December 2009

The Adventures of Willy Beamish
Submitted Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 1:54:14 PM by Klaitu

I have many fond memories of Willy Beamish and his afore-mentioned adventures!

Willy is one of those games that came out in the golden era of Sierra, when they had just bought Dynamix, and were publishing games right and left.

Willy Beamish was not the first Dynamix game published by Sierra, but it was easily the most popular. Traditionally, Sierra made only games for PC and Amiga, but Willy got the Sega CD treatment.

There's also a DOS version and a CD-DOS version. Of them all, the CD-DOS is the best version, although the Sega CD version is also decent, it just loads really slow.

Perhaps not surprisingly, you are Willy Beamish: 8 year old. Since this game was made in and is set in 1991, your job is to basically do whatever Bart Simpson would do... Ride skateboards, play video games, and play pranks on your sisters.

The game starts on the last day of school, with Willy in detention.. and the first order of business is to escape. Once you accomplish this, the goal of the game becomes to get to the international Nintari championships. (You see what they did there? They combined Nintendo and Atari.. clever!)

The gameplay here is a cross between a Sierra game and Dynamix's other games like Heart of China or Rise of the Dragon. It's point and click, but all of the actions are pre-scripted, so if you're in a room, and you want to do something with an object on the other side of the room, the game automatically takes care of the walking for you.

The Sega CD and CD-DOS versions of the game feature full soundtracks and voice acting, complete with accurate lip-sync (which was not a minor feat in this era). The voice acting is actually quite good, and adds a lot of charm to the game.

Here's a sample of the CD-DOS version:

I'm Famous!
Submitted Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 1:09:11 PM by Klaitu

Yeah, that's right all you not-famous people, I'm totally famous now!

Some of my retro reviews have been featured on the gaming community site ezmodeunlocked. If you're into gaming and that sort of thing, you should check them out. They're a pretty neat community to hang out with, especially if you're tired of playing random 13 year old punks online.

Sherlock Holmes
Submitted Friday, December 25, 2009 - 11:11:39 PM by Klaitu

I went.. HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS!!! Get it? Actually the movie promotional materials has that all over the place, and I found it quite amusing.

Sherlock Holmes is a mystery movie, so I can't really say too much about the plot. Fans of the books will recognize those story elements in this. Actually, thie version of Holmes comes off very close to House, and you can really see the inspiration of everyone's favorite cranky doctor.

The mysteries are sufficiently Holmesian, and you can't deduce the ending to the movie because the movie holds back key details from you.. which is as it should be for Sherlock.

The movie had more action than I expected, but it was not out of place, and was actually pretty entertaining.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

Assassin's Creed 2
Submitted Friday, December 18, 2009 - 1:58:54 PM by Klaitu

Assassin's Creed 2 is a lot like Assassin's Creed 1. The controls are the same, the objectives are the same, and the gameplay is.. well, the same.

This time the action takes place in Italy in the 1470's, and you'll get to climb the rooftops of Florence, Tuscany, and Venice. Thankfully, AC2 doesn't require that you complete some lame side quests before you can hit your target. It's much more like Grand Theft Auto now in that you take missions in a free roaming world until you hit the end of the game.

There are more customization options for your character this time around, you can change his armor and weapons, and the color of his clothes.

Unfortunately, the game carries over the main problem of the first game: actual assassinations are rare. You're more likely to engage in an epic sword battle with your target than you are to actually stab him with your assassin blade.

The story of Assassin's Creed 2 is, however, about 13 billion times better than AC1. Even the "secret stuff" that you have to unlock by collecting things is actually worth unlocking.. the first time I can recall that ever happening.

Overall Score: 8 of 10
Quality Rating: 4 of 5
Buy it!

Wet
Submitted Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 1:30:49 PM by Klaitu



Wet... is a unique game. The best way to think of it is this: What if Quentin Tarintino made a video game? You'd end up with Wet.

Wet is a game about a very manly woman killing hundreds of guys with buckets of blood squirting out of them. She not only shoots them, she also chops them into bits with a samurai sword.

The game has a graphics filter which constantly puts film grain on the screen as you play, and the main character's name is Rubi.

It sounds like a joke, but in this game, you have to shoot people while jumping or sliding on the ground. You can fire the guns while standing, but only very slowly. The result is that you're constantly jumping around like a crazy person shooting at anything that moves.

Overall Score: 4 of 10
Quality Rating: 2 of 10
Pass

Science Saturday: Relativity, A Little Bit Goes A Long Way
Submitted Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - 3:37:05 PM by Klaitu

Yes, I know it's not actually Saturday, but the way I see it, I'm backlogged for several saturdays worth of Science Saturday.. so here we go!

I'm sure that most of you readers out there are at least vaguely aware of World War 2, and that it ended when Japan surrendered after having 2 nuclear bombs dropped on it.. the only nuclear weapons to actually be used as a weapon, in fact.

Back then, nuclear weapons were new. The US had only built 2 of them, and both of them got used in the war.. but building them wasn't easy, it took years.

So, how does one build a nuclear bomb?

Nuclear explosions were discovered because of Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. You know.. E=mc2. It's the most famous formula in the world.

According to this formula, everything that has mass contains energy.. a lot of energy, and if you could somehow release this energy, you'd have a lot of explosion in a tightly packed wad.

So, how can we release this energy? The United States created something called "The Manhattan Project" to find out.. and they came up with using Uranium.

You know how Aluminum is light, and lead is heavy? Uranium is even heavier than lead, although it too is a metal. Uranium is so heavy that it's atoms are unstable. Every now and again, bits of Uranium atoms are released, and go flying. You may have heard of this before, it's called Radioactivity.

A hunk of Uranium

Over time, these unstable Uranium atoms shed their parts and turn into something called Uranium-235. As it turns out, Uranium-235 is just right for making a nuclear bomb.

You see, when you put a lot of Uranium-235 together, little bits of it shoot out just like before, but those bits crash into other Uranium-235 atoms, which causes them to release some of their own bits.. and those bits hit other atoms which releases their bits, and so on, and so forth, until there are so many little bits of stuff bouncing around that everything is vaporized.. and that's how all of that energy is released.

Unfortunately for our Manhattan Project fellows, Uranium-235 takes millions of years to form naturally. Less than 1% of the Uranium on the Earth is Uranium-235.. What to do?

Enter Ernest O. Lawrence!


Ernest O. Lawrence

Ernest here invented a machine that you stick normal Uranium in, and it separates out the Uranium-235. That machine is called a calutron.. and it works by using magnets!

In today's world, for anything that has wires, the wires are made out of copper. Copper is awesome at conducting electricity, and it's cheap.. which is why it's so common. This was true during World War 2 as well, but copper was scarce because it was being used in any number of guns, tanks, and airplanes that were already on the battlefield.. and of course, you need copper to build electromagnets.

Or do you?

There is, actually, one other metal that is even better than copper at conducting electricity: Silver. Of course, silver isn't often used in wiring because it's crazy expensive, but wouldn't you know that the government just happens to have hundreds of thousands of tons of silver just laying around in bar form? They melted down some of this silver, courtesy of the US Treasury, and turned it into electromagnets.. BIG electromagnets.

Ernest's machine worked pretty well, although it was not particularly fast at producing Uranium-235.. it was able to produce enough to create a bomb.


Say Hello to my Little Friend

There it is, the world's first atomic bomb, and thanks to Ernest and a bunch of silver, it's packing 141 pounds of Uranium-235. Part of that uranium is back by the tail fins, and part of it is up in the front. Each chunk is not big enough by itself to explode, because all those little atomic bits are able to escape and fly off into the air, or wherever else.. but when those two chunks come together, they rip one another part in a process called nuclear fission.

And as it turns out, that's exactly what happened over Hiroshima. The two chunks came together and BOOM.


A picture of the Hiroshima explosion.

141 pounds of Uranium-235 on board, but not all of it was converted into energy. Actually, only 600 milligrams of Uranium-235 were converted into energy.

Something smaller than a paperclip killed 140,000 people, and wrecked a city. The famous "mushroom cloud" was formed because the air around the bomb was superheated to nearly 4,000 degrees by X-rays.


The damage to Hiroshima


The man and ladder who made this shadow were vaporized

600 milligrams. Doesn't take much.

The Case for Eve Online
Submitted Monday, December 7, 2009 - 2:06:02 PM by Klaitu

I am an avid Eve Online player, but unfortunately, I'm the only person I really know who is, and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why. I was recently discussing the topic with a buddy of mine who has been trying out the game, and I decided to make this post.

If you didn't know, Eve Online is a MMORPG set in a galaxy far, far away. In ages past, explorers from Earth found a wormhole called the Eve Gate which took them to a small galaxy called New Eden. They formed colonies and started to prosper.. but before they got their feet on the ground, the wormhole collapsed, stranding the colonists in their new home. Tens of thousands of years pass, and that's where you come in.

Eve Online is a totally unique experience, and almost everything about it is different from any other MMO you've ever played. Eve is not an easy game, and it doesn't give you instant gratification.

Eve is set primarily in space, and you get your own ship. Actually, if you play for any amount of time you will likely have dozens of ships. Your character is a human who (for the moment) exists in a special pod that lets him control each ship with his mind. In the future, you'll be able to exit your pod.

You are the captain of your ships, but you don't directly fly them as you would in a space flight sim like Wing Commander. You issue commands, and your ship obeys them. This is not twitch-based gameplay. It's quite strategic and tactical.

In addition to commanding your own ships, you also choose upgrades and equipment for your ships. You may own the same type of ship as a friend, but you can install entirely different systems that give your ship different capabilities.

There is no XP for progression in Eve Online. There is no grinding to the "endgame" so that you can repeat raids over and over again. Skills in Eve progress solely with the passage of time, and your character's stats affect how quickly those skills train. The Skills system has a branching skill system, sort of like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies, except there are hundreds of skills, and training each one would take 28 years.

"But Klaitu, doesn't that means that people who have been playing longer will always be superior to a newb?"

The answer is that yes, an older player will always have more skills than a newb, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because what skills are in use is determined by what ship you are flying, and what modules are on that ship.

For example: I am a carrier pilot, and carriers require tons of skills that take months to train. I've been training for carriers for 4 months, and I still have months to go.. and for all of that work I've put into them, these skills are worthless if I am in a battleship or cruiser.. or any ship other than a carrier (and even then only the one specitic type of carrier that I fly).

In choosing to become a carrier pilot, I passed up many other opportunities, like Heavy Combat Cruisers.. I can't even fly them, even though they take a relatively short time to train.

In Eve, every size of ship has a role. A Frigate can take down a battleship in Eve, if you know what you're doing. In fact, that's how a lot of piracy in Eve works.. which brings me to my next point:

Eve is always on PvP. There is no escaping it, there is no getting around it. If you're not docked in a station, you can be killed.. but in some areas the attacker faces harsh penalties, and in others they suffer no penalties. It's a complicated topic, but suffice to say, you're not going to get ganked unless you piss someone off, or you've got a lot of expensive loot that someone can take.. that is, unless you wander into the dangerous, low security systems.

In other MMO's you may have participated in raids, or group quests. These don't exist in Eve. There's no waiting for a healer, no making sure your class balance is correct. In Eve, the big events are fleet battles with hundreds of players vs hundreds of players. Where a large guild in another game might be 200 people, Eve's Corporations (their version of guilds) have thousands of people in them.

Eve takes place on a single server, which means that anyone who is playing Eve Online is on your server. It's not uncommon to have over 20,000 people logged in at the same time.

"What can I do in Eve?"

The basic things you can do are: Mining, Combat, Production, or Trading.. but each of these has a lot of depth that will require you to specialize eventually.

Miners can mine asteroids for ore, but at later stages, you can also mine gas clouds, ice crystals, and stellar fragments. Each of these requires special equipment, and a different set of skills.. so while there may be many miners, there are not so many mining the exact things you are mining.

There's also the question of why you are mining. Are you mining to sell your ore to producers, or are you a producer yourself? Are you mining for your Corporation to build a new Space Station, or are you mining for your own benefit?

Combat is just as varied. You can specialize in small ships and use hit and run tactics against your enemy. You can choose to be an expert at ECM and jam the enemy's systems. You can fly massive ships and obliterate the enemy with your giant guns.. or if you really wanted to, you could fly a ship as big as a city and obliterate people with your death-star like cannon.. or anything in between.

And, of course, you can pirate people and loot their wrecks for monetary gain, or you can protect people and loot the pirates for monetary gain, or you could be fighting for one of Eve's factions, or even for your Corporation.

Production is like crafting in other games, but there are hundreds of thousands of things that you can craft. Everything in Eve that you can buy is crafted by players (with a few small exceptions).

Trading is another viable option, because Eve has an actual, functioning economy that is managed by an actual, real economist (he has a Ph.D. and everything)!

Other cool Eve stuff that is rarely talked about:

- Once you're good enough, you can pay for the game using in-game money, leaving your real world money free for other things.

- Eve Online has been around since 2003 and has had multiple expansions over the years. They have always been free, and always will be free.

- Player corporations can claim their own space and form their own empire out in the far reaches of space.

- The Players of Eve Online are represented by the Council of Stellar Management, who are elected by the players themselves. These representatives travel in person to the Developer's studios to discuss issues with the game directly with the developers themselves.

- Eve was developed by a company called CCP games based out of Iceland, the servers are in London, and because there is only one game server, you'll play with people from around the globe.

The Blind Side
Submitted Friday, December 4, 2009 - 11:29:12 PM by Klaitu

Going into this film, I was pretty sure it was going to be awful, but I just couldn't pass up getting out of the house for a few hours, so I went to see it anyways.

The Blind Side is the story of football guy Michael Oher, who was born to a drugged out mom, and through a series of interesting events, winds up drafted by the NFL and becoming a gazillionaire.

The film stars Sandra Bullock, to the point where the film is almost about her. The movie is based on a true story, and Sandra Bullock is playing the woman that helped Football guy get off the streets. It's hard to tell if Sandra Bullock herself is annoying, or if she is accurately recreating the annoyingness of the actual person she is portraying. Either way, Bullock makes you want to claw your ears out with her awful, awful, southern accent.

At any rate, Bullock is the wife of a successful basketball player who used his money to buy fast food restaurant franchises in Knoxville, TN. Oher the football guy becomes enrolled in a very expensive Christian school by his father, who later jumps off a bridge and kills himself.

Bullock and her family come to his rescue, providing the football guy with a home, and an enviornment where he can get his grades up so that he can play him some football.

The movie has a sort of Green Mile feel to it, and the culture surrounding the Christian school (and rich Christians in general) is accurately portrayed here.

It's worth a watch if you happen to cross by it, I'm not sure that I would pay for a ticket just to see the movie.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

Merry Holidays?
Submitted Friday, December 4, 2009 - 2:08:04 PM by Klaitu

It always happens around here this time of year. The age old debate, the preening, the flaunting, the egos.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the battle between "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays".

Maybe this isn't such a big battle where you are from, but here this thing flairs up each year, and since my community is predominantly Christian, I run into "We say MERRY CHRISTMAS in our house!" a lot. Down here, people proclaim it loud and proud to put it mildly.

SO I got to thinking.. what's the big deal about "Merry Christmas" vs "Happy Holidays"?

Let's start at the beginning. At some point in history, December 25th was just December 25th. Then some sky watchers noticed that the winter solstice happened around this time. (In fact, this year's Winter Solstice happens on December 21)

For primitive sun-worshipping cultures, this was a big deal. They held festivals and whatnot to commemorate the occasion.

Then, when Christians came along to convert the primitive sun-worshippers, they assimilated their holidays in order to make the conversion easier, and so the idea of Christmas was born.

As you probably already know, Christmas is the traditional day to celebrate the birth of Christ, although Christ's birth probably did not occur on this day.

Christmas's main "thunder stealer" in the United States is Hanukkah, a Jewish celebration which comemmorates the consecration of the House of the Holy in Jerusalem after it was desecrated by an invader. Like all Jewish holidays, it's linked to the ancient Hebrew calendar, and so the date floats from anywhere from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Hanukkah and Christmas don't jive together, primarily because the Jews don't believe in Christ.. though the Christians could celebrate the consecration of a jewish temple before the birth of Christ if they wanted to.

Kwanzaa takes place from December 26 to New Year's day and was invented in 1966 because a political activist felt that black people needed their own holiday since all the other holidays were for "white people". The holiday seems to be losing popularity, as it does not coincide with any actual African holidays.

The other two holidays in the US modern "holiday season" are Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

In general usage as I have observed, "Merry Christmas" is often used as a greeting or a goodbye in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and is said to pretty much anyone regardless of their ethnic or religious origins.

This, in turn, irked athiests, Jews, and no doubt other various people who find Christmas to be an offensive holiday, since it's both a national and a Christian holiday. Then, when the 1990's rolled around, Christmas got sucked into the trend of "political correctness".

Political Correctness is the practice of attempting to make words as inoffensive-sounding to as many people as possible. For example: "Visually challenged" and "blind" mean the same thing, but the first is assumed to somehow be less offensive, as if one could take offense at a handicap.

So, in this vein, "Merry Christmas" became "Happy Holidays" in order to try to become as inoffensive to the widest number of people.. though ironically, because of this fact, "Happy Holidays" in itself has now become offensive to Christians.. who are the majority group in the holiday season.

And so, the battle continues to this day.

What do we make of all this?

Personally, I don't really care if you great me with either of expression, I don't find "Happy Holidays" to be offensive. In use, I'm far more likely to throw down a "Merry Christmas" because that's what I'm used to. If someone wants to be offended over my wishing their December 25 doesn't suck, then they can feel free.. though perhaps this is less of an issue for me, as I don't know a single Jewish person, nor do I know anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa.

I suppose this debate will continue for several more years at least. At some point, it will probably be abandoned in favor of the "Should we keep 'In God We Trust' on the money?" debate.