I’ve decided I’m sticking with WordPress 2.2, and not upgrading to 2.3, which was just released. This is because something always goes wrong when I try to upgrade, and it really isn’t worth the hassle. So yeah, hope y’all are happy with an old version 😉
A Series of Tubes
An archive of old posts.
Monthly Archives: September 2007
Halo 3
I promised myself (and others) I was not going to write a post about Halo 3. But it’s like an elephant in the room or something. And the room is a closet. A closet in a small shack. And the Elephant is actually one of those freakin’ gigantic elephants from Lord of the Rings. So I’m writing about Halo 3.
The third game in the Halo mega-series (for the xBox and xBox 360), simply entitled Halo 3 is coming out tonight at midnight, local time. Those kind of release times are usually reserved for movies and iPhones, but this game is one of the most anticipated games of all time, so it gets a fancy release time. Midnight local. I (not owning a 360) sure as hell won’t be there, but if you own an xBox 360 you do not have an excuse not to buy Halo 3.
It already has some of the best ratings ever attained by a game on some review sites, with scores like a 9.5 on Gamespot and IGN, a 10 on GamePro, and a 98 on GameInformer. The marketing budget was gigantic, rivaled pretty much only by its predecessor, Halo 2. There have actually been some really great ads for the games, making themselves out to be post-Halo-war documentaries. “Museum”, “Enemy Weapon”, and “Hunted”. There are 2 more coming soon, and I’ll be watching.
Heavenly Sword
In an almost total contrast to LocoRoco, I also recently acquired Heavenly Sword, the cinematic sword-slasher recently released for PS3.
The game is epic, and very fun. The battle system is not that hard to use, though combos require perfect timing to get them right. ‘Forms’ (Speed, Power, and Regular) are a bit confusing at first, but once you realize that an enemy with a blue aura needs to be fought with Speed, and one with yellow needs Power, it’s pretty simple to use the forms. It takes a bit of messing around (and a lot of dying) to figure out that an enemy glowing red is doing an unblockable attack, and you need to move or you’re gonna take serious damage.
The AfterTouch features are my absolute favorite thing in the entire game. This is when you are using any sort of projectile (arrows, cannonballs, or actually anything you pick up and throw), you can use the SIXAXIS to guide it as it flies though the air. The first time you get this option (or the first time the game explains how to use it), you are playing as a sniper, guarding your clan’s fort. It’s pretty fun, except that the area is too dark to pick out your enemies, and you are at too close a range for the AfterTouch to work. In the next episode, however, Bohan is moving catapults towards your base, and you have to use a cannon to destroy them (via the handy weak points on the front with giant red targets painted on them). This episode is where you get SIXAXIS awesomeness, since the cannonball has something like 20 seconds in the air before making contact, allowing for plenty of AfterTouch corrections.
The storyline in the game, like I said before, is cinematic. As in, the game is like watching a movie. You play through a very fluid chronology of events surrounding the end of Nariko’s life (or…is it?really, really creepy animated using motion capture, meaning that they move and speak very realistically. All the directing for the mo-cap actors was done by Andy Sirkus, the actor famous for doing the voice and mo-cap for Gollum/Smeagol in Lord of The Rings, and pretty much every feature involving mo-cap since then. He also plays the villain of the game, King Bohan.
Anyway yeah, very fun game. I’d recommend buying it to anyone with a PS3.
LocoRoco Cocoreccho
I bought LocoRoco Cocoreccho (the ps3 sequel to the very popular LocoRoco, for the Playstation Portable) last Thursday, when it came out on the Playstation Store. I have been playing it during almost all of my free time since then. It’s just that fun.
When I originally heard about it (in rumor form), I was extremely excited, since LocoRoco is so damn fun. You use the shoulder buttons on the PSP to tilt the whole world, and roll the LocoRoco’s along, picking up more as you go. Great gameplay, and on the PS3 it would be even more fun, since you could use the SIXAXIS motion sensors to tilt the world instead of buttons.
Then I found out that the game would be more of a screensaver than a game. I had really no idea what this meant, and ultimately it’s total bull. This is a real game, not a screensaver. But I also found out that the feature I was so excited about, the motion-controlled world tilting, was not actually a part of the game. Instead, you control a butterfly (using the joysticks), whom the LocoRoco’s follow. The SIXAXIS sensors are used, but just for tilting ramps, spinning wheels, pulling objects, and otherwise manipulating the scenery. A bit disappointing, but after actually playing the game, it is still insanely fun and addicting.
Reflections on Windows OS Upon Recieving Invitation To Beta Test Trillian Astra (AKA Longest Post Title EVAR)
I was recently invited to join the Trillian Astra alpha test. Trillian was my favorite instant messaging program while I was a Windows user, and remained my favorite long after switching to Mac OS. So naturally, I was extremely excited to be invited to the testing cycle of the upcoming 4th major release of Trilly, called Astra.
However, upon launching it, I discovered that it is not really different from the 3rd version of Trillian, just a lot shinier (COUGH COUGH VISTA COUGH COUGH). Also, I remembered that I am almost never on my Windows partition any more, and getting Trillian again is pretty much pointless.
Not only that, I began to feel critical of Windows and Trillian as a whole, all over again. The interface just seems to clunky after the Mac experience. I tried customizing windows to be more like mac (I downloaded ObjectDock to obtain a dock for windows, and a Quicksilver ripoff duplicate -ish program to get that interface as well), but in the end the best I can get is a sad, deformed version of OS X. And trillian wasn’t the beautiful program I remembered, either.
The interface seemed so bland and complicated compared to Adium, which I used to hate with a passion. I remembered having a ton of fun with it, but using it now it just seems slow and packed with features I’m never going to use.
So basically, I’m giving away my Astra account to someone who will make better use of it, Matt. He’s a real Windows guy, and more power to him for that. We’ve had plenty of intellectual debates about the rival operating systems (“omg m$ windows sux” “no fag windows ftw, mac sux ass” “bill gates? more liek dollar bill gay-ts” and so on), but we’re still friends, so I’ll trust him with my Astra account. I bet it looks better on Vista anyway.
Uru Live Season Finale: Exodus
“Exodus” (beginning in mid-October)
“Destruction is coming. Find a way. Make a home.”
The words have been repeated many times. Even while the restoration effort begun again and with the release of new Ages, the words were always said. With the resurrection of the D’ni city, the Guilds, the DRC, and new life filling the cavern again, the words continued to hang in the air above the orange waters.
What do they mean?
While many questions have been answered, there are more that remain. What effect will Cate have on the restoration now that the members of the original restoration team have returned? Where will the Bahro war take us? Is the one who originally spoke the words finished with her part in this grand story?
With the release of the new Age of Ahnonay as well as K’veer Island and Myst Island, there will be changes.
Woah. That right there is a description of Episode 9 of Uru Live, the season finale entitled “Exodus”. Check out that last line again. Ahnonay, K’veer, and Myst. Jeebus. That’s a lot of stuff. Plus these foretold changes, and the not-so-subtle hinting at Yeesha’s return, this is going to be one helluva finale.
CHUGGY IS BACK!
WOOOOOOT! Chugworth Academy, one of my favorite webcomics, is officially back online after their multi-month unannounced/unexplained downtime. YAY!
New iPods!
Apple announced the 6th gen iPod today, as well as the 3rd gen nano. The 6th gen iPod is actually 2 different things, the iPod Classic (almost identical to the 5th gen, except with up to 160gb of storage) and the way cooler iPod touch, which is like an iPhone without the phone part. It even has WiFi for downloading songs and surfing the net and stuff. Über. The 3rd gen nano is much wider than the 2nd gen, and has video capabilities. It’s also really really thin.
New TV!
I went out and bought an Element 32″ FLX-3210 HDTV. Why did I choose that one? It was cheap. Hooray! $499 when I got it, thanks to Labor Day sales. And thank goodness I decided on this one instead of the one I was originally going to get, because I compared them in-store, and the Ölevia’s quality was terrible.
So here’s my review of the FLX-3210. Keep in mind that I have little to no experience whatsoever with HDTV’s, and no actual HD content to watch on it yet (HDMI cable for the ps3 is in the mail).
Setup:
Setup was very simple, just four screws to keep the stand onto the display (which came in two of the larges pieces of Styrofoam packaging I’ve ever seen). The menus are extremely simple and easy to navigate. Great.
Picture Quality:
The TV is 768p (1360×768), though advertised as 720p, because 768p is not an American standard (being a PAL resolution), so i guess 720p images will be scaled up a bit to fit. I’ll find out when I get my HDMI cable.
The color is amazing, the 1200:1 contrast ration is awesome, blacks are pretty black, whites are extremely bright. There’s no ghosting or anything, the picture is all-around “super”, especially considering the low pricetag.
Sound Quality
However, it’s pretty obvious why Element can afford to make such inexpensive TV’s without losing image quality. The speakers on this box are not the best I’ve ever heard, not by far. They’re somewhat tinny and have an almost complete lack of bass. I’d call the out-of-the-box sound quality “passable”.
However, after some tweaking of the settings (turning off the simulated surround sound helped a ton, as did turning up the bass), I’d give the speakers a solid “decent”.
Other Factors
Inputs: It as 2 composites, 1 RCA component (which I’m using for the ps3 right now), 1 HDMI, 1 S-video, 1 vga (which I hooked my computer up to for some awesome iTunes visualizations action), and maybe some others 😛 In short, a ton of connections. Great 🙂
Remote: Nothing special. Decent.
Overall: Great 😀
New TV!
I went out and bought an Element 32″ FLX-3210 HDTV. Why did I choose that one? It was cheap. Hooray! $499 when I got it, thanks to Labor Day sales. And thank goodness I decided on this one instead of the one I was originally going to get, because I compared them in-store, and the Ölevia’s quality was terrible.
So here’s my review of the FLX-3210. Keep in mind that I have little to no experience whatsoever with HDTV’s, and no actual HD content to watch on it yet (HDMI cable for the ps3 is in the mail).
Setup:
Setup was very simple, just four screws to keep the stand onto the display (which came in two of the larges pieces of Styrofoam packaging I’ve ever seen). The menus are extremely simple and easy to navigate. Great.
Picture Quality:
The TV is 768p (1360×768), though advertised as 720p, because 768p is not an American standard (being a PAL resolution), so i guess 720p images will be scaled up a bit to fit. I’ll find out when I get my HDMI cable.
The color is amazing, the 1200:1 contrast ration is awesome, blacks are pretty black, whites are extremely bright. There’s no ghosting or anything, the picture is all-around “super”, especially considering the low pricetag.
Sound Quality
However, it’s pretty obvious why Element can afford to make such inexpensive TV’s without losing image quality. The speakers on this box are not the best I’ve ever heard, not by far. They’re somewhat tinny and have an almost complete lack of bass. I’d call the out-of-the-box sound quality “passable”.
However, after some tweaking of the settings (turning off the simulated surround sound helped a ton, as did turning up the bass), I’d give the speakers a solid “decent”.
Other Factors
Inputs: It as 2 composites, 1 RCA component (which I’m using for the ps3 right now), 1 HDMI, 1 S-video, 1 vga (which I hooked my computer up to for some awesome iTunes visualizations action), and maybe some others 😛 In short, a ton of connections. Great 🙂
Remote: Nothing special. Decent.
Overall: Great 😀