Going to be a Busy Year: Reviewed

Portal 2


Could I have ever imagined that this game could live up to the hype that was created by the first one, probably not seeing as how most games do not ever live up to the hype. That being said, Portal 2 is not like most games. This game lives up to the hype and then some. The game is exactly what one would expect from Valve after the outburst of fans created from the first game. The humor is spot on, and the voice-acting is superb. I am not sure that I've laughed much more from a video game than this one, except back in Halo 2 when I would live to play in the "No Shots Fired" clan and still win every match. The puzzles are very imaginative, but not so overwhelming that the game becomes very difficult. It makes you think, but doesn't mind-numbingly force you to replay an area again and again and again until you've memorized it, like some other games that came out recently (cough) Ms. Splosion Man (cough). Portal 2 is an excellent game and the co-op specific puzzles make the game loads more fun than being only single player.

The cons: This is the first game that have ever purchased that after beating it the first time, I know 100% that I will never play the game ever again. Once you beat a puzzle, it instantly becomes stale and you have no enjoyment playing it again. Putting a puzzle together is fun, but you don't want to do it again for a while, or maybe not ever. In Portal 2's case, once completed, I never wanted to play the puzzles again, both co-op and single player. Co-op, after going through it once, ruins it for any more of your friends who want to play. You sit there patiently while your friend tries to figure out the puzzle by him/herself, yay, waiting.


BodyCount


BLACK, created by Stewart Black for the Xbox Original, was perhaps the best sounding, looking, and most fun shooter I have ever played, all wrapped up in a single game. There is a very good review on Youtube for the PS2 version of the game, and I couldn't agree more with the person doing the review. Bodycount was deemed the sequel to BLACK, after the idea for BLACK 2 was dumped by Ea. I have been anticipating this game for many years, and was ecstatic when they released a demo a couple weeks before the release date.

I was 3 minutes into the demo when I was more-than-convinced to cancel my pre-order. I continued to play the demo to the end, just to give Bodycount it's fair chance, but it only caused me to immediately drive to the mall and cancel my pre-order. Bodycount looks a lot like Brink, cartoon-like instead of BLACK which was very realistic looking. Bodycount implements a "lock" system which eliminates the need for cover to lock to the ground and lean. Bodycount you can lock yourself anywhere at any time, and lean in any direction, which would be a great system if IT DIDN'T DO IT EVERY TIME YOU TRIED TO ZOOM IN! If you zoom in, you become immobile, and cannot even strafe. You're a sitting duck while you try to move the unintuitive controls around and find your enemies. The environment isn't nearly as destructible as I was hoping, and most of the walls that you try to destroy will leave little fragments that don't allow you to pass until you meticulously aim at every little nail.

The aiming system is okay, where it brings the gun to the middle of the screen and you stare down the barrel. This would have been a good system if the explosion of the bullet leaving the gun wasn't so big that you lose site of the enemy that you're aiming at. If you try to lay into an enemy with a barrage of bullets from a semi-auto, the screen lights up so much that you absolutely cannot see who or what you're shooting at, and this obviously is a big problem in an FPS.


Ms. Splosion Man



I hadn't even mentioned this in the games I wanted to purchase in that original post, but once I found out about this being released I was very excited. Splosion Man was an incredibly addictive, super fun game for single and multiplayer.

I won't go into very much detail, but unless you like a game that forces you to play the same part over and over again until you've memorized that you're supposed to press a button at exactly the correct pixel while being hurtled through the air at Mach 1, you won't like this game. The game will zoom in to your character to the point that even if you have godlike reflexes like I have (from playing on 10 sensitivity in all the Halo games), you can't react to something so random as a barrel flying past you randomly at that specific part. So the game forces you to play again and again until you know that the barrel is coming.

Don't buy this game, play the first one instead.

Gears of War 3



There is hope, however, in the vast world of gaming, and it's name is Epic. Epic Games' Gears of War that is to say. Gears of War has always been a very enjoyable game, with hordes of Locust to plow your way through with overly muscular, weapon toting bad-asses. What's not to love, there's guns, explosions, manly-ness oozing from every orifice, witty humor, and head shots... Oh those sweet, adrenaline thumping head shots, how I live for that sound.

Well those head shots are back, along with many new enemies, some new weapons, and a bunch of new characters. I won't go into the gameplay itself, because it plays just like the older gears. Take cover or get your head taken off, run with a partner and go guns blazing, or hop into horde and fight wave upon wave of Locust and Lambent alike.

That's right, horde mode is back and better than ever. Now, instead of scrambling to find the best place to camp, or quickly grabbing the Boom Shield before a round starts, each player is able to purchase items before a round begins. You get in game money for every kill or assist that you get during the round, and that can be put towards purchasing items. Each item has multiple "unlocks" which you unlock after spending predetermined amounts of in game money. Each unlock either lowers the overall cost of purchasing the item or repairing it, or it unlocks a new upgraded version of the item, making it much more useful. The items, and they're upgrades, for purchase are:

Barriers (Small spikes to red impassible lasers).

Decoys (Cardboard cutout of Cole to somewhat lifelike dummy with a bomb in his chest that kills enemies when it is shot at).

Turrets (Retro Lancer turret to powerful Troika with a shield).

Sentries (Weak Retro Lancer spray to immobilizing gatling gun).

Silverback (No upgrades, only 33% price reduction).

This adds a wonderful element to horde, and makes it somewhat competitive because you want those kills so you can upgrade more stuff. Horde is definitely better than in Gears 2, but it was already amazing in Gears 2 so they did a wonderful job.

Beast mode is a new option in the playlist that is quite the unique idea. Instead of fighting as the COG army against waves of Locust, YOU ARE the Locust trying to exterminate the COG. The objective is simple, until the COG start to build their own fortifications, turrets, and silverbacks. You begin by fighting some unarmored Stranded, but end up fighting the whole squad of COG elite, and boy do they have good shots. Just like in horde mode, killing and getting points gets you in game money, but this isn't spent on fortifications, it's spent on more Horde! The more money you gain, the more tiers of monsters you unlock. There are 4 tiers, and each one has more devastating locust to pick from. You go from being a Ticker or a Wretch to a Berzerker or a Savage Boomer. Yeah that's right, you can PLAY AS A Berzerker!

All in all the campaign was fantastic, horde has some great improvements, the new maps are mostly very fun, beast mode is a great new addition, but the online multiplayer still sucks. They decided that instead of toning down the overly powerful shotgun, let's put an even stronger, more insane shotgun in and let people battle it out. What they forgot is that no one wants to battle it out, they all take the low road and pick the new and improved "kill anything that comes near me" weapon. I stay away from versus, but at least they let you get the achievements and ribbons in private matches with bots of your choosing, that's a huge step up from a lot of games which force you to play kids online.

Gears 3 I think is a Must-Buy for anyone who liked the first 2, or anyone into hardcore action shooters. There are 4 difficulty settings, ranging from Casual, to my personal favorite "Insane."



Serious Sam BFE is apparently only being released for Steam, and this is fairly aggravating. Looks like I won't be playing any super-crazy out-of-control madness of an awesome FPS this year.



As for Skyrim, I've put more hours into the game than I want to mention. I have maxed out my main character's stats legitimately, and I have completed a digusting amount of quests. My second character has done most of the game, and everything that my main character was unable to do due. Things that unable to do because of glitches that prevented certain quests/items/NPCs/etc to perform their required tasks or "trigger" appropriately.

I have put so many hours into Skyrim that I fear it can be described as an addiction, but I still enjoy every moment of the game. There are still times where I perch myself high atop a mountain peak, after straining for what seems to be hours to strategically climb my way up every crevice and cliff, and I stare at the world around me, or the aurora high above my head in the night sky.

In a short summary, I have played Skyrim for many hours, and I will continue to play for many more because, like its predecessor Oblivion, the game is never ending, and always satisfying to relax and play.

My Letter To Bungie About Halo Reach

Halo 1: Combat Evolved - I remember opening my christmas present and seeing this attached with my xbox, thinking that it was just another "we're trying to promote this game by giving it away free with the console" - game. Turns out it wasn't. Halo 1 was an entirely new gaming experience, giving us a vast world to run and explore while fighting off hordes of aliens threatening human existence. After being released in close-quarters combat as the only Spartan left, you are thrown down to a huge alien world in which you must fight your way further into the enemy stronghold.

You didn't stop here, however. Halo 1 also offered multiplayer. I remember complaining that it didn't have simulates like one of my favorite FPS games Perfect Dark®, but this didn't matter to anyone because "the graphics are so amazing!" Then came the discovery of the LAN party. This was by no means the first game to ever use LAN, but it was the first console game with those kinds of graphics that did. Staying up until unknown hours of the night, secluded in two different rooms in the house, with 2 T.V.s, 2 Xboxes, 8 remotes, a LAN cable that we drilled a hole in the wall for just so we could be in separate rooms, and a whole hell of a lot of screaming at one another. And it still continued.

The LAN games were just the beginning. By using the incredible edible internet (RvB reference here), users were able to download, much to the dismay of Xbox and the slowly developing "Xbox Live®," Xbox Connect, or XBC. XBC was used by those clever enough to scour the internet for it, and get it set up (relatively easy). This gave Halo 1 an incredible jump on every other game that was being released. XBC would soon support many other games besides Halo, but Halo still remains the most prominently used game.

Pistol kill after pistol kill, the game never, to this day, has never gotten boring. Kill or be killed, headshot after headshot, the winner was the one who had more gaming skill. Skill... something that apparently means little to those trying to make a good online FPS nowadays. Halo: Combat Evolved changed the gaming world and set a whole new book of standards for the hardcore and everyday gamers.


Halo 2 - The anticipation killed us, we woke up each day wishing it was November 9th, 2004. Xbox live was up and booming, and the game of many people's dreams was about to hit the market. Halo 2, the sequel to one of the most revolutionary games of the decade, is released in stunning numbers. 8.46 million copies sold as of today, a stunning number for an original Xbox game.

Halo 2 brought us the BR, and along with that, the BxR, BxB, double shot, quad shot, super bounce, and so many blue screeners that we didn't know what to do with ourselves. But we put up with the cheaters, the stand-byers, the host boosters, the circle boosters, the modders, and so many other atrocities, and we continued to play; play for that notorious colored number next to our names.

Before the first rank reset, the notorious number was 21, I got to a 21 and was so proud of myself because that took about 300 wins in a row, somehow without playing modders every other game. We worked so hard for that, memorizing levels, perfecting BxRs and quad shots, only to have our ranks erased. This was, of course, to erase the ranks of the cheaters as well, but none of us cared because the game was still fun.

The new reset came with an easier ranking system, one that was still impossible to legitimately reach the top, but much easier than the last one. We played our hearts out, both having fun and trying every game, only getting upset when you had to wait for that blue screen to go away and see your flag 20 feet from the enemy's score point.

But...we...stayed.... We took all the battering and cheating, and continued to play the game again and again, and until the servers were shut down, I continued to play the game; not just for the memories, not just for kicks and giggles, I went back and played the game (just like I still play Halo 1), for the love of the game.


Halo 3 - After being teased with the beta for a few weeks, people would have given their left lung to get an early copy of Halo 3. Finally, on 9/25/2007, the release of the 3rd game in a series of (so far) perfect games is released. I will not mention the campaign at this point, for we know that these games will continue to have excellent campaign missions. The difference here was with the change to the multiplayer. Halo 3 slowed down the combat a tiny bit, to allow for more equal play amongst players. This allowed the "n00bs" to have a better chance against the elite players. The BxRs and all those glitches were taken care of, the modders and stand-byers were banned and handled appropriately, and we could once again enjoy playing the game.

A new ranking system was introduced, one that let those who dominated show their skills as Generals and recruits were easily identified. The new system also allowed matchmaking to be a little more fair, where instead of completely random pairings for matches, players were typically matched up against other players near their skill range.


You may notice that the review becomes less in depth at this point, and it is to demonstrate what I am getting at here.


Halo: ODST - A game created on the side of the typical Halo series where, instead of playing as the Master Chief, you are an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper who must do his best to protect the city before help arrives. Many people did not enjoy the game, but I thought the campaign was very well formed, and it somewhat reminded me of Halo 1, where the covenant are tough SOBs and you have to watch your back because you can die fairly easily. The heath-pack system returned and the game became much more fun for anyone who likes a game where it's not just run and gun. The element of hiding before you attack, and coordinated cooperative attacks with friends on the big enemies makes the game much more enjoyable.

ODST, besides a very new campaign environment, brought us the firefight mode. Firefight pits you (and if you like, your friends) against an infinite amount of invading covenant forces. Struggling to make it to the end of a round, or having no ammo and being forced to sneak attack an elite in order to get his gun, are things that made Halo 1 so much fun. Although the firefight mode is limited, and you cannot usually play for too long without some friends backing you up, it is a great addition to the Halo series and should be credited as such.


Halo Reach - We'll get to this in a bit. I got one of the early beta codes and have been playing it for a few weeks now. After the initial hype went away for it, I began to realize something.


First, a brief recap.
Halo 1 - Perfect. We continue to play.

Halo 2 - Promised that it would be like Halo 1, but it dramatically changing the play of Halo 1, only keeping the basic element of kill or be killed. A game that, although there were many, many cheaters, we continued to play.

Halo 3 - Promised it would be more like Halo 1, but it didn't even come close. Although the game was made more "friendly" for those who weren't particularly good at it, it was nothing like Halo 1; we continued to play.

Halo ODST - Promised to give us more of a Halo 1 feel, which it did, but there was NO MULTIPLAYER besides firefight, which had nothing to do with playing against other people - the thing that made Halo 1 so spectacular. But.... we continued to play.

Halo Reach - Promised it would be more like Halo 1, the beta shows this isn't happening.

I have continued to play, and I have continued to expect you, Bungie, to recreate the game that got you where you are today, but you have not done so. I have waited and waited for you to realize that people who played the original Halo game are the ones who got your company where it is now, and that we have expected you to continue to give us a reason to purchase your games. You have not.


I am writing this message to tell you that you have failed to recreate the game that first got me interested, you have failed to create a game that lives up to even half of the original Halo 1's reputation, you have created games, not for the hardcore gamers who love to play them, but more for those who are discouraged by playing games that are too tough, or games that don't hold their hand while they play. The Halo games, as they are now, although they require skill to play, have been toned down and simplified, items and options added, and transformed into games that nearly anyone can pick up and play with the big boys.

I congratulate you for creating games that seem more appealing to those who don't enjoy losing just because they're worse than their opponents. The games you are creating aid those who aren't as skilled, giving them a much better chance of victory, thus making the game more enjoyable. The more enjoyable you make a game for people, the more people who will purchase it, I understand that and I am glad you strive for this. The problem is how you're making the game more fun, you're making it more fun by making it easier for the people who aren't good at the game.


I conclude with this:
Thank you for the creation of Halo 1, 2, and ODST. 3 and Reach have been steps too far, and with the newest release (Reach), you will be losing the interest of many people who have longed for a recreation of Halo 1: Combat Evolved.


I hope you receive this, and receive it well. Please inform me when you create the Halo 1 type of game that so many of us long for and have been promised will come.

Linux Photoshop

I have always delighted in giving myself projects with new programs, and one of my favorite things to use is Photoshop. I love exploring the infinite possibilities, and I like to slowly see myself get better and better with the tools that are given to me.

Working in an I.T. Department at a Stage College requires a lot of focus and the ability to solve many different kinds of computer problems. We have found various ways to fix these problems, thanks to some tools that we have been able to find. One of those tools is the use of a Puppy Linux Distribution, so that we can freely navigate all the Windows files and folders, and be able to delete anything that we want, or repartition a drive, or other things like that.

I took the (at the time) latest release of Puppy Linux from their website, and went to work. I boot from the live CD into a test computer, the typical computer that we receive from students (it is the recommended and supported school laptop). I ran through the live CD and found all the correct drivers and utilities that would be needed for us to easily work on the computers when they come in with problems that require us to use Puppy's safe environment. With Puppy fully functional and running exactly how we liked it to run, I needed to do something about the appearance. Puppy comes with a decent theme and background built in, but we wanted something unique for our I.T. Department.

This is where the Photoshopping comes into play.

I used a blank slate and began with a small idea on what I wanted to do. First, I knew that I wanted to incorporate the Puppy Linux puppy, and the word "Linux" in the photo. I quickly added "Linux" and curved it to my liking using the simple built in shapes tool. The next step was to add the puppy logo, but I wanted to make it look a little like a sphere, so I added a small amount of gradient inside an oval near the top of the logo, giving it that spherical look. I created a circle just outside of the logo, a little larger, then feathered it in order to created a sense of distance coming from the logo. I decided that just plain old Linux was too bland for the project, and created my own variation of the word. I strung a long eclipse from the 'I" to one half of the "X", and made it appear to be a ring. I set the ambience by blending a blue gradient into the background, and created a sense of infinity by hand drawing tons and tons of stars, all variations of sizes.

This is what I ended up with, and I am quite proud of the results.

EyeSaver.app

So I've been fooling around with Applescript for a while now, and I decided to give myself a little project. After a long day of sitting and staring at computer screens, my eyes aren't as happy as they were in the morning. When I get in my room and shut the lights off in order to just relax, the only thing that bothers me is the brightness of my screen. Of course, you might say, just turn the stupid brightness down. Well that would be a good idea but that doesn't mean that the white is gone, and it also reduces the focus of the screen, since the colors are getting closer to one another. I looked for a way to fix this problem, without causing the others, and it was quite simple; just invert the colors. With colors inverted, it is harder to view pictures and surf the internet, but I am not one to do that too often. Mainly, I sit on my computer, talk to friends on AIM (I don't MySpace or Facebook, I hate them). I also write my occasional program while sitting in my room.

Apple has a built in color inversion keyboard shortcut (Command + Option + Control + 8). I use this quite often now when I get home and my eyes need to relax but I am unable to get off the computer for either homework or etc. With the new Apples, however, they have a unique little feature that uses the ambient light sensors in the computer to auto-dim your display when the room gets darker. This function is great, and I wanted to write an applescript that utilizes that function with the needs of my own. I created an applescript that uses a C program to determine the current brightness of the display. The C program, as well as some others, is all thinks to Amit Singh, and can be viewed here. I revised the program a tiny bit, and instead of it printing the results to the screen, it writes them to a specific file.

The applescript I created first prompts the user whether the colors are currently inverted or not. It then creates a new folder in your /Library/Application Support/ folder called "EyeSaver." The C program saves a small txt file with the current brightness reading into that folder. The script then reads that value, and acts accordingly. The screen brightness is recorded as a value between 0 and 1, 1 being the brightest. If the screen brightness is below .5 (I have set that as default), then the applescript runs a quick "key code" command which inverts the colors for the user. It records whether or not the screen is inverted by reading a variable either as a 1 or a 0, then stores the new value in the variable if the colors were switched. The program is still in it's beginnings, and only either runs for a set number of seconds, or until you "sudo kill" it haha. I am looking to find a way so that the program can be running in the background or quit at any time.

The program takes up minimal CPU usage and barely any memory. I am confident that it works on a majority of Macs. Any questions or comments and I would be more than happy to reply.

Geektool Desktop

So a while back I downloaded this great little program for my mac. It's called Geektool, and it's free, you can download it here. Basically, it's an automatic command line-running tool, that will display anything you can possibly run in a unix terminal, as well as system logs, and pictures, right on your desktop. Everything runs in the background and is always on the desktop. You can change the font colors and sizes, and place them anywhere on the desktop.

I'm posting here to describe what I have recently done with a couple real simple scripts and some help with photoshop. I am a huge Assas

sin's Creed fan, and with the new one being released, I thought I should spice it up a little b

it.

Currently this is my desktop, using Geektool and a couple scripts I wrote real quick to change the configurations of the lettering.

So, I found the Ezio image on Google images, and the background had a few stars in it, but I went along and Photoshopped the large, faded Assassin's logo somewhat behind Ezio and pulled the "Assassin's Creed II" closer to the center of the picture.

Now for the scripts which enabled me to mimic the font and positions of the words for the date. The simplest way to do this, is to just use Geektool to run some separate shell scripts.

date +%B <- Gives you the current month.

date +%A <- Gives you the current day.

date +%d <- Gives you the current day (number).

date +%Y <- Gives you the current year.

Then all you have to do is position the scripts, change the fonts and colors, and you're all set. They actually have a matching font built right in, it's called Trajan Pro (yes, yes, hehe, let's all get the giggles out first). The only problem with this is that, although it is the same font, it does not perfectly match the Assassin's Creed logo, and being the perfectionist that I am, I needed to find a quick and dirty way to get it to look as much like the logo as I could. This is where the scripts come in to play. If you are familiar with writing scripts, this should be fairly easy. If you are not, I am still fine-tuning them to make sure they work for every day, in every month, and still holds the perfect font we're looking for in our output. As soon as I am sure that the scripts work for everything, so long as you set the font and position correctly, I will post them.

For now, however, I will merely describe what they do, so all you people out there who know how to write scripts, can write your own, maybe you can come up with a better one than I have.

Originally, I was calling if statements, and in each one I was using grep to search for certain letters in the "date +%A" and then acting based on that. Now, I have realized that it is much more efficient to merely call "date +%A" once, and then do if statements for each of the 7 days of the week. Based on which day it is, I pull out all the letters except the first and last, and leave enough spaces in between to account for the missing letters. The script then outputs my results (the two letters with spaces in between) to the console. This is the first script. The second script uses the same method, but instead of removing the inside letters, it removes just the first and last letters of the day, and outputs that. Make sure that you save your scripts as .scpt and that they are in a location that you can remember and access easily later on.

Now that we have the scripts, we can run them using Geektool. Go into Geektool, and place a new "Shell" anywhere on your desktop. For the code that will be executed in the shell, type "osascript /The/Location\ of\ Your/Script_File.scpt". Now you have Geektool running the script file, set the interval which you would like it to update, and change the font to Trajan Pro, with the size and color you would like. Do the same thing for the other script, and you are good to go. Like I mentioned before, I have not made the scripts absolutely perfect yet, the spacing for particular days and months still is not exact, but as soon as I know that they are working perfectly, I will post them.

Fun to be One

So it's official, well it has been for a while but now I have proof outside of the game itself, that I am the best in the world at Yaris. Yes, Yaris, that terrible free arcade game made by Toyota in order to promote their new line of cars. No matter how bad the game is, or even what it is about, how often can someone say that they are the best in the entire world at something? I think it's pretty cool.

Pub Games

So I got the Fable II Pub Games off the dashboard yesterday, thinking they were going to be games of skill/chance. Turns out they are all games of luck, where the computer basically decides if you win or not. The only one that I can find which has a little thinking involved is "Fortune's Towers." It seems that this game can be 'mastered' if one has enough patience to lose a few games and keep playing. Granted ultimately it seems as though no matter what you do, your overall gross is negative. So much for starting Fable II off with some cash ha.