September 2005

Straight Jacket Type Fun

High speed internet over power lines is one step closer which I personally think is a fantastic possibility that coupled with the $100 PC idea could really finally make it possible for everyone to have a computer in their home. Suggestion: buy into Citrix stock now.

I normally don't get into single-player mods for games but this T-Lab Complex map for Doom 3 possesses two qualities separate from most mods. First, the design of the map surpasses most amateurish mods. Second, this map's difficulty level rivals that of reading a binary version of the Bible. One note though: the readme states there are batch files to set difficulty levels but they are not in the ZIP. Just bring down the console in Doom 3 and type: map game/samuel/kaiser_1d3.

Yikes, you always think of id as the good guys in software. The company resembles the wet dream of every game developer out there since it's inception all those years ago. Some punk kids get an idea and after long hours they put out a game which changes the world of gaming.

But then you see that article on Bluesnews and realize that 'good' is a relative term when it comes to business.

To sum up, Adrian Carmack didn't retire from id he was fired. Also, id's bosses demanded his shares back in the company for what would have been a miniscule amount compared to what they could have garnered if Activision did buy the company. Activision was said to have been ready to offer $110 million for the company which would have made Adrian's share about $40 million. The owners wanted to offer about $20 million less than that.

So, instead of gaming news, for the next few months this will be the big thing about id. Forget Quake Wars, forget any new projects, now this stuff will go across CNN.com and whatever other mainstream sites will carry it. I'll bet you all real money that there will be long winded commentaries about how the industry has grown up and can't be grassroots anymore and oh what a tragedy. To them I say: welcome to capitalism.

Serious Sam II went gold and will be in stores on October 11th. Time to start stockpiling for the LAN party.

The BBC knows a good story when they see it. More pirate stories!! Look there, the pirates are practicing what economists call economies of scale. Naturally though since they are pirates there are ZERO diminishing returns on investment. They are pirates so the awesome factor cancels out any losses.

Damn, I go to sleep for a while and when I wake up there's a demo for Call of Duty 2 out on the web.

Don't have enough to do with your life? Well, in your spare time make a complete faction list for Everquest 2 like these guys. Mom and dad's basement must be filthy after all this work.

Every once in a while the gaming news gives you a nice little morsel of fantastic news with little fanfare so when you read the news it gives you giggling fits like a little teenage girl. Such news arrived today with the announcement that a demo for Serious Sam 2 will be released on the 21st (today!). Includes most if not all the weapons AND a 4 player co-op mode! Excuse me while I excitedly titter and laugh.

Nothing like taking a walk down memory lane. Today's throwback is Quake Done Quick with a Vengeance. I will never complain about bunny hopping players again after watching the ridiculous physics in this game. I forgot just how FAST you could move in Quake.

What's the new toy of the week here at the Sanitarium? Why it's XFire! Yes, it's been out a while but I just finally got it for no real reason and it's sweet. Find your buddies online no matter what game they're playing (or so it seems) including RTSes, shooters, and RPGs. If you're looking for someone to play some BF2, look me up: Sphinx175.

Why is it when I read BluesNews that I am beginning to see more articles about litigation or lawsuits than actual games.

My post the other day cursed Microsoft to the heavens. Well, there is a way around not being able to play AoE III in Windows 2000. This was provided by a friend of mine who is addicted to RTS games like I am to shooters

1. put the aoe3trial.exe to c:\
2. start -> run -> cmd
3. type: c:\aoe3trial.exe /a
4. click next, then the installer will ask for a network path, simply type in the path you want to install the game to ( e.g. c:\games\AOE3Trial )
5. click Install ( it seems se program does nothing, but the installation is in progress - maybe takes some minutes )
6. and then finish

Doom 3 cooperative mode is available. It should provide a decent respite until Serious Sam 2.

Despite all the bad news the past few weeks, the gods have smiled upon us and delayed Black & White 2 for another week. When asked for comment, Odin, Poseidon, and Zeus stated, "Hey, only so much bad news at once for everyone, ok? Even we sympathize!"

Dear Microsoft: Please pucker up and KISS MY ASS. What the hell do you mean that AoE III will not run on Windows 2000?! You 'tards are offering security update support for Windows 2000 until 2010 yet you can't make a game run on Windows 2000 when Windows 2000 pretty much is the basis for XP. Screw you all, I hope Google does destroy you.

IGN, which is part of Gamespy, was bought out by Murdoch's News Corp. News Corp of course is the news outlet for FoxNews. Personally, I'd pay good money to see the company picnic as all of the young workers at Gamespy/IGN meet up with Bill O'Reily.

Bill: Hey how you all doin-- ALL RIGHT WHO THE HELL posted pictures of my mistress all over the chairs and tables.

Gamespy staff: Sorry Bill, it was those IGN guys. Here's an MP3 players with some tunes

Bill: Cool thanks. HEY THIS IS JUST THOSE PHONE CONVERSATIONS WITH THAT CHICK. @$#^@

Age of Empires III demo is out as of right now. Get to resource hoarding people!

Labor Day is a day of rest. Yet, here I am updating. In 10 years or so when the AMD/Intel antitrust suit is over you can show your kids this link and tell your kids -- as they stare at you blankly while playing on their XBox 1080 -- that yes indeed you did indeed know a time when Intel and AMD coexisted somewhat peacefully and the installation of a PC didn't require a lawyer.

If you haven't donated to help out with Katrina relief, here is a list of places you can visit on the Web or numbers to call.

Been trying to find interesting gaming news but honestly nothing really gets my juices flowing lately since about 70% of the news seems to be about consoles which is really too bad. Heck, I'm not even very excited about new Quake 4 information after what I saw at Quakecon. How bad is that?

Personally, I've been replaying through Knights of Old Republic II. As I expected being bad is just a hell of a lot more fun than being a good Jedi. The characters who you deal with have more interesting stories, the force powers are insanely powerful (Force Storm in particular), and the dialogue options give the feeling of being much more fleshed out than the good powers.

What is very interesting however pertains to the fact that your choices for party members is different between good and bad. For example, at one point when I was good I took a little red headed chick in my party. However, when going bad, a Wookie mercenary kills her and HE joined the party instead. Also, I didn't get the white haired chick from the Jedi Academy.

Also, HK-47 is still one of the best characters ever in any video game. "Query: Do you have someone you'd like killed today, master?" How can one not love that cold blooded assasin droid.

Looking for a new PC and also like to overclock? If this article on Techspot is correct, then the dual core AMD might be the way to go.

With an idle temperature of 31C, [Athlon64 X2 3800+] chip was stable at the speed rating for a 4800+, currently a chip that is over a thousand dollars. With a bit more tweaking, using standard cooling and simple overclocking techniques, the processor ended up coming in at a screaming 2.7Ghz, and outperformed the 4800+ by a pretty good margin.