I laughed out loud when i first heard Slithice, the naga siren respond in DotA. Just like that: “Hey, sailor” “don’t be afraid” “my song is yours”, after each other. It turned out i can handle her, the troll warlord and the demon witch quite well, actually getting over ten kills with the troll warlord every time. Meaning my stats were going well. I also was informed of something i didn’t realise yet, that is, computer controlled heroes by default gain loads more experience and gold. That’s why i had so much trouble with them…

Furthermore, i got a bad IP or something, so the router doesn’t like me this weekend, meaning i have hardly any time when the net’s working flawlessly. Or at all. Quite troublesome, since many of the stuff i’d do instead of DotA are dependent on a working connection, thus the huge temptation to just play on arises. But i don’t want to spend all my time in front of the screen, so i plan various outings, but all are stuck at the level of “away from the dorm”. I would appreciate some suggestions.

Is what i’m not going to write about right now. But i too, disappeared the whole weekend. Thursday we had a party, after which i woke up way too late, had a meeting about a later possible job (and fame, heh) and went to our farewell party. Japanese apparently like to say goodbye a month or more before people actually leave, which i don’t really see the meaning of, but it probably again a cultural difference. When we decided to leave the party, just in time to escape the cleaning.

Then came the interesting part, in the form of a DotA lan party, for most of the time in the 3 mongolians and Robert vs 3 vietnamese and me form. I’m painfully noob, but at least now know which way to go, and since then already doing a nice progress. “Nice progress.” Just like that, modestly. Then yesterday as well, with Robert on wireless, just two of us against AIs for getting used to heroes and items. Worked quite fine.

And there goes a weekend without any sleep in the night, minimal in the day, and still i’m fine. Seriously, this sounds like that Taft advert…

For about a year now i’ve had a Nokia phone—don’t ask exactly what kind, i don’t know. The most important thing is that it has a game called Glamour Pinball. As the name indicates, it’s a pinball (sometimes called “flipper”), and i really enjoy playing it in my spare time, while travelling or when i couldn’t read a book. I’ve been playing it for a while and time by time i encountered “modes” or extras nowhere documented—you can’t really find any resources on the net about this game, that’s why i decided to write this post. I couldn’t attach any pictures and maybe i’m mistranslating a few names, but i’m playing a localised version of the game, so i don’t know how stuff are called in english.

A rarity occurred just now: i played. For a long time, about one and a half hour. What game could remain entertaining for so long? Many, naturally, but in my case, it was now the “mighty” flOw, the game where the player leads a small worm-like creature to evolve, and become the dominant (and only) inhabitant of its region of the sea.

flOw at first came out as a flash game in 2006, and it was very successful, having reached 350 thousand downloads in two weeks from its launch (according to Wikipedia). I got it sometime in 2007, but i don’t remember where have i read about it or where have i seen it–it doesn’t matter either. I haven’t played much with it ever since then, because after completing the second chapter (the Jellyfish), there’s no way further. I’ve read that a bug prevents me from going up to the surface again, but there’s nothing afterwards anyway. In the flash version, there are only two creatures you can control, the first “Worm”, and the second “Jellyfish”. With the Worm, it’s a lot easier than with the Jellyfish, but still not too easy. In its PS3 version, because there’s such a thing, there are many more creatures. (Now comes the summary.) It’s an entertaining, and not easy game, for “all audiences”. If you have a spare hour, give it a try, you won’t regret it.

Finally, the news i’ve been waiting for many years now… StarCraft II is officially announced. This one’s shocking. Naturally Blizzard has not announced an official debut date yet, but some sites (unofficially) claim that the game will come out on the 20^th of November.

I’ve seen the images, i’ve seen the trailer movie, and all i can say is that just as WarCraft III, or rather say, just as all Blizzard strategies as of yet reformed the RTS genre, StarCraft II will also follow that path and become a game everyone knows about, in the matter of seconds after it’s debut.

On the game’s IGN page, one can find 30 high quality pictures and a three minute long (!) video of the game, and a report from the scene. How to say, it’s… well, to quote Monty Python, “it’s…” Or if you want me to continue the sentence so badly: it’s perfect. A new, 3D graphics engine displays the game. Everyone knows, that i’m not very sensitive about the graphics of a game, but this one really rocks. I couldn’t say anything bad about it. The explosions, the battles, the units, the nukes, everything is designed in the quality expected from Blizzard.

Been doing something really unusual lately: playing. I’ve been playing the Prince of Persia – The Two Thrones, and i almost finished it. So to say, almost finished the Vizier, but he always manages to get me with some wall pieces…

The story isn’t a big thing i say, but it’s good for what it should be: gives some reason why to play further, why to slay those countless monsters opposing us and such. It has the usual neo-prince romance line too, this time with the old-new love Farah.

The additional, interesting colour is the appearance of the Dark Prince, that i wrote about earlier… Damn that cat-girl who caught the Prince with that chain in the beginning… it’s all her fault. Alright, the Dark one is sometimes quite useful when have to get out of stressed situations – he has a huge fighting potential, the only problem is if he doesn’t get sand… he quietly dies then. It’s also funny sometimes how the two (alter-)ego of the Prince argue inside, taunting and criticising each other.

There are no new sand powers though, and two of them are virtually unusable, at least i haven’t found out what’s the point in sacrificing two or four tanks of sand for nothing… The good old rewind and slow are our most helpful allies, as expected. There are to be many many combo attacks, but i have only used a few, about six… Two with two weapons, two with the dagger only (that is the permanent weapon) and two with the Dark Prince’s chain. The others are either not effective enough or too complicated or (the most probable) i’ve been simply too lazy to look them up.

As in the previous episodes, the Prince can get health boosts here too. They are sometimes easy to find, but sometimes dead hard. And it’s always dead hard to get that bonus – but it’s neccessary. For the last one, don’t even try it without having all the sand tanks full… it’s impossible elseway. I have missed one somewhere in the beginnings, so i’ve to fight the bosses with -1 health…

About the bosses… If you find out how to fight them it’s easy to finish them off, all the time with the newly implemented Speed Kill thing. So you’ve to strike when the dagger flashes. But you should learn that in the very beginnings so you don’t have to fight all the enemies, just silently (almost hitmanly) cut their necks.

There was a boss that made me go ROFL, literally. I’d to kill two simple sand soldiers, then i got into an arena. A huge golem broke out of the wall and attacked me. I slashed his legs as usual, and then climbed up. Then he threw me off. After about half an hour of trying i was a bit fed up with it so i tried going with speed kill. Leg-slashing, back-climbing, speed kill head-pierce. Then it started to run. Bang, hit the wall and fell on the Prince, RIP. Did that about dozens of times and no luck. Tried jumping off and everything. Alright, me angry again. Tried controlling the golem, like i control the cart in the race. AND IT WORKED!!! I simply rode its head and smashed thourgh gates. I thought i’ll fall off the chair of laughing =).

New thing is furthermore that you can get into horse-pulled carts and travel using that. Only 2-3 times in the game, quite hard, but not impossible. Fun, if you get the hang of it.

There were some bugs, like monsters (or the Prince) falling through walls into the abyss, but that was easily solved using Rewind. Graphics good as expected from a PoP game.

10/10 – definitely addictive

P.S. do you know that joke in the title?

Man’s driving in the middle of nothing at the speed of 150 mph. He then sees a sign: “SPEED LIMIT 100”. He obediently slows down. A few minutes later another: “SPEED LIMIT 70”. Alright, that’s still bearable, so he slows. After driving a while, another sign: “SPEED LIMIT 30”. Gosh, that’s slow, but no way he wants to get caught speeding, so he slows. A couple of minutes later: “SPEED LIMIT 10”. He thinks that maybe it’s a construction somewhere and slows. He drives for a while, then a town appears: “WELCOME TO SPEED LIMIT!”

That’s it =)