Something Approximating Real Time: Savage 2 (Part Two)

As I promised in last week's post, this week's post is going to continue the theme introduced in said post. So the game remains Savage 2, and the format remains the same. And now, the thrilling conclusion...

2:30 P.M: Following the advice of a comment posted last week (thanks Tex), I've decided to forgo the tutorial, and jump straight online. Apparently the game needs to update itself first. Instead of Alt-Tabbing, I decide to exit the game to start writing this. Savage 2 doesn't like this, and calls me a pansy. Seriously. Nice touch.

2:45 P.M: OK, I'm in the game. I have no idea what to do, so I do what I always do: follow someone who looks like they know where they're going. I die quickly.

3:03 P.M: My first match has finished. We won, no thanks to me. I still really don't have any idea what I'm doing, especially since I was on the Beast team. In the first Savage I almost always went for Humans.

One thing I did notice is how nice the game looks. I'm actually surprised at how well it runs, given its prettiness and the fact that I'm running it on a laptop. Granted, I'm using a gaming laptop, but still. Anyway, I'm taking a quick break for lunch.

4:46 P.M: Back to the game. Tried to join another server, and the program decided to segfault. Awesome. Guess I'll try again.

5:24 P.M: That was epic, thanks in part to the fact that it was a 50 player game. My side (playing as Human this time) won, but everybody on the other team seemed to have a good time as well. This is exactly the experience I was looking for when I downloaded Savage 2.

Closing Thoughts: I guess that, in a way, I picked a good time to get into the game, since Savage 2 recently went Free-To-Play, more or less. You can upgrade your account for cash - something I plan to do, just to support these guys (well, that and out of guilt for never buying the original Savage).

There's no way in hell I plan to delete this game from my hard drive now, as I'm sure I'm going to be logging some serious hours. Savage 2 definitely gets a major recommendation from me. By the way, I've decided that I like the format of these recent posts. Don't expect to see it all the time, but do expect to see them again.

Something Approximating Real Time: Savage 2 (Part One)

So this week is going to be a little different than normal. And no, that difference isn't just that there's actually going to be a post this week. Instead of my usual format for posts, I'm going to try keeping a running commentary on the process of trying out a game. It's an experiment, so I'm not sure how it's going to work out. That's what experiments are about. Anyway, on to the show.

7:47 P.M: The game for this week is going to be Savage 2. I was a big fan of the original Savage (at least I was once I got around to trying it), and I've been meaning to try Savage 2 since it was released. Of course I'm downloading the Linux version - it's nice to see a 64 bit version available, since I'm using the 64 bit release of Ubuntu 8.10. The download (only 784MB?) is about 20% completed. It could be faster - right now I've got about 55 minutes to go.

9:05 P.M: OK, so I accidentally screwed up the download. Had to start again. 56 minutes to go. Yep. I'm starting to think that this experiment might be more trouble than I initially thought. Oh, download slowed down. Make that 58 minutes to go.

10:13 P.M: Download finished a few minutes ago. Commencing install. Installation was successful. Damn, that was quick.

10:15 P.M: OK, that's a pretty cool menu screen. The game launches at my desktop resolution (1680x1050) with settings at medium, more or less, some lower, some higher. Everything is running smooth and looking surprisingly pretty - I'll customize the settings later.

10:22 P.M: I'm a little into the tutorial portion, and right now I'm trying to get by using my laptop's touchpad. Obviously, this isn't working, but I don't feel like moving to my desk just yet. Let's see if I can get through the tutorial without a mouse.

10:32 P.M: OK, so I've spawned a Journeyman. How the hell do I get him to repair my damaged tower? Aren't tutorials supposed to tell me how to do things?

Alright, it's getting somewhat late, I haven't eaten dinner yet, and I have to get up extra early tomorrow for a meeting. Given my penchant for quitting, I'm surprised I made it this far. One thing is for sure: next week will be about Savage 2 again. Will if follow this new, experimental format? Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Or, you know, look at the title of this post and take a wild guess.