Category: Games

Ever have the munchies for a game? Last week when I’ve been migrating part of my old blog over, I hit the days when I got WarCraft III when it was first released.

Well, I went searching for the game and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t on my bookshelf and I search in every single box I thought it could be in. Finally I shoot a email to Liam and turns out its at his house in Berkeley. Oh well, I thought and hoped my munchy would go away. But it didn’t unfortunately. Would it be unethical to download a game that you already own? Well, that’s what I ended up *whiste*.

I never completed the series and never got around to finish it. Plus back then, my computer was barely good enough to run it at 1024×768. Now I can run at 1280×960 (the highest wide screen setting they allow) and I’ve set all the quality settings to high and it still runs really smooth.

Well, yah… that’s what I’ve been doing instead of blogging this past week.

---

Random Crap:

Official in S.C.: Sterilize bad parents – A City Council member, reacting to a video store holdup believed to have been carried out by children, says parents who can’t properly care for their kids should be sterilized. Haha!

Man wears cardboard box at Pa. hearing – A man accused of theft arrived for a preliminary hearing Thursday wearing a cardboard box on his head in an effort to conceal his identity. … “I’m trying to think outside of the box, so to speak,” Leonard said. Isn’t that the opposite? I’d think he’s thinking “inside” the box.

Are burglars these days just getting dumber?

• Alleged burglar does laundry, gets pizza
• Burglar betrayed by urge to play piano

Seven-metre fingernails win place in book of records – Lee Redmond soaks hers in olive oil. Aaron Studham lathers his in hairspray. They both say it’s worth it. Redmond, 65, earned an entry in the latest edition of Guinness World Records with the world’s longest fingernails that have now reached a resplendent 24 feet 7 inches (7.51 metres). Studham, 17, joined the ranks of the weird, wacky and wonderful with the tallest hair on the planet.

Dry cleaner finds note about ‘murder’ – Dry cleaners find all kinds of things hiding in the clothes of their customers — but probably nothing quite like what some employees stumbled across recently. A note found in a customer’s clothing read, “You have committed a murder, but no one believes it. All I can do is kill myself, then everyone will see what you have done.” It was signed: “Your wife, Alice.”

Robot Chicken: Inspector Gadget (from RayAlome) – A hilarouis video parody of Inspector Gadget mix with Terminator.

Beijing’s penis emporium – An interesting read on Chinese delicacies made with “animal penises”. Did you know that snakes have two penises each?

PARK(ing) (from /.) – PARK(ing) is an investigation into reprogramming a typical unit of private vehicular space by leasing a metered parking spot for public recreational activity. An very interesting project. Do check out the photos and video.

Art teacher’s naked lecture denounced – The naked lecture made many of the 30 or so students feel “uneasy”, the paper said. “Some kept their eyes trained on the ceiling, some awkwardly bowed their heads and stared at the ground“. Why is that? If this was in America, everyone would be staring. As kids, my parents told us to look away whenever there was a sexual scene in the movie. I guess we were just “trained” to do so.

Files.to – a similar site to RapidShare and MEGAUPLOAD, but so far, this new site beats both hands down. I’ve gotten consistent 500KB/s download with only ~10second wait. I can have 2 simultaneous transfers at the same time too.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (from Cari) – a rather funny comic strip on how to cure AIDS.

Ten Most Used BitTorrent Sites Compared (from /.):

When I first began to use BitTorrent in 2004 there was little question as to which indexing site to use. Today, Suprnova is long gone and we are left with an array of diverse options. This is a comparison of today’s ten most used BitTorrent sites according to Alexa.com.

Ten Most Used BitTorrent Sites:

• BTJunkie – Editors Choice
• BitTorrent.com
• Bushtorrent & Torrentreactor (Mirror Indexes)
• isoHunt
• Meganova
• Mininova
• The Pirate Bay
• Torrent Portal
• TorrentSpy
• Torrentz

Man with faulty implant may not get cash – The implant has caused Lennon to have an erection for 10 years.

Man who pawned rifle as boy gets it back – It was a ricochet nearly 50 years in the making. At age 8, Terry Jackson gave up his prized .22-caliber Winchester short-barrel rifle to get his grandmother a washer. Recently, the 57-year-old got the gun back through a series of chance encounters and conversations. One of the few articles that I actually read all the way through. Story is quite touching.

So Smooth (from RayAlome) – a hilarious video of some guy arguing who’s better by making “I’m so… you’re so…” punch lines with a hint of geekiness. RayAlome tells me there’s more at: Barats & Bereta Productions. They were also the ones that did that auto insurance video I posted the other day.

GrandCentral (from B$) – A pretty neat service which provides a local phone number and then forwards your calls to your home phone, work phone, mobile phone, etc based on time and the caller. The free service gives upto 100 minutes of voice time a month and afterwards forwards your calls to an voice mailbox. You get to try the premium service free during this beta period. It even allows you to choose your own ringtones which you can upload your own mp3s.

Mega Man Powered Up (from Tera) – They’ve completely redone the original Mega Man game and gave it a new skin. The characters are so cute and adorable now! Do check out the videos. I’d recommend the Official Trailer Extended.

The Genius of George Bush (from RayAlome) – The Genius of George Bush, funny montage of priceless Bush in action.

Guy gets a rocket to the crotch (from DeadLock) – title explains it all.

The Package (from MS newsgroup) – a pretty interesting game. Requires a bit of computer/programming knowledge. Only took me 3 minutes to solve this puzzle.

Gentlemen, stop your engines (from /.) – EEStor’s device is not technically a battery because no chemicals are involved. In fact, it contains no hazardous materials whatsoever. Yet it acts like a battery in that it stores electricity. If it works as it’s supposed to, it will charge up in five minutes and provide enough energy to drive 500 miles on about $9 worth of electricity. At today’s gas prices, covering that distance can cost $60 or more; the EEStor device would power a car for the equivalent of about 45 cents a gallon.

If you have an Xbox 360 and an internet connection, Xbox Live Arcade is giving away Texas Hold ’em for free for the 1st 48 hours of release.

Texas Hold ’em Free in Arcade for First 48 Hours (from SD):

Microsoft isn’t bluffing: Log on to Xbox Live® within the first 48 hours after launch and download Texas Hold ’em completely free of charge! This full-featured poker title for Xbox Live Arcade on Xbox 360™ will launch on Wednesday, August 23, at 0800 GMT (1:00 A.M. Pacific Time).

For 48 hours only—through 0800 GMT (1:00 A.M. Pacific Time) Friday, August 25—as a special limited-time only promotion, all Xbox Live Gold and Silver members can download (and own) the game at no charge. Starting at 0801 GMT (1:01 A.M. Pacific Time) Friday, August 25, Texas Hold ’em will be available for 800 Microsoft Points.

Since this was a limited time offer, I actually went and cracked open my Xbox 360 from the storage area and set it up.

After downloading it, I gave it a short whirl. The animation and graphics were actually pretty nice. However I did lose $1200 already (from my initial $2000). Hehe. The game is fast moving and the buttons were easy to figure out, though I would say that holding onto the controller at lengths of time got tiring given the fact I pushed a button or two every 15 seconds. With an Xbox Live Silver account (free), you can play the single player mode. With the Sbox Live Gold account, you can play online with other players. I doubt they’ll ever make a version that allows playing with real money, though you never know.

Enjoy!

Speaking of which, I just realized you can now buy Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting through Xbox Live. It’s actually quite tempting for only 800pts (~$10). According to the newsflash, Street Fighter II Best Seller in Arcade – Sunnyvale , California—Capcom® today announced that Street Fighter® II’ Hyper Fighting, the company’s first title for Xbox Live® Arcade, has seen a phenomenal record of downloads since its debut on August 2. Within the first 24 hours of its unveiling, Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting has become the fastest selling Xbox Live Arcade title to date with hundreds of matches being played every hour.

---

Random Crap:

Beloit College’s Mindset List for the Class of 2010 (from MS newsgroup) – A rite of autumn is under way with the arrival of first-year students at thousands of colleges and universities for registration. Most 18-year-old students entering the class of 2010 this fall were born in 1988. They grew up with a mouse in one hand and a computer screen as part of their worldview. They learned to surf the internet as they learned to read. While they were still in their cribs, the 20th century started to close as the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet bloc disintegrated, and frequent traditional wars in Latin America gave way to the uncontrolled terrors of the Middle East.. The list is interesting and I even went back to read the Class of 2005 Mindset List.

No, that’s not a penis pump, Mom. Really – Cook County prosecutors say a 29-year-old man traveling with his mother desperately didn’t want her to know he’d packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey. So he told security it was a bomb, officials said. Sigh… How dumb can people get?

An interesting thought from Deadlock: I was looking at that penis pump thing… I didn’t read the full article, but I think the airport misheard the guy. I bet he would have said BONG, because that would make more sense.

Police crack down on striptease funerals… – “Striptease used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai’s rural areas to allure viewers,” it said. “Local villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honored.”

Ant jaws break speed record, propel insects into air, biologists find (from /.) – A species of ant native to Central and South America is entering the annals of extreme animal movement, boasting jaws arguably more impressive than such noteworthy contenders as the great white shark and the spotted hyena. Biologists clocked the speed at which the trap-jaw ant, Odontomachus bauri, closes its mandibles at 35 to 64 meters per second, or 78 to 145 miles per hour – an action they say is the fastest self-powered predatory strike in the animal kingdom. The average duration of a strike was a mere 0.13 milliseconds, or 2,300 times faster than the blink of an eye. Do check out the videos showing the ant achieving heights up to 8.3 centimeters and horizontal distances up to 39.6 centimeters.

Dear Sir Bill Gates: invoice enclosed (from /.) – Please find enclosed my invoice for £1,200 sterling for administrative and consulting work, caused by the need to repair Microsoft sabotage. I dare say you’d like details: An funny and interesting, yet so true complaint about Windows Update and the automatic “forced” restart.

San Francisco in Jell-O (from MS newsgroup) – a gallery of photos of a model of San Francisco made completely in Jell-O done by Elizabeth Hickok. She actually has a video of the jello city.

I was just reading an article about Lego Mindstorm and then an interesting thought popped into my head, and that was if the name Lego was still copyrighted. Like Kleenex, Xerox, and even Photoshop, they almost lost their trademarks because people were using them as ‘nouns’ isntead of ‘adjectives’ and the companies were not doing anything to protect the trademark. But of course, after the notice, they notified everyone of the illegal usage and told them to comply with the copyright law.

Legos, Legos, Legos… What else do you call them? Apparently you’re supposed to call them Lego bricks. But either way, no one ever calls them bricks. You even call the imitation ones Legos. Maybe building blocks might work, but that’s stretching it.

According to Wikipedia, The Lego trademark:

The Lego Group’s name has become so synonymous with its flagship toy that many use the words “Lego” (collectively) or “Legos” to refer to the bricks themselves, and even to any plastic bricks resembling Lego bricks, although the Lego Group discourages this as dilution of their trademark. Lego catalogues in the 1970s and 1980s contained a note that read:

“The word LEGO® is a brand name and is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies. We would sincerely like your help in keeping it special. Please always refer to our bricks as ‘LEGO Bricks or Toys’ and not ‘LEGOS.’ By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand of which we are very proud and that stands for quality the world over. Thank you! Susan Williams, Consumer Services.”

A similar message also appeared to everyone who errantly visited http://legos.com in the year 2005, however it was removed within the next several months, but not before generating a media buzz of notable proportions.

“Lego” is officially written in all uppercase letters. The company asserts that to protect its brand name, the word Lego must always be used as an adjective, as in “LEGO set,” “LEGO products,” “LEGO universe,” and so forth. Nevertheless, such corporate admonitions are frequently ignored and the word lego is commonly used not only as a noun to refer to Lego bricks, but also as a generic term referring to any kind of interlocking toy brick.

I guess they still own the copyright to that word.

It’s finally out! Posted both on my old blog and recently, it turns out it’s finally released. To give you an idea of how long it’s been, chapter 4 was released on 4/27/2004. Chapter 5 was released on 6/30/2006. Looking at my blog entry, I had actually checked for this in mid-April and think I finally gave up on the final chapter.

You can visit Alexander Leon’s Official Mario Brothers Flash series website and watch the 5th chapter there. It’s also mirrored on Newgrounds.

Though this episode was great and the ending being completely unexpected (unless you rewatch the beginning of Chapter 1), I think I still liked Chapter 2 the most. It’s the same reasoning I like The Two Towers better than The Return of the King. Having a big pack of enemy charge into a fortress is always awesome. The soundtrack on that chapter was also better.

Spoilers: (Show)

So as I mentioned, the ending was completely unexpected (unless you remember the beginning of chapter 1). It wasn’t bad, just unexpected. In fact it felt fresh that it didn’t follow the good guys always win and you knew he had planned this all out since the beginning (refer back to beginning of chapter 1 if you don’t remember).

When Mario remembered about the secret garden, I had thought he’d find the star for invincibility, but the flower?!?! Guess I just don’t see how powerful the flower is. And why did he just take one? He could’ve used one and kept another as spare.

When the princess dies, I couldn’t see why she didn’t say anything. She just sort of reached out her hand. I was expecting either “Save me Mario.” or “Mario, you need to live, for those of us who have died.” BUt nope, just slowly sink into the lava.

I finally got my backpack clips after much work:

With flash:

Without flash:

There appears to definitely be differences between:

More so for Yoshi. Mine definitely looks more evil and he has white dots inside his eye. The clips were different too. I don’t really know how to describe the 2 different clips, but you can tell by the image. The ones pictured on their website definitely looks software and cuter. But I’m pretty satisfied with these plushies. They’re about 3″ tall, but once again, took a lot more work than what I would’ve expected to get them.

So here’s the story. I placed an order last night to pickup at the Bellevue Circuit City (about a mile away from work). I get a voice mail this morning telling me that their inventory apparently wasn’t up to date and was out of stock. He said I could either cancel the order or place a special order for this item. I call him and tell him that I’d like to place the special order. He checks a bit and apologizes and tells me that he wouldn’t be able to place the order since it doesn’t appear they’ll be getting any new stock any time soon. I ask if there’s another store around that carries it and he says he’s checked and none of them have it.

At which point, I placed a second order for the Lynnwood Circuit City. I get my email order confirmation and then gave them a call asking if my order was ready. Lynnwood Circuit City is the 2nd closest store at 11 miles away. I’ve been there a couple times because Bellevue Circuit City tends to always be out of stock on any good deals. They told me they were just about to call me and tell me that they spent 20 minutes searching and wasn’t able to find the item, at which point, my only option was to cancel the order.

I thought I was pretty much out of luck, but decided to try one more, the South Center Circuit City in Tukwila. This was about 20 miles away and basically next to the SEATAC airport. But I really wanted these darn Mario and Yoshi backpack clips. When I got my email order confirmation, I went ahead and called them asking them if the order was ready. She checks and goes, yep, it’s ready. I’m like w00h00! After work, I was planning to visit my new house, but decided to check it out on my way back after I got my plushies. I go to the customer service area and handed over my printed recept, my credit card, and my driver’s license. She said my order would be out shortly. When the guy in the warehouse brought it out, the cashier was like, “Oh! These are SO adorable. Were these what you ordered?” I go yep. The guy from the warehouse said something about people thought these were free and he didn’t even know these were listed online. I didn’t really follow what exactly he was saying, but I got my plushies! Yay!

I don’t usually post deals on my site, but these were just too awesome and cute! My $50 Circuit City gift card was going to expire soon, so I thought I’d add another game to my Xbox 360 collection. It came down to either Top Spin 2 or Dead or Alive 4. I ended up getting Dead or Alive 4 because Top Spin 2 wasn’t enough to cover the whole gift card and I didn’t want to end up with some random change on it.

Anyway, while browsing around, I found this:

They’re only $1.99 at Circuit City: Product Link
It appears to be only available for in-store pickup (which is free of charge), so after tax, it’s only $2 and some change.

Show your Mario style: Now you can bring Mario or Yoshi with you wherever you go with these fun clips.

These are going to be so cool!

So I mentioned that the cables provided weren’t long enough. Did they really think 2ft of cable between component input and composite audio input would be enough. So I only had 2 options at this point, which was to buy extension cables for the audio cables or get a optical audio cable. If you look closely at the connector that plugs into the Xbox 360, you’ll see a little hole where you can stick in an optical audio cable. I thought I might as well invest in an optical audio cable, since I have plenty of composite audio cable connects back home in LA.

So I search online for a bit and most places were selling the cable for $10 or more shipped. I did end up finding this at Amazon.com: StarTech.com 10FT THIN TOSLINK DIGITAL ( THINTOS10 ). Buy.com is also selling it for $5.99. Both have free shipping over $25, but I’m on the Prime trial for Amazon.com and 2-day shipping is free. Plus I somehow have a $10 GC in my Amazon.com account, so the choice was pretty obvious. Who knows, maybe I could’ve gotten it cheaper locally, but I’m too lazy like that.

Stanman came by today and we played hours of Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero.

PGR3 is realistic, but I never really found realistic racing games to be all that much fun. We did get a lot better and actually changed the opponent’s skill level from Novice to Easy to Medium (you’d think easy would be below novice) and also ended up giving them Class C cars (we drove Class B cars). I personally had a hard time controll Class A cars and kept crashing into the wall.

Afterwards, I showed him the demo of Ridge Racer 6. That racing game I think is a lot more fun, with the easier control and drifting abilities. I also showed him how fun Geometry War was, though I’m still trying to find cheap points to purchase to get the full game.

We finally played a couple hours of Perfect Dark Zero as we tried out all the different weapons. We started off fighting Agent bots, but near the end, upgraded them to Secret Agent bots. The control takes a bit to figure out and it got qutie annoying because I’d always tap by left joystick and that means to crouch. It’s also hard to tell if you’re crouching or not until you realize you’re moving really slow.

So one question I wanted to find out was what the difference between Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Live Silver was. The Silver subscription is free, and I forget how much the Gold subscription is, but it’s not free. I went with Silver, but it automatically gave me a month trial of Gold (which would automatically degrade to Silver after a month, unless I explicitly tell them I want to subscribe). From this FAQ:

Q. What is Xbox Lvie Silver?

A. Xbox Live Silver is a free version of the Xbox Live service. The main difference between the Gold and Silver levels of service is that you can’t play online multiplayer games with Xbox Live Silver. You can still download content from the Xbox Live Marketplace, download games in the Xbox Live Arcade, and keep a friends list so you can chat and share your gamer profile and achievements.

So it turns out the only difference is you can play multiplayer online. I really doubt I’d do that much as I’m not really a online gamer type nor play games online much. The only time I play multiplayer is probably when I go over to a friend’s house or they come to mine. Looks like I can still download updates, demos, arcade games, and videos and basically anything from their marketplace with my Silver account.

The ability to download demos for the Xbox 360 is pretty awesome. So far I’ve gotten Ridge Racer 6, Full Auto, and Top Spin 2. Each demo is like 700megs and you only have 20GB of space. For some reason, it’s reporting I only have 10GB free now. I think I started with 14GB, but even if I use 20,000,000,000 bytes, I should still be at 18.6GB. I wonder what intially took up that much space. It did come with some videos and the Hexic game, but I doubt that took up 4GB itself. My user profile’s also there, but once again, this is a missing 4GB. There were no demos preloaded into the Xbox 360 that I can recall.

Got my Xbox 360 today!

Played with it for a few hours. Got it set up with my Dell 2405FPW 24″ LCD through the component cables that came with it. The audio is processed through my SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS and into my Logitech speakers. The video mode is set to 1080i and it’s sweet! Before I went to work today, I dropped by our company store and got 3 extra wireless controllers and the following games:

Project Gotham Racing 3
Kameo: Elements of Power
Perfect Dark Zero

I haven’t bothered taking a picture of the setup since it’s still not final yet as I plan on getting an optical audio cable. There’s really 2 reasons for this. 1 is that I want to test out my optical in on my sound card and 2nd is that the cable they gave me wasn’t really long enough since there’s really about 2 ft between the component cable and the audio cable, which doesn’t really give me much room to connect one end to my monitor and the other to my computer (front bay).

Xbox Live is pretty cool as I’ve already downloaded a few demos and trial games. Planning on finding a cheap way to accumulate Live Market Points since Geometry Wars is so fun. I started playing Kameo, but the game is a bit weird and takes awhile to get use to. Connecting the Xbox to the internet was pretty simple as it was just connect the ethernet cable to my switch and then click Sign on.

The premium set came with a headset that connects right into the wireless controller. I haven’t used it yet, but seems like something fun I could play with in the future.

So I finally ordered my Xbox 360. I don’t usually post hot deals on my blog, but this one is just too hot, especially since Microsoft’s announced they won’t be lowering Xbox 360 prices this holiday season.

There’s been 2 threads going on:
B$: xbox 360 for 360 at overstock.com ($340 with coupon)
SD: Xbox 360 Platinum System with HDD $360 at Overstock.com (page 6 and 7 are the most useful)

Both threads are talking about the same thing, but the thread’s title on SD is a bit outdated.

Overstock has the Xbox 360 Platinum for $398.99.
However upon adding to your cart, it drops to $380.44 (including $1.40 shipping)

There’s no sales tax (unless you live in Utah and Indiana). If you do unfortunately live in one of those States, well… you should move.

Next, you’ll need to go through the 10% off coupon link which will get it down to $342.59 shipped. However, some people who go through that same link are getting $340.59 shipped, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. Looking at their posts, it seems the 10% is apply to the $398.99 price instead of the discounted $379.04.

Anyway, after you’ve added the system to your cart, click here to go to the 10% off coupon link (expires 11/31/06).

The price won’t update in your shopping cart, so begin to check out. You could either log into an existing account or create a new one. I’ve had better luck by creating a new account.

Your Order Review should appear like so:
Subtotal: $379.04
Discount: – $0.00
Coupons: – $37.90
Shipping Charge:* $1.40
Tax: $0.00
Grand Total: $342.54

Enjoy!

Do hurry, since Overstock tends to go out of stock on their Xbox 360 supply quite often, given that it’s $60 cheaper than everywhere else. If you’re confused about the terminology, the Platinum system is also known as the Premium system, or the system that comes in the White box (vs the Green box which holds the Core system). It normally retails for $400 + tax + shipping (if applicable) and what differs between the Core and the Premium is that it comes with a 20GB hard drive (Core has no hard drive) and has a wireless controller (Core comes with a wired controller) and a headset. You can see a better chart of the differences at Xbox 360 FAQ – What is the difference between the Xbox 360 Core System and the Premium edition?

At first, I was planning to get mine from Costco. They’re selling their Xbox 360 Bundle for $489.99. There are stacks of these in my local Costo (last weekend that I went). Some people have reported that the price has been lowered to $469.99 at their local Costco, but I don’t think that’s the case here in Washington. I’ve calculated the Costco bundle at $490 and the regular bundle at $400 and with my employee discount, I don’t need $90 to get the extra stuff that the Costco bundle comes with (Extra Wireless Controller, Play & Charge Kit, Project Gotham Racing 3). Although the main reason I wanted to buy from Costco was the return policy. If anything happens to it, like the overheating issue, I can just go and return it and get a new one.

I don’t have a big screen TV yet, but I still can’t wait to plug this into my Dell 24″ LCD. I mean my Dell 2405FPW 24″ LCD supports upto 1080i through the component inputs in the back. Check out these images from [H]ard|Forum – Will XBOX 360 look good on 2405FPW?

Pictures from g-prime.net:

480p:

720p:

1080i:

More pictures:

Don’t the images look pretty darn sweet on the Dell 2405FPW 24″ LCD?

By the way, I just realized what the i and p stand for (i.e. 1080i vs 1080p).
i = interlaced
p = progressive

From What is the difference between interlaced and progressive video?

There are basically two ways to display video: interlaced scan or progressive scan. Progressive scan, used in computer monitors and digital televisions, displays all the horizontal lines of a picture at one time as a single frame . Interlaced scan, used in standard television formats (NTSC, PAL, and SECAM), displays only half of the horizontal lines at a time (the first field , containing the odd-numbered lines, is displayed, followed by the second field, containing the even-numbered lines). Interlacing relies on phosphor persistence of the TV tube to blend the fields together over a fraction of a second into a seemingly single picture. The advantage of interlaced video is that a high refresh rate (50 or 60 Hz) can be achieved with only half the bandwidth. The disadvantage is that the horizontal resolution is essentially cut in half, and the video is often filtered to avoid flicker (interfield twitter) and other artifacts.