Blogs Sleep deprivation in games: Silent Hunter 4

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/02/27/sleep-deprivation-in-games-silent-hunter-4/

 

I've played Civilization ever since the first release. I feel for you my brother when playing addictive slow pace games. I put Civ 4 on its highest settings "Warload" and spend many hours in the day and night taking a serious path to victory.

 

You really ought to check out something if you like military simulation. I play ARMA but in our group we take it to a new level as far as realism goes were the 15thmeu of armed assault not sure if I can post links or not but if you google 15th meu and arma youll find us, we are the #1 hit for 15thmeu on google anyways. It can be a demanding group but also very rewarding, its much more like a group of civil war/ww2 reenactors than a clan or even a realism unit currently we are at 50 active members and 200 have applied and gone through our basic orientation in about a year and 3 months of being operational. Maybe just stop by to check it out

 

+1

i was going to bring up exactly this. ...just one more turn!

 

Ah yes, the joys of seemingly endless nights of the Civ games, although for some reason the series reached its zenith at Civ 2 for me.

 

Forged Alliance. Easily. I might as well be comatose for the amount of time I spend in a micro-managing, adrenaline filled state of mental absenteeism.

The problem with it, is the length of a game. If you are thinking "Oh, just a game of CSS before I do some work" then fair enough; 20 or 30 minutes later, you have had your fix, and start to work.

A friend asks if you want a game of FA though, and things change. Games can take hours, literally. Countless small skirmishes, massive power struggles, and dozens of individual, behemoth like super units make for a truly epic game. And that's even before you realise the enemy you are heading for has sent what can only be described as a UFO to your base. As if the Independence Day-like beam weapon it employs wasn't enough (it cut's through base defenses like... well, an Independence Day-like beam weapon would), it then unleashes enough Tech 3 gunships to level the map. And then someone launches a nuke. Cock.

The moment you bring up the score screen, reality kicks in. You are incredibly hungry, havent showered, need to do laundry, and have at least one university assignment in for the next day that you planned on doing after FA. Fair enough, let's get cracking...

Except for the fact it is 5 in the morning and you have to choose between a good night's sleep with terribly rushed work to hand in later that day, or grab some food (which helps fend off the worry that if you do go to bed, you will starve to death in your sleep) and nail the coursework until the day breaks.

Either way, it is life ruining. But when you are playing, the entertainment is more than worth the cost. And you know full well what the cost is. Usually from experience.

 

Sticking with the RTS theme I once won a head a multiplayer LAN game of Red Alert by waiting for my opponent to fall asleep before launching a massive airstrike in his base around 4.30am - he awoke to the sound of his construction yard exploding

 

Haha, excellent!

RTSes are so epic

 

Recently L4D has been sucking up all my time. Especially on Expert, as if you're keen on actually finishing a campaign it can take you hours and hours and hours. Just one more go, hopefully the tank will spawn later in the level.... no? Oh, well, one more go, maybe it will this time? No? Oh ok, well what about this time? Oh wait, it's 6am.

 

oblivion - this ate three months of my life and as much as i hate to admit it probably resulted in my girlfriend getting dumped

 

Birth of the Federation.

although it really does take longer than it should to complete a game thanks to the memory leak once you get passed turn 120. At university i spend 3 months playing a continuous game (several hours a night) and broke into a four figure turn count!

Civ is also on that list although i now choose to play it on the DS. its easier to get my head into the game than the original as although the games are epic you can get it done in a night.