slightly 2Dish but the gameplay is pretty decent. Kudos Ascaron Games :-) … my weekends are booked!!

Diablo 3: The thing I have been waiting for

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

When I was doing my engineering (way back in 1999), one of my very good friends, Choxy told me of this original game CDs that his friend had gotten from the US. Now trust me, back then an original game CD was a big thing (it still is, but now you have torrents :-) ), and needless to say, Choxy with his awesome networking capability had those cds with him.

After meeting with him and getting those CDs, I was excited … heck, I was jumping up and down and aching to just play the game. But how to make the game run without those CDs… that was the question. After much soul searching, I found the right crack (had to install the game twice before I got the exact crack!!). By this time it was night and my mother was heckling me to go to sleep (yeah, it was so back that I actually listened to my folks). You could say that this was the turning point … once, the game started running, I said bye bye to a normal life, and the next 3 years of my engineering life were spent late-nights, surfing, playing, days – sleeping, eating.

I was hooked, and how!?! One of my best friends also got hooked to the game, so much that he used to visit my place just to play the game … and boy he was a good player. During my CAT preps, I took his help in occupying the machine so that I would not play Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction instead!! So part of my MBA’s credit is also due to Kombdi!!

After almost 5 years, Diablo2 is completely out of my system. Or so I thought, yesterday I learned about Blizzard announcing Diablo3 :-)

The craze is on.

Nostalgia

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

It has been 2 years (and 2 days) since I have left the campus on the molehill. All the spirals are lying safely packed in my room, the strategies and ideas have given way to the practicalities of real life. Nonetheless, when I was reading Sumedh’s post on CounterStrike … a stream of memories rushed forth. Those hours of insane midnight gaming, those supercharged competitive section matches, those mid-game strategy sessions and counter-attack theories.

Sat today and played CS with a friend and some bots. It was not that great, but the nostalgic feeling is being rekindled with a fuzzy warm feeling about how we used to play CS in 2004-2006.

Sigh! Heres to days gone by.

N3tH@c|<

Prasad Ajinkya3 Comments

The mountain giant picked up a boulder and heaved it towards me. My female orc wizard ducked and narrowly missed the hulk of rock. I decided to take my Wand of striking and kill both the giant and the killer bee buzzing behind him in a single strike. The giant absorbed the magic and moved on to pick up the boulder for another shot. I smote off the killer bee with a couple of blows with my trusted +4 magic staff and turned to face the giant. The goliath had managed to pick up the boulder, now was the time … I took out another wand of magic missile and let go its fury at him. No effect. I would have to kill this one by hand-to-hand. No matter. The staff was up for the challenge and my mithril coat was unharmed. A fast flurry of blows was exchanged the giant lay bested at my feet.

No, this is not a dream. Its one of my favorite games, NetHack!! This is a single player game released in around late 1980’s … the development of this game has been completely on the net … and its a hack and slash game … hence net + hack = nethack :-)

Everytime I play the game, theres something new that happens. The maps are different, the characters are many to play with … and the game decides to behave differently on a full moon day!!

Just one more example of how a product has developed in a decentralized fashion over an open interactive medium (IRC and Usenets) to result in a customer oriented product.