Welll... the Zipped file for MT 3.0 Developer edition has been sitting on my desktop for a few weeks now. A recent wave of spam comments convinced me to make the jump.
So here it is... freshly installed. So far, no error to report. I love the more professional look of the admin interface. Very sleek !
Now I just have to add my little personal customization to allow HTML editing with fckEditor and I will be all set !
July 2004 Archives
Doom 3, Half Life 2, Call of Cthulhu, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.... the end of the year is promising some very exciting games. Time to clean up the shelves and go over some older games I have not finished yet.
First in line - Deus Ex II : Invisible War.
I have mixed feelings about that one.
On the one hand, it was exciting to follow the initial storyline. Going through some places from the initial game, meeting some familiar faces made the game feel like going back home after a long time on the road. Things are not quite the same but they remain familiar.
On the other hand, while the original story was dark and deliciously complexe, this one is needlessly complicated. Right from the beginning, the little game of factions and political powerplays turns into a confusing labyrinth of names, groups and leaders. If it was not for some cool graphics and a comfortable user interface, the game almost lost me in the first two levels.
Fortunately, perseverance eventually pays off once the storyline forces the player to make some critical alliances. The story throws in some rare comments about Society and Control, too little compared to the first game, as if they decided to dumb this one down to make it more accessible.
The story is also much shorter. It took me about 12 hours of gameplay, while I recall spending almos the double in the first one.
Overall, the game was not very difficult, not very challenging and quite linear, although it was still possible to resolve situation in many ways (lethal and not). Choice in this game is very superficial. yes, you can chose sides and make alliances that result in very different endings. But the progression towards that end still feels too linear.
Too bad this sequel was a little disappointing. It is still a lot of fun to play but I can�t shake the feeling that it missed becoming so much more.
It took 6 years and a few reminders from people who were looking for these old pages. I am glad to announce that I finally revived my Necronomicon Project pages.
A little history for those who would not know what the Necronomicon Project was.
About 10 years ago (already ?!), I found myself in the lucky position of being the webmaster of my graduate school (EERIE, in Nimes, France). It was the beginning of the web, an ancient time where HTML editors were called VI and EMACS, and where Spyware were just gadgets out of a Bond movie.
The website of the school gave me the opportunity to build a few personal sites which had their time of popularity : an encyclopedia about the X-Files (Aux Frontieres d'URL), a guide to cyber culture (Net Tribes), a list of links about horror writer H.P.Lovecraft (De Web Mysteriis), an altar dedicated to his trademark creature Cthulhu (The Cthulhu Gallery) and finally, The Necronomicon Project.
The Necronomicon Project is an attempt at compiling different texts related to the occult book created by H.P.Lovecraft as one of the backbones to his Mythos, and put them together in some re-creation of what the book might have looked like. It is of course a very modest creation, very far from the actual horror described by the author.
One of the interesting aspects of this project was the endless source of amazement caused by the blurred lines between the book and reality. People actually thought this was the real text. Others warned me about the evil of this enterprise. I even received condescending emails telling me that the book does not exist and that I was misleading myself. We will see how things happen almost 10 years later :)
Most of these pages died when I left the school in 1998 ... I mean, they disappeared from the web but they remained in personal archives. The Necronomicon Project is the first one I am attemptin gto revive. Time permiting, I will give the other sites their chance to return to the web.