I'll start off today's post with a personal favorite of mine. Dreamfall, my favorite game of 2006, is going to become part of Xbox Live's "Xbox classics" line on March 24, i.e. this coming Monday. Great news, as this is a seriously underrated game, both by adventure game fans and people who don't care much about the genre. That's usually what happens when somebody tries to make something different, there's always the danger of alienating both fans and non-fans. Hi, season 3 of Veronica Mars!
Dreamfall definitely has its share of flaws, the worst offender being gameplay since there's too few puzzles in the game, and the ones that are there are very easy, for the most part. That's always a problem when you're trying to create an adventure game that contains puzzles that are brought about by the game's story, rather than just being there, arbitrarily. A sad fact that comes with the limitations of the genre, I guess. It has to be said though, others have done a much better job at it, the original two Monkey Island games come to mind.
Still, while not reaching the quality of the original game of the series, The Longest Journey, Dreamfall is nonetheless a great game. Beautifully designed graphics, even if they show their age nowadays, some of the best voice-acting in any videogame, and an excellent story, quite different than what gamers are used to seeing. Sadly, the storyline itself suffers from being the middle part in an apparent trilogy, but I for one was willing to oversee that.
Hopefully, with its release on the Live network for a price of 1200 Microsoft Points (about 15 euros) the game will manage to find a new audience. From what I've heard, it did quite well when it was released on Valve's Steam network, which is somewhat similar to Live, so here's hoping.
Even though I already own a copy of the game (the PC collector's edition in fact, thank you very much) I'd be tempted to buy one more, just for the heck of it. Turns out, Dreamfall will only be released on a few countries, which kind of sucks. For the whole story, including the list of countries, check this link.
In other news, there's only a few days left until the fourth, and final, season of Battlestar Galactica begins. Suffice to say, I am really hyped for it. I thought the season 3 finale was nothing short of epic, and I really want to see where the storyline will head after the positively cataclysmic revelations of that finale.
I understand that a lot of people weren't too keen on the previous season, but what I don't get is the hate for the latter part of season 3. I thought the early episodes were rather dull and took forever to go... nowhere, while most of the episodes near the end of the season were fast-paced and revealed a fuckton of lore/secret identities/prophecies/etc to us.
Oh, well. I'd like to think that even the most jaded of BSG viewers will at least like to know how the whole thing ends, even if it will be a while from now until we find out. I know I will.
And if stuff like finding out just who is that last member of the Original Five is doesn't appeal to you, here's ten more reasons why you should watch season 4 of BSG:
Ah, Tigh, you crack me up.
Lastly, this isn't something to look forward to, but it's funny nonetheless. Apparently, some dude got himself arrested for calling 911 over 27,000 times over the last 10 months. His excuse? "Because it's free."
See kids, if he had been playing videogames or watching TV shows, he'd probably wouldn't have enough free time to waste on stupid shit like that. If you're a parent, here's a reason for you to think twice before telling your kids videogames are a waste of time.
Υ.Γ.
Η ολυμπιακή φλόγα δεν αρχίζει το ταξίδι της τη Δευτέρα. Όχι, άρχισε το ταξίδι της από τον περασμένο Αύγουστο. Από δέντρο σε δέντρο... (κλεμμένο, από ακροατή του Supersport FM).
Showing posts with label Forest fires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forest fires. Show all posts
Saturday, March 22
Thursday, September 27
Insanity
I had originally planned to make a Sarunas Jasikevicious special for this post, seeing as he just got to Athens earlier today, and it is sort of a big deal for Greek basketball in general, but something I heard made me change my plans. The Jasikevicious post will have to wait until tomorrow.
So what was it I read that made such an impression on me?
Remember the forest fires that destroyed countless forest acres in Greece earlier this summer? Especially the fires in August, in Peloponnisos, where more than 70 people died?
One of the places in Peloponnisos that was hit the worst was the prefacture of Ileia, where 45 people died.
It is in that very place where our story takes place, and more specifically in a small field, where a woman had gathered the stray dogs of the area. It was there that she fed them and gave them shelter, as stray animals do not live that long when left on their own, as you may know. Such a thing is common practice, after all.
Now, in our case, the neighbors of this woman begun complaining about the noise the dogs did during the night with their barking. Imagine that, dogs barking. Whatever will happen next?
It has happened before, people complaining about the noise that animals sometimes make, and in some cases these people end up poisoning said animals. Is this what happened here?
Nope.
They set the field on fire in order to kill the dogs, and of course it worked. The field burned to its entirety, and all the dogs burned alongside it.
Let us now assume, for the sake of the argument, that the noise the dogs were making was so terrible and so loud, that nobody could stand it. Let us also assume that the people in question could not, for whatever reason, talk to the woman and maybe find a more logical solution. This way, we reach the conclusion that killing the dogs is the most effective method of solving this predicament.
How the fuck do you decide to set an entire field on fire, when the entire region was almost annihilated by fires a mere month ago? I'm not even going to discuss how inhumane, how downright sick it is to kill so many animals just because they get on someone's nerves. There's pills that can help you with that, jackass. Leave the poor animals alone.
After all, it's always our fault that domesticated animals end up stray, it's us that leave them to their fate. But we always oh-so-conveniently forget that when we have to deal with a stray, don't we?
Though seriously, how fucking stupid must one be in order to do such a thing? Set an entire field on fire, a fire that could very well spread to a near forest and destroy what little acres of wood were left? Don't forget that you can never control a fire.
Honestly, words fail me. What's worse, nobody is ever going to do anything about this. I hate this country so much sometimes.
So what was it I read that made such an impression on me?
Remember the forest fires that destroyed countless forest acres in Greece earlier this summer? Especially the fires in August, in Peloponnisos, where more than 70 people died?
One of the places in Peloponnisos that was hit the worst was the prefacture of Ileia, where 45 people died.
It is in that very place where our story takes place, and more specifically in a small field, where a woman had gathered the stray dogs of the area. It was there that she fed them and gave them shelter, as stray animals do not live that long when left on their own, as you may know. Such a thing is common practice, after all.
Now, in our case, the neighbors of this woman begun complaining about the noise the dogs did during the night with their barking. Imagine that, dogs barking. Whatever will happen next?
It has happened before, people complaining about the noise that animals sometimes make, and in some cases these people end up poisoning said animals. Is this what happened here?
Nope.
They set the field on fire in order to kill the dogs, and of course it worked. The field burned to its entirety, and all the dogs burned alongside it.
Let us now assume, for the sake of the argument, that the noise the dogs were making was so terrible and so loud, that nobody could stand it. Let us also assume that the people in question could not, for whatever reason, talk to the woman and maybe find a more logical solution. This way, we reach the conclusion that killing the dogs is the most effective method of solving this predicament.
How the fuck do you decide to set an entire field on fire, when the entire region was almost annihilated by fires a mere month ago? I'm not even going to discuss how inhumane, how downright sick it is to kill so many animals just because they get on someone's nerves. There's pills that can help you with that, jackass. Leave the poor animals alone.
After all, it's always our fault that domesticated animals end up stray, it's us that leave them to their fate. But we always oh-so-conveniently forget that when we have to deal with a stray, don't we?
Though seriously, how fucking stupid must one be in order to do such a thing? Set an entire field on fire, a fire that could very well spread to a near forest and destroy what little acres of wood were left? Don't forget that you can never control a fire.
Honestly, words fail me. What's worse, nobody is ever going to do anything about this. I hate this country so much sometimes.
Wednesday, September 5
Contrary to popular belief...
...I'm not dead. I just took an overlong vacation, as I tend to every August. This year is even more important, as this time next year I'll be serving my time in the Greek army. Trust me, it's not half as fun as it sounds. So I figured I'd spend extra time in my mountain village of Neraida, near lake Plastiras, this year, to make up for next year's.
What's more, with the recent atrocities that happened in Pelloponisos and in other parts of Greece lately, I'm starting to worry that the forests I love so much won't be around for much longer. Even without fires, the scorching heatwaves that plagued Greece this year took their toll on the plant and animal life of said forests. The only ones that didn't seem affected were all those fucking flies. My god, the flies. I swear there were at least a million around at any given moment, even at the deepest part of the forest all you could hear was a constant, loud, buzzing sound.
Still, spending your time in the mountains beats Athens and my hometown of Karditsa any day, so it's why I didn't want to leave. Having a few drinking buddies around never hurt, either.
So what's been happening in the world while I was away? Elections were suddenly announced for the 16th of the current month, but let's get serious, I'm not gonna bother with that one.
I was thinking of writing an article about all the disgracing forest fires of June, July, and August, but so much has been said about them recently that I have nothing really significant to add. Except of course for a big ol'"FUCK YOU" to all those that caused this, and all those who could have done something to stop it, but didn't.
At the end of the day though, nothing will say or do will change anything. Elections are a little over a week away, and after that (a month tops) nobody will remember about the forest fires of 2007, and naturally nobody will do anything to prevent such a thing from happening again. It's like this graffiti that's reportedly been seen around Athens lately, loosely translated by yours trully it goes a bit like: "This country is being torn apart by indifference, but what do I care?"
That's Greece in a nutshell for ya.
Anyway, I don't want my first post after so long to be a total downer, so on the positive side, Eurobasket 2007 has been very interesting so far. It's not that the matches that have been played as of today are awesome or anything, but they're really close for the most part. Like last night's game between Greece and Serbia, where Gurovic tied the game with a three-pointer from like nine meters away at the buzzer. I wasn't too happy about it personally at the moment, but in retrospect it helped an otherwise bad game become exciting.
Better yet was Slovenia's win over Italy, with the Italians taking the lead with a few seconds to go for the first time in the game, and then... Well, just watch the following video. Damn, that must have sucked royally for the Italians.
And now I must be off, the basketball match between Greece and Russia is starting any moment, last game of the first round for the Greek team so far, hopefully it will mark our third win. Oh and the Serbs managed to fuck up for the fourth year in a row in a major competition by losing to Israel and coming up... last. Heh.
What's more, with the recent atrocities that happened in Pelloponisos and in other parts of Greece lately, I'm starting to worry that the forests I love so much won't be around for much longer. Even without fires, the scorching heatwaves that plagued Greece this year took their toll on the plant and animal life of said forests. The only ones that didn't seem affected were all those fucking flies. My god, the flies. I swear there were at least a million around at any given moment, even at the deepest part of the forest all you could hear was a constant, loud, buzzing sound.
Still, spending your time in the mountains beats Athens and my hometown of Karditsa any day, so it's why I didn't want to leave. Having a few drinking buddies around never hurt, either.
So what's been happening in the world while I was away? Elections were suddenly announced for the 16th of the current month, but let's get serious, I'm not gonna bother with that one.
I was thinking of writing an article about all the disgracing forest fires of June, July, and August, but so much has been said about them recently that I have nothing really significant to add. Except of course for a big ol'"FUCK YOU" to all those that caused this, and all those who could have done something to stop it, but didn't.
At the end of the day though, nothing will say or do will change anything. Elections are a little over a week away, and after that (a month tops) nobody will remember about the forest fires of 2007, and naturally nobody will do anything to prevent such a thing from happening again. It's like this graffiti that's reportedly been seen around Athens lately, loosely translated by yours trully it goes a bit like: "This country is being torn apart by indifference, but what do I care?"
That's Greece in a nutshell for ya.
Anyway, I don't want my first post after so long to be a total downer, so on the positive side, Eurobasket 2007 has been very interesting so far. It's not that the matches that have been played as of today are awesome or anything, but they're really close for the most part. Like last night's game between Greece and Serbia, where Gurovic tied the game with a three-pointer from like nine meters away at the buzzer. I wasn't too happy about it personally at the moment, but in retrospect it helped an otherwise bad game become exciting.
Better yet was Slovenia's win over Italy, with the Italians taking the lead with a few seconds to go for the first time in the game, and then... Well, just watch the following video. Damn, that must have sucked royally for the Italians.
And now I must be off, the basketball match between Greece and Russia is starting any moment, last game of the first round for the Greek team so far, hopefully it will mark our third win. Oh and the Serbs managed to fuck up for the fourth year in a row in a major competition by losing to Israel and coming up... last. Heh.
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