Author: Rob

Doing it in style

Monday March 4th 2002

I’ve added another style sheet to the site that lets you choose a Dukes of Hazzard colour/graphics scheme. I kind of like it in a retro sort of way, but it’s a wee bit sore on the eyes.

I did do another one, but it was cut at the last moment due to decency problems. (i.e. it wasn’t any good!). I’m quite pleased with the way it has turned out versus the amount of effort required, so I’m brain storming for other ideas.

On the technical side the style sheet is swapped by the server side scripting, not in DHTML as all the standards freaks would have it. To my mind it’s just different way of solving the problem and at least it’s platform independant. I also decided to use PNG’s for the images on the Dukes’ one. Don’t know if that was a wise decision due to the lack of support, but I figured that since this is just a playground site it didn’t matter either way.

Anyhow, if anyone has any ideas for a groovy style then drop me a line as I think it would be a good laugh to have a whole shed load of them.

Game on!

Tuesday February 26th 2002

I’ve got so many games on the go at the moment it’s mad. First up is Wipeout Fusion – I’m a bit biased there, but I’ll sum it up by saying it’s the fastest racer ever and it looks great!

Next up is Ace Combat 4 – brilliant stuff, brings back Top Gun in a big way and the atmosphere is great during the tense missions and dog fights. The graphics are almost photo-realistic in places, and the menus and loading times are sensational. Top marks!

Jack & Daxter follow on behind, pushing a whole load of polygons in their journey over a fabulous looking fantasy land. It does smell a little like Crash Bandicoot… well, a lot actually, but it’s heaps better than Crash because it’s more open. If you find something that’s a pain to do, the chances are you can go and do a load of other things instead, and that’s great game design.

Now on to Rockstar’s State of Emergency – it’s crap, avoid it at all costs. Ok, to be fair, if you loved the missions in GTA3 where it was really frustrating and you lost your life just before you completed them then this is up your street. Even more so if you love games with scewed up camera movement, ‘cos in SoE it swings from your back to your side and round to your front without any logical reason while you’re getting a kicking from 8 riot police. Not fun and not a very good game either.

Dropship made it out of the packaging long enough for me to play the training level. It looked good, but it’s a little less playable than Ace Combat 4, so I’m leaving it ’til later.

Airblade on the other hand is still in the celophane. I have Tony Hawks’ 3 and I another take on the theme doesn’t really appeal to me. Could save it for a rainy day, I suppose.

There is no spoon

Tuesday February 26th 2002

Work has been crazy over the last week, really crazy. After ending up with stress about three years ago (it’s true, you don’t even know you have it) from the amount of work I was doing (designing, coding and running 17 websites at the same time, singlehandedly), I promised myself I’d watch out for it happening again.

Since then I’ve been pretty careful, whenever things were starting to get too much I’d get a grip and take a step back from it. Work is work, but it is never worth losing your health over (Are you reading this Jess Unwin?).

The strange thing is, as mad as things are at the moment, with looming deadlines, I appear to be getting a kick out of it. Don’t know why – I have a whole load of stuff to be finished by the end of the week and it will be seat of the pants stuff to get it finished on time. But at the same time, I’m doing some great stuff – I’m looking at a hundred lines of code or more that I’ve churned out two days before and I’m thinking “Hey – that was clever, passing that to a function there so I can re-use it… well done!”, yet at the time I don’t remember making conscious decisions to plan ahead like that.

I think I’m in the zone. Oh yes, that’s what it is. You know when you’re there, and you don’t think too much about it because you might snap out of it. But it’s a great feeling – you’re flying along and everything is clicking. Most of the time it happens on the pool table down the pub – you can own the table for the whole night, pulling off everything you try. Then the following week you’re back to shanking the cue ball into some bikers’ pint!

I’m going to love it while it lasts – if I make the deadlines and get the job done I don’t mind being mortal again next week. For now, I’m in the zone!