Gaming
Apart from Unreal I've got a long interest in gaming. Everything
started with Doom and Doom II which gave my first virtual world to
roam in. Quickly followed by Raven's Hexen and Heretic. Especially
the mystical environments of Hexen bound me to the game for a long
time. After some time I moved one to Quake 1 and Hexen II. These
provided nice engine improvements over the Doom generation, but the
first generation 3D technology often lacked detail in comparison to
the old sprite technology of Doom.
Unreal was released. At the moment of the release I
could not play it because my (my parents') computer was not able to
run it, and I did not have money for my own system. But when I saw
the Unreal flyby in a local computer shop (Demonstration of the
Voodoo2 card) I was absolutely stunned. I really stood there for
like 30 minutes, enchanted by the spell of the game. Fortunately, I
soon got the opportunity to get a brand-new Pentium III rig. To
conclude Unreal: It altered my reality...forever.
I also like to play Heroes of Might and Magic, a
turn-based strategy game. I've been playing Heroes II a lot and now
I'm at Heroes III. It really is a rich and balanced strategy game
with a great gameplay. Heroes III is wonderful when playing
multiplayer.
My current love is with a MMORPG (Online multiplayer
role playing game),
Guild
Wars. I like to explore the huge continents, build a character
and achieve titles of honour for extraordinary in-game targets.
Guild Wars has a virtual economy which at itself is worth a study.
Because I always played FPS games, this kind of environment gives
many new degrees to my gaming experience. But a big disadvantage is
that everything is closed. You can't host servers, make maps or
mods. There is not such a community as I know from Unreal where
almost everyone contributes in some way. Therefore, Unreal will
always keep me interested.
A few screens:
My main character is an Elementalist (Mage) and has
30 titles at the maximum level, thus having achieved the most
prestigious title in the game. ("God
Walking Amongst Mere Mortals") My secondary
character is a ranger. See my
Guild
Wars Wiki user page for more details.
Since the release of the
game in 2012, I also play
Guild
Wars 2. I still play as a Human Elementalist named Aranimda. See
below for some screens of my character. I love to explore the vast
open world and as in the original game I like hunting titles and
achievements. For details, consult my
Guild
Wars 2 Wiki user page.
Television
I mostly watch news, documentaries and infotainment. From time
to time I also enjoy some comedy or a good movie. Channels include:
Dutch public broadcasters, RTL (Dutch RTL), National Geographic
channel, Discovery Europe and sometimes BBC World. However, I don't
spend too much time watching TV.
Music
Mostly game and movie soundtracks is what I listen, but also a wide
range of pop, rock, metal, rap sometimes dance/trance/euro and a
small amount of classical etc. As you see I'm not limited to any
style. Anything with a good melody and flow goes, no matter if it is
loud, soft, happy, moody, aggressive etc. Music I do not like is
Jazz and RMB. (Annoys me)
Stuff of legends: Within Temptation, Nirvana, Enya, some of
Metallica's work, Dune and Snap's "Rythm is a Dancer". The Unreal
soundtrack, Gladiator movie soundtrack, Guild Wars (Factions)
soundtrack, Heroes II and III soundtracks. Tyrian's music. (Yep,
sounds best on the oldskool OPL3 synth.) and of course Nobuo
Uematsu's legendary work. (Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger etc.)
Internet
Apart from all the gaming sites and Unreal forums where you can find
me, here I have some interesting links:
Tweakers.net,
a Dutch ICT news page, aimed at tech enthousiasts. This has been my
startpage since 1999.
YouTube
(Who doesn't know YouTube?) Nice to find many surprising video's,
funstuff and more.
See
here
for a my channel on YouTube.
My 'idols'
Steve
Gibson; Internet security guru. He has a very accessible site
and a podcast (Part of the TWiT network) about information security.
Steve has the gift to explain seemingly complex topics like
encryption and network vulnerabilities, and how to deal with them. I
listen to his
SecurityNow!
podcast to keep myself updated on any security-related matter.
Rop
Gonggrijp; The best known 'hacker' (white hat) of the
Netherlands. Founder of XS4ALL internet. Watcher of privacy and
security matters in the ongoing computerisation of our civilisation.
Founder of 'WijVertrouwenStemComputersNiet", an organisation which
successfully demonstrated many weaknesses in the Dutch e-voting
systems.