The release of the Diablo 3 cinematic teaser trailer has demonstrated again why Blizzard's titles are eagerly anticipated. The 2 minute and 12 second trailer is a CG masterpiece with all the class that Blizzard's artists have mustered up ever since their first glorious CG trailer for the original Diablo. The technical and cinematic class of the trailer really allows you to understand how they managed to sell a DVD that consisted entirely of their CG videos.
I felt there was some definite influence from Transformers and Lord of the Rings in the trailer, though the latter was also obvious in trailers for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. That said, the beauty of the shots cannot be denied, nor can the evocative nature of the trailer. The wailing music and punchy ending are really showing that modern game trailers are giving movie trailers a huge run for their money.
Though I must confess that I am amused by their character "Leah". Leah is the female character that is seemingly there to provide "extra incentive/interest" for male gamers. Her prominence in the trailer has attracted some attention, and she seems to appeal to the same audience that has an undying passion for the characters of Final Fantasy. Enough said.
The real question is: "Will the gameplay of Diablo 3 stand up to the current tastes of gamers?" While titles like Titan Quest did reasonably well, the somewhat repetitive nature of the genre may take its toll on the long-lasting interest of the game. As a member of the large army of gamers that destroyed a mouse due to hours of clicking at the hands of Diablo 2, I wonder how much more the same we can take? Still, it's Diablo, and none of the releases for the series have disappointed so far, so it seems unlikely that Diablo 3 will break that trend.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Cascaded Frustration Sheets
I've recently been working on a web page layout using CSS. I thought, I'd create a simple layout with a header above a three column page. Simple enough. Then I decided that I wanted the centre column to be fluid - i.e. adjust width based on how wide the user's browser easy. That immediately ramps the difficult of said task from simple to quite challenging. In fact, it's a task that is difficult enough to warrant a "CSS Challenge" to do exactly that. So instead of warming my feet in the vague pool of memories I have about CSS because I haven't touched it for quite some time, I ended up diving headfirst into shark-infested waters.
After wrangling with various attempts on my own, and drawing on the designs of others on the Internet, I eventually found a design that worked rather nicely. Well, it did... until I stopped viewing the layout in Firefox and started looking at it in IE. IE is plagued by "misinterpretations" or "oddities" in dealing with certain CSS properties, which meant further wrangling in order to bludgeon the heinous browser into submission.
The icing on the cake? IE can suffer from issues when looking a page locally, which causes it to say that an error exists on a page, which can subsequently cause it to parse CSS incorrectly. However, upload the page to a remote site and everything works peachy. Chalk up another reason not to use IE.
After wrangling with various attempts on my own, and drawing on the designs of others on the Internet, I eventually found a design that worked rather nicely. Well, it did... until I stopped viewing the layout in Firefox and started looking at it in IE. IE is plagued by "misinterpretations" or "oddities" in dealing with certain CSS properties, which meant further wrangling in order to bludgeon the heinous browser into submission.
The icing on the cake? IE can suffer from issues when looking a page locally, which causes it to say that an error exists on a page, which can subsequently cause it to parse CSS incorrectly. However, upload the page to a remote site and everything works peachy. Chalk up another reason not to use IE.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Ooo, squirrels, Boo! I know I saw them! Quick, throw nuts!
One thing I do like about the UK is that there's different animals around. While I'm fond of the sight of wallabies, possums, wombats, echnidas and other Australian animals that I can't see now, it's seeing other animals that is quite enjoyable.
I have to say that I'm fond of squirrels. Not only do they hop around rather playfully in the local park grounds, but they'll happily ignore people and other animals most of the time, allowing you to walk past as they go about their business.
They do occasionally take offense at the presence of another squirrel though, thinking it is cutting in on its food-finding territory. Not that they actually fight or anything like that, just one squirrel runs towards another one, which promptly runs away. It's like there's some squirrel hierarchy that only they know about.
But because these squirrels are so used to people, it's not too difficult to attract their attention. Any small morsel of food will do the trick nicely, whether a nut, grape, or other small foodstuff. They tentatively approach an outstretched hand, and very careful prop themselves up on hind legs and grasp the bit of food before darting a short distance away to either eat it or make the decision to bury it for later.
They're so polite about taking the food from people that it's almost as though they've been trained. Getting them to stay still long enough for you to take a non-blurry photo, however, is another matter entirely...
I have to say that I'm fond of squirrels. Not only do they hop around rather playfully in the local park grounds, but they'll happily ignore people and other animals most of the time, allowing you to walk past as they go about their business.
They do occasionally take offense at the presence of another squirrel though, thinking it is cutting in on its food-finding territory. Not that they actually fight or anything like that, just one squirrel runs towards another one, which promptly runs away. It's like there's some squirrel hierarchy that only they know about.
But because these squirrels are so used to people, it's not too difficult to attract their attention. Any small morsel of food will do the trick nicely, whether a nut, grape, or other small foodstuff. They tentatively approach an outstretched hand, and very careful prop themselves up on hind legs and grasp the bit of food before darting a short distance away to either eat it or make the decision to bury it for later.
They're so polite about taking the food from people that it's almost as though they've been trained. Getting them to stay still long enough for you to take a non-blurry photo, however, is another matter entirely...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Brrr... It's cold out here...
Well, it's been a long time since my last update, so I'm going back a bit with this post to make a few points and complaints.
One
English winters are cold. Period. Everything ices over all the darn time. The road and the footpaths are frequently covered with ice, and a lot of the time it's a thin sheen that you can't even see until you loose your footing and almost fall over. No wonder people complain about "mad dogs" and Englishmen. I wouldn't be a happy canine if I were running over freezing cold ice all the damn time!
Two
Snow in October and November. What the? It wasn't even the end of Autumn when snow started arriving. The photo below is taken about 50 metres from the front door of my apartment block. No, I've not converted using the ridiculous UK imperial distance measurements, and I'm going to refuse should anyone request it. Metric was invented for a reason; get into the 21st century already.
Three
No white Christmas. Yes, that's correct. Despite a barrage of snow at the end of October, which was repeated several times during November, the snow making department went into hibernation as of mid-December, resulting in a boring GREY Christmas. Yes, I was dreaming of a white Christmas too, because I sure as heck wasn't getting one. If the weather is going to have the lack of decency to be cold all the darn time, it could at least provide the associated benefits. It didn't even get cold enough to coat everything in a nice white sheen of frost. Check please.
Four
Eight hours of daylight. I don't know how those people cope in the towns in the far North of Alaska and the like where they spend an entire month in pure blackness. But then again, I suppose being so remote might save them from cheesy vampire movies. Being pitch black at 8am and then again by 4pm is bad enough in my book. No wonder kids are getting rickets and such things from not having enough sunlight. The fickle weather goes from cloudy to pouring with rain in one minute, then back to plain cloudy the next, and then provides a respite in the form of a couple of minutes of precious semi-clear "sunny" sky for a few minutes before returning to characteristic grey for the rest of the day. And I thought the weather of Canberra and Melbourne could be inconstant - compared to them, UK is a fickle mistress demanding a new sportscar one moment before demanding a ticket to the ballet and then wanting to go slumming straight after.
One
English winters are cold. Period. Everything ices over all the darn time. The road and the footpaths are frequently covered with ice, and a lot of the time it's a thin sheen that you can't even see until you loose your footing and almost fall over. No wonder people complain about "mad dogs" and Englishmen. I wouldn't be a happy canine if I were running over freezing cold ice all the damn time!
Two
Snow in October and November. What the? It wasn't even the end of Autumn when snow started arriving. The photo below is taken about 50 metres from the front door of my apartment block. No, I've not converted using the ridiculous UK imperial distance measurements, and I'm going to refuse should anyone request it. Metric was invented for a reason; get into the 21st century already.
Three
No white Christmas. Yes, that's correct. Despite a barrage of snow at the end of October, which was repeated several times during November, the snow making department went into hibernation as of mid-December, resulting in a boring GREY Christmas. Yes, I was dreaming of a white Christmas too, because I sure as heck wasn't getting one. If the weather is going to have the lack of decency to be cold all the darn time, it could at least provide the associated benefits. It didn't even get cold enough to coat everything in a nice white sheen of frost. Check please.
Four
Eight hours of daylight. I don't know how those people cope in the towns in the far North of Alaska and the like where they spend an entire month in pure blackness. But then again, I suppose being so remote might save them from cheesy vampire movies. Being pitch black at 8am and then again by 4pm is bad enough in my book. No wonder kids are getting rickets and such things from not having enough sunlight. The fickle weather goes from cloudy to pouring with rain in one minute, then back to plain cloudy the next, and then provides a respite in the form of a couple of minutes of precious semi-clear "sunny" sky for a few minutes before returning to characteristic grey for the rest of the day. And I thought the weather of Canberra and Melbourne could be inconstant - compared to them, UK is a fickle mistress demanding a new sportscar one moment before demanding a ticket to the ballet and then wanting to go slumming straight after.
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