7 Days A Skeptic - Quick Comments

Heya everyone, I watched my brother play 7 Days A Skeptic a year or two ago give or take and decided to try it myself. I watched him play each game in the series, most of the others were bits and pieces. Regardless, I started to play it about an hour and a half ago and beat it minutes ago. Definitely a scary game and without a doubt I would recommend downloading it. It's only 6 MB and I'm sure you can run it. Certain moments will have you on the edge as you won't know what to do or won't expect certain things. You don't need to play earlier games in the series to play this one, but if you do you may appreciate certain things a bit more or recognize a thing or two. Going to go play the next one of the series Trilby's Notes, if I recall from my brother playing it, it was a lot scarier than this. I recall seeing walls with blood writing on them and hearing creepy whispering in the background. Anyway, I'd give 7 Days A Skeptic a shot. 

Crysis 2’s Engine Will be Training American Soldiers

Crytek's CryEngine 3 technology, which you'd know if you've played Crysis 2, is going to be used in a US Army training simulation to teach soldiers how to fight and endure various conditions in the field. It's a $57 million project, lets hope it's good. The program is called Dismounted Soldier Training System as you can see in the above video. The DSTS isn't just a simple console game or PC game simulator, but rather a complete experience to truly test your skills. Soldiers will have a vest and helmet for cameras and sensors along with a 10x10 foot pad for of course more sensors. A camera strapped to the soldier's helmet shows the virtual simulation up close. Along with the various conditions in the field, soldiers will also be able to simulate vehicle and aircraft control.

Gears of War 3 World Premiere Trailer

Mount & Blade Screenies

Here comes the cavalry!

That's right, I took a city alone, not really, but that'd be cool.

Everyone has joined the battle on your side, profit.

Haven and Hearth - Screenies!

Everyone has to start out somewhere.

Keep working toward it and you might make some progress.

This would be the inside of the Log Cabin.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Trailer + Trailer Revealed

Trailer!

Reveal Trailer!

APB Quick Comments

Played All Points Bulletin for several hours yesterday after that Spiral Knights post. I went with the criminal role as I wanted to be one and my brother used to play one. So we'll probably team up there. I noticed maybe a few quick lag spikes where it like clipped, but I also played for like five hours. Maybe a bit less, but it was a while. Driving is interesting, but I'm only like average at it, definitely more of a gunner sorta guy. The grouping system is very nice, even if you're not looking to stick with a certain group. Just by pressing "K' you're right into a mission within seconds either doing a solo mission to spray paint some walls, maybe a hardcore 3v3 capture the checkpoint mission, and more. Each mission usually has 3 - 7 things to do in them, which can vary. Being as the world is a nice size, wherever you are they try to set you up with a mission closest to you which is nice. As the game is in third person, you can go up against a wall and try to look over it or around it, which obviously isn't realistic, but can make things interesting. It can benefit you and make you more aware. For a certain mission I was doing to hold a checkpoint, I kept hiding behind a pillar and peeking out with the camera watching this guy run over to the checkpoint every time then jumped out and scared him =P Usually he'd run right past me toward the checkpoint and I'd shoot up his back. A couple times he realized to look there and I'd just go around to other sides of the pillar as he'd look and still get him =P But I mean you just have to keep moving around when defending a location, you can surprise the enemy every time when they think you're still in the same spot. On that mission I moved like every time I killed the guy and got 12 kills in a row. The 3v3 or 4v4 missions are definitely crazy even though it doesn't seem that big. I love when most of my team and the other team have a big crossfire, then I'll run around the side and flank two or three guys usually. Oh and by the way I mentioned in my last post about APB about weapons not being permanent. I've noticed some weapons/equipment/cars are permanent while others can be bought cheap for a certain amount of time. Most cars are permanent from what I saw quick. I haven't really gone through the weapons a lot yet as I'm not the right ranks to get new stuff yet, but when I'm there I'll give you guys a heads up. Not sure if I'll be able to do videos of APB, but I'll have to see what happens. Screenshots are a definite.

- Thanks for reading guys.

Minecraft 1.6 Patch to Come:

1.6:

+ Added Nether support to multiplayer
+ Added craftable maps
+ Added hatches
+ Added tall grass in some biomes
+ Mushrooms now spreads (very) slowly
+ Added server property view-distance. Sets the radius of terrain updates (in chunks) to send to the players. Range 3-15, default 10.

* It’s no longer possible to build solid blocks on the top layer of the maps (sorry!)
* Players stuck in walls will slide towards the nearest gap if there is one
* Made booster tracks speedier
* Severely nerfed fire so it spread slower, and doesn’t spread infinitely
* Seeds are now found in tall grass, using a hoe on the ground no longer works
* Blocks destroyed by other players in multiplayer now shows the breaking block particle effect
* Activated dispensers make sounds and trigger particles in multiplayer
* Doors make sound for other players in multiplayer
* The record player now supports more than 15 different songs

* Fixed running out of memory corrupting the current level
* Fixed the side textures of grass getting extra dark when mining them
* Fixed anaglyph 3d rendering mode having severe visual bugs
* Fixed the crash screen vanishing immediately
* Fixed not being able to target blocks when at x or z pos 1000
* Fixed the achievements screen messing up the sky color
* Fixed saving while sneaking dropping the player through the ground
* Fixed a system clock change messing up the game speed
* Fixed rain sounds not playing with fast graphics enabled
* Fixed hair and cloaks being rendered in the wrong locations on sneaking players
* Fixed the attack/swing animation not being applied to the armor layer
* Fixed player rotation not being loaded correctly when loading a saved game
* Fixed arrow physics, making them not get stuck midair when you open a door
* Fixed arrows hitting reeds, portals, and other non-solid blocks
* Fixed keybindings not getting saved properly under certain conditions
* Fixed the player not being able to sneak off lowered blocks like cacti
* Fixed a bug where the player could mine without swinging their arm
* Fixed boats placed on snow being placed too far up
* Fixed submerged boats rising very very fast 
* Fixed sand dropping onto boats getting stuck in a falling animation
* Fixed a game crash when riding a vehicle or animal into the nether
* Fixed falling while riding not dealing damage to the rider
* Fixed buttons and levers too close to the player being impossible to use
* Fixed dispensers shooting through walls
* Fixed fire hurting through wall corners
* Fixed entities reaching water through wall corners
* Fixed placing doors next to cacti creating half-doors
* Fixed buttons and levers being placeable on leaves in “fast graphics” mode
* Fixed furnaces and dispensers not dropping their contents when destroyed
* Fixed dispensers biasing later slots
* Fixed farmland taking too long to dig
* Fixed tilling below some blocks being possible
* Fixed tilling the underside of blocks somehow working
* Fixed fences and stairs sometimes becoming invisible
* Fixed walking on top of fences not producing step sounds
* Fixed fire sometimes existing mid-air as an invisible block of pain
* Fixed fences and wooden stairs not being flammable
* Fixed fire effect on burning entities sometimes getting rendered in the wrong location
* Fixed fishing rod rendering being a bit lacking
* Fixed fishing rods being stackable
* Fixed mining glass hiding the clouds behind the glass
* Fixed rain falling through liquids
* Fixed items in glass blocks not getting ejected properly
* Fixed water interacting strangely with glass
* Fixed glass not blocking rain sound
* Fixed fences and signs preventing grass from growing
* Fixed rain and snow being incorrectly lit
* Fixed grass staying alive below stair blocks
* Fixed the achievement screen not pausing the game
* Fixed some screens breaking the sky tint color
* Fixed fullscreen mode switching causing mouse issues and screen closes
* Fixed chat messages surviving through game switches
* Fixed ice so it regenerates regardless of whether it’s snowing or not
* Fixed rain falling too slowly
* Fixed levers being placeable on weird locations
* Fixed floor levers sometimes not delivering a signal downwards
* Fixed floor levers sometimes not being removed when the floor is removed
* Fixed rail tiles sometimes not properly connecting to a new neighbor
* Fixed minecarts next to each other causing extreme velocities (sorry!)
* Fixed wolves not following their owner if the name has different caps
* Fixed creepers retaining charge level when they can’t see their target
* Fixed dying in the nether spawning new portals
* “Fixed” beds in the nether
* Fixed inventory acting weird when portaling by making the portal close all screens
* Fixed wooden pressure plates being mined with pickaxes
* Fixed redstone repeaters having the wrong particles
* Fixed saplings being plantable through snow onto non-grass blocks
* Fixed ore density varying per quadrant from the center of the world
* Fixed dispenser graphics being one pixel off. ONE PIXEL!!!
* Fixed mushrooms spawning everywhere during nights
* Fixed animals only spawning near light during the night
* Fixed the multiplayer join screen input field being too short
* Fixed IPv6 addresses being parsed wrongly. To connect to a specific port in IPv6, use the format [1234:567::1]:25565
* Fixed network packets being sent unbuffered, causing huge amounts of packets being sent
* Fixed entity positions going out of synch sometimes. They get re-synched every 20 seconds now.
* Fixed inventory icons not animating after being picked up in multiplayer
* Fixed mushroom soup not leaving a bowl in multiplayer
* Fixed entities above the map height limit becoming invisible
* Fixed healing not flashing the health bar in multiplayer
* Fixed arrows being animated really strangely in multiplayer
* Fixed arrows triggering too many entity move updates in multiplayer
* Fixed the compass not pointing at the spawn location in multiplayer
* Fixed fires being impossible to put out in multiplayer
* Fixed record players spawning client-side fake records in multiplayer
* Fixed records not playing for other players in multiplayer
* Fixed players spawning in the wrong location and quickly lerping to the correct location
* Fixed monsters not being visible for players with their difficulty set to peaceful
* Fixed pigs getting hit by lightning in multiplayer spawning client-side zombie pigmen
* Fixed loads of exploding tnt generating way too many particles, possibly crashing the client
* Fixed bonemeal use in multiplayer sometimes spawning fake client-side trees
* Fixed saplings sometimes spawning trees client-side in multiplayer
* Fixed weather sometimes changing client-side in multiplayer
* Fixed grasscolor.png and foliagecolor.png not being read from texture packs
* Fixed stats getting saved to different files in offline mode if the caps in the player name differ from the true spelling

Spiral Knights - Comments

Heya, making some comments as I go through the game below:

- The character customization is a bit small, but typical. It doesn't give you the choice as to male or female, but after running through the three helmets you can have, one is male, one is female, and the other is either male or neither.
- Then you have a selection of three different types of armor, some a bit weird, but I decided to go with 2.
- Multiple "Design" selections, which basically color your armor as a set and there are seven of. Chose 6.
- They have a small color bar you can drag back and forth on in order to customize your characters eyes and whatever else wasn't affect by the design color.
- Choose your name, no numbers. Awh, Snakester is taken, Snakesta it is.
- Definitely a nice jump into the game tutorial that isn't boring that you'll want to skip right away. The game definitely seems smooth so far. And once you jump into the game they throw you into a quest/mission with a small plot it seems.
- The pistol in the tutorial is a lot weaker than the sword.
- After completing the tutorial it seems like the missions coming up are like instance based.
- Finding NPC's in the Rescue Camp isn't exactly the easiest, could probably be ways to make them stand out more. Just noticed the traveling merchant, he definitely stands out once you see them. =P
- Just did the Abandoned Depot and I'm not sure if the money/crowns are split or what. But it seems like it's more so whoever gets to it first, gets the money. If that's the case, then I'd be disappointed. I joined up with my first party and said hey, but no reply. So for my first group, no talking, but I mean I wouldn't expect a lot as you're usually doing stuff. Unless you were stuck at a part or something. But a nice greeting is good usually. Looks like I pulled in 282 crowns off that though.
- Looks like "Energy" is the currency you have to spend real money for. Curious if they have a system like with the doubloon oceans in Puzzle Pirates. I was able to make a crew, get badges, and ships without spending a cent.
- Seems like you can level up your equipment just by playing through the instances which then makes it stronger. I believe it starts out with a solid amount, the amount it currently has in damage, defense, etc. But it also may have a bit of an extension of the bar, but it's like faded. I'm going to assume as you level up your equipment, you slowly get that.
- Got a random friend request and accepted it. Sounds like Puzzle Pirates already with getting a thousand random hearty requests.
- Creating a team can be easier than joining one sometimes. They do fill up quick for sure.
- The cross the chasm to get to the Haven quest is really easy, so don't get scared or anything. I talked to the npc and they acted like it was really tough when it isn't.
- First thing I noticed when getting here was the trade channel we all love in various games.

Checking out Spiral Knights

Spiral Knights is made by Sega and Three Rings which caught my attention. I'll admit to having played Puzzle Pirates; made by Three Rings. It may be a game for little kids, but it was actually pretty fun. So I think I'll give this game a shot, the way the robots look makes me think of an older robot dungeon crawler game I played called Bots. It shutdown, but still was a decent-ish game. Anyway, Spiral Knights looks like an adventure mmorpg. It's very focused on cooperating and interacting with the community to complete certain tasks throughout the game. The game is supposedly in real time, which could maybe make a few things interesting. Going to jump in and see how it is. Feel free to look at the trailer below.

All Points Bulletin & Rusty Hearts

Heya guys, just signed up for the Rusty Hearts closed beta in January. I know there are currently around 2900 keys on mmorpg.com if you have an account or you can create an account for Perfect World the creators of Rusty Hearts and then you're on the waiting list. My guess is MMOHut might have keys, but didn't check. From what I've seen so far Rusty Hearts is a hack and slash dungeon crawler. PvE and PvP, it sounds like the PvP is a big extensive and thought out with a tournament system, an arena, guild battles, and more I've heard. Check out the game play trailer below for sure.




Currently installing the All Points Bulletin(APB) mmorpg/shooter that jumped into open beta I believe the 23rd. Originally was supposed to be earlier, but it's definitely better to spend an extra week or two to make the game better to play as opposed to playing with a load of bugs. I've been following their blog and they update it frequently about fixes and tweaks here and there, so that's nice. Some of you may of played APB when it had it's month or two run before it shutdown right as a big patch was going to pop out. Well this is the rebirth of it, All Points Bulletin Reloaded. GamersFirst took over the project, which is cool and all because I didn't get to play it before but watched my brother play it and was jealous, so now I will be able to. But also, I remember playing War Rock by GamersFirst. War Rock is an FPS for anyone who didn't know, but anyway, the weapons were originally like you spend some in game currency and buy a weapon permanently. But then they changed it to you can buy it for a day, three days, a week, a month, or spend real money and get the weapon permanently. Which then goes along with all other sorts of equipment which was disappointing, but I suppose sometimes it's whatcha gotta do to make money. My brother got into the closed beta for APB and I heard that the weapons are cheap but are timed. So I suppose I'll see and update you guys after playing for a bit. Currently only like 15% in with a 1mb/s, but for now here's a video for those you who have no idea what APB is yet.

Super Stacker 2 - Screenies

Sometimes there's more than one way to beat it, even if it makes no sense.

Lets just say, "Stack Successful" doesn't always mean what it says. Timmmbbbeeeerrr!

Terreria - Skeletron, Do a barrel roll!

Just a small post, as you can see I fought Skeletron with three other people. He's not too tough, but when he flips his head and starts to roll toward you or anyone else make sure to avoid it as it does a nice bit of damage. He often will stretch his arm out toward you if you're far away whether it's fighting your friends or you're right there. Killed all the other world bosses multiple times as well, might get screenies another time and videos. =]

Terreria

Heya guys, just a quick post here. Going to let you guys know I am indeed playing Terreria which has been out since Monday. I have to fix an issue with my livestream audio, which I probably will have fixed tomorrow and may do some livestreams. Ones with some friends and ones just of me playing and talking. Well that's all, now you know what to look forward to! =]

PSN Customer Appreciation

I'm sure a ton of you want something after the whole Playstation Network crash, well guess what, Sony decided to give us some stuff and a choice as to a few games.

"

All PlayStation Network customers can select two PS3 games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

• Dead Nation
• inFAMOUS
• LittleBigPlanet
• Super Stardust HD
• Wipeout HD + Fury

"

"For PSP owners, you will be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

• LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
• ModNation Racers
• Pursuit Force
• Killzone Liberation

"

"

• A selection of “On Us” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.
• 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PlayStation Plus subscribers.
• Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.
• Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.
• Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.
• To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.

"

Say Hello PSN

As of the following article here it sounds as if the Playstation Network is back online. I checked it myself and after going to log in it told me that I had to change my password and an email was sent to well, my email. So after changing your password, sign in, update the firmware, and lets get back to some online playing. I sure know there are a couple games I'm in the mood to play online.

Bad Company 2 Rush Livestream

Watch live streaming video from snakestersgamingzone at livestream.com

Heya guys, this'd be my first attempt at a livestream. It doesn't have audio from the game, but I attempted to commentate it. I'll try and fix the breathing issue and I believe I fixed the audio from the game issue. Thanks for watching =]

Talk about an Angry Birds fan!

Haven't played it myself but will have to get around to it after this post as I've heard about some free versions. But anyway, after going this far I'm going to say he likes Angry Birds. I've heard from tons of people about playing it on their iPod Touch or other handhelds, so maybe the car was worth it. =P I'm going to say the pause button on the car doesn't work though. The car itself has a ton of detail if you were to see the car in person. You can notice the pause button on the front quarter panels near the opening screen mural on the hood. All of the characters on covers behind the 24 inch wheel spokes as well. Talk about a heck of a creative mind. Go you sir.

Deus Ex Website Hacked, More Info Stolen

After going through the Playstation Network crisis, don't worry, there's more hacking going around. The same people or not, who knows. The irony of it all, indeed. The new and upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution websites and Eidos's website was hacked. Eidos is the publisher of the Deus Ex series and a relatively well known publisher. After doing some reading around and research I've figured out that the information that could of been taken is among the following: 9000 resumes, personal information from 80,000 users or fans that signed up to Deus Ex websites, and even though it's not clarified, Eidos mentioned something about the src. Also known as the source code. There's minor thought over if it could be about the upcoming game Deus Ex: Human Revolution but more so as to the source code for their websites. Which isn't nearly as devastating, but still isn't good I'm sure you can agree. Now to figure out who hacked Eidos and why.

All Points Bulletin Patching

"Pre-Open Beta currently known issues being addressed; key status update before OB launch!"

Periodically every day or two the All Points Bulletin Dev blog has been updating with patches and information on how everything is going along. Two hours ago from this post they updated with a large article stating about various ways and efforts they're doing to reduce and prevent lag issues. Players with better performing hardware are also able to run the game more smoothly than average through specific options of course. A few other issues such as drivers and sound issues that aren't at the top of the list are still being looked into and hopefully fixed by the open beta time, five days away. 

Feel free to read up much more in detail and likely boring here.

Modern Warfare 3: Seal Team Six

After reading through a Kotaku article and hearing the audio clip that mentioned Seal Team Six, I got a bit interested. Seal Team Six is mentioned in a leaked audio clip briefly, but as some of you may know and others not, Seal Team Six was the team that took out Osama Bin Laden. Could just be them following out a mission or following out the mission. You can read up on the Kotaku article about Seal Team Six and various other things on MW3 here. The audio clip can be found at this page along with concept art in the video. The audio clip leaked some plot info and is interesting to listen to. Only a quick 2 minute and 15 second video, so I'd go hit it up. 

Machinima Brink Livestream

Some of you may know that Brink came out today. It's sounding like the game is best known so far for the Multiplayer and the Singleplayer is more so a tutorial for Multiplayer. Therefore, don't buy this for the Singleplayer is what people are saying. Also in the livestream above they've been discussing that this isn't like a Team Deathmatch or Slayer game, but it's an objective one. It requires cooperation with other players, but while running through doing objectives you are still killing, but that's not the focus. So depending on what class you play, will basically depend on your role in getting the objective completed without a doubt. They compared it to Team Fortress 2 a few times with the different modes, such as Push the Cart. Well go check it out, I'll be checking it out later tonight on my PC probably.

All Points Bulletin Open Beta May 18th!

I'm a few days behind on this note, sorry guys, but looks like APB is going jumping into Open Beta May 18th. This was just released on their blog not too long ago. For those of you who have paid for any credit purchases before May 1st, here's something nice to hear:

"In order to fully test our credit charging features, we offered a 100% credit refund to everyone making an APB credit purchase before the end of May 1. Those have now been credited to the eligible accounts, and the notifications (or rather - reminders) will go out tomorrow morning confirming the credits (though you can see the credits in your accounts tonight). Thanks to all Closed Beta testers who helped us test this critical feature. Next we will be working on making some of those charging screens a little bit prettier :)" - GamersFirst

I'll definitely be looking forward to this myself and will look forward to playing with all of you. My brother currently has been playing a bit in the Closed Beta and he played before it shut down a lot with a friend of his, so we'll be playing together probably. Hoping GamersFirst is able to keep APB a fun and interesting game. So now here's the question for you guys, what are you going to be, a criminal or a cop?

A Letter from Howard Stringer(President of Sony)

"As we have announced, we will be offering a “Welcome Back” package to our customers once our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are up and running. This will include, among other benefits, a month of free PlayStation Plus membership for all PSN customers, as well as an extension of subscriptions for PlayStation Plus and Music Unlimited customers to make up for time lost." - Howard Stringer


So as you can see from the above quote, they're going to try to make up for the damages and give out a present to make things better. We all knew they had to give us something after all of this happened. Feel free to read up more in the letter from Howard Stringer about the situation as a whole here! While it has been a while and soon will be longer than they said it will be, they are keeping us updated daily on the bright side.