| Computer Games | Creating you Own Site |
Hi, and welcome to my lovely section on computer games. Below is my current computer setup. So, if you happen to have some stone-age computer (I think mine's about from the 1800's), you may be a tad saddened by this page.
| CPU | AMD Duron 700@905 |
| RAM ("memory") | 256MB Micron PC133 |
| Motherboard ("mobo") | Abit KT7 non-RAID |
| Video Card | 3Dfx Voodoo3 2000 @195 MHz |
| Hard Disk ("HDD") | IBM 30 Gig |
| CD-Rom Drive | Sony 40x |
| CD-R/RW Drive ("burner") | HP 12x4x32x |
| Sound Card | Creative Sound Blaster Awe64 :oP |
Below are a list of games I used to like a lot, including a vague and probably inaccurate description of them. I don't play computer games anymore since I'm just getting bored of them overall. Since most of the following are pretty old, most are 20 bucks or below. [Note: Yes, I do occasionally play Counter-Strike but I leave up all this old stuff cuz it's fun to read and I'm too lazy to update and talk about CS]
Quake/QuakeII
Yup, the classic shoot-a-bunch-of-wholes-in-them-or-blow-them-into-millions-of-bloody-chunks kind of game. Actually, even if the violence were toned down I would like the game just as much. The violence does help the game in a way though. Without all the blood, I wouldn't be able to tell whether I shot someone because there would be no blood coming out. Anyway, these sort of games are becoming more popular because of multiplayer. I mean, it's more fun if you're actually playing against people rather than computers. I guess I'm okay at the game, but since I'm stuck behind a proxy server (network thingy), I don't often get to play on the net. (Update: Got a new proxy, can now play on net. Yay. I still suck.)
StarCraft
So far this is my favorite strategy game. By the makers of Warcraft II and Diablo (Blizzard), Starcraft is better than Warcraft II and C&C/Red Alert for many reasons, IMO. Unlike Warcraft II, there are three classes you can play as- Terran (humans), Zerg, or Protoss (sounds like some sort of pill), which are each a lot different from eachother. You'll have to use different strategies. If you played Warcraft II before, I find it easieast to start out using Terran, because they are a lot like the characters in Warcraft II. The SCVs are like Peasants, there's the Command Center (town hall), barracks (um... barracks), and little upgrade places like the engineer bay (blacksmith). The internet play is also a lot more fun, with many nifty new features. Then again, I'm no expert at real-time strategy games. (I didn't even beat campaign mode, heh.)
Warcraft II
A strategy game where you can play as the sissy humans, or the brutal orcs. Actually, both are about the same. It's just that the music, sound affects, and semimages/gory clips make the humans look like a bunch of little wussies, wriggling around on the screen. (computese* for the "computer TV thingy") Anyways, you get to build knights, archers, axe hurling guys, large and chubby ogres, mages, death knights, and stuff like that to beat the crap out of your opponent. You can also play against a friend, using a modem ("phone"), a network ("indoor phone" or "intercom"), but not the internet ("world-wide electric computer plumbing"). Not yet, anyways. This game is a lot like the next game...
Command and Conquer/C&C: Red Alert
It's like Warcraft II, but it's more army-like. You can be the GDI or NOD (in C&C), or the Alliance or the Soviets (in RA). It's also strategy game. You can play against friends the same way as Warcraft II. The big difference between WarII and C&C is their weapons. WarII has just about the same people on each side. The humans have archers, which do the exact same thing as the orcish axe throwing guys. The humans have submarines and the orcs have giant turtles. The list goes on. On the other hand, C&C's GDI guys have Humm-Vees, Mammoth tanks, Orca helicopters, while the NOD guys have Flame tanks, Flamethrowers, weird motorcycles that shoot missles- you get my point. On with the next game.
X-Com: UFO Defence, X-Com: Terror From the Deep.
Still a strategy game, but much more different from WarII or C&C because it's turn based. Compared to WarII and C&C, X-Com is also more compex. You can only be the humans. Your job is to kill the aliens that are trying to take over Earth. You can even find artifacts and research them. For example, kill an alien, take its weapons, and after you complete the mission, throw it at your scientists and tell them to figure out what the heck it is and what it does. After that, you can manufacture it, and use it yourself to kill more things! You can collect quite a nice arsenal for your little alien-killing friends. From just-about-useless pistols, to the might-be-most-useful Plasma Rifle, or all the way to the alien-ass woopin' (pardon) Blaster Bombs (but watch out for that backdraft). You even get to mind control the aliens. X-Com: TFTD is almost the exact same as but a lot harder than the first X-Com. I've never played X-Com: Apocalypse, but I know it's a lot different than the previous ones. What fun. Next.
The Incredible Machine Series
In case you are forced to get something that doesn't involve running around, beating the crap out of things, killing em' and playing with their intestines, get this game. This game would probably be counted as edutainment (believe it or not, that one I did not make up) and as you might have already figured it out, it is a cross between entertainment and education. Things like that usually really end up with neither fun or brains. It's something like a football game where you calculate how many yards the football guy lost or gained, while whatching a weird dot jiggle back and forth. However, TIM isn't like that. Your job is to find a way to do something, like to make the bowling ball fall into the pit, using pulleys, bombs, fans or whatever. Just think of it as the game "Mouse Trap" where you have to make up your own trappy thing. In other words, you make your own Rube Goldberg (sp?) contraption. If you don't know who he is, get an encyclopedia. The most violent thing in this is maybe like an alligator eating small people, a cat gobbling up a mouse, or a fish tank breaking, leaving Bob the Fish flopping around, and none of this is in any gory detail.
Myst/Riven
Most of you people already heard of this one. Its like an adventure game. You walk around this island called Myst and discover weird stuff and solve puzzles. It's pretty fun and is another option of a good game with no bloody heads rolling around. The game starts out on Myst island. You have no clue what to do. All you know, is that you found a book called "Myst". You were almost done reading it, until you put you hand on the page (how did you read it without touching the pages?) and the next thing you know, you're standing on an island that's in the book. There's a point to the whole thing, but if you want to find out, get the game or e-mail me. I've never played the sequel, Riven, but I heard it doesn't even come close to Myst (in a bad way).
That is my list, so far. If you have anything to say about them, or think there's a game that should be up here, (remember- these are the games that I like, so don't expect all the games that you like to be up here) you can e-mail me.
Intro
First of all, this is just something for you to get an idea of how to create
you own web page. Don't think you can make one of those fancy shmancy web pages
by relying on this page, because YOU CAN'T (welll... maybe). If you really wan't to publish
a nice, quality web page, check out the book "Creating Web Pages for Dummies."
Now, that I got that out of the way, on you go.
Creating your own web site is really easy. You don't have to remember much, either. The only thing you need is:
So, the only thing you really need is "Notepad."
Now, for the stuff you need to know:
Super easy instructions for a super simple page
Open notepad, type "Hi." in the big open space. Go to "Save as" then switch the file type to "All". Name the file "hi.html" without the quotes. Open your web browser and open "hi.html". You should see "Hi." in the big open space in the web browser. Congrats. The actual HTML stuff is mostly just formatting. You can make a web page without using HTML, but it wouldn't look pretty.
The HTML Part
HTML is not really a language. All it is, is adding little doodads to the front and back of words, if you want to change how the word looks. The hardest part is probably remembering what type of doodad to put, like if you're attaching a picture or something, but most doodads are words that make sense, or atleast abbreviated words that make sense. You'll see what I mean.
For example, to make the letters bold or in different styles, you have to put in some tags. If you wanted to type "Ouch. Your chainsaw has just cut through my ankle." You'd would have to add little thingies called tags to make the "Ouch" look like how it is, and how the "Chainsaw" look like how it is. Here's how you'd type out that sentence: <i>Ouch</i>. Your <b>chainsaw</b> has just cut through my ankle. And if you haven't noticed it yet, this <i> means to start the Italics, and this </i> means to end it. This is extremely simple compared to real languages like C++. Actually, HTML isn't really a language, which explains its simplicity. Real languages use weird terms like "main" or "void". Of course you've heard of the words, but when you see the actual way it's used, you'll never figure out what the heck it's doing in there. If you want a better explaination of HTML, you can read the book "Creating Web Pages for Dummies." It gives much better explainations than me. You can also get a "Cheat Sheet" for a huge, easy-to-use sheet full of useful tags.
The Saving Part
When you're done typing up your page, save it as "blablabla.htm." Replace the
"blablabla" with whatever you want to name it. Then, open you browser
(the stuff like "Netscape" of "Internet Explorer") and go to "Open file," or something
similar. Open the file that you saved (wherever you saved it) and yay, you have it.
The Getting It On the Web Part
Don't be too happy yet, cause it's not on the web. You'll have to get someone on the web to put it up for you. Ask your internet provider, which is whoever gets you connected to the internet (America Online, Compuserve, Prodigy, Pipeline, etc). Tons of services publish it on the web for free and some don't. A typical place to publish your web pages, is in Geocities, which is where I published mine in 1997. All you need is your web page and an e-mail address. Geocities should provide you with the rest of the info.
Other Important Info
A great way to learn HTML and get ideas is to visit other web pages and if you want to know
how they did something on that page, save it by going to "File" on you browser and choose
something like "Save As..." or something and save it. Then open it using "Notepad" and see
what tags they used. If you see these odd characters, it's most likely that the page used
JavaScript, some advanced thingy that I don't use at all. Ignore that stuff. Scroll down
to see if what you want is somewhere on there, instead. If you want to know how I did
something on my page and you want to learn how to do the same thing,
e-mail me!
Again, for much better and accurate information on all of this and to get a good start, look for the book "Creating Web Pages for Dummies." I got all my info from that book and other pages.