For the past couple of weeks I've had no real opinions (worth writing about), no thoughts or events. My brain has been vegetating, unable to work. The only things that have happened have been related to various objects ceasing to work properly.

This started with the family Smart Car, the brake lights in which have stopped working - both of them. Then my Land Rover started emitting some blue smoke from the exhaust at odd times - which reminds me, I must phone my garage! To top it all off my PC had a bit of a panic attack after it found a few trojans and decided to stop working. Thankfully, the PC is now fixed (albeit with my bank balance £50 lighter), the Smart is going in for a service today and I've just got off the phone with the garage who said the Land Rover shouldn't be a big problem.

I've hit a bit of a brick wall on a couple of my novel's plot points which I'm trying to work through; I have a few ideas for them but need to decide on the best course of action.

In other news; last night I started in an online race series with a few chaps from a car forum and Ben (you remember, my creative associate?) on Forza Motorsport 2, which was a good giggle. There are eight of us in completely standard (except for livery - see below) BMW M3s to level the playing field. T'is rather a lot of fun.

I also received my Call of Duty: World at War BETA code a couple of days ago and the game looks very interesting. I've never been a fan of period games but I am enjoying it. Not sure if I'll pre-order or not just yet.

A challenging and well-made campaign mixed with unlockables mean that there's a good chance you'll come back to this game often. Also, a Stage Creation feature is available, and with a few trials-and-errors you can get your own killing field set up in no time. In terms of controls, A and D move left to right, W jumps, and the mouse handles aiming and shooting. To switch weapons, press the numbers 1-9.

Smileys War fast-paced, choatic, and awesome. Plus, this game wasn't banned on my old school's computers. How can you go wrong with that?

Rating: (Teen) - Content Warnings: Violence, Gore

Play this game here!

By Josh60502

Today I found a review on IGN.com about a WiiWare game called World of Goo. Honestly, the few times I ever saw a picture of this game I didn't think much about it, but to my enormous surprise IGN gave it a 9.5/10. I suppose I'll have to give it another look, and so will you.

IGN Review

Wizard class for Diablo III.  Supposedly the wizard is able to slow down time, which enables him/her to dodge.  Earlier they had also announced both a Barbarian and Witch Doctor class.  Check out the screenies and such.  Looks pretty cool.

• We've got a gas saving tip about buying generic gas - for those who have to commute before planning your raids, this might be helpful
• Marvel versus Capcom 2 heading to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3? Sweet - nothing I like to see more than Mega Man fighting the Hulk. Yeah - that's a fair matchup.
• Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Peace Prize for Economics! Mr. Krugman is a very cool writer for the New York Times, and now I *must* read his book The Conscience of a Liberal since, you know, he's a Nobel prize winner.
• Obama's going to give a talk about shoring up the middle class. Meanwhile, McCain will be giving a speech on shoring up his falling poll numbers

Arrr! That's it for now, mateys! Expect a lot of new things coming soon!

I've been following the political whirlwind; it's hard to look away with the mass-marketing and fireworks—it's definitely the new football. I try to stay atop local news, and I've taken a deep interest into military history, technology and the present overseas conflicts. On the home front, I'm concerned about education, the housing market, the economy (holistically) and our American system of justice, punishment and correction. There isn't much correction... that's how shit is.

Life mostly sucks much of the time; but sometimes, great stuff happens—great enough to forget about and let-go the daily crap we go through. Suicide is a sin to some, inconvenient for others; the funniest, saddest "excuse" I'd heard some time ago: "I'm too lazy to kill myself right now. Maybe later... I mean life really sucks, and that's why I'm bored and have nothing to do."

I try not to let it get to me. I jump on XBOX LIVE; recently downloaded Geometry Wars 2 and Castle Crashers, got Soul Calibur 4 and thanks to Andrew, the Arcade Stick as well. I picked up a red controller and Ninja Gaiden II—I'm loving Itagaki's futuristic-semi-historical ninja blood-storm. More on that. I also wrote about my NGII gaming at my Gamespot-blogospace. If you're at Gamespot, drop a friend invite there!

I've posted a lot of cool images and eye-candy at my Tumblr; it's so quick-n-easy, I think you should check it out! I have DISQUS commenting there as well; if you see something that you like, l'emme know, yea? Perhaps we can discourse!

I've been writing a lot; thinking about whether or not to release more of it online, and if I'm going to do that, where I'm going to put it... the kind of complication I'd like to have more of. I have a ton of new inkwork; you'll make me happy if you ask to see it when we're hanging out, if you like it, perhaps I'll fall in love. This new work means a lot to me—I'm not sure I want to image it online! Perhaps I'll make a special Gallery for my Moleskine Inkbook.

My iPhone has been incredibly stable. I've posted a few screenshots at bradtastic.tumblr.com and going there means that you can see which applications are some of my favorites! I might post at Bradtastic.com again soon... life must continue, momentum helps.

How to Download Video Games Online
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Lewis_Waller]Lewis Waller

Do you still buy your video games from the local games shop? Whether you have a games console or a PC it's now a lot easier, cheaper and faster to download your games online. There are now more sites than ever offering services to download games for your Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and 3, Nintendo Wii, PSP or your PC.

But which sites should you use? Which should you avoid? There are a lot of scams on the internet and it's sometimes hard to separate the genuine offers from the scams. Follow a few simple rules and you will find a decent site that you can download all you video games from for life.

When searching for a site you should take note of a few things. Firstly, avoid downloading from free 'torrent' sites. Although it's always tempting to have something for free rather than pay for it, the files on these sites usually have viruses and spyware on them that even some antivirus software can't detect.

Next, you should choose a site specific to your console. If the site is specific to just one console (or PC) then the selection of games will be a lot greater. Most of the best sites will have games for one console (or PC) and a selection of other media - music, TV shows and movies all available to download at no extra cost, so check for this.

• Ben 10 Toys
  
• Ben 10 Toys USA
  
• Amazon Kindle
  
• Full HD TV
  
• Full HDTV
  
• Full HDTVs
  
• FUll HD TVs

• Online Shopping Blog
• Online Shopping Forums
  

Follow these few simple rules when choosing a service and you will find a great site that you can download all your games from for life. To find reviews for some of my favorite download sites for specific platforms check out the links below... [http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=39886 ]How to Download Nintendo Wii Games [http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38039 ]How to Download Playstation 2 Games [http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=41302 ]How to Download PC Games

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lewis_Waller http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Download-Video-Games-Online&id=808079

It was designed with three intentions - and I agree with the first - to introduce Ha-LO!_@FrEaK542 to the generation that went on while he was just an unintentional sparkle in his father's eye (who we can't ascertain  the identity of for sure).

The second intention - and one I moderately agree with, is that it was a way that oldbies such as I could have all their classic games in one place. I already did, it was called Emulation.

The third intention, I only agree with lightly -  is that it was designed to make money - ALA, everything is. But one thing struck me as annoying. Of course, they have no way of knowing if you're the loyal gamer who still has the cartridge on display, do they?

Then, when the Virtual Console and Wii-Ware titles were hacked, and the Twilight Hack led to the Wad Installer, the gamers who didn't want to pay for the games they still owned were finally in luck. But no - we were still restricted.

That is why, now that the Rom Injection method is commonplace, I will convert every game I own and upload them here in their cracked VC format. Why? Because I know the games I own, the rest of you most likely owned - I didn't have any far out titles (bar a few, say, Puyo Sun 64).

I'm starting with this:

The cartridge makes weird sounds when I shake it - sounds like 'retirement'.

Well, here is the WAD file. To install it? You gotta search that up - but here is the WAD. And here it is again. I think it's PAL only - but if you got freethewads, you might be able to make it region-free. That wasn't my intention, however. Euro-cart, hence Euro-rom, hence Euro-Wii.

The point I'm making is that I'm sick of Nintendo not releasing the games that I owned and want to play, or releasing them really expensive - like TMNT costing 600 - it's a fucking NES game. Yeah, I know about lisencing, sure, and that costs money - but fans make that money - don't lose me, bitch.

I'm just an insignificant speckle of dirt now Nintendo have become granny-bangin' casual game makers.

Oh, and just a finishing note, I injected the rom into Kirby's Adventure, so that's why it has that game's appearance. I've found that Kirby's Adventure is a good rom for injections.

The multiplayer will NOT be the same for the three versions.

We asked whether that meant the multiplayer suite in each game would be exactly the same, and he said, "More than likely, the successive products will add multiplayer content; we haven't decided right now what that is." That brought up the question as to how multiplayer would work if some players only buy the first game while others only buy the second or third games. He said that they haven't made any determinations yet as to how that would work.

Oh Blizzard. How predictable this all was.

First of all, those who are saying that Blizzard is doing this to gain more money, or that WoW influenced them, or that Activision is telling them what to do are all wrong. Blizzard is one of the very few game companies around which can essentially do whatever they want. They can take as long as they want on a game. They can not release a game if they don't want to. Publishers aren't going to mess with the golden goose. After WoW, Blizzard has free reign to do anything, absolutely anything, it wants.

What we do know is that Blizzard's developers generally have the freedom to do what they want. The cause of the Starcraft 2 trilogy is not coming from a corporate plan to rape the consumer. It is coming from developer narcissism.

Developer narcissisim has been found to be rampant throughout much of the industry lately. Developer narcissism is the developers having a tunnel vision of making a 'better product' that they forget the outside world and end up overshooting the customer needs. An example of developer narcissism would be to make a 200 hour single player game. Who has the time to play a 200 hour game? Someone would have to rearrange his or her life to play that game (the people who do this we call the 'hardcore'). Most people are unwilling to rearrange their lives around a video game. In the same way, people are unwilling to rearrange their lives around a TV show or movie. Digital entertainment is popcorn to the consumer, never the main dish.

Developer narcissism has been traced earlier in Blizzard. When World of Warcraft came out, which it became such a  big hit, a developer was caught giving information to a hardcore raiding guild on details of an upcoming dungeon. Some developers apparently identified with the 'hardcore' and catered to their desires of yet even more elaborate high end dungeons. The problem here was that this was not the reason why WoW became big in the first place. After the backlash, Blizzard figured out their mistake and realized they needed to keep generating content for those who could not particpate in high end raids.

The way how Blizzard makes a RTS is to create the multiplayer first (as that is where all the gameplay gets ironed out) and use that gameplay to make the single player campaigns. I expect this method is used for almost every successful RTS. As Blizzard gets done ironing out the multiplayer Starcraft 2 gameplay, only then can they really make the single player campaigns.

Unfortunately, the Starcraft 2 developers have Big Ideas about how the single player campaign should be. These grandiose ideas of RPG and mission selection concepts would delay the single player campaign way, way beyond the time needed for games such as Warcraft 3. Since Blizzard developers can do almost anything they want, they, of course, are not going to 'tone down' their vision. They decide they want to go through with it.

It reminds me of a saying from Iwata: "What is fun for the developers is not necessarily fun for the consumers." And what is fun for the consumers is not necessarily fun for the developers. The developers think this idea is COOL, and they get to have so much fun with it. However, the consumers do not think it is fun or 'cool' at all.

Rob Pardo reveals the developer narcissism:

Pardo then turned the game off, and it was time to make the announcement: he said that with all of this adventure gameplay and all of these cinematics and missions Starcraft II was just getting too big -- they wanted every race to have its own filled-out story, complete with options and branching paths and full characters. And so, said Pardo, they had three options: cut back and do less, open up and make three games, or delay the game greatly while still compromising. He asked the audience what they would have done, and they cheered when given the option Blizzard chose: there will be three different Starcraft II games, one for each race.

Translate the bold and what Blizzard developers really want to do is be 'artists' and make the singleplayer into a Magnum Opus. It is the natural instinct of developers to want to do 'bigger and better' of what has gone before. However, it is a grave mistake to treat the definition of quality by the definition of the product. Rather, the only measure of quality is the definition given by the consumer. (For a rather easy example of this, look at the PS3 versus the Wii. The PS3's quality was defined in a product prism, be it better technology, more features, etc. The Wii's quality was defined by how consumers absorb it, how they fit it into their lives. Since consumers define what is quality, Wii's sales speak for themselves.)

How do customers consume the RTS game? This is a fun question. Almost always, the customer plays the single player campaign. The reason why is because the customer is scared of multiplayer due to not knowing any of the units or gameplay. In other words, the customer plays the single player as a tutorial to understand the multiplayer.

Sure enough, the Blizzard RTS games all used the single player as an entertaining tutorial from Warcraft 1 onward. The first missions were very easy and used starting units. Later missions would use more advanced units and get the player used to them. An entertaining story tied all these missions together and gave purpose as to why the conflict exists in the first place. Once one campaign was over, it would switch to another faction and the process would start all over again. This change of perspective was highly entertaining and customers were willing to play through all the single player campaign because of it.

There are some people who do play the game primarily for single player. However, almost all of these players majorly suck in multiplayer. The dirty secret is that these players' game tactics only really revolve around turtling (surrounding their base with high powered towers and units) and advancing the tech tree. It is no wonder they always die in multiplayer. Nevertheless, these players breathe in the story, lore, and cinematics of the single player game thinking that it is the meat of the game. It isn't. It is merely the sizzle. The steak is the multiplayer and always has been. Blizzard RTS games aren't designed around singleplayer but multiplayer. Starcraft 2 is no exception.

One can trace some of this developer narcissism back to Frozen Throne actually. Most of the missions had absolutely nothing to do with multiplayer gameplay. There were new units, that one fought against or played with, as well as new factions not available in multiplayer. Many missions were non-base missions which were merely a group of units going through puzzle like caves. "What the hell is this garbage?" I thought as I destroyed countless Naga. Apparently, the developers were taking the storyline and characters of Warcraft 3 a little too seriously. Most of this was written off as simply setting up World of Warcraft. Now, it appears Blizzard RTS developers were beginning to overshoot the single player campaign.

One bad tactic some people are doing is saying that those unhappy with the 'trilogy' should be 'overjoyed' by it, that they should be on their hands and knees thanking Blizzard. This is condenscending and is not addressing the concerns these unhappy customers have.

Customers care about purchasing a complete product. This is why there is so much anger at DLC and other things that are sold after the game comes out. No one wants to pay for a content patch. However, expansion packs are considered complete products. If companies put up expansion packs as downloadable purchases, no one complains. But only by breaking it into pieces, the customer feels nickel and dimed because the customer does not feel he or she is purchasing a complete product.

Rob Pardo says Starcraft 2 The Terran Campaign is a complete product because it has 30+ missions as the original Starcraft had 32 missions. Rob Pardo does not define what is a complete product. Only the customer does.

If customers say a game feels empty and not complete, and the developer disagrees, who is right in the end? Developer can argue with customers all he wants, but the customers are the judges of quality, not the developers, nor the game journalists.

What Blizzard needs to ask is, "Why does the customer not feel this is a complete product?" The answers are pretty obvious:

-Lack of tutorial introduction (which is what single player campaigns are) of the Protoss and Zerg.
-Lack of variety in the single player (30 missions of the same race will grow boring no matter how 'amazing' the missions are. The Protoss and Zerg Terran missions are missing the point of perspective which the Protoss and Zerg campaigns bring).
-Unfinished story.
-Unfinished multiplayer (as Pardo admits, we will likely have to buy the game thrice for multiplayer updates. It won't stay just the single player campaigns because everyone would, and rightly so, pirate the Zerg and Protoss campaigns)

Anyone remember the first Red Alert? It came on two discs which had a different campaign each. Both had full multiplayer. Westwood (God bless them!) intended people to buy Red Alert and lend the second disc to a friend where they could play multiplayer together (and the friend could play a campaign). This is one of the big reasons Red Alert was successful.

Now imagine Starcraft II and its trilogy. When the Zerg Campaign comes out, the dutiful Blizzard fan purchases it. However, this fan has a friend who wants to play. No problem. He lends the old Terran Campaign to him and the two can play multiplayer without that friend ever having to buy the game. Blizzard will never allow this. The fact that they had not thought this far confirms the trilogy is a result of developer narcissism rather than a business model approach.

What I would like to see is Blizzard fans get together and make deals with each other on borrowing the trilogy parts. Starcraft Player A and Starcraft Player B buy the Terran Campaign. Starcraft Player A buys the Zerg Campaign and gives it to the to Starcraft Player B when he is done. Starcraft Player B buys the Protoss Campaign and gives it to Starcraft Player A when he is done. You see what a mess this is presenting? Blizzard obviously is stuck in their 'we-developers-are-genius' world and are not considering customer behavior.

What is sad is that customers are more than willing to purchase expansion packs, even multiple ones, for Starcraft. Blizzard knows this which is why they are trying to spin the trilogy into 'expansions'. But if they are stand alone products, then they are anything but expansions.

What is not said but felt is that the customer feels insulted by this move. Why? It is because Blizzard is not considering customer behavior. STARCRAFT WAS NEVER ABOUT SINGLE PLAYER ANYWAY. Single player is not why the game got big in Korea. Single player is not why the original game is still played today. So why the hell is Blizzard focusing so much on the single player?

It is because they want to, customers be damned. They are so caught up in believing how 'beautiful' their Starcraft 2 baby is, that only the most fleshed out campaigns will do. They couldn't wait for an 'expansion' for them to do their experimental single player campaign. Oh no. Blizzard developers are angels, I hear. They float around on a plane of existence above those of measely customers. They are so brilliant, so genius, so incredible, instead of customers complaining (how dare they!), customers ought to be on their knees and begging forgiveness from the great Blizzard gods. This is how arrogant they have become.

This issue will not go away. Blizzard's reputation, while high, will take a hit for it. Sure, they will make money from it. But remember, it is easier to lower a company's brand than to raise it. And everyone is agreeing that Blizzard's best days seem increasingly behind them. (I've had warning signs on Starcraft 2 ever since I heard developers refused to remove the Zerg queen even though they haven't been able to make it work after two years. Don't they know the Queen destroyed the Borg? Why would Zerg need such a matriarch instead of being a cool collective? And why insist it stay in the game when it is nothing more than a buff unit? It is likely because they have single player 'story' plans for it. Ugh.)

One very shrewed observer told me another reason than 'developer narcissism' of why the trilogy is taking place.

"You don't get it, Malstrom. While developer narcissism certainly has a part, it doesn't explain the business reason."

"You're right. Starcraft isn't about single player anyway. Are you saying that it is an excuse to say the released product is not finished?"

"Yes. Very, very few games are as anticipated as Starcraft II is. Remember when Warcraft 3 came out, while a very, very good game, it did disapoint a little."

"I do remember!"

"Starcraft 2, while likely high quality, is going to disapoint. It is simply the nature of the beast with all this anticipation around it. Even if the game does everything perfectly, fans will say, 'meh, it is OK. It could have been better!'"

"You are right that the higher the game is on its hype pedestal, the further it falls. Starcraft 2 is not out so it is in abstract. Everyone imagines the game to be *perfect*. But since no game is ever *perfect*, Starcraft 2 can only disapoint despite its quality."

"Exactly! And this is the real reason why the developers have gone way overboard on the single player campaign in the first place. They are no where near starting the Protoss and Zerg campaigns."

"You mean..."

"The only way for Blizzard to sidestep the inevitable disapointment that Starcraft 2 will bring when it is released (due to how hyped it is) is for it to release a product that is still not yet *done*."

"So when zealot fans play Starcraft 2 and, once the hype leaves their brains, they feel disapointed, they will not complain because of the two other parts of the trilogy coming out?"

"Yes! And Blizzard gets to easily fix anything that people did not like in the Terran Campaign."

"So what you are saying is that the decision of the trilogy is because Blizzard lacks confidence in Starcraft 2 in the context of surpassing the legendary Starcraft 1. This is why the necessity for the 'game isn't fully done' for the trilogy."

"All this bullshit Blizzard is spewing about it being 'choice' for customers is really about a 'safety net' for Blizzard."

Whether one believes the move for a trilogy is to fulfill the appetite for developer narcissism or for Blizzard to create a 'safety net' for saving the Starcraft franchise from extreme hype and inevitable letdown from such lofty heights doesn't matter. What matters is that the Starcraft 2 trilogy is designed for Blizzard's benefit, not for the customer's. A customer oriented company, no longer. Blizzard might as well be described now as a developer oriented company, inwardly looking, rather than outwardly. The old Blizzard I knew, who included Kali with Warcraft 2 to make the game more enjoyable for customers, to the allowance of puds, to the 'spawning' of the game onto multiple computers... that company is gone.

The obvious question might seem to be "How does he do it", but I'm wondering about those books under his desk...

What he should really work on is getting Track IR tied to synergy so he doesn't need all those mice.

It's ... but it's also ... and overall it's very.

http://www.tiltedmill.com/hinterland/videos.php

Ok, let me try again. Hinterland is extracts from UO, EverQuest 1 (early days), Diablo with a pinch of Children of the Nile. (Ok, I didn't know they made that too, they made Caesar IV too which I also liked).

But it doesn't quite go all the way. I'll flirt, charm and woo you, it'll plan a romantic evening with a steak dinner, a half hour of soft porn, it'll dim the lights and then it'll tell you game over. But in the morning, you'll probably think it was worth it... Especially for the mere $20 asking price!

The basic premise is: build your town up and fend off the surrounding marauders. Every day there is an opportunity for visitors to stop by your town. If they have skills you need and you have the cash and the relevant pre-requisites, you can invite them into your town. Your first hire will probably be someone who can farm or hunt or herd. After that you're going to want craftsfolk, an innkeep, a merchant, and so forth...

Over time you'll be able to upgrade various townspeople's places. A farm becomes a large farm becomes a plantation.

However, you'll start off somewhat strapped for cash. To stock up you'll need to venture out into the surrounding land and kill spiders, bandits, ogres, etc.

The baddies are installed at "sites". The sites are randomized each game, but each game has a fixed number of sites with a fixed number of baddies and no respawns. The only augmentation to the flow of hostilities are the occasional "raider" outbreaks which comprise four baddies charging from a random, unreached site and heading to your town to attack it.

When you go out adventuring, you have the option of inviting upto 3 villagers to accompany you. Those you take out with you will level up as they go.

Some sites have gold chests with nifty loot on them, most sites produce a chest when you kill the last (of 6-8) baddies at them.

For those first 6-8 levels, the loot is pretty good.

But then things start to peter out and it doesn't quite feel like you're ready to be done. Loot becomes less imaginative/creative and if you run the game long you find yourself outmatching all the mobs in the world.

There's a lot of stuff that could probably use the good folks at +7 Systems assistance. For instance, I got a necro relatively early on and did a fair amount of what Krieger tells me is called turtleing (staying in town to make money and food: in-fact, I was just chilling and not going out adventuring while I waited for things like my necro to summon a pet or for enough food to come in to allow me to upgrade a building before I ran off).

By the time I reached level 10, my level 5 necro was summoning level 25 zombies. His 20+ pets demolished everything in the game before anything else could reach them. I figured I would be going up against tougher mobs soon but ... nope, the few Level 13s I'd fought were the only ones on the map and Arnald's zombies (the last one was level 27) plowed thru the level 6-10s at the last 10 sites (which hadn't been revealed till I got to them). It actually took out an entire site on its own when the pathing lead it astray.

There are tons of little niggles in Hinterland -- the pathing is truly awful but at least they put in some code to tell things to give up and try a different route when they get stuck. It could really do with kicking in sooner tho. There are an assortment of things cluttering the land - half of it is just that, clutter, the other half are actual obstacles, and it takes a little while getting your head around which is which.

The limited scope also makes it feel like an early level of a larger game (say stage 3 or 4 of Age of Empires or Caesar); and the wrap up makes it feel almost like a demo-teaser (Game Over: you have 5 [game] days left to play).

In some areas it is obviously begging for a little more advancement of particular citizens, although I was quite pleased to discover that the Herder upgrades to a Dragon Herder who actually brings the dragon along to fight for you if you ask them to. Sadly, by the time you have a dragon herder they're going to be a bit useless and the dragon pet is terribly weak even if you're only level 6 or 7. The crafts people also only seem suited up to about levels 4 or 5. You can upgrade a craftsman to a fletcher, or to a smithy and then an armorer or a weaponsmith. The resulting gear they produce doesn't scale, so once you pass level 6 their output is pretty much cruft.

Overall, though, I've had 10x more fun playing Hinterland than I did Spore, and it only costs $20.

I'll probably give hard a try before finally backing up the files and saving it for a rainy weekend.

Postscript

You can beat this game. You can trounce it. That's so contrary to most modern game designs that I failed to recognize it. If you go at this game brute-force, it will roll out the welcome matt for you.

The challenge in Hinterland is to get a high score, which isn't the same as oblierating everything in the gameworld with your eyes closed.

Do yourself a favor, put your min-maxer hat to one side and enjoy looting, levelling and building :)

But some companies might do more than survive - they might prosper. Companies that buy advertising (rather than selling it) will find that they can now buy advertising more cheaply than previously.

Ecommerce companies, subscription businesses, lead gen businesses and online game companies are all buyers of online advertising. In the last advertising slowdown, companies like Expedia, Zappos, Quin Street, Lending Tree, Lower My Bills, Netflix, Classmates.com and Ancestry.com were all able to grow to over $100M in revenue by taking advantage of cheap media.

Will history repeat itself in this recession? It is hard to know. Certainly lower CPMs can lead to lower customer acquisition costs if all else is equal. But the difference between this recession and the last one is consumer confidence, which is markedly lower today than in the 2000-2003 time period. As a result, there may simply be less buyers out there to acquire. Compete recently noted the marked drop in "in market auto buyers" over the last two years for example - down 37%:

Certainly, consumers are deferring "considered purchases" including homes, cars and other big ticket items. Etailers selling "necessities" that cannot be deferred, such as diapers or business cards, will do fine. The question is what will happen to the demand for small ticket consumer discretionary spending. Starbucks might be considered a proxy for this sort of spending. Unfortunately, the news for Starbucks isn't good. Notes Seeking Alpha:

There was a time when getting a coffee at Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) – whether a basic “tall bold” or a souped-up venti concoction – was considered a relatively cheap treat, though those of us with a daily Starbucks habit might think otherwise.

However, a report from RBC Capital Markets analyst Larry Miller indicates that even that daily cup of store-bought java is one of the victims of the credit crunch. Mr. Miller lowered his 2009 earnings estimates – to $0.90 from $0.95, and said:

[The move] reflects our proprietary survey work, which suggests Starbucks sales continue to weaken as consumers are changing their habits and brewing more coffee at home.

This does not bode well for small ticket discretionary spending.

One potential brightspot may be gaming. The games industry has historically been considered counter cyclical. The argument has been that for $50s you can buy a game that will give you 50-100 hours of enjoyment, versus $10 for a 2 hour movie or $5 for a magazine that you'll finish in an hour. Free to play games make this argument even more compelling. Free to play games may be able to take advantage of cheaper customer acquisition costs in an advertising recession.

For other forms of discretionary small ticket spending, the jury may still be out.

about me:

Ofcourse i cant say that im a ProGamer, I enjoy playing all sorts of Games and stuff... I love playing online games very much... so i decided to share  this experience with Everyone!

Nuff said... let the GameS Begin!

Tier 1
Special Grenades x 3
Satchel Charge x 2 Functions like C4
M9A1 Bazooka x 2
Bomb Squad (Unlocked at lvl 16)
Bouncing Betty x 2 Land Mines (24)
Bandolier (40)
Primary Grenades x 2 (44)
M2 Flamethrower (65)

Tier 2
Stopping Power
Fireworks Higher explosive weapon damage.
Flak Jacket Reduces explosive damage.
Gas Mask Protects against Tabun Gas.
Juggernaut
Camouflage (12)
Sleight of Hand (28)
Shades (32)
Double Tap (36)
Overkill (56)

Tier 3
Deep Impact
Extreme Conditioning
Steady Aim
Toss Back Resets fuse of picked up grenades.
Second Chance The new "Last Stand", only this time you can be revived after being downed. If someone steals your kill, you get 8XP, the finisher gets 5.
Martyrdom Yeah, it's back. (20)
Fireproof (48)
Dead Silence (52)
Iron Lungs (60)
Reconnaissance (64)

Vehicle Perk
Water Cooler Decreases turret overheat.
Greased Bearings Increases turret rotation speed.
Ordnance Training (12)
Leadfoot (28)
Coaxial Machine Gun (40)

Maps

Castle is a small, fast paced map very reminiscent of an Unreal Tournament arena. A good blend of indoor/outdoor combat, with hotspots for every class and an ironically peaceful Japanese tea-garden aesthetic.

Makin makes you feel like you're going to get weird mosquito-borne illnesses. It's a good map for close range combat, but with enough open space over water and from rickshaw to rickshaw for rifles too.

Roundhouse is a large, round Gears of War looking map peppered with trains and rubble, a few high sniping points, and multiple tanks.

Kill Streak Rewards
Apparently Treyarch did their homework and determined that UAVs, Jets, and Minigun-toting helicopters weren't in wide use during WWII. The 3, 5, and 7 kill streak rewards have been modified accordingly. The Recon Plane functions identically to the UAV. Calling in Artillery is also similar to the airstrike, although it's a more sustained, radial target area. Finnally, the helicopter has been replaced with calling in Attack Dogs. Believe it or not, man's best friend has the capacity to be more lethal than that helicopter ever was. The dogs (at least 4 or 5, maybe more) start running from outside the map when called and will seek out, while barking, nearby enemies. They are a small fast target, so they're hard to kill, even with a well timed melee. Although they do give you +3XP should you choose to defend yourself and envoke the wrath of PETA, you'll usually die after the second maul. At the very least, the pack of dogs will get the entire opposing team firing their weapons, distracted and giving away positions.

Vehicles
The only vehicle available in the beta is a stubby little tank on Roundhouse. It's a noticeably slow moving and slow reloading with room for two; driver/gunner and mounted gunner.
The vehicles look like they'll be more tactical tools rather than an exercise in brute force this time around. Vehicles have armor that can be blown off to expose weak spots. The driver has a HUD that displays damage to various areas. This tank can take quite a beating if the opposing team doesn't focus on where they're hitting it. The cannon takes some practice to be effective with, but the mounted turret is vicious, although it overheats quickly and exposes it's user.

Weapons, Unlocks and Challenges
All the challenges are back in the barracks, both Marksman (kills) and Expert (headshots) for most weapons. The expert challenges, which previously unlocked camo patterns, now only grant XP.

Bolt Action Rifles aren't what they used to be... Even with power-enhancing perks, you'll find yourself bested by a semi-auto in many situations. Springfield, Arisaka, Mosin-Nagant (21), Kar98k (41), PTRS-41 (57).

• Sniper Scope - Increases accuracy and Range
• Bayonet - Increases melee attack range.
• Rifle Grenade

Rifles Fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, and my choice for most of the levels in anything but rambo situations. SVT-40, Gewehr 43, M1 Garand (17), STG-44 (37), M1A1 Carbine (65)

• Flash Hider/Suppressor/Silencer - Lower range but prevent you from popping up on enemy radar when firing.
• Aperature Sight - The low-tech alternative to your red-dot reflex site.
• Telescopic Sight - Think ACOG
• Rifle Grenade

Submachine Guns Always useful with or without the steady-aim perk. Thompson, MP40, Type 100 (25), PPSh-41 (53)

• Suppressor
• Aperature Site
• Round Drum/Dual Magazines

Shotguns Have been nerfed. The range and damage on the one available is low, although it's still a surprise one hit kill. M1897 Trench Gun, Double-Barreled Shotgun (29)

• Grip
• Bayonet

Machine Guns Both light and heavy MGs are dangerous/annoying when in the right hands. Type 99, BAR, DP-28 (13), MG42 (33), FG42 (45), Browning M1919 (61).

• Bipod
• Bayonet

Side Arms

• Colt M1911 Too slow for comfort.
• Nambu You got Nambu'd Betch!
• Walther P38 Sean Connery would be proud.
• Tokarev TT-33 (21)
• .357 Magnum (49)

Primary Grenade

• Frag "Anti-personnel device that destroys the target with a burst of flying shrapnel."
• N 74 ST Sticky. Looks like a coconut. "Device designed as an anti-tank grenade. Beware, very dangerous."
• Molotov Cocktail "Incendiary device that harms the target with a radius of fire."

Special Grenade

• Smoke
• Tabun Gas Lasts for a few seconds after exploding and gives passers-by intense shell shock.
• Signal Flare (Like that bright thing in Halo 3)

Boot Camp contains many of the same novelty challenges, with a few extras including "Sticky Kill", "Self Defense", for shooting an attack dog, "Swan Dive" for falling into water, and "Bartender" for kills with the Molotov Cocktail.

Prestige Mode now unlocks extra custom class slots at certain intervals on top of your default 5, so you'll have a total of 10 available after your 10th level of prestige. Meh.

Gametypes, Leaderboards, Parties!
The first 5 are available in the beta, the rest are as listed on the leaderboards.

• War
• Capture The Flag
• Team Deathmatch
• Pick Up TDM (no parties)
• Free For All
• Sabotage
• Search and Destroy
• Domination
• Headquarters
• Hardcore TDM
• Hardcore FFA
• Hardcore Search and Destroy
• Hardcore War

Leaderboards can now be accessed filtering just your current group of players via the "Lobby Leaderboard". It also lists time played in each specific gametype. You can create or join an existing squad during a match. This changes the member's nametag and radar colors HUD colors, maybe more. You can also customize how overhead nametags appear; as the full Gamertag, an abbreviation, or just an emblem.

Afterthoughts
More than anything else, World at War captures a gritty realism never before seen in a war sim. Call of Duty has always been good at doing that, but this installment blows limbs off, literally. And that's just the relatively non-immersive multiplayer. The eastern-theatre is a refreshing backdrop for the common WWII shooter, and the new environment, along with a potentially ground-breaking flamethrower and remarkable ambient audio goodness, should add enough unique changes to skin the greatness that was CoD4 with a whole new level of depth. CoD4 nailed the hybrid arcade arena/tactical gameplay with the Modern Warfare theme, and although it appears that WWII era weapons don't fit in quite as well as their 21st century counterparts, Treyarch has tinkered with the gameplay just subtely enough that we're all in for a treat of refinement. I'll take my Pullitzer now. CoD:WW releases on November 11ish in North America. Something would have to go horribly wrong for the campaign to suck, but you could still pick it up for the multiplayer alone.

 It's not the same thing, but I have a thing about moving gaming dates due to one or two people being out (or cancelling all together). I just think it rude and inconsiderate to the other people in the group. For years, we played D&D on Saturday every weekend (save for the occasional holiday, vacation or illness), so I guess I got spoiled back in my early days of gaming. 

 So, I'm curious as to how other groups handle this. When one or two players can't make it, does the whole game fold for the week? What if the usual host gets sick?

Shenmue 2

 Shenmue as a series is a very odd game, really the whole idea of the game is your
living the life of a person and you area guided along this story but at the same time
you have plenty of freedom, in a sense that, you dont have to do much with the main quest
if you want to you can spend all your time working a job and making money. Then use that money to
collect toy figures or play arcade games all day if you want. Shenmue 2 expands on this a lot.

FIrst of all, if you didnt play shenmue one, you might as well get a dreamcast or at the very least watch
the "Shenmue the movie" DVD included in the american X-box version. Just a quick note on the movie... ill
never watch it agian...it was just bad, only thing its good for is for people who dont have a dreamcast
to play shenmue 1, If you have a dreamcast or plan on getting one i highly recommend playing Shenmue 1 on the dreamcast rather then watching the movie.

 As for the gameplay with shenmue its essentially the same, Quick time reactions (QTE)  which today are common place in action games espically. Its hard to say since Shenmue was really one of the first gmaes to really push QTE. Actully about 50% of the action aspet of the gmaeplay is quick time reactions. For the most part this worked well but when compared to the dreamcast's D-pad the X-box D-pad just simply didnt recognize things correctly. Maybe its just because im not used to the X-box D-pad but this could be i'm just unfamiliar with the X-box D-pad. This keeps you on edge, because it seems like a QTE will appear out of nowhere some times, although some times predictable, i found QTE's some times sneaking up on me a lot, Which is fine  since usually you can just start right back to right before it happend.

  In shenmue theres also Fighting battles much like in a 3D fighting game, this system works fairly well, it never felt like it was really complicated but at teh same time wasnt too simple, i didnt have to memorize many button combinations, it felt a lot like red steel where you dodge then hit sort of thing. which kind of bothered me a little, but was nothing bad. For the most part im sure any button masher could get throguh the normal battles but some of the battles later on become increasingly difficult, i found many fights where each of us would have only 1 health left and the next hit decided the fight, felt really balanced for me.

  One thing that was a bit odd though is the pacing of the game, Shenmue is essentially 3 chapters shoved into one game, well chapter "2" i believe it was actully 3 but the original 2 got cut since it wasnt importnat enough, was a lot of talking and walking much like the first game. then around the end of the chapter, about 10 hours in for me, combat just ramps up out of nowhere. For the most part from that point on its very action based. Seems a bit odd to me because it feels like just mid way through developing the game they just decided to make it really action oriented, which theres no problem with that it just feels a bit odd you go from slow paced walking and talking to insane amounts of combat between what seems like just one tiny section of the game. A lot of the fights later in the game have gimmicks to them such as "Catch this man" or "Defeat this man in only 5 hits" sort of thing, which kept it varried but i had no luck finding many places that were just 1 on 1 fighting that i could continue to participate in, of course i cant say it wasnt in the game...the game is just so big. Which brings me to my next topic

  Hong kong feels huge. They really got a good since of size in it, i really felt lost a lot of the time and that i really did need the map, I didnt even explore Hong kong 100% even though i spent hours upon hours just exploring the city. I even went window shopping once, it was a odd exprience. I'm sure compared to games like GTA IV today it wont be that big, and to be honest, if you just take the raw size of it, its not too impressive... its more of, you can pretty much enter any door you want to, sure theres some doors that dont work but its forgivable with how many stores there are that are just there for looks. it was just amazing having so many buildings to go into to, id just walk from one building to another exploring inside buildings, it was a very intresting exprience. Esstenially Shenmue is living a life, much like animal crossing but at the same times universes apart from each other. Hong kong really was the spot light for me, later areas arent as breath taking as that was for me and essentially the are is nothing but paths, at least in this game.

    The music is jsut as amazing as it was in shenmue 1, although there are a few out of place sounding songs, i felt that the night time music for some areas in hong kong sounded a bit too shady when nothing shady was really going on. Also later in the game i feel like there is plenty of great music, i was impressed by all of it so much at one point i just walked through the area because i wanted to keep listnieng to it, the area was quite beautiful too..for a dreamcast era game. As for the voice acting...its a lot of hit and miss... really its mainly because there was so much voice acting im sure they had to cut corners, some charcters sound absolutly horrible and others sound great. The writing is a bit odd at some places too but that also goes with just how much tehre is to interact with and some times they cant make specfic phrases for everything so they put something that fits best but may not always fit 100%. I think the voice acting is impressive in how its implemented but some of the voice actors just sound plain silly some times.

    As for the graphics, its a dreamcast game, it looks pretty awful by todays standards at some points, while other parts just look okay. Really if you look at the surface of the graphics your going to be disappointed, its a 2001 X-box game that was a 1999/2000 Dreamcast game, and its also built off the same engine as the first game, if your here for pretty graphics, well why are you even reading this review? But looking at  it for its time the graphics were still pretty top notch, a lot of the areas are really well designed and the colors they use really brought Hong kong to life. The first thing you will notice when you start the game is that its much more colorful then the first. The X-box version they added enhanced lighting to which is a bit weird but is a nice touch, i enjoyed it.

    There is so much more i could talk about in shenmue but i just didnt have the space to talk about every little thing about the game, its just somassive and im sure theres tons i didnt explore. If your into fast pace action games, shenmue may not deliver, espically the first 10 hours, but ifyou really enjoy Story a great story driven adventure game i highly recommend this game after you have played shenmue 1, or at least watched the shenmuemovie. Overall i think Shenmue is a great game and i think many people can enjoy it as long as they dont mind maybe not having a chance to finish the storysince shenmue 3 is bound to never happen. It may seem a bit weird im reviewing shenmue 2 without reviewing shenmue 1 but i played that game a year ago andi wouldnt feel right reviewing it now, simply because many things can cloud your mind about a game after you have had a chance to look back on it monthslater. Also a little tip for anyone who plans on picking up shenmue 2, when you start getting close to the end of theg mae make sure its not too late... i was up at4 am playing because i couldnt get a save point from the last area in chapter 4 and entire chapter 5, i'm not sure who decided this.

Price on amazon at time of purchase: 35$
worth it? Yes

Well I'm planning on playing every Megaman game and every Megaman X game. Starting with the first 6 Megaman games on the NES, 7 on the SNES and 8 on the Playstation. I may or not play 9, depending on whether or not I feel like buying it.

Obviously for X I'll be starting with X, X2 and X3 on the SNES, X4, X5 and X6 on the Playstation, X7 on the Playstation 2 then X8 on the PC.

This may take me a very long time, especially since I still have Valkyrie Profile 2 to complete, Rogue Galaxy coming in the mail and not to mention Persona 3: FES is out on Friday in Eurofagland.

Hopefully the difficutly won't be too "Kick in the balls". I've beaten the four Zero games for the GBA and found them pretty hard, so I hope the difficulty is around the same level as that.

Una piccola partitina che ha suscitato molto nervosismo nel giovane darkvege e nel Colonnello Parachutist_italy. Era praticamente impossibile giocare bene a causa dei "fortunati" dell'altra fazione che miravano in un modo a dir poco pazzesco o se volete DIVINO... e per di più ogni volta che prendevamo una bandiera (magari in 5 o 6 soldati) questi sparivano e spawnavano di nuovo dalla Mainbase invece che cercare di difendere o di avanzare verso il nemico... MAH speriamo che la prossima sia più fortunata