I know this entry is about the LAN party, but I have some not so exciting news to tell everyone first. Okay, remember that entry about G4TV (Television with Gamers) I made about 2 months ago? Well they’ve apparently sold out TechTV and now TechTV joined forces with them. Although TechTV use to be my favorite channels until May 28th showed up, I found out that The Screen Savers and Call for Help is still on in the morning. So technically speaking G4-TV is added to the long list of DirecTV channels. Occasionally I flip back and forth between Anime Unleashed and Adult Swim (Cartoon Network) at midnight. G4-TV spokes-people ware creepy tattoos and punk cargo pants now making G4-TechTV a mixed bag in my opinion.
[May 29th] Later on today my cousin gave me a call from California. David’s going to Japan in 2 weeks. He’s in the Navy because he learns to be a helicopter mechanicl. He's done with school and he's gonna be living large experiencing whatever he learned over the past year at military school. This is his military job not his civilian life job. I think he wants to become a carpenter after the military. We use to spend a lot of time together as kids so naturally we get a long together quite well. Today was a little different. We talked about Power Rangers and the call ended up with him saying I have a serious problem for knowing the actors names that were cast in Power Rangers. This all started when the White Ranger (Tommy Oliver, not his real name) in the old Power Ranger series shows up in the new Power Ranger Show, Dino Thunder. Not that it matters to me now-a-days. But I look up the actor’s bios and this particular says on his fan site he likes Korn and Linken Park. Same guy I saw on television when I was a kid, though now I have lost total respect for him now that he’s a hard rock enthusiast. He just seemed to be a nice guy in the old shows.
[May 30th] I went over to bob’s house to get rid of a TV and weight set. The TV was about 25 inches, but low resolution. My parents actually wanted to get rid of it. I took Bob to my house and we loaded the Compaq and Custom PC in the Jeep. I took all my hard drive backup cds along…just in case. Bob and I had a long conversation of when Bob and his girlfriend Angie are going to move out of his house to an apartment in River Falls, WI. Closer where he goes to school, after Bob, his dad, Randy and his dad go fishing up in Canada.
[At Mikes House] The game of choice was Unreal Tournament 2004. The people there were Bob, Mike, his wife, Jim, Joe and that other guy. Mike had a hacked iso image of all the UT2004 cds to install on everyone’s computers. It was the only way we could play UT2004. I got a couple game images and mp3 files on my hard drive from all of this. Jim was rocking (I don’t know how else to put it) Jim had like 36 frags to the second place person 20 something. I only lead the game once, that’s because I did something crazy in the game. Jim knows a lot about computers, there is little he doesn’t know. The UT2004 patch messed up our ability to use the no-cd patch. So Jim’s brilliant know-how got us all playing together again. I also downloaded MP3s from Jims server, which was cool since he had 35 GB of them. Some Pink Floid, Third Eye’s Blind, and a whole bunch of music off Jim’s hard drive. I went home at around 2 AM because, well MIke was getting tired….that is until some of the guys started to look at porno. No comment here. So, Yep, time to leave!
[At home the next day] I rushed to rip the Final Fantasy VII image to CD-ROM so I could play it. IF you haven't known, I also own the PSX version, and I was thinking of playing the PSX version this week. Than I realised that Mike had FFVII in his collection so I was very, very, extremely thrilled. I know it's one of the best PSX games in excistance and refined the RPG genre or so I heard (one of the first RPGS with C.G. Cutscenes, but cheesy ones at that) I had a glimse at the game when Bob played it at his house. When FFVII installed, the game crashed for being ment to run on Windows 95. But luckily I found a WinXP patch for the game. I plan to install Star Trek Elite Force II and play that. While it is a FPS, it does have Star Trek from it. The Federation has the most advanced technology in any Star Trek game / movie. I don’t know what the “star date” is, but it takes place in the future so I’ll live the Star Trek genre in first person form. You are a commando type recon party whom goes against the almighty Borg (seen in ST: The Next Generation, ST: Voyager, and ST: First Contact), I thought how cool! ST: Elite Force II has good reviews at IGN.com, Gamefaqs.com, Gamestats.com. Star Trek I know is a dieing franchise, but the game wasn’t a poorly financed, poorly designed game at all. In other words, it makes Star Trek look good from what I read at my favorite site, IGN.com. It got a 8.4/10. Sure, it runs on the aging Quake III engine, but it suprisenly l looks quite good supporting 1600x1200 with software anti-analyzing (good stuff.) For a long time I thought Star Trek - Elite Force II was a sleeper hit when I was thinking of buying a copy with my hard-earn cash. I found that Jim had a backup of the game so I copied it instead. :) The game disappeared from Wal-Mart this month. I wasn't really looking for it anyways, I wish they've would have kept it on the shelves. I understand though software coming in the dozen by the month so of course older software will be pushed off the shelves.
Here is a list of copy protection to help people out when backing up there games
Use a retail version or shareware version of Alcohol 120% 1.4.7 or better.
Tested OK:
1. Unreal Tournament 2004 – Securom 4x/5x | 2x speed
2. Unreal Tournament 2003 – Securom 4x/5x | 2x speed
3. Far Cry – Securom 4x/5x
4. Knights of the Old Republic - Securom 4x/5x
5. Dungeon Siege – General Protection
6. Freelancer – General Protection
7. No one lives forever 2 – Laserlock
8. Halo Combat Evolved – General Protection
9. Metal of Honor Allied Assault – General Protection
10. Call of Duty – Suricom 4x/5x
11. Diablo 2 – LaserLock (has unreal amount of errors, may take hours to rip)
12. Elder Scrolls III – Morrowind – General Protection
13. Unreal Tournament – General Protection or Laser Lock
14. Final Fantasy 7 – General Protection
15. Freelancer – General Protection
16. Quake III Arena – General Protection
17. Star Trek Elite Force II – General Protection
18. Any Games older than 2000 – General Protection
For more information on copyright protection look at http://afterdawn.com.
As for the MAC emulation I’m doing. I am going to hold off until later. My emulator of choice is Pear PC because it’s website ( http://pearpc.sourceforge.net ) has a full documentation on how to install MAC OS 10 on PC. I’m currently on the GCC step and still have a ways to go. I need a compiler apparently to add source to the file where MAC is suppose to be placed in (called a virtual drive.) I got the GCC compiler at ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/cygwin/gcc-2.95.2/ .
Cheerio dudes! Tune in for some exciting updates on this page in another 3 days!
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Getting MAC OS 10.1 to install on my PC
Date: 5/28/04 at 12:58PM
Speaking of which, I was searching on the Internet today and I was looking at Windows Emulators for Linux. I disliked Wine and I need something else. So I found WintoLin 3.0 on Emule. It doesn’t download at first…which doesn’t surprise me. It’s commercial software for Linux. I thought that everything on Linux had to be open source. Well it’s being sold for 50 dollars and comes with its own Installer. Why can’t the software take the Windows partition “/hda1/” and boot it in a window in Linux? That would be so much easier than trying to “emulate” Windows.
EMULATING MAC OS 10.1, FACT OR FICTION?
I will emulate MAC OS 10.1 if it’s the last thing I do. I may have not told you this, but I snuck a retail version of MAC OS 10.1 home from school about a year ago. MAC OS can not be installed on PC for processing reasons without an emulator. MAC OS runs exclusively on Motorola processors which blocks it from being installed on an IBM machine. Today I was looking at MAC OS emulators which claim they can set up a ‘virtual drive’ for a MAC OS to be installed. The emulator emulates the Motorola processor and Mac file system. I heard this DOS emulator Fusion 3.0 is good. It use to cost 50 dollars back in 2000, but since then it’s been abandon-ware so I can download it for free off http://emulators.com/fusion/ Now if only I could get OS 10.1 to install on it in the emulator window, that would be awesome. All my friends would ask me how did I emulate a MAC on my PC? I would smile back with a questionable grin not saying a word. I’ll tell you guys if I get MAC OS 10.1 running.
I’m also trying to get an emulator I think has some promise called Soft MAC 8.2 for Windows. However, when I run it, it says ROM file not found. I don’t know what that means? I know I want to install MAC OS 10.1 on my PC so therefore technically speaking there isn’t any software on my PC yet. Or does it mean virtual drive file? I don’t know the answer. It’s bugging the crap out of me. And if it is a virtual drive, how the heck do I get the emulator to see it? I got all my applications off http://www.emulators.com/download.htm and http://www.zophar.net/mac.html .
On another note, I also downloaded Pear PC 1.2. Pear PC is free and a very small download - 224 KB. When you extract the zip into a folder, it’ll be 620 KB. It doesn’t come with any OS10 disk image maker to install any OS on which is a little confusing to a novice MAC user like me. I need to find Macintosh bios too. Who wants to emulate a MAC, it’s so evil. MAC users are evil, why emulate it? Yes, I have to know what they know! It’s the only way I can become a genuine computer guru.
MAC OS has a Windows emulator called Virtual PC and it does fairly good job. It can emulate running any windows application on a PowerPC. I saw it working on TechTV’s The Screen Savers. Any of the dozen MAC emulators could do the same thing for my PC, right? That’s my way of thinking.
Come back soon, I’ll modify this entry as soon as I get MAC OS 10.1 running on my Windows XP! I’ll be sure to include a non-modified Paint Shop Pro image. And those of you who are already doing this…just laugh on your own time, okay! But if you have any comments to help me emulate it, please write something! I need all the help I can get.
Monday, May 31, 2004
Thursday, May 27, 2004
What format will replace MP3?
I was really disappointed when Bob didn’t show…. I had to watch Lord of the Rings The Return of the King by myself. A movie of epic proportions…maybe. The movie was 3 ½ hours long and that is a very long time watching a movie on my computer in a very unconformable chair. I was amazed that Frodo escaped the spider in the cave scene. I mean the spider was ready to stab in from above and Frodo gets away before sticking it in the stomach? That has to be Hollywood! How did Gollum survive the fall? He just sort of re-appeared at the end. Sam should have finished him when Gollum didn’t lend Frodo a hand…but the book the movie was based on had to have Frodo go soft on the creature. After seeing a lot of old westerns like Up to Alaska, Shanadoha, and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly…Lord of the Rings doesn’t seem as good in my opinion. Nobody does a better job then Clint Eastwood or John Wayne in terms of acting.
I don’t know about you guys, but I always want to search the Internet for something that does audio / video a little better than what I have now. I don’t know if it’s crazy, but would you stop using Microsoft Word’s doc format or compressing files in Zip because it’s too popular? With the Internet I know there is always something better that’s going to come out. What’s the next format that’ll replace MP3? Will it be APE, WMA or OGG? I’m almost positive that people will change from 128 KBPS to 768 KBPS format. MP3 can only go up to 320 KBPS. Actually, I never tried to start a music collection in APE. APE sounds a lot better than MP3s at the cost of space. One APE file could be 4 MP3s but sounds as good as it's WAV counterpart.
Here is an example; the most popular compression is MP3 compression at 128 KBPS. My favorite encoder is LAME although some people like Xing or Blade.
Time Compression KBPS Size 700MB CD
3 minute 40 second song MP3, LAME 3.96 128 3.31 MB 211 approx
3 minute 40 second song MP3, LAME 3.96 320 7.42 MB 94 approx
3 minute 40 second song APE, insane compression 768 11.20 MB 62 approx
So would you rather have 211 tape quality songs or 62 excellent quality songs? I go with 62 excellent quality songs. Since 100% of my collection is MP3 there would be no sense in upgrading those songs to APE. Be warned for those who are skeptical about using hard drive space, APE is not for you. The best places to find ape encoders is using CDEX http://cdex.n3.net or downloading Monkey’s Audio 3.99 http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
As for new software, there is always something new I haven’t tried. Today is no exception. I used iTunes for the first time. Normally iTunes is for OS10, but Apple ported it to Windows for free. It does have a few features like a MP3 to Audio CD burn option and an online radio service, but not much different from Nero 6.1. The Interface is pretty slick, I like it a lot. Anyways I don’t regret downloading it because I got it at the school’s server. Only took 3 minutes to download and as a bonus, it comes with the full version of Quicktime. I still like to use my QCD or Winamp players better.
Can any one tell me what format will replace MP3 and why? I'm interested in what will be the next popular format? The MP3 has been around for 6 years now and they've created portable MP3 players.
I don’t know about you guys, but I always want to search the Internet for something that does audio / video a little better than what I have now. I don’t know if it’s crazy, but would you stop using Microsoft Word’s doc format or compressing files in Zip because it’s too popular? With the Internet I know there is always something better that’s going to come out. What’s the next format that’ll replace MP3? Will it be APE, WMA or OGG? I’m almost positive that people will change from 128 KBPS to 768 KBPS format. MP3 can only go up to 320 KBPS. Actually, I never tried to start a music collection in APE. APE sounds a lot better than MP3s at the cost of space. One APE file could be 4 MP3s but sounds as good as it's WAV counterpart.
Here is an example; the most popular compression is MP3 compression at 128 KBPS. My favorite encoder is LAME although some people like Xing or Blade.
Time Compression KBPS Size 700MB CD
3 minute 40 second song MP3, LAME 3.96 128 3.31 MB 211 approx
3 minute 40 second song MP3, LAME 3.96 320 7.42 MB 94 approx
3 minute 40 second song APE, insane compression 768 11.20 MB 62 approx
So would you rather have 211 tape quality songs or 62 excellent quality songs? I go with 62 excellent quality songs. Since 100% of my collection is MP3 there would be no sense in upgrading those songs to APE. Be warned for those who are skeptical about using hard drive space, APE is not for you. The best places to find ape encoders is using CDEX http://cdex.n3.net or downloading Monkey’s Audio 3.99 http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
As for new software, there is always something new I haven’t tried. Today is no exception. I used iTunes for the first time. Normally iTunes is for OS10, but Apple ported it to Windows for free. It does have a few features like a MP3 to Audio CD burn option and an online radio service, but not much different from Nero 6.1. The Interface is pretty slick, I like it a lot. Anyways I don’t regret downloading it because I got it at the school’s server. Only took 3 minutes to download and as a bonus, it comes with the full version of Quicktime. I still like to use my QCD or Winamp players better.
Can any one tell me what format will replace MP3 and why? I'm interested in what will be the next popular format? The MP3 has been around for 6 years now and they've created portable MP3 players.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
First Teenager in Space? China to land on Moon?
Hello, I’m glad the majority of you liked my last entry. I am not very interested in space exploration although today I heard about this Justin Houchin who is going to be the first teenager in space. He’s also going to be an Eagle Scout…how surprising. Normally I don’t give a sh*t, but the mission is going to be historic. Official Website: http://firstteenagerinspace.org for more information. Is a teenager ready for space exploration? Can he take the extreme Gs? I first heard of him from a Planetary Radio broadcast. Go to their site http://planetary.org/radio/ to download the WMA/MP3. One hundred years from now astronauts will be living on the moon.
In other space news, China may be the second country to land on the moon. China has their own space organization and their own space shuttle complete with launch platform and Chinese astronauts. We know China isn’t stupid, but China also has the most people on the Earth like 1.8 Billion so when China talks about space, the rest of the world has to listen. It’s nice to see a country besides us to do moon landings, I wish it wasn’t China though. 45 years have passed since Neal Armstrong landed on the Moon and sooner or later someone else would land on it. The good thing is China is doing their own funding. George W. Bush isn’t lending money to help China land on the moon. China is communist country like the USSR was so it stands to reason that we only go so far as to trade with them. We may of sold a few Hummers or F-16s to them for $$$ over the course of 20 years. China doesn’t want to conquer land that’s why they are apart of the United Nations. That’s an obvious observation though. Before you know it China will have their own satellites in space decoding American messages that could be military information. In another 10 years China is going to have their own squadron of Stealth aircraft and nuclear long range missiles and we can’t stop them. They probably got a good chuck of this from the Koreans. Those who spied and took from our country to benefit their own. That’s why no one in our country likes them. I don’t think that’ll happen while the Iraqi War is going on. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not racist to any color of skin. I don’t like what China stands for.
As for other news I found an open source movie player that’ll play DIVx, some DVD movies, and other audio and video formats for MS Windows, MAC and Unix. It’s not pretty, but this program is still in the beta version so it’ll be interesting if it’ll turn out like it's commercial cousins. VLC is available off http://Downloads.com. Check it out too!
In other space news, China may be the second country to land on the moon. China has their own space organization and their own space shuttle complete with launch platform and Chinese astronauts. We know China isn’t stupid, but China also has the most people on the Earth like 1.8 Billion so when China talks about space, the rest of the world has to listen. It’s nice to see a country besides us to do moon landings, I wish it wasn’t China though. 45 years have passed since Neal Armstrong landed on the Moon and sooner or later someone else would land on it. The good thing is China is doing their own funding. George W. Bush isn’t lending money to help China land on the moon. China is communist country like the USSR was so it stands to reason that we only go so far as to trade with them. We may of sold a few Hummers or F-16s to them for $$$ over the course of 20 years. China doesn’t want to conquer land that’s why they are apart of the United Nations. That’s an obvious observation though. Before you know it China will have their own satellites in space decoding American messages that could be military information. In another 10 years China is going to have their own squadron of Stealth aircraft and nuclear long range missiles and we can’t stop them. They probably got a good chuck of this from the Koreans. Those who spied and took from our country to benefit their own. That’s why no one in our country likes them. I don’t think that’ll happen while the Iraqi War is going on. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not racist to any color of skin. I don’t like what China stands for.
As for other news I found an open source movie player that’ll play DIVx, some DVD movies, and other audio and video formats for MS Windows, MAC and Unix. It’s not pretty, but this program is still in the beta version so it’ll be interesting if it’ll turn out like it's commercial cousins. VLC is available off http://Downloads.com. Check it out too!
Monday, May 24, 2004
I crave computer games no doubt about it :)
What’s up again? Today was another interesting day, my room is missing the lower half of what use to be a wall. I can only use computer games for the next week since everything is covered in painter’s plastic. That stinks especially when Bob is coming over to play games tomorrow. Yesterday I went to his house, it must have been weeks. He hasn’t changed though his friend, Angie, lives with him now. Hmm, ya I know…usually people don’t live with each other unless their married. But hey – free country, right? That’s what I thought. Bob has his computer full so he has no room for games so he plays his Playstation 2 instead. Plus he can’t go on the Internet because he thinks there is something wrong with it. When I came over he showed me Baldur’s Gate Deadly Alliance (I have this game for Xbox.) He says he beat it already. Bob likes to play soccer – the wonderful game of soccer. Bob was getting the red cards, and he accused me of cheating because I get the yellow cards. He was just bossing me around which is fine when it’s multiplayer. He likes to customizable settings in Winning Eleven though he dislikes Winning Eleven 7 for whatever reason….I think that’s because he doesn’t know how to turn penalties off. Then we played Versus in DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball. Who ever did the soundtrack should be shot. LOL! Yes, it was that bad. Bad 90s pop riffs. Though it did fit the scenery. The game is as good as it is in the screenshots. Most of the time I felt that all I had to do was hit A button on the Xbox controller to do everything. I am a little afraid the whole game will be like this. Being overly simple isn’t good. Although that also could be good game design. Probably not use to the game’s excellence? Or is it? After 40 minutes of that, Bob and I went on to Rally. Bob is neutral when it comes to racing games. He doesn’t care for them I don’t think. So I kept beating him in Rallisport Challenge. He’s not very good partly because he’s never played it before. Each race was a within a couple seconds of each other. He likes to make his car accelerate faster sacrificing speed which I don’t think helped him in the long run. Bob wanted to play Halo because it was a FPS. As I said before he’s not as much a racing fan as I am. We went into sniper arena with the tanks. But he got me 3-1 each time. I finally got into a system where I sniped once than used my revolver to do the rest. That worked a lot better than trying to get him the first time around.
Today I just had to have my computer. I couldn’t live a week without it. So I brought the heavy 19’ inch monitor and somewhat heavy tower upstairs so I could “game” while the cleaning people did their thing downstairs. I talked to them a bit. I stood there for a minute and they really didn’t have much to say so I asked them if they wanted to talk about games in general. They agreed. We some how got off subject and talked about burning audio cds. I told them I’ve been doing that for 5 ½ years. I can do that in my sleep and then some. Because I was sick of playing computer games, I went to town to get McCollen’s Rally 04 and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for Xbox. I originally was going to get Splinter Cell 2 for PC, but I reminded myself I am already playing 3 games (Far Cry, KOTOR, Diablo 2). I got both games for 48 dollars, a real bargain at the videogame store.
In case you were wondering PC is still on top of my list. This free emulator software is getting pretty big. What console can you actually surf the Internet with besides Dreamcast? In recent years Sega tried releasing new browser releases as a freebie in their online games such as Phantasy Star Online and Daytona USA to try to have a advantage with internet. In fact, MSN-TV could have been blown a way by Dreamcast’s browser if it wasn’t buggy. It did have many issues such as it handled javascript badly, it couldn’t read Media-streams at all. DC’s browser also allowed local ISPs to connect to it for free. All and all it was a welcome alterative. I went online with Dreamcast’s web browser too. Why can’t X-BOX do this without hacking into it? The only way you can surf the Internet on your videogame console is to get it modded or hacked. My thought about modding is it’s too expensive right now for me! Don’t get me wrong I would love to get my X-Box modded so I can play emulation ROMS and store MP3s on the hard drive and play games while listening to them! Microsoft had nothing to loose by allowing playable MP3s be listened to on Xbox – but Microsoft likes to do things the hard way though they are a multi-billion dollar company with no competition. Unless you’ve found a website that’ll give you game copies for 10 dollars, it’s really not worth it. Ripping the CD image onto your hard drive for coping is I guess okay for a PS1 game, but PS2 games are way too large. It’s a lot of hacking just to say I played a game copy on my PS2 yesterday. In a couple years PS2 and XBOX emulation will be at a point where they can be played on the PC fully emulated. In fact the current PS1 emulator EPSXE can read game backups no problem. Alcohol 120% can make the backup. Just as long as you have a recent version of Alcohol 120%.
To get back to the Microsoft issue. The Microsoft anti-trust in 2002 was just to make Microsoft smaller…and they did by calling their game’s division Microsoft Games Studios. They also allowed 3rd party software to be added to their OS. Which kind-of makes me want-of laugh because all I download is 3rd party software. The venders such as Dell, Compaq, HP and Sony all include third party software with their operating system that includes a recent version of Netscape. Everyone likes Internet Explorer, but I found something better – Mozilla. And why does IE crash more when there is spyware on your computer? Because it does. Spyware tends to attack IE and Netscape. Mozilla and Mozilla FireFox don’t crash as often and it’s surfing speed is faster than IEs. And they have Anti-spyware software in the browser itself. So if it’s free, why don’t people realize that IE and Netscape aren’t the only options? Netscape tends to take more resources then Mozilla Firefox so I stay with that. Firefox is a great browser!
I have a feeling that I may be going to bed early. Like at 10:00PM today, I am really tired, more than usual. Well than, goodnight everyone! If bob comes over tomorrow we might have to go to a movie because it doesn’t look with all the construction and plastic over my stuff that I’ll be doing LAN any time soon.
Today I just had to have my computer. I couldn’t live a week without it. So I brought the heavy 19’ inch monitor and somewhat heavy tower upstairs so I could “game” while the cleaning people did their thing downstairs. I talked to them a bit. I stood there for a minute and they really didn’t have much to say so I asked them if they wanted to talk about games in general. They agreed. We some how got off subject and talked about burning audio cds. I told them I’ve been doing that for 5 ½ years. I can do that in my sleep and then some. Because I was sick of playing computer games, I went to town to get McCollen’s Rally 04 and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for Xbox. I originally was going to get Splinter Cell 2 for PC, but I reminded myself I am already playing 3 games (Far Cry, KOTOR, Diablo 2). I got both games for 48 dollars, a real bargain at the videogame store.
In case you were wondering PC is still on top of my list. This free emulator software is getting pretty big. What console can you actually surf the Internet with besides Dreamcast? In recent years Sega tried releasing new browser releases as a freebie in their online games such as Phantasy Star Online and Daytona USA to try to have a advantage with internet. In fact, MSN-TV could have been blown a way by Dreamcast’s browser if it wasn’t buggy. It did have many issues such as it handled javascript badly, it couldn’t read Media-streams at all. DC’s browser also allowed local ISPs to connect to it for free. All and all it was a welcome alterative. I went online with Dreamcast’s web browser too. Why can’t X-BOX do this without hacking into it? The only way you can surf the Internet on your videogame console is to get it modded or hacked. My thought about modding is it’s too expensive right now for me! Don’t get me wrong I would love to get my X-Box modded so I can play emulation ROMS and store MP3s on the hard drive and play games while listening to them! Microsoft had nothing to loose by allowing playable MP3s be listened to on Xbox – but Microsoft likes to do things the hard way though they are a multi-billion dollar company with no competition. Unless you’ve found a website that’ll give you game copies for 10 dollars, it’s really not worth it. Ripping the CD image onto your hard drive for coping is I guess okay for a PS1 game, but PS2 games are way too large. It’s a lot of hacking just to say I played a game copy on my PS2 yesterday. In a couple years PS2 and XBOX emulation will be at a point where they can be played on the PC fully emulated. In fact the current PS1 emulator EPSXE can read game backups no problem. Alcohol 120% can make the backup. Just as long as you have a recent version of Alcohol 120%.
To get back to the Microsoft issue. The Microsoft anti-trust in 2002 was just to make Microsoft smaller…and they did by calling their game’s division Microsoft Games Studios. They also allowed 3rd party software to be added to their OS. Which kind-of makes me want-of laugh because all I download is 3rd party software. The venders such as Dell, Compaq, HP and Sony all include third party software with their operating system that includes a recent version of Netscape. Everyone likes Internet Explorer, but I found something better – Mozilla. And why does IE crash more when there is spyware on your computer? Because it does. Spyware tends to attack IE and Netscape. Mozilla and Mozilla FireFox don’t crash as often and it’s surfing speed is faster than IEs. And they have Anti-spyware software in the browser itself. So if it’s free, why don’t people realize that IE and Netscape aren’t the only options? Netscape tends to take more resources then Mozilla Firefox so I stay with that. Firefox is a great browser!
I have a feeling that I may be going to bed early. Like at 10:00PM today, I am really tired, more than usual. Well than, goodnight everyone! If bob comes over tomorrow we might have to go to a movie because it doesn’t look with all the construction and plastic over my stuff that I’ll be doing LAN any time soon.
Monday, May 17, 2004
Bought 2nd N64/Saturn, thinking of Zodiac in futu
Webpage Alert – I’ve created a new section on the 512MB generation at http://renegadeviking.cjb.net called “Ian’s 512-bit Generation News Page.” This new webpage will be completed 100% functional in 1 or 2 days. I’m in the process of collecting all the information I can include interviews, and adding them on my page. Come take a look, I have your questions answered in this informative webpage. Please post a message on my message board, no membership required – it’s Bravenet!
• Show Highlights on Nintendo Revolution
• Microsoft’s Xenon
• Playstation 3
• Nintendo Dual Screen
• Sony Playstation Pocket
Today I opened up a section of my webpage that looks exactly like the template I’m using now. This new webpage is called Ian’s 512-bit Generation News Page. I could call it Red Dragon Productions, but this time I decided not too for the reason of copying another webpage that has the same name. There is this website called RedDragonProductions.net that does videogame music, and I didn’t want to be inferior to that. This section is going to be a new “Red Dragon Productions”, following up on Nintendo’s Revolution, Sony’s Playstation 3, Microsoft’s new project, and the new handhelds. The world now knows the next console by Microsoft will not be named Xbox 2. It’s hard to an editorial page without pictures since there aren’t any at the moment.
Today I went to the Toy’s 4 Trade in River Falls. With 55 dollars in my billfold to buy another game, I decided to get a console instead. The last generation consoles are so cheap now-a-days it’s unbelievable so I got both a Saturn and N64 for 55 dollars. Used N64s and Playstations only cost 20 dollars! Consoles don’t come any cheaper than that! This is a different store from what I usually go to. I go to the one in Hudson and this one is located in River Falls. Apparently N64s are 20 dollars less than Game Stop. It’s a great bargain especially when you want an extra console. I wanted to get one because these consoles may go up in price as soon as they are less in quantity like NESs. Used Dreamcasts are also a great bargain costing only 10 dollars more than used N64s. I bought a Saturn because I felt I needed a second one….for backup purposes. Next time I go over there I’m getting a 3rd Dreamcast so I never have to open the new one I bought at Wal-mart days before the store took it off shelves. I know why too, the Dreamcast’s quickly sold out, and Sega wouldn’t replace them so Playstation 2 was all there was. In 2000, Playstation 2 only had 2 good games for it, Midnight Club and Tekken Tag Tournament. At least I thought so. The first Dreamcast I had was fresh out of the box the first day it was released in North America, 09/09/99. Dreamcast became the year’s best electronic device by Time Magazine, and I believe Wall Street also wrote an article on it. Yes, you’ve heard right...awarded #1 for the best selling videogame console of all time in the USA. As you may know, Playstation 2 broke Dreamcast’s record in a matter of a week. Time says DC was a year ahead of it’s time (probably because it had internet for free!) I remember ZDTV shortly after it went on air, the channel was talking about Dreamcast all the time. It was the highlight of Fresh Gear, and ZDTV news for the first week. Gamespot did an exclusive episode on just Dreamcast games. I’ve been using the Dreamcast for nearly 5 years, and a new one never used, I like to keep it that way. I have over 40 Dreamcast games to play, and I might as well always have a working Dreamcast. Okay, the truth of it is Sega had their chance with the Saturn and blew it. So while the Genesis was a better videogame system than Super Nintendo, the Dreamcast is in my opinion the best console Sega ever made. Okay, my reasoning for this is the 3rd party developers ported some recognizable Playstation games from the 1999 – 2000 period including Tony Hawk, Resident Evil, and Street Fighter to name a few. Plus the console continued Sega only series like Phantasy Star, Ecco the Dolphin, Sonic the Hedgehog, Virua Fighter, Daytona USA, and Sega Rally Championship.
Okay, enough about how I bought new consoles. The new subject of today is about the Zodiac and GP32 handhelds. The older of the two, GP32, is a little bigger than Gameboy Advance. The new handheld has an open source operating system (not palm based) based on Linux that’ll play ROMs. ROMs are games someone ripped from older consoles which can be downloaded off the Internet to be playable on PC. Microsoft also released WinCE 4.0 for GP32 so I can also play 32-bit Windows applications or games like Doom II or Quake, etc as long as it fit on a memory stick. I’ll get to hard drive usage in a minute… The whole deal is open source so I get to download free content off the Internet legally. The handheld uses 128 MB smart media cards, but will take any FAT16 formatted smart card. Maybe it’ll be able to recognize thumb sticks, which would be really cool because I download stuff to them as my primary removable memory of choice. GP32 also has a keyboard port (PS2 port) for word processing and Internet browsing.
An idea I had with GP32 is that you can hook up an external hard drive or Mp3 player to it, and use the data storage instead which will cost a lot less than a 512-MB or 1024-MB flash cards. I much rather have this next handheld I’ll talk about, although GP32 would be my second choice if I can find one.
The second handheld is called Zodiac made by a new company called Tapwave [tapwave.com]. This advanced handheld acts as an underground handheld to compete against GBA or a PDA with keyboard support. For Zodiac, you’ll pay about 70 dollars more than buying a GP32. It comes in 2 versions. First is a 32-bit version with an 8-MB ATI graphics unit, and 200 MHz CPU (really, really small). The 128-bit one comes with 128-MB of RAM instead of 32-MB. The Zodiac is already more powerful than Nintendo’s Dual Screen! The Zodiac 32-bit version has a nice high resolution touch-screen I can easily take notes on, and save it to removable memory. The Zodiac runs the latest Palm OS (v5.2T). Palm can support 3rd party software meaning buyers can install new software on it for free from anywhere off the Internet! Palm OS also runs a lot of console emulators, Palm software, and DOS games. If you just have to have Microsoft Windows, Microsoft allows you to download WinCE 3.0 for free on Microsoft.com. I always wanted to play my Gameboy Advance ROMs on a handheld like Zodiac. Gamers can also save various pictures in JPEG at a really small resolution, and show off the personal photo collection on its 24-bit LCD screen. The Zodiac also has it’s own DivX player software so someone like me could encode or download Mpeg 4 movies if it was a super low resolution. If I wanted too – I could use it as a MP3 player while I take notes.
Zodiac 2 - released date: June 2004
Zodiac is a gaming platform meaning it has a D-pad, and buttons organized for game play. The handheld comes with a keyboard input, I wonder how that’ll use up battery life though if not connected to a AC circuit. There are PDAs that are twice as expensive, and do not have that amount RAM. To be clearer on this, PDAs have 16 MB of RAM, not 32 MB, because their primary an application based computer. Zodiac runs on a cell phone based 200 MHz CPU, one of the most powerful handheld processors on the market this year. It’ll sure be a birthday present in November. I want to play Mario Kart Super Circuit on one of them - if I can somehow get 300 dollars together to buy one. This baby also has an expansion slot to run PDA devices like digital cameras.
Even with all this hype over a tiny handheld…it seems too good to be true! Download GBA roms or any other rom onto the Zodiac via USB cable, and enjoy playing them on its superior processor, and the buttons in the palm of your hand too. GBA SPs costing only half of what a Zodiac 32-bit version would cost someone, it’s easy to see what a gamer wants spend his/her money on - a GBA SP. But with a touch screen, and free downloadable content, the Zodiac is a nice portable gaming system if you can afford one. That’s all I need it for….playing games and taking notes. Although I would like a Zodiac, getting a GP32 with it’s 32-Bit processor and removable memory is a better deal than Zodiacs. I wish it would use memory sticks instead of the *standard* smart cards it uses. I need to get realistic here since I need a PDA with a digital pen for school. A Palm IIIe at Tigerdirect costs 40 dollars, and it comes standard with a touch screen.
As far as consoles go, I can buy a used “Game Boy Advance” (not GBA SP) for 50 dollars at Toy’s 4 Trade or a Playstation / N64 for 20 dollars used. Hmm, if I wanted to play games that badly, I could save 85% on the Playstation now, and 80% on Dreamcast consoles if I were to buy them instead of a Zodiac handheld. This and each time I’m home on my computer, I can play all the old console games for free! Should I wait until the 256-bit Zodiac comes out so I can money on the 32-bit Zodiac? Saving 50 dollars on Zodiac at the expense of power is not worth it. The law of diminishing returns also applies to the Zodiac, you know? The Game specialist stores won’t see them because they’re supposed to be really popular right now. Might as well get the high-end *128-bit* version new then. I want one although I’d be better off to get one from my parents for my birthday than I paying for one. I already know the Zodiac will get a lot of usage in my home by me of course. I don’t need any commercial games for it, although I find it interesting that the games made for Zodiac could also play on other palms as soon as they are as powerful… Zodiac is probably the most powerful PDA / gaming console related handheld out there. I already have a large collection of ROMs I collected over the 2003 – 2004 period.
Well that’s it for today. Have to find something to do today. I slept well last night. I’ll dream about Zodiac. I remember in the past - in 2000 - I had this very unusual dream. I was a little kid and it was before 2000 and I wanted to have a Saturn, and it was packaged on the top shelf in a Toys R US store farther than I could reach…so the whole dream was me getting that Saturn, because it was the last one available. This was before I went to Game Stop. I wanted to play NiGHTS, it was weird….I don’t know why I still remember it? Perhaps it was because David always had his Genesis and we played it all the time. Saturn just came out and was suppose to be really powerful being capable of 3D when 3D was a big deal for a 12 year old. I know I’ve haven’t quite grown out of this gaming stage… on the other hand, I hope I’m a gamer forever because I found out adults think games are cool when I started to play Diablo 2 in 2000! Over half of online players playing Diablo 2 players are over 18. The newest game trend back then was before the Internet came out, and the game reviews passed by one’s own opinion or Game Informer Magazine. Soon after Sega released Saturn Magazine and Sony released Playstation Magazine so that helped people find the right game that suited their tastes. I remember hearing about Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario 64, and Crash Bandicoot a lot. My first console was an N64. In 9th grade, I got a Sega Dreamcast. I always wanted a Sega console. I wore the Sega Dreamcast shirt every week. I remember when the teachers use to say stop wearing that shirt, its advertising, and the school doesn’t like it. I knew what it meant though…don’t support Sega, route for Playstation. Well neither Sega nor Sony, she says. I couldn’t possibly offend someone. That’s when I was a 51% Nintendo fan and 49% Sega fan. The opposing side finally caught of with me, and I became 50% PC fan, a 25% Playstation fan, and 12.5% Nintendo fan, 6.25% Xbox, and 6.25% Sega Dreamcast fan. Sega’s gone multi-platform since 2001 so they’ve became one of my favorite developers. My favorite developer is Squaresoft, my second favorite, Nintendo, and 3rd favorite, Sega. Then you know I buy all the Unreal Tournaments, all the Metal Gear Solids, all the Grand Thief Autos, all the Bioware games, all the Diablos, all the Final Fantasys, all the Halo(s), all the Mario platformers, all the Jak and Dexters, Most of the Sonic the Hedgehog games. I've got to get going, webpages to develop, ya know?
Free Software pick of the Day:
Irfanview 3.85 (http://www.irfanview.com) - an awesome digital image viewer that can also compress JPEG, GIF and PNG at an awesome ratio. Also has support for TIFF and JPEG 2000 plugins. I've been using this application for 5 years and still use it.
• Show Highlights on Nintendo Revolution
• Microsoft’s Xenon
• Playstation 3
• Nintendo Dual Screen
• Sony Playstation Pocket
Today I opened up a section of my webpage that looks exactly like the template I’m using now. This new webpage is called Ian’s 512-bit Generation News Page. I could call it Red Dragon Productions, but this time I decided not too for the reason of copying another webpage that has the same name. There is this website called RedDragonProductions.net that does videogame music, and I didn’t want to be inferior to that. This section is going to be a new “Red Dragon Productions”, following up on Nintendo’s Revolution, Sony’s Playstation 3, Microsoft’s new project, and the new handhelds. The world now knows the next console by Microsoft will not be named Xbox 2. It’s hard to an editorial page without pictures since there aren’t any at the moment.
Today I went to the Toy’s 4 Trade in River Falls. With 55 dollars in my billfold to buy another game, I decided to get a console instead. The last generation consoles are so cheap now-a-days it’s unbelievable so I got both a Saturn and N64 for 55 dollars. Used N64s and Playstations only cost 20 dollars! Consoles don’t come any cheaper than that! This is a different store from what I usually go to. I go to the one in Hudson and this one is located in River Falls. Apparently N64s are 20 dollars less than Game Stop. It’s a great bargain especially when you want an extra console. I wanted to get one because these consoles may go up in price as soon as they are less in quantity like NESs. Used Dreamcasts are also a great bargain costing only 10 dollars more than used N64s. I bought a Saturn because I felt I needed a second one….for backup purposes. Next time I go over there I’m getting a 3rd Dreamcast so I never have to open the new one I bought at Wal-mart days before the store took it off shelves. I know why too, the Dreamcast’s quickly sold out, and Sega wouldn’t replace them so Playstation 2 was all there was. In 2000, Playstation 2 only had 2 good games for it, Midnight Club and Tekken Tag Tournament. At least I thought so. The first Dreamcast I had was fresh out of the box the first day it was released in North America, 09/09/99. Dreamcast became the year’s best electronic device by Time Magazine, and I believe Wall Street also wrote an article on it. Yes, you’ve heard right...awarded #1 for the best selling videogame console of all time in the USA. As you may know, Playstation 2 broke Dreamcast’s record in a matter of a week. Time says DC was a year ahead of it’s time (probably because it had internet for free!) I remember ZDTV shortly after it went on air, the channel was talking about Dreamcast all the time. It was the highlight of Fresh Gear, and ZDTV news for the first week. Gamespot did an exclusive episode on just Dreamcast games. I’ve been using the Dreamcast for nearly 5 years, and a new one never used, I like to keep it that way. I have over 40 Dreamcast games to play, and I might as well always have a working Dreamcast. Okay, the truth of it is Sega had their chance with the Saturn and blew it. So while the Genesis was a better videogame system than Super Nintendo, the Dreamcast is in my opinion the best console Sega ever made. Okay, my reasoning for this is the 3rd party developers ported some recognizable Playstation games from the 1999 – 2000 period including Tony Hawk, Resident Evil, and Street Fighter to name a few. Plus the console continued Sega only series like Phantasy Star, Ecco the Dolphin, Sonic the Hedgehog, Virua Fighter, Daytona USA, and Sega Rally Championship.
Okay, enough about how I bought new consoles. The new subject of today is about the Zodiac and GP32 handhelds. The older of the two, GP32, is a little bigger than Gameboy Advance. The new handheld has an open source operating system (not palm based) based on Linux that’ll play ROMs. ROMs are games someone ripped from older consoles which can be downloaded off the Internet to be playable on PC. Microsoft also released WinCE 4.0 for GP32 so I can also play 32-bit Windows applications or games like Doom II or Quake, etc as long as it fit on a memory stick. I’ll get to hard drive usage in a minute… The whole deal is open source so I get to download free content off the Internet legally. The handheld uses 128 MB smart media cards, but will take any FAT16 formatted smart card. Maybe it’ll be able to recognize thumb sticks, which would be really cool because I download stuff to them as my primary removable memory of choice. GP32 also has a keyboard port (PS2 port) for word processing and Internet browsing.
An idea I had with GP32 is that you can hook up an external hard drive or Mp3 player to it, and use the data storage instead which will cost a lot less than a 512-MB or 1024-MB flash cards. I much rather have this next handheld I’ll talk about, although GP32 would be my second choice if I can find one.
The second handheld is called Zodiac made by a new company called Tapwave [tapwave.com]. This advanced handheld acts as an underground handheld to compete against GBA or a PDA with keyboard support. For Zodiac, you’ll pay about 70 dollars more than buying a GP32. It comes in 2 versions. First is a 32-bit version with an 8-MB ATI graphics unit, and 200 MHz CPU (really, really small). The 128-bit one comes with 128-MB of RAM instead of 32-MB. The Zodiac is already more powerful than Nintendo’s Dual Screen! The Zodiac 32-bit version has a nice high resolution touch-screen I can easily take notes on, and save it to removable memory. The Zodiac runs the latest Palm OS (v5.2T). Palm can support 3rd party software meaning buyers can install new software on it for free from anywhere off the Internet! Palm OS also runs a lot of console emulators, Palm software, and DOS games. If you just have to have Microsoft Windows, Microsoft allows you to download WinCE 3.0 for free on Microsoft.com. I always wanted to play my Gameboy Advance ROMs on a handheld like Zodiac. Gamers can also save various pictures in JPEG at a really small resolution, and show off the personal photo collection on its 24-bit LCD screen. The Zodiac also has it’s own DivX player software so someone like me could encode or download Mpeg 4 movies if it was a super low resolution. If I wanted too – I could use it as a MP3 player while I take notes.
Zodiac 2 - released date: June 2004
Zodiac is a gaming platform meaning it has a D-pad, and buttons organized for game play. The handheld comes with a keyboard input, I wonder how that’ll use up battery life though if not connected to a AC circuit. There are PDAs that are twice as expensive, and do not have that amount RAM. To be clearer on this, PDAs have 16 MB of RAM, not 32 MB, because their primary an application based computer. Zodiac runs on a cell phone based 200 MHz CPU, one of the most powerful handheld processors on the market this year. It’ll sure be a birthday present in November. I want to play Mario Kart Super Circuit on one of them - if I can somehow get 300 dollars together to buy one. This baby also has an expansion slot to run PDA devices like digital cameras.
Even with all this hype over a tiny handheld…it seems too good to be true! Download GBA roms or any other rom onto the Zodiac via USB cable, and enjoy playing them on its superior processor, and the buttons in the palm of your hand too. GBA SPs costing only half of what a Zodiac 32-bit version would cost someone, it’s easy to see what a gamer wants spend his/her money on - a GBA SP. But with a touch screen, and free downloadable content, the Zodiac is a nice portable gaming system if you can afford one. That’s all I need it for….playing games and taking notes. Although I would like a Zodiac, getting a GP32 with it’s 32-Bit processor and removable memory is a better deal than Zodiacs. I wish it would use memory sticks instead of the *standard* smart cards it uses. I need to get realistic here since I need a PDA with a digital pen for school. A Palm IIIe at Tigerdirect costs 40 dollars, and it comes standard with a touch screen.
As far as consoles go, I can buy a used “Game Boy Advance” (not GBA SP) for 50 dollars at Toy’s 4 Trade or a Playstation / N64 for 20 dollars used. Hmm, if I wanted to play games that badly, I could save 85% on the Playstation now, and 80% on Dreamcast consoles if I were to buy them instead of a Zodiac handheld. This and each time I’m home on my computer, I can play all the old console games for free! Should I wait until the 256-bit Zodiac comes out so I can money on the 32-bit Zodiac? Saving 50 dollars on Zodiac at the expense of power is not worth it. The law of diminishing returns also applies to the Zodiac, you know? The Game specialist stores won’t see them because they’re supposed to be really popular right now. Might as well get the high-end *128-bit* version new then. I want one although I’d be better off to get one from my parents for my birthday than I paying for one. I already know the Zodiac will get a lot of usage in my home by me of course. I don’t need any commercial games for it, although I find it interesting that the games made for Zodiac could also play on other palms as soon as they are as powerful… Zodiac is probably the most powerful PDA / gaming console related handheld out there. I already have a large collection of ROMs I collected over the 2003 – 2004 period.
Well that’s it for today. Have to find something to do today. I slept well last night. I’ll dream about Zodiac. I remember in the past - in 2000 - I had this very unusual dream. I was a little kid and it was before 2000 and I wanted to have a Saturn, and it was packaged on the top shelf in a Toys R US store farther than I could reach…so the whole dream was me getting that Saturn, because it was the last one available. This was before I went to Game Stop. I wanted to play NiGHTS, it was weird….I don’t know why I still remember it? Perhaps it was because David always had his Genesis and we played it all the time. Saturn just came out and was suppose to be really powerful being capable of 3D when 3D was a big deal for a 12 year old. I know I’ve haven’t quite grown out of this gaming stage… on the other hand, I hope I’m a gamer forever because I found out adults think games are cool when I started to play Diablo 2 in 2000! Over half of online players playing Diablo 2 players are over 18. The newest game trend back then was before the Internet came out, and the game reviews passed by one’s own opinion or Game Informer Magazine. Soon after Sega released Saturn Magazine and Sony released Playstation Magazine so that helped people find the right game that suited their tastes. I remember hearing about Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario 64, and Crash Bandicoot a lot. My first console was an N64. In 9th grade, I got a Sega Dreamcast. I always wanted a Sega console. I wore the Sega Dreamcast shirt every week. I remember when the teachers use to say stop wearing that shirt, its advertising, and the school doesn’t like it. I knew what it meant though…don’t support Sega, route for Playstation. Well neither Sega nor Sony, she says. I couldn’t possibly offend someone. That’s when I was a 51% Nintendo fan and 49% Sega fan. The opposing side finally caught of with me, and I became 50% PC fan, a 25% Playstation fan, and 12.5% Nintendo fan, 6.25% Xbox, and 6.25% Sega Dreamcast fan. Sega’s gone multi-platform since 2001 so they’ve became one of my favorite developers. My favorite developer is Squaresoft, my second favorite, Nintendo, and 3rd favorite, Sega. Then you know I buy all the Unreal Tournaments, all the Metal Gear Solids, all the Grand Thief Autos, all the Bioware games, all the Diablos, all the Final Fantasys, all the Halo(s), all the Mario platformers, all the Jak and Dexters, Most of the Sonic the Hedgehog games. I've got to get going, webpages to develop, ya know?
Free Software pick of the Day:
Irfanview 3.85 (http://www.irfanview.com) - an awesome digital image viewer that can also compress JPEG, GIF and PNG at an awesome ratio. Also has support for TIFF and JPEG 2000 plugins. I've been using this application for 5 years and still use it.
Another rainy spring day during summer vacation
Okay so you didn’t like my last blog…yeh I know…N64 is dead so why give it a second thought, right? Gamecube has been out for 2 years and 8 months if you known or already thought of buying one…you’ve would of already. Isn’t that the truth. We had a thunderstorm about 6 hours ago...first thing I was worried about was my computers…though they have surge protection…I still worry about them. Hmm I was playing Final Fantasy IX - it completely froze up…I look at the disc it was free of scratches. Then I put it down and play Summoner 2, a game I bought long time ago, but haven’t played yet. That froze, though it was full of scratches. So I stick in ICO and that froze. I think it’s my PS2 DVD-ROM. I don’t know if the drive is worn out or not. I never abused it so I don’t see why it would suddenly freeze like that. I was hoping that it would last me until I get a Playstation 3 in June 2006.
As for further bad news, Bob didn’t show. Bob and I were suppose to do something yesterday – but he never picked up his cell. Last time we spoke, he told me that he would find time for us to do something. I was thinking that we could-have played some Call of Duty. (If you haven’t heard of it – it’s a WWII PC game by Infantry Ward) I want to kick some crout ass! Honestly I haven’t played online with it for weeks. I’ve been on multiplayer and it’s smooth through a modem. Call of Duty doesn’t lag nearly as much as Unreal Tournament 2004. I got to the 7th level in Call of Duty in Single Player without cheating. Bob and I usually like to play old-school games...like Diablo 1. I don’t think Dreamcast is quite old-school yet. Maybe it’s a modern old-school console? Old-school is anything a generation old in my opinion and Dreamcast meets that status. The 128-bit generation (1998 – Present) is the longest generation of any previous generation. It is longer then the 32/64-bit generation (1995 – 2001). Now I couldn’t have gone far back before the NES. Then you’ve would-of had Pac-man like graphics and that wouldn’t interest me at all. In case you were wondering what my favorite game for Dreamcast was (it wasn’t Soul Caliber), I’ll tell you because I like you guys…it was Crazy Taxi.
Here is the Best Console Emulation of all consoles:
XBOX - Xeon - www.zophar.net/xbox.htm
Gamecube - GCubix - http://benjamin.francois.free.fr/artwork/gcubix/ or Dolwin for WIN32 - http://dolwin.emulation64.com/
PSX – EPSXE 1.6 – http://epsxe.com or www.ngemu/psx/
PS2 – PCSX2 – http://pcsx2.com or www.ngemu/ps2/
N64 – Project64k – http://www.ngemu.com/n64/pj64k/download/Project64k_0_13.zip
Genesis – Gens - http:// gens.consolemul.com/ (Gens also plays Sega Masters)
SNES – SNES 9x - www.snes9x.com/
Saturn - SSF - www.zophar.net/saturn.html
NES - JNES - www.jabosoft.com/jnes/
Atari 2600 – z26 - http://www.whimsey.com/z26
Game Boy Advance - Virtual Boy Advance - http://vboy.emuhq.com/
SNK Neo Geo - NeoRage 0.6 - http://home.swipnet.se/~w-50884/emulator/rage.htm
Today I had beaten Perfect Dark – because I downloaded it from the Internet and used Project 64K to emulate it. I didn’t want to hook up my N64 and play it. You know once you take it out – you either have to leave it out or put it a way again. Makes you wonder when the Xbox title Perfect Dark 2 is coming out? I rather enjoyed playing Perfect Dark again with graphical enhancements. It’s interesting that a N64 game would have difficulty running my other 2.0 GHz Athlon XP computer. I also run a Geforce 4 FX 5600 256MB version GPU in that machine. About a 70 dollar video card now-a-days.
As for further bad news…no one hired me. Target didn’t want me – and I’m a good guy...I don’t see why they didn’t want me. I was going to work at the hospital since that got good pay 10 dollars an hour for cleaning beds and doing janitor work. But to me I rather work at a hardware store like Home Depot and Fleet Farm. Did I mention that there is now a Home Depot in Hudson, WI now? It’s incorperated itself there last November. Home Depot is replacing K-Mart in that town. I mean who goes to K-Mart? Wal-Marts better. I haven’t been inside Home Depot yet. It’ll give me something to do later today.
I have some good news – I updated my Geocities webpage! For those of you who stared at my logo and thought it was too cluttered….I whole-heartedly agree. So instead of having 6 characters…I just had one videogame character and myself. The unreal tournament guy had his legs cut off…that looked awful didn’t it? I had to stare at it too for a while when I knew it had to go. So I put a classic videogame character that 99% of anyone knows….Cloud Strife on a motorcycle. That’ll up my ratings I hope. I hope my webpage didn’t die and go to heaven. Stop by some time.
As for further bad news, Bob didn’t show. Bob and I were suppose to do something yesterday – but he never picked up his cell. Last time we spoke, he told me that he would find time for us to do something. I was thinking that we could-have played some Call of Duty. (If you haven’t heard of it – it’s a WWII PC game by Infantry Ward) I want to kick some crout ass! Honestly I haven’t played online with it for weeks. I’ve been on multiplayer and it’s smooth through a modem. Call of Duty doesn’t lag nearly as much as Unreal Tournament 2004. I got to the 7th level in Call of Duty in Single Player without cheating. Bob and I usually like to play old-school games...like Diablo 1. I don’t think Dreamcast is quite old-school yet. Maybe it’s a modern old-school console? Old-school is anything a generation old in my opinion and Dreamcast meets that status. The 128-bit generation (1998 – Present) is the longest generation of any previous generation. It is longer then the 32/64-bit generation (1995 – 2001). Now I couldn’t have gone far back before the NES. Then you’ve would-of had Pac-man like graphics and that wouldn’t interest me at all. In case you were wondering what my favorite game for Dreamcast was (it wasn’t Soul Caliber), I’ll tell you because I like you guys…it was Crazy Taxi.
Here is the Best Console Emulation of all consoles:
XBOX - Xeon - www.zophar.net/xbox.htm
Gamecube - GCubix - http://benjamin.francois.free.fr/artwork/gcubix/ or Dolwin for WIN32 - http://dolwin.emulation64.com/
PSX – EPSXE 1.6 – http://epsxe.com or www.ngemu/psx/
PS2 – PCSX2 – http://pcsx2.com or www.ngemu/ps2/
N64 – Project64k – http://www.ngemu.com/n64/pj64k/download/Project64k_0_13.zip
Genesis – Gens - http:// gens.consolemul.com/ (Gens also plays Sega Masters)
SNES – SNES 9x - www.snes9x.com/
Saturn - SSF - www.zophar.net/saturn.html
NES - JNES - www.jabosoft.com/jnes/
Atari 2600 – z26 - http://www.whimsey.com/z26
Game Boy Advance - Virtual Boy Advance - http://vboy.emuhq.com/
SNK Neo Geo - NeoRage 0.6 - http://home.swipnet.se/~w-50884/emulator/rage.htm
Today I had beaten Perfect Dark – because I downloaded it from the Internet and used Project 64K to emulate it. I didn’t want to hook up my N64 and play it. You know once you take it out – you either have to leave it out or put it a way again. Makes you wonder when the Xbox title Perfect Dark 2 is coming out? I rather enjoyed playing Perfect Dark again with graphical enhancements. It’s interesting that a N64 game would have difficulty running my other 2.0 GHz Athlon XP computer. I also run a Geforce 4 FX 5600 256MB version GPU in that machine. About a 70 dollar video card now-a-days.
As for further bad news…no one hired me. Target didn’t want me – and I’m a good guy...I don’t see why they didn’t want me. I was going to work at the hospital since that got good pay 10 dollars an hour for cleaning beds and doing janitor work. But to me I rather work at a hardware store like Home Depot and Fleet Farm. Did I mention that there is now a Home Depot in Hudson, WI now? It’s incorperated itself there last November. Home Depot is replacing K-Mart in that town. I mean who goes to K-Mart? Wal-Marts better. I haven’t been inside Home Depot yet. It’ll give me something to do later today.
I have some good news – I updated my Geocities webpage! For those of you who stared at my logo and thought it was too cluttered….I whole-heartedly agree. So instead of having 6 characters…I just had one videogame character and myself. The unreal tournament guy had his legs cut off…that looked awful didn’t it? I had to stare at it too for a while when I knew it had to go. So I put a classic videogame character that 99% of anyone knows….Cloud Strife on a motorcycle. That’ll up my ratings I hope. I hope my webpage didn’t die and go to heaven. Stop by some time.
Saturday, May 15, 2004
CD64 and Doctor v64 : N64 CD backup (picture fix)
Welcome to a special segment of my blog. There was an 8x CD-ROM add-on for Nintendo 64. Awesome! UFO, a 3rd party manufacturer, added a CDROM to the bottom slot on the Nintendo 64 called the CD64. It comes with a backup function so you can backup your N64 games to CD. Probably a ROM format used in today’s Windows emulators. If Nintendo did business with UFO 5 years ago, we might have seen N64 games on CD-Format. The CD64 is now used as a place to emulate Super NES ROMS and other emulators. From the looks of it – it has a standard CD-ROM built in a hardware hub. On the official website…it reads that for some games…you can’t download them directly off the cartridge because of software encryption. The device needs a patch be downloaded onto it.
CD64 Backup Device
But think if N64 games based on CD – think of the improvements the N64 could-of had. Final Fantasy VII could have been on it. Square left Nintendo because they couldn’t put FFVII on a cartridge at that time. It was too small of space. And if they would-have had the space for the game then they could never have had movies on it. But it wouldn’t sell millions of copies if it was released in 1998. Perhaps Nintendo never thought of doing business with UFO because with the Sega 32X, a cd add-on of Genesis only had 1 or 2 good games and it failed to market well. Plus the Saturn was less than a year away.
On my second subject I also have downloaded the 1964 N64 emulator and it works better then Nemu 64. I was excited to be able to play Goldeneye on the computer. I have a CD full of Nintendo 64 Roms – 16 in all. Back then I forgot about them because I used Nemu64 0.7. This was the best there was in terms of emulation in 2000 and 2001. However 3 years have passed since then and well….graphics have very much improved. Even N64 games run in high resolution! Whoa! I first realized it today when I downloaded 1964 for Windows. The newest version .99 supports Internet play and community graphics Direct X 9.0 plugins. I can say when Nemu64 only ran Super Mario 64 and not anything else…that was the truth. 1964 runs Goldeneye and Perfect Dark very well. I got my Nuko Air Flow Pro Controller to work with the default controller plugin. Okay Goldeneye and Perfect Dark now run at 1600x1200 where on N64 they just ran on 640x480 res. There is a noticeable difference from what I can tell and they run in high res. Maybe because they run in high resolution that there is a noticeable difference? Now if only someone could develop a plugin that makes PSone games run in High Resolution on my pc? Right now, I’m in the process of downloading Turok II Seeds of Evil off Emule 0.42g. You can get all the plugins off http://NGemu.com.
And I guess this isn’t the only CD backup device for N64. There is also Doctor V64, which is more stylish version. It’s manufactured by Bong. The device apparently has 128 MB of internal memory. Remember that most carts weren’t above 128 MB anyways. Super Mario 64 was only on an 8 MB cartridge. Goldeneye was on a 32 MB cartridge. The games were very compressed. Anyways here are some screenshots of Doctor 64
Doctor V64 (no longer manufactured)
Yes, in case you’ve been wondering, I have heard of the Nintendo 64 Disc Drive. It had Legend of Zelda Master Quest and Mario Paint and Simcity 64 on it. I hear it was on CDs, but the lack of games outweighed the cost of the disk drive. Failed to sell well in Japan. This is officially Nintendo’s first adaptation to the CD disc. A little too late. And this article is about the only CD-ROM for N64 on all other continents (and islands) other than Japan.
Here is a list of ROMS I had from my 2000 disc.
• Super Mario 64 – works excellent, no pixilated edges.
• Legend of Zelda Orcania of Time – No missing Frames and it runs in higher resolution than the Gamecube Bonus Disk that came with Wind Waker. That’s fricken awesome!
• Mario Kart 64 – No missing frames and in high resolution. No pixilated edges.
• Turok – some missing frames but it’s playable
• Legend of Zelda 64 – Majoria’s Mask – works as well as Orcania of Time
• Madden 64 – sound and graphics work.
• Goldeneye 64 – works Excellent
• Perfect Dark – works Excellent
• RUSH! – works good some missing frames
• Extreme G – works, a little buggy with the graphics engine and the game pops up every 10 seconds, put that didn’t stop me from playing one of my favorite N64 games!
• Extreme G 2 – does work too well. Foggy. Sound is good though.
• Beetle Racing – Works Excellent
• Glover - works
• Bomberman 64 – works
• Doom 64 – engine works, sound works, it’s old and the best looking doom
• Kirby 64 – works beautifully
• Forsakken 64 – not tested yet
• Banjo and Kazooie – sound and graphics work. Control of course works cause it's also emulated. A few minor glitches here and there.
• Top Gear Rally 2 – not playable because of the massive empty frames but works.
• Star Fox 64 – Very playable, Works excellent – sounds a problem though
• 1080 Snowboarding – Rocks! Runs in High Res. Sound works beautifully
• Crusin USA – Works Excellent Sound Great, Graphics on par
Actually I’ve been playing 30 minutes of Super Mario 64 with my gamepad. It’s an oldie but it plays like a dream, and it’s in high resolution. Remember this improvement came as a surprise. Nemu64 didn’t let any N64 game run in High Resolution at 60 Frames Per Second (FPS). I don’t know maybe it’s 30 FPS.
I finished the final battle with Adult Riku in Kingdom Hearts at 4:30 AM today. I’m surprised, the phrase Kingdom Hearts comes from multiple worlds each representing a heart. I thought that Hearts came from Alice in Wonderland. The ending was what I’ve expected it too be (big hint in first part of the game). I knew Riku was going to be evil. The heartless come from that movie, Fantasia, I see. I beat the game in just under 29 hours. It was more fun then I expected it to be. The game definably was cheesy at times. The Star Fox style rail shooter in-between worlds seemed out-a place to me. It’s one of the mini-games in Kingdom Hearts. KH seemed to be an action platformer instead of a RPG - kind of like Ratchet and Clank. It had some RPG elements like the parties, exchange items, customize items, gaining experience. But it seemed to be as much as a hack ‘n slash game as a role playing game. The difficulty of this game is about medium to my skill level. The last part was a challenge that I’ve mastered after 5 tries.
I'm starting to play Summoner 2. Summoner 2 is a role playing game…not as good as Final Fantasy…but equally as fun as Kingdom Hearts. I’ve had time to waste. When I’m not playing Summoner 2, I’m playing Unreal Tournament 2004. Except today I was playing around with Super Mario 64. Today I didn’t’ have too much to do. I’m accomplished Kingdom Hearts. I only beaten Diablo 2, Neverwinter Nights, Final Fantasy X, Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy 8 in the RPG genre. I know many of you whom play games regularly beating more RPGs, but I agree that you know the battle system more. I have a hard time adapting to new battle systems. I, however, picked up on Kingdom Hearts within the first 10 minutes. See I’m not dumb when it comes to RPGS!!! Message me and we can talk RPGs sometime.
Find N64 Roms off P/P unities: Emule, Overnet, iMESH or Limewire.
CD64 Backup Device
But think if N64 games based on CD – think of the improvements the N64 could-of had. Final Fantasy VII could have been on it. Square left Nintendo because they couldn’t put FFVII on a cartridge at that time. It was too small of space. And if they would-have had the space for the game then they could never have had movies on it. But it wouldn’t sell millions of copies if it was released in 1998. Perhaps Nintendo never thought of doing business with UFO because with the Sega 32X, a cd add-on of Genesis only had 1 or 2 good games and it failed to market well. Plus the Saturn was less than a year away.
On my second subject I also have downloaded the 1964 N64 emulator and it works better then Nemu 64. I was excited to be able to play Goldeneye on the computer. I have a CD full of Nintendo 64 Roms – 16 in all. Back then I forgot about them because I used Nemu64 0.7. This was the best there was in terms of emulation in 2000 and 2001. However 3 years have passed since then and well….graphics have very much improved. Even N64 games run in high resolution! Whoa! I first realized it today when I downloaded 1964 for Windows. The newest version .99 supports Internet play and community graphics Direct X 9.0 plugins. I can say when Nemu64 only ran Super Mario 64 and not anything else…that was the truth. 1964 runs Goldeneye and Perfect Dark very well. I got my Nuko Air Flow Pro Controller to work with the default controller plugin. Okay Goldeneye and Perfect Dark now run at 1600x1200 where on N64 they just ran on 640x480 res. There is a noticeable difference from what I can tell and they run in high res. Maybe because they run in high resolution that there is a noticeable difference? Now if only someone could develop a plugin that makes PSone games run in High Resolution on my pc? Right now, I’m in the process of downloading Turok II Seeds of Evil off Emule 0.42g. You can get all the plugins off http://NGemu.com.
And I guess this isn’t the only CD backup device for N64. There is also Doctor V64, which is more stylish version. It’s manufactured by Bong. The device apparently has 128 MB of internal memory. Remember that most carts weren’t above 128 MB anyways. Super Mario 64 was only on an 8 MB cartridge. Goldeneye was on a 32 MB cartridge. The games were very compressed. Anyways here are some screenshots of Doctor 64
Doctor V64 (no longer manufactured)
Yes, in case you’ve been wondering, I have heard of the Nintendo 64 Disc Drive. It had Legend of Zelda Master Quest and Mario Paint and Simcity 64 on it. I hear it was on CDs, but the lack of games outweighed the cost of the disk drive. Failed to sell well in Japan. This is officially Nintendo’s first adaptation to the CD disc. A little too late. And this article is about the only CD-ROM for N64 on all other continents (and islands) other than Japan.
Here is a list of ROMS I had from my 2000 disc.
• Super Mario 64 – works excellent, no pixilated edges.
• Legend of Zelda Orcania of Time – No missing Frames and it runs in higher resolution than the Gamecube Bonus Disk that came with Wind Waker. That’s fricken awesome!
• Mario Kart 64 – No missing frames and in high resolution. No pixilated edges.
• Turok – some missing frames but it’s playable
• Legend of Zelda 64 – Majoria’s Mask – works as well as Orcania of Time
• Madden 64 – sound and graphics work.
• Goldeneye 64 – works Excellent
• Perfect Dark – works Excellent
• RUSH! – works good some missing frames
• Extreme G – works, a little buggy with the graphics engine and the game pops up every 10 seconds, put that didn’t stop me from playing one of my favorite N64 games!
• Extreme G 2 – does work too well. Foggy. Sound is good though.
• Beetle Racing – Works Excellent
• Glover - works
• Bomberman 64 – works
• Doom 64 – engine works, sound works, it’s old and the best looking doom
• Kirby 64 – works beautifully
• Forsakken 64 – not tested yet
• Banjo and Kazooie – sound and graphics work. Control of course works cause it's also emulated. A few minor glitches here and there.
• Top Gear Rally 2 – not playable because of the massive empty frames but works.
• Star Fox 64 – Very playable, Works excellent – sounds a problem though
• 1080 Snowboarding – Rocks! Runs in High Res. Sound works beautifully
• Crusin USA – Works Excellent Sound Great, Graphics on par
Actually I’ve been playing 30 minutes of Super Mario 64 with my gamepad. It’s an oldie but it plays like a dream, and it’s in high resolution. Remember this improvement came as a surprise. Nemu64 didn’t let any N64 game run in High Resolution at 60 Frames Per Second (FPS). I don’t know maybe it’s 30 FPS.
I finished the final battle with Adult Riku in Kingdom Hearts at 4:30 AM today. I’m surprised, the phrase Kingdom Hearts comes from multiple worlds each representing a heart. I thought that Hearts came from Alice in Wonderland. The ending was what I’ve expected it too be (big hint in first part of the game). I knew Riku was going to be evil. The heartless come from that movie, Fantasia, I see. I beat the game in just under 29 hours. It was more fun then I expected it to be. The game definably was cheesy at times. The Star Fox style rail shooter in-between worlds seemed out-a place to me. It’s one of the mini-games in Kingdom Hearts. KH seemed to be an action platformer instead of a RPG - kind of like Ratchet and Clank. It had some RPG elements like the parties, exchange items, customize items, gaining experience. But it seemed to be as much as a hack ‘n slash game as a role playing game. The difficulty of this game is about medium to my skill level. The last part was a challenge that I’ve mastered after 5 tries.
I'm starting to play Summoner 2. Summoner 2 is a role playing game…not as good as Final Fantasy…but equally as fun as Kingdom Hearts. I’ve had time to waste. When I’m not playing Summoner 2, I’m playing Unreal Tournament 2004. Except today I was playing around with Super Mario 64. Today I didn’t’ have too much to do. I’m accomplished Kingdom Hearts. I only beaten Diablo 2, Neverwinter Nights, Final Fantasy X, Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy 8 in the RPG genre. I know many of you whom play games regularly beating more RPGs, but I agree that you know the battle system more. I have a hard time adapting to new battle systems. I, however, picked up on Kingdom Hearts within the first 10 minutes. See I’m not dumb when it comes to RPGS!!! Message me and we can talk RPGs sometime.
Find N64 Roms off P/P unities: Emule, Overnet, iMESH or Limewire.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
New Zelda game shown at E3, Los Angeles
Unofficial Final Fantasy Webpages seem to disappear as quickly as they appear! Popularity of Final Fantasy games is huge…I own all the Final Fantasys except for Tactics for PSone. I like to give attention to this site http://www.geocities.com/ff_xi/main.html it’s not mine, and it’s been updated a few times. I like it because it has a lot of screenshots ordered into categories. If you want to see the end of Final Fantasy X…go ahead. One thing that I gave this site a FIVE is that Final Fantasy 1 – 9 don’t apply. It seems to me that a lot of these sites like to include Xenosaga in their reviews because it is thought as “Final Fantasy in Space.” In my page I like to include Disgaga: Hour of Darkness, Legend of Dragoon, Arc the Lad, Xenosaga, and Grandia. I believe that a fan site shouldn’t be restricted to just Square-Enix games. Yes, it is true Square-soft comes out with the majority of console RPGs, but remember there is also RPGs that are good not under the Final Fantasy category or Square-Enix category. It makes me want to greatly improve my Square-Enix page beyond just reviews and character BIOS. My page will have screenshots and other console RPGs including Kingdom Hearts if I can get a review up. I’m about 90% finished with Kingdom Hearts. I also made a webpage section last year for Diablo 2, Dungeon Siege, Final Fantasy X and Neverwinter Nights called Ian’s RPG Guild. While not very updated with PICs and gamefaqs. I use to like to keep personal updates. You can go to it here: http://www.geocities.com/nightwalkers101/rpg_d2_online_v4.html
It seems that Nintendo released a bomb on E3 in Los Angeles yesterday. One of Nintendo’s top secret titles was a Legend of Zelda title, and not the cell shaded link either. The game looks every bit as good as Resident Evil and Metriod Prime 2: Echoes, and Link is all grown up this time. Gamers had a short FMV in Space World 2000 with Link...NIntendo gamers have gone crazy I tell you. As you know Wind Waker was one of the highest rated games on the Gamecube. It seems that Legend of Zelda (tenitive title) eitherwill be a sequel to Orcania of Time or a remake of Legend of Zelda for the NES. I can't tell. I am a fan of Zelda games, this will be a hot game when it comes out. Looks to be the best console game from E3 in my opinion! I think it will play like Orcania of Time. Cube.ign.com covers the whole conference. Nintendo is doing something right…this is an example of it. Screenshot below. The 3 console manufactures are suppose to show 2006 consoles either tomorrow or next day. That’ll be exciting.
Legend of Zelda - Gamecube (TBA 2005)
Okay, what have I been doing today? Well - I went to school and signed up for fall classes at WITC. I am worried about Network Indusial because companies do DOS and it is obsolete in my opinion. Hate to affend hard working 90s era technicians, but this is the 21st century we're talking about. DOS doesn’t crash, but Unix will not crash that often either so why not upgrade? Some larger companies don’t see that they need to upgrade. For example Thicknet will work fine for DOS and it’s dirt cheap to install and get a hold of. I want a GUI on my job, Damn it! Not very interesting except I did get the first cd image for Doom III beta. The 2nd part didn’t’ download – it’s downloading as we speak. I don’t see why Doom III is more popular on Xbox? I know people some people don’t have a powerful computer that does graphics better than the X-Box. Good for them. First Person Shooters rule on the PC – and no one can change my mind about that. I went to Gamestats.com and they have all the games listed in popularity. Doom 3 for Xbox was ranked 3 in popularity. It’s a fun site because it shows on a daily bases if a game gained popularity or not.
Afterwards I got to scrape mold off the floor – Dad and I tore up an old carpet, and there was mold underneath stuck to the floor with glue. It was grunt work. Dad ran out of Coke so I ran into the gas station to buy him two 24 pack cases.
Yesterday Randy and I found some time to spend 3 hours together. He’s one of my friends – and I have a very short list. He was looking on E-Bay on some cars. He wants to install a Chevy Corvette engine in a quarter ton pickup and make it 400 plus horse power. He’s not doing it himself – he has help from the local car mechanic. He says it’ll skid when you press the gas because the torc is too much for it. It’s his “fun truck.” I showed him my Playstation emulator. It didn’t work the first or second time – but I finally got it too work after 10 tries. He commented that his computer doesn’t like being a Playstation. I told him about school and he told me about work and his future projects. I told him that MTV rots his brain and he laughs. I can say things to him and he takes it with a grain of salt….that’s what I love about him!
It seems that Nintendo released a bomb on E3 in Los Angeles yesterday. One of Nintendo’s top secret titles was a Legend of Zelda title, and not the cell shaded link either. The game looks every bit as good as Resident Evil and Metriod Prime 2: Echoes, and Link is all grown up this time. Gamers had a short FMV in Space World 2000 with Link...NIntendo gamers have gone crazy I tell you. As you know Wind Waker was one of the highest rated games on the Gamecube. It seems that Legend of Zelda (tenitive title) eitherwill be a sequel to Orcania of Time or a remake of Legend of Zelda for the NES. I can't tell. I am a fan of Zelda games, this will be a hot game when it comes out. Looks to be the best console game from E3 in my opinion! I think it will play like Orcania of Time. Cube.ign.com covers the whole conference. Nintendo is doing something right…this is an example of it. Screenshot below. The 3 console manufactures are suppose to show 2006 consoles either tomorrow or next day. That’ll be exciting.
Legend of Zelda - Gamecube (TBA 2005)
Okay, what have I been doing today? Well - I went to school and signed up for fall classes at WITC. I am worried about Network Indusial because companies do DOS and it is obsolete in my opinion. Hate to affend hard working 90s era technicians, but this is the 21st century we're talking about. DOS doesn’t crash, but Unix will not crash that often either so why not upgrade? Some larger companies don’t see that they need to upgrade. For example Thicknet will work fine for DOS and it’s dirt cheap to install and get a hold of. I want a GUI on my job, Damn it! Not very interesting except I did get the first cd image for Doom III beta. The 2nd part didn’t’ download – it’s downloading as we speak. I don’t see why Doom III is more popular on Xbox? I know people some people don’t have a powerful computer that does graphics better than the X-Box. Good for them. First Person Shooters rule on the PC – and no one can change my mind about that. I went to Gamestats.com and they have all the games listed in popularity. Doom 3 for Xbox was ranked 3 in popularity. It’s a fun site because it shows on a daily bases if a game gained popularity or not.
Afterwards I got to scrape mold off the floor – Dad and I tore up an old carpet, and there was mold underneath stuck to the floor with glue. It was grunt work. Dad ran out of Coke so I ran into the gas station to buy him two 24 pack cases.
Yesterday Randy and I found some time to spend 3 hours together. He’s one of my friends – and I have a very short list. He was looking on E-Bay on some cars. He wants to install a Chevy Corvette engine in a quarter ton pickup and make it 400 plus horse power. He’s not doing it himself – he has help from the local car mechanic. He says it’ll skid when you press the gas because the torc is too much for it. It’s his “fun truck.” I showed him my Playstation emulator. It didn’t work the first or second time – but I finally got it too work after 10 tries. He commented that his computer doesn’t like being a Playstation. I told him about school and he told me about work and his future projects. I told him that MTV rots his brain and he laughs. I can say things to him and he takes it with a grain of salt….that’s what I love about him!
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Playstation 3 games will look something like this
You know how I am about games…games become out of date so quickly, I know. But Modgamer’s Blog just gotten overrated ya know – 360 hits in one day? Man - I don’t know what he has…but IGN.com does the exact same coverage. His E3 article got so many hits which he could have and may have gotten the screenshots off Gamespot.com. The pic of the Unreal 3 engine is amazing! This could defiantly be used as a first Playstation 3 picture. We know PS3 will have a 256-MB ATI videocard inside powered by a .11 micron IBM processor more powerful than 1 GHz. Epic may indeed be developing Unreal Tournament 4 for it. Half-life 2 will look as good as this. Again I wonder what video card is used at what resolution? And it’ll keep improving too. Look at the screenshots of Xenosaga Episode 2 for Playstation 2…it is much better then Episode 1. The limitation of the Playstation 2 is this…when you have models far away, they look awful, but when models are close, they look better.
Next Generation Unreal technolegy | Thanks Modgaming for the URL
.:: American Mcgee’s Alice Movie still out there ::.
Anyways on more games to movies feature, Wes Craven (Director of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and Nightmare of Elm Street) is going to direct a movie called Dark Wonderland due out this June. Film Force @ IGN.com says the project is still alive. The movie comes from the 2000 Platform Game of the Year, American McGee’s Alice. It had very good graphics at the time, still does if you max out the settings on your new computer. The game was scary in a way. Still it is unique from other platform games and received the M rating. The first mature platform game was Cocker’s Bad Fur Day for the N64. In the IMG interview, the movie has full backing by veteran horror director Wes Craven, and probably won’t have 1 star attached too it. Okay so I thought that Resident Evil: The Movie was going to be somewhat good. But it’s not good at all…just some first time actors doing mediocre acting. I heard they took any townsfolk and make them all zombies! Film Force at IGN.com has a very detailed and updated section on Game-to- Movie conversions.
I want to see the Steven Stelberg version of Fatal Flame. Yes, I was surprised Steven was going to produce a game-to-movie conversion himself. Fatal Flame 2 was released on PS2 and remains the scariest and most detailed horror videogame for the console. It looks better than Silent Hill 2.
..: Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball in the News! ::.
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (2002 Tecmo)
Here is the most ridiculous news of the day. Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball has been out for over a year and the news media just found out about it this week? Gee, they are slow to cover these things. I hear lawyers are trying to sue Tecmo for showing half-naked Japanese animation in their popular Xbox game, Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball. Tecmo fights back saying that what they are doing is completely legal by the ESRB limitations. I like to say I own this game, and I admit, I never play this around my parents since it may make them….you know…uncomfortable, these girls have big boobs thus making them pretty enough to turn some men “on!” Don’t forget THQ has released a bikini volleyball game of their own complete with naughty pictures for the Xbox exclusive title, Xtreme Beach Volleyball. When Xplay covered this game, they were some parts they couldn’t show on television because it was censored stuff! Rumors are you can play your characters completely nude during gameplay by unlocking a mod! Why else would they make Xtreme Beach Volleyball M rated? It has something to do with “stretching.” So why are they trying to go after Tecmo? I’m more mature than to go completely gaga over DoA Beach Volleyball. It just makes me a little less “lonely” when I play it. Of course, I am also one of those guys who can consider anime girls cute. “God, have I sinned by playing this game?” Comment on your thoughts on this. I know I would buy the sequel if it ever came out…that would be fun.
Next Generation Unreal technolegy | Thanks Modgaming for the URL
.:: American Mcgee’s Alice Movie still out there ::.
Anyways on more games to movies feature, Wes Craven (Director of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and Nightmare of Elm Street) is going to direct a movie called Dark Wonderland due out this June. Film Force @ IGN.com says the project is still alive. The movie comes from the 2000 Platform Game of the Year, American McGee’s Alice. It had very good graphics at the time, still does if you max out the settings on your new computer. The game was scary in a way. Still it is unique from other platform games and received the M rating. The first mature platform game was Cocker’s Bad Fur Day for the N64. In the IMG interview, the movie has full backing by veteran horror director Wes Craven, and probably won’t have 1 star attached too it. Okay so I thought that Resident Evil: The Movie was going to be somewhat good. But it’s not good at all…just some first time actors doing mediocre acting. I heard they took any townsfolk and make them all zombies! Film Force at IGN.com has a very detailed and updated section on Game-to- Movie conversions.
I want to see the Steven Stelberg version of Fatal Flame. Yes, I was surprised Steven was going to produce a game-to-movie conversion himself. Fatal Flame 2 was released on PS2 and remains the scariest and most detailed horror videogame for the console. It looks better than Silent Hill 2.
..: Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball in the News! ::.
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (2002 Tecmo)
Here is the most ridiculous news of the day. Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball has been out for over a year and the news media just found out about it this week? Gee, they are slow to cover these things. I hear lawyers are trying to sue Tecmo for showing half-naked Japanese animation in their popular Xbox game, Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball. Tecmo fights back saying that what they are doing is completely legal by the ESRB limitations. I like to say I own this game, and I admit, I never play this around my parents since it may make them….you know…uncomfortable, these girls have big boobs thus making them pretty enough to turn some men “on!” Don’t forget THQ has released a bikini volleyball game of their own complete with naughty pictures for the Xbox exclusive title, Xtreme Beach Volleyball. When Xplay covered this game, they were some parts they couldn’t show on television because it was censored stuff! Rumors are you can play your characters completely nude during gameplay by unlocking a mod! Why else would they make Xtreme Beach Volleyball M rated? It has something to do with “stretching.” So why are they trying to go after Tecmo? I’m more mature than to go completely gaga over DoA Beach Volleyball. It just makes me a little less “lonely” when I play it. Of course, I am also one of those guys who can consider anime girls cute. “God, have I sinned by playing this game?” Comment on your thoughts on this. I know I would buy the sequel if it ever came out…that would be fun.
Monday, May 10, 2004
School ends....now I can live free for 3 whole mon
Playing: ATB- Sunscreen
I am not about to say how things are good, when it’s been a substantial weekend to say the least. On Friday, the sewage failed and we got decapitated water in four rooms. It spread in the walls into my computer room, I was relieved that my computer was okay. My parents had a wet-vac, and used that to delay the water. On Friday the water kept coming in my room whenever someone flushed the toilet or used a sink. That only happened once. The plumber came the next day and got the drain unplugged in our basement. So we tore up the carpet in the family room got rid of the decapitated parts. Now we won’t get sick! Our basement is now half-carpeted, half concrete. My room is a mess right now, after mom and I cleaned it up good (got rid of a lot of paper and garbage.)
Bob couldn’t make it over again this weekend. Understandably he has finals. Makes me kind-a wonder what he’s up to this summer with no school. Bob and I go back a long time, maybe 7 years. With the health hazard over with…he might be able to come over this time. I want to show him Kingdom Hearts. Ya, it’s Disney and more suited for young people. I feel like it brings out my inner child if there is such of thing. I like many gamers who know around RPGs fairly well, don’t care how cute it looks as long as it plays well and is rewarding. I know I got confused a couple spots here and there. It took me an hour just to get out of the Tarzan level because I forgot to look for Jane in the tent before the boss fight. I’m about 11 hours into the game. Right now, I can’t figure out why the red trinity right before the boss fight has boxes in front of it at Tranverse Town . I can’t remove them so no boss fight. I have a hunch that I need to give Cid a gummy part for the Gummy Ship to have warp speed. My favorite character in this game is probably the Evil Witch in Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, because she’s the most sinister of the villains. Mom got the movie when I was 10 so I know the movie fairly well. Once I get half-way through the FAQ, I’ll post a game review at http://www.geocities.com/nightwalkers101/2004e_ps2reviews_kingdomhearts.html This review should not be read for at least one week.
At school I’m doing fairly well. Not an A student, but not a failing student. I installed Windows 3.1 on a computer in hardware / software installation. It was really easy…no effort. Then Partition Magic 7 wouldn’t install on it. Well I didn’t say anything.. of course, Win3.1 only runs 16-bit applications. I took a copy of Windows 2000, and tried coping it with Alcohol 120%. It didn’t work. So I guess I just gonna keep the CD. It’s a copy of the original copy …I have no idea how someone copied it. The advantage of Windows 2000 is its fully unlockable after you put in the serial.
Last Friday at school, I’m going to find out if the janitor turned off the computer with my downloads. The Number Lock light was on too, I turned the monitor off before I left. I’m downloading betas of Doom 3 and Half-life 2 over Overnet. Even if I left it on for 60 hours, I don’t know if the file(s) downloaded completely. I like to play games, so I’ll have all of it for myself. Hey, I’m all for it….my friends don’t know what they’re missing! Ha!
(This Week) I find out that the janitor did uninstall overnet and leaving the Number Lock light on was a mistake. All my downloads got deleted. This time I installed overnet on a different computer, set up the Doom 3 download, turned the monitor off and the NUMLOCK key to off. Fortunately no one blocked Overnet this time. Today is the 2nd to last day of school so I’m thinking I should get everything uploaded tomorrow if possible. I didn’t exactly do too well on hardware/software installation. I think I passed it, that’s the good news. The bad news is that it was average at best. :)
Tomorrow being the last day of school, I think I will get to know Diablo 2 a little more. Lets face the fact – I have way to many games to play at once. It is true (and I can’t deny it) that I play only my newest games. This includes games I haven’t played (I have 8 of them) Right now I’m really enjoying one of my newer games, Rallisport Challenge for X-Box. I had enjoyed games like Sega Rally Championship 2 and Test Drive V-Rally for Dreamcast because they require skill. I’ve have must more driving skill than lets say action game skill. V-Rally was in my opinion better then Sega Rally Championship 2 because it offered more tracks, better music, more cars, better graphics. RSC delivers a lot…with more tracks…about same selection of cars..music is the same, better graphics, and pretty much same controls.
Bob, if you're reading this...remember to call me. We have to do something together. Play Diablo 1 or whatever you want. My room is a mess right now, but it's dry! I'm going to have to spring clean earlier than I thought.
I am not about to say how things are good, when it’s been a substantial weekend to say the least. On Friday, the sewage failed and we got decapitated water in four rooms. It spread in the walls into my computer room, I was relieved that my computer was okay. My parents had a wet-vac, and used that to delay the water. On Friday the water kept coming in my room whenever someone flushed the toilet or used a sink. That only happened once. The plumber came the next day and got the drain unplugged in our basement. So we tore up the carpet in the family room got rid of the decapitated parts. Now we won’t get sick! Our basement is now half-carpeted, half concrete. My room is a mess right now, after mom and I cleaned it up good (got rid of a lot of paper and garbage.)
Bob couldn’t make it over again this weekend. Understandably he has finals. Makes me kind-a wonder what he’s up to this summer with no school. Bob and I go back a long time, maybe 7 years. With the health hazard over with…he might be able to come over this time. I want to show him Kingdom Hearts. Ya, it’s Disney and more suited for young people. I feel like it brings out my inner child if there is such of thing. I like many gamers who know around RPGs fairly well, don’t care how cute it looks as long as it plays well and is rewarding. I know I got confused a couple spots here and there. It took me an hour just to get out of the Tarzan level because I forgot to look for Jane in the tent before the boss fight. I’m about 11 hours into the game. Right now, I can’t figure out why the red trinity right before the boss fight has boxes in front of it at Tranverse Town . I can’t remove them so no boss fight. I have a hunch that I need to give Cid a gummy part for the Gummy Ship to have warp speed. My favorite character in this game is probably the Evil Witch in Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, because she’s the most sinister of the villains. Mom got the movie when I was 10 so I know the movie fairly well. Once I get half-way through the FAQ, I’ll post a game review at http://www.geocities.com/nightwalkers101/2004e_ps2reviews_kingdomhearts.html This review should not be read for at least one week.
At school I’m doing fairly well. Not an A student, but not a failing student. I installed Windows 3.1 on a computer in hardware / software installation. It was really easy…no effort. Then Partition Magic 7 wouldn’t install on it. Well I didn’t say anything.. of course, Win3.1 only runs 16-bit applications. I took a copy of Windows 2000, and tried coping it with Alcohol 120%. It didn’t work. So I guess I just gonna keep the CD. It’s a copy of the original copy …I have no idea how someone copied it. The advantage of Windows 2000 is its fully unlockable after you put in the serial.
Last Friday at school, I’m going to find out if the janitor turned off the computer with my downloads. The Number Lock light was on too, I turned the monitor off before I left. I’m downloading betas of Doom 3 and Half-life 2 over Overnet. Even if I left it on for 60 hours, I don’t know if the file(s) downloaded completely. I like to play games, so I’ll have all of it for myself. Hey, I’m all for it….my friends don’t know what they’re missing! Ha!
(This Week) I find out that the janitor did uninstall overnet and leaving the Number Lock light on was a mistake. All my downloads got deleted. This time I installed overnet on a different computer, set up the Doom 3 download, turned the monitor off and the NUMLOCK key to off. Fortunately no one blocked Overnet this time. Today is the 2nd to last day of school so I’m thinking I should get everything uploaded tomorrow if possible. I didn’t exactly do too well on hardware/software installation. I think I passed it, that’s the good news. The bad news is that it was average at best. :)
Tomorrow being the last day of school, I think I will get to know Diablo 2 a little more. Lets face the fact – I have way to many games to play at once. It is true (and I can’t deny it) that I play only my newest games. This includes games I haven’t played (I have 8 of them) Right now I’m really enjoying one of my newer games, Rallisport Challenge for X-Box. I had enjoyed games like Sega Rally Championship 2 and Test Drive V-Rally for Dreamcast because they require skill. I’ve have must more driving skill than lets say action game skill. V-Rally was in my opinion better then Sega Rally Championship 2 because it offered more tracks, better music, more cars, better graphics. RSC delivers a lot…with more tracks…about same selection of cars..music is the same, better graphics, and pretty much same controls.
Bob, if you're reading this...remember to call me. We have to do something together. Play Diablo 1 or whatever you want. My room is a mess right now, but it's dry! I'm going to have to spring clean earlier than I thought.
Friday, May 07, 2004
Made Thinwire from scratch
Today I made thinwire from scratch, it was hard but once I got the hang of it, it was easy. I'll get to that later. Right now I'm going to talk about today and yesterday. This is perfect for getting my mind off things. There was this kid at school and he said our school isn’t going to be on Microsoft anymore and will change to Linux because it’s open source. They will save like 100+ dollars per computer with unlimited updates. He said that! I didn’t say anything. He said it so cheerfully too. I should of told him, “Man, you have no idea what goes on in this place because haven’t you heard that network technicians work with both Linux and Windows. You think you’re pretty cool saying that, don’t you? There are plenty of people who used Linux around here and they don’t care which OS they use. You moron!” Instead, I didn’t say anything to him and walked away. Besides I didn’t want him to get all mad if I told him that Linux was common knowledge around here. I suppose it means he isn’t dumb! I wish that there was an incredible looking blond who wasn’t bother by speaking technical. In fact today there was, and I wanted to talk to her. I said, "Whoa, you’re a looker, can we talk!?!" No response. I tell you women these days don’t know when someone likes them. It’s not cool to ignore someone!
In other news, I re-uploaded America’s Army at school and it worked. I made copies and no one at school wanted them. I was trying to make friends. I’m sad now! What pisses me off is why thin wire (RG-28 shielded coaxial cable) is so damn difficult to put together. Everyone else got it done, but I. First, I had to remember what ¼ inches was! Then I had to use the wire splitter, and do it over and over until I got it, finally! I had to keep cutting the wire when I made a mistake. That was two many to count.
Yesterday was a better day cause I downloaded 50 new maps (220 MB) for Unreal Tournament 2004. I didn’t know they had them out yet. I got the official Onslaught map pack from Epic Games. I also got this game unity for UT 2004 that reads zip files, and extracts everything to their proper locations. I think I’m going to extract most of them and play tonight. My skill level at Unreal Tournament is to my guess average. I’m doing on average of 10 frags to every frag to myself on skilled level. Today was kind of fun. I downloaded a couple more UT2004 maps and downloaded some new Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind mods. I believe the last time I did this was five months ago. I have no clue if they work or not. And I don’t play them much at all.
I’ve also been doing research on what computer hardware would do the most for my 100 dollars. I was thinking of getting a MP3 player. Tigerdirect.com sells a 10 GB hard drive based one for 100 dollars. A CD based MP3 player will only cost me 30 dollars. Hmm I wonder if I already have an Apple iPOD if I really need another one. Then I was wondering about upgrading memory. I have 768 MB of RAM in the computer I want to upgrade. For gaming purposes – I need faster RAM than what I use now. I should be able to have a better frame rate than I do now. Yep! Yep! Yep! So I don’t think I’m getting an Mp3 player that doubles as a hard drive or memory. I think a Fantom Premier 80GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive is the better choice. It doesn’t run on batteries and I can listen to my MP3 collection with any PC with speakers. Cool? I think so! And it would do the same thing as a MP3 player that only has 1/8 the hard drive space! When I get enough hard drives, I can just buy external cases for them and take them on the go. Such as I have a 60GB hard drive collecting dust at home, and for 20 bucks, I can put it to use again.
Something’s a little scary, I’m starting to like Rommstine, the “Metallica of Germany” band. I keep the songs on my MP3 player along with 15 other heavy metal bands. I don’t listen to Rommstine, Metallica, Black Sabbath or other forms of music as much as I do trance.
I’m doing a hybrid of version 4.0 on my site. Though I wonder if I should use NukePHP? It was like Movable Type, I can’t figure out how to add information to them. I know for group purposes it’s much better than HTML, but I don’t need login names for my webpage or comment stuff. I operate a small reviewing site, I don’t need state-of-the-art template code. Modblog is a perfect example of someone who’s doing this. iMike and DentesenGT made this site (modblog.com and deskmod.com), I don’t know if they just stole code off other websites or if they found some advanced NUKEPHP script off a underground server! Maybe Modblog is an enhanced Moveable type site? Though I don’t know if that is stealing because moveable type is an open source blog-friendly template. Maybe in the future, I will learn how to do moveable type. It would be nice if I could extract all the files in the moveable type zip file and it would automatically set itself up for me on the geocities server if it even supports php. How does iMike find errors in the source code for Modblog? Does he get emails constantly? On his blog, he tells us that his inbox gets full every 10 minutes with hate mail / suggestions.
I have a question for iMike…I wanna know how the zip blog backup system works? Does this site have some kind of gzip intergraded into it?
In other news, I re-uploaded America’s Army at school and it worked. I made copies and no one at school wanted them. I was trying to make friends. I’m sad now! What pisses me off is why thin wire (RG-28 shielded coaxial cable) is so damn difficult to put together. Everyone else got it done, but I. First, I had to remember what ¼ inches was! Then I had to use the wire splitter, and do it over and over until I got it, finally! I had to keep cutting the wire when I made a mistake. That was two many to count.
Yesterday was a better day cause I downloaded 50 new maps (220 MB) for Unreal Tournament 2004. I didn’t know they had them out yet. I got the official Onslaught map pack from Epic Games. I also got this game unity for UT 2004 that reads zip files, and extracts everything to their proper locations. I think I’m going to extract most of them and play tonight. My skill level at Unreal Tournament is to my guess average. I’m doing on average of 10 frags to every frag to myself on skilled level. Today was kind of fun. I downloaded a couple more UT2004 maps and downloaded some new Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind mods. I believe the last time I did this was five months ago. I have no clue if they work or not. And I don’t play them much at all.
I’ve also been doing research on what computer hardware would do the most for my 100 dollars. I was thinking of getting a MP3 player. Tigerdirect.com sells a 10 GB hard drive based one for 100 dollars. A CD based MP3 player will only cost me 30 dollars. Hmm I wonder if I already have an Apple iPOD if I really need another one. Then I was wondering about upgrading memory. I have 768 MB of RAM in the computer I want to upgrade. For gaming purposes – I need faster RAM than what I use now. I should be able to have a better frame rate than I do now. Yep! Yep! Yep! So I don’t think I’m getting an Mp3 player that doubles as a hard drive or memory. I think a Fantom Premier 80GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive is the better choice. It doesn’t run on batteries and I can listen to my MP3 collection with any PC with speakers. Cool? I think so! And it would do the same thing as a MP3 player that only has 1/8 the hard drive space! When I get enough hard drives, I can just buy external cases for them and take them on the go. Such as I have a 60GB hard drive collecting dust at home, and for 20 bucks, I can put it to use again.
Something’s a little scary, I’m starting to like Rommstine, the “Metallica of Germany” band. I keep the songs on my MP3 player along with 15 other heavy metal bands. I don’t listen to Rommstine, Metallica, Black Sabbath or other forms of music as much as I do trance.
I’m doing a hybrid of version 4.0 on my site. Though I wonder if I should use NukePHP? It was like Movable Type, I can’t figure out how to add information to them. I know for group purposes it’s much better than HTML, but I don’t need login names for my webpage or comment stuff. I operate a small reviewing site, I don’t need state-of-the-art template code. Modblog is a perfect example of someone who’s doing this. iMike and DentesenGT made this site (modblog.com and deskmod.com), I don’t know if they just stole code off other websites or if they found some advanced NUKEPHP script off a underground server! Maybe Modblog is an enhanced Moveable type site? Though I don’t know if that is stealing because moveable type is an open source blog-friendly template. Maybe in the future, I will learn how to do moveable type. It would be nice if I could extract all the files in the moveable type zip file and it would automatically set itself up for me on the geocities server if it even supports php. How does iMike find errors in the source code for Modblog? Does he get emails constantly? On his blog, he tells us that his inbox gets full every 10 minutes with hate mail / suggestions.
I have a question for iMike…I wanna know how the zip blog backup system works? Does this site have some kind of gzip intergraded into it?
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