It’s been a long while since my last review. This review is based on my observations and experiences and may not reflect the opinion of the mass.

The other type of racing

Zero Gear is a new indie game developed by Nimblebit, a small company which consists of three men who love developing games. It focuses on fast, thrilling multiplayer racing. If you’ve ever played games such as Crash Team Racing or Mario Kart, you will feel at home immediately.

Murray Walker should be commentating the race

Zero Gear has got power-ups, speed boosts and cartoony characters. What else could you want in a racing game?

The racing itself takes place on cartoony tracks in various environments, ranging from the dry deserts to the outer space. The track design is excellent, although some of the maps are slightly bland. Later on the game will – according to Nimblebit – support user-created content, such as new maps and characters.

The learning curve is far from steep – anyone can play the game well after 15 minutes of practising! However, mastering all the tricks of the game is a different story.

Zero Gear supports a maximum of 8 players on the server, which is a balanced amount for some good, fast-paced racing.

The controls work very well, too. The only thing I have to nag about is the lack of mouse steering, but the developers have already said they’ll try to implement analog steering as soon as possible. I hope they’ll stick to their words.

It's not a soap bubble. It's called the Repulsor.

Thinking about hugging and exploding you

There are quite a few power-ups and weapons scattered throughout the maps in identical-looking green boxes. You can punch your opponents out of the way, attempt to suck them into a hurricane or send a pink love robot after them! And remember, if an opponent starts to accuse you of something… do not fear, just grab an ice cube to cool down the fellow. Aim, grin and launch the block of ice!

You can also find sea mines which explode upon contact with a vehicle, sending the opponents flying into the air. The Spring can be used for avoiding opponents by launching your car into the air, although I suspect there are some other uses for it as well.

Last but not least, if you’re lucky you might find the Repulsor, which resembles a soap bubble… In reality it’s a temporary energy field around your car. It can lift your opponents off the ground if they come too close to you. Oh, the joy of overtaking and making it go wrong…

Exploding love... don't be fooled

Honey, I’m in the garage, transforming into a bear

One of the best things in Zero Gear is the character & vehicle customization. You can pick your character from a total of 12 choices and a vehicle from 16 different choices. And that’s just the beginning…

Hats. Accessories. Wheels. You can customize all of them, and as a cherry on top of the cake, you can freely pick the color of your choice with an user-friendly color picker (which is a rarity in games these days!).

The jeep said "Beep beep!" and made the Bear smile.

The gamemodes

Zero Gear features 8 normal racing tracks and 10 maps for various minigames, e.g. Tag (old good tag, nothing new here), Stunt (gain points by performing stunts), Target (which is supposed to test your accuracy) and Goal (which features football, basketball, soccer and ice-hockey done the Zero Gear way).

It’s a shame the release version of Zero Gear doesn’t have more than 8 racing tracks. I assume racing is the best part of the game for most players. Even though the game will contain user-created content in the future, the eight maps bundled with the initial release are easy to learn and they may get boring too soon. Nevertheless, the fierce competition on the track makes up for the lack of maps at the moment.

The minigames aren’t terrible either. They are entertaining, but I find them to be a bit like a snack between the meals. (A good snack, that is – don’t get me wrong.)

Chute Shoot, one of the Target minigames

Silence is not golden

The background music is amazing. Even the main menu music makes you want to play the game. The music plays a big part of the atmosphere in this game, which is clear after a long gaming session.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the engine sounds. They’re rather dull after a while, and I truly hope there will be a chance to tweak them to your liking in the future. Perhaps a slider to adjust the pitch of one’s engine sounds would be a solution?

Chaos in the tunnel

But it’s not all that smooth

There’s one big problem in the current version of Zero Gear: serverside lag issues. The developers are aware of the lag issues though, but I believe fixing them takes a while. In case you find a server that is working well and is within the 120 ms ping range, you should have no problems whatsoever. However, if you end up playing on a server which gives you a ping of over 150 milliseconds, your gaming experience will be horrific.

Overall, Zero Gear is a brilliant new racing game. Provided that Nimblebit fixes the little problems concerning the network issues and adds support for analog steering (and possibly a few more things based on the users’ suggestions), the game should have a bright future. It’s fun, addictive and the customization options are superb.

I definitely recommend Zero Gear to anyone. The easiest way to buy the game is through the developer’s own store. There is also a demo version on Steam.

Bird, December 2009. Nothing special.

I recalled my previous article a few hours ago. I promised new content later this week, and hopefully I’m not disappointing anyone.

So we’re only 10 days into 2010 and I’m already suffering from lack of motivation for some reason. Worst of all, I have no idea why. It could be because of the snow, it could be because of the lack of interesting tasks to do… or even because of the lack of red wine! Seriously enough, I don’t know what’s causing it, and it makes me a little bit worried.

I’m thinking about making wallpapers out of some pictures I’ve taken during the past few years. The only thing that worries me about that is the fact they might get stolen – you know the filthy type, claiming someone else’s work as their own. Bastards. Nevertheless, I might start working on that soon. We’ll see.

Oh, I recently bought a game called Evil Genius. It came out in 2004 and I’ve always wanted to play it. I never managed to find a copy of it, though… before it was added to the Steam store last summer. It was on sale for a ridiculously cheap price lately, so I went and bought it. It’s great fun. Imagine being the evil villain in a 60s James Bond movie… that’s exactly what the game is about. Expect a review about the game soon… mwa ha ha. Ahem. Yeah.

Phew, still alive. I say, bring it on, 2010!

The new year brings a completely new design to the site. I hope you like it. It’s darker than the previous look and I’d even say it suits the content better.

I’m not going to write a lot about the theme, so I’ll let You, dear reader, explore the archives and wait for new content (later this week, I might add).

For new readers, here’s how the site looked like before:

Knowing history prevents us from making the same mistakes all over and over again.

I’m not going to miss 2009. In fact, I can’t wait to forget this year for once and for all.

I made a simple New Years’ promise about 365 days ago. I promised myself I’d tell a very important thing to a certain person in 2009. I decided that if I could not tell this particular thing to this person, I’d leave it behind and would just forget about it altogether.

And I didn’t have to break this promise. I told her how I felt for her more than half a year ago. It’s something I don’t regret at all. (Then again, maybe I shouldn’t have… actually, never mind.)

The little story above is unique because of a bunch of (obvious) things, but the reason I wrote it there is because I regret most of the things I’ve done during my life. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not actually about those so-called “big choices” in our lives. It’s about the little things. I tend to regret things other people forget in a few minutes. “Man, I should’ve said hello.” “Why did I bother doing this?” “Did I just screw up big time?” It’s frustrating, especially because there’s nothing to regret… yet I feel like I’ve managed to make another crucial mistake.

What comes to this year… no, I did not expect things to go like they did. 2009 started well, but only to go wrong after the first week.

And I regret…

There’s actually only one thing I wish for Christmas, and it cannot be bought with money.

So here’s to you, my dearest friend, I haven’t heard from you or your family for a while, which makes me really worried, but I hope you’re fine and enjoy life when you can. I will always be there for you, I promise.

I don’t enjoy Christmas as much as I used to enjoy it back in the day. I’m not sure why, though. I’ve already written something regarding that already, so I’m not going to write nonsense here.

And to every single person who’s following the blog of mine, Merry Christmas. Enjoy it and remember to have fun!

Icicles... beautiful, aren't they?

Come by, you have come far
All I had, I lost in the flood
Come sit with me at the bar
Tell me of progress, strengthen my blood
No one here knows my name
I have traded my memories for things
But I remember you clearly
Do you remember that I used to sing…

(humming)
Why have you waited so long?

Come by, you have come far
Long since I saw you, so how have you been?
Come sit with me at the bar
How long since they told you that they had found him?
No one here knows my name
I gave up my worries for one good thing
But I remember you clearly
Do you remember that I used to sing…

(humming)
Why have you waited so long?

Was it because I never told you
I was going away
That you waited so long
Was it because your f**king dreams
Meant nothing to me
That you waited so long

It runs from the top of my fingers
Into my hands
What is it I have been drinking
I do not understand
I thought I’d lost you, my brother
I’m so glad you came
My regards to the ones that I love, I miss them
Tell them I love them, I miss them

Katatonia: Omerta, from the album Viva Emptiness (2003)

He wasn’t a party person, but he decided to go to the work party anyway. Not because it would be a nice way to spend the night, but because he thought he could forget the problems he had on his mind… at least for a little while.

Even though he was able to relax for the first time in months, he still had a huge problem. And if that wasn’t tough enough… after the party he knew he would have to try and get rid of it.

Oh yeah, Christmas. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since the last time.

For some odd reason I’ve began to dislike Christmas. It used to have that magical feeling to it. Santa, Christmas gifts, the spirit… everything. Sadly, right now I can’t say a lot of positive things about Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong though; I don’t hate Christmas, but it’s simply not the same as it used to be all those years ago.

But hey, at least there will be gifts… and eggnog. Maybe there’s a fluffier side to all of this.

By the way, how many of you remember the original reason for celebrating Christmas?

I sent you a text message that evening. I was hoping you’d reply.

You never did.

Sneezing and wheezing and hallucinating… and so on. Being ill isn’t fun.

Oh well. I’m probably going to create some new content in December… assuming that I’m still alive. Until then, have fun and remember to relax before Christmas.