From videogames

Good Review:

G4tv’s review of Punch Out!! hits on all the major features you looks for in a review. It touches on all the new aspects of the game, including all the game modes. It goes through all the control options, as well as talking about the difficulty of the different aspects of the game, complete with details. Of all the reviews, this one best breaks down the game play once you load the disc. Yes, the pink track suit remains the same. The review emphasizes the difficulty of the game, and how it differs from other game options available today. It makes old gamers want to buy it to reminisce about how a game is supposed to be, and makes new gamers want to buy it to prove the new gamer is as skilled as the old.

Bad Review:

1UP’s review of Punch Out!! covers most of the major points, but it goes into detail about specific animation details to make an overall point about nostalgia that is out of place in a review. If you ignore the opening tag line, the first three paragraphs are taken up talking about video game remakes, and how Punch Out!! is one of the best. The reviewer has chosen to compare the new game not to the original, but to the nostalgia-enhanced version in his head. That the game even stood up to that level of scrutiny does say a lot for it. It’s not until near the end of the review that we get some real detail about the new features of the game and how the different modes work. Unfortunately, it’s only two short paragraphs sandwiching an embedded video. Watching the video gave me a better feel for the game than anything else on the page.

Extra:

destructoid.com provides the best, and the most, screen shots of the game, although none of them show me the only new boxer, Disco Kid.

Almost every review agrees that while using the Wii Balance Board to dodge is pretty cool, it’s not fast enough to use when playing the more difficult fighters.

The Samsung SCH-i760 smartphone, with Verizon Wireless.

The Samsung SCH-i760 phone is a smartphone, but not a blackberry. It’s touch screen, and runs the Windows Mobile OS. I choose this phone because it has more features than the standard phones, but I’m not locked into paying $30/month+ for data like I would with a blackberry or other smartphone.

The phone isn’t all good. I’ve managed to lock it up a couple of times already, and it has it’s slow moments. This comes from it being a computer versus just a phone, so some of that’s to be expected, especially running Windows. My last couple of phones have been simple phones from LG, so there was a small learning curve getting used to the format and design of the menus and options. It came with two batteries, which was cool, but the extended battery barely lasts even two days with regular use.

I’m unhappy with the ringer options. I always like a vibrate option, and the phone comes with two, vibrate and ring, and vibrate then ring. I find the vibrate on vibrate and ring to be too loud and constant that it actually drowns out some of the ringer. The vibrate then ring option doesn’t work so well, because if I’m out where it’s loud I’m never sure if I felt it vibrate or not, and by the time I can reach the phone to touch it and check, it’s stopped vibrating. Fortunately, setting my own ringtones is easy, which has been a problem with Verizon in the past. The phone takes a micro SD card, so I just loaded one up on my computer before putting it in the phone. The phone has a lot of ringing options, such as ‘new wireless network detected’ that can be annoying, especially if you’re driving and it keeps detecting networks, but I disabled those rings with no problem.

One major complaint is I appear to be unable to send picture/video messages. This isn’t a huge deal, but I like to occasionally take pictures while I’m out and about, and message them to people. I could always email them, but since I don’t have a data plan I’d have to find a free wireless point, something that’s not always available. This might not be an issue, as I’ve been very disappointed with the camera.

The camera is a 1.3 megapixel camera, but everything I take seems to come out fuzzy. The delay between button press and actual picture is way too long. The image on the screen freezes when you press the button, but the picture doesn’t actually take for two seconds, so if you’re not good at holding the camera very still, you get a lot of fuzzy pictures.

I really like the build in Picsel browser. It allows me to load webpages in their normal mode, and zoom and slide around. It certainly beats IE and mobile views where things get all cascaded and make it hard to read many pages. It also has mobile office which is good if you’re going to write anything while you’re out, and windows media player if you like to listen to music on your phone. You can get a pretty big micro SD card these days that can hold a lot of music. Since it has wireless, you can always download something else, like Opera Mobile, if you so choose.

The phone’s not perfect, but as a step up from a regular phone without investing in blackberries or data plans, it does a nice job.

Oh, and it also makes phone calls with ease.

Sometimes when you strip away graphics and advanced computing, you can still have a blast playing a simple game. We all probably remember what space invaders is: aliens in a grid slowly advancing down screen towards your ship, shooting at you as they do. Your job is to return fire, slaying all the aliens and advancing to the next round. The Atari version features three bunkers that you can hide behind, that slowly decay as they get hit. As you slay more and more of the aliens, they get faster and faster, and you need to use more skill and timing to take them down.

Simple, yet fun. It’s a challenge to work within a game’s parameter, because the Aliens will get faster, but you never do. The game is not complex or long, but it still provided, and can continue to provide, plenty of fun times. It’s fun to get back down to basics where you simply move left and right, and press a button. Rather than worry about secondary triggers, strafing, reloading, and camera angles, it’s nice to play a simple push button, kill alien type of game occasionally.

Bad Review: IGN

Longwinded. Reads like a disgruntled programmer who wishes he was developing for this game. The review is too nitpicky with relatively minor features, or small glitches in animation and display. It spends too much time on features the reviewer personally feels should be fixed and updated, rather than the progress made in development. I don’t need a play-by-play analysis of every thought the reviewer had as he played through the game. The review even ends saying it’s a nice bridge to ‘10 the Show, which at best is in the beginning stages of design. It fails to address the features mentioned in the ads for the game that might have drawn a reader to the site to read a review on it until the third page,when most readers have either already decided what they think of this game.

Good Review: Gamer 2.0

This is medium sized review that specifically compares this year’s game against last year’s, which is a major part of a buyers decision to buy basically the same sports game every year. It can be too easy for developers to focus on one small improvement, and basically release the same product. The review provides a fair comparison, and suggests that the developers did a good job on making a game that is better than the version already collecting dust on your shelf from last year. It does hit on some of the less polished features too, but overall comes out positive. The review doesn’t contain overly flowery writing with silly references to MLB like “MLB ‘09: The Show hits it out of the park!” Readers, even baseball fan readers, are reading this review for it’s gaming aspects, not for another jab about A-Roid.

Synopsis:

The first review had my eyes glazed over before I got halfway through. It felt like I was reading the transcript of the reviewers thoughts as he played the game. The Gamer 2.0 review was much better, hitting the major points of interest of the game and comparing it to past versions so I could make a proper decision on buying it.

I’ve been waiting for this game to come out since I beat Sonny.  Here it is, SONNY 2!!!

I am writing this walkthough as I play the game so if you have gotten farther than I, feel free to add your tactics to the comments.  My tactics are not always the most efficient…

Zone 1 – New Alcatraz

Use brute force to win over these stages

Zone 2 – Oberursel

I still use brute force.  When there are three guys, I tended to use this strategy once I got Roald.

Put Roald on complete aggression.  This will attack the weakest characters.  Have Veradux on

defensive until at least one of the enemies has been defeated.

Cult leader
I found that dispelling all of his focus helped a lot in this battle.  It is the first thing that I

did so I am not sure if it truly helped or not.  He has 300 focus, so I am assuming he has some good

shit.  I then just beat the crap out of him until he is no more.  Keep an eye on his focus levels and

dispel when needed.  I maxed my magic on dispel.  Also notice when he casts the reverse magic and

put your guys on defend.  This way, attacking him does not heal him.

Baron

Defeating him is easy.  Just keep dispelling his focus.  He casts a magic that regenerates focus

through burning health.  He will keep regening focus (for the most part) and still receive more

focus.  He continues to lose health until he dies.

ZPCI + 2 Wolves

Put Veradux on defensive mode.  Every time I played this level, they went after (and killed) him

first.  Have Roald on offensive.  Use dispel to take away the wolves focus and break when the ZPCI

soldier uses the 400+ strength.  Repeat until defeated

Captain Hunt and 2 snipers

While this may not be the best strategy, it works.  Attack Captain hunt until the shields wear off

for the snipers.  Have Veradux on defensive mode.  Have Roald on pure aggression.  At some point, a

shield will be cast on Captain hunt.  Around the same time, the shields will fail for the snipers.

If you are decent with life, put Veradux on aggression as well to quickly knock out the snipers.

Around this time, the shield for hunt should wear off and start attacking him.

Zone 3 – Ivory Line: The Train

Use brute force to defeat first rounds of enemies

The Host – Use disrupt on him to take away all of his focus.  He will recover focus and waste a turn

Clemons The Deceiver – clear out the focus and brute force works for me!  He will heal himself, just keep slamming him until he falls.

Zone 4 Labyrinth

Again brute force for the first few levels never hurt anyone

Vivian Vixen – Ideally you should kill this while it has 300 hit points. I wasn’t able to acheive this, so it transformed into a wolf.  Once done, I was able to do actual hit points and brute force is the way for me…

Gregor – Silly bug keeps healing itself.  At this point, I felt the need to do some training.  At the moment, I am a level 15 and will train until my team has enough equipment/levels to deal more than 900 per turn.  I have leveled up to 18 and re-equipped my team members.  I then used break to slow the ability to heal himself for a round.  Next, I dispelled his focus and continued to beat him down.  Eventually you will squash this bug!

Shunny – brute force worked well for me

Mokoshotar – Wait for him to bite you which will turn whoever into a wolf.  Put them to aggressive mode which will do 6k worth of damage.  Once transformed back, put to appropiate level.

Bunny – Set both to aggressive when the bunny blows himself up.  He is weaker during this time.

The Hydra and the fire claws – I set the medic to defensive and Roald to full agression.  I went after the hydra since he was acceptable to more damage.  I also had healing set for when the medic got stunned or overwelmed.  It took an eternity but I finally overcame the hydras.

Zone  – Hew: The Dystopia

Use brute force to defeat the first few levels

Police Colonel – when he turns blue, he is reloading.  Slam him with everyone as the most amount of points are dealt out.  Once he is ready to attack after reload, use break to stun him for this turn.  Repeat and you are golden

Another game another day! This day? Clear Vision Elite!

Note: I didn’t put the guys in order on the paper. Except for Aace, I put them in order that I beat the mission on. Also, due to Mr. Petroy’s level, I was unable to beat the game. Either I missed something, or there is a bug but I completed the mission but it never gave a success.

Aace Bradley – shoot the one on the middle right on top of the ship. Then shoot the guy to the right of him. Then shoot the next guy to the right and finish them all

Ernst Zimmerman – shoot his hat from the window. He is walking in the middle part of the mansion

Athir Nostri – shoot him after he shoots the other guy in the meeting

Tony Carter – shoot the power cord above his head and game over…

Stanistav Petroy – shoot the sleeping one and then the other guy. For some reason, I could never get a successful mission from this though…

Anders Mognussan – from the left to the right, count the 13th window and shoot

Mike fernando shoot the snipers before shooting mike. I found that going right to left worked best. Get both snipers on the right in view first, and take them out. then take the rest of em out.

Johan Kristoffersson – shoot the goons first, and then take out johan on the snow mobile. I didn’t zoom, I just got him while moving

Care to help a chicken fly?  Sure why not?  How?  By playing CHICKEN IMPOSSIBLE!

I liked this game for its simplicity factor. Nothing insane, just have the chicken hit the following objects.  My strategy was to always use full power and adjust the angles.  The objects move slightly, but here are the baseline angles that I used for each object.  Just remember, the objects move so, change the angles slightly one direction or the other to hit the objects dead on.

Cow – 55 angle
wagon – 60 angle
hay – 54 angle
barn –  15 angle
Dock – 6 angle

Its been awhile for me to write a walkthough, but I just feel in love with Pandemic 2! Game link? You got it!

This game is exactly what I am looking for. You create a virus and then infect the world with it! What can get better than this? Well, here is what I did in order to beat this game.

First, pick your method of virus. I went with Virus but was able to replicate this strategy with all three methods. Then, sell whatever “gift” you get when you start the game. This is generally fever. You want to have 0 ill affects with this virus. Next, invest in the climate you are in. If you start in Cuba invest at least level 2 in heat. Then pay attention to where the airplanes go. Do they fly in warm or cool climates? Invest in at least 2 of cold climate as well. Once finished, activate airborne and water spread methods. Insect and rodent seem to be a waste of time to me. Invest in the moisture in order to infect the water supply. Watch in glee as your virus spreads around the world. At this point, level up your disease level. Invest in whatever you feel will kill best. Fever works as a great foundation. Watch as people die and close down the hospitals. If you are lucky, all hospitals will close down before a vaccination has been invented. If not, pray that it doesn’t cure your disease. If it does, game over man, game over! At this point, grab a sandwich and watch as you destroy the known world!

Good luck and happy killing!

About a month ago, I had written a little piece on DisplayLink external videocard adapters. Feel free to read it here.

Well since then, I have decided to take this product to the next level. Not only did I replace the first adapter, I decided to buy another one and see how two units work in one system. I must say I am pleasantly pleased.

First, installation is a breeze! No removing your computer case or need to pay for a computer guy to come along. All you need to do is insert the cd and hit next! Once the software is installed, plug in the USB cable into your computer and the other side into the external adapter.

*NOTE: for blackberry users, it happens to be the same plug to charge your BB.

At this point, windows see the device like any other videocard and off you go. I like to push the button a little bit and wanted to see if there was any performance degrade by having two units on my system. With both units running, the software only takes 40k worth of memory! In comparison, outlook is taking 73k and firefox is taking 83k. I had just updated firefox, so that number is pretty low. Aim also takes up more resources hanging at 57k. In a nutshell, you wouldn’t even notice a performance issue.

The next thing I tried was to use a wide screen monitor and a standard box monitor. Both screens are 17 inches (along with my traditional monitor that uses a built in videocard) Since I still like to see my text, I have the monitors set at 1280×1024. The widescreen monitor is set for 1440 by 900. I have a lot of experience with multiple displays, and I can honestly say I do not notice a functionality difference between having the videocards internal or external.

The next joy I discovered, is the portability of these units. When I leave at night, I unplug both cards and this also does not affect the functionality of the computer. It barely even takes a hit at all. When the card is unplugged, any windows shift to the internal display. Once the card is plugged back in, I can move the windows back. Windows takes it like a champ and doesn’t complain at all!

The downside? The colors are slightly washed out when I view them on the external card as opposed to the internal one. Your average user will never even notice a difference. I also would avoid playing games on these units because the refresh rate on them is not as good as a powerful graphics card. It does well on playing videos and other “normal” internet stuff so do not be discouraged.

Also, the units get really HOT! I unplug them when I leave the office to make sure that they do not break. I believe this is why the first unit failed. I always left the unit plugged in and I am only use my office computer 3 out of 4 days in a week! That is a lot of wasted time for units that get so hot!

Would I recommend this to clients? YES! I have already pitched this product to a few clients in the hedge fund industry and hopefully they will bite! They wanted to upgrade all of their computers to accommodate dual display and I countered with DisplayLink! These units would work great in the financial district! If you are a huge gamer, stick with your traditional videocards that beef up in internal memory and has huge heat sinks on it to make sure it doesn’t overheat. If you are just looking to increase productivity, and do not want to replace your existing videocard, DisplayLink is for you! For 99 dollars, I say it is a well worth investment!

Another game, another day. Today’s game? PIMP MY CHIMP! Who doesn’t like monkeys looking like thugs!

Well, level 1 is completely easy since they tell you how to beat it. I am nice enough to provide a screenshot of this marvelous feat…

I haven’t quite found out the most winning combinations but feel free to share screen shots. When I have finished the other levels, I will be sure to post.

Any questions? I didn’t think so!