Harry Potter Series (Completed)

I haven't actually read the whole Harry Potter series as I find it easier to go through books of that magnitude in audio format with a narrator doing funny voices for all the different characters. That is to say books that I am not prepared to read, but really do want to read. Anyway having finished the series I thought I might give some retrospective.

JK does an excellent job of creating a consistent feeling of anticipation for what is coming in the story. There is always something going on in a chapter that keeps the reader going, not to mention all the secrets in the series. And unlike some murder mystery writers who leave it up until the final chapter to decide who the killer was, JK has peppered the whole series with little nuggets that forward and backwards references very nicely, which means new discoveries can be had on the reader's part from a second reading of the series.

My only issue with the whole series is with the last book. Through the series each book has the Defence Against The Dark Arts Teacher take some special place in each book's plot and no teacher holds the post for more than a year, but in the final book the post is only mentioned. This shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. It also bothered me that we never discover wither Harry graduated from Hogwarts, wither Harry fulfilled his interesting in becoming an Auror or what happened to a few of the characters. So although I deeply enjoyed the series, it left me feeling a little confunded as it didn't offer as much closure as I would have liked. That all being said it is an excellent series and something in me says that we haven't seen the last of the Harry Potter Universe just yet.
4.5/5

Team Fortress 2 Artstyle

I just seen this TF2 video where the development team talk about the art direction, visual queues, lighting technology they have been working on for the game and I was very surprised about the lack of promotional BS in their words.

Usually in videos where developers talk about their game things like 'innovative' and 'never done before' are said a lot and when everybody actually plays the game it is painfully obvious that it is nothing like how the team described (a certain Peter M certainly isn't the only one in the industry that is guilty of over promoted what they are selling). For example there is an interview about Bioshock out there where it is said that the Telekinesis power in the game hasn't been done before in an FPS, but most gamers will instantly recognise a similarity between the game's Telekinesis power and HL2's Gravity Gun. So anyway I don't like the general level of BS that comes from most people in the industry, but I found this video to be a nice refreshing change.



The team clearly knows their stuff and by demonstrating that I am more confident that TF2 is going to be a good game.

P.S. While on the subject of art-direction and Bioshock there is a free Bioshock Artbook that is up for download as of today on the official website.
The artbook is in PDF format so I would highly recommend installing Foxit as an alternative PDF reader to Adobe's bloatware reader.

Rollerblade Man Suit

By way of Digg some crazy French-man has made a suit with wheels and taken it on a trip down some roads in the Swiss Alps.



If you want to see the suit a little better Here is another video of the guy.

Some Interesting Film Trailers

For about the past year film trailers have be fairly, meh. For me the mark of a good film trailer it's ability for it to turn me from not knowing about a film, not caring about a film or just knowing of a film, to wanting to see it. The more a trailer makes me want to see a particular film the better it is because of course film trailers are just adverts, but there is certainly a much higher level of artistry behind a film trailer than any TVad for catfood.

So anyway I was looking at a trailer on IMDB for a film and they linked to a Blog called Movies For The Masses which looks like it is in Russian or some other language I can't read, but on there are trailers I haven't seen before because I use Apple Trailers to see what's up and coming. So I was a little surprised to see some of the stuff that is on there and I wanted to share:

• The Dark Knight Teaser
  Teaser for the new Batman film. The last Batman film was so good that it's sequel is easily on my list of must watch.



• Halloween
  I know, yet another Halloween, but this is directed by Rob Zombie so maybe it will liveup to what Halloween fans have been asking for since the first film.



• Shoot 'Em Up
  It looks like it is filled with the same kind of inventive fight sequences that are present in The Transporter which wasn't a bad film, but Shoot 'Em Up has Paul Giamatti involved, an actor who I am taking more note of with each film I see him in.



• Resident Evil Extinction
  I hated the last two, after finishing watching the second, knowing that their would be a third I said that I would refuse to see it, but after watching the trailer for it, I kind of want to see it. There is just something about a post apocalyptic wasteland that Brings Back Fond Memories for me.

Fiction Plane

I have loads to blog about, but with a thirty hour a week job to goto now (still on trial) I have been struggling to use my time correctly. Not that I bother with such things as television or cleaning, but while listening to a recent episode of Digital Flotsam (awesome podcast if you don't mind months passing between episodes) titled 'Isn't Life A Dream', where PW talks about the Police, he plays some Police (the band) and some Fiction Plane. That being Joe Sumner's band (that's Sting's son). This surprised me as I didn't know he had a son that was into recording music.

I never got on with the Police's music, I recognise the awesome playing talent, I love Sting's singing (as well as his acting), but the music somehow never connected with me. Yet Fiction Plane who you can listen to on their MySpace Page connects with me. And I think it has something to do with the fact that their style although very Police influenced is a harder rock style than the Police's. So I would highly recommend checking them out, if you like rock that is.

Now Semi-unemployed

I haven't updated in a while because this week I started a work trial at a web services company. The work trial essentially means they get me working for them for free for a few months while they decide wither they want to keep me or not. The whole unemployment thing has been silly as I am very capable, and have a Degree, but not having worked several years anyplace specific means that employers have given me the cold shoulder, hence why I am now working for free (plus government benefits).

Not much else has happened, it's been hot. Might even need to put the air-conditioning on Saturday as the weatherman says the air temperature will reach twenty seven degreed centigrade.

The History of Oil by Robert Newman

I think a better title would be The Cheap Energy Bubble, but Robert Newman does an excellent Standup Lecture/Comedy Routine about the history of oil and why we should care about it's history.

Some of what he talks about I knew and some of it I did not know, but it is clear to me now that those people who have been shouting about future energy production might be onto something and not as deranged as I first thought. Indeed energy is easy to produce, but as the shouting people keep pointing out cheap energy in large quantities isn't either cheap or easy to produce. So if you too as I did, don't think future energy production is an issue, then I suggest you give Robert's little show a viewing. Here Is A Direct Link to the video.

Mapping Game Categories With Analysis

A few US institutions have gotten together and done what all mental analysts have done before them, which is ask people to do a survey. But this time they are asking people to fill out a survey which will tell them what video games gamers think are similar to each other. And from this they will create a graph where similar games will be clustered together.

The results from this survey could open the door to new genre descriptors, instead of the ones we use today which are primarily named by what perspective players play the game from. The survey only takes ten minuets and can be found at Mapping The Mental Space Of Video Games or if you want to go direct to the survey click Here.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Censorship In Film)

I just finished watching This Film Is Not Yet Rated which is a documentary on the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) who are the ones that award film ratings in The Unighted States of America. These ratings are designed to protect children from seeing things that might disturb them or things that might be socially unacceptable.

In the UK there is little controversy surrounding film or video game ratings, as 18 is given to a lot films and shops don't mind carrying them although they are fined if they sell a rated film like Terminator (15), American Pie (15) or Alien (18) to anybody who is underage. Occasionally a film is refused a rating which means it won't be sold anywhere and is effectiverly banned. See This List to see what has been banned in the UK. The list certainly isn't a list of unappreciated classics. However the list of banned films from Malaysia does include such classics as Blade, South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut, Brokeback Mountain and Sideways.

In the US there are no fines for shops who sell to underage children. So if a 12 year old kid wants to buy Terminator (R), American Pie (R) or Alien (R) they can do so as it is solely the responsibility of their parents or guardian to censor what they are allowed or not allowed to watch (I see this as an iresponsable pro-freedom stance). Which is why a lot of companied that produce films won't promote any film with the highest rating (NC-17) as they see themselves as having a moral responsibility to protect children. This results in shops like WalMart making it policy to refuse to sell any and all NC-17 rated films. Which to a film maker getting an NC-17 rating on their film is going to mean a lot less money for their hard work.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated, takes the view that because of this situation where films won't be distributed unless they get a rating lower than an NC-17 means that Americans are all being classed as children to protect a portion of the population who are children, and this ammounts to indirect censorship. Which it clearly is censorship as films can be as bloody and as violent as they like as long as they don't show any female orgasms. As if female orgasms aren't normal or there is something more acceptable about cutting someone open then giving a woman head.

As a side note I think there is an issue with American war films where film makers will only get military support if they show a very favourable image of the US Army. So if you want to make a war film that shows US marines raping girls and killing friendlies you won't get any help from the army to make such a film. This means that there is a carrot being waved in the face of Hollywood for positive (propaganda) films. I don't think the US should offer thiskind help to filmmakers, which would result in less war films, but then the few war films that are be made would have a more balanced views on war instead of all being like TopGun.



Incidentally the rating for This Film Is Not Yet Rated was an NC-17, but this has since been suspended which to my mind is yet more censorship. The American people aren't all children, yet are only allowed to watch kiddie box films. Which is the same situation with video games as anything with an AO (adult only) rating receives the same treatment as an NC-17 film. This in turn creates taboo subjects in the medium.

A straight up solution to all this would be to fine shops for selling to children. I know this wouldn't be popular because shops like WalMart would all get together and start a campaign accusing the government of limiting the freedoms of the American people, but it would mean more freedom to the film makers and then ultimately more freedom to the American public. American adults could still show films where people get their genitals cut off to their children in the comfort of their own homes if they wanted to. Just that there would be a fine for shops to sell that kind of material directly to children. This wouldn't result in more violent films, but it would mean more graphic/real sexual content and less film re-editing.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated can currently be viewed from Google Video. Since the film is an hour and a half long I would suggest using this Direct Link to watch the film fullscreen instead of in the embedded video below or better still buy the film and support a filmmaker who was given an NC-17 rating.

Impeach Bush on September 15th

ImpeachBush.org is running a campaign this September to try and get President Bush and some of his cohorts in that white house impeached. And ImpeachBush.org has put-together this rather good video which explains quite well why they want him impeached.



I really don't like Bush, I think his historical legacy will be a negative one and this video makes me want to get-out a peace flag and go do some stomping, but he isn't my elected representative so I don't think it is my place to campaign, but I really do not like him at all.

Awesome Photographer Matt Stuart

I just finnished looking at some of Matt Stuart's work and I think he is the best street photographer I have ever seen. Here are links to a Gallery of his work and his Official Site.

Tweaked Out Transformers Review (No Spoilers) (Not So Work Safe)

Boh3m3 is a very infectious YouTuber and has been very quiet as of late. He just posted a Transformers Review which is teh awesome. He sounds like he is on crack. I hate yardwork as much as the next guy, I know how he feels as there are a lot of games that make me feel the same way (Half Life 2, Kameo, Viva Piñata, Halo), yet I liked Armageddon and I think I will like Transformers when it comes out at the end of the month. So if you want to see someone go insane with hate, watch his review, if you want to see some awesome video editing, watch his review, but don't take him seriously, you might get as angry as him if you do.

E3 Roundup

The 1UP Show has a great E3 roundup going on with three great videos. I would comment on this year's event, but I essentially agree with what 1UP says.

Conferance Roundup


Talking About Games


On The Show Floor

Forza 2 Motorsport (Completed)

I have been meaning to talk about Forza 2 so here I go.
Forza 2 is a great driving game, the Hire Driver option where you tell the AI to race for you is great because the game takes so long to complete, especially on the endurance races which can each take an hour to complete. For me the breaking colour markers that are placed on the racing line is brilliant as with that on I can race an unfamiliar track and race like it isn't my first time.

Car customisation isn't as straightforward as it could be, but it allowed me to turn a Golf GTI into an environmentally friendly car, so it's still fun to play with. And the wider community has created come awesome designs.



The auction system on Forza 2 seems broken as you can't place a maximum bid on anything and you can't view all the cars a seller is selling. My tip for collecting all the cars in the game is to leave the auction-house alone and change your region for a 50% discount on all the cars for that particular region.
4/5

Revolutionary Wiimote

I am currently on a day thing that anybody under the age of 25 that has been unemployed for so long gets automatically sent on so that is why I haven't updated much. It is a wast of time, but having the British tax-payer picking up the bill for me doing rock climbing isn't all bad. And that is also why I am just now watching the Nintendo E3 Press Conference. They keep using the word revolutionary in reference to the Wii which is bothering me and so I make this post.

To me the Wii is a gateway product that is ultra accessible and for the right game interface has a near to zero learning curve, which is what makes it a gateway product. You can read into that statement that the Wii has a natural interface, but that is only true if games allows for it. There is stuff that could be better with the Wii like online, but Wii is to Lego as Mindstorms is to XBox360/PS3.

To me revolutionary technologies have been things like, colour television, canned drinks and quarts watches. These are technologies that are developed into an existing market that completely change their respective industries. To a gaming example I think 3D graphics was revolutionary, but interface improvements are mostly only innovative. You could argue to me that the computer mouse was revolutionary as it made computers very accessible (accessible like the Wiimote), but I would simply say that the mouse is just an extension of the real revolution which was the GUI (graphical user interface) that allowed for the mouse to exist, without the GUI the mouse would make a very poor text input device and would not have revolutionised the computing industry. So I think the mouse itself was simply an innovative exstension of the GUI. As too I believe the Wiimote to be innovative, but not revolutionary.

P.S. I am probably only being so academically critical of the press event because I don't like Reggie's formal presentation style. And where as Nintendo says that they are doing great in online and there is no reason to criticise, when the Wii's successor comes out it will have had a radical online overhaul.

Peter Moore Says Three Year Warranty For All

If you have been reading the news you will have probably read that Microsoft is implementing a three year warranty (from date of purchase) for all XBox360 consoles.
But as a little surprise Major Nelson has sat down with Peter Moore and done A Short Nine Minuet Podcast (Direct Link) on the issue to get the word direct from the top.

Obviously this has been a big issue for Microsoft as any decision around extending the warranty is going to cost them a lot of money, but this is only for the Three Red Lights-O-Death so if your drive tray is broken, then this new warranty won't cover it. He also says that anybody who paid out of warranty before who would be covered now, will be sent a refund which is awesome. And then Larry asked him about the E3 Keynote, which apparently will be held outside this year. So good news all around.

That Game Where Blocks Fall

There is an awesome article called Tetris the Grand Master which talks about the deviations that have been made in Tetris's design to make it a better game in it's numerous arcade versions.

Understanding And Changeing The Perception Of Video Games

I watched A Scanner Darkly earlier, a film based on a story about control and paranoia. In the special features section of the DVD, there is an extract from an interview with the writer and one of the things he said was rather enlightening to me:

The position which writers such as myself hold in Americaare... Those positions are very lowly... Science fiction is considered to be something for adolescents for, just high school kids and for disturbed people in general to read in America. - Philip K. Dick

Several things struck me about this statement. Firstly that it is true, more so then than it is now, but still true today. And that it also applies to video games. And that lead me down a though path about this.

Science Fiction is widely misunderstood. If you where to ask the average person if they liked Science Fiction they would say "certainly not" with the picture in their mind being one of a Star Trek convention. Not to speak ill of Star Trek conventions, but an in character Klingon Warrior can be seen as very silly to a layperson.
Ye if you asked the same person about the films that they like, you would find that several of the films they consider highly would indeed be Science Fiction films, probably Aliens and Termanator would be mentioned by them. And I think this same kind of denial is found more so for Video Games as our nature for curiosity automatically makes us all game players, video or otherwise.

Storytelling is important from an evolutionary perspective because it is the medium whereby experience is passed from one generation to another. Indeed if a tribe once existed that didn't tell stories, they would find their survival harder than a tribe where storytelling was a tradition. And it is for this reason that I believe we all have a genetic predisposition towards enjoying works of fiction and storytelling in general. I also believe that it is a genetic disposition that makes us enjoy playing games.

Ye the types of stories and games that are considered useful for survival is where Science Fiction and Video Games luck out. As even a trashy romance novel will seemingly communicate more important life skills than even the best Multi-Dimentional Time Travelling Serial Killing Ninja Science Fiction story would. And the game of Monopoly could be considered to teach far more useful life skills than any game of Quake would.

So here is where I get to my point. Games that seemingly teach useful life skills, day to day useful knowledge or have further reaching influences beyond the game world will always be considered a good game by your Mom and be the type of game she will play. So if we want Moms of the world to start playing Gran Theft Auto, then Gran Theft Auto needs to start incorporating learning into it's structure, maybe make negotiation, teamwork and paying taxes as part of the core mechanics. Until then Video Games are going to be considered a superfluous and silly wast of time by most people. Just like Science Fiction is as stated by Philip K. Dick.

Sam & Max Season 1 (Completed)

So I completed season one of the new Sam&Max series and having played the original. And having loved the original in all it's DOS, midi sound and SCUMM graphics-ness, I have to say the new games are a mixed bag.

Season One of Sam&Max comes as six individual games which are all self contained point and click adventures.

Puzzles
Rarely did I have to go to the Telltale forums and look for a hint as to how to proceed in the game as all the episodes give great hints on what your objectives are and what a possible solution might be to most puzzles. For example on episode one Culture Shock, at the start you have to find some swiss cheese, you find some American cheese, but as Max says "I don't like Swiss, because of all the holes you get less for your money" which is a hint to make holes in the American cheese and solve the puzzle.
Puzzles are general adventure affair, although occasions like in the original Sam&Max where you had to use a severed hand on a golf-ball retriever and a fish magnet, are not to be seen anywhere. Which is disappointing, but those puzzles never had any hints to them and I always ended up having to look at a walkthrough so I guess the world can live without them.

Graphics
Graphically the game looks great, if it had of been made a few years ago it would look very dated now, but I think where the game is now graphically it will still look good for years to come (although some of the character's oddly shaped heads might not).

Sound
A lot of Jazz music, voice actors are great, but sometimes the recording of the voice actors is less so, which is unfortunate because that shouldn't happen and could even be considered as careless.

Controls
Point and click only, just like it should be for a point and click adventure game (I am looking at you Monkey Island 4).

Story
Shallow and short, even though the six episodes all have an underlying plot that connects them all, it isn't anything to talk about or anything you will be praising the game for. Although with some excellent characters and dialogue I think the writers where probably constrained by the lack of game environments.

Jokes
The classic Sam&Max quips are very abundant, although Max doesn't actually abuse anything in the game, so Max is playing kind of like how Lion-O from the Thundercats always manages to escape properly using his sword as a sword, simply because the creators want to maintain the goody-two-shoes image.

Overall
I have to say again that it is a mixed bag, very few of the environments did I care about, each episode is completable in about two to three hours and even with few environments some like Bosco's Shop become very routine and is obviously used to reduce the game's art budget.

That all being said I am looking forward to Season 2 and hope that Telltale take a critical eye to Season 1 and actually make Season 2 better as opposed to just telling everyone that it will be better.
3.5/5

If you want to get Sam&Max series one then you can get it from Telltale Games for $34.95 and that includes digital download, but if you need something physical they will also ship you a DVD with the games on and the soundtrack as a bonus for just the price of shipping. I bought from Telltale and found the six installers to be a chore, so maybe a better option would be to buy through STEAM for $39.90 which means you don't have to do the whole multiple installer stuff.

Dead or Alive The Movie

I just finished watching the Dead or Alive film and was pleasantly surprised. It might even be considered a borderline good drunken party film, although nothing I have seen has ever seen comes close to beating Kung Pow in that respects.

DOA is a dumb action film, but if you are the type of movie watcher that has for some reason watched through a few of those martial arts or kickboxing films with paper-thin plots and acting, you too might actually enjoy this.
3/5

Prince Of Persia Classic Combat Guide

So I downloaded Prince Of Persia Classic from XBox Live Arcade and happy bought it as I never liked POP, but POPC has fixed the stuff that used to frustrate me like how the price seems to slide everywhere, progress saving and switch markings, but for some reason I had a problem with the combat. I tried reading a few forums to see what advice people had and as it turns out I wasn't alone in my inability to win at combat and if you look at the forums you will see two clear classes of people, the first are like me, people who are having issue with even the simplest of sword fights and others not understanding what the problem is as they are doing fine.

In brief the combat works like this, you reach a screen or ledge with some guard on and the prince pulls out his sword (the prince is now in combat mode). Pressing the A button blocks attacks and the X button performs an attack. This might sound simple, but the timing of the guard's attacks always seemed to defeat me, over and over I died trying to work out what I was doing wrong, but I get it now.

Combat is kind of turn based, so let me walk you through a senario:

1. Facing eachother the guard lundges at the prince.



2. The prince blocks the guards lundge, knocking him off balance. Seeing the guard off balance the prince tries to strike the guard with his sword. Somhow the guard manages to parry the princes's strike and makes yet another lundge for the prince.



3. The prince again blocks the guard's attack, knocking the guard's sword to the side. The prince tries yet another counter attack, stabing the guard through the chest.

When you press A or X in POPC the command issued isn't imediatly carried out in the game by the prince. So imagine that when you give the prince a command to either block or attack is added to a buffer or list whitch the prince will perform at the next avalible oppertunity. This list will hold a maximum of (I believe) two items. So pressing X and then X rapidly will exsecute two attacks by the prince. So now imagine in the senario above that I have pressed A and then X quickley between sections 1 and 2. So as soon as I seen the guard start to attack I tell the prince to block and then strike. The prince will then block the oncomming attack and then counter attack. And again in the senario above I have pressed X then A in the space between sections 2 and 3 and the prince acts acordingly again.

Now as a side note on the 360 controller the Left Triger and Left Bumper will also block. As well as the Right Triger and Right Bumper will also attack. I suggest using the Bumpers as this will allow quicker exsecution of commands.

And just because I like to embed video in posts:

An Odd Way Of Downloading Torrents

By way of Gameology.org I read about Torrent Raiders which is an XNA project (all bits to run the project are included in the installer) that is part game and part BitTorrent client.

Once you start Torrent Raiders up you are asked to provide a torrent file. Torrent Raiders will then download that torrent's target files to the same folder as the torrent, but you get to play a game as it does it. In the game you have a view of the earth and people who you are connected to show up as spots on the earth. Your job (as somekind of cyber mercenary) is to shoot data packets, collect evidence and bomb the people you are transferring to/from for money.

The project is obviously a comment on digital intellectual property theft and as a game it lacks verity, but I have never seen transfer statistics used in a more creative way. Even the little packets of data in the game look like flying trucks with the name of the BitTorrent Client that the truck came from is Written On The Side.

Video Games Meet Web 2.0

There is this great talk that was posted on GDC Radio Earlier (Direct MP3 Link) about what lessons the video games industry can learn from the internet.

During the talk Raph Koster (I Disagree With His Book) shows this awesome video that talks about what Web 2.0 is.



I think what is missing from Raph's talk is a message that the industry is heading in the right direction as it is, digital downloads will conquer retail (however long it takes), a combination of casual games as well as AAA titles are the way forwards for all studios and the days of incremental sequels are numbered in favour of titles that players want to own the whole series of and not just the latest incarnation.

Exceptional Anime Music Video

There is something about this AMV that I really love.

AMV_-_Galaxy_Bounce_-_ By_Nostromo

If you want to know what the audio track is, what awards it has received or anything Here is the corresponding AMVs.com page. The primary anime in this AMV is Pale Cocoon which I found to be very thought provoking, so if you get a chance to watch it, I would recommend that you do.

Pacman Championship Edition

Toru Iwatani creator of Pacman has helped Microsoft and Namco Bandai (he still works there) create a new iteration of the original Pacman game. I knew someone was working on a version of Pacman for the world championship that Microsoft is doing, but I wasn't expecting such a dramatic change from the original.

Graphically the game Looks Great with a dark playing world, lots of bright (almost neon) clashing colours. Then there are a lot of nice little graphical touched like glowing characters, trails and sparks that appear when Pacman rubs against a wall, but Pacman-CE is widescreen! So there is a nice large playing area that takes up the whole screen (assuming you have a widescreen TV).

Gameplay wise you still collect pellets, power-pills and avoid ghosts that start out in a box in the middle, but Pacman is nolonger level based, it is continual like GeometryWars where you simply play until you run out of lives or time (levels range from five to ten minuets). To accomplish continual play Namco Bandai has divided the board into a left and right. Once all the pellets from one side of the screen have been eaten a fruit appears on the opposite side of the board. Then once that fruit has been eaten, the opposite side (of the board to the fruit) is refreshed with new pellets (usually in a different configuration from before) and sometimes a new maze configuration.
Difficulty is controlled by the game's speed, although when there are no power-pills on screen the game inevitably becomes harder until a fruit is eaten and more power-pills are introduced back into the game.

Pacman-CE is a much improved version of the original, but it is still £6.80 (800 points) which is a little much. And I haven't ever been a fan of Pacman because of it's difficult, but I still love the franchise if only because the game has spawned one of my all time favourite quotes:

If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music. - Marcus Brigstocke

Nine Years Of Waiting Is Almost Over, Fallout 3 Is Nigh

The Official Fallout 3 Website has been updated with a teaser video. You can download the teaser in HD from WorthPlaying, FileShack or FilePlanet.

Said teaser uses game assets, no indication of wither F3 will be third person or first person perspective game, but by the very music used in the teaser it is clear that Bethesda knows the atmosphere that the series has. The teaser suggests a Fall 2008 release, but I think we can all count on F3 being delayed.

Random Fact

If a cat is held upside down and dropped from a height of one foot or less, it will not land on its feet.

Forza 2 Artwork

The Car Artwork that is being produced by users, is very cool.

Google Street View

I only checked the news because I have been in a bubble for the past four days and Google blew my mind.



Stonewall Inn

Wall Street Stock Exchange

Central Station

New York Library

Lumbard Street

Galactic Civilisation 2 War Report and 4X Game Issues

Recently I have been playing Galactic Civilisation 2 which is the type of game that would be traditionally referred to as a Strategy game, but as I understand it now large scale galactic colonisation games including expansion strategy games in general now all come under the genre title of '4X' which stands for eXsplore, eXpand, eXsploit and eXsterminate. I have played many galactic conquest games over the years with them being one of my favourite genres, as games are long, non-linear and all strategy decisions have lasting consequences. But there are a few long running issues with the genre that GalCiv2 has actually fixed.

The problem with most 4X games is that once the player has more than ten planets (or settlements if you where playing Civilisation for example) it becomes increasingly difficult for the player to manage all the production queues of the growing number of colonies. Eventually turns take hours and the player will even forget what they wanted to do for a given turn so their strategy becomes watered down and undirected with some planets build queues being wasted simply because they where forgotten. It is in the large scale games that a good AI can easily win against a tired player as the AI doesn't get tired, doesn't forget about a planet, what it was doing with a particular planet and performs all actions with a mindset on every aspect of their empire and avoiding all potential expansion problems perfectly. The only disadvantage the AI has is if it was poorly built and then will occasionally do something stupid.

My idea of fixing this build queue issue for a game I wanted to build was to use levels of abstraction with things like fleet construction. So to build up a fleet a player would set a fleet marker, virtually construct the fleet that they wanted to be there at that marker and then press build. An AI would then choose planets and set build orders to build that chosen fleet for the player as quickly as possible and then when each ship finished building it would travel to the marker. Then when the fleet is finished the player is notified and they can play with their new fleet. The advantages of this is that the player wouldn't need to tell individual planets what to build, which is complicated by the fact that different planets have different build times and are various distances from where the player wishes to constitute their fleet. Having an AI take care of this would help the player out a lot as it could look at all the player's planets, their build time and assess wither it would be quicker to build two small ships on separate close planets or decide that building two ships on one distant planet with result in a faster build time for making the desired fleet.

There are other issues that come with 4X games, but the above one is solved in GalCiv2 by having all planets with a shipyard infinitely build ships. You actually have to specify that a planet not build anything for it to stop producing ships. Also if the player chooses to change what ship is currently being constructed at a shipyard, the work that has already gone into making the ship is put straight into the new build order so the player isn't penalised for changing their mind. This coupled with allowing the player to create long build lists for planet structures and auto-upgrading planet structures when new ones are discovered on the research tree means that forgetting about a planet is quite difficult. Especially since GalCiv2 has such good summery screens that detail everything about your empire and even notifies you as soon as a planet's build queue is empty on the turn summery screen.

There are still many problems that haven't been solved in GalCiv2 like that of planet development where the player will sometimes overcompensate in a particular field like research on all their planets, but GalCiv2 is a great game and ComputerAndVideoGames.com did an article called GalCiv 2 War Report which is an account of a massive twenty day (real world time) GalCiv2 game. The article is long which is why I waited for them to finish writing it before posting about it and GalCiv2, but it is very funny so is well worth reading if you have the time.

I has a look on YouTube to see if there was any good gameplay videos of GalCiv2 that I could put in this post and found an excellent series of videos that talk about how the team went about debugging the AI. And I can attest that GalCiv2 does have a good AI because the different races always feel like they have personalities and if they win it is because they deserve to win and not because they cheated.
For reference the spore weapon that is talked about in the video is a very powerful invasion weapon that sends down a plague to the planet that crystallises all non-plant life. Meaning you don't need to send down troops to conquer the planet because as soon as your ship enters orbit around the planet everybody is already dead.

Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta FileShare

Have been playing the Halo 3 Beta through Crackdown. I still take issue with the small field of view and the beta in general feels more like a well polished demo that has been released after the game was released and then patched. It is way more polished than any beta I have ever played before, but the weapon balancing, map navigation, weapon placement on maps, sound and graphics are all better than on any previous Halo so it's a thumbs up from me, but something that stands out that you might not have heard about is the FileShare feature.



FileShare is this thing where after you have played a match you can choose to save a replay of the match to memory (press Back and then X) so you can then watch it back whenever you like, but Bungie gives you some server space to go with your Halo Profile (24MB of, with videos taking up anywhere between 2MB to 6MB of), this allows you to upload replays which can then be downloaded by anybody and watched as many times they like. So if you played against someone very good, you can check their FileShare, download a video or two and see how they play, possibly even learn from their videos.



The thing I like about this the most however is that while running Halo 3 you can hit the GuideButton, select a friend or someone you recently played with and at the top of the GamerTag blade is shortcuts to their Halo medal case and their FileShare, which makes it ultra easy to find videos of people you have played with or friends. But better still is if you play with someone you know, try exchanging recordings of the match you just played together and then watch each other's videos at the same time. That way you can both learn from each others play styles.

Plus with the FileShare I imagine we will be seeing far more Halo related videos uploaded to YouTube as all matches are being recorded now as you play. If something cool or unexpected happens you don't have to grab a camera, just save the video after the match. Here is one I already found titled "Obie Vs The Warthog From Hell". This video quite accurately portrays some of the difficulties I myself have encountered with 1337 (and average) players.

Cover Letters

I am currently writing a cover letter for a job application and using one of my Mum's old cover letters as a template. I don't normally read her stuff, but her body text is odd:

I believe that with all my skills and experience I have gained through self motivation and hard work over the years would benefit any Company that was continuously working towards improving standards, quality and Customer focus. I consider myself to be hard working, loyal and honest and relish working under pressure or to deadlines. I can work as part of a team or as an individual.

I have always been accused of writing too casually, but seriously this can't be what companies are looking for!

As it turns out she didn't get the job with this one, but it begs the question as to wither all her cover letters that she has been successful with, have also sounded like corporate press releases.

StarCraft 2

For Screenshots of SC2 follow This Link. There is an awesome Cinematic Trailer that Blizzard has put out you should head over to the SC2 Website and download in the highest resolution that they have available. Below are some gameplay videos with english developer commentary from the South Korean announcement event.





If you look at the screenshots that are out, there is One Screenshot that seems to show Kerrigan the Terran Physic who was abducted by the Zerg and then mutated into a Zerg super unit. So the story will probably follow on from where the BroodWar Expansion left off.
Design wise Blizzard seems to have gone with a "this unit is awesome, but is very weak against this specific thing" design strategy. Which is good because all the best strategy games have very limited numbers of distinct unit types. As long as the base management doesn't turn into micromanagement SC2 is going to be awesome.

The Virtual Haircut

A while ago I delved into the world of Virtual Surround Sound where an algorithm takes a surround input (like a Dolby Digital 4.1, 5.1 or 7.1) applies sound filters to the different channels to mimic the kinds of distortions that happen to sound naturally when a human hears a sound being sourced from different directions, the output is then played through a stereo output (best results come from using headphones) and this allows listeners who might be commuting by train to watch a film with a full surround sound experience.

Well there is another technique that accomplishes the same thing called Binaural Recording. Where a manikin head, in combination with two microphones representing eardrums is setup so that the manikin head filters the sound as a real head would as the sound is recorded. That way when the sound is played back through headphones the listener is transported to the place of the manikin in sound's original recording environment.

An excellent example of a Binaural recording is The Virtual Barbershop. Best results come from using headphones, even earbuds will be better than a 2.1 setup in this case.

A Love Letter to the Film Industry

This video counts down from one hundred to one with clips from movies where the number was spoken. No film is repeated and every film is a great film in one respect or another. A full list of the films with the corresponding number can be found Here.

Sega's 32X Suicide Note

On of the sources I use for clarity on issues is the Angry Video Game Nerd who just putout an episode on the 32X. I never owned a 32X and although I have read about it on Wikipedia's 32X Page which talks about poor quality games, cost and production issues, I had no idea the thing sucked so bad until just now when I watched this video.

Closed Minded Unintelligent Christians

A lot of the time when I think of Christians I think of closed minded people who live in their own fantasy world to comfort themselves against the harshness of life. I know this is notion is wrong, but I had this enforced when I watched the Atheist edition of 30 Days a few months ago where an Atheist went to live with a Christian family for 30 Days. Normally when this happens on UK television there are a few arguments and the stay is cut short, but I found 30 Days to different because both Atheist and Christian family actively explored each other's beliefs. However fifteen minuets into the show there is a Bible Study meeting where one of the Christian's asks Brenda (the Atheist):

What credentials, documents or whatever do you base your lifestyle on?

I was a little surprised by this question as the answer is obviously that Atheists base their life chooses primarily on their knowledge and past experiences. For example killing is wrong for an Atheist not because it says so in a text, but because it robs someone of their life, hurts the people emotionally that knew that person when they where alive, is unnecessary as all problems can be worked out without resorting to violence and there are harsh consequences for the killer if the law finds out.


Direct Link

In the several months that have past since I watched this episode of 30 Days I have noticed several Christians on YouTube ask this same question several times and Albert (who is an Atheist) has kindly put together quite a nice video responding to that question with what he believes.



I know Albert is right when he says that a minority of Atheists automatically regard theists as unintelligent, but it doesn't help that there are Christians willing to reinforce this viewpoint, like this woman that went on Wife Swap:

New Crackdown Content

The new Crackdown content is out and having played with the free stuff and the premium (in co-op) I can safely say that the free stuff is great, and that if you have just bought Crackdown then the 800 points that the premium content costs is well worth paying. But if like me you have already invested many hours into Crackdown to the point even where you have put the game down and moved on to other games, then picking the game back up just for the premium content isn't worth £6.80 as you have already completed the game and that means the value you are going to get out of the premium content is only a couple of hours.

Professor of Catan Achievement (Win Single Player on Hard)

I was on the Achieve360Points.com forum and after reading a post titled Catan Achievements Guide by Justin Barrow I defeated the AI opponents on hard using Justin's strategy, this surprised me a little as they are indeed hard opponents to defeat, but his strategy works well. So if you too have been thwarted by the Hard AI's superior strategy you too might want to give this a try:

1. Setup a game with default settings, with the exception of setting the game on a fast victory condition so the winner is the first to reach seven points and not ten.



2. Set your opponents to Hard and make sure the only character type you are playing against is Cleopatra.



3. Once starting the game build your two start settlements to capitalise on Grain, Ore and Wood (remember that numbers six and eight are more commonly rolled by the dice).



4. Upgrade your two start settlements to cities.



5. Buy Development Cards and play as many Soldier Cards as you can from there.



6. Win!

From this strategy you should get seven points before the AI does by getting two points for your start settlements, another two points by upgrading the settlements to cities, two points for playing the most number of soldier cards and then one hopefully by getting a victory card.

This strategy wouldn't work on a ten point victory as getting one Victory Card is common, but getting three more would take so long that a better strategy would be to switch strategies after getting the Largest Army Bonus.

New Crackdown Content This Week or Next

As if Crackdown wasn't a good purchase anyway Major Nelson has a list of stuff that is going to be added for download this week or next. Below I have just given a brief overview of what is being added, if you want a detailed look then I suggest you have a look at Major's Post.

With the free content comes the missing 100 Achievement points that where missing from Crackdown's retail release and an additional 40. Meaning that with the free downloadable content you can now get a total of 1040 achievement points from Crackdown.
If you play co-op with someone who has bought the premium content, you can play with some of the premium content and get an additional 40 points from them that you can't get from the free content, but if you actually buy the premium content yourself then you can get 210 additional points from playing with the new stuff. Meaning a game with the premium content has a maximum of 1350 achievement points up for grabs.

• Game Update (Free)
  
  In the game update there is a new game mode where you can play from the start of the game with all the gang bosses in place. The update also improves the camera, targeting, controls, mine lifespan, ramp truck interaction and graphics view range.
  
  The improvement with the ramp truck probably means that it is now possible to go over the thing in the supercar.



• Free For All (Free)
  
  
  Keys to the City



• Getting Busy (800 Points)
  
  
  New Equipment
  
  
  Street Racing
  
  
  Game types

XBox360 Spring 2.0.5759.0 Dashboard Update is Here

Ring the church bells the new dashboard update is here ready to download. Below is a short list of things that have been updated.

• Users are signed into XBox Live quicker.


• Achievement notifications now include the Achievement's name and it's gamerpoint value.


• A new marketplace dashboard blade (lots of enhancements there).


• Instant messaging support between XBox360 and MSN Messenger.


• A new option to auto download all Arcade games is on the Auto Download option in Arcade.


• New low power mode for downloading so if you are downloading when you turns the 360 off it will go into a low power mode and finish downloading before it turns off.


• The name of the game that is the the DVD drive is displayed on the dashboard's game launch button. As well as Achievement and gamerscore information being displayed at the same time in the dashboard's ad space.


• Support added for the new Mini-keyboard.


• Users can now fast forward, stop and rewind video as it is downloading.


• Download progress of a video that is currently being watched and view progress through the video can now be seen on the new progress bar which is accessible by selecting the Info Pane while watching a video.


• Users can now change video aspect ratio while a video is playing.


• H.264 and MPEG4 codex support added.


• Every video now remembers where you where last time you played it so when you select it you can choose to wither resume playback or go from the start.


• Videos without chapters are now automatically assigned ten points that users can skip through.


• Windows media protected content is now streamable from a Windows PC.


• If a user buys content from Marketplace without the space to store that content, Microsoft Points are now not deducted from the user's account.


• The screensaver is now automatically disabled when a photo slideshow is playing.

All Your Cards Are Belong To Me Catan Strategy

I have been playing some Catan on XBox Live Arcade and if you want a few easy GamerPoints there is a strategy that can be played against the Easy AI opponents to make them give you all of their cards.

When it is your turn go to the trade screen and request two question-marked cards for one of any card you have. Then accept an offer if one is made. If no offer is made try offering a different card in exchange for two question-marked cards. Of course the question-marked cards refer to a card chosen by the opponent. Repeat this until none of the AI opponents will trade with you, upon exiting you will see that you have taken almost all of the AI opponents cards. This is only a fault with the Easy AI opponents, and I would class this as a fault because it does not convey a feeling of intelligence on the part of the AI.

China and Fake Brands 2.0

By way of Japanator an extreme example of a fake brand where some themepark in China is imitating Disney World.



China is currently the biggest producer of Fake Brands. That being products that look like they where made by well known and established brands, but aren't. At the moment China doesn't seem to be moving against these fake brand producers within Chinese boarders, probably because they are bringing in a lot of money, but it will hurt in the long term. As soon as china starts exporting it's own intellectual property then they are going to find that the world's distributors will happily accept these new brands as long as China respects theirs. And at that point China will have to enforce foreign intellectual property and crackdown on fake brands.

Skate's Revolutionary Control Scheme

EA has been saying that Skate, their upcoming Tony Hawk rival, has somekind of radically different control scheme that is teh awesome. Well now a video has been released (see below) that actually shows kind of what the controls are and I have to say I am pleased with what EA has done.

Traditionally skateboarding game controls have been very similar to that used by players to perform special moves in Beam Em' Ups like Street Fighter and Tekken, but Skate changes this by seemingly using a gesture based system with the analogue sticks. The right analogue stick seems to control vertical board movement and then the left analogue stick seems to control horizontal board movements. I don't believe this will be easier to play with than the scheme currently used in Tony Hawk games, but certainly the emphasis on memorising button combinations is almost eliminated completely and exchanges it for a system that is more symbolic of the actions that the player is trying to preform with their virtual skater.

Random Fact

Windows (XP & Vista) will not allow a user to name a file lpt1.png, lpt2.png, lpt3.png, lpt4.png, lpt5.png, lpt6.png, lpt7.png, lpt8.png, lpt9.png or name a folder com, com0, com1, com2, com3, com4, com5, com6, com7, com8 or com9.

Why Guitar Hero is so Addictive

I was going to do this in a very different format (video), but what the hell. A few weeks ago I was reading about the Loci System as part of some research I am doing on Mentalism and realised where Guitar Hero achieved it's addictive qualities. So here is why I think Guitar Hero is addictive, and I would note that all these points come into play at the same time, even when the player isn't playing:

1. Audio Memory
   Players remember how their past performances sounded. This is not only a reminder of GH's existence when players aren't playing, but also if a track from GH is played back in the player's mind they will also hear any mistakes that they made the last time they played that track and this reminds them that they could have done better, but also there is a nature in people to have a dislike for broken audio. It is well known that given a choice between broken audio or broken video, people will always choose the broken video as the broken audio is almost painful for people to listen to.



2. Muscle Memory
   The memory of GH tracks is enforced by a memory of the muscle movements used while playing each track.



3. Visual Memory
   All notes played have different visual patterns and all songs all have very different visual queues. It would be possible to identify any track from the game simply by showing someone a screenshot of a track being played or even just by showing a diagram of the notes from just a section of a track. This together with the two previous points (Audio and Muscle) means that the memory of each track is remembered in more then one part of the brain and thus by the basis of the Loci system easier to remember than if each track was just audio.



4. Instant Feedback
   Just like any good game GH provides feedback on how the player is doing, but because mistakes are so immediately communicated to the player by way of broken audio the game has a disciplining effect on the player (almost like Aversion Therapy for playing wrong notes).



5. Rewards
   There is a store in GH where the player can buy items with money they have earned by playing well.
   The XBox360 version contains Achievements & Gamer Points which can be shown and compared with friends online.
   And there is a star system where each track has a star rating listed next to it on the track selection screen that the player sees before and after each track is played, that directly communicates to the player how successfully the player has played all the notes in that particular track. The star ratings are particularly rewarding in that they are clearly visible, directly related the player's performance on each individual track providing micro-feedback on game performance and once a player has completed a song with 100% accuracy, the stars will turn gold, which gives some added visual satisfaction as it makes the track standout on the track list and communicates to the player that they have mastered that track (and have heard the track played from start to finish without mistakes).



6. Satisfaction (Rewards Continued)
   Upon completing any track the crowed in the game cheers the player on with the player's avatar looking very rockstar on stage, this adds to the narrative of the game that the players has just successfully played a great performance for an audience. This is opposed to if the player had failed a track where the crowed will boo and the player will be pulled from the stage early, not being allowed to complete the track.



7. Encouragement
   Again with the monetary value of items in the game's Store that the player must save up for and the star reward system, the game encourages the player to improve their performances. There is even a practise mode that the player is encouraged to use to perfect songs with.



8. Difficulty Scaling
   Difficulty in GH increases gradually, this communicates to the player that they are getting better as they complete and re-complete tracks that where previously just outside of their skill level. This is opposed to allowing the player to play all tracks in the game at the very start of the game and this would mean that the player might not realise that they are improving, especially once they have played through all the tracks once. Plus GH has four basic difficulty settings that each has a track list with a list of star ratings that is all kept very separate from each other.

There might be other aspects of the game like the controller, the colour system and the player knowing some of the tracks before playing GH that makes the game addictive, but it is clear that GH has many elements that means players will keep coming back and the developers have done their best to capitalise all aspects of this.

The Last Stand (Flash Game)

Kotaku linked to this great zombie survival flash game called The Last Stand.

Each night for twenty nights you have to defend a barricade from hoards of zombies. During the day you can allocate twelve hours of time between repairing the barricade, searching for better weapons and searching for survivors who will help you repair the barricade by day and defend the barricade by night.

General Tips
Don't wast time keeping your barricade in perfect condition. There seems to be a magic six hour number to finding survivors and the chainsaw is an awesome secondary weapon.

The final weapon in the game is an awesome weapon that will allow only the very fastest zombies anywhere near the barricade, but to select it you have to first find it after getting all the other weapons in the game and then once you have it, select it by click on the maps at the bottom of the weapon's locker, as it is invisible. You can see the effects on this screenshot below.

Contrasting Real Team Shooters with Counter Strike

Last Sunday I went PaintBalling for the first time and although I should have enjoyed myself absolutely, there was something that bothered me in the back of my mind and it took me a few hours to realise that I seen issue with some of the gameplay mechanics. So inspired by
Foofly's Posting of some of his university work, I thought I would take a more academic approach to this post and contrast PaintBalling against team based multiplayer video game Counter Strike and the hybrid of the two which is LaserTag.

I choose Counter Strike for this comparison because not choosing just one video game meant that the scope of the comparison would be too broad, Counter Strike is very popular and has a very similar play style to that of PaintBalling.

Introduction
PaintBall
Paintballing is an objective team based game where players use Paintball Guns to fire balls of coloured liquid by way of pressurised gas at opposing players. Player elimination occurs when a player is hit by an exploding paintball.

LaserTag
LaserTag is a team or individual based multiplayer game where players fire laser beams from rifles at eachother to score points which are recorded by computer. For this comparison I will be using the indoor variety of LaserTag as I have no experience with the outdoor variety.

Counter Strike
Counter Strike is a virtual team based multiplayer game where players use a variety of virtual weaponry moduled from real world weaponry to complete objectives.

Player Environment
Traditionally PaintBalling is played outside in wooded areas (known as woodball), however more recently themed areas and open areas filled with geometrical obstacles (known as speedball) are now commonly used.

LaserTag (the inside variety) is played inside enclosed buildings with dark, florescent lighted environments. This is done to give a futuristic feel to the game and enhance the visibility of the lasers. This means that most LaserTag venues are normally limited to only having one environment for players to play in.

Counter Strike is played infront of a computer in any virtual environment that the player feels conformable with. The game comes supplied with twenty five virtual environments called maps which are all based on real environments from Oil Rigs to Airfields, but the game includes the option to download or make new maps on anything the player desires. Counter Strike unlike PaintBall and LaserTag where there is no player limit, is limited to a maximum of thirty two players in any one game.

Game Types
PaintBall has an unlimited number of game types, but most consist of a combination of bases or start points and flags. Points are awarded for a variety of things like getting the enemy team's flag located at their start point back to your team's base or getting a flag in the centre of the game zone back to the enemy team's base. Then bonus points can be awarded for having a set number players alive at the end of a match or occupying a set position like a tower at the end of the match.

LaserTag has two types of game, deathmatch where the objective is to score points by shooting other players. And team deathmatch where the objective is for one team to score points by shooting the other team.

Counter Strike has one gametype consisting of two teams, terrorists and counter terrorists. The objectives for the terrorists is to win by either killing all the members of the counter terrorist team or by planting and detonating a bomb with a forty five second timer at one of a marked location or locations on the map. Counter terrorists can win by killing all members of the terrorist team, however if that happens and a bomb has been planted then they must also find and deactivate the bomb before it explodes, otherwise even through the terrorist team is dead, they could still win by the bomb detonating.

Equipment
In PaintBalling all players are required to wear facemasks to prevent any paintballs from travelling through a player's eye and make the game relatively safe. It should be noted that in the UK there is a legal age restriction that all players be at least twelve years old to play PaintBall. All players are issued with a rifle, a belt that carries refill canisters filled with paintballs and then paintballs themselves. The number of paintballs a player has depends on how many they have purchased from the facility owners. Player are not allowed to bring their own paintballs as the organisers have to guarantee the quality of all paintballs used at their facility (this could also have insurance implications).

In LaserTag all players wear sensor packs over their chests and back. These are connected to rifles that fire a laser out of the front for a very short duration when the trigger is pulled.

To play Counter Strike a player first needs to buy a Personal Computer with all the necessary peripherals like a Keyboard, Screen, Mouse, an Internet Connection and then a copy of the game. The computer's screen is used to display the game's virtual world that the player is in from a first person perspective as if the player was actually standing in that world. The keyboard is used to control movement and buy equipment. The mouse is used to look around and aim in the virtual world. And it is recommended that the player has a set of speakers so that they can also hear what is happening in the gameworld. Optionally a player can also connect a microphone upto their computer so that they can talk to other players that are also playing the game instead of typing messages with the keyboard to communicate. All the weapons that a player might use are all included virtually in the game and in unlimited supply. It should be noted that for a player killing an opponent, staying alive at the end of a round, planting or deactivating a bomb, their team winning, they receive money which can be spent on ammunition, weapons and armor in the next round. The equipment that can be bought in Counter Strike is (not most equipment is not available to both terrorists and counter terrorists):

High Explosive Grenade
Kevlar
Flashbang
Smoke Grenade
Assault Suit
Nightvision Goggles
Magnum Sniper Rifle
Bullpup
Maverick M4A1 Carbine
Krieg 552
M249
CV-47
Leone YG1265 Auto Shotgun
ES C90
Clarion 5.56
Krieg 550 Commando
IDF Defender
Leone 12 Gauge Super
Schmidt Scout
K&M Sub-Machine Gun
K&M UMP45
Schmidt Machine Pistol
Ingram MAC-10
Night Hawk .50C
.40 Dual Elites
ES Five-Seven
228 Compact
K&M .45 Tactical
9x19mm Sidearm

Reloading
Reloading in PaintBall is performed with the following steps:
1) Remove refill canister from ammo belt.
2) Open ammo hopper on rifle.
3) Open lid on refill cannister.
4) Tip paintballs from refill cannister into ammo hopper on rifle.
5) Close lid on hopper.
6) Close lid on now empty refill cannister.
7) Place empty refill canister back into ammo belt.

Reloading in LaserTag (if indeed the player is playing a game that requires reloading as this can be turned off) is done by going to a reloading station and shooting at a sensor on the wall.

To reload in Counter Strike the player simply runs out of ammo where the computer will automatically start reloading for the player if they have sufficient spare ammo to do so, or by default the player can press the R button on their keyboard for their virtual self to start reloading for them.

Scoring a Hit
Hitting someone in PaintBall with a paintball is fairly straight forward, a player simply paints their rifle at the opposing player and pulls the rifle's trigger. A paint ball will then be ejected from their rifle by way of compressed air and travel towards the opposing player. On contact however the paintball may or may not explode. A hit is only counted if the paintball makes contact with the opponent and explodes on impacting leaving a paint mark on the opponent's body or rifle. This can result in some confusion as players who have been hit by a paintball do not always know if the hit left a mark or not. Once shot a player should leave the battlefield as all successful shots are counted as kills, however some players can continue playing the game once being shot simply because they do not realise that they have been shot.

In LaserTag it is necessary for a player to point their rifle at an opposing player, pull the trigger on their rifle and with the laser that is emitted from their rifle hit either the front or back sensor packs on the opposing player's body. Upon a shot being registered a player who has been hit will have their pack emit a sound so they know they have been shot and have their rifle disabled for a set amount of time (usually three seconds) to prevent them immediately firing back.

In Counter Strike a player must point the centre of their viewpoint which is marked with a cross-hair at an opposing player by moving a mouse and then press the left mouse button to fire. Upon firing a virtual bullet or bullets are projected at the opponent, damage done to that player is calculated and then this is displayed on their screen by changing health stats on their display and a red triangle appearing which communicates to them that they have been hit and by which direction they have been shot from. If sufficient damage is dealt to a player, they will die and have to wait until the next round starts before they can play again.

Rule Enforcement
Rules in PaintBalling are enforced primarily by the players themselves, however all games will have several none combatant marshals who will walk around the battlefield and make sure a game is being played correctly and that no serious harm comes to any players.

A computer keeping track of all the player's scores enforces the rules in LaserTag meaning unless one player physically harms another there are no rules that the players can accidentally break.

As Counter Strike is a Video Game the rules are enforced entirely by computer. Specifically the server that all the players connect to, to participate in the same game. This server and the player's own computer will keep track of their, armor, health, money, weapons, ammo, their position in the world, where they are facing and any actions they are performing when the player performs them. Some of this information is shared with other players so that they can see who is playing, their score and where they are in the gameworld.

Cheating
Cheating in PaintBall happens when a player is hit by an exploding paintball and then proceeds to wipe the paint off of themselves so that the mark as evidence of them being hit no longer remains. They then continue playing as if they hadn't been hit. If a marshal sees evidence of this they will escort that player from the game.

Cheating in LaserTag can happen if a player covers their sensor pack with something that prevents any laser light from hitting the sensor. Or if they take off their pack and place it in the environment so that it is very difficult for any other players to hit. In this case it is upto the players themselves to inform the owners of the facility, who will then deal with that player.

Computer based software hooks known as hacks can aim for the player in Counter Strike giving them a 100% hit count on opponents. These hacks can also allow a player to see through walls to where other players are. Valve (makers of Counter Strike) have attempted to prevent software hacks by developing a system called VAC which scans a computer's memory for known hacks and then reports that information back to the game server. If a hack is found the game server will disconnect (known as kick) that player from the game and report their activity to Valve who can choose to ban that player from playing multiplayer for a set period of time or permanently.

Cost
The price of PaintBalling varies dramatically depending on where you go, but a half day costs around £30 for four to six games and a fullday with about eight games can cost upto £50. One game will last a maximum of twenty minuets, but this will probably vary between venues.

LaserTag games are priced at under £5 per game, duration of a game will vary from venue to venue. And in case you where interested the outdoor variety is priced at about £10 per hour, but again this varies from venue to venue.

The cost of playing Counter Strike can be as little as little as £10 if the player already owns a computer with internet connection. However if a player does not already have a computer to play the game on then purchasing one can cost between £250 to £3000+ and an internet connection costs around £20 a month. Once a player has the game and the equipment to play Counter Strike they can play as much as they like without incurring additional costs.

Physical After effects
Being hit by a paintball does hurt a little and will leave some minor bruising. Plus the act of physically running around can result in such things as exhaustion and muscle pain later if the player is unfit.

LaserTag does not inherently cause injuries however just like with PaintBalling running around can be exhausting and unfit players will find activity of this nature harder than fit players.

As Counter Strike takes place in a virtual world players can effectively play anywhere they like as long as where they are has a computer. Most players who play Counter Strike today will do so from a desk at home. This has the advantage of being able to play in a relaxed state while having food and drink on hand. There is also growing evidence to suggest that some players will even smoke marijuana while playing.

Conclusion
Rule enforcement in PaintBalling is an issue as even if a player is one who wishes to not cheat as they may not realise when they have been hit. And PaintBalling is experience enough that to play with any frequency is very costly.

LaserTag benefits greatly from having a computer keep track of every players score, but having to shoot at and wear sensor packs can be awkward at times.

After the initial cost of buying a computer, Counter Strike is by far the cheapest way of playing a team shooter. However the fact that the game doesn't take place in a physical environment means that the social interaction between players that normally takes place between players and makes such games socially rewarding is abstracted, which will have a negative effect on the player to player bonding process. That is unless a player is playing with other players in the same environment which is either difficult to organise or in the case of a cybercafe sometimes difficult to find as most don't carry Counter Strike.

World YoYo Champion 2006

American Freedom

America does a lot of things in the name of freedom, the Iraq War is a current example of that. Nobody seems to be able to explain how the Iraq War is necessary to preserve American Freedom, but the war still continues in Freedom's name.

As a free country it surprised me earlier to learn that in January they forfeited the right to Habeas corpus. Which is the right to not be held in incarceration without reason. Seems to me like the current administration has done more to harm American freedom than any terrorist. And the ruling in January applies to everybody in America including citizens. So although I don't hate America I do think they are hipocritical B.O.B.s sometimes.