24-May-1999 [Artur Marques]

Today [23:59]: #1) HALF-LIFE; #2) BTVS intro available!; #3) Hope fuels SETI

Please note: last week great videos and sections on MPEG2, are available from the several May updates.

hl3.jpg (6854 bytes)
Planes are hard to spot...
hl4.jpg (8216 bytes)
Red berets on their way...
hl5.jpg (14773 bytes)
The heli, going down...
hl6.jpg (13412 bytes)
Tanks are much easier to boil than the heli.
HALF-LIFE about to be completed

HL is out for some months now, and it has been awarded the "game of 1998" title, yet time has passed without me completing it, which is a rare thing to happen, since I am used to finish first person 3D games, in very few days.

I think that HL is a genial entertainment, but it does NOT deserve the "game of 1998" trophy, the same way that it is unfair that QUAKE 2 was reviewed by all major magazines as the "greatest game ever"... talk about pre-conceived ideas...

One of the most affected titles by this "industry obsession" towards the ID engine games, was the superb UNREAL, easily, IMHO, the greatest 1st person experience, yet. While HL does have quite an interesting story, it does NOT create the ambiance UNREAL does... I don't know how many of your readers played the EPIC title with lights off on a rainy day, on the hardest difficulty setting, but I was very, VERY amazed from the introductory level, where you don't get to shoot nothing, and still you can't avoid those extremely rare and genuine thrills, more usual in horror movies :-)

UNREAL is also technically beyond HL. UNREAL uses a proprietary 3D engine, which took almost 5 years of development and that now sells for HALF A MILLION DOLLARS per license. By the end of January 1999, there were over 20 licenses sold...

The most impressive tech thing about UNREAL is that it was written on a specially developed language! UNREAL SCRIPT is kind of C++ language, but totally reworked for the UNREAL needs. It is astonishing... and it can pay YOU, if you learn it... just do a web search on the "Epic Unreal prizes" subject, and you will find that there are 150000 USD available, as rewards to the best creators out there.

But I was writing about HL, and the pictures here exposed are HL related. My favorite is the helicopter situation, beyond doubt one of the hardest moments on your quest... By the time I write, I am in the alien planet level... I expect to complete the game next weekend, if and when I'll have the time to do it.

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer - SECOND SEASON MPEG INTRO FINALLY available!

Everything went wrong with my PC this monday. I am using the MAX memory that Windows 9x can manage [2 GB RAM = 4x 128 MB DIMMs + 1512 MB on a permanent swap file], plus an enormous HD capacity [80 GB], crammed with data... and things just blew up in the registry... The SB LIVE! hardware has its faults on this mess: as some of you might now, the LIVEWARE 2.0 version of its software went gold last week, and it really is a must [27 MB] download file because it upgrades your CL to EAX 2.0 support, which is a big step over the previous environmental audio API.

Everything went fine... except for when I was to reboot the PC... in my case, it was necessary to disable SB16 emulation and some other trickery... argh...

OK, so here it is the introductory clip used in the *second* season of BTVS. Meanwhile the "Digital Buffy" project is up and running, and I am about to debut it @ the Trade section. Just to sparkle your envy, take a look @ the folder pictured below...

Then Download the high quality MPEG video file (7166 K ZIP file). This file has **exactly** the same quality of all the MPEGs available for trade. Remember that there was loads of Buffy / Sarah Michelle Gellar stuff on day 18 May 1999. This stuff is yet to be organized on a dedicated video section.

And before that, another precious piece of information: the HALF-LIFE pictures above are JPEGs, because that format is very efficient with millions of colors... but the picture below is a GIF, because GIFs are your best choice for most pictures where color depth doesn't really matter.

btvs_folder_1.gif (6103 bytes)
NO NEED to click the picture. It is just it - a picture. The mentioned files are NOT available BUT IF you have interesting stuff to trade them for, AND if you are in the conditions stated @ the Trade section then drop me a line [check the top of this main page for the e-mail].

Hope fuels SETI

seti_packet1_status.gif (4182 bytes) The SETI @ home project is achieving a great success, but in a few weeks time, I bet people will start to interrogate if it is really worth it... I mean everyone, including myself, is downloading radio data packets, highly heavy on computational power required to analyse them, at least demanding DOZENS of hours on very fast PCs... and all for what? For nothing: if your processed packet does compute a non random pattern, I bet you will NOT be informed about it... and the chances that it does compute such scenario, are very high on relative terms, but very unattractive on practical [human life time] measures, since it is unwise to expect a success in the next decades...

So what moves people? HOPE! My computer is up & running all nights, trying to find that precious ET communication...

Here is the status of my packet #1, which should be completed tomorrow night.

Remember that I've first written about the SETI project, on day 11 May 1999.