Damnit all to hell, I'm so stupid.
I had yet another blast at the meeting last night (seriously, NELUG is about the only place I can cut loose anymore. I have to hang around adults in order to act like a child --go fig). I picked up a couple of the police bikes and Vlad's Fortress. Those stupid loyalty cards are like crack. You get a stamp for every $25 you spend working towards free gift cards. I was up to about $85, which, instead of looking at it as being over by $10, I see it short by $15. So I pile in one of the Creator sets and now I'm at $111.00 or, four stamps!. Thankfully, when things trip the $100-mark, I have this mini-Tine in my brain that comes out with a hammer like a a cuckoo-clock and starts smashing around.
During the meeting, I got to talking with Joe, DaveE and Jorge about the LAN and about how sucky StarCraft was to play. Then I brought up my all time favorite RTS, Total Annihilation. After playing it up a bit, I think, if I can find a copy, they're willing to give it a whirl.
TA was such a good game. It's in my top ten games of all time and I played it to death back in the day. Cavedog --now since defunct-- and Chris Taylor (of Dungeon Siege fame) did some of the best work with that game. Including a period of time where you could download new units on a weekly basis. The varied strategies of combining air, land and sea units into most maps in a 3D/2D environment with unlimited resources was just phenomenal for the time.
When I got home around 10:30 I fired it up to see if it was as good as I actually remembered it being. Time having that fuzzy effect on memory. I fumbled around a bit with the interface, because I had forgotten what does what exactly. And I had a couple of false starts with some maps, particularly a water one where there just wasn't enough resources for a good start. Finally, I feel back on the old stand by of a metal world so I didn't have to worry about the resources at all.
And it slowly came back to me. The music, the tactics, and the way, in skirmish-mode, the computer just builds like it's on crack. Fast and haphazardly. I managed to keep the enemy at bay, but only through constant harassing, suicide attacks. One thing the computer doesn't do well is base-build, so I was able to funnel any of his ground assaults down a "corridor of death". At least until his air assaults bombed the hell out of my guns, that is.
In the end, I got wicked luck with a blind artillery strike and took out his commander (there was a very large and map-shaking explosion). From there, it was just a matter of time. Once I got nukes it was easy to start taking out chunks of his establishment and start raiding the rest with my ground mechs.
When it was over, it was past 2 AM. I almost choked, because I have to work the next day. And I wasn't sure where the time went. I normally try to not to burn past midnight, but I was totally floored. 2 AM?!?
So, I'm paying for it today. I feel like death warmed over. I keep making these dumbass mistakes because I'm constantly loosing focus. Which is bad. Real bad. I could fall over dead asleep right now, and I've just sucked down two cups of coffee. Oh it's gonna be one sucky day.
On the other hand, I can't stop thinking about having another go at TA.
I'd say it's held up pretty well.
posted by Evil Wayne @ 11:11 AM
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