Neogtiations Finished

Well actually, there were no negotiations to be had at all in ending my AIM strike. The week simply ended, and now I'm back on. I must say, however, that it went surprisingly well. Whether I engaged in homework, gaming or simple socializing with other people in the dorm, I was able to focus my complete attention on it, instead of worrying about a message window booting me from a game, or people being offended by my absence. In all honesty I'd like to continue to it, but alas, there are still certain people that I like to stay in some contact with, and until they realize that phone and email are perfectly feasible forms of communication, the instant messenger will stay on.

I was bugged by someone I know to give my impressions on the Opera web browser. I've used it long enough now that I think I can do such a thing.

First, the good. The browser has most of the wonderful features found in Firefox, such as tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and the google searchbar. However, there are a couple of ways in which Opera trounces the Fox. For one, the browser will save any pages you were looking at when you exit it so that you can go back to them again when you re-open it. If I'm not mistaken, Firefox requires a plugin for this feature; at the very least it doesn't enable it as a default option like Opera does The browser also features a great deal of options dealing with securty, appearance and saved information. You don't have to play with any of it, but its nice to have the choice regardless. Personally, I found that Opera's best feature is that it loads any and all new windows in a tab. The whole point of using tabs is to condense the entire browsing experience into one window, and Opera seems to understand that a bit better than Mozilla. Opera also has a cool feature called mouse gestures, which allows you to move back and forward by moving the mouse rather than clicking anything, but I'm afraid old habits die hard and I never really used the feature. Still, it is there for those who are curious.

Unfortunatley, what flaws Opera does have happen to be pretty killer. The worst is that many pages don't load correctly. I know Firefox has this problem as well with many IE specific sites, but it seems to be a much less frequent occurance. Also, Opera's inccorect rendering will often cripple whatever it is you are looking at. If I search for something on Gamefaqs, the best matches (aka the thing/s you're looking for) are cut off and cannot be clicked. When going to Gamespy, you often cannot click through the big promo ads it often has; they just get constantly reloaded again and again. These are just two examples I can think of, but I have certainly ran into more.

Secondly, it doesn't seem that Opera supports any plugins at all. Most of the time, Firefox plugins happen to be silly fluff that is more distracting than anything, but I have found quite a few useful ones, and it would be nice to see such adaptability in Opera.

So, will I decide to stick with Opera permanently? I'm afraid not. I'll be keeping it on my harddrive for sure; it seems to be more lightweight than Firefox, so I can keep it open while playing a game and not have to fear about wasting memory. But overall it seems Firefox edges it out, so long as you routinely delete saved page information so it doesn't load at a snail's pace (like it did for me :( ).

I'm now in the middle of two new games, on complete opposite sides of the gaming spectrum (though I like them both very much). The first is Doom 3, which, while archaic in its gameplay, is so full of good zombie busting action that I can't help but have a lot of fun with it. Many pretentious, pseudo-intellectual type gamers have scoffed at it, but to them I say that anime hair and angsty storytelling does not a good game make. There's nothing wrong with watching a good action film, and I believe the same applies to gaming as well.

I'm also working through Ico, and I must admit that all of the good words and praise it has received is well deserved. It is a captivating and magnificent work, and I can see why it is often considered a piece of art by its fans. I can't really describe why this it is so great, other than saying that Ico is in many ways the gaming equivalent of an arthouse film, minus the crazy abstract concepts that no one can understand. But more on that when I finish the game. I'm actually somewhat glad that Ico is rather short, becasue it means I can go out and rent this sometime in the very near future.

Tonight there may be another post, but unless you're a 2d Fighting game dieahrd it probably won't be worth reading.