Electron Hut: Kyle Bedell’s Blog

I’ve found that over the course of my videogaming history (which, as some of my older readers may chuckle at, has not been that long), I keep coming back to a lot of the older titles in my library. It seems that I’m not alone in my preferences; a new start-up company called Good Old Games has taken to selling old Interplay (that means Black Isle Studios folks, which means games like Fallout!) and Codemasters titles for $5.99 a pop. No DRM, all sorts of cool extras, infinite redownloads, and an extremely snazzy account interface (pictured below):

(or, just look at the native resolution version)

I’m especially fond of the small extras (the complete soundtrack, the high-res wallpapers, etc.) that come with most of the titles on the service. Plus, the installers are all nicely repackaged and the games have been modified to support XP and Vista (where applicable). I’m extremely satisfied with my purchasing experience! All in all, GOG is a worthy entrant into the field! The site is in beta right now, but you’re likely to get an access key pretty quickly if you sign up on the front page of the site. Enjoy your semi-retro gaming!

I just sold off my Lenovo X61 Tablet, and I’m in the market for a new notebook for home and school. The problem is that I’m torn. My inner gamer, having used only portable computers with crummy integrated graphics, is clamoring for something that could handle TF2 on the go. On the other hand, this thing is going to be moving all over the place, so I’d prefer something that didn’t have a 17 inch screen and weighed as much as a small elephant. I have something hovering around a $2000 budget, so I’m fairly flexible in what I could go with.

That being said, I basically have three options that I’ve narrowed myself down to.

The lightest (and also the most expensive) would be a new Sony Vaio Z-Series. It’s powerful, portable, and has discrete graphics that don’t completely stink. Not so sure about the very MacBook-like keyboard, but the quality certainly seems to be there.

The middle-of-the-road model (and likely the most inexpensive) would be a Lenovo IdeaPad U330. It’s not a slim or light as the Sony, but the keyboard is the rock-solid ThinkPad one (I love ThinkPad keyboards) and it’s pretty powerful. The only issue (apparently) is that the “mirror-like” screen can cause headaches.

And finally, the heaviest option (at 7 pounds) is a Clevo M860tu (aka Sager NP8660). The bang for the buck ratio here is simply incredible (this thing is basically better than my desktop, crammed into a laptop shell). The quality appears to be top-notch as well. Again, the only issue at the end of the day is the weight (really heavy).

In a perfect world, LG would sell their P300 in the United States, but (despite what they’ve said), that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon.

Thoughts?

I’ve been writing a paper for my Visualizing Information class over the last two weeks. It focuses in on information graphics, particularly in the way that images and text can be used in conjunction with one another to reinforce meaning and reduce cognitive workload. My love of video games managed to work its way into the accompanying visualization, which had to take explain (with verbal and visual components) a problem difficult to explain with just words.

I present to you a brief overview of capture the flag on Team Fortress 2’s 2Fort map! It was my first time using Adobe Illustrator CS3, and I think it turned out rather well. I really want to keep practicing with the tools, so maybe I’ll end up making more of these for the other maps.

Daedalus has two excellent videos on how to play a pyro and the spy. If you happen to play, give them a look!