26 Oct 2005

Almost everyone around me knows that I like to play computer games. However, different from what most of my friends would expect, I'm not such a person so into computers stuff. I mean, of course I like surfing the internet and ICQ and what else. But I’m just not those kind of person that like to study what is BIOS, what is backdoor, what is firewall, what is CISCO...blah blah blah. And so I didn’t' develop the ability to handle the computer when there is something wrong.

And when the computer goes wrong, it's just so similar to the sky fall. And I'm not exaggerating it, you know. Those that had their computers something wrong before will feel as frustrated as I am as well if there is. We are so relied on such things already.

Then I developed the habit of leaving the computer's problem until someone will voluntarily help me or the problem will be solved by itself but just not me to open the casing and remove the darn parts or to reinstall the whole damn windows again. Time goes on and I guess I have developed a kind of "phobia" towards downed computers.

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Recently I have took out the game of Red Alert 2 to play AGAIN. Well I admit that I really LOVE the game and I have nothing to play too. I would really like to buy some computer games but those pirated ones are so rarely seen and the quality is so low now. I've heard pirated CDs the quality so low that concert VCDs are actually AV porn and games CD-ROM are actually cartoons record from TV. My goodness. How on Earth could I trust them anymore.

Speaking of the Red Alert 2, It's really fun and diverse. For so many times i played the game there is almost never the same response from the computer.

So because of the admiration to the game, I search for the game when I was working with the Wikipedia to search port names. To my shock, there is a story behind:

Westwood studios had been making good games. Their greatest success was the launch of Command and Conquer, which is groundbreaking for the Real Time Strategy games (RTS).

Another game that I've bought and played is the "Lands or Lore 2: Guardian of Destiny". 4CDs the game has. The game is so complicated, the maps are so large that I've tried more than 5 times but never able to make it to the last piece of CD.

The success of smaller companies are always ending happily. Westwood Studios was soon being "purchased" by Electronic Arts games, which is the famous EA Games. Something, then, happened which makes the old staffs in WW Studios unhappy. They left in a bulk and set up another Studio called Petrogylph (something like that). Petroglyph mainly consists of old WW staffs. Those that unwilling to stay in EA games later also joined the Petroglyph.

Maybe this is the reason why the third C&C game (Generals) is so lousy. The Elites are all gone.

So what's the exciting news? Petroglyph is undergoing a project (of course an RTS game, it's their game) which is using their skills and experience to blend with the Force. Yes, they are making the RTS game for Star Wars! Wow. Although I'm not as exciting as playing the similar game for Lord of the Rings, I am, anyhow.