Can you do decimals with Roman numerals? I guess I just did. Whee!
While BG2 installs, I figured I'd go for a bit more ranting. Or semi-ranting, or whatever.
First off, Oregon State Football. I'm glad that our football team finally doesn't suck. After not winning a season for like 23+ years, we're finally getting somewhere. Even for a sports non-fan like me, that's sort of nice.
The downside of this is, of course, that there is NO PARKING SPACE AROUND HERE on game days. Which means I had to drive around the parking lot twice to find something. Compare this to last year, when I was routinely able to find parking fairly close to the dorm with no effort. You can understand why I'm somewhat angry about this.
Now then, I'd like to rant a bit on the state of computer games these days. Specific in my mind is this whole idea of collectors editions and the like. I've bought two games in this last year that were packeged that way, because (of course), you get more stuff with them. Ultima IX was the first of these games, and BG2 is the second. What did they come with, you ask? Both came with cloth maps. Big freaking deal. Every Ultima before IX had a cloth map. BG2 has a spiral bound manual. 10 years ago, it seems like that was a standard feature almost. I got little trading cards with BG2. We all know what AoK:TC comes with, right? U9 gave me a set of little virtue cards, which amount to the same thing. Once again, little goodies like this used to be standard 10 years ago, seems like. The only thing that seems like it was worth a lot was BG2's extra CD with more magic items. Worth the extra $10? Maybe.
On the plus side, of course, the graphics (if not always the gameplay) of games nowdays is far superior than even my beloved (but 8 and 9 years old) Ultima VII and Ultima VII Part 2. This is good. Unfortunately, you have to have a supercomputer to run them half the time. BG2's requirements aren't spectacular, but for U9 you needed a Cray or thereabouts. And to what end? 3D in many cases, flashier graphics in others, and huge worlds and the like. Whee. Oh yes, there's always longer install times. BG2 on full install takes an epic amount of time.
And no, there's no real point to this. I'm sure somebody's gotta share my observations though.
Posted by Dwip at September 30, 2000 10:21 PM