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I was looking at some good deals on these new games lately, so have a look if you’ve been thinking of picking one (or all) of them up.
Left 4 Dead 2 - $29.99 (New)- Save $10.00 - $29.45 (Best Price)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - $40.00 (new) - Save $9.96
Samurai Warriors 2: Empires - $19.92 (new) - Save $20.07 - $6.39 (Best Price)
10 Years of Unreal Tournament
On this day in gaming, on November 30, 1999, Unreal Tournament, a title developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes, was released. It was published by GT Interactive (now Atari) and appeared on numerous platforms like Windows, Mac, Mac OS X, PS2, Linux, and the Dreamcast.
Unreal Tournament, Despite being an FPS, was one of the first games geared more towards multiplayer, with a tacked-on singleplayer on the side, much like its chief competitor, Quake III Arena by id Software. Instead of a true sequel to Unreal, the Unreal Tournament franchise took off and there have been several sequels which pretty much all look the same to me.
Unreal II: The Awakening, although not a true sequel to Unreal, also featured a part early on in the game which pitted you against another guy in a fight. This is supposedly how the Unreal Tournament was formed, story wise.
Unreal Tournament received mainly positive reviews, especially on the PC. Console, particularly PS2, reviews were average to good. It was also featured twice as a deathmatch title at the World Cyber Games. Aspects of the game praised were the graphics (the water always looked inviting), AI, map or level design, and good weapon balance.
I remember back in school, a bunch of us would always argue over which one was better: Q3A or UT? I got the Game of the Year Edition back in 2001 or 2002, although I had played the game before this period, although probably just the demo though.
God knows why I stuck with the game for as long as I did though. I remember playing it on an old Windows 98, while friends were round, and we would take turns battling bots, or else battling each other, while listening to Linkin Park.
The singleplayer in UT featured a series of levels with different play-modes which put you against bots – AI controlled opponents.
These bots could also be used in multiplayer, while competing in different game types like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF, Domination, Last Man Standing, and Assault. One of my favourite levels, although pretty basic, was the one called Overlord, basically the game’s version of a D-Day map.
Weapons in the game continued with the alt-fire feature that was seen in Unreal, and you could use a pistol (Enforcer), two pistols (guns Akimbo), the ASMD, minigun (my favourite), Pulse gun, and the Sniper Rifle. Some weapons also made a return from Unreal except they were renamed, like the Razorjack (renamed the Ripper), the Flak Cannon, and the Bio Rifle. Another weapon was the Impact hammer, which replaced the Dispersion pistol, and with it you could literally blow someone’s head off. You could also use it to do the equivalent of rocket jumps.
The game is known for having inspired many, many mods over the years, ranging from mutators to TCs. Also, other games have used the engine such as one incarnation of Duke Nukem Forever a long time ago. Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix also considered using the engine, but went with Q3A’s. Another game which used this engine was Rune, a game forgotten by time.
You can pick up Unreal Tournament here, if you want to play a classic.
Well, I was looking at the settings in my blog account, and saw that there was a new, updated, post editor. So, I set it to use this instead of the old one, and checked it out by editing one my existing posts.
The interface is better. It matches more as far as themes go. The only thing is, it took away all my smilies that I was using with the old editor.
I figured I’d finally had enough of Blogger’s post editor, and that I would do what I seemingly should have done months ago. I decided to have a look at an alternative: Windows Live Writer. I’ve seen it recommended so many times, and the thing is, I had the install feature on my PC all ready. I’d downloaded the web install exe months ago, but I’d just put it off.
It was recommended I use it back then when I was copying and pasting from Word into my blog, because it was conflicting with the blogs styles, or whatever, and messing up my theme. But instead I would continue writing in Word, and after that, all my hard work of formatting and all was lost when I copied and pasted into Notepad, in order to paste into the post editor.
What a waste of time and effort that was.
So I used some of my data and selected Live Writer from the install prompt, ignoring all the other stuff, and downloaded everything I needed, and started using it.
This program makes me realize how basic and uncomfortable it is using the post editor on Blogger - at least the old one.
WL is more in line with what I use on Microsoft Word. And I can edit everything here, and once I’m finished, I can preview what it will look like, and it’s all offline, seeing as I downloaded my blog’s whole setup. Only the flash elements and HTML aren’t previewed, but that’s not a big deal. Then I can save it, and publish it to my blog without even having to go into my Blogger account from what I understand. I can just upload it. It should be a real time-saver.
And you can arrange your pictures any which way you want, as well as paste smilies and such in there without the need for any scripts or plug-ins and all that rubbish.
So, right now, even though I’ve only been using WL for about an hour now, I would say, go a get this program, and don’t look back.
I think the only time I would really need to go into my blog would likely be if I need to add more page elements or make modifications. So I would likely still access my blog, but as far as posting goes, I can do it all outside, from here.
I’m going to get back to blogging with this program now, so go and download it and leave me to carry on.
See? The image above can be added to Blogger through the post editor, but it wouldn’t animate, from what I understand. Post editor sucks.
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Picks of the Week: Avatar, Rogue Warrior
This week after Thanksgiving and Black Friday sees two major releases: James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game and Rogue Warrior.
Avatar is obviously based on the movie of the same name, written, directed, and produced by James Cameron (Terminator, Terminator II). Besides mysteriously taking place in the same world as Borderlands (Pandora), I’ve been seeing quite a bit about this game lately. Whether it turns out to be any good, we’ll have to see. As you all know, most of these video game to movie adaptations and vice versa rarely turn out good. One of them has to suck.
The other title that seems to have snuck onto the scene this week is Rogue Warrior. I was just reading the other day that this game might suck, seeing as it has had virtually no marketing. Buy when you look at the main character, Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko, a guy who is a former Navy Seal, and who commanded Seal Team 2 and 6, I can’t help but think of other games like Soldier of Fortune, which featured John Mullins. Yeah, granted, most of that series, especially the last one, was pretty bland, but you never know.
Black Friday& Cyber Monday Deals at Amazon
As always, the links below (the ones I could find) go to each game’s detail page at Amazon, D2D, Steam, etc.
PC
Altitude (Steam)
Avatar: The Game
DiRT 2
Elven Legacy - Magic (D2D)
GREED
Heileen 2: The Hands of Fate
Luxor Adventures
Playmobil 2 Pack
Puzzle Chronicles
Rogue Warrior
Strike Force Red Cell
Zombie Driver (Steam)
The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood
The Seventh Dragon
World of Zoo
Mac
Heileen 2: The Hands of Fate
iPhone
Encroachment
iHack
PlayStation 2
Martial Arts: Capoeira Fighters
PlayStation 3
Avatar: The Game
Frogger Returns
MX vs. ATV Reflex
Puzzle Chronicles
Rogue Warrior
Street Fighter IV Round 2 Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition
Street Fighter IV Round 2 FightPads
Xbox 360
Avatar: The Game
MX vs. ATV Reflex
Puzzle Chronicles
Rogue Warrior
Street Fighter IV Round 2 Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition
Street Fighter IV Round 2 FightPads
Wii
Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Avatar: The Game
bittos+
Copter Crisis
La-Mulana
Las Vegas Casino Party
Reader Rabbit Kindergarten
Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil 0
Rec Room Games
Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre
Storybook Workshop
th!nk Logic Trainer
Yoga
Nintendo DS
7 Wonders II – Game Download
Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Avatar: The Game
Dragon Master
Dreamer: Zoo Keeper
Learn Science
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes
MX vs. ATV Reflex
Picture Perfect Hair Salon
Reader Rabbit Kindergarten
SafeCracker
th!nk Logic Trainer
th!nk Logic Trainer: Kids
World of Zoo
PSP
Avatar: The Game
Martial Arts: Capoeira Fighters
MX vs. ATV Reflex
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Shacknews
Gamespot
Gaming Bits
I was just reading this on Apogee’s Twitter account:
“Some big news about Rise of the Triad, be posted in the upcoming weeks. Some exciting Stuff!”
That’s cool! Originally, Scott Miller revealed this in an interview, and it was picked up by Big Download, and later covered by yours truly in two or three posts: that he and Apogee Software LLC had plans for this excellent, addictive classic, Rise of the Triad.
So, as you can see, it looks like they will be revealing more about the project, which was said to be a reboot of the series, in the coming weeks.
One thing that made me laugh a little was that there was a grammar error in the above sentence. Can you spot it? It should have said “will be posted”, but instead it was “be posted”.
Funny, I don’t remember pirates being in Rise of the Triad.
“Aargh! there be some news posted about ROTT in the near future, aargh!”
Then again, it might well be because of the 140 character limitation on Twitter, you know.
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http://twitter.com/ApogeeSoftware/
http://twitter.com/ApogeeSoftware/statuses/6134561347
Damn, this week it’s been all about Uwe Boll, the director/producer/thing we love to hate.
