Distractions, that which keeps us entertained



By Tadau


Tadau: My top two distractions are Urban Terror (PC) and Tetris Attack (SNES) which take up vast quantities of otherwise usable time.

Urban Terror:

Quake 3 mod, delivering fast paced special ops action in a variety of environments.

How it works:
Realistic weapons, physics, injuries, weapon handling, etc. There are no classes, but depending on how you play, you make your own class. Sniper, soldier, recon, defender... the more popular maps are well laid out with different possibilies of infiltration every game. My personal favorite is capture the flag. It beats plain old team survivor or team deathmatch as there's a purpose, and ongoing strategy.

Sniper fights are common. Taking out a couple guys from the same spot means either leave and find a new spot or get shot. Head and neck shots make short work of the opponent. Some maps are small, some are so huge it takes a minute or more just to get to the other side, if you make it alive.

Standing out in the open looking around means you want to die. Always looking around, in the distance, in small hard to see places - that's what will keep you alive. Sneaking and silent movement will also increase you odds of survival.

And of course there's communication. Without that, your team is meat. Predefined commands/responses/chatter helps keep your fingers on the trigger rather than typing out redundant information while being shot at, and voice talk keeps your eyeballs on the crosshairs, not the scrolling text. Of course people have more precise things they can communicate, or just yak.

My faovrite weapons:
PSG1 (sniper rifle, silenceable, 8x zoom, semi auto), G36 (assault rifle, 2x zoom, full auto, silenceable), UMP-45 (medium rate of fire, strong caliber, silenceable), Desert Eagle (packs a punch!)
All weapons: http://urbanterror.net/shotsweapons.html Official home page: http://urbanterror.net/

Time taken up: fighting on a map for 2 hours brings chirping birds and morning sunlight, reminding me it's time to quit

Why it's so distracting:
20 players+ shooting at each other, pushing back and force to capture the flag. I play on the fsk405 server mostly, because you'll find some of the best players there, and almost everyone has a good attitude. There's plenty of skill and strategy involved, and I'm all about first person shooters. I'll take Urban Terror (UT) over Counter Strike any day. I also like to laugh at other players ignorance of my well hidden crosshairs. Especially when I'm in their base shooting them in the back of the head.

How good am I:
I'm pretty good. I go under the name "a wily duck". I'm definitely not the best, but I find myself on top of the scoreboard more and more often. Teamplay is critical, but I like to do the James Bond thing too. Silenced weapons make allllll the difference.




Tetris Attack:

The most terribly addicting game ever.

How it works:
It's a puzzle game with a low learning curve, but requires great amounts of practice and time to master. The concept is simple: your playing field is 6 blocks wide, 12 blocks tall. There are 5 different colored blocks. Your controls are only moving a 1 by 2 block wide cursor and flipping the two blocks horizontally. If three or more blocks of the same color connect, they break, blocks above fall into their place. Skill is required to make combinations of blocks break similtaniously, then as blocks fall, create combos by having connect and break with the block below them. Huge chains can be made with multiple combos, devastating the opposing player. Breaking any more than 3 blocks drops solid blocks on the other player. They must break directly adjacent blocks to the solid blocks, which turned the solid blocks into playable colored blocks. This is were combos and chains begin to appear.

Time taken up:
Example: I reinstalled WinXP Pro a minimum of twenty times. Add troubleshooting, fixing, and tweaking on to that list and you have a 1 to 1 ratio of time spent playing during the "please wait" XP sequences.

Why it's so distracting:
If the Borg ever invaded Earth, we must introduce them to the Tetris Attack concept. They will download it, and it will take up all their cpu cycles, in effect shutting them down, securing our victory over hostile alien takeover. The game is drop-dead simple, but elite players find endless levels of complexity buried in the puzzle. After many hours of this and someone finally shuts it off, horrible things begin to happen. Blinking or sudden darkness reveals colored blocks shifting, patterns emerging, bricks breaking - the mind hasn't stopped playing, and the blocks are right there being processed by your subconcious. If that wasn't bad enough, I've actually read a magazine after playing, and I watched words shift in paragraphs to match other words, break, and the paragraph reassemble. It was driving me insane for a while! Days of blocks breaking and nothing that can be done to get it out of the mind. After a while though, I didn't have a problem with it. The blocks were still breaking right before my eyes, but that helped me play better as I practiced making combos without even turning on the game. A few friends of mine know the awesome power of Tetris Attack. Now, Pokemon Puzzle league has turned up the heat with far more difficult computer opponents. More hours burnt away... Tetris Attack is a great party game too.

How good am I:
On a scale from 1 - 10, where each number represents an exponentially higher level of skill, I put myself at an 8. I can beat Mew-Two on Pokemon Puzzle league, but no farther. I have beat Bowser in Tetris attack in 6 seconds. Very hard on Tetris Attack is the only level I play, and only the last 3 boards have any challenge. Don't fool yourself, the computer is FAST, and it will bury you just as fast.

Phoenix Omega

My home super computer.

How it works:
I press the little button in front. 8 fans and two hard drives spin up; a dip in the power grid occurs. Dual monitor displays appear, and periphreals come to life. It's automagic.

Time taken up:
Two months to build, time taken up solidly. It also provides me with UT for long lasting time consuming effects.

Why it's so distracting:
With an AthlonXP2000, 512MB DDR RAM, 80GB of HD space, and a cable modem, wouldn't you find a good use for it?

How good am I:
No component in this machine would play nicely, so I had to moderate it's anger. The RAID however is incompatible with XP. I flex the PC skillz.


That says BLINKING!