ZX Spectrum games bible is out!

In communist Poland of the eighties there was one computer magazine (quite popular, actually). It was divided into "clans": ZX Spectrum clan, Atari clan, Commodore clan, Amstrad clan. Plus game reviews, plus features. I was, of course, ZX Spectrum clan member and I remain one ever since.

Why do I even mention it? Because a book with ZX Spectrum games' reviews is out right now and I have contributed a review to it as well.


The project is called ZX Spectrum Games Bible, and while not the first one, it seems to strive to be the most complete one so far. There are of course online lists of best ZX Spectrum games (such as this one - great read!), but you know, a book is a book.

I learnt about it from Retro Gamer magazine I was reading at Heathrow airport, contacted the author and finally ended up writing one of many, many, many reviews included in it. Most of my favourite games were already taken, but I have found one game I have known under different name: Panama Joe, which I have come to know under the alias Montezuma's Revenge (you can play it in your browser on World of Spectrum). This is the excerpt from the review:

Today Panama Joe may seem simplistic, repetitive and hard as hell, but back in 1984 it was an epic adventure allowing players to experience the struggle with the dangers of Aztec pyramid and as such it deserves a place in the heart of every 8-bit veteran out there.

You can buy the book here. If you do, please let me know - it will definitely boost my ego.

Fear in virtual worlds, part II

Continuing the subject of scary videogames moments (part I is here), I must confess first that I actually missed out two games from early DOS era in my previous note: the original Alone in the Dark and Space Hulk.


While AitD sequels were a mere shadows of the original (especially the last one is catching a lot of flak in reviews), this game was really something. It required a lot of quick thinking in stressful situations from the very beginning - in the very first location player had to immediately start blocking both door and window in order not to be devoured by incoming creatures. The game included Lovecraftian elements and pirates - a combination granting success in the eyes of video game players - but above all, it delivered truly scary experience.


Also, Space Hulk. The moment when a space marine with PowerClaws (or whatever the name of that murderous device was) guarding the back of a squad falls and evil Aliens Genestealers attack the rest of your squad from behind, successive squad members monitors go offline... Combining strategy, arcade, micromanagment and horror, this game would guarantee a good dose of adrenaline to the player.

I don't know how I could have forgotten these two games. The only possible explanation is that I played them both before I even had my own PC and I don't have the originals on my shelf. So, let us now leave the DOS era and move towards early Windows...


The next game that managed to scare me was Blood. I was already in highschool and even though the game's graphics don't seem that realistic these days and theoretically I was already quite grown up, but nevertheless Blood managed to creep me out. It had really thick atmosphere, memorable monsters and great sound effects combined with unsettling music would set the ambience really well. Roaring stone gargoyles (the epic battle with first one was a tough cookie), growling underwater beasts, screams of evil cultists, with occult chanting in the background of some levels ("...pestis... cru-ento... filo... matsus...") - I actually had to take breaks when playing this game, when the spooky atmosphere was getting to me.

On a side note, Blood remains one of my all time favourites and some time later I got used to the screams, monsters and music so much that I would be playing the game to cheer myself up, not to mention hours of multiplayer. I actually plan to write a separate post on this game alone.

Around that time I also got frightened by System Shock II, but since I have just played the demo, I don't think it really counts. Never got back to play this one, which is a shame.


Next in line comes another incredibly scary game, namely Aliens versus Predator. Playing as Alien was spooky with weird, with strange music, unusual vision and the need to have incredible spatial orientation when walking on the walls and ceilings. Player had to watch out for marines and other hazards, but while challenging, this mode was not very frightening. The other two modes, however, were. Even as a Predator, with great health, powerful weapons at hand and vision modes facilitating enemy detection and aiming, fighting swarms of Aliens would be a memorable experience, full of moments when player jumps up. The epitome of fear incarnated, though, was playing as a Human.

The reason for this was simple - the Aliens were not scripted, but deployed in waves somewhere in the level and then would roam free to bite player, coming out from every ventilation shaft, pipe and dark corner randomly. It's true that there were no savegames during a level, the sounds were very suggestive (just like in the movies), the vision was limited and levels were claustrophobic, but the main reason why this game was so scary was the impredictability of the threat. There was no way to guess when or where from the next attack would come, so the game would keep player at his toes all the time. And since Aliens were such killer beasts, if player missed one acid-blooded monstrosity crawling upon him from behind, the game would be over in seconds. Of course, our Marine would carry a movement detector, the beeping of which alone was often enough to start one's heart racing, but it only covered fron 180 degrees... I admit not having finished this game due to its insane difficulty setting and fear factor.


The sequel to Aliens vs Predator was still scary, more cinematic and epic, with better story - but it was scripted, hence less unpredictable and therefore less frightening as well. Which is not to say that it wouldn't freak me out once or twice. Or thrice...


Next comes a whole paragraph devoted to Silent Hill series. Actually, these games could have a separate post written on them. They were all about fear and uncertainety. The first one was the most bizarre of all, with worlds / dimensions / realities switching in a way that left the protagonist (and hence the player as well) totally unsure of what is happening, as well as when and where. The game took a lot from Jacob's Ladder movie. The sequel was a psychological nightmare, with recurring motive of a girl in haunted city resembling main hero's dead wife. The girl would die over and over again, only to reappear alive later on, leaving protagonist more and more guilty, shaken and bewildered, finally leading him to see why this was taking place. The third part was definitely less psychological and more straightforward splatter-horror-like, but with great graphics and twisted storyline it also fit well into the series' dark univers. And let us forget about the fourth one.

In each of these games there was a lot of scares, some coming from the fact that alternate Silent Hill reality was nightmarish world of rust and decay in which causality was just an empty word, but also from really unsettling monsters. An invicible monster called Pyramid Head was haunting player throught Silent Hill 2, pretty much causing me to sweat each time it appeared (not to mention the famous "rape" scene). Little shadow babies in Silent Hill 1 gave me the chills with their crying and moaning. The moment from the beginning of the game when player gets trapped in a nightmare with a crucified corpse on the fence was a masterpiece. Silent Hill 3 also had a couple of really scary moments, for example at the hospital, when player enters a wing that doesn't exist...


There was a good amount of fear coming from the fact that rules of the game could change with shifting of the worlds (especially true for Silent Hill 1), there also was a certain amount of unpredicatibility, because the game would throw some surprises at the player every now and then. The thick atmosphere of danger was further by white static being emitted from the radio each time a monster would be approaching (quite similar to movement detector in Aliens vs Predator and equally unsettling). The visuals of the other world and monsters, incredibly spooky music by Akira Yamaoka added to the overall impression - this series gave many people some serious nightmares.

To be continued...

Fear in virtual worlds, part I

Kotaku had recently posted an article concerning spoof article on the most scary enemies of video games, which resulted in a very interesting debate in comments, in which I have also taken part in. This in turn has stimulated me to write some more about scary moments in computer games I played, but since it began to become really a huge post (not to mention me falling behind my schedule), I have decided to split it in parts in chronological order.


The very first game that really scared me was Wolfenstein 3D. It may seem funny nowadays, but at the time it was the very first game with full 3D view I played. The immersion was further strengthened by the fact I was playing it alone in a dark room of an empty building after the night has fallen. It took place during students conference, where my mother was a lecturer and I was more or less twelve back then, which also explains a lot.

The most scary element of this experience as far as I can recall was the sound of steel doors slamming shut somewhere in the distance, because that meant something out there was prowling through the level searching for me. I also knew that if "it" attacks me from behind, I will not turn around in time (turning around was a long process in Wolfenstein). What added to the sense of incoming danger was that the enemies were actually quite scary: from Gestapo officers with machine guns, shouting "Gestapo!" when they saw player to deadly zombies with machine guns sticking out of their corpse. Suffice to say this game made me jump more than once.

On a side note, epic fight with Hitler in his bunker was also quite a showdown, requiring running from the fight in order to replenish disappearing health and ammo, with Adolf H. in his exoskeleton armour chasing the player. The sense of satisfaction coming from seeing his bowels spill out from the exploding armour was immense, even more so since the fight was so intense. In these politically correct times this would not pass quality assurance or Sony / Nintendo acceptance process (vide Manhunt 2 case).


While its successor, Doom, was more sophisticated graphical-wise and contained more suspense moments, including some "Bam! Lights go out and thousand imps descends upon you!" thrills, it never really scared me as much as the original Wolfenstein. But then again, I played it with my lights on and I was quite a bit older. I remember my friend ducking in front of my PC when imps hurled fireballs at him, so I guess it was quite suggestive nevertheless. Also, I can recall a story of a student who played Doom all night in his dorm and when leaving his room next morning he saw a cleaning lady, screamed and run away - he was later explaining that seeing her in her brown clothes at the end of dark corridor caused him to believe she was an imp. I guess the fact that he hasn't slept at all justifies him a little - the perception is a little different in such a state.

Honorable mention includes The Legacy, the old DOS game heavily based on Lovecraftian mythology. If player's character didn't have enough willpower, they would scream seeing zombies, their hair would rise, they would drop the objects they were holding (usually a weapon, which made fighting zombies kind of hard) or even freeze in shock. As I tend to play magical characters in RPGs, this would not be a common annoyance for me (high values of strong will), but there were some monsters which would melt even occultist's mind (green tentacled thing for example). I actually thought it was a very original approach to creating a horror atmosphere, even though it wouldn't scare me too much - but I have played it as an adult, because it wouldn't run on my DOS era PC.


Next in line comes X-Com: UFO Defense, also known as UFO: Enemy Unknown. How a strategy game (sic!) presented in mere 320x200 resolution could make player twitch is beyond my comprehension, but it really did. One of the reasons might be that there was a good amount of unpredictability, both in terms of enemy AI during missions and in terms of the game rules that kept changing during the game. Atmospheric music also helped.

At first rules were clear - it's us humans versus little gray men. We use weapons to kill each other, mano a mano, when we shoot down their vessels. But then the aliens would then terrorize the cities and bring deadly Cyberdisks with them! Fighting with numerous alien foes was a tough cookie, but we would learn how to do it with only minimum civilian casualties. And that's when a new race appeared - all of a sudden I had to battle a different kind of enemy, the one that could fly (Floaters), at night, keeping an eye on civilians. The in-game darkness became much more threatening now that I wasn't sure what was hiding in darkness anymore. Couple of in-game days after that fight, aliens retaliated and attacked me in my own base, my soldiers scattered randomly in different rooms, aliens roaming free through the corridors of our own hideout! Still, it was all but a prelude.

The first real horror was another mission to counter alien terror in one of the Earth cities. New alien type, the Snakemen, brought a deadly pet - the Chryssalid. Breeding in a manner of H.R.Geiger's Alien, infecting both civilians and my soldiers, who would in turn into Chryssalids and start devouring next victims - this enemy was terror incarnated. On first encounter my battle-hardened squad was torn to pieces in just a couple of turns.

At this point I must say that during many missions I have actually grown attached to my soldiers, recognizing their individual skills and remembering their names. Seeing them die one by one was a really shaking experience. As a result, I would replay the mission adapting the approach of US Army in Iraq - upon seeing anything suspicious move inside a house, I would bombard it with explosives. Civilians? Oh well, bad luck. My men come first. Still, even this tactic wouldn't spare me some nasty encounters - and Chryssalids were very quick beasts. Researching Plasma weapons and flying armours alleviated the fear of the Chryssalid a little, but these monsters were still dangerous.

Just when I got used to changing conditions and new alien types the game would throw at me, I thought that things couldn't get worse - and I was once again proven wrong. With arrival of Ethereals, the master race behind all the alien invasion, the Psi combat was introduced and it quickly turned the rules upside down. The toughest of my soldiers would panic, shoot their comrades in berserk frenzies, drop armed grenades or even totally succumb under alien control. I remember one particular mission where the only thing I could do after saving in a particularly bad moment was the damage control - after many failed attempts, I managed to save half of my man, most of them wounded. Spooky music, night missions and unseen enemy unknown decimating my teammates - that was the very definition of the word "scary".


Then Diablo came and rocked my world. The thick atmosphere of something evil boiling underneath a cathedral in a small village of Tristram was incredibly dense. The stories told with excellent voice acting were adding to it. One recurring motive was that of a cruel demon called The Butcher. Crippled kid who lost his leg to it, old drunkard telling the story of how it slaughtered his brothers-in-arms and breaking to cry, dying soldier at the cathedral entrance - player could feel that there was a savage beast out there, waiting for his next prey. This introduction alone was enough to feel chill. When the beast rushed towards me snorting "Argh, fresh meat!", I almost had to change the armchair cover. And trousers. There were many other monsters in Diablo, including the main evil boss in hell, there were many other spooky moments as well, but nothing compared to that moment of opening the door to bloody hideout of a blood-thirsty demon.

To be continued...

On PSN DRM and piracy

The big news is that Sony PSN games DRM was hacked. Don't know what I am talking about? To put it simply in plain English: downloadable titles from Sony online store are now cracked and can be played on any PSP. Although the creators of this hack made it for the use of people owning downloaded titles (their program checks for licence files when decrypting eboot files), apparently some people didn't bother and shared it with everybody.

You might be curious if I am going to bash them or actually enjoy it. Well, it is complicated. Let me elaborate a little more on this topic.


I really wanted to play these titles legally. I went through the whole registration process on the Sony online store, including checking my credit card information, then I installed some silly program to put the downloaded game on my PSP and when I finally wanted to buy Beats! - I was denied the right to do it. Sony didn't like my Custom Firmware and wanted me to revert to their official one, otherwise I wouldn't be able to play the game. Of course I did not do that, but I was cursing Sony under my breath when waving bye-bye to Beats. This really annoyed me. Why can't I play the game if I want to buy it?

I have written numerous times that I do not encourage piracy. Yes, I do download game isos, but I always buy the games I like. I often carry iso images on my Memory Stick after I have already bought the game, too, in order to cut down loading times (such is the case with Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony) or simply not to bother with taking UMD cases with me (Lumines and Every Extend Extra, which I play every now and then in short bursts - their images are relatively small).

Nevertheless, while I admit using and downloading isos (I am too lazy busy to rip them myself), the main point of using Custom Firmware is homebrew. The homebrew applications are the selling point of the PSP for me, enabling additional functionality well beyond the scope of what official PSP firmware can do. They give me freedom of choice in what I want to do with the damn device.

Thanks to homebrew I read books in PDF (a feature that Sony might one day chose to implement in their firmware), I repeat my Kanji lists, I revisit 8-bit games through emulators and I rearrange files on the Memory Stick without using PC (PSPFiler, which I have not yet described on this site). My coworker amuses himself with creating music on the go and uses his PSP as a GPS terminal - while I feel no need for these functions, for him they are what makes PSP his weapon of choice. Oh, and one more thing, very important for a Linux-infected mind like mine (coming from poor country counts too) - it's all free.

Hence, Sony decides to punish me for using Custom Firmware by not allowing me to play their games legally. Well then, tough luck, I will do it illegally. Not my call, but hey, as the French would put it: "Tu l'as voulu, George Dandin".

And Sony obviously didn't learn anything after the very similar thing happened with PS1 emulation that got deciphered by smart hackers, making PSN Store virtually unnecessary, since anyone could just make PSP eboot of their old PS1 game by themselves. The pattern was the same - overly restrictive approach, which in turn resulted in a torrent (actually, many torrents, hint, hint) of converted PS1 games. Since people were asked to pay again for the possibility of playing games they already own and paid for, no wonder they started searching for alternatives, even less legal ones (ahem, I am a bit of a socialist myself, I am afraid it shows here).


This time the case is different, but the outcome is even more annoying. I want to play the game they sell and give them money for it, even though they complicate the procedure of buying it to the point where only really devoted Sony zealot will have the patience to follow it. Sony, however, assumes that since I use Custom Firmware, I am probably pirating their games and won't sell me the game I want, trying to force me to comply and give up on my CF. I am not a pirate, but Sony knows better. Hence, the result is that I actually will be pirating PSN games, because I am denied the right to play them lawfully. Paranoia worth of Kafka.

Therefore my final opinion on the subject is: yes, I am glad someone cracked it. You asked for it Sony. I will definitely download and play them this very afternoon. Personally, I will remember to pay for these titles, should I ever have the chance, for example if Sony changes the procedures for buying PSN games, but for now I will be a filthy pirate (Arrrr!) and everybody doing the same thing is fine in my book.

So people, download and enjoy!

PS. Down with the corporations and so called intellectual property! Working masses will prevail! We shall overcome!

PPS. Ahem, disregard that. I was actually born in the communist Poland, so some residuals of early brainwashing might have remained.

Gotta catch 'em all!

Despite the title, this post won't have anything to do with Pokemons (phew!).

Just recently I have stumbled upon a really cool drawing (a little dated, but still), depicting a whole lot of classic computer games' heroes. You can find it here and I uploaded it on Blogspot for your convenience.

Be sure to click image for a full view

The question is : how many games can you distinguish in the image?

With some folks from my company and also from a computer board (Polish only, sorry) we have managed to pin down most of them, but there is still a couple missing. See here if you are not afraid of spoilers (and if you find any new ones, please let me know via comments).

I am particularly proud of my contributions, such as Bioforge, Messiah and Metal Mutant (on the other hand these ones made me feel old - how many people even remember those games?) or combination of Dune and Earthworm Jim.

These people's identity remains unknown.
If you know them, please help us identify them.

Some other puzzles put me to shame, for example the Morrowind dude - I actually got it because I realised that dots on his face are Dark Elves' tribal tattoo, but afterwards I felt like an idiot for not deciphering the meaning of "No more winds".

This has totally made me laugh.

A couple of drawings are so-so (how is one to guess that Deus Ex one without knowing Russian is beyond me), but some are brilliant - such as protagonists of Grim Fandango, Dungeon Keeper and Undying together with scythes.

Reaper Men

All in all, it was really fun and I encourage you to have a look at it as well. Perhaps you'll even be able to pinpoint something I might have missed.

Recipe for good humour

I know I have written recently that I want ZX Spectrum emulator for my iPhone. Indeed I do, but out of the blue I was struck by other emulator that I also wanted to see and I fell in love with my iPhone even more. Just look at this video :

Then combine it with the following list. Add this news. Result? Silly smile glued to my face all day long.


Yes, it all means in just a couple of days I will be able to play Final Fantasy VI in its first original version on my jail-breaked 1.1.3 iPhone. SNES, FTW! (Sorry, couldn't help it.)

It also means that I will have to finally write a note about Final Fantasy VI. I have intended to do this for quite some time, last occasion being a port of FF6 to Gameboy Advance (some time early last year). I have actually bought GBA to play this game, got disgusted by the quality of the port and sold it later. Nevertheless, I consider sixth part of the series to be on par with Final Fantasy VII when it comes to the story and characters.

So right now I am biting my nails, waiting impatiently for a public release. Hurry up, guys!

Happy New Year!

Wow, it certainly has been a while since I updated. I normally aim for more or less one post per week, but as always it's easier said than done. There's a couple of interesting posts being conceived, let me tease you a bit :


- many folks get excited over Final Fantasy VII Tech Demo on PS3, especially in connection to the ending of Final Fantasy Crisis Core. But did you know there was also a Final Fantasy VIII Tech Demo on PS2? And Final Fantasy VI Tech Demo on Nintendo 64?


- I got back to playing Blood, my favourite first person perspective shooters from the Build Engine palette and once again I was struck by the number of cultural references. My curiosity pushed me to investigate it a little deeper.


- speaking of DOS times, there is a new build of DosBox for the PSP and you know what that means? That's right, there should be a post about it soon.

- I was torturing my brand new iPhone with new applications, including a couple of emulators. The results were mixed, but there are one or two interesting conclusions to share.

- I played a couple of new games: Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Manhunt 2, Wipeout Pulse, PC version of Lumines - and there are still Orange Box and World in Conflict waiting for their turn...

So now you know what will come up on Barts' News anytime soon now. 2007 was a good year for gamers, let us hope 2008 is going to be equally good or even better!

Happy New Year, everybody!

Drill down

Just when I thought the PSP homebrew scene is dead, I found another gaming gem. The game is called Mr Driller and I was expecting some crappy port of Drill Dozer from Gameboy Advance. Fortunately, I have decided to give it a try first.

The game turned out to be really cool. The idea is simple - player controls a character that has to drill down through multiple coloured layers, while paying attention to their oxygen levels. Air can be regenerated by collecting capsules of oxygen, but they are usually blocked by blocks that are very hard to drill through. When drilling down, player must be very careful not to destroy blocks that support other blocks, which in turn will cause rocky avalanche and flatten our hero down. So simple and yet so amusing.


The game is not perfect - there is no music, sounds are few and far between, animation is simplistic, there are no saves, game can be damn frustrating later on. Still, the most important factor, meaning gameplay, is there. This game is actually fun to play and quite addictive too. As an additional plus, it plays well in short bursts, for example on the bus. Highly recommended!

Post Scriptum for Old Geezers

And now lengthy post scriptum with a personal twist. When I was playing the game, I had a feeling of deja-vu - irritating impression that I have seen it somewhere, some day, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Fortunately, I work with other guys that started their adventure with computers in the eighties, and one of them just glanced at the game and shouted "Kret!".


Kret (meaning The Mole in English) was an old shareware game (for Dos, meaning really old) where idea was somewhat similar. I started looking for the game over the net and finally have found it here. It is abandonware anyways so feel free to give it a try. Mr Driller does not actually steal the idea, it is in fact quite different, but the mechanics of blocks falling and supporting each other looks familiar, which explains my deja-vu.

On a side note in order to make matters even more twisted, there exists a port of DosBox (Dos emulator) for PSP, so I think it should be doable to run Kret on the PSP.

Tokyo Game Show report not in print

As you might remember, I announced my cooperation with CD-Action concerning Tokyo Game Show 2007 coverage. With fanfares.


Unfortunately, it won't be found in the printed issue of the magazine. Due to the fact that there was a lot of material to go into November issue, it was supposed to be postponed to December issue. However, it seems that there was more interesting things for that edition, hence it finished on CD-Action webpage.

Link to the article in question (Polish only)

At first I was a little disappointed, but then I realised that thanks to CD-Action support I was able to join the Business Days, meet Jessica Chobot, play Assassin's Creed with Philippe Dionne and much more. So all in all, good deal nevertheless!

One year of Barts' News!

Happy birthday - yes, Barts' News is already one year old!

I will confess - I started it because I was very ill. Feeling really bad, unable to go out, to move, taking painkillers all the time. I begun this project because I wanted to do anything more useful than just play computer games after work, I wanted to share my reviews and other interesting bits of information with other people and I also wanted to practice my writing. I already was toying with the idea for some time before, yet what really got me started was the fact that there wasn't much else that I was able to do in my life at that time.

One year later I must admit that it was a good idea. One of my tips got featured on Kotaku (and reached Top Story status), my slideshow on in-game advertising in Wipout Pure got featured on Destructoid (and then on GeekSpeak and Urbaer), my note about Deus Ex was hotlinked on Wojciech Orliński's blog (with error, duh), my post on recovery mode of semi-bricked PSPs helped a good number of people, who had made the mistake of not being careful enough with their firmwares, the average monthly number of visitors exceeded 1500 (which is perhaps not that much in terms of internet, but it means that over one and a half thousand people reads my stuff every month), my webpage got me into Tokyo Game Show 2007 and helped me meet folks from the industry (Kotaku crew, Jessica Chobot, guys from Ubisoft, Gearbox, Wicked Studios, Beepa, OpenOko and others). Apart from all that, it gave me something to do in the dark times when I was sick - which had a very good therapeutic value.

Being game journalist has its advantages...

It was a good year and frankly, I didn't expect all that when I was starting this journey. I am now a different person and I can't believe where my fate has taken me to and good part of it stemmed from sitting down on dark October evening and typing my first two posts. Barts' News has now somewhat lower priority in my life now than it had one year ago (because I finally am able to do other things too), but I will continue to use it as my digital soap-box. I remain a devoted gamer and technophile and I will keep posting about games, computers, linux, gadgets and other geeky stuff.

Let us hope that the next year will be equally good in terms of positive changes! And thank you kindly dear readers for putting up with me this long!

GTA and elections

On the occasion of parliament elections in Poland I would like to present a cool image by Śledziu that depicts Polish politicians in GTA-like fashion (you may also notice George W. Bush and Tony Blair). It actually made me chuckle when I first saw it.


"Gry polityczne" means "Political games", which sums up nicely recent standards of Polish politics, which have reached a new low. If you like the image, you can buy T-shirt with it from Mr Herring's shop, and if you are Polish, please go and vote.

Status update

I would like to apologize (humbly, deeply and sincerely) about the recent lack of updates. Unfortunately, right after Tokyo Game Show I was very ill. Then I had just a couple of days to enjoy my stay in Japan, which I did to the fullest, putting everything else aside.

Then I came back to Poland and had to deal with return to work, visiting relatives, meeting a Japanese friend who came to bid a visit, preparations for incoming travel, and also finishing on time the coverage of Tokyo Game Show for CD-Action game magazine.

Only six days later, I had to wake up in the middle of the night to begin my travel to United States, where my company headquarters are. Upon arriving to Dallas, Texas, I have once again become ill. Combined with a lot of business and travel related issues, it has successfully disabled me from being able to do anything but work.

Bear with me a little longer, and there will be new updates, promise!

Barts is still fighting on!

Kotaku Party

Yesterday (and partially today, to be completely precise) I have taken part in mighty fine Kotaku shindig. What I was expecting was a gathering of socially inept nerds and geeks, and maybe an occasion to talk for a while with one of the Kotaku editors. Yes, I am usually a sceptic.

Brian Crescente, nice lady whom name I have forgotten,
me, and guy from Gamesutra

In reality though, it turned out to be a gathering, of, well, nerds and geeks, but far from socially inept. There were game journalists from 4ColorRebellion, Gamesutra, Joystiq, CheapAssGamer, and GayGamer, there were famous kotakuites (Witzbold, Bellamy), there were exchange students, English teachers, the guy behind Fraps and all sorts of other interesting creatures, including, of course, guys from Kotaku : Crescente, Bashcraft, Luke and Mike. There was drinking and socializing involved, Kotaku folks turned out to be even cooler in real life than online and all in all it was really much more entertaining than I originally thought it would be. Oh, did I mention that booze and snacks were for free?

First up front - Flynn from GayGamer

Japanese police intervened after some of us have spread into the street with our drinks (drinking alcohol in public places is forbidden in Japan), but there were no casualties. Made me recall my student times...

Witzbold and Bellamy discussing, under the wall in
the background Rod (Fraps) and Luke (Kotaku)

You can read some more about it on Kotaku : here and here. Also, see the photo gallery - if you have read the notes, then you know that some of the photos come from me. Overall, I was not the only one that liked it a lot. From behind the scenes I can tell you that the crowd seemed to enjoy it so much that there is a chance of second party coming up...

Me, Bashcraft, Jools from 4ColorRebellion
and three other kotakuites

See you soon, guys!

Japan is Lumines, Lumines is Japan

Yes, you've heard it correctly. For me, Lumines is pretty much my Japan experience in a pill.

I have bought my first PSP in Japan after seeing it on Tokyo Game Show and watching incredible movies on Gamespot - contrary to many people in the world, I haven't been drooling over it before it arrived. It was an instant love - it was there, I saw it, it saw me, trumpets, and I knew I wanted it.

The very first game I bought together with it was Lumines, which I then played travelling at night on Kodama Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka. I completed it, going through last level, on the plane starting from Narita airport on the day of my leave. I have played it during all my stay in Japan almost everyday, usually before going to sleep, and the experiences of Nippon have blended in my mind with the experiences of the game.

The thing about Lumines is that it is not so much about the game itself, but about the whole audiovisual experience it delivers, putting player in slightly trancey state/mood through combination of sounds and graphics. There are so many clones of Lumines, yet none of them is half as playable and I know no other game that puts player in such a trance (even Lumines II is less stylish and entrancing). Oh, and before we continue - remember that what we call a skin here is a combination of graphics, music and sounds for a given level (skin = the whole audiovisual set).

Traditional Japan

Noh theatre, Kabuki theatre, temples of Kyoto and Kamakura, shamisen music, samurai parade in Hakone, maiko walking through Ponto-cho and crying of Sumo judges - somehow it all melts in this skin. I know, it is simplistic as hell of me to even think about squeezing all the cultural past of Japan into one game level, I am making a complete gai-jin ass out of myself, but anyhow this skin resonated well with all these memories of idealised traditional Japan.

Nightlife Japan

Nightclubs of Shibuya, discos of Shinjuku, karaoke clubs of Machida - for me, it's all in this skin. Mondo Grosso music, lots of shiny elements, general electronic chaos, happy tunes, overall feeling of fun, explosions of bright colours - this is the face of modern Japan as I experienced it in my stroll through Tokyo nightlife.

Trains

If you have travelled with trains in Japan, you know that this is dominating mode of transport and quite often they run on and under bridges not unlike the one depicted above. Quite often they go by shore, too. This music together with swiftly moving orange streak makes me feel a surge of memories of sitting on the train speeding by the seaside and watching other trains zooming in the distance while sun is setting over the ocean.

Nature

If you travel outside the neverending megalopolis of Tokyo and into the countryside, you will find some incredible forrests, flowing streams, beautiful spots far from the civilisation. This skin echoes these parts of my stay in Japan - the calm tranquillity of Japanese nature.

Gaming

Basically this skin is me with my PSP, even hands are up to scale. And the retro feeling and sound effects made me recall the beginnings of my digital journey through gaming worlds - ZX Spectrum+ games and Russian counterfeits of Nintendo's Game & Watch. The childish fascination of still unbelievably simplistic, but already emerging electronic entertainment that has further lured me to study electronics, telecommunications, computer science and finally led me to NTT laboratories in Japan and Tokyo Game Show. It all sort of mixes with each other in this one skin.

Skyscrapers

Minato Mirai complex in Yokohama, Landmark SkyTower, Tokyo Tower, skyscrapers of Shinjuku... I have been there, I have seen Japan from above, observing its countless blocks of flats crowded around numerous skyscrapers, I have been watching traffic for hours until night settled and lights shone, cities beneath my feet bursting with movement, animated with millions of lives rushing through the streets below. That feeling is present in this skin.

Farewell

The sky over Tokyo agglomeration is full of planes and they fly over you in most unexpected moments. The presence of nearby ocean was also something I remembered - all the canals entering the city, ports of Yokohama, island of Enoshima, shores of Kamakura...

My departure was marked by getting up at dawn, leaving in the darkness, travelling towards Narita airport, passing over Chiba by the seaside with early sun rising, with seagulls and planes in the air above.

The waking of the dawn, changing dark clouds into shining morning, Eri Nobuchika's song going from slow and sad, to optimistic and strong, cawing of seagulls mixed with planes whooshing in the background - it completed the bitter-sweet feeling of leaving Japan.


Also, as I've mentioned, I reached this skin playing on the plane leaving Japan, so my stay was pretty much stretching between starting first level with hands shaking of digital lust on Kodama Shinkansen speeding through Japan at night, and completing the final level on British Airways plane, farewell tear still in the corner of my eye.

All the best moments of my stay were going through my head, called by progression through Lumines' different skins, then I finally put away my PSP and began reminiscing about them again, personal slideshow displayed on the inner side of my eyelids, plane engines humming...

As you can see, Lumines is for me the very essence of Japan and somehow I can't imagine it being conceived in any other place in the world. So when I am landing in Japan this time, I will be playing Lumines on the plane, for the sake of good old times, hoping that this stay will be as much, if not more fun than the last. And you may call me a freak.

Project Seraph

What you can see below is a presentation of my final project at my first specialisation at International Faculty of Engineering - 3D visualisation / reconstruction / image processing program for medical applications called Seraph. Although it was by far the least clean code and the worst design I have ever created, it still remains my favourite child as far as computer programs are concerned, which is why I am showing it here. I guess I am getting sentimental.

The presentation is in French, because I have been studying my first specialisation in that language. I thought I would have some free time to translate it and make presentation more interesting, but since it has been sitting on my hard drive for last five months waiting for that, I decided I would just put it on the web in the very same form it was in 2004.

My only disappointment is that noone continued the development and the program was finally not used much apart from my project, even though I wanted it to became open source. Unfortunately, it is my university that holds the intellectual rights to it and the program has simply remained somewhere there, unused. Oh well, now that I work as fully fledged software developer I am almost ashamed of that code. I guess I will have to rewrite it one day on my own and put it on SourceForge. Then Seraph's soul will be able to take a rest...

Happy birthday Spectrum!

Thanks to this article on Slashdot, I have realised we celebrate the 25th anniversary of ZX Spectrum computer.

I remember finding first computer magazine in my life (it was called "Bajtek") when I was nine - I have read through the walkthrough for "Three weeks in Paradise" and thought I didn't understand the rules of the game (there was a map for the game, so I thought it was a sort of board game). I got some explanations and fell in love with the idea. I was then reading on about games in other computer magazines, watching the photos of Lords of Midnight and l'Aigle d'Or in French computer magazines that my parents got - and I kept asking my parents to buy me one of these wonderful machines. Occasionally, my Dad would take me to his work, where I could play some Amstrad games (hey, Ghosts'n'Goblins!).

Lords of Midnight

My dream took quite a long time to realize, since my parents didn't really have much money (plus take into account the fact the official exchange rates between Polish zloty and American dollars, as well as the availability of even 8bit computers, remember that it was still '89). On the funny note, I can vaguely remember that in the eighties the Polish radio would broadcast ZX Spectrum programs and games, so that anyone with tape recorder could record it on the tape and use. How about that, American imperialists? We shared everything in the communist period (tee hee), and come to think of it, one might consider it to be a rough equivalent of the government warez . Gives all new meaning to the term 'radio connection'.

ZX Spectrum+

I finally got my first computer in 1991 - it was ZX Spectrum+ with a tape recorder. Games took five minutes to load, and the loading would often crash, since it was a cheap, Polish tape recorder and read the data with a little bit of liberty. Sometimes if you touched the cable, the game would abort loading before the end. My younger brother even got beaten by me once, when he crashed loading of Draconus (I feel ashamed even today when I recall it). Of course in '92 most of my friends would already have Amigas. Words can't describe it how gorgous looking these games appeared to me back then (Wolfchild, Moonstone, Swiv, Agony). However, instead of just playing my ugly (by comparison) ZX games, I took to programming so there was something good in the situation.

Chase HQ

I can safely say that my parents buying me ZX Spectrum+ was one of the best things that happened in my life. It is all a history now, but these were great times and we had incredible sense of power, forcing this crude (but then they appeared almost almighty) devices to do what we wanted them to do. That's when I got infatuated with computers, programming and, above all, games. That's where my fascination with insides, outsides and the logical part of electronic devices stems. That was the beginning for me.

Imagine how many possibilities this gave, how many doors to visionary worlds opened, how programming was tickling my mind - and we're talking about eleven years old me in a gray reality of a freshly post-communist country.

ZX Spectrum+ and its insides

I now meet programmers who can't tell me what processor their machine has, who don't understand the way their expensive graphic cards work, I meet engineers that barely know what's in that black box. If I still happen to like to know what's 'under the hood' (so to speak), it is because back then my childish curiosity was driving me to understand ZX Spectrum from inside out... and after that, every next generation of computers was easier to understand.

PSPectrum

Right now, I have ZX Spectrum emulator on my PSP and I can revisit the dungeons of Knight Lore or caves of Heavy on the Magic on the bus - and it's like a trip back to childhood days, only without waiting for the game to load from the tape (my original ZX Spectrum+ is non-operational and lies in the depths of my basement, but I still have it). For those of you who are online, there is a whole archive of the games to be played through your browser available at World of Spectrum (this is better for veterans), as well as a selection available here and here. Tears are almost trickling down my cheeks when I revisit Chuckie Egg, Bomb Jack, Who Dares Wins II, 1942, Green Beret and Lords of Midnight...

Clive Sinclair

Clive Sinclair received his Baron title for the success of ZX Spectrum and in my opinion rightly so. Happy birthsday, Speccy, and all the best to you Sir Clive!

Last Enemy Territory status update

I don't know how I became addicted to Enemy Territory, but it's a fact that I have realised I do play it a little too often. I guess virtual fighting hand in hand with other soldiers forming our team allows me to concentrate on real problems, like disarming the dynamite, stopping that damn tank from reaching our courtyard or blowing up the ramp leading to our base. It makes other problems trivial and less important - who cares about being dumped by a girlfriend, having persistent health problems, family matters, job getting less and less interesting, when you could be saving the day by breaking through enemy lines and changing the fate of the campaign?


Ahem. Still, that is my latest score and it sort of makes me feel better, knowing that only some thirty thousand people on this planet are better than me in this game.

Oh, and if you have enough of this topic, worry not. I removed all the files of the game and my profile records, therefore I shouldn't write about it anymore. You can check here if I hold my promise.

I'm back

I would like to apologise all of those who have visited this page during last two months or so and have been disappointed not to find any updates. Both the amount of events in my life on the other side of the screen and their impact on me have been tremendous. I won't go into details, because my personal life is something that I do not wish to disclose here, but nevertheless I promise that there should be more posts soon. Starting now...

"Me and 3D"

The recent post about Blender release reminded me that I used to dabble quite a lot in the three dimensional graphics. I was of course never very good at it (mainly due to the lack of patience), but I have created a couple of images and animations that I was very proud of.



Well, you can see one of them that I have dug out from the depths of my backup drawers. It was supposed to show a human skull on some distant planet and a broken spacecraft, thus suggesting that some expedition went terribly wrong (now I feel like a three years old kid, explaining to their parents what his drawing is all about). The original idea was by my friend, Grid, who was much more into everything 3D (hopefully, I can manage to convince him to share some of his creations here).

If you want to have a look at my early renders (more or less from 2001), you can have a look here at DeviantArt. Not that it's anything special, but hey, we all start somewhere.