Exsanguination
May. 29th, 2010 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darthfarWe played Johann Strauss II's Vienna Blood waltz tonight. Oh, there was blood all right: *MINE*. My trombone bit me.
You ask how this could possibly happen. If you were asking such a question, you would doubtless also be asking how the same person could have, the the past, hit themselves very hard in the *teeth* and the *head* with same instrument. (And the answer would be: Because it's *me*).
TEXT TWIST 2
I can't begin to tell you just how much I love Text Twist. So when I found out that Yahoo had released a *sequel* to my favourite word game, well. Let's just say that I got absolutely no drawing done last week. (And very little of my dad's accounts either).
Ooh, shiny.
This second game features not two gameplay modes, but *five*: in addition to the classic Timed and Untimed modes, there's now Word of the Day, Lightning and Crossword as well. Word of the Day is exactly what it says: every day you get one new word. The Lightning mode challenges you to unscramble single long words (called "Bingo words" in this sequel), with five words to each level. And Crossword is pretty sweet: it's a crossword with a twist. The bingo word is right smack dab at the centre of the crossword (which you have to unscramble, of course); radiating from the bingo word are a bunch of shorter words that you make from the long one. Of course, the trick is figuring out which goes where, which isn't always as easy as it sounds. Oh, and the game now has 8-letter words as well. Awesome.
Also, in the tradition of so many of the latest games, Text Twist 2 has trophies, ranging from the easily achievable (solve 5 bingo words without twisting) to finger-grinding (complete a Lightning round in 3 seconds or less) to sheer doggedness (twist 10,000 times). Of course, you realise that these trophies and achievements are what make games like Left4Dead and Half-Life 2 so addictive. Goddamn you, Yahoo!
Is there anything I don't like about this sequel? I mean, it's shiny, it's pretty, it has so much added gameplay... and of course, it comes with a price. Namely, 157MB RAM to juice it. (For a word game?? When *Portal* takes takes under 120?). Not to mention Text Twist 1's orderly tracking of your found words (in alphabetical order) is now gone, and your words are arranged in the order they're found, which looks hideously untidy to me. You no longer have the maximum number of words to find either: the number of 3-, 4-, 5- etc letter words are now limited, which I suppose makes it easier for people who can't solve the puzzles fast enough, but it's frustrating to bang out words at a frenetic pace, only to be repeatedly told that "You have enough words of this length". GAH.
Still, the Good is enough to make up for the Bad, and I've been enjoying myself pretty thoroughly. The only problem is: now how do I unhook myself so that I can get some work done?
You ask how this could possibly happen. If you were asking such a question, you would doubtless also be asking how the same person could have, the the past, hit themselves very hard in the *teeth* and the *head* with same instrument. (And the answer would be: Because it's *me*).
TEXT TWIST 2
I can't begin to tell you just how much I love Text Twist. So when I found out that Yahoo had released a *sequel* to my favourite word game, well. Let's just say that I got absolutely no drawing done last week. (And very little of my dad's accounts either).
Ooh, shiny.
This second game features not two gameplay modes, but *five*: in addition to the classic Timed and Untimed modes, there's now Word of the Day, Lightning and Crossword as well. Word of the Day is exactly what it says: every day you get one new word. The Lightning mode challenges you to unscramble single long words (called "Bingo words" in this sequel), with five words to each level. And Crossword is pretty sweet: it's a crossword with a twist. The bingo word is right smack dab at the centre of the crossword (which you have to unscramble, of course); radiating from the bingo word are a bunch of shorter words that you make from the long one. Of course, the trick is figuring out which goes where, which isn't always as easy as it sounds. Oh, and the game now has 8-letter words as well. Awesome.
Also, in the tradition of so many of the latest games, Text Twist 2 has trophies, ranging from the easily achievable (solve 5 bingo words without twisting) to finger-grinding (complete a Lightning round in 3 seconds or less) to sheer doggedness (twist 10,000 times). Of course, you realise that these trophies and achievements are what make games like Left4Dead and Half-Life 2 so addictive. Goddamn you, Yahoo!
Is there anything I don't like about this sequel? I mean, it's shiny, it's pretty, it has so much added gameplay... and of course, it comes with a price. Namely, 157MB RAM to juice it. (For a word game?? When *Portal* takes takes under 120?). Not to mention Text Twist 1's orderly tracking of your found words (in alphabetical order) is now gone, and your words are arranged in the order they're found, which looks hideously untidy to me. You no longer have the maximum number of words to find either: the number of 3-, 4-, 5- etc letter words are now limited, which I suppose makes it easier for people who can't solve the puzzles fast enough, but it's frustrating to bang out words at a frenetic pace, only to be repeatedly told that "You have enough words of this length". GAH.
Still, the Good is enough to make up for the Bad, and I've been enjoying myself pretty thoroughly. The only problem is: now how do I unhook myself so that I can get some work done?
