10/19/97 - Wondrous Momentlets Approacheth.

     Sorry for not writing recently.  To be honest,
     I didn't realize it had been six days since
     I'd last written.  The last week went by so
     fast what with the paper (tie together
     Victor and his creation based on one passage
     in the novel), Latin assignments, reading,
     and various other distractions, including...
     Yeah, baby, Quake 2 demo. ;)

     Here's the review (Dan is my roommate),
     originally sent to my Quake clan:

     ----

     I think this test was just to get some initial
     bugs and things worked out, hence it only
     supports single-player.  The word is that another 
     demo will be released in a couple weeks, which
     will be fully-featured and will keep us somewhat
     satiated until the game actually comes out.  I
     think I might actually buy it instead of leech it
     off Dan. ;)

     Okay, the review...well, Dan told me there was
     a rumor going around that the Quake2 demo was
     coming out last night so I monitored irc.3dnet.net
     and EFNet for news...Dan and I kept CuteFTP on
     refresh at ftp.idsoftware.com...sometime past
     midnight, Tokay logged in and said there was no
     official news of a demo being released.  So of the 
     500 people on #quake on 3dnet, 200 quit in three
     minutes.  So I was up late doing some stuff, then
     went to sleep for an hour...Dan woke me up and
     told me the demo was out so we downloaded it...
     Redwood, Blue, Disruptor, sCary, one_thumb, and
     all the big Quake folks were up too.  I stayed
     up since I couldn't sleep and played it a bit.
     Played it more this afternoon.

     Okay, well, the little nifty things are wonderful:
     transparent water for people without 3d effects,
     flies around corpses, sparks, more advanced models
     like ruined metal beams and holes in the walls and 
     such, the enemies duck and crouch and jump to escape
     your shots, there are items that you use when you
     choose (and not when you pick them up), the weapons
     are realistic (machine gun recoils upwards as you
     shoot it), and many other things.

     I myself prefer Quake just for the way it feels.
     Quake was made for a computer in the generation of
     mine, 133, 32MB, so Quake2 is sluggish for a lot
     of people.  It might just be because the code
     hasn't been streamlined yet or whatever, but still,
     our computers are becoming outdated.  The way
     Quake II looks reminds me of Duke Nukem 3d in that
     it's futuristic and it has a lot of color and metal.
     Looks cartoonish.  The weapons are futuristic too.
     I prefer the modern weapons like the shotgun and the
     old-style rocket launcher.  And I like the grunginess
     and lack of color and darkness of Quake.  It feels
     believable, in Quake.  It's actually moody and can
     sometimes take you by surprise when you turn the
     corner and run into a fiend.  In Quake II, I have
     problems seeing monsters.  The background is too
     bright so the monsters blend in.  I do like the
     mountains in the background and the openness of
     QuakeII.

     The grenade launcher in QuakeII kicks major ass. ;)
     I like it a lot better than the grenade launcher in
     Quake, except it's slower.  All the weapons seem
     to be slower.  This might be something for
     multiplayer combat to sort of give more attention
     to aim instead of luck shots.  Hard to miss with
     double barrel, though.

     The levels are wonderful and they actually FEEL real
     in respect to the lack of bare walls and rectangular
     rooms that Quake had.

     But I think I've grown too accustomed to Quake and
     it will be hard to play QuakeII more than I play
     Quake.  I wonder how it'll affect the leagues when
     QuakeII comes out..

     Ran around a bit in QuakeII, though, and multiplayer
     will still rule. ;)

     ----

     So there's the review.  Some of you may see me as
     some online game geek after reading this, but look,
     the Quake community is HUGE...  I mean, phenomenal.
     Quake is the most popular online game on the 'Net
     and is used as a benchmarking program for computers.
     It's not just a game, it's a way of life. ;)

     Oh yes, and why did I name this .plan as such?
     Because the day is nearing...the day when I fly
     overseas to Scandinavia to be reunited with my
     true love, the one person my heart beats for
     besides myself, the woman who reduces me to an
     affectionate, babbling fool madly in love.
     Sweetie?  It's closer than we think -- rapidly
     approaching with school diverting our attention
     from the suffering of waiting.  I love you and
     I can hardly wait for that glorious day to
     arrive when we hug again, for the first time...


   .                 .                   . c o m                         
   |-.   ,-.   ,-.   |-   . .   ,-.   ,-.   ,-.   ,-. 
   | |   |-'   | |   |    | |   |     | |   |-'   |   
   `-'   `-'   ' '   `'   `-'   '     ' '   `-'   '