It's been quite some time since I last did one of these. Actually it was all the way back in May with Bermuda Syndrome. For those of you who's not familiar with 'The Feeling' is it basicly a series of blogs where I put a spotlight on some, in my case, oldschool games that I used to (and still do) love and play from one end to the other... and back again, in my early years of gaming.

Some of these games may not be all that great when you look at em' from a reviewing standpoint, but common for them all are that they gave me 'The Feeling'. Now explaining it in details would take up half the blog post, so feel free to check out my introduction where there's a lot more to be found. This time around however are we gonna take a look at a thrilling game from all the way back in 1999 and a game I still play to this day. Check it out!

Some of you may remember my 400 mhz computer I got in a present when I turned 10 years old back in 1998. A monster like no other if you will... Or well, atleast for it's time. As we all know does a monster computer means monster games and you will find out that many of the games I include in 'The Feeling' will be from around that time. Why's that? Well the late 90's were basicly the highlight of my gaming carreer and loads of games from that period are stuck in my mind as small nostalgia flicks.

Tycoon games are by far one of my favourite genres so when Chris Sawyer brought this game to life back in 1999 was I all over it. Yea, some of you already knows which one I'm talking about don't you? We'll the first time I experienced the game was actually trough a demo I got from my beloved computer magazine... 'Komputer'. The demo featured only the first level "Forest Frontiers", but trust me, it was more than enough to keep me entertained for hours on hours... On hours! After convincing my mother to spend my "hard earned" money on this game did we went out and picked it up. And it's definitely one of the best games I've ever bought. I remember when I got games back in the day - opening the boxes in the car like a child at christmas. Nowadays is it all done online, but I still prefer actually going to the store and pick up the game like I used to do instead of getting them by mail.

This game came in a big box. Remember those? God do I miss em'. I can't really explain what it is, but they were just amazing with the huge front art and a back with loads of info and big pictures. Shame they decided to remove em', though I kinda understand why they did it. Sure is a treasure from back then in my opinion.

Anyways! Almost got offtopic there. The game we're talking about is ofcourse the king of the genre: Rollercoaster Tycoon for the PC. Developed by Chris Sawyer/MicroPose and released by Hasbro Interactive in 1999. One of the first games I ever played was a Tycoon game (we'll get back to that one) so I really love the whole genre and aspect of it. Build and manage. Get guests and make it all run around are one of the best things in gaming for me, and RCT delivered on all this.

As said was it developed by the computer programmer Chris Sawyer who wanted to make a sequal to hi's renown game Transport Tycoon (1994). Under development did hi's interest for rollercoasters kick in and he changed the theme of the game. The amuzing thing is that he programmed most of the game himself - what an achievement.

Rollercoaster Tycoon puts you in the shoes of a theme park manager. You get some money to work with and from there on does it all kick off with construction of rollercoasters, rides and stall/shops. Make it all run around and get a certain amount of visitors/park value within the given time. These where the main aspects of the game and it all functioned extremely well. Make advertising for the park, handle economics etc. were just some of the stuff you had to tackle. However there were much more to it than just that. RCT was deep for it's time and the posibilities, not only in ride builds, but also all the scenery, footpaths, staff, land etc. gave you the option to creature a unique park straight from your mind.

Constructing a rollercoaster from the ground was probably the most exiting aspect of the game. Dont make it to intense and remember that the nausea rating has to be held at a comfortable level aswel. How high was it's exitement numbers? Whew, these 3 factors were to be noticed and I can't count all the hours I've spent tinkering and twisting a coaster to make it work in the end. With a good ride comes customers and managing ticket prices, not only on the park entrance, but also on all individual rides and stalls gave the game a little extra fun. How much would they pay to go on your newly made coaster? What's it's popularity? etc. these were just a few of the stuff you had to think about when creating a coaster, but it was really satisfying when it all payed out.

Rollercoaster Tycoon stands out as one of the best tycoon games I've ever played and I actually still play it actively to this day. It was followed up by RCT 2 and 3 in 2002 and 2004, but none of them manages to catch whatever it is the first one have. Yup, even though I own the two others is it still the first one I keep coming back to and play over and over... and over. A masterpiece from a mastermind that everyone who haven't played definitely should check out. Trust me, it never gets old.

- mnbskydoll who needs a blog header for 'The Feeling'.

Hi peeps! Just returned from Wacken Open Air yesterday and as you can probably tell am I still alive and well... Though I'm kinda wasted. It's been an amazing trip with a lot of great music and lot's of beer. We left Denmark on busses with a bunch of people (aprox 150 or so) from the danish metal magazine, Metalized on the 29th of July. The trip was supposed to take 4 hours or so, but we ended up spending 7 hours on the bus waiting on people and being in queues, so it was a relief when we finally arrived.

We had a long and tedious walk ahead of us since we had to carry all our bags (and beer) up to the camp where we would settle. I even managed to drop my sleeping mat which I never saw again... Yup, this was the second festival where I had to sleep on the ground... Something I've gotten used to it seems, cause I actually ended up sleeping quite well with a little help from my towel and ear plugs hehe.

It was seriously so much fun being there and we saw a lot of fantastic bands. We drank a lot of beers and listened to some amazing bands along with roughly 65000 people. I could use all day talking about the festival, but I'm just gonna say that Maiden was awesome (though no where near Gothenburg) aswell as Killswitch, which was probably the band I was looking the most forward to and the band that gave the best show of the festival... Atleast in my opinion.

We were all totally smashed the last day (yesterday) and was happy to finally go back home. We had to catch or bus late morning and ended up waiting roughly 2 hours for it since it was stuck in a queue outside town. So what do you do when you're bored and have to wait? Well some guys ahead of us decided to throw some small rocks at a red bottle which was placed out on the road af few meters ahead of us (note that we we're sitting on a lay-by for busses)... Something they all sucked at, so me and my friends decided to take some shots aswell.. Without luck lol. I think we we're 15 people throwing rocks at this bottle in the end and when a bus came by did we ofcourse stop so we wouldnt hit it.

So where am I going with all this? We'll some security guys (imagine home guards) drove up in their rover and walked straight to me since I was the one sitting the closest to em' and started mumbling something in German. Well I just looked at em cause I thought they might have been talking to those behind me, but one of them pulled me up and took me over to a fence on the other side of the road. On our way over there did he say all kinda stuff on German which I couldn't tell the meaning of and if I tried to say anythin' would he just shut me up... So well, I just followed him. We got to the fence and I was told to lay down. He then walked back to our group (of 150 people or so) and started yelling straight into our leaders face... "ARE YOU STONED?! ... ARE YOU STONED!?!??".

No, our leader wasn't stoned. A little drunk maybe, but definitely not stoned lol. I don't know how many of you who's familiar with security guards, but they often think they're way more than they actually is. This guy was this steroid pumped German with tattoos, short hair and dark sunglasses... A goon who could only communicate one way if you will. After screaming at our leader (who haven't even throwed any stones or said anything) did he walk back to me and asked me to follow him. He was talking with his partner in German and I could tell they were discussing wether they should take me with em' or not. He wasn't capable of speaking english so I was a big question mark at that point, but we eventually came to a police car where he left me in the hands of two nice officers.

And thank god did they speak english. "Why are you guys throwing rocks at the busses?" was the first thing they asked me... "We'll we aren't. Were on our way to Denmark and got bored waiting for our bus for 1½ hours, so we decided to have a little fun and throw some rocks at this bottle". I'm not totally sure if they actually understood this, but it seemed like they picked out the point so they just kept asking me all sorts of stuff. Did I have a job? Where do I live? How many people are you and so on. They even asked if all 150 had been throwing stones. "No, 15 or so threw at the bottle, but how come you only took one over here?". Well that was the idiotic security's fault it seemed, but nonetheless was I let go after giving them my name/address in case of any damage done to the busses, but it seemed more like an lecture than anything serious.

I walked back to our group and was met by an applause lol. Our leader came up to me and he was all like "what the f*** just happened there" with a big smile on hi's face. We all just took it as a big misunderstanding and 5 minutes later did our bus show up. We drove for 6 hours and was finally back home in Odense where I took my first bath for 5 days (yum).

All in all was Wacken an amazing trip and we're most likely going again next year when they have their 20th anniversary.

- mnbskydoll

Being at Iron Maiden concert - Ullevi - Sweden, 2008 = One of the best things I've ever done in my life... That show... was out of this world. Imagine 60000 people, all waiting while churchill's speech, the intro leading into the opening track Aces High, just to turn sanity off and start jumping/singing along. This was some heavy dope... Not only for us standing in front of the scene, but also for all the people seated on the tribunes.

We arrived in Gothenburg 5 hours before the concert started, grabbed some Burger King (got a Big King meal or somthin) and headed straight to the Stadium (which was in walking distance, thumbs up), entered, found some tour shirts to spend some cash on (had to visit 4 of their stores to find the one I wanted in medium lol) and enjoyed the sun with booze and cigarettes together with all the other people for a few hours before it all kicked off.

Lauren Harris, daughter of Maidens bassist Steve Harris started the show as she has done for Maiden for the last 2-3 years. She blows, but she's hot so whatever... Anyways, nothing to write home about, which we already knew (yea, we've seen her a couple of times now lol). She was followed up by Avenged Sevenfold, a rock band from US which to my surprise sounded 10 times better live (way more "raw") than on their studio stuff. Not a band I listen to normally, but I decided to check em' out the night before going - Didn't really appeal to me then, but yea, was kinda cool in real life... their leadsinger def knows how to sing/scream.

But screw the warm up bands, we we're there for Maiden and it had been four hours since we arrived at the stadium. The sun was killing us and the lack of water didn't really helped. The prices was a bugging 5$ (!) for a frikkin' (tepid) bottle of water... And I want even start to mention the prices for beer... So what do you do when you can't afford the drinks? Make it to the front of the scene... the only place to get free water. So we did and I think we ended up gettin' water for 50 bucks or so lol.

The warm up bands finished their shows and the crowd was starting to show their exaggerations for Iron Maiden. The tribunes we're doing waves... waves that even we, the people standing on the ground followed up on - creating a continuing round circle of people going up and down all around the stadium - it looked absolutely amazing and really showed the atmosphere that was going on.

As we neared us the show start did Maiden's cover of the old UFO song, Doctor Doctor break the silence of the speakers as it always does when their getting closer to start - and everybody... and I mean everybody was singing along, clapping in rhythm and jumping up and down. This alone was fantastic... as it always is. The sun was almost down behind the stadium tribunes and a nice cold breeze started to fill the air. The perfect temperature for a concert about to start.

Out of nowhere did the two huge screens located on the each side of the scene turn on and the intro started rolling, showing old world war 2 footage and audio in the form of Churchill's Speech - "Fight them on the Beaches". And as all Maiden fans know does churchill's speech equals the song, Aces High... Fireworks started firering and Maiden ran onto the scene.

Now imagine the N64 kid and multiply it by 10... Add some beer and roughly 60000 people going crazy at the same time... If this couldn't be heard in the farest reaches of Gothenburg then I don't know what could. Everyone started jumping... Well I can't even describe it... Anyways it was just insane... The other Maiden concert's I've attended has been nowhere near this.

One of the coolest parts about being to a concert is when you can feel that the band is enjoying it as much as we are. When Aces High finished did the whole band take a break for around 2 minutes cause they couldn't get a word in for all the cheering going on. Bruce (Maiden's lead singer) finally mentioned that this was probably their biggest stadium crowd ever... "they had definetely lost their stadium virginity tonight" as he said... And boy had they.

They followed up playing all their old 80's hits and one of the most amazing parts was probably the sing along that was going on under the crowd pleaser Fear of the Dark (sorry for the bad video quality, but it's mainly for the sound). Anyways, I'm having a hard time describing all this for you guys at the moment, sorry. Not only am I tired, but it was just, as I said in the start of this post - out of this world.

Yeah I'm tired. We actually ended up sleeping on a bench at Gothenburg train station since we hadn't really thought about all that stuff beforehand lol. Had a hard 10 hours night ahead of us and we couldn't wait to get home.

Got home yesterday and went straight to the shower followed up by my bed. Today I've been painting my new appartment which I'll blog somethin' about at some point. Anyways - I'll better catch some sleep now cause I'm leaving for Wacken Open Air (huge metal festival for those of you who doesn't know) tomorrow morning.

Just had to share this with you guys... Rock on and see ya around the 5th of August.

Love you Maiden

- mnbskydoll