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Game Over for Gameplanet

A long time New Zealand based gaming site, Gameplanet has fallen victim to the hard times for media during COVID-19.

Gameplanet has been on life-support for a while now, as some readers may have observed. We’ve held out and sustained the financial losses for as long as we could, but there is, sadly, no realistic prospect of the business recovering, and so the decision has now been made to turn off the machine and put it to rest. The website will be shut down in the next few days.

https://www.gameplanet.co.nz/news/g5ea8aa13d2038/Gameplanet-is-shutting-down/

I have been a member of the Gameplanet community (although not very active I admit) pretty much since they started out.

Compared to other forums, it was bit of a free for all to a degree, but once you got use to the sarcasm and attitudes, it was full of some truly funny, and knowledgeable users in all sorts of different areas.

The forums are being moved to Tapatalk, however if it continues to keep the same feel about it, remains to be seen.

“Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”

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Star Trek TV Shows Ranked

My Rankings:

  1. The Original Series and The Next Generation
  2. Deep Space Nine
  3. Voyager
  4. Enterprise
  5. Picard*
  6. Discovery*

As we have been in lock down in New Zealand for close to 4 weeks now, me and the wifey have started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation from Season 1 again.

This has inspired me to rank each of the Star Trek Tv Shows and provide a few quick thoughts about each.

*Not really Star Trek shows, just have the word Star Trek at the beginning of them.

The Original Series –

The grand daddy of them all, has that 1960s cheesiness. But is built around the characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The best episodes made you think and had a message. Plus no one can beat William Shatner as Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Spock.

The Next Generation –

Equally as good in relaying a message. Got better from Season 3 onwards. Tried to be a bit more of a ensemble but by the end was the Picard, Data and Riker show. Plus introduced a awesome new bad guy in the Borg.

Deep Space Nine –

A different take on Star Trek being set in a base and not a space ship, was a bit too serious at times and struggled in the first few seasons. Picked up once the Dominion war storyline kicked into place. Screened the same time was another very good show Babylon 5 (that is for another article)

Voyager –

Oh what a frustrating show, sometimes had very good one off episodes but had zero continuity. This woudnt annoy me so much if they werent like 70 years away from home. One week the ship is completely trashed and the next week it is back to pristine condition. New crew members would just dissapear.

Enterprise –

Prequel show set 150 years before the Original Series, the first two seasons were quite boring. It did pick up in seasons 3 and 4. Probably deserved a season 5, also had the absolute worst series finale I have probably seen.

Picard –

Sigh now we start with new “Star Trek” shows currently on TV. This has the advantage of having the great Patrick Stewart returning as Picard. But this is a dystopian version of Star Trek, where every second word is Fu*k yeah and you must have blood splatter. Plus it has the modern trend of everything being darkly lit. Still it had a couple of reasonable episodes in first season.

Discovery –

Another supposed prequel show set 10 years before the Original Series. The problem here is the writers apparently either have never watched any of the other Star Trek show or simply don’t care.
It was quite brave of the show to have no likable characters at all in the first season, the second season got better due to one character Captain Pike played by Anson Mount. This actor looked like that they actually knew what Star Trek was about. Don’t get me started on Spocks secret half sister….sigh.

The Intros:

Honorable mention for the best Star Trek show on TV right now:

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My Amiga Favs

Gaming started for me around the mid 80’s, when friends had Atari 2600’s, Commodore 64’s and so on.

But I did not obtain my Amiga until late 1991 (and was one of the first Amiga 500+ units) but this was a great time, as the Amiga’s were extremely popular and the number of titles being released for it was amazing.

Due to the number of titles being released, it was hard to pick the absolute favorite games, so here’s a few I remember and enjoyed.

Syndicate

Pirates!

The Secret Of Monkey Island

Another World

Lure Of The Temptress

Escape From Colditz

Cannon Fodder

FA 18 Interceptor

North And South

Alien Breed

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The Case Of….

nothing. I just don’t have a case for my PC.

Think its time to poke around the house for some materials to build one. The current cardbox case is literally being ripped apart as I add components.

Last week :

mde

Today:

PS: Stupid head gear still on the go.

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Lockdown geeking

Earlier this year I sold my gaming PC.

I was not expecting to be in lockdown for a month or else I would have held onto the PC.

I purchased an Arrma Granite RC truck to keep me entertained after I sold the PC, however right before lockdown, a part on it failed – so thats out of action.

Its not meant to be that low.

Also work advised that we would be working from home as we are an essential service (IT provider).

But I did not have a PC to work from apart from my Lenovo X230 – grat machine but going from a 28″ 4k screen to 12″ was going to be a bit hard. So I was sent a 28″ 1080P screen and a thin client.

Thin client has remained in its box as its not running Windows, which I required.

So I looked around and found that I still had my Pentium G3258 setup (in parts) – so threw that into a cardboard box (literally) and thankfully found 8GB of RAM and a decent PSU.

Stole the SSD from the X230 and I was away.

Cardboard PC

It’s been working perfectly except for when I want to play some Overwatch with mates – I’ll just say its playable but not pretty.

But due to the lockdown, I’ve been unable to source a 2nd hand video card.

Until NME mentioned he still had an old 6970HD floating around. Score!

That’s on its way courtesy of work’s courier company – hey, its an essential item and I’m an essential employee.

So in the mean time, my gaming has been limited to classics such as Sid Mier’s Pirates!, UFO Enemy Unknown, Team Fortress 2, and real classic such as Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Kings Quest.

Love those last three games. Lot of memories from my Amiga days.

So I sit here now waiting for the courier to deliver the video card.

Some day, I’ll be able to order my RC parts, and maybe even get a case for this PC.

And hopefully stop wearing stupid things on my head.

Rah, Im a Polar geek.