I created a trial account and was just a few minutes later playing the game using my own Tauren character.

Hack n slash!

At first I was underwhelmed, the world I entered seemed bland, uninteresting and very little stuff was going on. This might have been because it was in the middle of the night but that’s the time I thought most people were playing… I was wrong I guess.
My first impression was that everything seemed very slow and there didn’t seem to be much of a story, but first impressions aren’t always right so I kept on going. The basic RPG elements were all there, talk to a NPC, get a quest, go away somewhere and kill some monsters, come back to town and get a reward, repeat.

After doing some fairly uninteresting quests and gaining a few levels I was able to explore the world further and entered the village of Bloodhoof. There I met some people and went on some slightly more interesting quests while more parts of the game was introduced to me. I for example learned that I could fish, make a fire, cook, skin a wolf, get killed by a wolf or try to hunt down rhinoceroses (kodos) while getting killed by wolves.
And there seemed to be lots more you could do (just not in the trial), like training your very own kodo for getting around quickly or capture a wild animal and make into your own pet.

Fishing... yay...

It’s fun to play in groups, when there’s a social element to the game, but just playing on your own isn’t so grand. It’s very easy to chat with people while hacking enemies to bits due to the control-style, so if you’re in a group of people on a quest to kill some goblins or whatnot you can chat the whole time and have a good time.

On your own it mostly feels like any old hack n’ slash RPG… except slower. But still, I have to admit, it’s starting to grow on me. There’s just something to this game that I can’t really put my finger on that makes turn on the game over and over again every day now. It’s like they put cocaine in it or something, I dunno… Anyway, I’m considering buying it at this point but probably not playing it every month, maybe just a few months of the year.

btw, I found a nice santa-hat, so I decided to make a christmas card:

Merry Christmas!

There are tons of bogus fixes for this problem that requires your to disable services etc.
One of the most common semi-working fix out there is to get a program like Startup-Delayer to delay the starting of certain chosen programs and services to make sure they don’t all start at the same time. And if they don’t all start at the same time, you’ll have a perfect tray with all the wanted icons. I have found this to at best be a partial solution, since the speed of starting the different programs and services varies and thus the delay you set for each program won’t always be what’s needed.

What works for me is to use a very nifty program called PS Tray Factory. It has the ability to restore system tray icons, other tray icons and can even sort tray icons if you wish. You can also use it to minimize certain programs to tray, hide chosen programs from tray, etc, etc.

I have found the sorting and minimizing features to be a bit buggy myself, but that might be because the software was last developed back in 2006 and is not used to some things that programs do today. Regardless, it handles the thing I care about really well. It successfully restores missing tray icons after a reboot or an explorer.exe crash.
The only downside with this program (besides the fact that it isn’t being developed anymore) is that it isn’t free, but if this is something that is really bugging you, then it might be worth your money. Check it out.

The best fix would of course if Microsoft got off their asses and did their job by fixing this age-old bug and stop messing about with ridiculous operative systems like Vista. But for now, this is a working solution.

… Or if you really know what you’re doing, you could check out tasmanians patch that fixes the core of this problem.

Sometimes when I watch videos with MPC I find that I want to add some more videos to the playlist so that’ll they run after the video I’m watching. This can be done from the program, but you’ll have to muck about with opening the playlist and browsing through the programs little “Browse…” feature. It’d be very convenient to be able to add videos, songs, etc, to the playlist by just right clicking on them in Explorer (Like you’re able to with Winamp).
Well, this is possible thanks to the command line switches MPC has.

In Explorer goto Tools -> Folder Options and select the File Types tab. Select the file type you want to enable this for (for example .avi) and press Advanced. Press New. As Action type in:

Enqueue in MPC

and as Application type in:

"C:\WINDOWS\mplayerc.exe" /play /add "%1"

That is, if that’s where your Media Player Classic installation is located. If you installed to another directory, you need to adjust the above line to fit your installation. When done editing, press OK three times to get out of the menus.

That’s it! Now you should be able to right-click on any .avi file and select “Enqueue in MPC” and the video should be added to MPC’s playlist. I suggest you also add this Action to the following file types: .avi .mp4 .mpg .m2v, since those are all fairly common for video files.

• monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday
• catday, catsday, catnesday, catrsday, catday, caturday, catday

Why? Because days are named after gods we have worshipped in the past and I think it’s time to update the weekdays to gods we worship of today. No I don’t mean Jesus, Allah or any of that horseshit, anyone can see that stuff is bogus. I mean come on, the earth was made in 7 days, 6000 years ago? You people make me sick.

No, we need to set our worship-drives to maximum while changing to cat-gear. I mean, who doesn’t like hilarious cute cats with bad grammar? That’s right, no one. And if you happen to be that no one, then you are a dark soul my friend and you should seek professional help. Like, right now… seriously, go away.
Anyway, back to what I was talking about. What was I talking about? Oh yes, lolcats are awesome and need to be worshipped. We should make enermous statues with pointy ears, build churches with lots of sand in them, etc.

But we should begin with changing the weekdays to their cat-counterpart. We already changed saturday to caturday, what’s wrong with changing the rest? Ok, it could potentially be a bit annoying to have three days named “catday”, but let’s just change the week structure aswell to get around that:

• monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday
• catday, catsday, catnesday, catrsday, caturday, catsomeday

I removed one of the workdays, for convenience, so now we’ll work less and as a result be happier.
All of this might have been a little bit complicated, so here’s a nice little summation of the awesomeness this proposal will bring,

End result:

• No more focus on ancient gods
• Less workdays
• More lolcat pictures will be posted online
• People will be happier
• The financial crisis will be over

So there it is folks, it’s time for change and the world has recently been open to change, so I think this will work out just fine.

The idea is to sell Good old Games™ that are 100% compatible with Windows XP/Vista, that contains NO DRM, at a low price.

It seems like a really good idea and all, but, they really do need some more games on there. So far, it’s full of games were the “goodness” is kinda debatable… Such as:

• “Battle Chess: Special Edition” - A chess game? Yay…
• “Evolva” - I got this game for free with a PCGamer magazine, I don’t have it anymore though since I threw it away. It had a bit of a MDK-feel to it, but the concept was too done and boring already.
• “F/A-18E Super Hornet” - Some random flight-sim. Never heard of it before.
• “I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike” - Another game I acquired for free. I played it a few times… I remember not being able to finish the 4-5th level (something like that) because of a bug that kept comming back regardless of if I reinstalled it/patched it/whatever.
  It’s kind of like a bad ripoff off “007 GoldenEye” for N64. I managed to sell it for $3 though.
  The only user comment (as of now) on gog.com about this game reads:

  “Not good. I don’t like this game [...].” -Pajk

• “Kingdom: The Far Reaches” - Wtf? is that santa-claus?

  

• “Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader” - A quote from the user comments sums up the lack of excitement you should be feeling for this game:
  

  “[..] Lionheart failed to deliver.” -jopo

• “Shattered Steel” - Some old mechadroid-shooter. Lame.

But don’t worry, the store has a few gems and hopefully in the future it’ll be full of them. The gems include such wonders as “Operation Flashpoint” for $10, “Freespace 2” for $6 and “Fallout” for $6.

Anyway, the real story here is that there is an actual webstore out there, selling games, without forcing DRM on your ass. And that, is most definitely : cool.

Ben There, Dan That! by Zombie Cow Studios is one of those games. It has everything a fan of adventure games could ever want, and it’s FREE (donations are welcome though).
The game begins with a simple puzzle and a hilarious plot that just reeks of reference-humor. I can’t help but to fall in love instantly and declare that this game is absolutely awesome! After sorting out how to bring a zombie back to life, you’ll be introduced to the main plot of the game which is to get the TV-signal back up so the guys can watch Magnum P.I. How can you go wrong with such a plot? Do you really need to read anymore? Just go ahead and download it right NOW.

You look a bit tied up there, Zombie-Dan.

The puzzles involve roaming about randomly to try to grab as many things to put in your inventory as possible. Then you combine these things in some elaborate way to make your way to the next place where you’ll be roaming around randomly. All in good adventure gaming tradition of course. The difficulty level isn’t that high, so you shouldn’t be too frustrated with this game even if you’re a complete newbie with adventure games. And even if it’s somehow too much you can enjoy the game by going through the walkthrough with clues on Zombie Cow Studios website.

The visuals are very reminiscent of the good ol’ adventure games such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or Sam & Max. Although not as detailed, but very much in the same spirit and style, which makes you feel right at home walking through the different rooms. The animations are far and few between, but once you get to one, it’s always a pay-off.
There are plenty of sound effects and some of them are really right on. Such as the “yoink!” sound when Ben picks up something. There’s background ambience sound in almost every room which is a really nice touch. There are no speaking voices, but that really isn’t necessary.

There are lots of jokes that references old adventure games and promptly make fun of them, and for someone like me who loves those good ol’ games: hilarity ensued. The writing is very much in the same style as fan would be used to, but there’s even jokes here that people who haven’t played any adventure game will enjoy.

There are a few bugs, but nothing major. And sometimes it gets a little annoying having to wait for Ben and Dan to walk all the way to the exit your clicking at. If one could double-click his way out of a room, that’d be swell! (hint).

Ben and Dan hanging around some Zombies.

Pros/Cons

+ Great graphics and sound effects that will bring you back to “the good ol’ days”.
+ Lots of fun
- A bit short.

Conclusion

All in all, this is a wonderful humourus adventure game that will appeal to all the fans of the classics and newbies to adventure gaming alike. The graphics, sound effects and story-line is everything you could hope for. This game DELIVERS. Go get it NOW. And, consider donating, so that the developers can be inspired to create an even better sequel!

This post was cross-posted on NekoGumi on 2009-01-02.

If you can’t hear it.. then you might wanna go check your hearing. There’s an obvious buzzing noise when there’s supposed to be a slight increase in volume. This is what they in the industry call “clipping”

Clipping is a form of waveform distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven, which happens through attempts to increase the voltage or current beyond its maximum power capability.

This is the waveform for the 'The Day That Never Comes' sample that you just listened to.

So, five years after the complete letdown that St. Anger was (to most of the fans anyway) due to the horrible production and lack of awesome Kirk-solos. Metallicas attempts to put out an awesome album was yet again foiled due to shoddy sound engineering. How could this have happened?

Didn’t they listen to the tracks before putting them on the cd? Or were there just too many steps of production, mastering, remastering, etc, with this problem showing up too late in the process for anyone to notice it before printing? Don’t worry, we’ll find out in due time. But in the meantime you can check out lots of other morons discussing it here.

But wait, there’s more (and this is the best part). The album recently became available for Guitar Hero 3 on Xbox360/PS3 and that version does NOT have any of these clipping problems. Don’t believe me? Listen to this.
Shocking isn’t it? One wonders how they managed to send a proper version to Neversoft but couldn’t manage to print a good sounding version on CD! I guess you got to buy your albums for video games nowadays if you don’t want them ridden with sound distortion problems!

The waveform for the Guitar Hero 3 version of the sample.

If you don’t have an Xbox360 or a PS3, you might just find the Guitar Hero 3 version on the internet somewhere…

Some further reading on this topic:

• Metallica “Death Magnetic” sounds better in Guitar Hero by Ian Shepherd
• Low Volume in GH3? Read this! by Hancoque
• YouTube: Metallica Death Magnetic - CD vs. Guitar Hero comparison by florixg

There’s a moral here. You try to find it.

Correct Answer: The store charges way too much for cigarettes.

“The game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you’ll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That’s not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief. You will need to provide proof of purchase, reasons why the limit was reached, etc, etc (it has all happened before with another recent EA product, Mass Effect). EA, of course, is not obligated to grant you that extra activation or even provide that service. In a couple of years they might very well even shut down the general activation servers, because “it’s not financially feasible” to keep them running. What you will be left with is a nice, colorful $50 coaster. And you will be required to pay for another copy/license if you want to continue playing.

This basically means that you are actually RENTING the game, instead of owning it. The game WILL stop to function in the future. That’s inevitable, because even if EA keeps the activation servers going, there IS going to be a time when EA will simply cease to exist because of financial issues or federal laws (like most businesses eventually do).”

The real irony here is that the people who decided to download the cracked version (that came out 5 days before store release), won’t have to deal with any of this. So, the end result:

• Piracy wasn’t thwarted in any way whatsoever.
• Paying customers end up with an inferior product that can only be installed three times, requires internet for activation, might not work at all in the future and could likely cause your cd/dvd-burner to stop functioning. And on top of that, they will be treated like criminals as soon as they complain.

I think I’ve made my point already. But just for fun, here are some other quotes from the amazon review page:

“I purchased Spore directly from EA on Sunday night when it was released, and have yet to even install it because EA forces you to install their “EA Download Manager” first, which won’t install on my machine (Vista Home Premium). So I am here, 2 days later, no response from EA support to my open tickets, not able to even install the game that I paid for. I’ve opened a paypal dispute against EA/DigitalRiver but I doubt I am going to get my money back. Looks like EA made an easy $50 off me, but I promise you EA, it will be your last. “

“I wanted to voice my concern over the DRM. Electronic Arts, if you are reading this, take notes.

No one wants DRM in their video games.

I have long awaited the release of Spore; I was going to run out and purchase a “copy” until I heard about the 3 time install limit. This is worse then Microsoft Window’s activation scheme. Until the DRM is removed, I will not purchase this game.”

“The DRM for the game utilizes securom which is essentially a virus that installs itself without warning when you install the game. There is no way to completely remove it without reformatting and it is constantly running in the background if not removed. Sucking up computer resources.

It also is overpriced. This is actually a RENTAL, not a bought game because it only lets you install 3 times. If you install over 3 times then you must call EA customer support and beg them to let you play the game you bought. Did I mention the call is not free? If you live outside the U.S. it will be a very expensive call.”

Hopefully EA will learn it’s lesson and NOT use DRM in the future.  Maybe they could learn a thing or two from Stardock and Gas Powered Games.

4.1 Changelog:

• Added: Option to disable bold in media stats
• Fixed: Minor Mplayerc bug

Download v4.1
(The old version (3.2) that doesn’t use COM can be downloaded from here)

Don’t forget to read the readme before asking me any questions.