Gaming news and opinion.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

G1 Cupcake preview.

Video Recording, Stereo Bluetooth, Onscreen Keyboard And More!

The cupcake branch will be merged into the master branch… Due to the United States’ holiday season, though, this may not be finished until early January.”
The new update will include the ability to record video, support for stereo Bluetooth, onscreen keyboard functionality and more.
Key features include:
Option to save attachments and pictures from text messages
Option to view what applications and processes are running
Updated Webkit browser
the ability to copy and paste text within the browser by holding the SHIFT key and sliding your finger across the text you want to copy
Ability to search for text within the browser using a FIND feature
New SquirrelFish JavaScript engine
New kernel based on Linux 2.6.27
Dial pad can no longer be single tapped open but needs a finger slide motion
Video thumbnails and playback functionality
Stereo Bluetooth support
Ability to have an onscreen keyboard for typing

Also there have been a lot of talk about a beta flash player for G1, but here is no release date set.



I'm very happy with my G1, it has a lot of good free apps on the market right now and the Cupcake update will be amazing. All we need now is the flash player and it will be the iphone killer.

Monday, December 15, 2008

MMORPG Then and Now

I have been playing MMORPG since 3DO released Meridian 59 and before that I played L.O.R.D. on wildcat BBS. I was there in the hay day of Ultima Online and the misery of Ever Quest. Through out the years the market has done a lot of changing and now with it saturated with MMO titles of every type it seems to be dying out. The PC game market seems to be dying. Let's take a look at MMO then and now.



Meridian 59 was fantastic for being the first, you could roam around and explore things and kill people at will. The graphics look like a souped up doom engine. It was laggy at times but ran pretty good on a 66 mhz intel with 32 megs of RAM. For the time it was a sweet ass game.

Then came Ultima Online, my personal all time favorite mmorpg, it had everything the modern titles lack. I spent countless hours of wasted life playing this game, the PVP combat was intense, knowing that anyone anytime someone could come out of a moon gate or hiding and splatter you all over the forest was great.


(I'm Locke Cole)

Since this title was based on a skill system not a level system, you could really customize your character. Some players even did wacky combinations like a thief that could make cakes or a fisherman fencer. Since it was skill based you could at least fend off an attacker and get away. unlike level based games, where you die in one hit. The trade skill system was also ahead of it's time, you had to have a friend or a group of other traders if you went into the mines to dig for ore, there were always bandits and ore thieves around. This adds a strong element of realism and excitement to the game. Guilds had a dramatic impact on the game, you could raid other people's guild houses and steal/look the keys and get inside to plunder chest full of their crap. What made this game so great was the fact that you were so venerable. You won some and lost some. As a player you had to be quick with the mouse and in your head. The modern mmorpg takes away all the real excitement and replaces it with mindless loot gathering and boring raids.


After a few years other people like Microsoft and Sony wanted to get in the market. Microsoft released Ashron's Call. This title was pretty good, i beta tested it a while and dabbled after release but went back to Ultima despite the lame anti PVP patches. Then some time later our friends at Sony released EverQuest. Like most gamers at the time, I was awed by the 3D client. The fact that there was a 3d mmorpg at the time was mind blowing. The first few months of the game were pretty good. Players could turn a PVP switch on and get busy, you could even loot one item and get some money after each kill. There were reds all over the place, but as always corporate America wants to secure 100% subscription rates and listened to a few babies that complained about pvp after they turned their switch on.


After that ended i tried to play the game as is, with the hours and hours of grinding experience points in one spot. i mean fucking hours! hours of killing the same monster over and over again. in the exact same spot. i spent like a month in high keep killing the same goblins in the basement. It was mind numbing! That game was all about getting a few uber items and sitting at the Freeport bank chatting about lame shit. Power gamers getting in one of 4 guilds on the server, then bitching about who got what uber loot.

I have to give Sony credit, they really knew how to get every day America hooked to their subscription game. The need to posses fictitious items. fucking geed.

Moving on to a little company in the Netherlands called Funcom, they were cooking up some pretty cool shit. Anarchy Online, I alpha and beta tested this thing. The first few clients were at the time fucking amazing yet buggy as hell. That game had a giant memory leak and was a bitch to run most of the time. After release it was pretty stable but in the long run i didn't play it that much. For the time it was an impressive title. I was just burnt out on mmorpg and went back to playing counter-strike and starcraft.

Dark Ages of Camelot came out promising this and that, but fell pretty short if you asked me. Fucking LAME!

Moving on to Shadowbane, this thing was being worked on for a long time. They were talking about this not to long after UO came out. So it finally comes out and was pretty amazing, it had everything! you could openly pvp, build and destroy towns. perfect! The graphics were dated and the client was pretty rock solid. I was in love for a few weeks. What really killed this game was power gamers. The developers didn't count on one guild getting 80% of the server in it's roster with in the first month. Some guild that got ban from EverCrack was on there power gaming their asses off. Ebonlore was their name, with an ever so lame slogan "step into the dark" What kind of lame shit is that? More like step the fuck back to everquest you n00b piece of shit.

My roommate and i who both played rouges, tore these guys to shreds, i mean we killed tons of them all the time. The one good thing about that guild being on our server was that there was always someone to kill. After a while it got old. With no chance of ever having a giant some what balanced guild battle we quit. I love open PVP but the point of shadowbane was open guild vs guild pvp, siege warfare, well you can't have this when there is only one guild on the server.

It goes to show you that power gaming is lame and fucks it up for everyone, like cheating on counter-strike.

At last Star Wars Galaxies, who would of thought this fantastic game went in the direction that it did. When it was released i was so excited!!! People were all of the place, there was even PVP!! Everything was great, it was just kind of buggy. The great thing about SWG was it had a skill based leveling system, you could really create your own play style with your class. The trade skills are in my option some of the best ever and it just kicked ass. I tried playing this last winter before i built my new uber system. Wow did they ever fuck that game up! It seems this NGE patch destroyed over a dozen classes and left the game with like 8, and the server are empty. let's not forgot about the poor jedi class, the once uber class went from being the most powerful to being around every corner, because everyone is a jedi now. What the fuck? At least Bioware is making a KOTOR mmorpg now.




I pre ordered Age Of Conan and for the most part it's pretty good. the graphics kick ass, the combat system rules. The game is simply not finished and has the classic funcom memory leak the client. If they can hang on to enough subscribers to fix it and do something to make GvG balanced and fun, I'll check it out again, but for now I'm just about sick of restarting my client and computer every hour just to crash back to desktop again at random.

World of Warcraft, World of fucking warcraft. Jesus fucking christ people! I avoided this title since the day it came out, i just knew better. Though i finally gave in a month ago to play with some friends. After i spent 3 days downloading the 14 day trial I logged into this piece of shit. It really blows my mind that this game has all the subscriptions. The graphics are fucking AWFUL! The combat system is dated and boring, the quest are mindless. the landscapes are boring. the community is dumb. it has everything i hate about every other mmo that has come out all rolled into one big piece of shit game. it's all about the stupid looking glow effect loot. I felt like i could play that game sleeping, it was so mindless. all of the thinking is done for you. it's the mmo for that jock douche bag you hated in school. The mmo for some thirty something year old housewife. Developers are using these ideas on new games. look at Warhammer, everything is instance based, so you never see another fucking should because everyone is power gaming in a safe little bubble. What's the point of playing an mmorpg if you are only with a few other people all the time. I hate how dumbed down and safe everything is, I hate the look, I hate EVERYTHING about WoW. It's bullshit that modern games are being modeled after this bastard. There are a few good games out there right now that just need support to grow, but people are so busy standing around in their glowing uber loot suit, chatting with house wives and other idiots to give them a try. I would go as far to say that WoW is killing the whole god damn industry.

There are only a few good titles out there right now, I'm currently kicking the tires on Vanguard. For the most part it's a good game. The craft system rules, there is a lot to do and the fact you can get flying mounts is a plus. Having transportation is a right not a status symbol. You can even build ships and houses. They put a lot of time into it. The one thing it lacks is a pvp system, there is a pvp server but it's a ghost town. I think the best way to do it would be a pvp zone that's just open for fighting. We will see what happens, the company has not touched pvp in a year and the title isn't even on the shelf anywhere. PC games in general are getting hard to find outside of the Internet. It's all about the consoles. If these companies keep putting out flops and wasting money they will jsut stop making them all together and at this point the mmorpg is the anchor for the pc gaming market. It's the only thing you can only play on a PC. If that gets fucked out then the consoles will get dibs on everything and we will be left where we are now, waiting on a shitty console to pc port.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

G.E.C.K. Available For Download



The G.E.C.K. provides the community with tools that will allow players to expand the game any way they wish. Users can create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3, from building landscapes, towns, and locations to writing dialogue, creating characters, weapons, creatures, and more.

Visit the G.E.C.K. Wiki for help and tutorials.

Grand Theft Auto IV patch

The patch promised by Rockstar Games last Saturday is now available. Start your game and connect to LIVE to trigger the download. The patch is 32.6MB, takes a few minutes to install, and contains a variety of fixes including the following:
GTA IV PC Patch

* A fix to the crash after legal screen that some German customers were reporting.
* Numerous improvements to the video editor: Smarter naming of videos, improved rendering quality, better fx during replays.
* Fix to bowling while using certain sensitive mice.
* Fix for ATI 1900 shadows.
* Overall savings to memory.
* Graphic improvements to particle systems and mirrors.
* Multiplayer character settings are preserved.
* Support for DirectInput controllers.

Rockstar have stated on our forum that they are "going to keep supporting GTA IV PC for a long time," and that we can "expect additional fixes/improvements in the future."

Camera/keyboard issue with new patch

Some users are experiencing a "spinning camera" issue after installing the new GTA IV PC patch. Rockstar Games has apologised for this, and provided a temporary solution at our forums:

To fix the issue:

A1) Unplug any DirectInput controllers (gamepads, joysticks etc..)
A2) Reboot your computer
A3) Launch GTA IV

If the issue persists, the following instructions are provided as a guide to assist you in deleting the conflicting DirectInput drivers:

B1) Exit game
B2) Go to Start->Control Panel->System->Hardware Tab->Device Manager->Human Interface Devices
B3) Locate drivers for devices
B4) Delete drivers for devices
B5) Launch GTA IV

**Some users are able to reinstall the drivers for their DirectInput devices, with the device attached, and have found that it will work in game. If you do attempt to reinstall your device and the problem resurfaces, please follow steps B1-B5 again.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Grand Theft $49.99 --- GTA 4 Problems


Like others I bought Grand Theft Auto 4 for the PC and are currently experiencing the worst PC game launch in a long time. I have not seen this kind of client instability since TES Dagger Fall AKA Crash and Fall. Wait it's been more recent then that, Age of Conan's release was pretty awful too but at least I could login and play around for a while before the memory leak crashed my client. This client wont even load up to the main screen for most people. If you are lucky enough to start the game you are faced with horribly low FPS or insane bugs like not loading any textures.

It's offensive for a company like Rockstar who got their start with the PC gaming market to release a highly anticipated game that does not even work. It's obvious they knew it wasn't ready and pushed it out anyway. This is stereotypical behavior of a MMORPG company, not a reputable one like Rockstar. This is a very stupid move that needs a quick and professional resolution.

The community of gamers have been working around the clock looking for their own fix to this mess. check out this Steam community forum for some info on possible fixes. I have tried everything myself and nothing seems to work but other have had better luck.

For now all of us suckers that bought this game are left with 12 gigs of worthless data and $49.99 less in our bank accounts.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Farcry 2 Review

I've been playing this off and on for a week now and not once have i really been entertained. The game has no real storyline it's brain dead mission after another. granted the landscapes look great, there is just no follow through.


I've found no difference in storyline depending on what character you choose, it's simply for looks. In fact this game is all ascetic with no substance. Another mindless console style FPS for the water head mass of 360 gamers. The over all game play is very repetitive. The same six guys at the same checkpoints over and over again, it's like grinding a boring MMORPG. The side missions are no different from the main plot, as if there was one. The company boast "50 square kilometers of visually stunning African landscape." Which is true, too bad the landscapes are empty unless you're on a mission then it spawns the same 6 guys you killed 500 times before at the check point down the road that looks just like the check point you just drove by.

Speaking of driving, that's about 90% of the game, you can hop in one of 3 trucks and drive down the same dirt road that leads you to another checkpoint that looks just like the last checkpoint full of the same 6 guys you killed before and if you are lucky you might not have to drive 10 minutes to get to a mission that involves, you guessed it. Killing the same 6 guys and returning back to Pala via a 10 minute drive.

Farcry was a lot better game, it had a decent story and over all was a lot more fun than this, the bottom line is Farcry 2 SUCKS!

I would like to take this time and thank Razor1911 for this release, it saved a lot of us $49.99 worth of disappointment.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Bethesda confirms SDK release for December

I just can't wait for this, after beating Fallout 3 over and over again i am getting bored.


This was taken from the forums

"Bethesda Softworks Announces Creation Kit and First Downloadable Content for Fallout 3

Editor to be Available in December; Downloadable Content coming for January, February, and March

November 25, 2008 (ROCKVILLE, MD) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, today announced plans to make both its editor and downloadable content available for its award-winning game, Fallout® 3 in the coming weeks. The official editor for Fallout 3, called the G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit), will be available for free download in December and will allow Games for Windows® users to create and add their own content to the game. In addition, the first official downloadable content, Operation: Anchorage, will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Games for Windows® in January, and more downloadable content coming in February and March.

“We’ve always seen the original world of Fallout 3 as a foundation for even more content. Some created by us, and a lot more created by users,” said Todd Howard, game director for Fallout 3. “It’s fun to create your own character, but it can be equally fun to create your own adventures. We can’t wait to see what the community does with the G.E.C.K.”

The release of the G.E.C.K. provides the community with tools that will allow players to expand the game any way they wish. Users can create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3, from building landscapes, towns, and locations to writing dialogue, creating characters, weapons, creatures, and more.

Three downloadable content packs will be coming to Xbox 360 and Games for Windows Live starting in January that will add new quests, items, and content to Fallout 3.

Operation: Anchorage: Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe – the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.

The Pitt: Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.

Broken Steel: Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March."

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Macs are wack!

Apple’s latest PC vs. Mac ads would like you to believe Microsoft is spending almost all of its money on advertising instead of improving Windows. Instead of the usual funny jab at Windows Vista, Apple is making accusations as to where Microsoft is spending its money. It’s no secret Microsoft is investing significantly in improving Windows with the upcoming Windows 7 release and Windows Vista SP2 but it’s less clear exactly how much it is spending compared to Apple. Since Apple’s ads are criticizing Microsoft on how much they spend on advertising, how much does Apple spend as well? And how much does that compare to improving their products?

The answers to both of these questions can be found in the annual financial reports both companies are required to file with the SEC.

The Facts:

Apple according to the fiscal 2007 Annual Report

* Net Sales: $24.006 Billion
* Advertising: $467 Million
* R&D: $782 Million
* Net Income (Profit): $3.9 Billion

Microsoft according to the fiscal 2007 Annual Report

* Net Sales: $51.122 Billion
* Advertising: $1.33 Billion
* R&D: $7.121 Billion
* Net Income (Profit): $14.065 Billion

If you read the financial reports you will find that both Apple and Microsoft spend a significant amount on Advertising and R&D but since Microsoft is a much larger company it is important to break down the numbers into comparable units. To do that I broke the numbers down to how much each company spends per $1 of sales revenue.

For each $1 of sales Apple spends:

* 1.9 cents on Advertising
* 3.3 cents on R&D

For each $1 of sales Microsoft spends:

* 2.6 cents on Advertising
* 13.9 cents on R&D

It is important to point out that these numbers are not broken down on how much each company spends on their desktop products alone but for comparing Microsoft to Apple they give us a good proportion of Advertising to R&D.

As the numbers show Microsoft spends more on Advertising than Apple but they also spend five times more on R&D. Exactly the opposite of what the Apple commercial suggests.

And since Apple brought it up, they spend only .7 cents less per sales $1 on Advertising than Microsoft and spend a fraction of what Microsoft spends on improving its products.

Monday, November 17, 2008