Guild Wars Halloween 2010 Festivities

Hi all!  Just a quick set of snapshots from the Halloween Festivities from Guild Wars this year.  Check them out:
Location: Lion's Arch

Me with a Bone Dragon	Chillin' with a Necrid Horseman
A sweet Ghost Ship in the Harbor

Location: Kamadan

It wasn't me!  LOL	Good times!

Location: Droknar's Forge

Was that a ghost?	Another Necrid Horseman
A cool, spooky skull.

Come out and join us.  The Mad HKing shows up shortly and will be giving out the Festival Hats!  Look for some screen caps of this year's hats within the next few hours. 


 Happy Halloween!

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This Week in The News: Jax Returns!, F2P MMO Halloween Fun, Tribes Returns to Us, Champions Online to go F2P, and more!

There has been a lot of news, rumors, and buzz flying around this week in the Tech/Game world. First up:

-We have 2 returns to look forward to in the near future. The first is Jax. That's right, the guy with metal arms from the Mortal Kombat series. It has been confirmed that we will see him in the next incarnation of Mortal Kombat video game. So look forward to brute-martial arts-goodness. source

The second is Tribes. Remember, that was the awesome FPS that gave us jetpacks to zip around the level on. Well, looks as though Hi-Rez Studios is looking to make a MMOFPS. And you guessed it, Hi-Rez is the same studio that brought the world 'Global Agenda'. So, it is indeed a small world after all. source: Tribes Universe

-Over at Massively.com there is a good article highlighting which F2P (free-to-play) MMO games have unique in-game events running this weekend for Halloween.  Games in the list include 'Flyff', 'Alganon', 'Zentia', 'Freejack', and 'Wizard 101' to name a few.  So if you're looking for a different, cheap, and fun way to spend some time this Halloween weekend; checkout their list. source

-Another big headline this week in the gaming world is a move to the free 2 play model by Cryptic.  Looks as though next year their title 'Champions Online' will be making the jump from subscription only to F2P.  With the move to a new business model for the game, Cryptic is also making it a little easier for newbies to pickout a character spec via their 'Archetype' systems.  Personally, that was one of my favorite parts of the game was picking abilities during character creation.  It will be interesting to see what changes will be made in-game once it goes F2P.

-On a serious note, a mom in Jacksonville, Florida has pleaded guilty to killing her baby by shaking due to the child interfering with her game of Farmville.  Checkout the full story at: http://www.indyposted.com/121340/mother-kills-baby-for-crying-interrupting-farmville/

Until next week, happy surfing.

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Movie Trailer: 'The Warrior's Way'

Ok, apparently today is 'anticipated-movie-trailer-awareness-Friday' on the TechieSmarts Blog. So in the spirit of watching trailers for movies that just look cool; here is the trailer for 'The Warrior's Way'. About halfway through the trailer is becomes very apparent that we will get to see a showdown between cowboys and ninjas! Who can resist that?

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Another Trailer for 'Skyline'

Personally, I am really excited to see this movie.  Simply for the special effects.  I am a sucker for movies with large monsters, robots, or aliens.  And this one has huge aliens and rather large spaceships (lots of them).  So, can't wait for this one.  Check out this trailer:





Happy surfing!

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Sintel an Open Source Movie Awesomeness!

Hi everybody, if you have been following this blog at all; then you will know first hand that I am a huge fan/proponent/advocate for open source software.  I also like art, drawing, painting, and animation stuff in my other spare time. :)  So this recommendation is right up my alley.

If you have never heard of Blender, you should get to know the name.  You may be seeing it more and to show off it's capabilities the Durian Open Movie Project created "Sintel".  It is an outstanding project that's primary goal was to create a film created using Blender.  It is a great short film and took a lot of effort from these talented folks, so do yourself a favor and check it out on YouTube.  You can also download it, and soon buy a 4 disk DVD set.   Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ

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Weekly Tech News: Microsoft wants to sell us Games, AT&T is learning, and more!

To be honest, I have been pretty slack this week in keeping up with the news.  So, in advance I apologize.

-Microsoft wants to sell us Games...Online
Well, looks like Microsoft still has plans to grow their online commerce presence by opening selling games via the Games for Windows Marketplace.  This site has in fact been around for a while, but in a state of choas.  Personally, I have yet to buy any software from Microsoft online.  I have purchased titles via Xbox Live for my Xbox 360, which all in all works pretty well.

This following line is for Microsoft: why are you reinventing the wheel?  We already have digital distribution sites that specialize in selling PC games.  For example: Direct2Drive, sites like GoG.com (Good Old Games), and Steam (except Steam requires a standalone client be installed).  These sites are successful, in part because they specialize only in gaming.  They aren't also selling Office, Windows, or various other Windows products.  Personally, I wish them the best of luck.  But unless they are willing to deliver an experience similar to Steam or the ease of use when purchasing via Direct2Drive, I'll probably stick with the services I use and trust.  Once again, Microsoft seems to be on a path of conquest.
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/22/businessinsider-microsoft-to-sell-windows-games-online-2010-10.DTL




-AT&T is learning...How to cope beyond the iPhone.
What does this mean?  Simple, since the launch of the iPhone, AT&T has pretty much had it made.  Due to the exclusivity of the iPhone from AT&T, if you wanted one (unless it was jailbroken and unlocked) you had to use AT&T service.  With all of the buzz over the last couple of weeks, and the future of iPhone a jump to Verizon in 2011; what will become of AT&T?  What is their new 'trump card'?  What phone will they be able to offer that can compete with the iPhone? 

Apparently, they are bringing in Windows Phone 7 compatible handsets and Android based phones to try to offset the 'hardware shock' they will probably experience.  In my area, I have heard more than one iPhone user complain about their AT&T service.  How will AT&T fair if these user's jump ship to Verizon, and decide not to part with their beloved iPhone?  Let's face it, people use the devices they care about.  And they aren't always willing to make a move to another device; especially once they learn to use what they currently have.

I was able to break my wife of her Blackberry about a month and a half ago.  She adored her Blackberry, and she was looking for a new phone (since we could upgrade hardware).  She played with Sprints HTC Evo and absolutely fell in love.  This isn't always the case with people.  She was open for a change, AT&T better pull off some magic, because at least around my town the only reason to have AT&T cell coverage is for iPhone use.


In other quick news for the the December issue of PC Gamer hit, and it covers a huge section on Guild Wars 2.  So, until next week.  Happy surfing!

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This Week In Tech News: Videogame Stocks are Down, Teen Text Messaging, Free Angry Birds, and More!

This week in Tech News we have several interesting topics, so here we go.

- Videogame Stocks Are Down.  But Halo is freakin' breaking the bank!
During the month of September, console game sales dropped about 6% when compared to September 2009.  This was reported in the The Wall Street Journal.  Does this mean sales are going to be crap for the holiday season, which is no doubt the biggest time of the year for videogame manufactures?  Who knows, I doubt that the sales for Christmas will drop that much.  In my opinion, they will probably see a spike in purchases in games that are already on the street like 'Halo: Reach'.  Which leads me onto another topic, what is it about the 'Halo' franchise that basically turns all it touches into gold?  Halo is synonymous with the Xbox 360 in much the same way as 'World of Warcraft' is synonymous with the term 'MMO'.  Is Halo that big?  No definitely not, but considering it is a console, first-person-shooter.  It's doing extremely well.  And the hype leading up to 'Reach' was no small endeavor.   Does the game look good?  Oh yeah, it looks great.  Have I played it?  Nope, and probably won't.  Why?  Too much hype for my taste.  But it is interesting that with the console game industry worrying about stocks, 'Halo: Reach' is riding the cash cow to the bank with $3.3million sold so far (and counting) in the U.S. alone.  Something to think about anyways.

-Teen Text Messaging: that's a lot of non-verbal communication!
Text messaging has been around for years.  But suddenly there seems to be this huge wave of people hit the 'texting trend'.  Which for one, I don't understand.  Why?  Most of the texters are using something similar to a 'smart-phone' which has email access.  Why not send a longer message with less bounce backs between the two parties involved and make life easier?  Then again, I don't text either.  Nielson conducted a survey with 3,000 teens and compared with approximately 60,000 cell phone bills (that's a lot of bills).  And averaged out that the 'average' American teenager sends approximately 3,339 text messages a month.  That's a crap load of text data out the floating around the cell providers networks.  Now, if only they'd put that much attention into spelling right, and working on their education; we could raise a brighter tomorrow.  :)
source

-Those birds are freely Angry!
For those of you lucky Android users (which I personally adore the Android), rejoice!  For the 'Angry Birds' are free for you!  'Angry Birds' is the best selling title from Rovio Mobile which has sent raging success with this title on the Apple App Store.  Now they are spreading the love with the non-iOS users.  The app currently costs $.99 cents on the Apple App Store.  It is availabe on the Getjar.com site, and will also be available on the Android Marketplace.  Let's just say that they came is popular enough for Rovio's website to go belly-up when they released it for free.  Just sayin'.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/1015/Angry-Birds-available-on-Android-for-free-crashes-company-s-website

Other notable things from the week: Skype and Facebook are in bed together, ArenaNet goes live with the 'Hall of Monuments' calculator for Guild Wars fans at: http://hom.guildwars2.com/#page=welcome; oh yeah, and Windows Phone 7 is out too, anyways.  Have a great weekend!

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Mobile Game Review: Zombies Ate My Baby for iPod Touch/iPhone

Since Halloween is just a couple of weeks away, I thought it was only suiting that I review a few Halloween themed games.  This weeks review is for 'Zombies Ate My Baby' for the iPhone/iPod Touch.  I know, the title sounds kind of bad, but it isn't quite what you're thinking.  The premise is, a girl and her boyfriend were on a date, and her boyfriend gets killed by a zombie while trying to protect her.  So, she kills the zombie and to her surprise, she finds that killing zombies is kind of fun.  So she sets out for revenge against the undead.

Controls:
The controls are pretty simple, basically the player character stands in the middle of the screen and pivots to aim in any direction around the screen.  You can control the character via taps on the screen or via tilt.  I was using the touch method to play.  And it plays pretty good.  Zombies approach from all sides/corners of the screen and simply tap on them to shoot them.  You'll end up fighting through about 20 waves of zombie attacks.  Meanwhile; guns, grenades, and health packs will spawn on the screen to help you out as you play.  The levels go by pretty fast, and at times the action on the screen can be flat out hectic.  But it never ceases to be fun.

Graphics:
The graphics are presented in a cartoon style.  The story progresses between levels by way of a comic strip; which is short, but conveys the story in a fun way.

Other Features:
The game features everything you'd expect from fun, yet simple gameplay to even offering achievements via OpenFeint.  As you play, you will of course unlock achievements.  Even if you aren't trying for achievements.  You're eventually going to see the achievement pop-up on-screen.  And you can post your achievement to Facebook at that time is you so choose.

The achievements are pretty neat as well.  I was able to unlock the 'Berserker' achievement by killing 499 Zombies, 'Straight to Hell' by taking 299 points of damage, 'Rambo' by firing 999 bullets, and 'Nurse' by healing 299 wounds.  All of these wear achieved within just a couple of levels.  Once you unlock the achievement, you can later access the Trophy screen from the main menu to see them listed.

Boss fights are pretty simple, but often challenging.  The first boss fight is against a zombie-soldier.  He will pace up and down the left end of the screen and toss grenades at you.  Meanwhile, you are on the right edge of the screen using a baseball bat to smack them back at him.  Once he is defeated you get to save a cool picture that can be used as a unlock screen wallpaper later.

Final thoughts:
This game is a fun way to kill a few minutes.  With the twitch based gaming it offers, I can't see myself spending extended periods of time playing this title.  But for a satisfying burst of quick game time, it will more than suffice.  At 99 cents from the App Store, this title is a definitely download for some instant fun.

Zombies Ate My Baby from the Apple App Store
Requires iOS 3.0 or later and it compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

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Making the jump to 'Maverick Meerkat'

Like so many others, I too downloaded the newest Ubuntu release version:10.10. Which happened to release on October 10, 2010. I did a fresh install today (over my existing 10.04.1 partition). From first glance, I honestly could't tell that much of a difference from 0.04. LTS). Sure, the new wallpaper looked nice. But the overall experience was still pretty much the same. Nothing seemed to be lost or gained in the new version of the Live CD.

Then, I launched the installer. And to my surprise, I was looking at a new install wizard. It had a few checkmarks denoting that my system had adequate free hard drive space, memory, and an Internet connection. Then I stepped through the somewhat simplified wizard and was underway with installing a lot quicker than I had remembered the process being. One of the big differences I saw were 2 new options before committing to the install.
1- Download updates during install.
2- the option to install 3rd party codecs like MP3 support during install.

I took both of the options for experimentation sake. And they worked flawlessly. My next steps were to download the restricted driver for my nVidia graphics card, run the Update Wizard (which came back as updated), and try out Gwibber. I was one of the many who were affected with Gwibber issues in 10.04.1 LTS. It just wouldn't function right (or at all in some cases).

For those who haven't used it, Gwibber is a social networking app that aggregates status updates from sites like Faceboook and Twitter (and several others). I setup my Twitter account with no issues. But the Facebook setup still wouldn't work. But no worries, Empathy picks up some of the slack; allowing access to Facebook chat instead of logging in only on the website. My next moves were to install some of the other apps I like to use (like Gimp and OpenShot). Which installed fine. I also setup Compiz with my desired effects, and downloaded Ubuntu Tweak (which I will have a review on very shortly).

After installing the Chrome web browser and downloading some custom wallpapers, and installing Docky to replace the bottom GNOME panel; I was once again happy with the way my Ubuntu install looks and feels. Cannonical has once again brought the world another great version of Ubuntu with many more features under the hood that I can't wait to try out.

By the way, a review will be showing up soon about the Ubuntu One features. And hopefully, I can find a way to replace my iTunes music shopping habits with the Ubuntu One music store that is integrated with RhythmBox. To my dismay, all of the songs I have purchased in the last week from iTunes for 99 cents, are on the Ubuntu music store for just 77 cents. What can I say, I'm cheap. LOL

Happy surfing!

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