Tag: games

It was looking pretty grim there for a while. I took control of the center with my knights, but then launched an attempt on Ender’s king that was thwarted by quick action on the part of his rook. I fell behind by a rook and a knight, but managed to put enough pressure on with the threat of queening a pawn until I could restore the balance and get back in control of the game. He eventually took the pawn, but with my original queen behind his defenses, I managed to force a checkmate with the help of my last rook and an advancing pawn.

This could be getting ugly sooner than I thought, as he asked if I could find him any books on chess strategy. I think tomorrow I’ll insist that we finish our current ASL scenario, which I’ve already got in the bag. It’s hard to take too much satisfaction in winning at chess when your intrepid opponent spends the next hour fighting a space battle in the living room with the X-wings and TIE fighters that serve as pawns.

Some of the folks at Susan Walsh’s appear to have discovered Meyers-Briggs for the first time. So, I took the test given at the site they’ve been using and the result wasn’t exactly the biggest surprise.

67 Introverted
88 Intuitive
62 Thinking
78 Judging

However, this wasn’t enough to prevent Ender from beating me at chess for the first time. His knight held the center, he first nabbed one of my rooks when I got a little careless in setting up an exchange of bishops, then managed to use his one-rook advantage to queen a pawn while holding off my desperate attempt to do the same. My rook was too occupied defending my own advancing pawn to make an attempt on his castled king, so three moves later, it was checkmate.

I’ve never been much of a chess player, which may seem strange considering that I’m a reasonably formidable ASL player. I suspect it has to do with the spatial relations aspect of the game; the ability to quickly adapt and improvise is less important than the ability to accurately foresee the chain of consequences from each move.

Anyhow, Ender has a new Star Wars chess set that doubles as toy X-wing and TIE fighter squadrons and we’ve been playing a game every night. He’s improving fast; last night he managed to take the offensive twice and stretched the game out twice as long as they’d previously been taking. My guess is that within a month, he’ll be beating me on occasion and within a year, he’ll be expecting to win. I taught him how to play several years ago, but he didn’t express any real interest in playing it until last week.

Anyhow, I’m curious to know if there is anyone here who plays in tournaments and has a legitimate Elo rating. I’d be interested in determining what level I’m at for comparative purposes. I tried one of the online calculators, but I’m extremely skeptical of the estimates produced. I scored a 1380 when I put in my moves, but putting in complete nonsense moves produced an 1120. If it’s correct, however, I expect to soon find myself outmatched, as Ender scored 1645, which considerably exceeds the 1,000 that Wikipedia claims is the level of a bright beginner.

Anyhow, for those who aren’t chess masters, it might be interesting to know how you scored on the ten-move online test. And for anyone who is a master, I’d be interested in playing a game of chess by email in order to experience the difference between a proper chess player and a neophyte.

Let’s play He or She.

What’s that?

Say it’s a he or a she.

What’s a he or she?

An animal.

Um, okay. He.

Is it white?

No.

Is it blue?

No.

Is it red?

No.

Is it golden?

Yes.

Is it money?

No. Doesn’t it have to be an animal?

Oh yeah…. Is it a clown?

No! It’s an animal, remember? A he.

Is it a hippo? Is it pink?

No, it’s not a hippo. He’s golden, golden brown.

Is it a princess?

After acquiring a PS/3 mike, I am quite pleased with the results, although I’m not entirely sure I’m actually communicating with anyone. In Operation Firestorm, I hopped a lift in a tank, then ditched at the Gas Station and headed high into the hills. I set up the SOFLAM on a rock overlooking the battlefield, then ran up still higher to operate it remotely.

No one did anything right away, but it was clear that simply laser-targeting the enemy tanks and planes was making them skittish. I kept reporting various vehicles and encouraging someone in my squad to Engineer up and loadout a Javelin; finally someone did and promptly took out two helicopters and a tank that was advancing on the Gas Station. That was close enough to my position that I put away the remote, broke out the rifle, and took out the tank gunner who had exited the vehicle before it brewed up.

I took out four more enemies who were in a building near the Offices before someone managed to figure out where I was, climbed the hills, and took me out while I was busy spotting. That wouldn’t have happened if I had a squadmate guarding my back, but c’est la guerre video. Regardless, by this time few enemy planes or helicopters dared fly anymore and even the tanks were cautious about advancing very far past the Docks. A few jeeps were tearing around with impunity, but when one stopped to capture the Gas Station, I took out the gunner with a 262 meter headshot, thus allowing two guys who’d been pinned down by him to kill the driver as well.

This must have been the final straw, as I saw in the camera that two jeeps and a man on foot were heading for my position with obvious ill intent. I decided discretion was the better part of valor and headed further into the hills without trying to engage them. They finally located and blew up my SOFLAM camera, so I headed into the combat area and attacked a flag or two in more conventional style. I didn’t score as many personal points playing this way as I usually do when I’m attacking flags, but since it was a close and hard-fought battle that we won by 20 tickets, I’m pretty sure that my recon action made the difference between victory and defeat. And, as a side bonus, my k/d ratio increased to 3.0.

I like to start out as an Engineer in the Grand Bazaar mission map, equipped with mines and an RPG and the Explosive aspect. Since the armor on both sides usually makes a beeline for each other, I run alongside it and throw out all six of my mines, two near the flag and the other four on the road, then see if I can fire an RPG round or two to help the friendly armor blow up the opposition. I sometimes get blown up along with the AFV or shot down by accompanying assault troops, but usually I can get away with an easy initial kill or two, plus a vehicle disabled or destroyed.

If we’re doing okay, which means we have at least one of the two flags, I come back with Recon if we don’t have the Alleyway or Assault if we do. Assault lets me revive my fellow alleyway defenders while Recon lets me pick off the defenders as the young twitch guys go charging into the teeth of the enemy fire. The important lesson as a sniper is to not use a suppressor, as it reduces the damage you deal out while doing little to conceal your position. I increased my average mission kills by a full kill simply by ditching the suppressor.

Once the enemy gives up on the Alleyway, it’s time to switch back to Recon since the young guys are too impatient to sit around defending. This lets me pick off the solo guys who are trying to steal a seemingly undefended flag. If my side doesn’t get overwhelmed at the start, I can usually count on getting 5-7 sniper kills in the Alleyway alone. And it’s amusing when late in the mission, one of the mines set earlier takes out an AFV. The problem is that unless one Assault or Engineer sticks around to guard your sniping, eventually you’re going to miss someone sneaking into close combat range and getting you with an SMG.

Now that I’ve got access to some better equipment, like the optical sights in the tanks, I’ve steadily increased my expected k/d ratio, from around .25 at the start to 1.3+ now. Last night I even had a stellar 4.0 ratio, complete with a top score and Ace Squad ribbon. Now that I’ve got the Javelin, that should help with the helicopter hunting, and I’ve learned to stalk tanks with mines rather than RPGs.

I think my favorite kill thus far was this afternoon, in a close-fought mission that we ended up losing by just two tickets. After taking out a helicopter with my brand-new Javelin, I came back as an Engineer in the Russian deployment, but since there were no tanks I hopped in a jeep and tooled off down the road. I saw an enemy jeep was flying down the highway towards me and we hit each other with glancing blow. We both spun around facing each other about 50 meters away, almost as if we were jousting.

I hopped out of my jeep while he sped towards me, intending to run me over. I’m sure he thought I was going to try to pick him off before he could flatten me, but actually I had pulled out an AT mine. I threw it down and jumped off to the side as he hit it squarely for an instant kill and vehicle destruction. Highly satisfying.

I suppose I may be overdoing the B3 a little. A military helicopter passed by in front of me today and my immediate reaction was to slide sideways towards the brick wall of the nearby building. My first conscious thought was to try to remember if my loadout was SMAW or Stinger.

My second thought was that I should probably get back to playing recon….

In which approaching the peak is contemplated:

Memory and other brain skills begin to decline at the age of 45 – much earlier than previously thought, say researchers. A major study shows the brain’s capacity for memory, reasoning and comprehension starts waning in middle age rather than in the 60s. Experts say the finding is important because younger people should be encouraged to boost their brain power with healthier living, while some may benefit from medicines to stave off further decline.

This report doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. One of the things I have learned about playing soccer and 3D shooters after the age of 40 is how comprehensive the physical decline is. Since most people don’t compete directly with younger athletes after the age of 35 or so, it can be difficult to believe how much speed and quickness one loses. I can’t imagine that there isn’t a similar deterioration taking place elsewhere as well.

It is not only the top gear that is gone, but there is a also the complete absence of a first step; it’s almost as if the first thing the middle-aged mind does is instead of react is to perform a quick calculation of whether or not it’s likely going to be worth it to go through with the physical exertion required. One feels as if one is always going at about three-quarters speed, trying to harbor a reserve for when a complete effort will be required in order to make a difference.

It’s been interesting to see how the athletic decline translates to video game performance. While my Battlefield 3 performance is generally respectable, as I usually finish around the middle point of points scored, both my kills and deaths usually tend to be low because I simply don’t do well in the sort of run around and spray SMG fire game that the younger guys with their faster reflexes play. I’ve had to learn to avoid taking quick potshots at enemies running past when I have the drop on them; taking the time to aim a careful headshot that drops them at once is much better than a fast shot that misses and permits them to turn around and fire back in a more accurate and lethal manner. And while I’ve racked up the occasional 2-1 K/D ratio and even a few top scores, my average is barely above 1/2. But it’s been steadily improving as my rank and unlocks improve, so I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to get it above 1 by the time I level out.

I do think that the mental exercise involved in maintaining this blog and playing wargames helps sharpen my mental focus; how much that will stave off the approaching decline will be interesting to see. Thinking about it also makes me wonder if the abrupt decline in the quality of novels by certain authors later in life might be attributable to degraded mental powers rather than them simply losing interest; I’ve never understood how Colleen McCullough’s Rome series could drop so precipitously off a cliff the way it did after Fortune’s Favorites.

While I have at least a few more years at the height of my powers, it really makes me wish I had worked more diligently at my books. Such is the inevitable regret of the dilettante.

Or the former Eastern bloc, to put it more precisely. Much to my surprise, I have recently learned that Rebel Moon and Rebel Moon Rising, two of the games I designed and developed with Big Chilly, have an exceedingly devoted following in Russia and Eastern Europe. These lunatics have not only produced Russian and Hungarian language versions of the games, but have even gone so far as to port the original Rebel Moon, which was produced for Creative Labs and only ran on the original 3D Blaster, to Windows proper. They’ve even corrected a few of the crater names, which I apparently managed to get wrong somehow.

Here are a few screenshots from the Hungarian version. And here is a download link to the English version of Rebel Moon for Windows (30 megs) as well as a v1.1 patch (568k) that the Russian programmers created to fix a few minor bugs and add post-level briefings based on the novel. I have to admit, it’s rather pleasant to learn that some parts of the gaming community still recognize how far ahead of the game design curve we were at the time, even though the gaming media completely ignored RMR due to their singular focus on what at the time were still vaporware games built around true 3D engines such as Unreal.