I had a mid-term today in one class today. I didn’t have to take it because it’s a snow day! I felt I had to look on the Internet quick for VI commands and EMACS commands, put them on a floppy so I can view them at school. It’s as good as note taking because the teachers will think I was looking at the man pages. Linux is interesting, it is the only OS that can fit on a CD and run off it.

Bob and I want to get together. He’s been taking the day off too. So this morning I’ve been watching Bridge to Far DVD on one PC while I reinstall Windows back on one of my PCs. It’s a timely process. Somehow I managed to delete hardware acceleration files, Direct X 8.1 if you get specific. My OS was kinda messed up for a while there. I blame it all on Microsoft. The installation cd should have fixed my problem, and it did absolutely nothing! Like I said before, I know how to install Windows XP in my sleep so I didn’t get that mad.

I was thinking of bringing two computers over to Bobs so we can play Unreal Tournament (the first one) together. If I bring my 3rd PC, maybe it’ll be a 3 person LAN game. It’s funny though, I have a CAT V NIC on all my computers, and my HUB is only a CAT 4. It’s nothing really, I just loose 90 MB of bandwidth. Dad should have given me a router instead. He said it was his unused hub from work. CAT IV Hubs should be adequate for playing Unreal Tournament or Neverwinter Nights over a server for now. I’m also bringing over Quake 3 Arena because I know Bob has a copy. I have waited 6 months to have a LAN party. I am waiting to kick Bob’s butt at Unreal Tournament later today.

I found a used copy of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles at the game store. I got it for a modest 35 dollars instead of a full 50. So I was playing it for 3 hours yesterday. Everything looks better than Final Fantasy X, which is amazing to me. Now, I technically have all the Final Fantasy games except for Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Adventure and Final Fantasy Legend 1 and 2 (Secret of Mana for Game Boy.) I want to bring over Gamecube so we can play that game in multiplayer, that is if he doesn’t want a LAN party. I am also planning to bring over Midnight Club 2 and Winning Eleven 6. Bob told me Midnight Club was one of his favorite games.

This just in, I didn't have a LAN party today. It's a disappointment, but we got 5 inches of snow fall.

On the second part of my blog I realized that there are going to be a dozen RPGs coming out in 2004. Of course Gas Powered Games is releasing Dungeon Siege II [ http://dungeonsiegeii.com/ ] Dungeon Siege will be upgraded to graphics that par up with World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI if not better. Dungeon Siege, is not your average game because it is a hack and slash title like Diablo in a 3D engine. It looked pretty good in 2001. Dungeon Siege 2 will have the same features, hopefully an improved multiplayer experience. Dungeon Siege was horrible to be played online, ran very slow.

I’m skipping Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft because I can never afford the online subscription. So this leads me to Ultima X Online. It’s been 4 years since Orgin Systems released an Ultima game. Ultima IX was released in 1999. Ultima IX was like Raven (Myst 2) with the exact same graphics, gameplay and a lot more bugs. Ultima IX was reviewed at IGN.com, and it was not your Neverwinter Nights. Sadly, it was below average. Although it made Ultima 3D. I’ve never played IX. Ultima X is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, with graphics as good as Lineage II and Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind. It may even be good, and without bugs! Go to this website to read about it and judge for yourself. [ www.uxo.ea.com/intro.html ] I’m kind of excited for it. Here are some screenshots from the game. Looks original? I hope it plays as good as it looks :)





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Doom 3 update | Goldeneye ported to PC!!!!

Date: 2/29/04 at 4:32PM

This is my Doom 3 update. There are a lot of sources off Google so this will be brief. Doom 3 is going to use bump mapping and sound data, shadows loaded with the pixels itself. Doom 3 will use 20 texture passes per second. This new technique is invented by ID Software. The game will be hugely polygon based. As many as 10,000 polygons on objects with their own bump map lighting. The games characters, bots will be bump mapped as well. I'm guessing that the textures will be 128-bit instead of 64-bit because I saw the screen shots, and they look beyond that of Half-life 2. The extra 64-bits will add more color, shadow, depth, a sharpness. Doom 3 will have lighting created in the game engine, and there will be no lighting effects or shadows loading with the map. For the first time ever, moving objects can also have shadows. ID software sounds like they'll be requiring a Pentium 4 2.0 Gigahertz PC with 256 MB of RAM, and a 128 MB graphics card to play Doom 3 at 800x600 at a good framerate. Doom 3 was presented at QuakeCON 2K3 powered by 128MB and 256MB Geforce and Radeons. Doom 3 will need triple much power as Neverwinter Nights because of the polygons. I don't want to blow your guy's brain so go to http://www.doomworld.com/doom3/ for a complete faq.

I know some of you loved Goldeneye, I know I have. I found out a stand alone game that will have the complete Goldeneye single player, and multiplayer running in high res on your PC. It looks like Wolfenstine. Found at http://goldeneye.new...m.com/download.shtml.

Otherwise, many of you may know, but there is also a Goldeneye port for Half-life avaliable at http://www.3ddownloa...elefragged/goldeneye I have the 1.11 patch, but this game will work with any patch dated after June 2000. Goldeneye 2 was just announced by EA Games this week, and it will be multi-platform. No news whether or not it will be developed for PC.

I want to learn flash | a look at UT2004 (fixed)

Date: 2/27/04 at 2:13AM

I met this guy from about a year ago on Diablo 2. We talk to each other, he's xwanyecoltx, and he is the top reviewer at newgrounds.com, a community full of flash movies. I usually don't go there often. I did yesterday, and really looked at it. I took my main interest Final Fantasy, and looked at some flash movies. Most of them are based on Final Fantasy 3. I like the Final Fantasy Trilogy. The cat scene was somewhat funny. The graphics are good, it's above and beyond me. Most of these designers have websites that are done in flash. I was trying to learn how to work in Macromedia Flash MX. I can move images around, but I can't do the effects. LOL! I'm no expert for sure! The zooming, the special effects with slash, the timing. I'm another notice at RPG developing. When I heard from him that I can use javascript for some of my effects, I felt better. I have the premiere software to work with, and I can't do a d*mn thing with it. XwanynecoltX got me interested in making flash.

I decided to put Cloud's Adventure on hold. If fact I don't even care for it. I can't find the correct number of characters that'll I'll need in the game. Sure, I have experience in making maps in Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights, Unreal Tournament, and UT2003. I never worked with Milkshape or UT character editor to make models. I have attempted to transfer a UT2003 model to Neverwinter Nights using a add-on for NWN Design Studio. I have one map online <http://www.pressente...~scampbel/nwnmod.exe> I find that I'll have more fun creating NWN mods than anything else. UT2003 maps make no since to me, you develop the map, and you set start points, a couple weapon locations and debug. It's a first person shooter, you you frag people in a violent gory way for hours. I've been guilty in this way because I use to be a fps fanatic myself. I liked gory fps for a while. I agree MMORPGS, especially Neverwinter Nights, are more popular (and my favorite), and a bit more sane. Since then I have become a bit more sane. I did ask my parents about playing Final Fantasy XI online this week, and the answer is still no. I really want to play that game even if it costed 12 dollars a month. That's 144 dollars a year. I wish there was a offline mod for FFXI. I dunno maybe I'll play UT2003 online again with the lad lagacy. Lagacy is much better in NWN, but you never know, maybe the newer patches in UT2003 affect the frame rate?

Speaking of which, I was looking information on both Doom III and Half-life 2, and no new information is avaliable. There is very little known facts on the 'source engine' and what Half-life 2 map editor will use or if the rumor porting older Half-life models into Half-life 2 is true. The game will look great in 1600/1200 at 4 layers of anti-ayalasing with all effects on. Maybe it'll support 2000/1600 high res. It's rather pointless because graphics quality won't be that improved. Right now PCs haven't able to work well at that high of resolution. Most people now should at least be able to run at 1200/768 on their current machines. More than half of pc gamers (from a toll on Gamefaqs.com) have bought a new computer since 2001. That's nice. I know in 5 years we'll look back on today's games, and say how low resolution they look. I knew we said that about Unreal Tournament. It was in 1999 that UT was a huge game and state of the art graphics. I remember in 2000, I downloaded 200 maps in total off FileShack.com before they made you pay for their servers accessablity. I use to play the maps in deathmatch. Some worked some didn't, some made my computer crash. On the bigger maps, it wasn't uncommon for me to reset my resolution to 800/600 just to play the map at 30 frames a second. Not today, my computer is 10x more powerful than 5 years ago.

[ I messed up in this section. I have a Radeon 9800 in my Dell Deminsion XPS. A XFX Geforce 5600 in my custom-built pc ,and a XFX Geforce 5200 in my compaq which replaced my older Radeon 7000 ]

The Unreal Tournament 2004 demo is out now and the game is coming to stores on March 18th. It seems not long ago Unreal 2 was released. And I was kind-of hyped about getting that game because of the class A gameplay. It's okay, but not as fun as Unreal Tournament. If you like a story based first person shooter, this would be the game for you. Unreal 2 has deathmatch but I never once played it. My guess it's exactly like UT2003, but UT2003 is such a revolutionary first person shooter like the first. I got half way through it 1 month ago than stopped for whatever reason. Unreal 2 has been out nearly a year already. I know Bob was thinking of owning it. Why have him buy it when I can just give him a copy? The UT2004 demo is out, and of course with my connection, I haven't downloaded it. Rumor is that it'll play UT 2003 levels because both games use the same physics engine. UT 2004 features vehicles simular to WARTHOG in Halo. It's optimized using the ATI Radeon 9800 GPU. I own both a 256 MB Geforce 4 5600 Ti and ATI Radeon 9800. I recently installed the Geforce 4 5200 128 MB GPU in my Compaq (given to me 3 years ago in 2001). For months I thought it wouldn't work because I thought my Compaq was using a 4X AGP slot instead of the 8x AGP slot required to use the card. It never accured until now that my Geforce 4 works because it's backward compatible with 4x slots. I confused me because i stuck it in yesterday, and it worked. Before I had a XFX Radeon 7000 64MB GPU because that worked.

UT 2004 sounds like it will have space aged weapon optimized spacecraft so that in assault you can dog fight with everyone else. Another idea taking straight out of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

One game that would be nice to have on my computer (from 1998) is the XGRacing 2 released on the PC in 1998 by Acclaim. It is a fast paced game featuring futuristic cycles racing on a track. I known the game for N64. And while it didn't get great reviews, I thought it was cool. The graphics were better then Xtreme G (1997 Acclaim) although the game play in XG2 was a bit worse. It was a Christmas present that year. The first game looked good considering it was a early N64 racing title. It was like Tron, but was much improved. The forth game released multi-platform called XGRA (Extreme-G Racing Association) is like Xtreme G 3. (I own XG3 for Gamecube) I read the reviews off IGN.com and they said the game had some errors, but what's interesting is the game itself at a 6 page developer interview at IGN.com. It got a 7.5 at IGN.com, and 7.8 at Gamespot.com. I read both reviews, and it seemed like Acclaim was trying to make this title a worthy sequel with harder AI, more vehicles, and tracks. I read the review and IGN.com said it was too customizable for it's own good and made the controls too unbalance making it a more difficult game any ways and less fun. If the gameplay was more balanced, the game may of been considered one of the better racers for any console. I want it for PC, and instead Acclaim made this title console exclusive. If I see this game for Gamecube/Xbox I'll buy it at an used price, therefore I save money. I already own other futuristic racers like FZero GX.

I haven't had time to play Knights of the Old Republic lately. KOTOR is a great game with state-of-the-art graphics Right now I am in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark because it's online. I'm going to play it after I finish writing this entry.

This is Ian signing off once again. Tune in 5 days from now to read my next review in my saga. Mean while, visit my webpage.

I decided today I'm making a RPG myself!

Date: 2/16/04 at 7:40PM

I’ve been doing many things like hoping for someone to make it over, getting home late from WITC, and watching tv. No time to add an entry to this blog. On my website, I added a different mouse over image menu. It may not be state-of-the-art, but it looks cooler then when I had text for menus. On some high res screens the jpeg images look pixilated, that’s because image quality suffered for faster download speeds. You can find my website under the personal website link left of this page. I wasn’t sure if my website was age appropriate so I warned readers under 13 should not read it because I have some adult interests. I don’t mean about the “I’m in love and crazy about girls” part. I am 19, so therefore I can accept things better than most 12 year olds. If people don’t like it, I’ll change it back to how it was. First though, I have to have complaints though email feedback. Besides, I think everyone here is old enough. Don’t forget the guessbook!

And about myself - I haven’t changed much. I’m on the Internet eight hours a day, sure. I’m just surfing for games, gamefaqs, downloading MP3s over a modem, learning about processors specs. Working on my webpage mostly.

I remembering reading on Google, an article on “How to be an evil genius.” I really don’t know how I came across it. It had a lot of stuff about how to make your friends think that you’re in a dangerous situation, and how to make it an allusion or the absolutely right thing to do in any circumstance. Remember, most of this is just weird, and probably won’t work at all. I bet there’s a lot of the same thing around on the Internet. Have you seen the movie “Young Frankenstein” staring Gene Wilder? It was funny and kind of stupid and brilliant at the same time. At least, AMC couldn’t stop saying how brilliant it was after the movie credits. Maybe it was how the movie used the original set used in “Frankenstein.” (1931) The Gene Wilder movie was making fun of the original. Actually, I was trying to get the jest of the movie, there are a lot of crazy things in the movie I wanted to get out of it. This is where I think the phrase, “Evil Genius” originally came from Frankenstein….

I know people collect Square games and keep them. I want to promote my fan site. I haven’t updated the site for 2 1/2 months. After school, I went to the game store, first bought a PS2 Logitech Headset for 30 dollars. But Dad gave me 10 dollars, so I brought it back and got Final Fantasy Chronicles. (rare game for Playstation) I have a SNES. I bought one recently. It was a better deal to buy this remake than SNES versions. I played Chrono Cross through SNES 9x on Windows before, I am very familiar with it. I must have out smarted them because I know about ROMS. That would be cheating the game store though. I was nice, and now I have an authentic copy for once. I also own Final Fantasy Anthology. I have yet to buy Final Fantasy Origins. I updated my Square webpage with a ported review of Final Fantasy X-2. I don’t know whether or not I should add all the characters in that game to my site since so many other fan sites have it, and I can just link it too them. But than why build a fan site if you’re not going try to out perform other fan sites doing the same thing. Find my Square site at (http://www.renegadeviking.cjb.net). Thus, the endless cycle of improving and updating one’s page. Sign the guess book if you think it’s cool or sucks or needs work. It’s harder of me because I owned my first Squaresoft game 2 years ago. Now I have a total of 11 real copies of Squaresoft games cross platform.

So far, I have Final Fantasy I, II, III and XI Online on my computer. Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, and IX on Playstation. Final Fantasy X and X-2 on Playstation 2.
Here are the consoles I have thus far. I beat only Final Fantasy VIII and X. I’m working on X-2. And I own and beaten Chrono Cross. That was also a good game. I plan to play Final Fantasy VII for the first time after I get it back from Bob. I know that most Playstation owners prefer VII as their Final Fantasy game of choice. I hear it was revolutionary, but I just got a Nintendo 64 that year so pardon me about not hearing about it right away. I was into Super Mario 64, Zelda 64, and Goldeneye, three revolutionary games the same year. If I had a favorite, it would be Mario 64. It only takes 3 words to describe the perfect platform game and they are Super Mario 64. My favorite level was the first Jolly Jolly Bay level. The music was cool. The level was cool. I have two 3 ring binders full of N64 strategy guides. I completed that game 5 times back when I didn’t buy 3 or 4 new games a month. RPGs I’m looking toward are Star Ocean 3, Final Fantasy XII, and Chrono Break (3rd installment in Chrono Series)

Here are the game systems I owned thus far from 1997 - Present

Nintendo 64 (Christmas 1997) Dreamcast (09/09/99) Saturn (11/01/2000) Gameboy Advance (March 2001) Gamecube (November 2001) Playstation (January 2003) Xbox (June 2003) PS2 (October 2003) NES, SNES, GBA SP (December 2003) 100+ roms and emulators for cartridge based consoles back-up on CDR. I’m saving 300 dollars for Playstation 3 when I comes out in August 2005.

I need feedback on my Final Fantasy fan page (use my guessbook please) and my current webpage. So if you would be so kind to drop by and say a few words, that would be most helpful. Comment on the logo, the reviews (I have auto spell so spelling shouldn’t be an issue) or the content, or loading times (shouldn’t be a big issue) On some computers, the javascript loads behind the first mini-window. If this is a bug that needs squashing, let me know. It’s hard to come by automatic navigational menu compilers that are compatible with Geocities. I tried at least ten including AllWebMenus, and Xara menu maker is the only one that works to my knowledge.

I had this idea today where I could make my own RPG on the computer. But I don’t know what tools to use. I thought about using a rpg maker, but I would need to be know at least enough code to move characters across the screen. I hear that Armageddon Games, a nonprofit game developer that ported Legend of Zelda to the PC, was working on a Final Fantasy I and II port. I am probably not the first person to think of turning Final Fantasy into a platform game. My first project could be a Final Fantasy hybrid because there are many animated gifs on the Internet that are made after the games. Cloud Strife in a platform game, wouldn’t that rock! I’ll call it….drum role please….Final Fantasy 7 - Cloud’s Adventure. The story could star universally known character, Cloud Strife, finding a serum that would bring back Atheia from the dead. It will be like Super Mario Bros. for the NES using the enemies, and characters from FF VII. Right now, it’s not even in the planning stages. First, I will have to learn how to move images across the screen. I could attempt this and fail. Spend the whole summer trying to tweak it myself. Would it be popular freeware game or another mediocre freeware game? No, I’ll make it open source! How much time would I have to spend on it for it to be long enough to be enjoyable? I played a couple freeware RPG’s like Jennifer’s Quest, Dink Smallwood, and Laxis Power. I’m trying to figure out how I’ll do the combat system. Maybe I’ll just use the standard Super Mario hit / jump. Laxis Power was the best version of RPG I’ve played freely available. The game closely resembles Breath of Fire. Except for SNES ROMS, which I know some of you readers have on your PC in secret.

Trojin Horse dumped my OS! Serious let down.

Date: 2/22/04 at 4:37AM

I've been found. A high profile virus hit one of my computers today. I kinda thought I was invisible because i had antivirus software. Anti Virus software can't do a d*mn if you can't get too it. I wouldof lost a lot of valuable website templates and graphics if I didn't have Linux on board. I could transfer my webpage files to a thumb stick! The computer was really slow. I had the command prompt working and the virus didn't let me open any executables including Norton Antivirus. This got me mad, I even swore out load. Don't feel bad Bob! Bob had the same problem - maybe's it's the same virus? I could of gotten it when downloading Gaim, although I don't see how Gaim could have a Trojan Horse. I dunno.
I got out today, went to Target, and bought a CD restorer. It gets rid of scratches on cds. It was 50 dollars. I had a couple Dreamcast games that didn't work so I used it to restore them, than there was this cd that I use on my computer a lot filled with pictures that I wanted restored. I always take real good care of all my discs.

Before my PC crashed, I was playing Diablo 2 for the majority of the afternoon. Diablo 2 is still rocking. Being out going, I was chatting with other players talking about coming consoles, Final Fantasy, PC specs. I did a couple bloody runs in act 5. I progressed from act3 to act 5. My amazon is level 50. I have this unique bow that does a lot of damage in nightmare. Hell's suppose to be more like Hell with the new patch. I remember dominating hell with amazons when I was really into the game. The hard part was trying to convense someone to give up high hp armor. I suppose that's true with everyone. ACT 4 was always the hardest level for Zons because the enemies near Diablo's sancenary can out number you easily. Duriel was also a very difficult, and timely point of the game.

Chatting with the right person in Diablo 2 is like finding a needle in a haystack. Most people just want to level up and don't really care who they party up with as long as it helps their game. Only rarely does a person really listen to your conversations. It feels like your talking to a brick wall sometimes when you're ignored. It helps when you know a lot about the game, and u know how to avoid getting killed often, even being the hero of the game saving other player's butt can make them have interest in you. That's the best part because than you can start asking for things you need, and half the time it works. Unless when it's really hard to find, then it's finders keepers. I learned that when I started playing the game 3 years ago.

Here are my favorite songs. Trance is my favorite genre at the moment:

1.) Trance - ATB and Paul Van Dyke rave mix - DJ Special K.mp3
2.) ATB- Sunscreen.mp3
3.) Cybernetik - Hardkore Reflektions.mp3
4.) Techno - ATB - Kaycee - Escape 2000 (New Club Mix).mp3
5.) paul van dyk - another way.mp3
6.) Mauro Picotto - Komodo (Megavoices Mix).mp3
7.) ministry of sound - rising star touch me.mp3
8.) Paul van Dyk - For An Angel.mp3
9.) DJ Sasha & John Digweed - Enjoy The Silence.mp3
10.) sasha and john digweed - age of love (trance dub & fantasy mix).mp3
11.) paul van dyk - forbidden fruit
12.) Kernkraft 400 - Zombie Nation ( ohohoh remix).mp3
13.) Psychobabble - Sirens of Trance.mp3