Thursday, May 8, 2008

AVG 8: Upgrade or Major Annoyance?

I installed AVG7.5 a while ago, always ignoring the advertisements for AVG8. Yesterday, I got curious and installed AVG8. I told it not to install the toolbars for IE and Firefox, however, the toolbar nuisance still came up. I tried to uninstall just the toolbar in Firefox, but I had no luck.

After a quick search for info, I found some discussion from March about how bad AVG has become. I just wish I found this before I upgraded. I searched for a few more minutes, and the only solution seems to be uninstalling AVG entirely and using some other anti-virus software. I'm not going back to AVG7.5, though.

Quick update on my projects: SyA is in stasis until I can spend a lot of time on it and truly concentrate on it, Fantasy Female 9 (Ultimate Character Generator) is also in stasis, and, while my website is vastly improved, I'm still busy working on it. I haven't had time to do much artwork, but I'm setting aside a few hours tomorrow to do some 3D model work in Blender.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Weekly Game Bash #5

This time around, I decided I would 'bash' something I love: Zelda! The "Legend of Zelda" games rather.

I love the third game, "Link to the Past," also known as Z3 or Zelda3. It was apparently favored by others, too, because it inspired Graal Online's creation, and I hear of the game constantly on review sites (Graal and Z3). Z3 had a very addictive musical score, and the graphics had their own style.

However, the game had its flaws, loads of flaws, and most of the flaws were fairly noticeable. The enemies, for example, were extremely dumb. They all either had fixed movement or simply ran after you. Another flaw was how easy it was to find rupees, the currency in the game. You simply had to chop bushes to shreds or blow them up. You could also run straight through the bushes if you had the special boots. The problem with this is that you have an endless supply of money but nothing to spend it on, nothing worth your time, anyway.

Moving on, let's look at "Ocarina of Time," also known as Zelda64. You guessed it, the game was for the console called Nintendo 64. I loved Zelda 64 as well, and the music got even more addictive, but the game had some very, very annoying flaws, and by 'annoying' I meant Navi, your faerie companion. Navi yelled at you throughout the game, even when you did things right. She constantly reminded you that she was tagging along by blurting out words like "Listen!" and "Hey!" Yes, I wish I could kill her, too.

Finally, I got to play "Twilight Princess," also called TP, which is an amazing coincidence, because it actually cleans up the filth that makes the Zelda series somewhat tiresome. It still has you go after a sword, then, a shield, and even a bomb bag, but that's what we've come to expect of Zelda games, and TP gives you that nostalgic feeling like you've been to all these places before, even though the world is completely different. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it could be.

Even in TP, you cut bushes for money. Well, you cut tall grass, anyway. Most people believe you cut bushes in all the games, but really, there are some exceptions, like the first two games. Still, the bush-whacking scene is pretty much owned by Nintendo.

It's pretty hard to find flaws in a game you love, but I can clearly see tons of flaws in the Zelda series, and I love the Zelda series, but the huge flaw is not necessarily a flaw in each game but a flaw in the games as a whole. If you've played more than one Zelda game, you know the stories are not linked to each other, and you know that every time you play a Zelda game, you will start fresh. At the beginning of TP, you were the boy, Link, without any weapons or tools or even a horse, even though you received a horse named Epona in "Ocarina of Time." Actually, they even recycle the names of characters, even the horse you get in TP is named Epona. Seriously, do we care to have the stories or do we want Zelda games to make sense?

For closure, you may want to check out the videos of this Zelda MMO. Graal was called Zelda Online until its makers got into trouble with Nintendo's lawyers. Let's see how long this project lasts... once it's playable.

Rats!

My mouse is wireless. I love it, however, it eats through batteries very quickly, and when the power gets low, it gets painful to use my computer. Suffice to say, I don't have spare batteries, so I'm forced to either use the dreaded ball mouse or rely on my keystrokes. Honestly, I need a mouse to do a lot of things.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Sorry, I'm Late, but I'm Still Alive.

Yes, I'm late with my weekly game bash again, but you guys hardly seem to care, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Today, though, I found another reason to want a powerful graphics card.

Portal TFV, or "The Flash Version," was a free (but not quite as awesome) version of Portal for us casual gamers with poor systems. It was a prime example of what could be done in Flash, and it still ranks high on my list of memorable Flash games, but I really want to play the real Portal.

Now, they're just teasing me, because I've grown addictive to the theme song, *This was a trial. I'm writing a note here, huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction,* and I've seen some awesome-looking screenshots of a complete conversion of TFV to the real Portal.