Sch3lp’s Blog

Since a few years, a rollerparade has been organised in major cities in Belgium.
Among those cities is Hasselt, a place that happens to be nearby where I live. So on invitation of some friends, I went to take a look and participate.

The parade exists of 2 parts, that is to say, one group of inline skaters (rollerbladers, skeelers, … whatever you wanna call it) and another group on bicycles.
It’s a guided tour throughout the streets of Hasselt and its neighbouring villages, which covers a total distance of 17 kilometres. Including a very steep slope (which also goes downhill afterwards ). They take 4 breaks where you get a few moments to relax, have a sip of water, fix your laces/straps/wheels/…

Because I had been planning on recommencing skating, I recently bought a new pair of Crossmax SLab’s from Salomon. Needless to say, this was a pretty good opportunity to give them a test drive. Before purchasing these skates, I had been reading some reviews of Freeskate inline skates on different sites, and a couple of skates came out great in each of the reviews. The K2 Soul 7’s, the Rollerblade Twister Pro’s, and the Salomon (FSK series) Crossmaxes.
They turn immensly fast, have _great_ grip, even when taking _really_ sharp turns. Fit perfectly. Are light enough to feel comfortable and weighty enough to feel sturdy (the frame adds an extra feel of sturdiness and stability). Coming from aggro skates (Roces Fifth Elements), I needed some time adapting to the higher end wheels, which kind of automatically put you in a “leaning forward” position. But I think I’m already used to it now.

After checking out local stores, I had to come to the sad conclusion not one single skate was available, and if it was available, it wasn’t in my shoesize (I have a pretty large shoesize: 30cm). So I looked up the salomon dealers in my neighborhood and came across Lageja Skates (dutch) in Eindhoven. It was the only shop that had this skate available anyways and they even had them in my size. After fitting the skates I was sold. The “FIT” system, for which Salomon skates are known, works amazing. The inner shoe _always_ fits perfectly around your foot, no matter the unusual form of your feet. Include the ILQ-7 (comparable with ABEC-9) bearings and other neat features and you’ve got a winner Freeskate. So I bought them. And if you are planning on buying skates, you should really check out their site, they’ve got about every skate you can think of, going from fitness, speed, freeskates to aggros, and the guy that runs the shop is also really easy-going.

Anyway, the rollerparade itself was great and I’m definitely rejoining the crowd next monday for another tour. If you wanna join, exact dates and locations can be found on www.belgiumrollers.com.

Lastly, you might ask yourselves what a rollerparade would look like, so you can check out the pictures taken by the crew of roller-guides.

Last year’s pick-nick at the Schulensmeer (lake of Schulen) was a success, and this year wasn’t any different.
I had a great time and took a dive in the lake as well. The water was really refreshing and not as dirty as I expected
The thing I loved the most about last sunday was the “nothing on my mind” feeling I had the entire time I was there.

The pictures (which were mostly taken by SoWfie) can be viewed by clicking this link.

Extrema was good, but not as good as previous years.
Due to some random problems with air traffic, Desyn Masiello couldn’t make it to the decks. So I missed out on him.
Then Deep Dish didn’t do their best. It was like they weren’t in the right mood or something. Crowd still went wild though. Maybe I was just expecting too much.

On the flipside, Martin Solveig was great. He had the right tunes, the right timing, and a sweet vibe. You can feel his enthusiasm and that was probably the thing that made his performance stand out. Sasha was also great, but I didn’t expect any different from one of the world’s leading DJ’s.

The pictures (significantly less than last year’s) are up for your viewing(/laughing) pleasure, right here.

When I read on Ctrl-Alt-Del about a new space-sim resembling FreeLancer, I got excited.
This excitement was, however, violently brought to death when I played the demo, and disappointment was my main emotion afterwards.

The gameplay is in fact much alike FreeLancer’s, with the exception of your ship being some sort of organic mutable space-craft. I say mutable because you can upgrade it if you can find “parts”.
These parts are hidden in some systems, in deep caverns of a big chunk of asteroid that’s being mined.

Furthermore, there is the possibility to trade (or smuggle illegal) stuff and accept missions which have effect on your reputation throughout the galaxy. Like I said, much like FreeLancer. Although I find FreeLancer to be more thought-over. Much in means of travelling across a system. In FreeLancer you had the possibility to dock with a sort of highway and it would bring you across a system pretty fast. The cool thing about this was these things could get interrupted by pirates and you’d have to fight (or flee). In DarkStar One, you simply Hyperspace from one gateway to the other and that’s it. There is an option to “fast-forward” time (time-travel), so you can travel lots of space in shorter time than normal, this is the replacement for the highways I think.
Having an organic space-ship, also seems to enable only your ship to get special abilities, for you to choose out of, much like the “Skills” system in Diablo. An example is the ability to boost your main laser-weapons with “plasma”, causing 150% extra damage or something like that. There’s also a time-altering ability, I figure it’s sort of like bullet-time.

The cinematic actors and music are too cheesy to my likings. The story comes down to young hero whose father died because of a conspiracy you need to figure out inherits the darkstar and has a mentor (father’s best friend, who will most probably turn out to be the bad guy). I wonder if the storyline is completable if you decide to play villain, because of all the stations you have to visit. This is what makes the game a little less disappointing by the way, you can buy jammer-devices, so when police scans you for contraband, you have a chance they don’t find your illegal androids. The evil side is made more accessible to the player.

There is no cooperative gameplay. This was also really cool about FreeLancer. You and your friend could start your own goddamn pirate-guild and attack transports. Get your other friend with his freightship to load all the stuff and escort it to a system where you can rake in the money. *wanting*

Another thing that bothers me are the controls. There is NO “GoTo” autopilot button, where when pressed, you just fly in a straight line (or on an intercept course) to your target. This functionality _was_ present in FreeLancer however.
Anyway, DarkStar One is a real disappointment, especially in comparison with FreeLancer. So if you like the Darkstar One demo, try FreeLancer. It’s cooler in so many ways.
Check their website if you want though.