Bought Jade Empire + two Genesis games | SVG in Mozilla 1.1

8:40 PM Today

Comment: Looks like a lot of people like games or are curious. I write for free.

Today, I’ve heard of this next generation vector image format called SVG and Mozilla Firefox ver. 1.1 is going to support it. In my humble opinion, Firefox 1.1 shall also support JPEG 2000, but I’m not saying anything. No body on the web uses JPEG2000 even if I want too. My observation is it’s more compressed than PNG or GIF and is an alternative to flash web technology Modblog would need to support a SVG html tag for me to use it on this blog. SVG in Mozilla Firefox ver. 1.1 It seems it can be used as a stationary vector graphic too, but the big question is….will it be better than PNG?

You know I like to go around the Internet at old videogame vector graphics and coping it to the clipboard so I can reduce the file size less then one half it was originally without reducing color. It’s harder to do this with Irfanview, but a lot easier with Paint Shop Pro 9’s PNG optimizer. Afterwards, I over write the PNG using Irfanview’s PNG codec, the file size is instantly reduced 1 – 4 KB. That time I gave Stuff5 the improved file size of his logos compiled in PNG and later he told me he wanted them to be compiled in GIF so I changed the file extension, but he found out about it. It’s an excellent way to trick file transfer protocols that won’t accept PNG into accepting them. Also works with MP3 files, give it another extension like *.ZIP, but be sure not to open it in WinZIP or WinRAR or Powerarchiver. PNG is only better than GIF if you own a program released after 2002 else it would be equal to the compression of GIF. The early PNG codec before 2003 were worse than GIF. I use General Public License’s Portable Network Graphics for all my vector images.


Screenshot of Jade Empire for MS Xbox

Well, to my surprise Jade Empire for Xbox came out today to a store near me and sold out before 3 PM. IGN gave Jade Empire an exceptional 9.9 out of 10….only 0.1 point from perfect in every way. Gamerankings averaged 9.4 from ten popular game reviews. I was trying to find out what the bad seed in the game was. I’m 5 dollars short in money otherwise I’ll buy it at Target next week. Target said it’s coming out next Wednesday. What makes it stand out is the fact it’s 0.1 point higher than Halo 2 (previous best game for Xbox.) In one’s own opinion, Halo 2 could still be the greatest game on Xbox. That’s not the point I’m trying to make here. Jade Empire being an action RPG while Halo 2 being a first person shooter. It uses the Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic’s lock-on system instead of light sabers you’ll get Chinese weapons like a polearm for an example, but plays similar to KotOR. It could quite possibly be Bioware’s best game to date. Bioware’s previous best sellers were Neverwinter Nights (plus all the expansions), Knight of the Old Republic 1, Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 (and expansion packs) for PC, and one other game. I’ve played like mad on Neverwinter Nights in the summer months of 2002. NWN has this deal when you connect to someone else’s server; the administrative gamer of it has all rights to your character on that server. So when my ISP disconnects me I can’t find the server right away, and when I do find it, my character is gone because the administrative gamer deletes all low level characters like myself thus all that time wasted building up my inventory for nothing, and the game’s replay value is shit so I played the game the whole summer in 2002, a few times in 2003, nothing more. NWN would make an excellent LAN game for two brothers (or sisters) who own copies and play it together. I have none which defeats the purpose of multiplayer which isn’t cool at all. The game had a bug where you can rejoin the game and your game would be reset so all the weapons in the chests, and drawers would be full once again. I’ll do that ten times so it’s possible to sell all the items in my inventory & buy plated armor from the silversmith.


Ninja Gaiden (NES) unlocks once you beat Ninja Gaiden (Xbox)...what an awesome bonus feature!

Anyways, I read the Ninja Gaiden Xbox review just for the hell of it. It was great reading. I found out it had the best graphics of any game for Xbox. I remember it being very, very hard. Too hard for my tastes. GAME HAS DROP DEAD GORGIOUS GRAPHICS! It’s a toss up between Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball, Ninja Gaiden and Jade Empire. I believe once you’ve beaten Ninja Gaiden, you can unlock the emulated 1989 version of Ninja Gaiden. After I read the IGN review, I read Flying Omelette’s review of Ninja Gaiden which scored 9.5 out of 10. He mentioned that the textured looked muddy because there was so much of it. It’s amongst the writer’s favorite NES games.

I’ve lost the concept of enjoying playing multiplayer. I haven’t played an online game for so long now. I must have been a part of an online game preferably a first person shooter, but my ping is too low. Yeah, I was thinking of playing either UT2004 or Counterstrike: Source online! I want to kick ass and take names too.

Also yesterday, I had nothing to do so I’d installed UT2004. I’ve found my missing Play Disc after last time I’ve played the game so there is no need for a “no-CD crack” patching UT2004.EXE any more. I like games running in ultra-high-resolution. Remember, I’ve a Radeon 9800 XT so it does the job well. I am preferably not using sniper rifles for now which is useless for me at close quarter combat. The sniper rifle can be the game’s most deadly gun when in hands of a veteran (whom rarely misses the headshots…ouch.) I prefer the machine gun and other automatic weapons. Before playing, I’ve added 35+ deathmatch UT2004 maps one by one in the parent folder. While playing, the trick is to keep moving and strafing backwards while shooting. Other noteworthy advantages are never fight to the death in my opinion, unless you’ve only got 10 health points than take as many with you as possible. I shall be the leader faster keep by searching for health packs until my health is 80% or above than kill as many bots or players as possible by strafing while constantly moving around. If you can’t find the opponent (it’s a sniper when the HP decreases 40+ points at once….rush for cover if you can)…It always works to start shooting in 360º counter-clockwise rotation until you find the player. Hopefully you’ll down him before he (or she) downs you! Always keep an eye out for the blue shields. I want a blue shield (enhanced melee power) rather than a yellow shield (extended health points). UT2004 makes you really want to kill everybody in site in act of revenge, and that’s why it’s popular. X-fire allows you to bring up a chat window in the game for instant message a friend in whole another game to join you in your game. That’s excellent! I do have an X-fire account, but I don’t use it anymore.

Time to get back to Visual Basic homework. I’ve been stalling my tasks lately. For some reason I’ve been interested into the NEC Turbograx and Sega CD. If I were to buy a Sega CD, I can not use my existing Sega Genesis to hook her up. I’ve heard that the best game for it is either Shining Force CD or Advance Dungeon and Dragons - Eye of the Beholder which both scored an A at VideogameCritics.net. Otherwise, Turbo GX’s best games are either Bonk’s Adventure or Galaga ’90. Turbo GX was the first 16-bit (and least powerful of 16-bit consoles) in the USA released in 1989. It really makes you wonder how successful Nintendo would have been in America if a SNES CD became available in 1993 like planned. Of course, in the fine print, Sony had the rights to the SNES CD so all games had to be published by Sony even if the videogame was developed by Nintendo. That deal never made it into production. Toyriffic in Hudson sells a Sega CD with Genesis for $50 or Turbo GX with game card for $80. Right now I’m pondering which game I shall buy. I am wondering if Toyriffic has any of the excellent titles in stock for them.


Look at this....Jade Empire...already!

7 hours and 14 minutes later I’ve called both Toyriffic in Hudson and River Falls to ask the clerk(s) if he had a Sega CD in stock with Genesis and both stores did. The Hudson Toyriffic sold them for $120 and the River Falls Toyriffic sold for $80. Both said the store(s) would give me $2 in-store credit for my Genesis v3. See, the original game plan was buying a Genesis version 2 and Sega CD separately. It cost me $80. My Genesis at home won’t take Sega CD add-on. It person on the phone was the black man I choose to not like so I didn’t drive there at all. Instead, I called Wal-Mart to see if the store had Jade Empire for Xbox which they did so I’ve drove 15 miles to Hudson, WI. They asked me for my driver’s license so I gave it too them. The game was rated M for mature. So I got the limited edition Microsoft only sells at the beginning. Best Xbox Action RPG to date, people and I OWN IT! Afterwards, around 4 PM, I arrived at Toyriffic again so I could pick out a game. I was looking for some current generation games, but I figured I’ve got everything I wanted that’s out for PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube anyways so I started to ponder which Sega Genesis games I wanted because Sega CD isn’t worth the purchase because there is only 2 games I’ve mentioned above good for it and Shining Force was also in cartridge format. All Shining Force CD had over Shining Force was Full Motion Video and some 16-bit audio soundtracks, but what was on the cartridge version was already above average on Genesis’s not good sound chip. Everybody wants Shining Force for Sega Genesis, but I was luckier. Someone sold a whole bunch of imports to Toyriffic and one of them was a vintage GUNSTAR HEROES THE BEST SHOOTER FOR GENESIS PERIOD!!! I’ve paid 40 bucks for that and another $10 for Vectorman with case and manual. That now makes 6 Sega Genesis video games. If I’ve found Alien Soldier there which I didn’t; I would buy it in a New York minute. Some of the imports will still be there tomorrow; I might go back and snag some more after I found out which ones are good via the Internet.

New games to add to list:

• Jade Empire (©2005 Bioware)
• Gunstar Heroes (©1997 Treasure)
• Vectorman (©1995 Blue Shift)

Regards, Ian