Distributed Mind

So Mark Santos has made my, well, month. I was complaining to him last week that I needed to play some good racing games, so he sent me a Playstation and a bunch of games, which was very cool of him. So, since Monday, I have been playing a lot of games....

I was originally thinking primarily of Wipeout and POD. Well, no POD, but I do have Wipeout and Wipeout 3. Wipeout is still not quite the same as playing Wipeout on the PC, but Wipeout 3 is a lot of fun (it does throw me to be in a lower resolution though; among other things the displays are harder to read). Wipeout is a futurstic racer with these little hover vehicles - oh, and weapons. So far, my favorite mode in Wipeout 3 is "Elimination": laps on the track or kills count as points, so going fast and blowing other vehicles up are both worth points. There is also a mode where the ranking is determined by how many kills, so 3 eliminations is a gold. I hit 7 out of 11 once... I know, this is slightly violent, but only slightly (nobody dies, right? I think). I may never end up as a Mennonite at this rate though. Normally I would eschew violence, but (1) I realy like Wipeout from "back in the day," (2) it is not very severe violence, (3) it is a racing game, and (4) my judgment has been badly impaired recently. It does get worse though....

A new discovery was Driver 2. It involves carrying out various undercover missions (that look like they cameout of a '70s detective show) in, yes, a car. The first part of the game is set in Chicago, and a farirly convincing Chicago at that, so I was very enthusiastic. The missions are a kick too - so far my favorite was chasing an El train. I didn't get very far sicne I don't have any memory cards to save my game, but I will get some soon, and then... There is also a free driving mode where the player can drive around the city. The problem is it is almost impossible to not break the law (several times I had cops come after me for no apparent reason), and then the police chase you around. The "good" news is that if you can lose the police, you can get out of your car, and pull someone out of another car (or school bus or firetruck...), and steal it, and drive around some more. Yes, I know, somewhat questionable. The graphics are not excellent, but they are mostly convincing, and the gameplay (while not extremely realistic) is a lot of fun. Plus, it has Chicago. This is, I think, my new favorite game. The dubious thematic material is somewhat unfortunate, but, just as with Wipeout, I am having trouble resisting. I also have Driver, and in that game one of the cities is San Francisco. Since Chicago and San Francisco are basically the only two cities I think it would be interesting to drive in (sorry, Indianapolis), I was pretty much set there. If they had thrown in Amman, Jordan, I would have been really psyched. I do get Havana and Rio in Driver 2, though. [By the way, if Driver 2 had a more realistic physics model and more detailed cars, it would be pretty much exactly what I would have hoped for from the Test Drive 2 sequels. Alas, neither Driver 2 nor Test Drive (at least 4 anyway) quite make it.]

I tried Descent Maximum, but the controls are very hard to use - really need a keyboard for Descent. I need to try the Colony Wars games (space combat simulators), they looked good. Also need to try Ridge Racer.

My other great discovery here has been Colin Macrae Rally. This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Straight racing (no weapons...), but interesting tracks, none of this NASCAR stuff. Among other things, it has tracks on snow in Monaco and it has tracks in Greece, which looked a lot like Jordan (both Meditteranean, so not surprising) except with more grass and rocks, which was cool. I was happy when I raced that.

I also have been playing some PC games that are even mroe dubious, I finally tried Descent 3. Not as exciting as Descent 2, but it is ok. I probably won't play very much of it though; it didn't really hold my interest. I tried Ultima Underworld, very old but very cool, but my video is way too dark to see anything, unfortunately. I also finally played Age of Wonders; somewhat disappointingly boring. I wanted to play POD, but it hates my computer. I also considered playing Alpha Centauri, Civilization 2, or Colonization, but, I decided not yet. Most of all, I wanted to play the Baldur's Gate 2 expansion Throne of Bhaal. Okay, so a violent RPG in a fantasy world influenced by all kinds of pagan ideas - we have really strayed frmo the kind of games I have played in the last couple years. I wanted to sit down and play an RPG for a while though, just to refresh my memory of the experience (and the rule hacking - I will have the ultimate party of six!). I don't really intend to play very far in, though. I got bored with this game before, as I recall.

So, there is a record of my unproductivity. I suspect in a couple weeks, I may feel guilty about all these violent video games. I will let you all know...