Video Games

Had to google what that is, and no. I'm playing Aion.
Why am I even awake, I bet it's like midday for you.

I haven't finished Deus Ex yet. I've been playing it, on and off, slowly, for the past 6 or 7 years. It is still the pinnacle for me, and i'm not really sure why.

I also cannot explain fully why Deus Ex was so disgustingly good but it left an impression on me 10 years later as one of the best games i've ever played.

The new Deus Ex : Human Revolution looks promising, although I personally hate the camera going third person in a first person game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmeqbB2cGfA

Had to google what that is, and no. I'm playing Aion.
Why am I even awake, I bet it's like midday for you.

Aion UGHHHHHHH, absolute grindathon.

GTA San andreas is on sale on xbox live at the moment. Only cost me 400 points, yes!

that new Deus Ex just looks like MGS with better gadgets..

Aion UGHHHHHHH, absolute grindathon.

updated, not as bad now.

that new Deus Ex just looks like MGS with better gadgets..

Awesome then?

The daddy is the original Tekhan Pleiads cocktail table arcade machine that serves as my coffee table. I restored the (gutted) cabinet, put a PC in there with MAME, a Sega Genesis emulator and a jukebox, designed a nice skin for the MameWah front-end. It takes 5p, 1 peseta or 1 Deutschmark coins. I'm shit at video games though. I had a lot more fun making it than playing it ;-)

This sounds awesome, can you show us some pictures please?

Here you go.

Blurry shot of the front end (slow shutter speed not still enough. sorry)

Inside the machine.
15 inch Sony monitor with much of the case dremeled away. To fit in in the case it's actually upside down and the graphics card flips the output. I made a bootup branding screen that was upside down so it looks right when booting up too.
On the left is the PC power supply, mainboard, hard drive and fans, one sucking in at the bottom and one blowing out one of the vents at the top. Might be a P4, but I can't remember. Arcade buttons and sticks are connected via the keyboard interface by a little circuitboard and big wiring loom. Real keyboard and mouse sit on the right. Only needed for setting the machine up. Underneath them is the working coin mech, which simulates an F5 press when a coin is accepted. Also on the right is the stereo amp removed from some PC speakers. The disc is the volume control, accessible when the machine is closed. I could do with bigger speakers for more bass. Can you get 5 inch ones with magnetic shielding?

Obligatory arty shot. The space invader was being sold as a necklace. Had to have it for the keyring!

Software is MameWah running as the windows shell. Can't remember what the jukebox and Genesis emulators are. The latter might be a build Fusion with the keys remapped to MAME keys.
MameWah was the most sophisticated front end at the time but now there are some amazing ones.

I am on a fucking rampage with black-ops online at the mo. Totally hooked.

Here you go.

Blurry shot of the front end (slow shutter speed not still enough. sorry)

I found one of those walking home through the gorbals at 2 in the morning. took me 2 hours to get it home to find out all the boards had been ripped out, all that was left was the CRT and the cashbox. my mates using it as a coffee table now.

Mine was like that before
It had a fairly recent (and therefore possibly functional) 14 inch arcade monitor but I couldn't even give it away. Also had a new switching power supply. apart from some clips and the odd switch I couldn't use most of what came with it. The coin mech was the only thing that was restorable.

Glass was broken, no boards, rust everywhere but it had a set of keys and the wood was sound.

Those are all kinds of awesome :)

I found one of those walking home through the gorbals at 2 in the morning. took me 2 hours to get it home to find out all the boards had been ripped out, all that was left was the CRT and the cashbox. my mates using it as a coffee table now.

Get an old pc/laptop.
Integrate it into the table (there are howto's online)
download mame.
Whole new retro gaming table.

Quick version^^
It would actually take a bit of work but kinda worth it in the end.

Aye, but it's up in Glasgow, too much hassle. t'would be a beautiful thing though...

Deus ex /day of sex:) (and half life) were formative games for me too. Both games pulled you into the narrative and deus ex, more than half life, gave you the ability to decide the fate of the characters and play in a style that suited you somewhere on the spectrum between stealth and all out shooting.

What really did it for me was that when wounded, you walked with a limp or you dragged yourself along the ground with no legs and remained this way until you could heal your legs. Also unlike MGS, the cutscenes were minimal and most of the plot happened while interating with chsarachters and making choices.

can't wait for this next one...

I bought Deux Ex 2 on Steam recently but still haven't played it... Also loved the first one.

Second was veeerry disappointing by comparison. Still a fun game but not a patch on the original and had a number of glaring design errors - immense brevity being one of them.

From what I've seen and read about Human Revolutions however, I've got high hopes.

What really did it for me was that when wounded, you walked with a limp or you dragged yourself along the ground with no legs and remained this way until you could heal your legs.

Hell yeah, that's much more realistic. :)

^ I didn't like the medbot idea when if you took damage to your legs you'd crawl around and as soon as you found a medbot you could tell it to rebuild one of your legs and even though the other leg was 'empty' you could run around at full speed again.

Which is another reason I'm looking forward to DE:HR - regenerating health - saves you having to scrounge around for kits, means you play more consciously of danger.

good point and regenerating health would fit in with the DE universe TODAY. Regenerating health wasn't invented till halo i think....

those crazy bastards

Finished Fallout New Vegas last night. I liked a lot of the additions and the factions vying for power were great. It was nice to see wide open expanses but a lot of it felt kind of empty. I did miss Fallout 3's metro systems and buildings packed with bad guys.

But the ending was great. I loved how it went through each character and faction and told the story of how you changed the wasteland for good and bad. Really made me feel like the decisions my courier made had an impact.

I'll revisit it once there are more mods with baddies.

Well done for adding spoiler alert onto your post ^^^^^

Didn't really think there was any spoilers in there was there?