Skip to main content

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Christmas is coming and Santa Claus is under strict instructions to visit the Mindbending household. Needless to say the girls have asked for a lot of stuff. They are both treasures however and I am sure Santa will be kind. Sadly nobody asked Santy for proper computer games despite my best efforts in operation Nintendo. Nevertheless I have a secret plan. My girls are going to see a movie called "Happy Feet" this week. By all accounts this is a great family movie so I expect they will be enthralled. I discoveered that the "Happy Feet" video game is available for the Nintendo Gamecube so I will sneak a copy under the Chirstmas tree and see what happens.

Speaking of Santa it has been my custom to buy myself a couple of games every Christmas to see me through the holidays. The rest of the year I play scrooge and live on second hand and bargain bin offerings but at Christmas I will go full price if need be. A good shooter and a good RPG or strategy game usually keeps me entertained. This year however I am not sure what to choose. Half Life 2 Epsode 1 or Prey are probably the best FPS choices. Medieval Total War 2 is tempting but it doesn't seem to be as groundbreaking as Rome was and I already have a first rate strategy game "Company of Heroes" waiting for my attention. I'm currently reading "Q" by Luther Blisset all about the trials and tribulations of the reformation. This is a period of history I know very little about but it is quite gripping so far. Perhaps this will sway me back towards MTW2. A few good single player CRPGs have been released : Neverwinternights 2, Gothic 3 and Might and Magic but I can't see myself getting around to play any of these while I am so immersed in Guild Wars. Even though I have still got plenty of gaming to do in the original Guild Wars Prophecies campaign I will probably buy the Nightfall chapter so I can hang aound with my guild mates.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein...

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p...

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get...