It felt good to get back on the bike today. It wasn’t the first time but it was the first real ride this season, in several seasons, really. Last week some time I had hooked up the bike trailer for the kid and we drove around a bit but we stuck to the pavement (for the most part) and apparently it was still “real bumpy”. So today I did an honest to goodness trek through the woods. Eased into the water drinking (I tend to get carried away and go too much / too cold too soon) regulated that well…
Review: Call of Juarez: The Cartel
It’s really as bad as you’ve heard. From the very first screen you are alerted to its crappiness. The text itself is circa Mortal Kombat – giant and pixellated. It looks so dated. It really feels like a modern Sega CD – it hardly even looks 3D. I barely got through the first level. I bought it for $5 – shipped from the UK for the amazing price of $2.49 – gotta love Amazon. I figured there must be at least SOME saving grace, story, anything. From what i saw the story tries really hard to be in depth (remember,…
My 3D Aventure in Digitopia
I was accused of trolling for posting what I found while testing a few games with 3D Vision. I don’t take umbrage but it reminded me that this is the first time round for some people. The History Before I address the fad aspect of 3D let me say I am no stranger. It has come a long way since the geForce 3 I had about 10 years ago. It worked, and I guess it never went away, even the test screen for the glasses is the same today as it used to be with a couple extra dynamic lights…
The Viking Kittens Return!
Ok, so maybe they were only just sleeping but here they are: This is an oldie. I remember this being one of the first “viral” media pieces out there. Before shockwave/flash there wasn’t much for embedable media. There was a picture here or there, but high density media was avoided to prevent isolating users with slower computers. Flash changed that and allowed everyone to see the same thing at the same time (upon visiting the site). In any case I had sucked this down a while back and recently found it again while cleaning up the FTP. I hope you enjoy…
I found this from Feb 2008
It was topical at the time, apparently I wrote it up into a txt file and then just uploaded to my server. I recently found it. —————————————- [Feb 2008] —————————————- Everything I’ve looked up on the internet says there is no meaning to Clutch’s song 10001110101. Even the singer says it means nothing in an interview, that some people are disappointed – like they’re looking for some secret code or something. In any case I think it’s a secret plug because of what I found. I was curious because right after he says 10001110101 is “periodic table”. That got me…
EA… Realy?!!
I signed on today for some battlefield 3 and went to check out the patch notes and noticed something else… “shortcuts” yes, for only $6.95 you too can have a whole set of unlocks that others spent hours and hours. The whole point is you would carefully choose what you tried to unlock or try to hone several similar skills to align your goals and unlock as much as you could at once. It is like giving rookies keys to the cruiser.
Video: Dubstep Violin- Lindsey Stirling- Crystallize – YouTube
Dubstep Violin- Lindsey Stirling- Crystallize – YouTube.
Why I Will Never Play Mass Effect 3
I most likely won’t play, and certainly won’t buy Mass Effect 3. It’s not that I don’t want to, I really do. I just do not have what it takes to play the game. I have failed countless times at the original. I just recently went back to it after a push by my friend who is a big fan of the series. I resumed my last game from January 2011, my first save game date? November 2008. I don’t think there’s any danger of spoilers so here goes: I’m a Spectre, Captain of the Normandy – went right to…
Grand Theft Auto 4 mods – ICEnhancer+
So ICEnhancer 2.0 was recently released, and to celebrate here is everything you need to get started modding Grand Theft Auto to look better then god ever intended. Behold the power of Grayskull: Patches: You’ll need 1.0.4.0 or 1.0.7.0 to apply these properly. 1.0.4.0 is advised as it’s most compatible. Install the original version, then you only need this one to get to 1.0.4.0. Graphics, Textures, and Lighting: ICEnhancer 2.0 Brightness and contrast most gamers prefer ICEnhancer 2.0N Natural Lighting (coming soon) Add Ons: Traffic Load V3 (ASI) – Sick of seeing the same old cars all over the place?…
Review: FlatOut3 Chaos and Destruction… of a Francise
Video: Video has Bloom turned off, motion blur turned off First impression: ugh. I am shaking my head in disappointment. I would have put the first and second FlatOut as two of my favorite games. I’m a huge racing fan, and a bigger car crashing fan. This game really was the best of both worlds. However number 3 is Jack’s utter lack of surprise. They’ve taken well made race tracks, nicely finished cars and damage models, impressive AI and boiled it down to an impossible arcade fiery mess. Not to say it’s difficult, it’s just bad; a blurry, cluttered mess. Monster trucks,…
Comcast Data Usage
So what is the deal with the network data usage meter on customer.comcast.com? Last month I was trying to get the end of month surge to use up the last of my allowed quota. I hopped on like the 29th and it was already to a new month. I checked my billing date and it was the 28th so it appeared it all got reset. However this month I plan for the billing date which starts on the 29th and today I am still racking up data for October! How can I stay under if it’s not predictable. So now…
The History of Battlefield #FUEA
My trepidation with EA only extends to the most recent versions published by EA – they exited before them, much like EVERY OTHER fabulous game that has since been snatched up. I’m so glad Rockstar managed to push them off. Here is a history of Battlefield – 45 minutes, a documentary of game footage, history, and the evolution of graphics and gameplay. Thank you Gamerspawn. (oh yeah, F u EA #FUEA – I hate that you control my favorite games)
Going back in time…
I once had a whole archive of everything I had ever typed to my blog. I lost it in an unfortunate disk accident with my hosting provider. I never did get it back since much of it was never pulled into Blogger’s servers. Once they converted to the new template everything pulled and I was able to import that here, but that still only brought me back to 2008. I had set up Synthetic-X.com in 2001 – October, probably about now. There was a lot going on in my head after 9/11 – but I wanted to wait long enough…
Dead Island – Not Just Another Zombie Game – PC
Dead Island immediately draws you in, from the opening cinematic you’re the guy (or girl). It’s all first person, boozing and abusing, falling down drunk and groping… finally passing out in your room… amongst some odd attacks and blood splattering around you. When you finally wake you’re in your room, but everything outside is in shambles. At first I thought there was a little too much collecting – suitcases all over have a couple bucks here and there, alchohol, med packs, and random bits of seemingly useful objects (rubber hosing, glue) are scattered all around. It’s fairly easy to collect,…
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
My initial impression: Looks ok. It seems like another Duke Nukem where the idea and gameplay were ported from their 90s originals, but their roots are showing in these sequels. There is lots of details (papers, coffee mugs, detailed computer screens, interaction with faucets, etc) so far in the first level but I notice a different level of textures between objects, people, and the surroundings which breaks the otherwise immersiveness of the story and camera work. The “cover” is awful so far, but I think that’s primarily due to defaults conflicting with my mouse configuration but I never seem to…
Videos: Lady Sovereign
Been a while since I heard this chick – saw it while scrolling through itunes so looked up the videos: Lady sovereign-love me or hate me (SVCD) by CaMGuY Lady Sovereign – I Got You Dancing (Official… by wonderful-life1989
SplitSecond PC – It’s Almost Too Exciting
My initial impression of the game was that it was way too arcade for my tastes. I saw things blowing up, and a bunch of sliding around the “racetrack”. My first impressions weren’t too far from that. It’s an arcade racer, there’s no denying that. You can’t really focus very well on driving well when stuff is blowing up all around you. You end up veering left and right and taking your chances with spinning out to avoid the explosions of which will get you… if you’re close enough, so you just try and stay far enough away even if…
The Witcher 2
Some screenshots to start. Things I want to get into – graphical glitches (patch 1.3) – control / camera – why can’t I jump on this stump? There are two pictures of the puddle. I’m not really seeing it in the screenshots but his foot went through a 2D puddle and I could see his foot clearly underneath the puddle on the ground… not a big deal, but make sure all the ground around something is higher then the plane of the puddle. To be fair it’s at the start of the game, so hopefully they got better with the…
iCE for Grand Theft Auto IV and Episodes from Liberty City – Up Your Realism
I am a big fan of Grand Theft Auto. I’ve had every one since the original top view on PC. It’s not that I like stomping on babies… I just love crashing cars. I like demolition derby games too, so the added story and other tasks just make it all the better and with GTA III onward, I love the real word feel to it. You can just as easily drive along with traffic as weave through it trading paint with all the cars along the way. It’s always the best test of new hardware, and when a new one…
La Casita Azteka Menu – Easthampton MA – #WesternMA
We love La Casita Azteka in Easthampton MA – it’s great food, but we didn’t really feel like going out with our son, it was already late and we had entertainment plans for company. We decided to do takeout but don’t know enough about mexican food to know what we wanted without looking at a menu. I took to the internet but there was none to be found. I took it upon myself to make it available to my fellow Western MA ers. So behold: straight from my 8mp cell, even with the glare they should be high enough quality…
Crysis 2 DX11 Pack Now Available
Crysis 2 DX11 “Ultra Upgrade” Pack Now Available! From NVidia’s GeForce.com When Crysis 2 hit stores on March 22nd it became Crytek’s first multi-platform game to be developed solely by their studios throughout the world. Because of the level of work required to ensure that all three versions of the game were equally as good, Crytek ultimately ran out of development time, preventing them from implementing planned DirectX 11 features before launch. Post release, the studio’s developers were free to focus only on the PC version of the game, and so for the past few months they have been beavering…
Get Yourself An N-Control Avenger
Check out the N-Control-Avenger On Facebook, like them to win one this weekend! http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-N-Control-Avenger/162468090457709 It’s an amazing controller add on for your 360, also works when using a 360 on Windows since it’s actual hardware appurtenant. They’re giving away 2 controllers for Facebook fans if they make 2500 likes by midnight on Sunday! If they get 500 followers on Twitter they’ll be giving away 2 to their twitter followers as well. Sign up on both for a chance to win twice! Also they’re running a Black Ops Annihilation DLC contest. Best voted video of the Avenger being used in game!…