MU Blue Screen of Death!

Heh, I spent about twenty minutes signing up for G1 to play MU Online. Then, I spent nearly two hours downloading the game and updating it. Then, I played two servers, leveling up a knight and a wizard. When I exited, I saw the blue screen of death again. Just like Forsaken. Only I was in windowed mode this time!

I strongly suggest you stay away from MU Online.

Forsaken Blue Screen of Death!

MU Online must be a great game, because this private server has plenty of players. Nevertheless, I'm the newcomer, and I'm, sometimes, treated unfairly.

I'm contemplating getting the real game, because Forsaken doesn't seem to have all the features worked out. Also, the updates take way too long, and after playing for a short time, I exited the game to have the dreaded "blue screen of death" appear. I restarted WinXP, no data was lost, but I uninstalled some iffy drivers, like the dual-core optimizer. (I really only have one.) I had to be sure WinXP wouldn't crash again.

I'll post screenshots of the real MU Online if I'm able to play it, but Forsaken is still a very nice alternative, and I suggest you try it (if you have broadband).

Weekly Game Bash #3

I had some trouble deciding what to 'bash' this time, so I'll just mention a few random games (or so-called games) I've played and mention why I despise them. To start us off, I'm playing the Forsaken MU server. I don't know if the real thing is as bad, but updates take a while, and I get very impatient, waiting to play for just twenty minutes before the next game of my daily routine...

Live Search Club! That's right! I've been saving my points to get a Xbox 360, which is 25000 points, and I already have over 1100 points. The Live Search games have been pretty hard until yesterday, when I got to play a trivia game with Matt Lauer plastered on it. Matt is never going to be a model, ok!? Anyway, the trivia game is all guess work, but you can earn points real fast by tracking the right answers and redoing each trivia session to get as many points as possible. The reason I hate Live search Club is the insanely slow website. It can sometimes take several minutes to load the simplest of games, like the trivia, and the game itself isn't even very graphical. Also, sometimes, MSN loads instead of Live Search.

Worse than Live Search Club is the game that consumed a lot of my youth, Runescape. No, not Run Escape; Rune Scape. It was great in maybe year 2002, when it was still only a pseudo-3d game, when everything was pretty much free-to-play, however, in 2004, most of the game was pay-to-play, and they simply forced all the old players to either convert to their new game or resort to playing private servers, which were never a big deal, because they never acted like the real game. If you've ever played a private server for any MMORPG, you probably understand what I'm talking about, for example, faster movement, including easy teleportation to every important area of the world, and easily leveled-up characters. In, I think, late 2006, I began to, casually, invest time into the 'members' (pay-to-play) version of RS, because I started getting money from my cousin to play it with him, which proves how lonely you can get playing a massively multiplayer game. I recently converted back to the free version, but all my members items are still on me, so I'm forced to either lose all my hard-earned equipment or start paying that monthly fee again. I rather just not play.

Next week, I will delve into game programming and the faults in many popular games, including Halo, Half-Life 2, and Fable. Please, comment on my bashes, because I thrive on feedback.

Free MyCokeRewards Codes

If you 'play' MCR (or My Coke Rewards), you must know how hard it is to gain points without buying tons of Coke products. Some (if not all) of the promo codes have expired, and most old members have already used them. Most free code sites are flooded and become races to see who can use a single code first for a mere 3-10 points.

I plan to help you guys out. You see, I had several hundred points saved up on my account, but my points actually expired due to my inactivity or my time away from the internet, so I gave up entering codes. However, I have tons of 3-point codes left, anyway, so if anyone wants a set of ten (10) codes, I'll send you them by email. Each person who comments on this blog topic will receive ten 3-point codes via email. Just post your email or have it available to me via your user profile.

Weekly Game Bash #2

In the past few years, I've started to consider Halo my favorite first-person shooter or FPS. It was the first FPS I played on Xbox, and few games in its genre ever topped it, on consoles or PC. It was presented as an exclusive Xbox game, which made it very alluring for most Xbox owners. Seeing the "Only for XBOX" stamp on the case made me think, "Oh, a game the PC gamers will finally miss out on!" Obviously, that theory didn't hold true, because a version for PC was developed, and it was much better. I regretted buying the Xbox version of the game.

Then, Halo 2 was released for Xbox owners. Wow, did it suck major balls compared to Halo PC... but I still enjoyed playing the campaign stages, even if the story was complete crap, and I still play Halo 2 online today, well, sometimes... when I'm not playing Sauerbraten.

I know, I know I've mentioned Sauerbraten constantly. That's just further proof of how awesome it is. It even beats Halo 3's Forge, which was hyped to be a marvelous level editor. Forge was, instead, a spawn point modifier. Granted, it has better gameplay backing it, being Halo 3 and all, but Sauerbraten can be played constantly, day and night, never running out of challenges for you.

A quick note: I know I was a few days late with the second video game bash. I'll post another bash topic in about three days to make up lost time.

VB.CSK (or OMG! Virus!)

I was offline most of last night and today fixing and cleaning my computer. While I was in class, I let my D drive defragment. Yesterday, I updated my virus definitions and boom, a virus appeared. The infected files were some dodgy items, like keygens and software cracks, but wow, I've had those files for over a year without any anti-virus utility finding them. They were definitely viruses, though; not falsely identified infections.

The free version of AVG anti-virus is what caught the viruses, so you may want to get the program for yourself if you're putting a lot of software on your computer from untrustworthy sources. Still, I don't try the commercial products. They may work more efficiently.

GED stands for Getting Everyone Disappointed

In the past, I've used quite a few name meaning generators, but they were all basically bad versions of an acronym generator. What's funny is I had to think up my own acronym meaning for GED, even after trying many acronym generators, because nothing they generate sounds appropriate.

Moving on, my life is full of disappointments. I was forced out of school (too much violence), had to be home-schooled (or risk failing the same grade for a few years), and when I was 16 years old, I wasn't considered a student at all, so I was dropped from the education system against my will. Later, I joined a GED program in Kentucky, but it was shut down for some reason, possibly budget restraints, so I didn't get that done.

Now, I have a chance to get my life turned around. I enrolled at Project Learn in Tennessee. I was amazed at how stupid some of the other students were, and the teachers were all amazed that I didn't graduate high school, so once I've worked out when (and where) I can take the test, I will, most likely, get my GED diploma/certificate thing. However, I'm still wondering what's left between now and the test. There are a lot of hoops I have to jump through before I complete the stage of my life I call the "Evil Education Environment" or EEE.

SauerPortal

I finally got a computer desk yesterday, and I built it today, so I'll be working more on my computer now. Xbox? No, I didn't resolve my XLink Kai problem entirely, because I started having too much fun in Sauerbraten. I can't play The Orange Box until I get a new video card, but I have Portal-esque stuff going on in Sauerbraten. You can build a massive slope for a slide, have it go into the ground, put lava in various places, have the slope change directions randomly and put a teleporter at the end, which should send you to the teledest at the beginning of your slide to start over.

Bad Day Thursday

I was planning to play Halo 2 over XLink Kai today. However, it's not working. I posted my problem at the help forum.

I started playing the Live Search games, though, and I have the option to play Sauerbraten, so I'm fine for now.

Site of the Moment: Live Search

Looking for a rewards site you could actually get something from? Look no further, my friend(s). Live Search is a Microsoft charity program. It allows you to earn points playing puzzle games and either spend your points or donate them to a charitable cause of your own specification.

Click here: http://club.live.com

The prizes range from music downloads to magazines to Xbox and PC games to PC accessories to an actual Xbox 360. Of course, it'll take you a very long time to collect enough points to get anything decent, but you'll get there as long as you keep playing the games over and over again.

If you get anything from this service, tell me.

Weekly Game Bash #1

Every week, I will post about games I don't like and what I hate about a good game...

I was searching around for a good Tifa Lockheart wallpaper, and Google presented me with this Soul Calibur III custom character. That could be any black-haired lady with great breasts! I never actually got to try out the SC3 character options, but I did see quite a few vidocs about it. As far as I can tell, it's like WWF Smackdown 2 from the late PSX generation. Sure, you have a lot of options, but the characters are always so generic. At least, I can make characters in these games, though. Look at Super Smash Bros. Melee or even Brawl. Okay, Brawl has a level editor, but it sucks more than a cheap whore.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Great game. But short. I don't know if it's just my skills or if the game is designed for retards, but I found the story mode to be insanely easy to get through. The final boss was a bit difficult, though. The levels are great, and there are unlockable stages, but the level editor is worse than the Halo 3 Forge. Yes, I hate the Forge, but I'll save that for next week. I absolutely despise the Brawl level editor. It is like a RPG Maker 1995 tile system slapped on a Fighter Maker game engine with almost no opportunity for originality.

Brawl doesn't even make use of the Wiimote! Argh! There's a stage in Brawl based on the most Wiimote-friendly game ever, Warioware: Smooth Moves, yet even that stage has absolutely no opportunity to use the Wiimote sensors. The minigames, nope, no Wiimote usage. The Masterpieces are game demos of real old Nintendo classics, which is pretty kewl, but why play through Brawl to play Zelda for only five minutes when you could just emulate the games on your PC?

Brawl is just a fighting game. All the extra features are crap. Want classic games? Emulate them or buy the real thing. Want to edit levels? You're out of luck unless you want to get into game modding, and I highly doubt Brawl will ever become a mod-friendly game, like Half-Life.

Internets!

I have my wireless connection set up again, so I'll be online more often. I'll continue blogging, but I also want to play some MMOs a bit. Any suggestions?

I'm back.

Hey. Blogger was off limits to me for a few days, because they claimed I was a spammer, but they realized I'm not spamming at all, so I'm back.

Anyway, I have a lot to mention: The pet-raising game I started working on a long time ago, Mythical Creature, is back in production, but it will be worth playing this time around, and Syboard Adventures is alive! Yes! I have a screenshot on the left.


Yep, SyA the Game. I've been messing with it for a while, and I must say the game engine is near flawless in terms of design, but in terms of it actually working, well, I don't really want to start ranting, so I'll just say ActionScript is frustrating. I wish Flash would do the hitTest work for me, but the built-in function doesn't like to work, so I started checking the ex-and-why of everything. Expect a new game demo this summer.

Aside from pet-raising and adventuring, I have a game about working, aptly titled "Work," and a game about not doing the work you should be doing if you're an artist, "Ultimate Character Generator" or UCG. I like how UCG is coming, but I don't invest much time into that project, because it's just not as fun for me as my other projects. Work is in the concept stage, but I just started working on a menu system for it, and the ideas for this game just keep rolling in.

Work's a game about working your butt off and getting very little accomplished. That may sound like a terrible game idea, but I like it for how terrible it sounds. Your folks have decided to make you move out into the real world. You have a small amount of start-out money, which won't last long, but you have found an abandoned city to live in. You can colonize a town of your own in this city and build onto it with money you earn by, you guessed it, working your butt off!

Internet Blues

I lost my USB device and I can't really get anything new onto Syboard until I get a new one. I can't even download the stuff my cousins and I need. I also have to change my passwords before someone steals my identity. I'm doing that now.

I'm working on a new project, a Flash-powered media center. It's going well for the most part. I just need to work out where everything will appear on each skin. I'm also trying to fix up Syboard Adventures before I show it to anyone. I have a lot to show, but really, I'm not satisfied with the game yet.

I'm only using Blogger until Syboard has a blogging system again. I like Blogger, but Syboard's my home. :)