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[Frumple]

I actually played starcraft as an in-class assignment a few times, back in middle school. Was pretty a'ight, though I forget exactly what the graded part was. Challenge/gifted class, teacher was both big into trying to integrate comps into the class (which was still fairly unusual for the time) and a relative, and the classes themselves were very small (4-6 students, something like that) and pretty laid back, heh.

In present day wtf, I just experienced the most trouble changing out a windshield wiper I have ever encountered. Haven't done it much, so I wasn't sure at first what was going on, but eventually I figured out I wasn't screwing something up and one of the arm hooks was actually somewhat bent, so what was completely trivial (like most wiper changes) for one arm took bending metal and hammering the attachment bit with a pair of pliers to get the damn hook in for the other. What should have been seconds and less effort than hand washing a plate took probably a half hour or so and aching fleshybits. Also appear to have somehow managed a few small cuts on my fingers, so add literal bleeding in there, too.

[helmacon]

Oh man, the nostalgia here.

We used to play all kinds of shit in my AP comp sci class back in highschool.
We had counter strike tournaments, huge SC and WC free for alls, and modded games in WC.

We had a minecraft server in my intro to engineering class, and we built some p cool shit there.

We got this game called artemis bridge simulator, and we would do face offs with two or more fully crewed ships. It was awesome.

My friend broke into an admin account and added the newer versions of DirectX to the approved download list. It got removed after a day, but nearly all the computers had it by then. Shit got really crazy from there.


The teachers for the most part were clueless, but we fought a constant battle with the school district tech department. They set it up to automatically wipe the desktop every time you logged off, so we carried flash drives and reinstalled every time. They started whitelisting programs that could be ran from the desktop, so we started launching from the flash drives. They started blacking programs launched from an external drive, so we had to learn to modify programs that would launch from the PC to access the stuff on our drive. Looking back on it it's almost laughable. They weren't exactly security experts, and we were kids. A couple of times we actualy met some of them, but they seemed more amused than angry. I think we kept them entertained. We certainly kept ourselves entertained. 

[ChairmanPoo]

My high school computer classes were a joke. Teachers didnt know jackshit about informatics. Our first one insisted in alternating "theory" classes in which he droned about the "history of informatics" (basically stuff he had copied from his encyclopedia about Babagge and the like), and "practice". Practice consisted of him "teaching" us to use "perfect writer". Please bear in mind that I'm not quite a fossil. Meaning: those PCs were pentiums and were, in fact, installed with a Microsoft Office suit. The asshat insisted on making us boot into DOS so that we could run "Perfect Writer".

Later teachers at least left us alone, for the most part. We had two hours a week of computer class in which we basically did mechanography exercises.

In a way this last approach was productive, at the very least. I got to be a fairly fast typer, and in the remainder I got to fiddle with the computers. So win/win.

[TD1]

What was basic ICT for the teachers was rudimentary knowledge for me and my class mates. What is a modem. What is this clicky thing. What is hardware. What does LAN stand for.

All genuine questions which I can remember from the test.

[Neonivek]

UGH! Spent money on another useless RPG book...

I am just not going to do it ever again... what sucks is I knew it was a bad choice >_<

[AzyWng]

If you've wasted your energy staring at looked at some of my posts in places like the "die" or "own" thread, I've gotten into the older Fire Emblem games, like (The?) Blazing Sword.

I took a look at that game's title screen and noticed the copyright was 2003-2004. A brief Google search revealed that game was released in 2003.

I was barely 3-4 years old by the time that game came out.

For that matter, Half-life was made in 1998, when I hadn't even been conceived.

I feel... young. And actually kind of lucky.

[Frumple]

... why lucky? Loitering around while all this stuff has happened (tech/game/internet wise) has been one of the highlights of the last few decades. You don't get to live through the unprecedentedly rapid development of entire new artstyles... basically ever. Lot of the rest of it's been kinda' shit but the transformations and developments when it comes to that kind of thing have been goddamn amazing to live beside.

[Dunamisdeos]

... why lucky? Loitering around while all this stuff has happened (tech/game/internet wise) has been one of the highlights of the last few decades. You don't get to live through the unprecedentedly rapid development of entire new artstyles... basically ever. Lot of the rest of it's been kinda' shit but the transformations and developments when it comes to that kind of thing have been goddamn amazing to live beside.

It's been pretty rad. I remember everything from NES to SNES to PS1/N64 and on. That jump to real 3D stuff was incredible.

[Lord Shonus]

I remember being extremely underwhelmed by the early 3D games, probably because the first one I played was Mario 64 and had to put up with the groundbreakingly awful controls (made far worse by the N64's groundbreakingly awful controller). It wasn't until I played games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil that I really found things to be playable.

[Frumple]

... the amazing thing to me is you just compared RE and tomb reader's controls to M64's... favorably.

Those two were perhaps two of the worst control schemes I encountered during that particular batch of games, heh. M64 took a little getting used to, but it was pretty easy to play in fairly short order. First tomb raider I spent hours and still regularly fell off ledges. Less said about the first RE the better -- that one I lasted maybe two or three hours before the misery of trying to navigate the thing drove me off

That said, the n64's controller never really bothered me. Didn't exactly like it, but it was easy enough to get used to.

[itisnotlogical]

I really like the N64 controller, but it's sadly limited in its applications due to only having one joystick and the d-pad being in a position that renders it totally useless. People that say "OMG HOW DO YOU DO THIS WURST CONTRLLER EVAR" just have wrong hands or are holding it upside-down or something.

First Tomb Raider was impossible to play. I literally could not do it. Resident Evil was better, especially when they introduced limited auto-aim and quick 180 turns, but still not great.

[Flying Dice]

The only problem with the N64 controller was the tendency for the joystick to lose tension and start listing to the side after a while. The trident design was silly, but they were innovating in new territory.

[Lord Shonus]

... the amazing thing to me is you just compared RE and tomb reader's controls to M64's... favorably.

Those two were perhaps two of the worst control schemes I encountered during that particular batch of games, heh. M64 took a little getting used to, but it was pretty easy to play in fairly short order. First tomb raider I spent hours and still regularly fell off ledges. Less said about the first RE the better -- that one I lasted maybe two or three hours before the misery of trying to navigate the thing drove me off

That said, the n64's controller never really bothered me. Didn't exactly like it, but it was easy enough to get used to.

Precise platforming in Tomb Raider and weaving past enemies in the Resident Evil games was smooth and effortless. In Mario 64 both were practically impossible - there were no tiny turns to get your orientation right, no easy backing up to get precise distance for a jump, and any attempt to dodge an enemy usually resulted in Mario running in circles until killed.

[Frumple]

... those weren't even remotely my experience with TR or RE. RE was a mess to move, aim, or hit anything, and from what I recall even the ruddy menus were a PitA. Thing was basically concentrated how-to-not-design-3D-controls. If running past enemies was easy in that, it had to have been the single thing that was :V

TR may have been an issue of it being the PC version, but croft had more or less the maneuverability of a concrete encased whale. There was nothing precise about any of it, heh. Combat was miserable, platforming was miserable, I vaguely remember friggin' jumping being a multi-button affair, or some kind of mess related to it. Spent a fair chunk of time on both of 'em because of availability issues, but I never got particularly far 'cause most of my time was wrestling with the controls and dying because it it.

Meanwhile I distinctly remember basically performing acrobatics with backflips and wall jumps with M64, heh. Times you kinda' slid off stuff, too, but it was pretty decent. Actually managed a full star win, too.

[Flying Dice]

There was a certain degree of wonkiness with M64's movement, but the same was true for pretty much every early 3D game that didn't cheat it like Doom & co. with 2D controlled movement in a 3D environment. Most of it stemmed from the floaty jumps, from what I remember.