I think I’ve fallen off the wagon. As new games have come and gone I’ve always returned to Mass Effect 2 for a few hours of distraction. However, since I’ve gotten my PC everything has changed.

I’m nearly at the point where I can just finish the game but I was enjoying it so much to just cop out at the first chance. I know that you need a fully developed team before committing to the endgame so I’ll at least wait until I have that. Despite being like 20 hours into the game, the one thing that would help me get back on the wagon is buying the game on the PC, stupid I know.

A few days ago I mentioned that I’d been playing Eufloria, long story short, it’s excellent. The problem is that the game was yet to produce a real challenge, I felt that my first four to six hours were spent learning the game and the way it works. Just as soon as it started to turn, I went to bed for another night, it was getting late.

The title of this post will probably give-a-way where I’m going with this, my save game has been lost. Now I haven’t touched the files or moved anything but hours of my time have just gone up in smoke. The weird thing is that despite a completed level only being noted by a leaf next to the number and despite the fact I can use the ‘cheats’ screen to unlock to the level I was at, don’t feel compelled to carry on. It’s a shame as I was really enjoying my time with the game, maybe I’ll pick it up sometime down the line.

Hopefully this year’s GDC will throw up some equally as grabbing games of indie goodness.

Every now and then I wonder why I’m actually doing this blog thing. I’ve been getting the feeling recently that I don’t lead an interesting enough life to make one blog post everyday. I mean in the last week, most of my blog posts have been about games or my shiny new PC. Personally I don’t mind talking about all that nonsense but I know it doesn’t create interesting reading.

I’ll probably have to find the real reason for signing up to this challenge. If I don’t I think I’ll have to stop, there’s a big fear of boring everyone to death – something I already do enough outside of the confines of this blog.

I’m actually really enjoying having the option to play all these indie games but I’m starting to pine for something that will really benchmark my new system. That DiRT 2 demo running quite smoothly (1680×1050 Ultra settings DX11 = 34 FPS) scratched some of that itch but I’m still pining for something long term. Maybe the next Steam sale will throw up some goodies for me to download, something else that I’m really enjoying.

This whole experience has made me realise how much I miss PC gaming. Messing around with a ton of settings I’ll never really understand before playing a game, messing around with patching and reading release details. Some things that are just quintessentially related to PC gaming.

In my two year absence I used to moan about all that, it turns out I missed all that faffing around more than I thought.

I recently purchased the Indie Love Bundle – which the more I think about, the more it feels like stealing – that included Macharinarium, Osmos, And Yet It Moves, Auditorium, Aztaka and Eufloria. The latter two didn’t have Mac versions, but as regular followers will know I’ve recently built a PC.

I haven’t touched Aztaka, I plan to but I haven’t yet, because I’ve spent all my time in Eufloria. If you have a spare second check out their website and eventually buy this weird RTS. Unfortuntely it’s priced at £15 everywhere I can find it, which is quite steep, but if you like your RTS’ to be different then you should at least give the demo ago. I’m still debating whether I should review the game, as it did come out 5 months ago so it wouldn’t exactly be timely.

I probably won’t because, well it came out 5 months ago, but you should support indie games and play Eufloria. Its unique brand of methodical and slow building across planets before engaging in epic fights is more than worth the money I paid for it.

It really does feel like stealing…

Every month or so a release for Rock Band sparks up my interested. Be it a band I like or one that other people might like, I always debate whether I should pony up and buy a few more tracks. The truth is that I always decide against it because this whole weekly download business isn’t working.

I’d be one of the first ones to bemoan the annual releases after EA promising that Rock Band was a platform not a franchise, but I’d also never buy those extra tracks. Obviously during the beginning I downloaded anything I was vaguely aware of but something has happened, either my interest has waned or buzz surrounding the game has waned.

This week The Futureheads – one of the few I’ve seen live – are putting out two tracks. I still know I won’t buy them because Rock Band has lost its appeal. We all knew it wasn’t going to last for ever but it’s definitely petered out quicker than I thought.

I guess the real question is, does anyone care about Rock Band in 2010?

I’ve just passed the half way point on my degree in Graphic Design and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that design shouldn’t be taught within these academic parameters. The main problem is that design is subjective. What resonates with one person might not with another, so who is to say whether work is good or bad – it might not be aimed at them.

That and essay writing doesn’t lead itself well to design and the arts in general. People should be made to improve their writing and do case studies on important designs or events but essay writing doesn’t seem like the logical choice.

Personally I would like to see a private design school set up, similar to one in Scandinavia (the name escapes me). There every month, new designers come in, impart wisdom, leave and repeat. You get multiple points of view, variation every month and make more contacts with people working in the industry. If a similar school was set up outside the parameters of the BA or MA system, it would quickly get a good reputation with consistently good work that isn’t based on academic grading.

I don’t have buyers remorse or anything but the more I think about it, the less this structure makes logical sense. How can you apply a traditional degree structure to a non-traditional subject?

Picture courtesy of IDN’s infographic special.

You might have noticed that the last few posts have been about a PC I’ve speced out and bought. Well today, within 3 minutes of each other, my two orders arrived from different couriers and soon I was knee deep in screwdrivers and computer components.

The build didn’t go without a hitch but it never does. Although for what was my first PC build from scratch, I thought I did alright. It would have been flawless if it wasn’t for the flimsiest CPU cooler that snapped and probably won’t support itself if I put the PC up on the side. Otherwise the build went smoothly.

I guess I had some problems while installing Windows 7 because of the default BIOS settings. Windows 7 was looking for a floppy disk drive and instead of telling me it was having problems, it just kept looking for it while showing me nothing. Not a please wait message, not a loading bar, nothing. Google fixes all though.

The entire thing was worth it when I started to play Colin McRae Rally 2.0 on the highest settings. Yes, I know but the only PC games I actually own now are from my retro PC gaming fad of 2007 because at the time that’s all my PC could handle.

Naturally I downloaded Trackmania soon after along with my Steam version of Audiosurf – the only game I own on Steam, something that I look to remedy pretty soon – and ran them at the highest settings. Surprisingly I haven’t done much tweaking and they run at a smooth 30 and 40 frames per second, respectively.

I’m waiting until I can get some serious gaming on though, I’ll get downloading some demos tomorrow. For now, sleep.

I’ve just been told that both my Dabs and Overclockers orders are on the way meaning that tomorrow I should be set up with a desktop PC. Well providing nothing goes wrong while building it. I’m not really sure what to expect, I’ve installed every part of a computer before, but never from scratch.

The only thing I’m expecting is photos, loads of photos, tons of photos… Don’t worry I’ll post them on here. I know you want them.