May 2008

Boobz n' Thongs Online
Submitted Saturday, May 31, 2008 - 4:01:35 PM by Klaitu

You probably heard about Age of Conan and the nudity already.

Check out this video:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34413.html

Ever want to play a MMO where all the naked chicks are men?

I give them props for having a "bosom" slider and a "posterior" slider though, their character customization is probably the most comprehensive I have seen since Star Wars Galaxies.

If the game is half as good as the music, it's probably decent. This is one I plan to check out when they invent a free trial for it. Stay tuned!

King's Quest 3 (Fan remake)
Submitted Saturday, May 31, 2008 - 7:26:36 AM by Klaitu

I'm a big fan of AGD Interactive. They remade King's Quest 1 and King's Quest 2 in VGA, and they remained true to the original game. I played the original games when they came out, and the remakes were a lot of the same thing.

I was suprised they kept themselves so restrained with "fiddling" with things. Adding stuff that shouldn't be in there, etc.

Well, another group calling itself Infamous Adventures has come along and remade King's Quest 3 (while AGD Interactive works on Quest for Glory 2) I checked out their information, and decided to give it a shot.

I'm glad to say that the King's Quest 3 remake is pretty good, certainly worth playing.. except one thing: it features the crappiest voice acting known to man. Turn it off, though, and you're good to go!

You can get the King's Quest 3 remaake here:
http://www.infamous-adventures.com/kq3/

Or King's Quest 1 or 2 here:
http://agdinteractive.com/

The games are designed for windows, so they'll work on modern machines, despite looking like something from the distant past.

Smooth Sounds of Cimmeria
Submitted Friday, May 30, 2008 - 4:15:50 PM by Klaitu

You may recall awhile back how I was ranting and raving about the Age of Conan soundtrack and how awesome it was.

Well, now that the game is released, and I have acquired myself a copy of the soundtrack, I can reassure you that yes, indeed, the soundtrack is magnificent and every human with ears should listen to it!

There's not a dud track on it, and it's 25 tracks. It officially takes the torch from the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes soundtrack.

I know nothing about the game, so draw your own conclusions there.

Quest for Glory: So You Want to be a Hero?
Submitted Monday, May 26, 2008 - 1:56:42 PM by Klaitu

The game was originally called Hero's Quest, but due to some problems with Milton Bradley (who made a board game called Heroquest) It got changed.

What would happen if you took Ultima and you mooshed it all up into a Sierra game? You'd get the Quest for Glory series.

Quest for Glory is another one of the Sierra titles that has both an original version which is text-based, and a remake version which is point-and-click. Of all the remakes, the two versions of Quest for Glory are probably the most similar.

You are a hero. You hail from parts unknown and have arrived in the hamlet of Speilburg on your quest to become a hero. You look around for Hero stuff to do. You know, the usual things. Fight brigands, rescue princesses, defeat evil wizards.

Quest For Glory is pretty cool in that you can be any of 3 kinds of hero. You can be a fighter, a magic user, or a thief. The game plays out entirely differently for each type of profession.

Quest for Glory is also unique among Sierra games in that it has actual combat. Damage is calculated through stats, and you'fve got HP and all that. Skills are use based.

The remake version features claymation monsters to fight!

Overall Score: 9 of 10 (both versions)

Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel
Submitted Monday, May 26, 2008 - 1:29:06 PM by Klaitu

This game was the third game I ever owned on the PC. How's that for going way back?

Now, just for your information, there are 2 versions of Police Quest. There's the original version made in 1987, and a remake that they did in 1992. The two versions are entirely different, and lucky you, I'll do two reviews in one.

Police Quest, at least the first 3 of them are all about the small California town of Lytton. It's not so small that it's a backwater, but not so large that you'd call it a metropolis, either.

Because of its size, Lytton really hasn't had a terrible crime problem. The Police mostly do traffic stuff, write tickets and all that. the more hard crimes are rare, in particular murder and drug trafficking.

That's where you come in. You're Sonny Bonds, somewhat new police officer! You'll spend your time listening to briefings, inspecting your car, and driving around waiting for the dispatcher to tell you where to go.

It's kind of weird that Police Quest isn't a mystery game at all. I mean, Laura Bow is doin it. Gabriel Knight is doing it. Sonny Bonds? He knows who the bad guys are the whole time, he just spends his time collecting the evidence to prove it.

Gameplay is identical to Sierra's other 1980's offerings. Walk with the arrow keys, and type into the game to do stuff. Police Quest is a "live" typing interface, which means you can type and walk at the same time. (A lof of Sierra's later text-interface games would pause when you type).

The plot is more of less identical in both the original and the remake versions. The remake version plays like the 1990's Sierra games, all point and click. The remake makes extensive use of art from Police Quest 3. Its user interface and intro screens are nearly identical.

Both games take place in 1987, though. The remake features a soundtrack of simulated 80's rock ballads.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

This score is for the original game. The remake isn't bad, but it's buggy in places because it was rushed out the door.

Phantasmagoria
Submitted Monday, May 26, 2008 - 1:05:45 PM by Klaitu

Ahh, Phantasmagoria. This was made before politicians paid any attention to video games. Curiosity piqued? Read on.

Before I get into the game aspect, I just thought I would share a bit about how crazy things got when trying to run this game.

This is one of Sierra's last games, at least, one of their last adventure games. It's full-motion video. In fact, it holds the record for the most live action video used in a single game.

Phantasmagoria was produced with 2 different versions. An impossible to play DOS version, and a difficult to run Windows 3.1 version. I decided that neither was good enough for me, so here's what I did:

I used DOSbox and installed Windows 3.1 on it. Can you believe it worked? I was shocked. I was in shock that Windows 3.1 is only 8 megs.

Anyways, this whole running a dos program on windows just to run windows on the dos that was already running on windows thing has one great side-effect: no compatibility issues. The game runs perfectly in its originally-intended enviornment.

Now, to the actual review. Remember what I said about it holding a world record for the amount of video in a single game? Well, all of that video contains GORE! Well, okay, not all of it. Some of it contains sex.

Not Mass Effect sex. Not even Top Gun sex. Full-on bow-chicka-wow-wow sex. With boobs and everything. In the freaking introduction before the game even begins!

The Plot involved a woman who is working on a horror novel.. I know it seems cliche for a Sierra game, but let's face it, you don't really care what she does. She just bought a new haunted mansion from a magician who died in mysterious circumstances. It's got a bit of a mystery element to it, but really, the game is just an excuse to throw some gore and sex at you.

The magician apparently killed every woman he ever met.. in his house, in any number of grotesque and fantastic ways, most of them featuring dubious amounts of blood.

The game even contains a rape scene.

Anyway, this writer woman is having flashbacks about all these murders that happened in the house, and that's why you're sitting around watching 8 CD's full of bloody porn rape.

There's also a demon in her basement.

I'm not going to say I was freaked out by Phantasmagoria, but it did make me go "ugh, why would anyone do that?" multiple times.

Overall Score 5 of 10.

I should point out thar horror stories have never really interested me. If you're a fan of that, you'd probably like the game, though. Especially if you like movies like Peter Jackson's Brain Dead.

The Dagger of Amon Ra
Submitted Monday, May 26, 2008 - 12:42:49 PM by Klaitu

I've decided to stick with the mystery theme, at least for one more retro review! (see, I made a new icon! yay!)

The Dagger of Amon Ra is the second part in the Laura Bow mysteries series. (I previously reviewed the other game in this series, The Colonel's Bequest)

Laura Bow is a fresh-out of college Lois Lane type character in this one. She's moved to the Big Apple in order to start her life as a career journalist.

Wouldn't you know there's also been a theft at the museum? And at the grand opening no less! Through a series of improbable events, Laura becomes trapped in the museum. There's several people trapped in with her, and someone is killing them off.

Tha game takes place in the 1920s, and the game really emits an early 20th century vibe to be sure. It was during this era when Egyptology became all the rage, and this game plays that angle like nobody's business. The puzzles involve heiroglyphs, among other Egypty-things. The copy protection is also "Identify the etching of the Egyptian god of X".

Gameplay once again is your standard Sierra point and click setup.

Dagger of Amon Ra is a bit easier than the Colonel's Bequest, and it's way easier than any of the Gabriel Knight series in terms of figuring out the puzzles.

Overall Score: 7 of 10

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Submitted Monday, May 26, 2008 - 11:58:14 AM by Klaitu

I'm going to start my Retro Review Extravaganza with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.

As you can tell from the freaky box, this isn't your ordinary game. Games these days sometimes put out a special box as a special edition. This was the normal box. Good luck fitting that on your shelf.

Sins of the Fathers is the first game in the Gabriel Knight series. New Orleans is experiencing a series of serial murders that are all based on voodoo rituals. Gabriel Knight is a down-on-his-luck author who is writing a mystery novel based on the murders.

Along the way his investigation gets a little too close to the actual murders, and he gets swept up into the whole thing.

Gameplay here is your standard Sierra-style adventure you'll find in all of their games in the 1990's. The plot to this one is a mystery, though, so you actually have to think about the plot details and figure out how to progress the story by investigation.

The game comes in 3 flavors to speak of: Diskette DOS, CD DOS, and CD Windows 3.1. The CD DOS one is the best of them. It features voice acting from Mark Hamill, Tiom Curry, Michael Dorn, and Leah Remini. Their voice acting really fits the style of the game.

Speaking of which, the game is designed like a graphic novel, the cutscenes are actually animated graphic novel pages.

This is one of Sierra's finest works. I highly recommend it!

Overall Score: 9 of 10

Old Game Extravaganza!
Submitted Monday, May 26, 2008 - 11:39:10 AM by Klaitu

It's nearing completion! For the past 5 years or so, I've been collecting all the cool old games I could find. Not console games, PC games, and mostly those old Sierra games that I loved as a lad.

A lot of them I already had, but were virtually unplayable. DOS emulators were invented, but they didn't work very well.

My friends, we now have the technology. We can replay them!

If you've ever used DOSBox, you'll know how crazy hard it is to configure. It's got so many options to use, and not the interface to explain it.

Enter D-fend reloaded, it's basically a Windows wizard that puts all the configuration power at your fingertips. It forumlates the neccessary dosbox commands for you. It. is. awesome.

The next thing I had to do is go in and configure it for all of my games. Sounds easy, right? Here's the Inventory:

Sierra Games: 68
Origin systems: 22
Lucasarts: 5
Interplay: 6
Others: 26

That's 127 games, and that's just the ones I have right now. I've got a couple leads on where I can get my hands on some more of them!

The most exciting part is that if you fiddle around with the settings a little bit, you can get the games to play exactly as they were designed to.

It's really a treat to go through and play some of the older games with a sound card. I didn't have a sound card until after Windows 95 was out.

So, in the future I'll be doing some retro reviews. I don't know that anyone is really as interested as I am about them, but I just feel the urge.

And who knows, it should really jack up my search terms results on google. Maybe I can knock Punky Brewster off the list.

Crap, I said Punky Brewster, now my site is more relevant for that search term.. CRAP I just said it again!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Submitted Saturday, May 24, 2008 - 12:04:08 AM by Klaitu

I wouldn't resist. Indiana Jones is pretty freakin awesome.

I'm not a "theater" guy. I generally dislike them. My theater experience for Indy was horrible, so I'm going go try to seperate my hatred for the kids kicking my seat and talking through the whole movie from the actual movie.

Also, a note to AMC theaters: Your sound sucks. I'm never going to an AMC theater again if I can help it. You should be ashamed.

The new Indy movie is, I am happy to report, very "Indiana Jonesy". They did a good job on recapturing the style of an Indiana Jones film. Speilburg probably helped in that regard.

Unfortunately, Indy 4 goes over the top a bit too much. Now, I'm willing to give a little on Indiana Jones.. it's movie fun, so movie things happen.

You'll recall in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazi has his hand scarred with the inscription from a talisman.

You'll recall Temple of Doom and the "raft falling out of a plane" thing.

The Last Crusade has its share as well, I mean how likely is it the rhino would put his horn THERE, or that there would be a giant boat propellor half out of the water. Need I mention the plane going through the tunnel?

Indiana Jones sometimes goes to the extreme with the movie moments, and Indy 4 is no exception. It's got all those moments, but the problem is, it goes over the top. I am now going to spoil part of the movie:

Indiana Jones survives a nuclear blast in a lead lined refrigerator. I don't need to tell you that this is impossible. I could describe in intricate detail why this is impossible, but I'll put it this way: A child can open a refrigerator, and a nuclear bomb is way more powerful than a child.

There are some other Indy moments that I can go with, that are even clever.. most of them revolving around magnetism and how it doesn't work like that in reality. I can go with that, it's Indy.

There's also a scene later in the movie involving monkeys and Shia LeBouf swinging on vines with them. For the love of all that is holy, I hope this footage is removed and religated to whatever pit they cast the Star Wars Holiday Special into.

The movie also appears to have some goofiness in the voices at the first, like they were looped incorrectly in post production. It doesn't seem like the words are coming out of his mouth.

Another problem the movie has is it's not building up to anything you care about. Let me put it this way:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: Belloc has the girl AND the Ark, how will indy rescue them?

The Last Crusade: Indy's dad has been shot, he's dying and the only thing that can save him is the holy grail.

These are good suspenseful moments. I didn't mention temple of Doom, because it sucked. Can you even remember what they're looking for in Temple of Doom? I can't, and I've seen it a million times.

So, instead of having a great happy ending filled with the hero having saved the day, it's more like the Hero just stands around while everyone else gives exposition.

Then, the "great WTF ending" happens. I wont ruin it, because it will wreck the plot for you, but let's just say the ending is chock full of unneccessary CGI.

Which brings me to another problem this Indy has.. CGI. Too much CGI. I can see using CGI to compliment your movie, but in this movie, entire enviornments are made out of CGI. That's okay for Star Wars, but Indy is all about being on location, in real places, doing real stunts.

It's a shame that the CGI generation has caught up with Indy.

Anyway, this movie isn't bad, but it's not as awesome as I wanted it to be. However, it does contain all the Indy action that you've come to know and love. It's not disappointing by any stretch, they just put stuff in that had no business being there.

Overall Score: 7 of 10

Klaitu vs the Trojans
Submitted Friday, May 23, 2008 - 6:54:21 AM by Klaitu

It all started with an SQL Injection attack, or at least I think so.

Somehow, someway my computer became infected with a Trojan program. I didn't download attachments, I wasn't messing with warez. It just sort of happened.

Suddenly, Firefox and Internet Explorer were rife with popup ads.. and not just any popup ads, really crappy popup ads that didn't even work right.

It was quite noticable. I don't get popup ads. I have eradicated them from existance on my computer. This was quite obviouslt the work of malicious software.

So, I ran my usual antivirus and my usual anti-spyware programs with the latest and greatest updates.. and got nothing.

I tried a few other services.. F-prot online and Kapersky online. Nothing. I tried the free trial of F-prot. Squat. Something was afoot.

I ran Antivir and F-Prot on full heuristics and blind scan. Nothing.

The only way I know of to prevent being picked up by antivirus on a full scan is rootkits.

So I tried F-secure blacklight, and the windows rootkit detector. Still nothing. Rootkits are flaky, though, so I broke it down oldschool.

I booted off a Windows XP boot disk into command prompt and ran F-prot, Kaperski, and Mcaffee DOS on full scan with full heuristics. This would be rootkit independant as these are being run from a CD, which can't be infected.

Still nothing.

The only thing I could come up with was that I had something so new that the antivirus guys hadn't figured out how to detect it yet. Now it was time to remove the thing manually.

First, I threw zonealarm on my machine, and locked down the internet connection, then I used TCP View to take a look and who was requesting what connections on a fresh boot. turns out that this was a pure browser hijack, there were over 20 bogus browser addons thrown into IE.

That's when it got tricky.. when you'd take one of these addons down, it would just pop right back.. and pop right back with a random filename.

Using Process Explorer, I watched as I deleted one, and watched a program pop out of nowhere and restore it. Another program with a random name.

So, I investigated this program. It showed up in the startup in the registry. Whoever made it programmed it to run while hooked onto rundll32, which is why it wasn't so easy to spot. There were also parts of it hooked into explorer.exe and lsass.exe.

So, I began my surgery. I used Spybot's Teatimer program to prevent any additions to the registry, and accept only deletions. I eliminated the programs from the registry one by one, and watched as each of them tried to reinstall each other, only to bounce off teatimer.

Then I worked my way down back to the browser hijack and took that out too. With no foundation, there wasn't anything there to reinstall it.

Then, the ultimate test: reboot.

The reboot worked pretty well, except there were 2 pesky returns that bounced off Teatimer again. The attempted additions were made by something called "msserver". Msserver is not a microsoft process, like it looks. So, I eliminated anything on my computer with the word "msserver" in it. Registry keys, files, directories.. cached web pages. BOOM, gone.

Another reboot! This time, only 1 remaining process. It's easy to spot now because it bounces off the teatimer, and then tries to call the DLL that isn't there, which results in an error message.

I managed to strip the last vestiges of it out of the registry, and now I'm as clean as I can be. A fresh bootup doesn't make extra TCP requests now.

Still, on every bootup, there's something that bounces off of Teatimer. A program with no name tries to add an empty value to a key that doesn't exist. I'm not sure where it's coming from, but you can bet I'll get to the bottom of it!

Penny Arcade Adventures: The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 1
Submitted Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 3:28:54 AM by Klaitu

Yowzah, that's a long name!

Anyways, pretty much everyone has heard of this game coming out. Well, it's available now on the Xbox Live Arcade.

I'll tell you, it certainly doesn't disappoint! There are very few titles that have great gameplay AND a great sense of humor.

The game plays like a simplified final fantasy. Menu choices for each combat maneuver, summons, special attacks.. it's all here.

Go ahead and download it, it's 1600 Microsoft points, which translates into something like 20 human dollars.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

Now with 100% more Firefox
Submitted Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 8:08:31 PM by Klaitu

Bring it on, alternative browser people! Special K can handle it now!

In the olden times, Special K would work fine in every browser except Firefox. This is because Firefox does not interpret tables correctly. Next time you hear someone professing how firefox is the only HTML compliant browser, you can tell them that.

Special K has been tested with Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Firefox, Palm Browser, PSP, PS3, and AOL Browser.

Now my brain hurts.

Goldberry's been busy
Submitted Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 7:38:55 PM by Klaitu

She's been working on getting her own site updated and all spiffified up, just so YOU can read it!

It's even got some of that newfangled RSS and Comments and stuff. You know, the stuff I'm getting around to.

As it turns out, it's hard to make these kinds of things without using SQL. I'm a committed non-SQL kinda guy.

Anyways, go check out GB's newly redesigned site, and leave her a comment or two while you're there.

http://www.canadiandana.com

The Icons are back!
Submitted Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 7:35:48 PM by Klaitu

Hooray Hooray Hooray!

The icons are back! I got them fixed, though all the icons in the archives have been lost, unfortunately. Still, posts from here on out will be all.. icony! YAY!

Roberta Williams
Submitted Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 7:03:38 PM by Klaitu

Don't know Roberta Williams?

She invented King's Quest.

Ahh, there, now you know Roberta Williams.

I'm not going to say I'm a huge Roberta Williams fan. Certainly, there are game designers in her era and genra who I find to be more skilled.. but nobody can deny that Roberta kicked it all off, nor that she's got more skill than most of today's designers.

I was doing some reasearch for a special project that I'm working on, and I came across a bit of Roberta Williams trivia that I didn't know before:

Featured here is Roberta Williams in the guise of Mother Goose. She is apparently teaching children (also a wooden duck and various cartoon children) about Mother Goose. This game was released in 1987. You might think this is what Roberta Williams was all about, but you'd be wrong. This is how she made her money.

Here's a game that she was involved with 6 years earlier:



And wouldn't you know it, she's right there on the cover! (Hint: She's not the creepy guy with the drinks)

I never knew she was on the cover of several of her games. I also didn't know she was the graphical model for the character Helen Hots in Police Quest 1, nor that she was Eve in Leisure Suit Larry 1.

So, there you go, Roberta Williams has a saucy side. She's also got a dark side. Check this one out:



Yeah, that guy is totally ripping his chest apart and crap. The game also features more blood than a Tarintino movie and also a rape scene. Rated M indeed. Phantasmagoria is one of the last games that Roberta did.

I don't know about you guys, but when I think of Roberta Williams, I think of cartoon dwarves giving me a seemingly indecipherable puzzle. I don't think of dudes ripping themselves in half. I wonder how she escaped the whole Night Trap fiasco (a game that does not contain blood, nor rape)

Anyways, if you're wondering what happened to Roberta Williams... Sierra was taken over in a hostile bid from Cendant (the guys who put ads on AOL). It was since sold about 5 or 6 times and is now owned by Activision-Blizzard, North America's second largest gaming conglomoration (next to Electronic Arts).

Ken and Roberta retired the day Cendant got put in charge, and eventually moved to Mexico, which is where they live to this day.. so far as I know.

Hillary Ruins Christmas
Submitted Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - 6:31:52 PM by Klaitu

This is about as political humor as I get!

Neverwinter Nights 2
Submitted Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - 12:47:21 AM by Klaitu

I was not a fan of the original Neverwinter Nights. I did have some time on my hands though, and a free copy of Neverwinter Nights 2, so I decided to try it out.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is essentially Neverwinter Nights 1 with slightly better graphics.

When I first booted the game up, I thought it was a joke. I thought that this was actually Neverwinter Nights 1.. but it wasn't.

Let's take it by category:

Graphics: Abysmal. World of Warcraft has better graphics.. actually, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has better graphics, and that's saying something.

Sound: The music is actually the best thing about the game. It's well written music that far outshines the game that it's stuck in.

Gameplay: Did you ever want to roam the countryside as one of 10 generic faces with identical bodies? When you run, do you wish you could run like you had just loaded your adult diaper with a twosie? Have you ever wanted to go literally everywhere with your weapons drawn, even when there are no enemies around?

If you answered yes, NWN 2 might be for you.

The most atrocious thing about NWN 1 is back. You don't actually control your character. You click on things and then the AI tries to figure out what you want to do. The AI fails miserably most of the time, and the camera controls are next to useless.

Also like Neverwinter Nights 1, NWN 2 gives you a world editor so that you can make your own levels that nobody should play because the gameplay is so horrible.

Anyways, if you're into NWN 1 and haven't got NWN 2 yet, go ahead, you won't be disappointed. As for myself, the DVD is going in the trash, I'm not even going to bother trying to sell it.

Overall Score: 1 of 10

You're lucky it has good music, Atari.

Happy Free $600 Day, America!
Submitted Sunday, May 18, 2008 - 4:10:11 AM by Klaitu

Economic Stimulus in the house!

I hope you're all enjoying your free money! I know that I already have! Actually, I bought myself 2 extra weeks of freedom from Hertz with it, so mine was already spent.

But YOU! You've got $600 bucks burning a hole in your pocket ($1200 if you filed a joint return) So what are you going to spend all that money on?

Can I make a suggestion?

How about some cat clothes?

Holy Crap, it's Church Stuff!
Submitted Sunday, May 18, 2008 - 2:38:51 AM by Klaitu

Yeah, yeah, I just turned like 90% of you off, but stick with me for a second, because this gets pretty cool.

Having been in and out of all sorts of churches all my life, i've come to the conclusion that most of them are stuffy and old. They cling to traditions that may have made sense at one point, but no longer do. Theese traditions have been so ingrained into their.. community consciousness that going against the social convention is seen somehow as "sinful" or "degenerate" or (insert other negative churchy word).

I meet a lot of people who profess to believe in God, or Jesus, or just "something supernatural", but they don't go to church because there are "church people" there. Heck, I'm one of them, "church people" suck.

So, I read this book, it's called unChristian. It's about a group that did a statistical survey on this this exact same thing. First they took a survey of 19 to 30 year olds and found out how they felt about church. The top results came out "judgmental, antihomosexual, hypocritical, too political and sheltered".

These guys didn't stop there, though. They then did a survey of random churches and tested them against the perception of the survey group, and found their perception to be entirely accurate.

Now, you're saying to yourself "duh!" but it's unprecedented that they would have the guts to release this book. It will get panned by the religious establishment.. if it hasn't already.

I don't know, maybe it will do some good eventually.. blow the crust off and all that. Whenever I get into a conversation and people realize that I'm Christian, they automatically lump me into the religious establishment group.

Alright, church post over, you may return to your normal enjoyment of Special K!

More Richard Garriott
Submitted Saturday, May 17, 2008 - 4:37:53 AM by Klaitu

Alright, so I'm on a Richard Garriott Spree. I can't help it, he's just too goofy!

So, I've been reading his official spaceflight website at http://www.richardinspace.com/ and it's actually pretty interesting. I recommend you take a look. The Q&A section is awesome:

Julien from France, near St Malo asks:

Do you plan to use your Space Flight to promote Tabula Rase (like send Logos in Space or wear an AFS Spacesuit)

Julien,

Of course! In fact, I will be looking for signs of the Bane presence in our planetary system. You know that we anticipate they may visit the earth very soon, based upon the advanced technology we have already uncovered on earth, that we are keeping a secret from the masses…. J

- General British

Richard Garriott: Still Crazy
Submitted Saturday, May 17, 2008 - 3:28:02 AM by Klaitu

Have I talked much about Richard Garriott before? I feel like I have, but going back, I really haven't. If you don't already know that Richard Garriott is crazy, then you're behind the times. Go read his Wikipedia entry.

Sure, the guy dresses funny, lives in a strange mansion, and is going to the International Space Station in October.. but I just can't help watching the guy do the weird things he does.

The guy freaking owns a sputnik, shrunken heads, and a mummified eagle.

Anyways, go watch this video about his house: http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1564231&vid=161267

He's got a freaking independant telescope mount!

Lucky.

Perhaps the most shocking news in the video is that he has a girlfriend....

Well, I suppose he IS rich, after all.

You know what? I'll go ahead and say it. Richard Garriott is the gamers version of Willy Wonka. Forget Oompa loompas and embrace victorian era robotic pepper grinders!

Fantasy, Adventure, Cuteness.
Submitted Friday, May 16, 2008 - 5:05:22 PM by Klaitu

Sorry to post another youtube, but I think you'll understand once you see it.

I have finally found the WoW killer!

OV-102
Submitted Friday, May 16, 2008 - 5:08:14 AM by Klaitu

What is OV-102? It's the designation number for the Space Shuttle USS Columbia, which disintegrated on reentry on February 1, 2003.

So, why am I posting about the Columbia now, over 5 years later?

One of my many hobbies is keeping track of the space program, and in doing so, I came across an interesting video that I thought I would share:

The EpiRip 357
Submitted Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - 4:37:46 AM by Klaitu

This video shows why Space Quest 4 is the most superiorest Space Quest, and also the best Sierra game ever made.

New Wardrobe
Submitted Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 3:18:28 PM by Klaitu

So, I decided it was time to get some new clothes, and since my wardrobe consists entirely of t-shirts and jeans, I decided to do it up with some style. Here's the shirts I hooked myself up with!

How many people will even get this one?



Because bustin' makes me feel good.



Wyld Stallyins rule!



This one I'm giving as a gift, but it's still pretty neat.



53 years ago it was struck by lightning!



Gotta remember where ya came from!

The mystery is solved
Submitted Monday, May 12, 2008 - 12:45:19 AM by Klaitu

I have nothing more to add.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liinxSNHfeo

darkSector
Submitted Thursday, May 8, 2008 - 9:05:51 PM by Klaitu

Capitalization problems aside, darkSector is all about vampires.

Well, not really vampires, it's about devil disease that gives people superpowers!

But my post here has nothing to do with that. It's not even a review, since I only played the demo.. but the demo raised some serious questions for me.

Okay, see that guy there? He's carrying that bladed thing, the game calls it a glaive.

Well, a glaive is actually.. here:



This nerd here is holding an example of what a glaive is. It's a polearm. It's not a frisbee with blades on it.

The whole frisbee thing comes from an entirely different source, the awesome 1980's fantasy movie Krull! In that movie, they had a weapon called "the glaive" which looked like this:



So, what we have here is a game that uses terminology based on a movie, but is completely unrelated to that movie.

Speaking of which, they need to make a Krull game, I'd play that.

Anyways, this is like a game featuring a thunderdome, but having no relation to the movie "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome". I just had not realized that Krull had changed the definition of "glaive".

As for the game, you'd think killing people with a bladed frisbee would be fun, but most of the time it just bounces off walls and other stuff you weren't aiming at.. and it doesnt kill people in one hit, which is just silly.

Don't Believe Them!
Submitted Thursday, May 8, 2008 - 8:52:45 PM by Klaitu

So, I decided to check out the Scrubs episode today, billed as a "series finale" even though it actually isn't! Don't believe em man!

It's merely a season finale, and the show returns in the fall on ABC instead of NBC. That's just alright by me, because that "series finale" episode kinda sucked. Furthermore, it was aired in the wrong order.

Oh well. Please enjoy this scrubs scene:

Grand Theft Auto 4
Submitted Monday, May 5, 2008 - 8:46:04 PM by Klaitu

Do I really have to tell you to play this game? Do you not already own it? Everyone should own it by now.. why haven't you already played this game?

I'm going to assume that all of you know what Grand Theft Auto is, so I'm not going to go into detail about that, I'm just going to give you my impressions.

GTA4 is pretty freakin amazing. Great gameplay, excellent story, good playthrough time, and pretty snazzy graphics. If you liked the previous GTA games, this one is no exception.. there's just more of it.

What GTA4 lacks compared to its older siblings is its sense of humor. I mean, sure there are fart jokes and the like.. it wouldn't be GTA without them, but you're not going to find yourself on a mission to run over guys in an ice cream truck, or to chase down a rapper in a hovercraft. There are no RC cars or RC helicopters. GTA4 is much more of a somber game.

This is reflected a lot by the radio stations as well. There isn't a lot of good music on, and the talk radio stations are not nearly as entertaining as the PS2 games (or even the PSP ones). The only radio carryover is Lazlow, who is decidedly un-funny this time around.

I miss Thor's Norse Power Program.

And.. I miss Fernando Martinez!

GTA4 also takes a huge stab at political humor. After all, the Statue of Liberty is the Statue of Happiness, and it's Hillary Clinton holding a coffee cup above her head.

Still, all the core elements of GTA are here.. Carjacking, shooting tons of gang members, running over guys, running from the cops.. frustratingly difficult escort missions.. its solid gameplay that shouldn't be missed.

Overall Score: 9 of 10

Attack of the Graske
Submitted Monday, May 5, 2008 - 5:11:09 AM by Klaitu

You remember all those old games when CD-ROM's were new? Games like Ground Zero Texas, Night Trap, Sewer Shark, abd the X-Files game?

The BBC did an interesting one just recently featuring 2 of their hi-def channels. There was a simulcast on both channels, and an interactive story was played. Depending on what choice you picked, the box would change the channel to progress.. or not progress.. the story in real time.

Pretty neat technology.

Well, now it's online, It's called Attack of the Graske, and it's pretty neat.. though not particularly hard:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/games/graske#ignore

Ironman
Submitted Saturday, May 3, 2008 - 3:58:28 PM by Klaitu

You know, I've never been a huge Ironman fan. He's not the worst Marvel superhero. That distinction falls to Elektra.. though Daredevil is not far behind.

The movie changed my mind. I mean, I already knew the basic story of Ironman, but the direction the film takes the character is actually superior to the story in the comic book.. which is simply amazing. This rarely, if ever happens.

If you don't know the basic story of Ironman, here it is.. Tony Stark is a supergenius who is the son of a genius who ownd Stark Industries, a weapons manufacturing company. The elder Stark dies, and Tony Stark gets the company, which he leads to great success.

While demonstrating his weapons for the US military in Afganistan, he is kidnapped and forced into building a missile for a terrorist cell. Instead of building a missile, he builds a basic suit of protective power armor and escapes.

This is essentially the comic plot as well, but the whole Afganistan thing is new.

While in captivity, Stark notices that all the terrorists have crates upon crates of weapons that he invented. When he finally returns to the United States, he announces plans to shut down the weapons manufacturing of Stark Industries.. and that's pretty much how it all begins.

Robert Downey Jr. Is amazing as Tony Stark. Who knew he could act? I expected there to be a lot of CGI like the Spiderman movies, and there was some, but there are only 3 scenes in which Stark is actually in the Ironman armor, which means the movie is a lot more about Tony Stark, and a lot less about Ironman.

Speaking more broadly, Ironman is the first Marvel Comics film entirely controlled by Marvel. The upcoming Incredible Hulk movie is the second. If Marvel's movies stay with this level of story and quality, they will rule the box office.

If you go see the film, stay tuned after the credits for a special bonus scene that rocks the house!

Overall Score: 9 of 10

Southland Tales
Submitted Saturday, May 3, 2008 - 6:52:09 AM by Klaitu

Have you ever heard of the Southland Tales?

Chances are, you probably haven't. It's got Dwayne Johnson in it, though. Sarah Michelle Gellar as well. Also, about a hundred other people you'll recognize.. from Wallace Shawn to Cheri Oteri.

So, with all these names you've heard of, why didn't you hear about Southland Tales?

Because it sucked, that's why.

What is Southland Tales? Well, it's one of those "weird" movies. You know the kind. It's the kind of movie that is strange for the sake of being strange.. though not as overtly perhaps as a film by Tim Burton or Tarintino.

I'm told that the movie has a lot of "dark humor", but I was hard pressed to find any humor at all in the film. Then again, I am not a fan of dark humor.

How can I explain the plot? Well, buckle your seatbelts, it's going to get trippy, but I promise we'll ride this thing through together:

The entire movie takes place inside an alternate reality that contains yet another alternate reality. In this alternate world, there was a nuclear attack in Texas in July of 2005.

Through some means or another, the powers of Iraq, Afganistan, North Korea, and Syria ally with one another. Somehow they virtually cut off the US from it's oil supply.

In response the US institutes a strange extremist PATRIOT Act, which involves "taking over the internet" and restricting interstate travel. Unrest gets all crazy-go-nuts, and a group of neo-marxists (of all people) gain a lot of followers.

It just so happens that Wallace Shawn has invented a new, renewable energy source which is powered by a mysterious element that only exists under the ocean crust. In the movie they call it "Fluid Karma" which is pretty good name considering "magical fairy dust" was already taken.

Wallace Shawn's Fluid Karma generators are basically big electrical plants which wirelessly transmit power to any technology meant to utilize it. So, no more burning fuels, just get within range of the Fluid Karma machine and everyone is happy!

Following me so far? Good! I'm making this much easier on you than the movie does.

Anyways, these Fluid Karma machines are slowing down the Earth's rotation, which is having all sorts of crazy side effects.. like earthquakes. Oh, and also it makes a hole in the space-time continuum open up in the Nevada Desert.

Wallace Shawn, apparently having a "Space-time continuum detector" or something, sends Seann William Scott and Dwayne Johnson into this time vortex. We can only applaud him for his efforts to remove them from our dimension, but it only ends up sending them 69 minutes into the past.

So, now we have two Dwayne Johnson's, and 2 Seann William Scott's. The duplicate versions of them are not only from the future, but also from a different reality as well. A reality that is identical to the one we've been following, but it's off by 69 minutes.

Wow, you're still reading? I haven't even gotten to the plot yet, this is all back story!

Anyways, Dwayne Johnson 1 is blown up. Wallace Shawn blew him up shortly after going through the time rift. Dwayne Johnson 2 has amnesia, and doesn't remember any of it. Dwayne Johnson 2 is from the future. Seann William Scott (who I will rever to as SWS from now on) 1 and 2 are both still alive and kickin.

Dwayne Johnson 2 is trying to make a movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar, the plot of the movie is nearly identical to the movie you are watching because it's all been written for foreknowledge of events.. and yes, it's as confusing as it sounds.

SWS 1 has become a patsy for the Neo-Marxists. SWS 2 ends up being drugged for 99% of the movie, seeing as how there is only one real SWS actor.

Dwayne Johnson finally uncovers all the stuff I already told you about the time travel (He had amnesia, remember?) and during the whole process SWS 1 is looking for SWS 2.

When SWS 1 and SWS 2 finally meet and touch each other, it destroys time.. and causes an ice cream truck to float a terrorist with a rocket launcher hundreds of feet into the air where he blows up a blimp with a rocket launcher.

And then it turns out that 2 Seann William Scotts equals Jesus.

Yes. You read that right. No exaggeration, this is literally what happens in the film.

You know, I love it when movies are so blatantly horrible, because it gives me a chance to rip it a new binglebore. Oh, so many complaints, where to begin?

1. The political premise of the movie is fundamentally flawed.

I can accept creative license for the sake of fiction.. I really can! The idea that Iraq, Syria, South Korea, and Afganistan would unite is ridiculous.. but even if they did, how much of a threat would they be?

Iraq in the 80's had the world's 4th largest military.. arguably its most prosperous time in recent history, and the first Gulf War saw them lose to the US in 100 days.

Afganistan has a large arsenal of pointed sticks and Arabis curse words.

Syria has guys with machine guns. Guys with guns are susceptible to things like tanks. Plus, Israel would roll over them in about 2 weeks if they really wanted to.

North Korea is by far the most impressive military force among the 4. They have nuclear weapons that could maybe reach Hawaii if the conditions were just right. Unfortunately, they're parked next to China, who can field the world's largest army and walk all over North Korea.

2. The effects of the lack of oil on the United States.

There's a huge movement in the US to use other forms of fuels for powering cars and such. Hydrogen and all that.. but let's just assume that we have zero alternative fuel technology and the middle east oil was cut off.

Would America freak out? A little, I suppose.. but then they'd just drill in Alaska, or Canada, or the Central US, or Austrailia, or Russia.. or any other place that has tons of Oil that nobody is wiling to drill right now since all those middle east countries are providing it already.

3. The effective of the movie's version of the PATRIOT Act.

In the movie, the government takes control of the internet, which is now called USIdent. Supposedly it only shows state-controlled news, etc etc.

Problem: The internet can't be contained. It can't be controlled. The only thing you can do to the internet is sabotage its connectivity. Even now you can encrypt the data sent over the internet so that only the intended recipient can decode the data. In a system like that, how are you going to stop terrorists from doing whatever they want with the internet.

Also in the movie, interstate travel is restricted. You have to have papers to go from place to place. so.. how does this protect against anything? State borders aren't like country borders. They don't have checkpoints, there's just a sign.. and that's if you take the road. Every state has miles and miles of wilderness border that can't be defended.

Furthermore, the trucking industry has to do more work, meaning they get paid more, meaning the stuff they carry costs more, meaning consumer products go up, and your economy goes down.. which is no good when you have to institute a draft..

You know, to knock over Afganistan. Because they're so powerful.

4. Book of Revelation

The book borrows heavily from the Book of Revelation.. a book that is debated hotly amongst Bible-types because it has not het come to pass.

The movis has a somewhat ridiculous interpretation of the book of Revelation.. like I said.. 2 Seann Williams Scott's make one Jesus. Also Wallace Shawn is the Anti-Christ. I suppose that means that Justin Timberlake is Disciple John.

Anyway, If Punch Drunk Love and The Omega Code had a baby, it would be called Southland Tales.. and if that baby were born in Sparta.. well, let's just say it's time to go on the defective baby pile.

Overall Score: 3 of 10

It gets an extra point because Justin Timberlake shoots both Cheri Oteri and Jon Lovitz with a 50 calibur artillery.. I mean, sure, when they get hit it's just normal tiny 9mm squibs, but they made the effort.