Best movie/game techno soundtracks

Here I collect my favourite soundtracks. The entries come in no particular order. The list is not final, it will be extended over time.

Movies

• Mortal Kombat (half of the songs are metal that I don’t like but the other half is techno) [sample: Control]
• Hackers (orgasm for the ears :)) [sample: Cowgirl]
• Tron 2 [full soundtrack]
• Lola rennt (English title: Run Lola Run) [sample: Running One]
• The Matrix
• Quentin Tarantino’s movies (not techno but he has a good taste for choosing songs)
• Requiem for a Dream [theme song]

Games

• Uplink [full soundtrack]
• Darwinia

Uplink: the game

I play very rarely but this week we had a holiday and I tried Darwinia (2005) from Introversion. It was a mistake because now I must try their other games too :) Yes, thay are that awesome!

The first game from Introversion was Uplink, which has become a cult hacker simulator. “It is best described as a simulator of the cinematic depiction of computer hacking.” It was released in 2001. It’s a shame that I heard about it 12 years later but later is still better than never…

Linux
The game is available on Linux in Steam. However, I had a problem with the resolution. The game started with a different resolution and in the middle of the tutorial I couldn’t click on some icons, this event was not recognized by the software. From the command line you can start the game with any resolution so with the following launcher script I could solve the problem:

# uplink.sh (I use 1920x1080 resolution under Linux)
cd /opt/Steam/SteamApps/common/Uplink
./uplink.bin.x86_64 '!graphics_screenwidth' 1920 '!graphics_screenheight' 1080

How to get started
The game has a built-in tutorial that explains the basics. Then go through the Ultimate Uplink Guide, which explains everything :) You can also look at some YouTube videos if you get stuck with some advanced missions. Here is a short walkthrough too.

Soundtrack
The game has a very nice soundtrack. My favourite song is The Blue Valley, which is the perfect “hacker song” in my opinion :) But you can listen to the whole soundtrack too.

Related Movies

• WarGames, 1983. I saw it in the cinema as a child and I still remember it :)
• Tron, 1982. Awesome.
• Hackers, 1995 (great soundtrack)
• Swordfish, 2001
• Johnny Mnemonic, 1995
• Sneakers, 1992

Links

• Uplink home page
• official forum
• Cyberpunk Review of the game
• Uplink on gaming.stackexchange.com

Save Game
There is no “save game” option. If you get caught, it’s over. But there is a solution :) Your game state is saved to ~/.uplink, so all you have to do is quit the game regularly and make a backup of this directory. The game starts instantly so you don’t lose much time with this. But if you die and you need to restart from scratch, well… that’s annoying. I made a little backup script. It makes a copy of the ~/.uplink directory in the current folder and adds a timestamp to it. I put it in ~/backup. I suggest keeping several backups because in the game you are not caught immediately. You may continue to play for several in-game days when the black screen of death appears.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os
import shutil
from datetime import datetime

UPLINK_DIR = "{home}/.uplink".format(home=os.path.expanduser('~'))

def get_timestamp_from_year_to_second():
    """A compact timestamp."""
    now = datetime.now()
    date = datetime.date(now)
    time = datetime.time(now)
    template = "{year}_{month:02}_{day:02}_{hour:02}{minute:02}{second:02}"
    return template.format(year=date.year, month=date.month, day=date.day,
                           hour=time.hour, minute=time.minute, second=time.second)

def main():
    dest = "uplink_{timestamp}".format(timestamp=get_timestamp_from_year_to_second())
    shutil.copytree(UPLINK_DIR, dest)

#############################################################################

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Extra Stuff

• downloadable Bonus CD
• wallpaper

Darwinia: the game

“Darwinia is a 2005 real-time tactics and real-time strategy video game for several platforms. It is the second game developed by Introversion Software, and its setting is within a computer environment that simulates artificial intelligence.” (from wikipedia)

I bought Darwinia on Steam last Christmas on a sale but I tried it this week. And I’m amazed! It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played with. The graphic and design are similar to the world of Tron, but it’s a real-time strategy. It runs on Linux too, I played it with 1920 x 1080 resolution. And this masterpiece was developed by 4 guys as I read it somewhere…

There is a tutorial system built in, so anybody can learn it :) Some tips though:

• Upgrade something all the time. When you get to the last levels, the only chance to survive if you are powered up. So when you get a notification that an upgrade is done, start another immediately. Some upgrades take a lot of time. By the time you reach Biosphere, your green men should be able to defend themselves, otherwise they will be massacred.
• Learn to use the armor, it will be a huge help and some enemies cannot be killed otherwise. Right clicking on an armor you can select an action: load, unload, stop loading. Put some green men in it (they will be the operators) and right click on a ground point. Here the armor will transform into a turret. Don’t deploy the turret too close to red men because they can overtake the gun and turn it against you! The armor can go over anything: sea, mountain, nothing can stop it :)
• If you take the focus off of a squad (with space), it will defend itself automatically.
• Spiders can be destroyed with grenades or rockets. Rocket is easier to use against spiders so upgrade this skill to increase range.
• There is a level called Escort. It can be done with zero kills :)
• Darwinians (the little green men) can climb up a hill. In water they drown.
• If you finished the game and later you want to play on a custom level, do the following: edit the file ~/.darwinia/full/preferences.txt and modify this line: “UserProfile = AccessAllAreas“. Now you can play any level.

Links

• Darwinia home page
• Darwinia guides (level, unit, enemy, etc. descriptions)
• Darwinia official forum
• Introversion blog

Videos

• Introversion on Subversion and Prison Architect Rezzed Session (meet the developers)

Quake Live

I just tried Quake Live on Ubuntu. Works fine. I wish Serious Sam were available too in the browser…

Tents and Trees

Tents and trees is an excellent logic game. Here is a screenshot:

Rules
“You have a grid of squares, some of which contain trees. Your aim is to place tents in some of the remaining squares, in such a way that the following conditions are met:

• There are exactly as many tents as trees.
• The tents and trees can be matched up in such a way that each tent is directly adjacent (horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally) to its own tree. However, a tent may be adjacent to other trees as well as its own.
• No two tents are adjacent horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
• The number of tents in each row, and in each column, matches the numbers given round the sides of the grid.”

Another description of the rules can be found here.

Installation

$ sudo apt-get install sgt-puzzles
$ tents

Control
With left click you can place a tent. With the right click of the mouse you can place a field of grass. While holding the right button of the mouse, you can select multiple fields.

Diablo 1 strategy guides

I decided to play some with Diablo 1 again. Here are some useful strategy guides:

• Freshman Diablo (list of guides)
• warrior strategy – Diablo – GameSpot Forums
• level up strategy
• Diablo 1 strategy guide
• Diablo
• Wolfslayer’s warrior guide

Troubleshooting
Under Windows 7 I had some problems with Diablo 1: the colors looked strange. The fix is very simple: just kill the process explorer.exe and Diablo works fine. Here is a batch script for launching the game correctly:

@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
diablo.exe
pause
start explorer.exe
exit

Rick Dangerous for Linux

“Way before Lara Croft, back in the 1980′s and early 1990′s, Rick Dangerous was the Indiana Jones of computer games, running away from rolling rocks, avoiding traps, from South America to a futuristic missile base via Egypt and the Schwarzendumpf castle.

xrick is a clone of Rick Dangerous, known to run on Linux, Windows, BeOs, Amiga, QNX…” (source)

Tip: with F7 you can switch on the trainer mode (more info here).

Further links

• http://www.rickdangerous.co.uk/ (Rick HQ)
• Rick Dangerous I and II (the Amiga versions in EXE format for Windows)
• Flash game (Based on xrick. The trainer is activated with the Home key.)

Ref.: http://iddqd.blog.hu/2011/04/01/heti_retro_rick_dangerous_i_ii (in Hungarian).

Rock-Paper-Scissors: You vs. the Computer

“Computers mimic human reasoning by building on simple rules and statistical averages. Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating basic artificial intelligence. Choose from two different modes: novice, where the computer learns to play from scratch, and veteran, where the computer pits over 200,000 rounds of previous experience against you.” (source)

The novice opponent is not too difficult, but it learns quickly. The veteran opponent is tough though, I had the impression that it can read my mind :) The problem is that we, humans, don’t choose our next move randomly and the computer can analyze our strategy.

Choose randomly

After playing with the veteran for a while, I came up with the idea: “Hey, if I could choose randomly, the computer couldn’t analyze my moves”. So here is a simple random number generator:

C:~> python
Python 2.6.6 (r266:84292, Sep 15 2010, 15:52:39)
[GCC 4.4.5] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import random
>>> li=[1,2,3]
>>> random.choice(li)
2
>>> random.choice(li)
1
>>> random.choice(li)
1

In the “python shell”, you can use the up arrow to call back the previous command(s). With this “cheat” you can surprise the veteran computer :)

_{I read about this game in this post (in Hungarian).}

Update (20110309):

I made a very simple GUI that returns a random number from the interval [1,3] :) Jack’s remark from the comments was taken into account. I’ve never used PyGtk before, I was curious what it’s like. You can get the source code here. Tip: launch the application, right click on it on the task bar, and set “Always On Top” on. This way you can use it together with the game in the browser, you won’t have to switch between the two.

Play with Amiga classics

This entry is based on this post (in Hungarian).

At the website of The Company, you can download classic Amiga games (for free). There is a huge advantage: each game is bundled with an emulator, so all you have to do is download an .exe and launch it. That’s all, you can play right away. They add new games regularly, and you can also ask games in the forum.

When I was a child, I had a Commodore 64, we couldn’t afford an Amiga at that time. Now, 20 years later I can finally play these games :)

Some favorites of mine:

• Crystal Kingdom Dizzy (@wikipedia; longplay; level maps; @lemon)
• Rick Dangerous
• Rick Dangerous II

Play with free MMORPGs in your browser

I just read an article about some free MMORPGs that you can play in your browser. I haven’t played much in the recent years but maybe I will try one of them. I like the idea that they run in the browser, so no installation is required, they can be played on any platform, and they are free. What’s more, they are developed by Hungarians :)

Let’s see the games:

• Végzetúr / Doomlord
• Nadirim
• Gal6
• A mágia mesterei (in Hungarian)

Useful links:

• Fantasy name generator