Monday, August 25, 2003

College started today for myself. It was a new experience. But seriously, how many people go to college, once in their life, right? And I am going to take Math, Writing Concepts, and micro operating systems. While college is going on, my play time is cut in half. I can't play videogames no more. Gotta get organized so I can pass Math. CISCO I and II starts next summer, which means because I took only CISCO I this summer and got a passing grade on it, I may have to take it again because I didn't quite make B+. He did say congratulations to me though. I'm still playing Legend of Dragoon. I got pass the Divine Dragoon on Disc 3. Anyone who played this game knows that the Devine Dragoon was hard, but I have put the best armor in the game on Dart, the Armor of Legend. All I had to do to defeat the Devine Dragon was to hack away at him and keep my health percentage high. Disc II seemed to go by fast, and disc III seems to go by even faster. I only spent 5 hours on this disc. I spent 9 hours on Disc two and 14 hours on disc one. Disc 3 is full of cinematic cut scenes. I went to Wal-Mart and bought :

  • Gran Turismo 3
  • Jak and Dexter
  • Twisted Metal Black

Three days later I bought 4 games at gamestop ....

  • Final Fantasy X
  • Breath of Fire - Dragon Quarter
  • Midnight Club

The Final Fantasy X review is already online, so read it. I try to make it flawless as possible. So far the game is really interesting. The game has more cutscenes then I've seen in any game before. The battle system is unlike other Final Fantasy times, which were slower, this one is faster.

I'm in Networking Electrical for one on my college course. And I realized that everyone there had previous hands on background with big machines. Our teacher isn't your average teacher. He gives us work that is easy to figure out. We're supposed to work with amps and volts when we currently work in, whats called the POP room or mainframe of where all the network wires go. This is going to be my job. Networks are very complex. This means I will have to deal with all these hot wires and the only thing that is between me and the wire is a circuit breaker inside a meter. It will be quite interesting what will be the turn out. I have yet to meet anyone in the class.

Friday, August 15, 2003

New freeware games

did a couple things added to m y website. I just got a Playstation 2 three days ago. Why don't I do that. Well I got a bunch of CDRs so I can burn software on it. CDrs aren't really expensive right? So I can download as many as I want. So I found this website off google. Here are some top picks
  • ParityShot 1.9 - A free side shooter with really good graphics for a free ware game. You play this girl on a broom and she shoots other witches and cats. If I didn't know better this game was based off Salor Moon. It plays well. Plenty of powerups. And the game is anime based. Game developed by Crane Software. It's a realy good game!!! The first level is easy. The second level is a bit harder. There are 3 difficulties in this game. And easy isn't easy. Although it might look cute, it's really a hard game to beat on the hardest setting. Download it, you like it, honestly. Only problem is the website is in Japanese. So look for a link that says something like "parilyshot.zip" on it.
  • Super Mario XP - A Super Mario clone with has a pinch of Castlevania (looks like another Super Mario Bros Game except it's darker. I played it and it's really good.
  • Little Fighter 2 - A combat game featuring fighters and you must be the last one standing. Much like PS2's, "Bouncer." At first you suck at it because the other fighters kick your butt but if you seem to know who to punch off first you'll get though stage 1. The ones who died are out which means game over for you..

I found some compression tools today. One did not work on Geocities though. One didn't work with my website at all. One I really, really liked.

  1. Shrinker 1.2.1 This little program does a big job and works with all webpages because it does't zip any files like the others do. This means the page doesn't have to de-compress once loaded. I had trouble with de-compressing html on a iMAC because they were too slow to process. This is what I'm using on my webpage right now. For a long time I didn't use any html decompression and I realised that I only had 3.0 MB left on my server and had to do something about it. Shrinker Lite is the best program because it is FREE to use. The compressor compresses page on average 40% on a normal webpage, 60% if it's really long like my review pages. But how small do you want your html anyway. It will still take less time to load it then normal, no side effects. You can view the compressed format in Dreamweaver so to problem there. And it has no de-compression loading times like the other two I'm going to review although they compress up html 80% their orginal size. I love this program. Webpage builders must have this unity. Only a 600KB download.
  2. HTMLzip is adware meaning it'll put a banner on the bottom of your page. Not mad, when you compress just click yes and it'll be yours forever! This program does a good job compressing files for 60 to 80 percent the orginal size of the html. One problem is that you can't edit the compressed files because they are encrypted in compression code so compress these files in a different folder. I like this because it has more compatibility with html then any other HTML compression unity out on the web! But the compressed html it shows may show up invalid in some file transfer protitols like what Geocities has. But on a regular FTP Client it should work 100%. HTML should de-compress in a matter of seconds after it's fully loaded.

After this was all done it cut a couple MEGABYTES off my server! It was well worth the download!

Sunday, August 10, 2003

I don't really go to CNN Technolegy section, but CNN has found it quite interesting that Disney is making a Videogame of the 1982 movie Tron calling the game Tron 2.0. I know about this a month in advance, but I don't think that Tron 2.0 for the PC is much a impact. I can always to be wrong on it. The graphics aren't state of the art but the game is kind of great. I also read that Nintendo is going to release specs on the Gamecube 2 next year. It'll be interesting which will be faster PS3 or GCN2 next Spring. Whoa!

Well I'm going to try to get a PS2 tomorrow with Bob. I'm am excited. Some how I'm going to have to find $150 dollars for a used console. I'm going to get Grand Thief Auto 3 free. But I plan to also get Gran Turismo 3 or Jak and Daxter. Sony Playstation 2 is in 5 has many homes as Gamecube. First I have to call Gamestop in Woodbury, Minnesota to see if they have one so I can reserve my copy. Then I have to go to the bank. I'm selling my PSone to Bob for 40 dollars. That should give me about 60 dollars of extra money if everything turns out. Here's hoping.

I am continue enjoying the game Legend of Dragoon from Sony for the PSone. I signed a pention at pentitiononline.com to get the next game developed - I said ....

"I hope the next game is even more like Final Fantasy then the original. I want spoken dialog every cutscene! Have a female character lead the game next time. Incredible graphics is a must. Plz make it for the PS3!!! Oh yeah -- hire either Camelot (Shining Force III) or Squaresoft to co-develop the next game because they rock! If there could be more then one difficulty in the sequel/prequel, that would increase the replay, but that the first game was long enough, so when I beat easy, I can replay the character I played again in nightmare when better drops when enemies are present. "

Anyway these are the games that I plan to get for PS2. If not the first time, maybe the second time I go to Gamestop.

  • Summoner 2 - looks like a really cool RPG. The prequel was one of PS2's first RPGs which means it's also the best at it's time. But will I play it? I want a RPG other then Final Fantasy. This looks like a good one because it has pretty good graphics. It has a mid-evil look too it.
  • Final Fantasy X. I started collecting Final Fantasy games, believe it or not, this year. I got a Playstation last year because I wanted RPGs. FFX has a unmatched gameplay combat system for a console RPG. I've been playing Dungeon Siege and Diablo 2 much longer then I've played Final Fantasy games and they have pretty good battle system. But the other games including Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 do. Diablo 2 does.feature a ATB (Action Time Battle System) where Final Fantasy X waits because it's a turned based action RPG. Other thing I like very much is the spoken dialog in a RPG like this.
  • Grand Thief Auto 3 - Quite possibily the best game for the PS2. Until Vice City came out that is. But I'm getting this game free anyhow. Have you ever stole a car before? I played GTA2 for the Playstation and it was Okay. I just heard this game is one of the best. Might as well try it out then.
  • Gran Tranismo 3 - A Spec - I read the review on IGN.com and the article said that this game was packed full with over 20 tracks including 10 Rally tracks which I like since I like Rally (FIA World Rally and American Rally) and Formula One Racing games. The rest of the game sounds good too. I've played it once at Best Buy about a month ago.
  • Jak and Daxter - I need a platform game in my collection and Jak and Daxter seems like a good choice because it was made by the same developer of Crash Bandicoot, Naughty Dog Software. I've heard about Jak 2 and it seems like an award winner too.
  • XenoSaga : Episode I - Looks like a really cool RPG. It's like Final Fantasy X, has a real sequel with the same characters, and this saga doesn't suck like Unlimited Saga. The graphics are very good. The gameplay is better then Xenogears for PSone and the game is very long.
  • Midnight Club - Looks like a really nice Street Racing title when it came out, the price is nice too only $19.99! It reminds me of Tokyo Extreme Racer for the Sega Dreamcast. Rockstar made this game so it has to have smooth control.

I went to a website discussing why PS2 is the better console of any. Click Here for Link to that page. I wrote :

"I agree with ‘Gamer’ to a point because a got PS2 today and I already own Xbox and GCN. Some games I gotten for Xbox are THPS4, Halo, Moto GP, Return to Castle Wolfenstine, and Project Gotham. (good racing game) I play all games listed above sparingly.

I like the Playstation controller mostly because I can play RPGs like Final Fantasy VIII and Legend of Dragoon and both are alright RPGs. The PS/PS2 controller is very comfortable. I got a Mad Catz ADAPTER that’ll hook your PS2 controller directly up to your Xbox. It kicks arse! The Xbox controller is bulky like the Gamecube controller. I admit I like Moto GP for Xbox. I like the Xbox hard disk capacity so I can put my songs on it. Who needs to play songs on their console when theirs radio or cd players. I like the triggers on the Xbox though, the same as my Dreamcast. I suppose PS2 has those shoulder buttons. No doubt that PS2 duel shock is the best controller out yet. It’s nothing new since I had a PSone for about a year. I’m a RPG gamer. In the last six months I beaten FFVIII, FFVI, Star Ocean II, Chrono Cross and I’m now on the second disc of Legend of Dragoon. So although I’m new to Sony Playstation, since then I was enjoying what Sony has to offer with their much bigger RPG category. I like Xbox more at the moment (Midnight Club 2 is out for Xbox and I have yet to get that game.) But I also paid royalty for gaming so I didn’t have to decide, you guys know what that’s like.

So I have all next Gen consoles. I’m playing Legend of Dragoon now. It may be another one of those save the world rpgs, but it’s actually not all that different from Grandia 2. I bought Final Fantasy X and Xenosaga Episode 1, GTA 3 and Suikian III for the ps2 and I have yet to experience them. They all sound good from IGN’s point of view. I was thinking of getting dark cloud and Jak and Dexter. I’m not into Metal Gear Solid or Silent Hill games even though one of them is the top 5% action game of all time. I’ll get back to this board once I “experience” the Playstation 2. "