Steam (Wait, what is that?)

Steam. It's an online video game store with access to other players, groups, and more.

Steam was created by Valve, who are the makers of the half life games, to make managing video games easier. When you buy a game, it downloads right away, and the gets put into your library. Your library is the place to view and launch all of your games. Double click, click, click, click, and you are in a game.

You also get the nice community. This is where you can find other players that play the games you play. So, instead of asking everyone at school is they place this one game you have, or asking everyone at work the same question, you go online, click, click, friends to play with.

There are other features that I won't go into, but there is one I would LOVE to share. Sales. Have you ever seen a video game store where the price tag said, "Buy Just Cause 2 for 29.99 this weekend!" or, "Play this game for the weekend FREE!"? Not in a game store, but on steam, sales happen like this ALL THE TIME. DrMadMan was recently able to play Modern Warfare 2 for a weekend for free due to a sale. The sales are also weekly, so you have to keep your eyes peeled.

Join Steam today! Click on the link to join! https://store.steampowered.com/join/

Wesnoth 1.8.0 is OUT!!!

Wesnoth is a great free game available fromhttp://www.wesnoth.org/. It is fun to play, and now works better than ever! Go download it! Really!

Games that go BOOM!

Fire. Humans have sought it out ever since we were created. To this day, we all are still attracted to fire. But not just that. Explosions, e another type of fire, is also something we desire. So much that video games are now working especially hard to make the most out of explosions, breaking stuff, and fire. Here are five games that range in ratings that explosions are definitely present in.

..,,;;::Familly Games::;;,,..

Boomblox

A game made with help from Steven Spielberg, Boomblox is a game where structures of blocks are set before you, and you must destroy them. Sometimes there are explosion blocks that will blow up everything around it. It's awesome to see a large block castle being destroyed.

Rampage: Total Destruction

Rampage was an arcade game where you moved from city to city flattening the buildings. This game was made to be very similar, but overall better, than the arcade game. There are a TON of buildings to destroy and a TON of monsters to do it!

..,,;;::For Teens::;;,,..

Burnout: Revenge

All of the burnouts have pretty awesome explosions and racing, but this one takes the cake. There is a complete mode for causing THE BIGGEST, BADDEST, CAR ACCIDENT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! Yep! You drive into a high traffic zone and BOOM! Explosions, cars flipping, it's all there.

..,,;;::Mature Games::;;,,..

Just Cause 2

This game is famous for one thing. It's this. The objective is do anything you want, and have fun doing it. These game designers were smart, because they know humans love explosions just like I do. They made the explosions SO BIG and AWESOME that you can't resist flying that 747 airplane into a water tower! What about flying a car off a ramp into a military base? OR, maybe the good,ol' "Let's-drive-a-car-at-high-speed-towards-a-gas-station-and-jump-out-before-it-hits-the-pump!"

Battlefield Bad Company 2

This is a first person shooter where anything goes. Quite literally too. Anything can be blown up or shot away. Building can be completely destroyed, sand bags that may have protected that sniper can be removed with some grenades, and cover is always being destroyed. It's always great to have some tank drivers as friends...

And those are my five games that you will LOVE if you are a pyromaniac! See ya next time!

Dear Esther, Why are you so beautiful?

As I walked through the fingernail scarred cliff faces, I thought to myself, "why?" As I crept  through the majestic, magically illuminated caves I thought to myself "Who am I" The answer was simple, I was the unnamed protagonist. My experience was abruptly cut short by the message flashing into appearance along the bottom of the screen. "Frog is now playing Half Life 2: Deathmatch" I was astounded. For the last few minutes I was the unnamed protagonist.I've never experienced such deep immersion before. What caused it? The lack of a HUD? The slow, almost tedious walk across the surreal landscape? The awe inspiring, beautiful voice overs?

Welcome the Half Life 2 mod, Dear Esther. It would be rude to call  Dear Esther  a game, it is one of thechineseroom's numerous projects in first person story telling. The game is, simply, a walk across a landscape. There is no action and basic controls. Movement is limited to walking, crawling or jumping.Trust me on this, you want to walk.  A voice in your head is  constantly speaking to you. The "voice in your head" is your voice, not the protagonist's voice, your voice. The dialog was split up into multiple sections, with one of three pieces  playing when you pass certain landmarks on your long journey. This works surprisingly well, and you  have to challenge your self to put the story together, piece by piece. I am not going to say anything about the story, it will be better for you to find out for yourself. You must download this, really. It will change your  mind on what a first person game can be, and what it is.

Choose what you say 1.5 (LotusEliseGeek)

Another thing to think about is this. You see a civilian and you walk up to him and press "t" for talk. He tells you that neat gems are found in a cave up north, and the conversation ends. No, hello and goodbye.

The only problem I can see with this is that it will need a new system to work with. For example, you you talk politely, goods may decrease in price, and they will increase if you are mean. Also, not every would want to type greetings to NPC's all day. Some preset greetings or some quicklist greetings would help for people wanting to play fast.

I Think I Have an Idea! (Chose What You Say Part 1)

Some of you foke might have played an RPG game once in your life. A lot of RPGs have a single flaw, an emersion breaking flaw. What happens when you walk up to a character and hit “e” or? (or whatever the use button is) A windows appears, someone says something, and you are given three or so  options. This can be extremely emersion breaking and character breaking for obvious reasons. What if you could type down what you wanted your character to say? Instead of saying, “I want to buy something” You could say, “Yo, got some crack”  This would  greatly contribute to your characters personality. I plan on building a simple, short RPG in Python. The RPG will be more of a tech demo than anything, but I plan to build on it later. Right now I’m learning the fantastic language of pygame, and I hope to have a base engine done by the end of the week. In Part 2 I’ll talk about my ideas of how to make this work.

Dwarf Fortress 2010 is Here!

The first major Dwarf Fortress release in 2 years is here! There have beens some major changes, and  I can't give my opinion yet because I haven't played much of it. I did put together a Dwarf Fortress installer executable for those of you that don't like extracting the files to a folder and creating a shortcut. Also packaged is a version of the May Green Dwarf Fortress tile set and (accidentally) a sample save game. You can download it here. Feel free to redistribute it, but link to this post if you do.
EDIT: Files is broken. Working on a new one.

What is a spiritual gift?

What is it? It's a blessing God has given you to glorify him. It's a special ability that you enjoy and can use to spread the gospel.

Some people use gifts in sports. They will play their sport for charities.

Some people are musicians that write music for God.

Some people are artists that can draw out Christ's meaning and story.

Some people are friends, were they can give support to other when in need.

What is your gift?

Internet and Free Infromation

With the rise of the internet we are seeing one thing becoming more and more popular, free information. Back in the 80s and early 90s what did you do when you wanted to know how tall the Empire State building is? You spent $5-$20 on a tourists guide the the Empire State Building or asked a friend. (who usually didn't know) With the rise of the internet things have changed. For a small fee every single month you gain access to an answer to almost every single answer you can think of. All you have to do is Google it, the only price is having to look at a few adds on the side of the page. Yes, the information is not free, you have to pay a monthly fee, but you pay the fee for internet access, not for information.

• Why Information is Better on the Internet.

Information is  better on the internet because it is FREE and, most of the time,  written by people like you, people with a sense of humor. OK, I was joking, information isn't real free, there is a cost. That cost is having to look at an add.Unless you are watching a video are have some mental disorder which causes you to stare at adds for long time spans, adds do not take any of your time, money (unless they convince you to buy something)  or energy. Anyway, in a tangible form of information such as a newspaper or magazine, there's still adds. 

•  If both internet Information and Tangible information have adds why do I pay for tangible information? 

I can think of 2 answers for this question. First, the cost for producing Tangible information is much higher. Unlike Internet information whose only cost is a one time payment for a computer and writer, (both of which you still have to pay for when producing tangible information) you have to pay for printing and shipping, two very large fees. Secondly, tangible information is, well, "tangible." It's much nicer to curl up in bed reading a magazine then it is to curl up in bed browsing a website. Screens haven't been perfected to the point where they are easily readable in the dark and over long periods of time without eyestrain. 

•  Will it always be like this?

No, I don't think so. I think tangible sources of information such as magazines and news papers will die within the next 20 years. E-Readers are on the rise, and with 3Qe (I know I'm spelling that wrong) screens, reading without eyestrain will no longer be a problem. With 3g networks you can look up information with these E-Readers anywhere in the US. I'm eagerly looking forward to these great days of free information that will allow humanity become much smarter.

Road Trip! Family Gaming

This is LotusEliseGeek with this new segment called road trip. Kids, you want parents to play games. Parents, you don't like the games and you don't understand the controls. So, what do we do? We find the middle ground. Fun games, easy controls.

So, you kids may think, "Oh boy, here comes a Wii celebration." No. That's right. I'm finding games for ALL consoles.but lets start with multi console.

Band Hero. This is a music game from the Guitar Hero series. There are four band slots. So a drummer, a bassist, lead guitar, and vocals right? But wait! Oh NO! Your mom wants to sing, and so does your sister! What on earth are you going to do? Not to worry. Band Hero let's ANY combination of people play. So two singers, a bassist, and a drummer? Sure! Go ahead! What is also fun is that Band Hero mixes the songs from oldies to modern hits. This means that a wide age group can hear the songs they listened to when they were kids. One more thing. It's E10+. This means that the music is not ultra cussy and the game is more fit for the family. So, that's it. Let's take a road trip!

Taking a Crazy Drive with LotusEliseGeek: Mod Review

Last time, I reviewed the Unofficial Patch for Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Let's talk about Battlefront Extreme. One word. WOW. Really! This Mod is just another game! Man where do I start!

OK. Let's go with units. BFX adds new units for each faction. How many? FOUR. Four, really awesome units. But that's not all. The units CHANGE for each map. That means that maps have different unique units. Plus, to add even more, the skins for the units change for the map as well! It's really awesome. Wait...... did I say that already?

Gameplay has changed too. Guns are less accurate, and bullets do more damage. There is also weapon style changes and other stuff to complicated to explain.

Fun? YES! Let's just put it this way. If Lucas Arts came out with Battlefront 3 and it was EXACTLY like BFX, I would buy it. Go download it. NOW.

Breen, A Perfect Villan

With the recent death of  Robert Culp, the voice actor who played Wallace Breen in Half Life 2, I decided I would write something as a tribute to this great voice actor. The most obvious thing I could think of was a tribute to Breen, in my opinion one of the most famous villains of video game history.

• What makes Breen a Great and Memorable Villain?
• His Appearance (Which Also has Evolved into A Story About My Hope for Breen)

Take a look at him, doesn't he look really bad[censored]? Most importantly he looks human. He looks like someone you can relate to, a friend. This is one of Half Life's tricks. In the beginning of the game his is a friend, a hero. When you are exposed to the resistance you learn the opposite. Breen is a traitor to humanity, a friend of the enemy. Someone who you previously loved is now someone you should hate. I personally held hope for him unto the end. I loved Breen and I wished that he would break away from the evil combine. It wasn't tell I met him in the Citadel that my hate emerged as a fiery weapon.  I wanted to destroy him.   

• His Voice

I can clearing hear him saying, "Do what is right, Dr. Freeman." In his calm, soothing voice that is laced with deception. Of all video game characters, it is his and Alyx Vance's (another great character) voice I remember. In the beginning of the game that voice was a friend to me. It soothed me in my quest to figure out my purpose. In the citadel I hated that voice. I stopped to listen to it near the terminals so my anger would build. I would then unleash my anger into the terminal, utterly destroying the voice until I came to the next terminal. The voice was the same, yet different at the same time. I could now hear the deceit I had heard when I first came to City 17. 

What did you think about Breen? Was he someone who filled you with hate? Did he trick you in the same way he tricked me? What do you think made him a memorable villain?

Run Jesus!

As the title says, "The Gospel in Ten Seconds." Check it out, it's really cute.
Run, Jesus Run !

Wat I've Been Playing

Sorry about my absence, I've been working on removing the  cow from the office. You may be asking me "ÖMG wat are ye plyin lolololo?" so I will answer this grammatically incorrect question with one word. (2 words really) Torchlight.

"Heavy" Rain

Couldn't help but chuckle when I saw this.

Source

Knife Fight 2.0

Breach, a Multiplayer FPS to be released this summer for about $25, is taking Battlefield Bad Comapny destruction to a whole new level. Unlike BF:BC2, players will be able to destroy everything.

 For the first time, virtual warriors can punch holes through floors to get the drop on enemies below, breach both interior and exterior walls, crush enemy fighters by collapsing ceilings and balconies, and even shoot away individual bricks to create “shooter’s holes.”

My favorite thing about this? Being able destroy floors so I can drop in on unsuspecting  teenagers.

Are Your Shoes Dedicated to God?

I have a good friend (A few readers of the blog may know him) who has these shoes. MY friend (who shall remain nameless) loves these shoes. Don't ask me why, I have no idea why he loves them so. He will act as if he has lost his only son out if his shoes are "misplaced." (read: stolen by some teenagers meaning no harm) If you "scuff his j's" prepare to meet your maker.

As was sitting in church with him on Sunday when I looked at his beloved shoes and saw something inscribed there. Written in black ink on the side of his beloved shoes was "I <3 Jesus."  I was blown away. My friend had loving "ruined" his much loved shoes for the sake of showing his love for Jesus. I knew that in his mind, those shoes were dedicated to Jesus. That made me ask myself, "Am I showing my Love love to Jesus in everything I do and have? Am worshiping God with every single thing I own, whether it is special to me or not? "
 I'll leave you with that. Feel free to comment.

I Made More Changes

I made some more changes to the blog. Blogger recently released a WordPress style template MOOO (Sorry, I have a cow in my office) editor and I just had to mess around with it. Tell me what you think.

Shattered Horizon: What I love, What I hate (Review)

Recently I've been playing a bit of Shattered Horizon. Shattered Horizon, in case you don't know, is a Zero Gravity First Person Shooter set in space.(Where else would it be set?)  I bought it about a months ago when there was the 50% off steam sale after playing a little bit. Let me say this, I loved that game.  I remember waking up in the morning with my driving force being "I want to play Shattered Horizon." Every night for about 2 weeks I would sit down and play Shattered Horizon for m 9-10, enjoying every second of it. After a while it became boring and it went to the back of my "shelf." Recently I picked it back up and began to play again and I now have a new perspective on the game.

I'm a Jesus Freak

Yes, you heard me right. I'm a Jesus freak. There are two reasons I'm saying this. (the number of reasons will probably change by the time I'm finished writing this)

• I want to put this in words

The first reason I'm writing this because I want to put this in words. Later in life I will see this post and say, "Am I still a Jesus Freak?" Loving Jesus is not an easy thing to do. To some of us, he is a person from a story. Other than a few vital links in history we have no tangible evidence that he existed other than the Bible and the work he has done. To some people believing in Jesus is about the same as believing that Beowulf actually fought Grendel.

My point is, I want to stay in touch with Jesus.

• I wan't people to know.

I want people to know that I'm a Jesus freak. I don't wan't people to come to blog and think, "This a very cool blog by some random crazy person." I want them to know that I'm a loyal follower of Jesus. My goal is that when people see my blog they will think, "Hey, look at this awesome Christian. I want what he wants."

If you want more info on this whole "Jesus" thing, head over to My paster's blog. He's a normal guy just like you. (unless you're some superhero)

TL;DR I love Jesus and I want you to love him too.

To those of you who just want games or some other coverage, go read Rock Paper Shotgun.

This post was not proofread in any way, shape, or form.

The Mad Driver: LotusEliseGeek

Hello to all you who are not there! I'm LotusEliseGeek, and I’m doing some mod reviews for DrMadMan here. First, I will be talking about the mods he recommended to me. Let’s start with the Unofficial Star Wars Battlefront II Patch v1.3. This patch is absolutely necessary for any other mods out there, so if you are thinking about downloading one, listen up. This is a generally good mod. It does not tinker with most of the gameplay. The main changes are dealt with the visuals. The hud gets a blue background, and some units are modified. The changes the managaurd so that he has a cape, and the clone commander so he looks like a commander and not a clone marine. Basically, the modifications make the units look more accurate to the movie. My one pet peeve is the imperial officer. His gun is solid black, no texture. Ugh! It’s just so weird to have a solid black gun! Anyway, the mod also works online, which is great. No hassle, just go online and the mod will not affect your playing.

This mod is definitely worth getting, especially if you want other mods. And with that i'm done! I'll come back with Star Wars Battlefront II: Extreme!

I Have a Secret

I'm in the Lego Universe Beta and I can't tell you what I've seen. (stupid secrecy policy) Let me say this, it's pretty good. This MMO will be around for a long time.

I Would Like To Welcome.....

Lotus!! Lotus will now be helping me on my unread blog! Lotus is pretty, but not as awesome as me. You might have met him in the Gamespot forums or in a game or two as "MobiusBlaze" "Mobius546" or "LotusEliseGeek" He is an avid The Battle for Wesnoth and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 player. He pretty much completely stinks at anything he plays so don't worry if you meet him online. He doesn't exactly meet the "mad" criteria but I let him in anyway.

I Made Some Changes

As you can see, (unless you are blind) I have made some aesthetic changes. Using Gimp I took the cloth like pattern out of the header and replaced it with a dark concrete. I think the concrete fits the the of t he blog more. Thankfully, the only editing I had to make in the code was the replacement of a the paths to the new images. Right now all the images are hosted on Dropbox. I have some of my own server space but I want to wait until I switch my blog over to a custom URL before using the server space. I still have to finish with the bottom of the page and make a nicer logo.

Pardon My Cleaning

I'l working on changing the look of the blog so if the theme is half cloth half concrete don't freak out..

Twitter: A Micro Blog or a Social Network?

Hey all ye none existent readers? I have a question for you. Do you think Twitter is a micro blogging service or a social network. I have heard many people call twitter a social network, but I don't see much socializing. Yes, there is some, but twitter isn't built that way. Unlike Facebook (which I think is the purest form of social networking,) it is very hard to comment on other people's "posts" Yes it can be done, but I think the feature is still somewhat clumsy; You can leave a comment for a specific person, but you can't comment directly on another post. I personnel think Twitter mostly a hybrid, but in essence it is built as a micro blog.

Python is for Awesome People (read:nerds)

To those of my non-existent readers, If you came here to read about video Games don't read this post. I have recently been learning python and today, this very special day, I wrote my own, completely original program! The program does one very simple function, converts any number from any base system , (except for binary) into decimal! It took me around 6 hours to do, but the joy at completion was worth it.

I still have some work to do. I need to add a GUI (I have no idea how to do this but I'm learning,) and make it stop displaying the number as a list (A very simple task). Here's a link to the code for those who are interested. http://pastebin.com/Gkg1RuPq

Wot I’m Playing

Before any of you non-existent readers say that I stole the title idea from RPS, (An awesome blog by the way. I would recommend reading it if you like PC games) I know I stole it. So, back to the subject, I like lists so I’m going to make a list.

Games I have been playing.

• Dwarf Fortress What can I say, this game is amazing, To all of you who don’t want to play because it looks too complicated, It’s more complicated than it looks. Now do you want to play? I was looking for something interesting to play on my old 1 Ghz laptop and I had previously heard of this. It played beautifully on my laptop. I booted the game and was met with the “Generate a World” menu. I was immediately confused to say the least. I then proceeded to search the web for, as I like to call them, “Tuts.” I clicked on the first result that appeared and met this site. After reading a bit I printed out the Tut on my non recyclable paper. [Following has been censored because it may upset ecologists] The Tut proved to be immensely helpful. If you are looking into DF I recommend checking it out. (thanks!) After following the rather extensive tutorial, I began work on a fortress of my own design. It was a lovely (and very addicting) experience. I’ll post more on DF later, I just touched the surface with this post)
• Defcon (Spoiler: Everyone dies) Thanks to T-Bag-T (What a weird user name) I now own a copy of this interesting game. For a game whose color scheme is green and black it is surprisingly sad. I felt a ping of sadness every time one of my devastating nukes hit a city. You want to cry as the message “Leningrad Hit, 2.2 Million dead” flashes onto the screen. I haven’t got around to playing online yet, I played a game or two against the AI and was completely decimated. Knowing from past experiences that, “If you suck against AI, don’t show your face online,” I decided to stay away a little longer. I might post a few short battle summaries/screen shots later if you beg me.

I’ve been playing a bit more but can't talk about it now. First person to comment gets a copy of Crayon Physics Deluxe.

Essential (sorta) list of mods for Star Wars Battlefront 2

My friend wanted this list, so, here we go.

Essential (sorta) list of mods for Star Wars Battlefront 2

1. Unofficial Star Wars Battlefront II v1.3 Patch If you are getting ANY other mods you will most likely need this patch. The full version includes a Kotor faction, but it is not entirely necessary. If you want the BF2 conversion pack or the Dark Times , install the lite version.
2. Battlefront Extreme (2.2) This mod is NEEDED it adds a whole slew of ships, maps, and units. This mods is worth it. You must have the v1.3 patch to install.
3. Star Wars Battlefront Conversion Pack Patch (2.2) If you liked the original Battlefront you will love this patch. It adds almost all the units and maps from the original game, yes, you read that right, Spaceships on land maps!
4. The Dark Times Last (and least) the Dark Times Mod. This mod adds a new faction and a few (I think) new maps. The strong point in this are the heroes. If you like playing with heroes this mod is for you. It expands upon the original force powers and adds quite a few new force powers. It also greatly improves the hand to hand combat.

Hey!

This is my first post! (yay)

I hope that this will turn into a place for me to publish my thoughts and rant about video games. So… Ya.

First post!