Just wipe the dust off this blogger...

Oops I've been spending far too much time programming to actually have anything eventful to blog about. Whats more anything I have been programming is too secret to talk about anyway :P
But theres some stuff banking up now, so here it is:

I just finished a little 4-day project now. Ack, C++!! Its not very friendly is it? I might go back to C# soon, which is much friendlier (but I'm gonna have to face C++ again when I do my 3D Graphics program - gotta be FAST!). Anyway I need a few early nights!

Blogging news:
Firstly, my good Canadian friend Toria has had some very sad news - just a few days after she found out she was pregnant she had a miscarriage, one of many. She was very depressed for a few days and is now feeling much better. But she's been making some very nice and often helpful (to anyone else in her situation) posts at her blog so if you know her I think you should read her Blog and leave a nice comment there.
toriauru.blogspot.com

Also my friend from drama, Alexia, took my advice and got herself a blog (good on you!). Here it is: scaredsister.blogspot.com/. Looks like a good start, by the way, her Tarot cards stuff is freaky. If it continues to be updated I'll add it to my sidebar.

GameSpot: The GameSpot awards are in full swing. These are the game-of-the-year and other various awards for new games in 2004. Of course the 3 big games here for me are Myst IV: Revelation, Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft (the latter of which I havent got yet!) All three of them have been nominated all over the place, which is good. HL2 and WOW already won first and second respectively, game of the year on Gamespot.
Myst IV is my favourite of course, though. It was nominated for the following special achievement awards:
Best Original Music (Go Jack Wall!)
Best Story (Go Mary DeMarle! M4 had such a brilliant story)
Best Sound Effects (Myst IV was teeming with amazing sound, but it wasnt a key feature or anything)
Best Graphics, Artistic (OMG Myst IV is years ahead of any other game in terms of pure artistic graphics. Period. No discussion can be entered into.)

And the bad news is it didnt win any :(
Sound, OK. Music and Story, that makes me angry because M4 had the best music and story I've ever seen in a game. However, I havent seen the two games that won those fields.
Graphics, Artistic. (Won by Half-Life 2). Now this is the most annoying. We have another category called "Graphics, Technical" for games like Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 to duke it out in (Doom 3 won that one) with thier fancy real-time engines. Of course HL2 looks amazing. Myst IV is prerendered so obviously its no contender for Graphics, Technical. But on the Artistic, Myst IV is without any doubt the most beatiful game out there. Why shouldn't it be? The design team sacrificed freedom-of-movement specifically so the graphics could be at the high level we expect from a Myst game. Check the screenshots if you don't believe me. HL2 looks amazing. M4 simply looks much better.

The good news for Myst is its still nominated in the Genre award category of "Best Adventure Game for 2004" and we're all hoping it will win that. Adventure games usually get kicked in the teeth by reviewers so its not surprising it didnt win awards when up against other games. Hopefully, when compared to others in its own genre, M4 will finally take an award.

Also I have no doubt that HL2 and WOW will win the award for their respective genres, Shooter and Massively Multiplayer. Also HL2 will probably take out game of the year as well.
Check out all the awards here: Best and Worst of 2004 (Gamespot)

Finally I've been itching to get back into Warcraft III. My AT buddy Jeremy has been on holidays for 2 weeks. So, I think hes getting back in the next day or two. Then we can get back to some serious AT pwnage! :D

Oh nearly forgot. The quote!

"Why is it when I heard the word "school" and the word "exploded," I immediately thought of the word "SKINNER!""
- Superintendent Chalmers