CO-OP Gaming

This weekend looks likely to be a zombie free one and I'm not happy! As most people know, I don't spend a lot of time playing online games as I usually prefer a decent single player campaign any day. But lately I've (re)discovered the joys of coop online gaming that has more to it than any repetitive deathmatch game could ever offer.

There are a few coop games that you'll find me playing, Doom 3's Last Man Standing and FMJ 5.56mm are damn fine examples of games you should play!  Battlefield 1942's excellent total conversion Interstate Racing (aka IS82) is another I've played for years. (Okay, it's not really coop but everyone usually ends up messing about rather than actually racing against each other! It's fun - play IS82!).  Finally, the awesome Fraghouse Invasion 5 and Killing Floor for Unreal Tournament 2004.

Killing Floor is the game I play more so than any other at the moment. It's fantastic fun and feels like you're stuck inside a real B-Movie that would make Romero proud. The maps are amazing, play on 'Swamp' and 'Parking Lot' to see what I mean. You can use a variety of weapons but, of course, I choose the shotgun method! I like the faster Winchester over the traditional Shotgun and there is also a Hunting Shotgun that fans of Doom 2 *must* try out!

However, the thing that makings Killing Floor so addictive isn't the range of spooky maps, great weapons, perfect gameplay or even the great graphics. It's the players. Most nights I run my own server for the KF Community and there are often 5/6 of us all working together to rid the world of zombie scum! It's a great laugh and there are lots of cool characters too, along with some talented players too (hate those ppl!). ;-)

Hmm now for the bad part. I'm writing this blog today because I cannot play the game online. Apparently, the master servers are offline at the moment and they could be down for the entire weekend! Hence the reason I've updated my blog rather than actually playing the game!

Typical, I've got all weekend and the master servers are down! Bah..  Well, at least single player is also supported - but this is NOTHING compared to playing coop with your friends.

Uncle Strider !

Today we got to see our new nephew. Little Archie came quite a few weeks early due to some problems, but all is well overall and he's doing well. Perfectly well for his size and early condition. Congrats to the parents - you've done fantastic!!!!

our Oslo trip

We're back from our Oslo trip and boy what a fantastic experience. We loved Norway!

Personally, it's a place that I've always wanted to visit and Oslo is a great start to begin any Scandinavian vacation. The city is clean and quiet whilst home to a ton of great sites to see and many things to do. The people are friendly and polite making this a great place for families and couples alike.

The strangest thing for us was the temperature. One of the reasons Oslo made it onto our shortlist was the expected cooler climate. Not so! Each day was damn hot but it peaked at around 30c on the Saturday. Scorchio!

The sun was still shining late into the evening but it never went completely dark. Even in the early hours of the "night" the Sun reappears after only a couple of hours of this half darkness! Very odd weather that we aren't used to here in England. We loved this and enjoyed the whole experience, of course.

I cannot recommend Oslo, or indeed Norway as a whole, enough to you all. Sure the Taxi's and eating out are expensive but everything else more than makes up for this. We loved Norway and hope to return one day. When we do, Trondheim is next on the list but first we have to visit other places.. what else do we go to work for? Enjoy life!

[ This posting is dedicated to my new nephew, Archie. ]

My "Killing Floor", a UT2004 server

A quick post to let all know about my 'Killing Floor' game server.

It's a Unreal Tournament 2004 server running the total conversion mod 'Killing Floor'. This is a classic game aimed at action / zombie fans everywhere! You are all welcome to grab a shotgun and join us for a game sometime.

If you don't have this fantastic game installed, then you can download it from AppleCrypt Mods right now. If you'd like to visit the KF homepage then click here.

My server is simply called "Strider's KF Server" and it will be listed within the game's browser with all the others. It's running most evenings (GMT) during a typical weekday and also at various times over the weekends. (except this coming weekend - we're too busy!)

Join us, there's plenty of spare shotguns to go around :-)

Lookout - The Brits Are Coming!

I thought I would share an image from the game "Killing Floor", an Unreal Tournament 2004 modification. I had an hour today while everyone was out and this map had four of us all up against a war of zombies. What made this map even better was the server had two mutators running - low gravity and quad jump. Amazing fun! Before you ask, this mod is downloadable in a Mac-ready format for you at AppleCrypt Mods. **contact me for a coop game sometime**

I'm now testing out v3.2 of SAS: Into The Lion's Den. It's an old favourite of mine for a couple of years now and I see there are three online servers running! I'll have this on AppleCrypt soon.

Does anyone here play 'Fraghouse Invasion v5' online? I can only see the one server but I can never connect to it. It just sits there displaying the URL onscreen and nothing more. . . Yelp !

Hero... Bruce Boxleitner

Thanks to SciFi.com I recently learned the Bruce Boxleitner is to be a regular cast member of the hit show Heroes.  Being a huge Babylon5 fan I scream out in joy and then begin to wonder if the Vorlon race really do exist! Though I would always take the side of the Shadows!

There has never been a science fiction show that came close to Babylon5.  With it's powerful story, incredible characters and those awesome graphical scenes!  Captain John Sheridan brought power, passion, romance, humor and sheer strength to J. Michael Straczynski's masterpiece. Today is a good day indeed.

Captain Sheridan: Why am I here?

Kosh: You have always been here.

DOOM IV

Today I learned that DOOM IV is in development!

Excellent news though there's no mention (yet) of a Mac release. But with ID I should imagine this won't be an issue. Click for more info - http://www.idsoftware.com

 

St.George's Day !

Hello again everyone. It's almost the April 23rd and although I know I'm a little early, I thought I'd make this posting today. I may not get the time on Wednesday, so I will wish every Englishman a very happy St. George's Day!

Click on this link and sigh the petition (http://www.stgeorgesholiday.co.uk)

birthday break

We're back from the Lake District in Cumbria. And I'm annother year older too !

The birthday weekend break in Dubwath went by pretty good. We went on many walks in various parts of the Cumbrian area, Uldale Common, Caldbeck, Loweswater and Winlatter are all now favorite places of ours. However, the B&B itself wasn't too great, we received a very cold greeting and then the evening bar was a huge disappointment. Try getting a drink when they are ignoring their reception bell. Hmm not very good at all :-(

So watch out if you want to stay in this town - I don't want to publicly knock these guys. Perhaps they had a bad week? lol yeah right! Contact me if you need to know the name...

Anyhow, they didn't spoil our time, I only wish we had longer... But isn't that always the case? Oh well only 7 more weeks until our next vacation!

The picture was taken from Winlatter Forest and is shows the Skiddaw mountain range with Dodds Woods at the foot. Quite a spectacular site.

feeling a little sad

This year, April is a strange month for us both. It's the first time in a long while that we cannot afford to visit America and have one of our fantastic road trip adventures. We are sad to think that this time last year we was in Las Vegas and began our vacation by heading south through Arizona and California... The previous year we started in Houston and enjoyed the start of that vacation traveling through central Texas heading west into New Mexico.

Sigh.... Happy times! Okay this year is very different due to our new family addition, our very own little baby girl. Life's changed so much and we're both very happy, but a little tiny part of us is still missing America!

The picture above is obviously from the Grand Canyon, taken last year just before we started an awesome day on Arizona's section of Route 66. This is an amazing part of the Mother Road and we got to visit many touristy places, like the Grand Canyon Caverns and many towns like Peach Springs, Hackberry, Truxton, and eventually Kingman.

Amazing times. We hope to go back sometime in 2010, possibly a road trip vacation of the state of Texas this time? Our fingers are crossed :-)

topsy-turvy world !

This image was taken on our return home from the Lake District, last weekend. We where almost out of the Winlatter area and parked up to take this shot of a very odd weather condition. Very odd indeed, almost as if the world was upside down!

Take a click & a look at the image and you'll see that the valleys where flooded with thick fog all day while everywhere else was enjoying a clear blue sky day. The same happened in other places, like Crummock and Buttermere. So you can imagine our shock when we left for home only to  discovered that it wasn't really a foggy day after all!

We were glad to get a snap or two, I don't think people would have believed us otherwise ;-)

Lakes break

We have just returned from a great weekend of walking in the lakes! Great weather on saturday, like summer! And foggy on sunday, all day. We stayed at coledale inn which is an old georgian and victorian inn, very nice indeed. Sad to be back as this was a break to celebrate our six years together! Happy anniversary diane x x x

A real winter

Snow! At last winter finally arrives. Yesterday it started to snow a little and this morning it was everywhere :-) I decided to get up early (yeah like I've an option with a baby these days!) and take the dog out for a good walk.

Snow everywhere! And moments after taking this snapshot it started to fall from the sky. It was like a blizzard. We make the most of winter here, when it finally decides to arrive. Why? Well, we never seem to get a good cold icy season anymore. If we do wake up to a white world then it's usually gone later that same day and then it's another year to wait.. sigh..

Not like my good friend from Canada. They've just returned from a fantastic vacation in the South West, USA and returned to -27 temperatures! WOW :o

Well, I'm back home now and I decided to amend this blog a little. After all, it's not too good typing on the cell phone the best of times and today is even worse when it's cold. But guess what? The sun is out and the sky's (for once!) are blue. Bet you the snow has gone by the afternoon...

DAMN !

AppleCrypt Mods

Seeing as I've nothing new to post on this blog, I thought I'd mention my main web site that i've managed now for quite some time: AppleCrypt Mods. This is my digital baby that I've put many hours into for a few years now.

 

Basically, I convert many PC first person shooter (fps) modifications (mods) and single player maps (sp).

 

Almost all mods and sp maps are made by Windows people that know nothing of the Mac gamer. To make matters worse, their work often comes as an EXE file! Plus there could also be source code that needs to be compiled..  It's no wonder that Mac users never bothered (or never even knew) you could mod your favourite game!

 

Modding is cool. It allows you to change many aspects of a game, like the weapons or sound effects for example. Then there are the sp maps to test out, why re-play all the maps within the game when there's often a wealth of choice just waiting to be discovered on the internet?!!

 

Ok, so long story short. AppleCrypt Mods makes sure these mods & sp maps work on our Macs, for fps games like Doom3, Battlefield 1942, Soldier of Fortune 2, Quake 4 and many more. Check out our downloads server, there's thousands of surprises awaiting you!.

Please spread the word of AppleCrypt Mods!!!

Canadian adventures

A good friend of mine "recently" sent me a couple of pictures of his family on vacation around the Province of Alberta, Canada. As you can see from this superb snap, this looks to be a wonderful place on the planet. So beautiful and I do hope he doesn't mind me posting this picture!

We would love to visit Canada in the coming years, maybe when our little KJ is a few more years older though. Somehow I don't think it'll be worthwhile at this time (not that we can afford it! lol)

I've always fancied Alberta, British Columbia and the Alaskan State. This would make a fantastic road trip over a couple of months. Sounds like a plan !

Starting to save.... ;-)

Xmas avatar

Look what i got for christmas!

It's my avatar in all it's 3D glory. Good 'ol Krusty is here to stay. Thanks to my family for this great gift. It'll be sitting besides my monitor from now on, just to remind me of who i am! :-)

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!

A White Christmas ?

After being ill all week I decided to take our dog out for a walk in the frost & cold.

It looks like winter is coming early for once and everywhere is frosty and icy. Cool! I love winter and we rarely get good winters in this part of England anymore! Lets hope this continues and there's snow on the way soon :-)

This is awesome and it would be great for KJ's first xmas to be a white one!

My first Christmas

Here's little KJ preparing for her first Christmas.

She's got her xmas stocking ready and about to hang it up near the fireplace. All she needs to do now is learn to write, otherwise Santa won't know what to fill up her stocking with! ;=)

Merry Christmas everyone!

New Mexico

Here's a fantastic picture of us all taken by a kind German tourist in the south west of New Mexico. A day after leaving Tombstone in Arizona, it was a great time and we later went on to visit some awesome places in New Mexico, such as White Sands, Fort Sumner, Lincoln County and the original Las Vegas! We also had the pleasure of a dodgy motel in Capitan, but this turned out to be a great laugh!

Katie meets Santa !

Here's little Katie Jayne meeting Santa for the very first time. She wonders why such a white beardy man has black eye brows..

Anyhow, lets hope she was wise enough to ask for money or an sports car for her Christmas present!

Thank you to Grandma & Grandad for this first visit :)

Now little (noisy!) Katie Jayne, where's MY present?

Christmas

It's coming Christmas again, everyone's favourite time of year!

Last year was brilliant over xmas itself, we had a great time! We also decided to break the usual traditional mold of spending the new year at home and booked a couple of nights in the Lake District, Cumbria. A small town called Grasmere.

Lovely place and very eerie at this time of year because there wasn't many people about. Esp at night time. Weather wasn't too great, well, it poured down all the time... see attached picture! But we had a great time :-)

Buckles!

My new belt buckles arrived yesterday from www.buckleshop.com and they're incredible Quality made and they also look fantastic to boot!

I just had to buy the Texas one for myself, this was my first State that I travelled as part of our road trip in 2006 and I loved it!!! Idaho is an incredible scenic place and I recently realised that we had nothing from this State, no caps, no T-Shirts, nothing! So this is the reason i also got a idaho buckle..

We bought another two for my dads christmas present. Colorado and California, to mark this years vacation :-)

A great fella called Geoff runs this web site, i highly rec a visit. I'll deff be going back, I want a buckle for each of the 13 States we've visited :)

A walk in the woods

..well, almost! We went out for a nice walk and came across a new walk to try. Its always good to find somewhere new and its pretty good were we live, plenty of local countryside. And look how well i got jake to pose! :)

Bugs!

While on our travels this year in north america we made a stop at an amazing part of the world called white sands in new mexico. An incredible place on planet earth! Heres a close up of the only bug we ever saw here.

Baby eaten alive!

Last nights party was just too much for some. Get this crazy person away from my baby now!

Day off work

Thought id take the dog out with for a walk. Cold but nice here at sunny england;)

Dead dog

While trying to find my socks, as i was about to walk the dog, i turned around to find him eager and ready to go! Hmm maybe not! Its a dogs life...

On my own

Im all alone tonight so im slouched in front of cable tv with some cool german beers. Sweet ;)

First post. Not!

Babys crying so it was time for daddy to come to the rescue! Guess this should have been the first post but hey.. I am making this post on my new cell, a sony ericsson k850i. Right then back to the television as we have virgin plus and its superb with our 42inch tv!

A quiet sunday

A nice relaxing day watching tv? Not likely lol