Herbert1405241469

There is some hand to hand combat you can do, but no swords or light saber-like weapons. You can bulk up on physical stats and knock a guy over with a pistol whip or butt with an assault rifle.I'd compare Mass Effect to the Matrix in terms of being part of a trilogy.... They closed the plot and settle everything, but it's still open for a sequel. Like in the first Matrix. They could have ended it all there, but they decided to make it a trilogy, (and ruined it I might add). Mass Effect is the same way, where they could probably just end the series there, but they won't because there is one issue left, and people love it so much and want to keep playing to find out what happens.It is NOT a cliffhanger like Crysis... Crysis is also set to be a trilogy, but they totally leave you hanging at the end. Mass Effect does not leave you feeling like that at all.Not only that, but Mass Effect has replay value. Assassin's Creed is so damned repetitive, you are sick of it by the time you reach the end... And Crysis is so linear, you really don't feel like replaying because there won't be any surprises. Mass Effect actually plays out like a different game if you choose to make even the smallest decisions. I played it a second time immediately after I beat it the first time, just because I wanted to see what I missed.... Past 2 times, though, you may find yourself looking for something new... I might re-install Crysis

Well, I just beat Mass Effect.... for the second time!Yes I don't think I've ever played a game that I wanted to go back and play again as soon as I beat it.Let the final review commence.Ok, so looking up in forums about that speech bug I had encountered, if you press the secondary button for interaction (the letter 'e' in my case) it would not bug out like it did when I pressed enter.Overall a very good plot, though it reminds me a lot of the Matrix Trilogy with the cycle of machines wiping out all life as we know it every x number of years. They didn't go into why so much, though you don't feel unsatisfied when you figure out a bunch of stuff towards the end.The first playthrough probably took me something like 20-30 hours because I went on every side mission I could get. I had the difficulty set on "normal" which wasn't too hard, but it was a challenge.. There are Hard, and Impossible modes ( I believe one other but can't recall at this time) which must be crazy hard.The first playthrough I played as a nice upstanding citizen male character, trying to help and please everyone because it's in my good nature. Played as a tech guy with some pistol and sniper experience. Wasn't bad.The second playthrough, though, I went totally opposite trying out a badass female character that would stomp Santa Claus's nuts to get her presents earlier.Playing as either for paragon or renegade points is much like light/dark sides in Knights of the Old Republic. When playing a badass renegade type, you don't turn gray and veiny like KoTOR, but your eyebrows will often be down and you just generally look pissed off all the time. I was surprised at the changes in other characters too as I played through a second time. It was almost a different game because some dialog choices went right out into left field.For example, I knew that you could "get it on" with an alien towards the end of the game if you flirted with her the whole time (as well you could with two other characters depending on your sex). But there was a female alien I did a mission for as a male early on my first playthrough, and she just gave me some advice and sent me on my way... The second time I did it, I played as a "I don't have time for your crap missions, I'm saving the galaxy" type attitude the whole way, and as a female, the next thing I know, I'm experiencing another sex cutscene (though much more watered down than the later scene with your crewmember (which in itself is quite watered down to begin with)) that I hadn't experienced when trying to flirt with her as a male.... The first time I played, I stuck with two of the aliens mostly, and was friends with all my crewmates after talking and listening to them and getting their background story... But once I figured out where those sub plots went and such, on my second playthrough as the b*tch character, I totally put down all aliens, not trusting them and just generally making them feel bad (Like I said, total 180). I almost felt bad when they start telling me about their homeworld and I promptly say "I don't have time for this..." and they respond with a modest and quiet.... "oh.... ok." And used only humans in my squad.Playing through a second time, you can also skip past a lot of side dialog you might have gone through before, which makes playing a lot quicker. The second playthrough probably only took me a day and a half, as opposed to several days, since I only did the meat and potatoes missions (ie. just the main quest and very small side missions.)But even on my second playthrough, I would get these random transmissions from our admiral with sub missions I never had before, which was a nice change of pace because it made playing the game a second time not stale.The only graphical issue I'm still working on is the shadows on characters... Looks a bit pixelated. I guess people are still working on it. Other than that, with the game maxed out it looks beautiful. The characters aren't perfect, but darn close. The skin looks absolutely real, and it's amazing how far we've come. Overall a fun game with at least 2 playthroughs for replay value. You can plow through this game in about 15 hours easy if you stick to the main missions, but you're missing out on so much.Once you beat the game, you can start a new game but this time use your same character and keep all your weapons.... Sort of like Chrono Trigger.The only downside of this is that you can't make a new character and keep all your skills and weapons. Like going from an engineer guy to a biotic woman, I had to start from scratch playing again. But it was well worth it, as I probably had more fun with her anyway.Overall rating : 9/10The only reason it doesn't get a 10/10 is because they recycle a lot of the bases you find on planets, and exploring planets can be repetitive and boring. The rest is awesome though. Great audio, voice acting, awesome graphics, pretty solid plot. Much more fun than Assassin's Creed, and better than Knights of the Old Republic. Only problem there is that with KoTOR, if you know star wars stuff, you're good, where with Mass Effect, it's a whole new universe of characters, aliens, and technology you have to figure out, but what a trip.They leave it open for a sequel, but not in the sh*tty cliffhanger way they did with Crysis and Assassin's Creed (or Halo 2 as I've been told). No, this has closure like the first Back To The Future. The adventure is over, but we've only just begun.

This is the error email I received when trying to send my Xisto account an email:************************************************ THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY **** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE ************************************************The original message was received at Fri, 6 Jun 2008 12:36:16 -0400from localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]----- Transcript of session follows -----... while talking to herbert.astahost.com.:>>> QUIT<<< 451-The server has reached its limit for processing requests from your host.<<< 451 Please try again later.<herbert@herbert.astahost.com>... Deferred: 451-The server has reached its limit for processing requests from your host.Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hoursWill keep trying until message is 5 days oldReporting-MTA: dns; http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 12:36:16 -0400Final-Recipient: RFC822; herbert@herbert.astahost.comAction: delayedStatus: 4.5.0Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 451-The server has reached its limit for processing requests from your host.Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 16:42:19 -0400Will-Retry-Until: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:36:16 -0400

Hello, I've come to realize that I have not received any emails in CPanel since April 25th. I have not changed any of the settings, and I don't have a spam filter enabled so I don't know what would be causing this.My site is herbert.astahost.comAny help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Further along in the game... More impressions.Yes, this game runs a lot like Knights of the Old Republic, but it's quite refreshing. Just like Assassin's Creed, though, they have "achievements" in finding stuff around the galaxy which sort of ruins the experience. Let me elaborate.... In Assassin's Creed, they want you to find 100 flags.... They serve no purpose other than to make you feel like less of a man for not finding them all. The Xbox 360 community gets something out of doing all this so good for them... Meanwhile the PC people don't even unlock concept art or anything....With Mass Effect, you'll wander around the galaxy and enter solar systems... These solar systems typically consist of about 4-7 planets. Not all of these planets can be landed on, but you can "survey" some of them and essentially "unlock" a mineral, or some rare object that you can't use other than to unlock achievements. The GOOD thing about Mass Effect, is that you DO get XP points and Cash for finding this stuff, which means they actually did a better job of implementing achievements than previous games have.... It makes sense that you get 1400 credits for mining copper or plutonium... So at least you get something for exploring. When you do land on a planet, you'll check the map and see several points of interest where you can navigate to and look for minerals or artifacts, but if you explore the whole map, there are typically 2-3 other spots not marked on the map that you would have otherwise missed. So explore explore explore.... which leads me to the next point:Exploration ... it's boring. You basically land on a planet in your pimped out futuristic Hummer, and drive around till you find something. In games like Oblivion, there were varied locations, trees, lakes, etc.... In Mass Effect, in all the side quests I've done so far, every planet is virtually the same in terms of Terrain. NOW, the colors of the dirt are varied, and the climate can vary from cold to hot and everything in between.... and the sky can have WONDERFUL planets and scenic views... but the gameplay itself gets rather repetitive and boring, where you hop in your car, find the "main objective" of the planet, shoot its defenses, enter the building, take out a wave of bad guys, and you're done.Over....And over again.The only thing really is the story, which gives you motivation to go into these random planets killing everyone you come in contact with. There are instances where you can talk your way out of a fire fight, but those are rare, since most of the people you are dealing with are doing illegal things that don't like it when space marines shoot out their turrets and take out all of their men.Combat can be overwhelming, and may take a few tries due to the fact that enemies always seem to be about 3 levels higher than you are. Maybe I don't have good enough armor yet.... One of the game breaking bugs I've found is with a character you start out playing with, Kaidan (sp?). Once you get back onto the space ship Normandy you use, there is an option to talk to Kaidan (who's voice sounds like he may or may not be the same voice actor who played Carth Onassi in KoTOR)...When you talk to Kaidan... instead of a dialog box showing up for talking to him, the interface disappears and you are unable to talk to him, or save your game... or exit the conversation unless you reload a game... I'm really wondering how they let this bug get through play testing.... I mean it's not some random NPC that it's buggy with, it's one of your party members you can't talk to! I really hope they patch that ASAP.The story is moving along, but I've been stuck doing side-quests... My philosophy of RPG games is to play every possible side mission the first time I play it.... Because those darn games are too long, I'll probably never have the time to replay them More to come as it happens.

Well, I picked up Mass Effect a couple of days ago for the PC despite all the complaining people were doing about the anti-piracy implementations they had attached to it. Circuit City had it $10 cheaper, so I had Best Buy compare prices and got Reward Zone points for it Got it home, installation took awhile since it's about 10 gigs of game, but overall no trouble. Typical serial key, and it's supposed to have some software built into it to activate it, but once I never even noticed it do anything (which is why people are probably nervous... if it's doing stuff you can't see it doing). Anyway, I don't need the DVD to play, which is always a good thing, and it doesn't even involve cracking it.So as far as all people were worried about, I've had no trouble with it. There is supposedly a 3 time activation limit, but I'm sure they're either going to change that, or someone will crack it.As far as gameplay, I am impressed they've come out with another console release that is well done being ported to the PC... For a couple of years probably starting out around when Deus Ex 2 and Thief: DS came out (deadly shadows, not as in the Nintendo ds ) there had been a string of poorly ported pc games that were originally made for console (resident evil 4 comes to mind).The controls and graphics are very smooth. As with Assassin's Creed, load times aren't very long (as compared to The Witcher). Graphics themselves are very well done, and textures make the people and aliens look as real as can be. The sounds and voice acting are well done, though the main character Commander Shepard sometimes seems a bit dry.There are a lot of cutscenes and dialog scenes to play out the story. There are also a lot of side missions available to help you get XP points. Overall the basic layout of the game and plot is set up like Knights of the Old Republic. The layout of levels is totally similar. You start off on a space ship and have some combat to get you warmed up. Then they put you on a place called "The Citadel" which is equivalent to Talos in kotor. Then once you get through the plot there, you get to go back onto the space ship and fly around to several planets, though I am just at that point and haven't made it past that to see how much freedom we get in terms of flying around. With Kotor, we were limited to I believe 4 planets.... I've heard Mass Effect is much larger. Will report more as I play.Combat is a third person shooter, and not turn-based like Kotor was. If you don't take cover, you'll quickly get taken down if you're not quick enough. Combat skills come with XP points and upgrades. Everytime you level up, you can put in 2 or 3 upgrades in different skill areas, such as Sniper, Charm, Intimidate, etc. Once you unlock a certain amount in 1 area, you can unlock other areas and work on upgrading those talents.There are some mini-game puzzles for hacking, but they're not hard. Hacking into boxes is almost like a game of frogger with a little arrow having to go into the center of a bunch of concentric circles, with little blocks spinning around that will reset the game if you touch them.Overall a very enjoyable experience. I've had some troubles with shadows being jagged, but that was fixed by turning off dynamic shadows.

Well, I just beat the game. They did it again.... As in Crysis... they've already planned it out to be a trilogy, so basically in terms of story, we don't yet have the full picture of what the hell is going on. I hate that. Ever since Half Life 2 went out in episodic format, all these game companies are starting to make games that aren't finished in terms of plot. The problem with this idea though is that the game makers and their publishers rely on the fact that these games are going to be a big hit, and sell a million copies.Meanwhile, if a game is a flop, people who actually beat the game and want to know what happen after are disappointed when the game developers move onto more profitable titles... Similarly, Nickelodeon released seasons 1 and 2 of "The Adventures of Pete and Pete' (a tv show from the mid-90's) and they failed to release the 3rd season because they didn't sell enough of the first two... Meanwhile, people that DID buy it, are screwed. So if Assassin's Creed doesn't sell enough, or if the developers decide to focus on Prince of Persia or something, then we're all left wondering what the hell the point of the game is. I mean they give us the basic plot where the main character in the past is after these guys and we finally realize why later, etc. But the plot taking place in the "present" with our other main character, is unresolved. We know why he was kidnapped but we don't know what it was they are looking for for why he was kidnapped. I mean we see the last memory that the "bad guys" are looking for, but we don't know what it means... Overall, it's a good game, but I hate it when game developers hook us by making us buy a sequel just to find out what we spent $50 on the first game to play. So by making it a trilogy, basically they're forcing us to shell out $150 just to see what happens. (and more for the xbox 360 players forced to pay $60 for the same game).

In the case of restoring old photos, the two best tools for the job are the clone tool, and the healing brush. The clone tool is good for fixing big blotches of solid areas or patterns, while the healing brush can smooth out those little blips or blotches that can occur. (it's also good for removing pimples from portraits).When restoring old photographs, you want to scan them in at a very high resolution, because the more pixels you have to work with, the better. I'd say 300-600 dpi would be good, You can always shrink, but you really loose quality if you try making a smaller picture bigger.Then read up on how to use the healing brush to eliminate scratches and rips and folds. Grayscaling and adjusting the white levels also helps if you need contrast.

Impossible and improbable are two different things. As it stands, time travel is mostly improbable. I've read stuff somewhere stating that with black holes and worm holes and all this crazy stuff yes, time travel into the past is technically "possible" though the energy and conditions in which it would occur are almost not ever going to make it probable. In the mean time, I enjoy thinking up the theory behind time travel, and all the fun stuff that should be done with simulators and whatnot. I was working on an actual time travel simulator, but the data involved in keeping track of all the objects for decades that would be involved would be too great to handle. Especially when dealing with how the program would handle if you accidentally went back and "bumped" yourself, causing a new string of events leading from that moment in the past you altered with your present. I have pages of notebooks set in algorithms that deal with such things, but it's all pseudo-code, I don't have the programing capabilities to put down what I REALLY want it to be doing...

Yeah, it's not for everybody, but you do get more freedom once you get out of the tutorial. It's sort of on the same frame as Star Wars: Jedi Academy, only instead of smashing buttons for lightsabers, you doing it with swords.I've taken a break from the game. I've had too much going on in real life to really sit down and work on it, though the plot is moving along. Every level adds a bit of difficulty. Probably the most fun assassination I had was a merchant locked in a castle. It was really the first time I could sneak around in earnest, and take down patrols and guards up on the guard towers silently. They didn't respawn either, which helped a lot add to the realism. I do wish the assassinations were a bit more stealthy than they are, though. Typically, you hit the target in a public place, such as an execution (as seen in the trailer).What's a bit unbelievable is that once you stab the target, it goes into a long cutscene of a dialog between the main character and the target, with the target explaining the motives behind some stuff, and slowly reveal plot things... Meanwhile, you have the entire town's city guard standing around you (but you don't see them because you're backdropped in pure white) and once you leave the cutscene, the chase ensues, in which you have to escape, hide until they can't find you, and sneak back to the base of that city where the assassin's guild rep is to tell them you did the deed.Overall, pretty fun, but needs to be taken in light doses after awhile.

Ok, couple of things I've figured out.First off, the game is only repetitive if you want to be a completist and work at acheiving everything. Really the only missions you need to do is about 3 recon investigations such as evesdropping, pickpocketing and maybe a fight. Everything else is just extra, and the more you do, the more health you can unlock, which I guess is a good thing because the game is starting to get harder. The fighting isn't bad, though it could use some work. I try changing my focus from one bad guy to another when I'm surrounded, and I end up getting hit in the back with their sword. Ah well. I find that one of the more fun techniques of dispatching baddies is to have them follow you up a roof, and grab them and throw them off As for the glitches that occur during cutscenes, if you press a button, it will change camera angles, and typically show you semi-important things that are happening. For instance, there's a scene that I was in where you're talking to a target, and if you click a button during a glitch, you'll see archers gathering above you, which gives you an advantage of knowing they are there.Now that I'm not trying to unlock EVERYTHING, the game has become a bit more fun, since I'm not doing a whole lot of the same...though now I am sort of blowing through assassinations faster. More as I go through it.

Well I just picked up Assassin's Creed for the the PC yesterday. So far I've gotten though the first major assassination. Here is my review and first impressions.First off, installation went well. When I went to run it for the first time, it automatically downloaded the latest patch, which went well.Started it up, and adjusted the controls to fit my style, since I use the arrows instead of the WASD configuration... and started a new game. Load times aren't bad at all. Graphics: I have a Geforce 8800 GTS 320meg video card, and I had a problem when using the Eagle's Eye feature. Everything would go way too bright. I fixed this by turning off post processing effects, which makes the game slightly less pretty unfortunately.I'm also running Windows XP. I read that using Windows Vista will also fix this error.Sound: Sounds are very well done. Voice acting is top notch.Story: So far, things are very interesting. The story is not technically taking place in the Crusades era. You play as Desmond Miles, kidnapped by two scientists experimenting on you. They put you into a machine that pulls up genetic memories from your ancestors, and they are looking for some memory that they won't tell about... Really cool up to this point.Environments are pretty huge. I've had no lag whatsoever. This game actually was translated well from console onto PC. I've had no trouble with the controls either. Some games I've played like Bioshock had jerky mouse movements. This is fluid and well done.Gameplay takes some getting used to, but overall running around and climbing walls is pretty easy. The first couple of levels are tutorial-based, but done rather well. They make sure to go over all the moves on your first run through the levels so you are comfortable with what you will have to use.As you play, there are different things you can find, such as flags hidden around the world, but I'm not sure if they unlock things or if they're just holdovers from the 360 achievements. That's one thing I always hated about 360 achievements on PC games that were ported... They break the immersion because you suddenly find yourself on a scavenger hunt looking for flags and stuff that don't mean anything or unlock any bonus stuff...The actual side missions are rather repetitive, unfortunately. Saving people from being harassed and pickpocketing get to be boring after awhile. Using stealth is a bit off at best, since it can be unrealistic. You can have a guard chasing you, and you run around a corner and sit on a bench with your hood over your face, he'll run past you, look around if you did it right, and give up the chase as he walks past you, and you can get up and walk around like nothing happened. I'll keep you all posted as I play the game further.I guess during cutscenes, you can move around which is weird, but there are little "glitches" that go off that you're supposed to do things in, but I have yet to try it.

Well, I just got home from a night of Mario Kart Wii, and I just gotta say... wow We were all psyched up about opening it and getting it going, and we were not disappointed.We kicked it off by creating a save file with my friend's Mii character, but for some reason, it won't let us save stats for anyone else while playing on his file, which I am looking into because that sucks. But that's the only downside... here's all the rest...You are started out with 4 cups, with 4 question marks which are left as unlockable, so all in all 4 tracks per cup times 8 cups = 32 tracks. Now, some of these are brand new, and from the ones we saw, are pretty crazy. The cool thing is that they brought back old popular tracks from all the old versions of Mario Kart going as far back as SNES. And they do it WELL. SNES tracks are nearly identical in appearance, and they even have the old music playing...As far as the instruction book, we as men casually tossed it aside, and slowly discovered the new and exciting features of the latest edition of Mario Kart. A lot is similar but they've tweaked a lot and added a bunch. Weapons are mostly different now. There are some that work, and some that do not. They have a lot of throw-back weapons from the old old days, such as a POW, which essentially spins everyone out at once, and references Super Mario 2 and even further back, the original Mario Bros. You really have to keep your eyes open for easter eggs. When you win a cup, you can see 8 bit Mario sprites of him right before it shows you which cup you won. No idea why, but it's fun for nostalgia's sake.Battle mode is much better than the Game cube version because there are lots of levels to play in, and there are options you can fiddle with. Definitely a step in the right direction.Tons of unlockables, we played a couple hours and only managed to get a couple extra cups unlocked.Highly recommended. Nintendo obviously spent a lot of time on this and didn't drop the ball as a lot of other company might have done. A+ for any mario kart fans.

I tried overclocking to get better performance out of Crysis. It worked for awhile, but then I started getting graphical glitches so I just put it back to its default clock speed.I do have a CoolIt Elminiator that really kicks *bottom* for cooling, but unfortunately there are a couple of problems for anyone looking into this particular unit:First off, I got a defective unit that made clicking sounds... So I submitted an request to replace it, and got another one, and the fan is shot. So expect non-perfection.Second, it doesn't fit in my case on the side, because my case has an indentation in it, and makes it so I cannot close my cover to my computer case....But for cooling it gets the job done. I'm running a Core 2 Duo, 3ghz and my idle temp is usually 28C

I haven't played it yet, but hopefully I will later tonight. A friend of mine who is a Mario Kart master ever since the SNES version just got it and I'm waiting for him to call me back I was sort of disappointed in the last gamecube version. I mean gameplay was alright, but I was really disappointed in the multiplayer levels. Some of them were ok, but they weren't as fun to run around in as the n64 multiplayer levels were.I saw some videos of the new Wii version, and I feel like they haven't really done anything to improve the graphics, though when I play it on my friend's HD TV, then I'll be able to write up a full review

Second Life has been a blast. You need to take care exploring, though, because people will get ticked off if you wander into a restricted area. Here's just a bunch of cool screenshots I've taken whist playing that I thought highlighted some of the cooler moments in the game. Enjoy!

Well for better or worse, I'm an official land owner in Second Life. I probably wouldn't have bothered, but there's so much that can be done in here. For roughly $15 a month, I get a nice chunk of land I can do whatever I want with. I'm currently a member of a group, so I'll probably just let them hang out at it. I'll post more pictures of it once I start really building stuff on it. Should be sweet.

In all my experience online, never have I seen as much crazy stuff as I did yesterday in Second Life... I had tried Second Life only one other time, years ago in college. The professor had us sign up to check out our virtual space online and chat and whatnot. Being the geek that I was, I gave it a shot (since it was an optional assignment). Well I can recall exactly what happened, but I ended up having some random dude start screaming at me, and I got booted off. I promptly uninstalled Second Life and forgot all about it. I listen to an online radio show that had a fan following that has created an online spot in Second Life. Well I finally broke down and re-installed Second Life after all this time, and finding that my old account seems to have been deleted, I started up again in earnest. This is my experience... The only online experience I had before that could even compare to the vastness of Second Life was Project Entropia. Other than that, the only time I ever played a game online was with the intention to kill (Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 4, etc). The difference between Second Life, and Project Entropia is that in Second Life, you don't have RPG stats. This means that no one is better than anyone else other than real life experience in the game. It also means that you don't need to sit around grinding for experience points or killing monsters. Second Life is primarily a social networking tool. Like Project Entropia, you can convert real world money into virtual dollars used to buy clothes and items. And, as in any case involving money, you're going to get 3 things.... Advertisements, scams, and sex. Advertisements: People want your money. They have things they will trade you for your money, but you won't know about it unless they tell you about it. Therefore, you are going to be bombarded with ads in the more populated areas of the game. Scams: You're not going to get a lot of this if you're smart, but for newbies wandering around the area, you have to watch what you click on. I clicked on something once, and this is sort of funny actually, I ended up with a gigantic horse head in my inventory that was nearly bigger than one of the nearby tents. There are several things you can do to get "free money" in Second Life, and one of them is "camping." From what I gather, you can earn $1 virtual dollar for doing nothing and sitting in the game world every 15 minutes.... You can earn more by "Filling out Surveys" but what the actual thing is is a giant pyramid scheme to get people to sign up for online offers just like back when you could refer friends to "Win a free iPod." Right now the exchange rate for $1 USD = $267.9 L (Linden dollars is their currency). So sitting around for an hour, you would earn 4 virtual dollars which comes out to around 14 cents an hour or so. Not optimal. So when it comes to getting stuff, I highly recommend that you make friends with a group of people with similar interests as you (and be considerate). And if you're nice and friendly, they will usually hook you up with some cool stuff. Now, the coolest thing about Second Life is that you have the ability to make your own stuff. It will take some planning and you'll need to practice and learn short cut keys, but I made a hat for myself in about 15 minutes on my first try. One problem for new people is the fact that they charge you 10 Linden dollars to upload images as textures, so you really have to make sure that you have it the way you want it when you upload it, and have ways of testing the texture on your computer before you upload it so you aren't throwing away money. Other than that, you really don't need to put any money into the game if you have a group of people you can hang out with. People who pay a monthly fee can have a small parcel of land and they give you linden dollars every month. I played the Matrix online for a couple months and when I quit paying because I got bored from the game, I lost everything. With Second Life, the stuff you make exists even if you quit because it has become part of the game universe. Sort of makes it worth while to actually do things. Now on to the nitpicks I have of this game. First off, this can overwhelm newbies. The interface is complicated and there are tons of keyboard shortcuts you'll need to know. There was even a hidden Advanced menu that I didn't know about till someone helped me unlock it. I first started out looking for that internet radio location I mentioned earlier and ended up wandering into someone's house I thought was empty. The owner came out and thankfully was friendly and helped me out. Note to newbies... Don't go into someone's house if it's not yours. Another big problem is lag. Moving around can be clunky at times due to all the stuff that needs to be downloaded when you are moving around. Textures, geometries, and music can blast you from all angles, so you really need a good computer to get the most out of the game. The graphics can be scaled depending on your system but you really do need a broadband internet connection and a fast computer to play this effectively. Another downside is that there really is no objectives other than to network and meet new people. This may be fine for most people but there are people out there that would be happier running around with assault rifles a la Counterstrike. This game has PG areas, which are supposed to be "Safe" for minors, but really, there are more Mature areas than PG, and you will have to get used to seeing naked women... Since Second Life is created by The People, ("People" meaning Internet gamers, meaning mostly Men) everyone can put whatever they want so long as it is not illegal. Kiddie porn will get you busted. There are women in there, but they are typically only there because their boyfriends or husbands got them into it. And the only way to verify that an avatar is in fact female is by using the Voice system they have. If you want, and have a mic, you can vocally chat with people online, which is a lot better than typing... Emoticons can be thrown out the window when you can hear someone talking. There are guys out there with female avatars, so be warned. It's actually cool in Second Life because you can change your form at any moment.. So you're never stuck with what you made as a newbie. Avatars can be bought, and you can become a dragon, or a hedgehog, or whatever else you want... Which leads me into my next part of the review.... The Bizarre. Yes, insanity is in fact normal in this game. You really get to see a new side of people in Second Life, where there are no rules to what you can be. I just saw a Robotic Samauri Angel yesterday, with tentacles and giant wings... And everybody loved it because it was soo damn cool. There are sex castles, torture chambers, escort services and strip clubs. And that's just the stuff I know about! All your darkest dreams can come true in Second Life. It just goes to show how corrupted we can get as a species. Not all things are bad, though. Just as a coin has two sides, so do we as a species. There are many beautiful areas. Here's just some screenshots I found online giving examples of some of the awesome things that can be done in SL: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ https://www.flickr.com/browser/upgrade/?continue=%2Fphotos%2Fquiplash%2F1339896634%2F http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ In any case, I think I might sign up for a premium account and try it out. It'd be nice to have a virtual place of my own. If you can find a group of people you can hang out with, you're going to have a good time. If you do happen to register and this forum post was helpful, please use me as a referal when signing up. My second life name is "Herbert Brimm"

Well once I beat Single Player, the only time I ever went back was to show my friends a couple of the more dramatic scenes. Multiplayer is definitely numero uno in terms of what you're getting for replay value.Though I was used to Battlefield 2, I'm slowly "seeing the light" when playing COD4. The biggest difference that I like at the moment is the unlockables. Battlefield 2, you only get medals and unlock guns every 20,000 points or whatever it is in the higher ranks... With Call of Duty 4, you actually get more stuff if you perform certain challenges, which is a bit more incentive.I've been experimenting with playing styles, and so far I prefer either sniper with all possible damage turned up, or a stealthy special forces with a silenced M5 and invisible to enemy radar.Of course there are tons of people better than me on a lot of servers, but when you find a server with some people on par with your skills, it can be quite a fun time. One of the cool things is playing on a Snipers Only server on Free For All... You have to actually stop and listen for footsteps over the random shots of gunfire so you can track other players and hope to sneak up on them. Other servers, such as this one with a level super small and super crowded, pump up both frustration and adrenaline. You'll often die as soon as you spawn because of spawn campers, but the level is so small, they usually don't live more than 10 seconds anyway, and then you can hopefully take their place! I got more points in one round of that than I had in about an hour of regular game time. It is frustrating though with one of the "perks" that you can enable that will drop a grenade when you die, essentially killing anyone in the nearby radius of where you died.... It can be quite frustrating to be stuck in a corner, shooting at someone coming at you, and successfully killing them, only to find the little grenade icon pop up indicating that you have exactly 1.78 seconds till you are incapacitated by shrapnel. All in all, a fun time.I found that playing hard core CoD4 and going back to Battlefield 2 that my game actually improved, in that I was more "awake" to my surroundings, always checking my back, and just totally kicking more butt than I had before.It's a good change of pace to switch between the two. Each has their own benefits and drawbacks. The lack of vehicles is a bit disappointing in Cod4, but overall, it doesn't kill the game. The game modes available help make up for that.Games in CoD4 typically last anywhere from 5-15 minutes, as opposed to 30-45 minute rounds in Battlefield 2 (with the larger maps and even teams). The fast pace keeps you on your toes and constantly looking to find the best kit for a level, as some levels are built well for sniping, and others fit well for close quarters combat.Overall, I'd recommend this game for anyone into multiplayer battles, but I'd wait on getting this if you're only interested in Solo campaigns, because theirs is too dang short to be worth $50

Well I picked up Call of Duty 4 on a whim on Sunday since I heard it was a pretty good game, though I had not formally researched reviews and whatnot... I beat the Campaign mode Tuesday, and I would have beaten it sooner if I hadn't gotten stuck on one of the later levels... Here we go: Graphically, the game is beautiful. On par with most games nowadays. The character models are well rendered as seen in this screenshot: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ They use HDR lighting, so if you're going from indoors to outdoors, the light is going to be brighter until your virtual eyes adjust to the light (a la Half Life 2). One thing I am slightly disappointed in is the explosion graphics. They look dated especially when you're getting air-striked in multiplayer. It's like they reverted back to using flat 2d animated sprites of fire and added transparency effects to hide it. But since that's my only qualm with the graphics, it's a moot point.' Sounds are typical war-sounds. Guns sound like guns, nothing really remarkable you can do with em I guess. Voice acting is well done. On my computer, the game seemed to stutter when I moved my mouse, but found that turning on "Mouse Smoothing" fixed this. For all the stuff going on, there was no apparent drop in frame rate. (Specs: Core 2 duo 3ghz, 2 gig ram, 8800 GTS) Gameplay: I'll be speaking of multiplayer in a moment, for now, here's my opinion of the Campaign... I made the mistake of starting in "Hardened Mode" rather than Normal as I probably should have.... The game was a challenge and I got into moments where I couldn't find cover from enemies and kept having to reload from dying multiple times. There's a point where a game needs to be not so hard as to not frustrate the player. There's not a lot of skill involved as it's mostly run forward, shoot bad guys, advance, repeat. Standing in one spot taking out bad guys does not help because they apparently infinitely spawn until you reach triggers throughout the level as you progress. There's a lot of trial and error for some levels, because you have to figure out which direction enemies spawn from so you don't get flanked so easily. The controls aren't as robust as in Battlefield 2... You can't change your rifle to "auto" to "semi-auto" which would help a bit for accuracy. I blame the fact that it was made with consoles in mind, and consoles don't have a lot of buttons Overall it feels better than other console shooters though, especially when I figured out about the mouse smoothing. The story takes place in "modern day" as opposed to WWII as the other games in its franchise (I've only ever played the first CoD). As for actual "story" it isn't really deep. You're after a group of bad guys trying to launch a nuke. Simple. But there are lots of cinematic moments in between, which I refuse to discuss because you need to play it for yourself for the full shock value. Seriously, this game will awe you at some points if you're not expecting it. The ending is somewhat abrupt, but there is closure so I have no complaints. (Unlike Timeshift where you basically run through hell for nothing). At one point in the game, you encounter a "flashback" which takes place 15 years before in which you play a lieutenant of the British SAS with a mission to assassinate the "present day" bad guy (apparently your assassination attempt only rips off his arm, and he lives). I was on the second to hardest setting throughout the game, and though it was hard, I got though no problem... Well at the end of this flash back, you are at the rendezvous point waiting for your ride, and literally something like 20 guys spawn that you need to take care of... Which isn't that bad, considering they give you 30 seconds to plant claymore mines and whatnot... The hard part is when you get another wave of 20 or so guys, in addition to 3 helicopter loads of them coming in from all sides.... and you have no cover. And the little cover you do have, they throw grenades at you like you were a magnet for explosives.... I must have spent 2 hours playing that level over and over again trying to survive till the chopper got there, and would make it about half way before some team came around and blew me up or shot me, or an attack dog tore out my throat... Yea, they have attack dogs you need to worry about. If they jump on you, it will prompt you to push the melee button at the precise time or you die. If you hit it too early, it bites your arm off... if you do it too late, it rips your throat out. It's not as hard as ... say Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles button pushing is though. Anyway, I finally figured out that I could pick the mission separately, start at the beginning, and play in Recruit (ie. No0b mode) and I even THAT was hard due to all the troops. As for Multiplayer, that's a whole different ballgame. Here's where I start comparing it to Battlefield 2... First off, I approached this game as a veteran Battlefield 2 player, so my standards were pretty much set as far as what I thought to expect from Multiplayer, but I was strangely shocked at the result. First off, apparently they don't seem to have a master server in which your stats get saved, which makes me wonder how easily people hacked their game to enable all the specials they can get....Anyway... So I hop onto multiplayer and reset all my controls (because apparently they didn't save over from single player). I check out "Join Server" and there are something like 19,250 servers it was trying to refresh.... So I quickly hit cancel, and looked through the couple thousand or so that came up. Picked one that looked moderately populated with about 17 or so people (I'm used to the 64 player servers BF2 offers, so I figured this would be a bit more personable). Call of Duty 4 offers several modes of gameplay which gives it an advantage over Battlefield 2. With Battlefield 2, you're stuck forever capturing flags... Stationary flags... With Call of Duty 4, they have a mode similar to that, but the "flag" or area you need to capture will move to a different spot every time you capture it successfully. Gives it a more dynamic feeling, but that's also where CoD4 is different is dynamics. With Battlefield 2, you can have a commander UAV the area and give strategic plans on how to go about winning... With Call of Duty 4, it's a freaking free for all, for the most part. Even with teams, the only difference is that there are some people now on the map you're not supposed to shoot. There's no TIME for teamwork because the average life expectancy is somewhere in the 1-2 minute range. If are into Team Fortress and Counterstrike, with fast paced action, and adrenaline up the wazoo, this is that game. If you can kill 3 people in a row without dying, you can call in UAV support for your team... Which amazingly is rather rare, since only spawn campers and bunny hoppers (ie. douchebags) typically live that long. If you kill (I believe it's 6) 6 people in a row, you can call in an attack helicopter... Problem with this is that it's totally computer controlled... Good thing about this is it usually gets you even more kills rather easily and effectively... Which leads me to the fact that the only vehicles in this game are useless props that explode to hit people with splash damage. That's one thing BF2 has over CoD4 is drivable vehicles. On the other hand, enemies appear on your radar whenever they shoot an unsilenced gun, which is handier than BF2... Conversely, BF2 actually shows you which direction the enemy is facing on the map, in Cod4, you only see a red dot. Both have pros and cons. In CoD4, you can shoot a claymore to get rid of it so you don't die... In BF2, claymores are so small and unnoticeable, that you usually don't have the chance to shoot them before you're dead anyway. Claymores are also much more noticeable, with red laser beams shooting off to show which way they're facing. Another difference is the unlockables. In BF2, you unlock special weapons by earning points for flag captures, kills, and team help like medical supply or ammo supply. With COD4, you get points for completing challenges, which adds another dimension BF2 doesn't have... I mean in BF2, you can win medals, but you don't get anything for them. In CoD4, you actually unlock more options like Cammo paint for your guns and silencers and more guns. Levels also come easier, since there are so many of them... According to my stats, I'm logged in at over 152 hours on BF2, and I'm on Gunnery Sergeant which is equivalent to leveling up 7 times... In CoD4, a Gunnery Sergeant is level 17, and I made it there in 2 nights. I'm actually level 19 now. So the pace of leveling up is much much faster (as is the game as a whole). People also have a more realistic amount of damage they can take before they die... ie. It's easier to kill people in CoD4. In Battlefield 2, health is administered through medics or ammo crates... In CoD4, if you survive through a partial fight and your health is low, the screen will beat with red, but your health will return... Which is nice because it just adds to the whole fast pace of the thing. Overall, I'd say give the mutiplayer a chance just because it'll shoot you up with adrenaline. Even though I probably prefer BF2 overall for strategy, CoD4 multiplayer is a fun game all in its own, and raises my personal value in the game, though $49 is probably still a bit more than I'd like to have paid for it. Overall great game: 9/10 Pros: Fast paced. The only time you get to rest is when your computer is loading up the next level. Great graphics. Cons: Hard as hell on higher difficulties that will make you want to put your Desert Eagle in your mouth and blow your brains all over the monitor. Also stay around after the credits, like a good movie, they put in a bonus mission unrelated to the actual story that takes about 1 minute 30 seconds to beat... If you don't, the plane you're in blows up... Happy hunting

Anyone remember the old Lucas Arts adventure games? Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was one of my favorites. I ended up finding an actual 4 edition comic book series based on the game. Maniac Mansion for the NES was another... It was so hard for me as a kid, but I tried it last year and blew through it without any trouble haha. I always used Bernard because I'm such a geek. On the subject of NES... I just tonight found a video on Youtube for the ending of "Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival" That second to last "boss" frustrated me for over a decade. Probably the worst game/boss ever second to Custer's Revenge. The Journeyman Project for PC (circa 1994) was also a fun favorite for the PC. I always was a fan of time travel games, and I wish they'd make more of em. Going back even further, remember when Windows 3.1 came with QBasic installed, and you could program your own games (mostly text based). It came with one game you could compile where you had 2 gorillas on a city skyline, and you typed in your speed of throw, and angle of throw, and you'd hurl bananas at each other, and if you hit the city line, it'd take a chunk out, which was really cool back then hahaha.

Anything is possible...Actually sitting down and doing it is another matter

I picked this game up hoping they'd made a lot of improvements since the 2001 version, but alas, I'm not impressed. I have most of the graphics settings on high or ultra high depending on what makes my computer give me a decent frame rate, but the textures of the ground are all wonky looking if I'm either too high up or too close to the ground. You can go into the world map and set your altitude, and I found that the highest you can go is 100 million feet in the air, which I tried, but the game was rather glitchy but I could see the world below me and that was pretty cool.The one thing that irks me about flight simulators is that you spend all that time on a video game flying around, and you're not really going anywhere... You fly from one side of the country to another.... takes you hours and hours, and you land.... Then you have nothing to do but take off again. I see this new version has missions, but I'm not good enough a pilot for those yet

I had found a tutorial online showing how to convert a picture of a logo into a 3d image, and following that I can see how Blender can be confusing, but it is pretty cool once you figure stuff out. I got more into web development and haven't had a lot of time to working with 3d, but the program is free, and is definitely worth a look at because it seems to be able to do a lot of cool stuff once you figure out how to do it

Similar techniques can be used for photographing lightning. When I first started out in photography, I had no idea how they could manage to capture lightning on camera until my teacher told me that they leave the shutter open until the lightning strikes, which acts as a natural flash and is exposed onto the film. Well duh haha, I hadn't thought of it that way. The biggest problem with capturing lightning is finding a safe place to set to see the stuff without exposing yourself to possible electrocution.