Adbots on the forums
Posted on Monday, September 3 2007 @ 03:59:26 Eastern

I think I speak for all of those who frequent the GR forums when I say I am sick of stupid adbots logging in and making those stupid advertising forum posts.

I've done some snooping, and I think the problem is the $250 Game Card contest.

Now, I'm not saying that the contest is stupid or anything. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I love the GR contests. I'm just saying that these adbots can use the registration section of the contest in order to create a forum presence and annoy us with all those ads.

If they included one of those 'Re-print the code that we've put distorted on the right' boxes, that'd sort the problem.

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Things are looking Grim...
Posted on Monday, August 6 2007 @ 06:21:23 Eastern

...but I mean that in a good way.

For those who read the forums, you'll know that I passed up a chance to buy the adventure game classic Grim Fandango in order to purchase Sam & Max Hit the Road.

Well, a couple of weeks back or so, I was in New Lynn, and I thought I'd drop by Gamesman in order to see what was in stock. Well, that and I wanted to see if they had any Bleach anime.

That was a fateful decision. For, they didn't have the Bleach volume I wanted, but they DID have Grim Fandango. Now, I have a copy of the noir-esque game for myself.

I would have told you about this sooner, but to be honest I couldn't be bothered. As compensation, I offer you the trailer of Grim Fandango, off of YouTube.

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Tyr-Rant-is: The right of Expansion
Posted on Monday, June 25 2007 @ 06:14:57 Eastern

I thought I'd make a small rant about the industry today in my blog. Every so often I'll make one of these when I get peeved enough at any particular aspect of a game, be it graphics-over-gameplay (which is like trading a candy bar for a pre-digested version of said candy bar).

Today it's about the abuse of the right to release expansion packs.

Over my time, I've seen game companies abuse expansion packs, to the extent of where you can call them 'uber-patches', instead of expansions. An expansion pack should expand the game as a whole, instead of just adding extra units and missions. You need to broaden the playability of the game significantly.

An example of a company who've abused the expansion pack is the now defunct Westwood Studios. Their expansion packs for the earlier Command & Conquer games added about 5 new units for both sides, some multiplayer maps and a handful of new, disjointed missions. Yeah, that's no longer acceptable. Fortunately Zero Hour, the expansion to Command & Conquer: Generals actually was a very decent expansion pack. Not only did they add plenty of new units, they added the Generals, which each have their own spin on the three standard sides, which broadens the strategies and tactics one can employ dramatically.

On the other end of the spectrum, Relic Entertainment knows how to truly do expansion packs, with their Warhammer 40k Dawn of War expansions. From the original game which had 4 sides, over 2 expansions they've made that amount into 7. What's more, you can use the latest expansion to update the base game, or vice versa, as the latest one has full stand-alone capabilities. If every company released expansions this awesome, the world would be a better place.

Then again, there are those who abuse the expansion pack by not using an expansion pack. I'm talking specifically about those annual sports games releases. Surely, updating the characters, arenas and touching up the graphics a smidgen can be done without re-releasing the entire game, right? Heck, that could even probably be done in a patch.

Whew, that was a long rant. Hope that gets y'all thinking.

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The crisis at hand
Posted on Saturday, June 16 2007 @ 07:32:17 Eastern

As some of you already know, there's some malicious code spreading through the site right now. The code embeds itself into people's posts and sigs, and is capable of putting itself back if you take it out.

So, in the interests of the site,...   read more...

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The (not so) Awful Truth
Posted on Sunday, June 3 2007 @ 06:49:36 Eastern

OK, I thought I'd come clean about a few things here in my blog. These are things I haven't necessarily lied about in forums and such, but stuff I haven't been telling you about.

1. I am NOT one of the head people at Levels4You.com. I am o...   read more...

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People don't check their profiles often, do they?
Posted on Friday, June 1 2007 @ 07:05:19 Eastern

I sent a GR Comrade invite out ages ago to Lakerol, and more recently MattAY, and they still haven't accepted.

Now, this brings up a problem with the Comrades system. Only by checking ones profile can they see that they have an invite, and...   read more...

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Was that supposed to be hard?
Posted on Tuesday, May 29 2007 @ 02:41:15 Eastern

I've noticed that my Black Tactical FAQ is getting steady reads on it. It's so far the 3rd most read thing I've ever written for GR, behind my Timesplitters: Future Perfect review and this very blog!

I don't get it.

Seriously, I...   read more...

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Updating my rig part two: Um, I'm finished
Posted on Sunday, April 29 2007 @ 06:42:28 Eastern

Well, the new rig is apparently done. Here's what I have, according to the Xfire Gaming Rig Evaluator program.

Manufacturer: GBT___
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3600+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~1.9GHz
Memory:...   read more...

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Updating my rig part one: Case & Motherboard
Posted on Saturday, April 28 2007 @ 01:17:21 Eastern

Not many of you will know this, but I've been having increasing difficulty using my Hell Dell as of late. My brother, the one who is servicing the thing, has decided that it is, in fact, a lost cause. The motherboard had to be replaced, the graphics ...   read more...

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So, what's the deal?
Posted on Tuesday, April 24 2007 @ 07:14:23 Eastern

I've noticed less and less people are reading my reviews. Before I was getting like 400+ reads of a single game review, but now that I've developed my writing style, I'm lucky to see 200+ reads, with some reviews not even getting 100. What is the pro...   read more...

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