Month: December 2012

Games That Never Were: Arena

As some people may know, I’ve dabbled in the world of game development before. I’ve never been particularly good at it, if I’m honest, not really down to anything other than a lack of good ideas, and a lack of time to do any ideas I had justice.

It’s something I keep meaning to have another bash at, not in any serious manner of course, just in a “bedroom programmer” kind of way.

Still, I thought I’d make a post about a game of mine that never quite made it past development. It ranks as the most ambitious game project I ever undertook, and actually got quite far down the line.

Gallery: Old and busted, meet new hotness…

No, I’m not talking about switching girlfriends…

For the last year or two I’ve had a Recaro interior from a Mitsubishi Evo IV in my GT-Four. Well, the front seats anyway – the rear seats were facelifted Celica seats, and my door cards had been falling apart.

So, I took the car to a chap up north called Simon, who does a bit of automotive interior trimming in his spare time, under the banner of Hide ‘n’ Seat Interiors. I explained what I wanted, and he obliged for a bargain of a price, at least two thirds cheaper than other companies had quoted me.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC) Review

Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Two possibilities exist. Either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

It’s always been one of my favourite quotations, so it’s rather fitting that it gets a prominent place (right at the start of the intro sequence) to a reimagining of one of my favourite games.

X-COM: UFO Defense (or, to give it its European name, UFO: Enemy Unknown) was developed by the Gollop brothers, Julian and Nick and was released in 1993 by Microprose to an unwitting audience.

With it’s crazily in-depth layering of micromanagement, strategy and turn-based tactics, the game was a great success and went on to spawn it’s own franchise, from the enjoyable-but-flawed sequel Terror From The Deep to the frankly abhorrent first-person shooter X-COM: Enforcer.

I was introduced to the original game on the Amiga, by a friend of mine who didn’t make it at all clear to me just how addictive the game was – so my obsession with X-COM is all his fault.

Jog On! – Failure!

After starting so well (I successfully completed Day 1 of Week 2 of the Couch-to-5K programme) I’ve fallen by the way side, as the lack of updates to the blog is testament to.

However, it’s not all my fault. I’ve had a ridiculously busy (and in some ways, depressing) last couple of months, and have had (and successfully fought off) Man-Flu as well. However, a nasty chesty cough has lingered around for the last four weeks, and given how breathless I get after just walking a short distance with the cough, I didn’t want to risk running.

That and it’s bloody cold out there.

So, it’s not so much of a failure as more of a temporary set back – as soon as the New Year starts, and my cough is gone I’ll start the programme from scratch.

Time to post some more updates.

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