Thursday, May 01, 2008

Taking it Slow - Living the Life

Taking it Slow

It's been about a month since I last posted here at the MindBlizzard blog. Some havhave thought it for audacious reasons, like 'banning Second Life' because of the new Trademark Regulations, and I wish it were true.

Prime reason for my absense is that Real Life needed a lot of attention. My mother has been diagnosed cancer and has been on and off into the hospital. It puts a little strain on my family as well as we have to go over regularly and help out. Since winter has been long, and we're all dying to get some warmer, sunny weather, my own health has been failing a little as well, being floored by the flu twice in a month.

Live the Life

What spare time I had, I spent outside the Metaverse -in private gaming. One of these adventures I'd like to share with you. In the early 90's I played a lot of Sid Meier games, like Civilisation (1991) and Railroad Tycoon (1990), which would fit onto 3 floppy disks at the time. I've been playing Civilisation a lot over the years, upgrading every version as soon as it came out. There was one more game which I played for a little while, which was "Pirates! Gold" (1993)

Last year I already tried out the new Railroads version, but aside from improved graphics, I think the gameplay didn't match the original. Some two months ago I ran into the new Pirates version, titled "Live the Life" (Official Site)

"Sid Meier's Pirates! is a 2004 strategy/action/adventure computer game developed by Firaxis Games and published by Atari.[1] The game is based on Sid Meier's earlier 1987 game, also named Sid Meier's Pirates!. Overall, the gameplay remains similar to the original game, though it features a 3D game engine (NDL's Gamebryo). Some elements such as sun sighting have been removed, but other features have been added, such as a ballroom dancing mini-game and an improved turn-based land combat system." (Wikipedia)

As with "Side Meier's Railroads" (2006), this new Pirates! version isn't much more than a brush up of the graphics, but its been fun to play for old times sake. A couple of screenshots:

Most importantly, as a pirate, you sail the caribbean seas, chasing Spanish galleons laden with treasure, troops or spices. Visit the various Governors regularly to get promotions, and be sure to marry a Governor's daughter, as this is where the real money is. Once you're married, she'll give you clues to Lost Cities of the Aztec, Incan and Olmec empires which will yield great treasures.

Here's a screener of the retirement page. Final rankings, Pirates defeated, treasures found etc.


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4 Comments:

Blogger Digado said...

Heya Veejay,

Nice to hear from ya again even though the message itself is nothing to rejoice about. Hope things turn around for the better (real) soon.

I'll see if I can find the time to post a few posts here (as I'm pressed for time myself with multiple thesis deadlines coming up I can't make any promises).

Sterkte en hopelijk tot snel,
- Rick

Thursday, May 01, 2008 12:20:00 PM  
Anonymous Susan Reynolds/SL: Tynan Clary said...

VeeJay-
So sorry to hear about your mother. If she does blogs I'd love to have her pop in at mine since Cancer's kind of a new thing for me too and we can use - and share - all the support we can get. I'd appreciate her feedback - or yours too. As a family member you could probably tell me things my own kids wont about what parents should know about adult offspring and what they need from us.
All the best. I hope you'll keep us updated a bit on twitter perhaps - since it's short and sweet.

Sunday, May 04, 2008 6:48:00 AM  
Anonymous JoJa Dhara said...

Hello Veejay,

When I see you again let me give you a great hug out of support and yeh great understanding what you go through.

Take it indeed slow and see you soon inworld or blogging.

regards
JoJa

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 12:55:00 PM  
Blogger VeeJay Burns said...

Thanks folks, really appreciate it

Wednesday, May 07, 2008 10:57:00 PM  

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