3 Years Running!

Apocalypso’s Atomic Arcade is my first ever blog.

After writing on HubPages for a few months, I went about learning the ins and outs of Blogger/Blogspot. AAA was a guinea pig of sorts where I tested things out. Every conceivable widget out there was added in to this blog, and I had nothing but copy and paste stories mainly from other gaming blogs and websites, before finally settling on writing more original content, which actually worked a bit more in my favour as it turns out.

AAA is a place where I can publish all my weird and wacky observations about games, gaming, and other such things. I’ll likely never shut it down as long as I live. Over the past while I’ve slowly been taking a look at my blog and getting rid of superfluous crap that isn’t needed and sort of starting from scratch; tidying things up a bit. I actually prefer going for a more minimalist approach nowadays to having a lot of space taken up by rubbish.

So maybe in the near future we’ll see an unpolluted AAA, near as can be to being new and fresh again.

Hopefully this year is going to be a good one. I need to give it my all. I’ve got various projects on the go – some have been dormant for a while and need to be resurrected, and others actually have yet to be brought to life finally. More and more websites out there beckon my attention as a self-proclaimed “online adventurer”; publisher; supposed freelancer.

I mean, after all, 2012 might be my last year to get all of this done, if the end-is-nigh predictions are anything to go by. It also just so happens as it is that January 24 is D-Day for this SOPA and PIPA business – whether it is put in to motion or not.

3 Years Running!

New Review Published: Stealth Bastard

The latest and biggest thing to hit the indie PC game scene is Stealth Bastard. You’ve read about it; you’ve heard of it; you’ve played it. Yes, you have. It’s free. That’s how I know you know about it.

To summarise, it’s a freeware 2D platforming title developed by London-based developer, Curve Studios. It’s similar to Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell in theme, but more like Abuse (that old game for MS-DOS) or even Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey in the way that it plays. There’s stealth, death, and that sort of thing, but much more fast-paced than any stealthy FPS title.

Anyway, I downloaded it recently and gave it a go, and managed to actually write a 1500 word review on it. Don’t quite know how, though. You can go through to the piece on HP, if you care.

New Review Published: Stealth Bastard

Random Madness: Micro Doom

This post marks the return of Random Madness here on AAA. I had some inspiration recently.

Windows XP has been around for a long time. I was just reading on Joystiq the other day in an article where it was said that it is in fact ten years old as of last month. After so many years of using Windows XP myself, I recently made the jump to using another version of Windows. On the laptop I acquired recently, I have installed on it Windows Vista. True, it’s not the latest Windows, or the best. Some call it the black sheep in the family.

Anyway, I had read about a feature that was first introduced in Vista that obviously wasn’t in any previous Windows that we know of: User Account Control, or UAC. Basically it ensures that programs run only when you want them to and that any sort of malware that attacks your system doesn’t have full control over what goes on, even if you’re running an administrator account.

Now the gamer in me instantly thought of something else when I read that acronym. The UAC is instrumental in the storyline of the Doom series. It stands for Union Aerospace Corporation. Now while the UAC’s background was only really expanded upon in Doom 3, it existed all ready in the original games in the early-mid 90’s.

Now knowing my inquisitive mind like I do, my thoughts started to wander if there was some sort of link or is it just coincidence? This wouldn’t be the only time there was a possible link between id Software’s Doom and Microsoft. More than a decade and a half ago, Bill Gates promoted Windows 95 by superimposing himself in to Doom and blasting some zombies. Doom was originally programmed to work in MS-DOS when released in 1993, but was still massively popular even years later.

Maybe this UAC feature was an homage of sorts to Doom. Windows UAC tries to limit malware attacks, much like Doom’s UAC tried in all Doom games to date to prevent the demonic invasion from hell – ultimately (get it? The Ultimate Doom?) it failed every time.

But seriously, don’t quote me on this. It’s all rubbish. Interesting to think of, though.

Random Madness: Micro Doom

AAA - Now Playing: Dark Forces

I think it was earlier this year when I decided I wanted to go ahead and get Star Wars: Dark Forces working.

So I got the game out of my collection and tried to run it with DosBox, but failed. So it laid there dormant for several months. I was kind of bummed that I couldn’t get it to work.

Then the other day I downloaded DarkXL – a source port for Dark Forces. With a bit of tinkering around, I was able to get it running. It was only the demo level though, and I was a little disappointed at this, seeing as I have the full version of the game. You see, the DarkXL source port is only in its Alpha stages of development, and it has been for years now.

So I went online and found out that there was in fact a later version of the program. I downloaded that ASAP and tried it again. The result was much better. The UI was vastly improved and I was able to at least play three levels this time before getting stuck.

Needless to say, much more work has to be done on the source port. But I eagerly anticipate the next build which should be out hopefully in the next few months. There’s been a pickup in activity as regards the project recently.

Still, it’s amazing that I’ve even been able run it, seeing as it’s been probably about 14 years or so since I’ve seen let alone played this classic. I usually have a habit of taking out a game every few years and playing it. So this one marks the longest amount of time that has elapsed since I last played it.

And this game was released in 1995, meaning it’s fifteen years old. But I’m still quite amazed at its technological advancements for that time.

AAA - Now Playing: Dark Forces

AAA has been MIA

I haven’t posted on this blog for over a week now, and most of the regular posts that I do have not cropped up because of it.

You see, I’ve been busy on other projects, like my other blog, UNF, or The Unnamed Feeling. I’ve become more involved in it and the community that is springing up around the blog and the network.
It also took me a long time to finally get tired of doing post after post for this blog, neglecting a lot of my other projects, when there was no real reward in this blog for the most part. And I’m not blaming anybody – this blog exists in an oversaturated market where there are plenty of blogs and websites that I couldn’t hope to ever compete with. I mean, a lot of the time it’s “copy and paste”, like it is with many other sites.

That’s why I’ve shifted my focus onto my other blogs and projects, as well as my articles and maybe some fiction writing too. I still may post the odd thing here in the future, which will more than likely be an editorial or original post, rather than news and that sort of thing seeing as there are plenty of places that cover that sort of thing.

So for anyone who cares, maybe when things quieten down a bit the blog could resume regular posting, but likely not the same sort of thing. It had a good run though – nearly a year and a half of posting every day. But that time seems to have come to an end.

Okay. Sob story over. Now clear off.

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AAA has been MIA

AAA – Now Playing: BioShock 2

Months ago I bought BioShock 2 and to my disappointment I couldn’t get it to work for some reason.

But just lately after updating my DirectX drivers and other such things, I decided to give the game a go once more. Sometimes these things happen.

And I was right: this time it works nicely. So, the game was released several months ago, back in February, and might not be as good as the original according to some, but here I am, catching up on playing this game. And I quite enjoy it too.

Right now on this play through I’m harvesting the little sisters, but like the first game, I probably end up going back for a second play through where I’ll be Mr. Nice guy and save them from a life of servitude and horror.

AAA – Now Playing: BioShock 2

AAA – Now Playing: Doom 64

Well, actually it’s the TC for the PC called Absolution. It’s years old now, and I haven’t played it for a long time. I didn’t get around to finishing it either.

It’s not considered apart of the main Doom series, or even canon, by some; it lacks some of the demons from Doom and Doom II, and the existing ones had a makeover. And there are other things that make it feel like it isn’t really Doom. It does feel more like a Quake game, now that some people mention it. But it’s still good, and still worth a try.

One of these days I also want to try out Doom 64 EX, which is a “more accurate” direct port of the game, rather than a TC like Absolution is, for Doomsday, or JDoom, I believe.

I remember seeing Doom 64 for the first time when I was a child, and I read about it in an issue of some magazine. I can’t even recall the name. But there was a massive preview of it with plenty of screenshots and so on. I wanted it so badly. Who knew that it would be ten years later after that, in 2007, that I actually got around to playing it. I downloaded the TC, the maps, the soundtrack pack, and after that I think I just lost interest. Weird.

Now after having played through Doom 3 again, I thought: why not? So I got everything set up again just this week and started it up.

AAA – Now Playing: Doom 64

AAA: 1000 Posts!

I know, it’s a bit of a cheat, but there it is. AAA, or Apocalypso’s Atomic Arcade, has finally reached 1000 posts after just one year. The blog was started on the 24th of January, and now it’s one month after the one year anniversary.

On year of video games, music, movies, and madness.

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AAA: 1000 Posts!

Added the new Projects and Places page

Recently I saw under the posts section that there was a “edit pages” tab, and it said I could create up to ten pages for my blog, which are standalone or separate to the homepage or blog itself. I’m not sure if this is very new, but I haven’t seen it until now.

I just checked. It’s new as of this month.

So, I got round to cleaning up my blog a little bit, and adding all the links to my different blogs and such on this page, which is labelled “Projects and Places”. Check it out. You can find the “Pages” gadgets on the left sidebar near the top of my blog. I’ll probably add more pages sometime as well.

It’s pretty simple to add these pages, and you edit them just like you would your blog posts. It doesn’t look like you can post these pages from programs like Windows Live Writer though. You actually have to log in and do it.

Added the new Projects and Places page

Apocalypse Then: AAA’s One Year Anniversary

That’s right. Today marks one year since AAA, this blog, was started. It was Saturday, the 24th of January, 2009.

I’m still trying to figure out what the hell it is. It’s like a blog about video games, entertainment, and other stuff that interests me. Basically anything to do with entertainment of the virtual sort has some place on here. I’m constantly coming up with new types of posts, and widgets and stuff to add to the blog, and some of them are just plain crazy – hence the term random madness (or magic), but they hopefully entertain and inform, or just get some sort of reaction from whoever comes across it.

Some of the information on here is news that’s going around, and original posts that have been taken out of my demented mind (like Keen Dreams). It’s just about putting what’s in my mind on the internet. I’ve started other blogs as well, and plan on starting more this year. I’ve joined Facebook, Twitter, and the game-less madness that is Digg, but AAA was my first blog on the internet, apart from my two HubPages profiles that have been up for a while. They were my part of my first presence on the internet, and they will celebrate their two year anniversaries later on in the year. As I’ve read time and time again: hubs are not blogs!

So, as for the next year and beyond, I hope to convey more of the latest big interesting news stories, rumours, and original stuff that somehow ties in with my love of video games, movies, music, TV, and more.

And if you don’t like, I’ve only got two words for ya!

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Apocalypse Then: AAA’s One Year Anniversary

Published a new Article, Updated the aStore

Today I published a new article, called “PC Games to Look Forward to in 2010: Part 1”. It’s not your typical list, and it has pictures and videos on there as well. It’s the first in a series of articles, and I’ll likely put up another one or two articles during the next while.

This is the main reason why I haven’t been focusing as much on blogging for a while, seeing as I’ve been putting this all together. I’m going to shift some of my time to article writing and other things. Buy hey, at least it gives me something to blog about, in addition to the usual stuff.

On another note, I’ve been updating my Amazon aStore lately, making it look a little better aesthetically, and actually stocking it with more new games. In addition to updating the “New Games” section, I’ve added the Classic Games section and put the existing ones in there as subcategories. You can have a look at it here.

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Published a new Article, Updated the aStore

AAA Update: Happy New Year!

It’s New Year’s Day today, and Friday to boot, so I’m taking the day off of writing of any sort as usual. So this post you see now is a scheduled one I wrote yesterday.

I just wanted to say that I’ve been adding some new widgets to the blog. Most recently, I’ve put up a new poll widget which will run for the next few days, as well as a countdown timer, and a recent posts and twitter updates widgets to complement the related posts one that I’ve had on the blog for a while. I like experimenting and trying out some new widgets and such that make the blog fun, so have a look and see.

By the way, Happy New Year!

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AAA Update: Happy New Year!

Working on Three Articles at the Moment

I took a break over Christmas, but I started working on three articles earlier on in the month, and my plan was to have them done by the end of December, but it doesn’t look like that’ll happen. I think I’ll have to aim for sometime next month.

The three articles include “Games I’m Most Looking Forward to in 2010”, “Top Games of the 2000s”, and “Top Games of 2009”. I think I’ll likely put them on my one HubPages profile seeing as they’re all long articles and there’ll be other stuff like pictures and so on. For it all to go in a blog post would make it look a bit cramped, but I will still put up some posts here on AAA and link to the articles when they are done.

I’ve got a number of unpublished articles that I should put up some time.

Working on Three Articles at the Moment

AAA: Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Well, the year’s nearly through. It’s Christmas Eve, and I’ve spent some time with the family, and we had dinner just a few hours ago and we’ve been doing the usual stuff.

I usually take Fridays off, and that applies tomorrow as well. I won’t be doing any blogging or writing of articles or any writing of any sort hopefully, and whether or not I do any on the weekend will remain to be seen.

I’m taking a break, and after the weekend and particularly in the new year, I suppose I’ll be back to posting news, both local and international, stuff about movies, music and especially gaming, and the usual random magic, or nonsense, depending on how you see it. And I hope to further extend my presence on the web with more blogs and websites, and so on, some time.

So, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

P.S. I’ve recently added some new widgets to the blog. The games I’m currently playing, and the Christmas banner. The poll is still running as well, this time with a selection of games to choose from, indicating your favourite game you’ve played this year.

AAA: Merry Christmas!

AAA Update: The new Poll Feature, How to put Polls in Your Posts

Thanksgiving

I was thinking of some widgets I could add to the blog recently, and in connection with my post on Rage having classic id weapons, I put a poll widget on the blog, which is currently at the bottom of the right sidebar.

That poll will end next week sometime, and after that I'll have to think of a new poll question and answer options to come up with.

If you're interested in learning on how to put polls into your actual blog posts on Blogger, I know how, because I looked it up with Google. You can find the easy way to do this here, or here.

AAA Update: The new Poll Feature, How to put Polls in Your Posts

AAA Update: Weird Arial Font Anomaly and 700 posts

It was funny for a while, but then I became quite worried. For the past few months I've been using and experimenting with different fonts on AAA. My Arial font became messed up for some reason or other. And this not only happened on the blog, but also on every website I visited, and even on my desktop. I got kind of worried, thinking it might be some sort of virus or something.

Anyway, the other day, I went in to my fonts folder in Windows and all I did was try to copy and paste the font, thinking that it would correct the problem. I found I couldn't copy it though, so I exited out of that folder, and what do you know, something clicked and my Arial font is back to normal. I prefer using this as my standard font to some of the others, as Times New Roman is too small at its average size. I also once heard that people who use Times New Roman are unoriginal, and don't know how to change the font.

On another note, AAA has now reached, and exceeded 700 posts, whether it's about updates to the blog, news, reviews or other things I've published, or just plain old random magic.

AAA Update: Weird Arial Font Anomaly and 700 posts

John Romero Comments on Passing of Don Punchatz

For those of you who need to catch up, Don Punchatz, AKA, the guy who made the Doom box art, passed away last month. ‘The Romero’ recently tweeted on twitter about Punchatz:

“Don Punchatz (R.I.P.) did DOOM's box art and it was awesome. He wasn't offered a royalty as was mis-reported recently.”

The original article over at spectrumfantasticart.com that some sites, including AAA, sourced and quoted from, claimed that Don was offered either a flat fee (which was lower than his normal going rate) or a percentage of the game's profits. Don took the flat fee, although according to Romero, there wasn’t a choice.

Well, you can’t ask Don about it now, but I guess we’ll be hearing something from his son, Gregor, sooner or later.

John Romero Comments on Passing of Don Punchatz

Keen Dreams: Redneck Rampage, Doom, Thief, and stuff

This is a new feature that I’m debuting here on AAA, and you might think it’s weird, but it’s kind of cool too. And you watch others copy me, because I’ve all ready seen that happen before. Okay, so I’m not the first to have a dream about games and so on, but it’s something I never if rarely ever see on any blogs about gaming. So, you know I haven’t copied it from any place.

It’s about video games in dreams- my dreams to be exact. Yeah, I get a few hours sleep from the early hours of the morning onwards. How do I know they are about video games? Well, because they usually feature guns and other stuff that you would only find in games, like treasure and stuff falling off a bad guy after he’s been killed.

This morning I dreamed about an FPS game that saw me using an AK47 (I’ve been playing Redneck Rampage a lot lately) to gun down some creature. It looked like one of those zombies from Thief (if only you could use guns in Thief!). But he kept getting back up again, because he's undead and bullets don't affect him, and so I had to blow him up like in those aforementioned games (in Thief you can use fire arrows, and RR you use dynamite). After that the skeleton dropped some treasure and an MP5, which I scooped up, kind of like in Hellgate: London, or something, and then I heard a noise, as a door opened, unlocking other parts of the level, and all these big mofos came running out. So I opened fire with my gun, and after that, I don't know, it went blank.

Then it was revealed that this game was actually the new Doom, Doom 4, and that the doomguy actually does have a name. He has these initials: L.B.A., which actually stands for Lawrence (or Larry) Bambus Anderson. That’s weird, because I always thought that doomguy had a bit of hick or hillbilly in him.

Too much playing Redneck Rampage. Although, I haven’t touched it in a few days now…

Keen Dreams: Redneck Rampage, Doom, Thief, and stuff

AAA now on Twitter

I've just made a Twitter account today. I'm just getting everything set up at the moment. The username isn't what you'd expect, since all the other ones I wanted were taken- even Apocalypso!

There's a "follow me on twitter" link in the left hand sidebar which I hope to make prettier with perhaps a button or banner or something.

AAA now on Twitter

AAA Update: 500 posts

Time for an update on the site's progress.

This now counts as the 500th post!

I'm still going with the whole blogging game more than six months down the line now, and I have more blogs that I want to start up in future as well. I've also been on HubPages.com for nearly a year as well-I have two profiles there, and here.

Soon I hope to finally get on Twitter and perhaps Facebook or ning.com or something like that.

AAA Update: 500 posts