Bow Street Runner - Crime Scene

The wonderful created game gives you the ability to search around, look at evidence, talk to people and try to chit-chat them into giving you clues. “Bow Street Runner” uses real actors playing their parts very well and are staged into the pre-rendered backgrounds you can traverse (basically like Myst, but with far more fluent and accurate controls).
In addition to simple pixel hunting there are extremely well designed action puzzles as you have to pick a lock with specific movements with your mouse or listen to a moving conversation with a jar.
While playing through the game you get the opportunity to try yourself on some mini games as well as you can achieve higher ranks with the Runners as you progress. These can be fasten up as there are special bonus achievements (e.g. save someones life).
As it is a Shockwave game you do not have the chance to save your progress but at the end of every episode you get a special progress code that gets saved onto your computer (probably through a cookie). Additionally you can send this code to your E-Mail address. And as the episodes have a moderate length it is no big negative point.

Bow Street Runner - Suicide?

I have to say the five episodes adventure impressed me. It is made in tradition to old games like Bad Mojo, Tex Murphy, Phantasmagoria, Gabriel Knight and others that were gaming hits in the mid 90s (I liked them!). But in contrary to some bad examples that just made you click yourself through pre-rendered or pre-filmed scenes this one motivates through its distinct art style, historical correctness and the interesting twist between detective work and action riddle solving.

I recommend you go over to the “Bow Street Runner” site and get a picture of what I presented you here about the game. This is a wonderful example of how it should be done to motivate the player and to make a very well furbished game. I hope there will be more games of such caliber as I think these are great games especially to speed up the online game distribution. “You don’t know Jack!” is another example of a wonderful idea predestined for Flash games.

PS: Here is an engine that could be used or extended for such projects ^^’ (No, I would never self-advertise)

Today Telltale finally revealed the new brand: StrongBad! For all those of you who do not not StrongBad go and visit Homestarrunner to get your E-Mails answered!
I am a very big fan of StrongBad and “LIMOZEEN”, watching it every week! Therefore I am pretty excited (as you can tell, otherwise I wouldn’t post it ^^’). I recommend you to watch this episode about StrongBad in an Anime-Style if you do not know StrongBad at all as it is one of my favorites.

Not much is known at the moment I am writing this but the title will be fabulous Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People (SBCG4AP) and it will be some kind of classic adventure, like the Sam and Max Seasons but evolving around StrongBadia and its habitants. So a 3D Point’n'Click Adventure as we like it. Matt and Mike Chapman (the geniuses) will be involved in the development.
There will be five episodes released monthly starting June, downloadable through the WiiWare system by an unknown price. The game will feature WiiConnect24 (in what way nobody knows… but jesus!).

I hope we will be able to play other characters as StrongMad or do Crank Calls and use the Teen Girl Squad ^^’.

*update*
Telltale Games released the first Trailer with ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE and Images right on http://www.telltalegames.com/strongbad or watch it here..right NOW!

As delicacy a video of LimoZEEN Live in Atlanta after the jump!

Here I am! Here it is! My full body portrait!

I take requests for life-size poster prints through the comments. Costs vary by service and postal rate to your location.

PS: Even if this happens to be my Mii Character I ensure (and many friends will too) that this is very accurate. If you think this is a hoax, rest assured IT IS NOT!

I got my first computer in ‘89, a AMIGA 500! My first very own computer which I loved and used year over year (and I still have it). I will never forget the classic Demo IRAQ by Animators which is one of my absolute favourites as I still follow the scene through the decades. Just got me more into computers as well as games like Giana Sisters, Silkworm, Maniac Mansion and many more. That’s why I am a big fan of all those emulators for different system out there.

Probably the most successful is the Nintendo Wii. Wait? What, the “New-Gen” Wii Console? Yes, this Nintendo Wii! With it’s Wii-Shop Channel it offers you the ability to download-to-own all those great old games from the NES, SNES, Turbografx, MegaDrive and many more. “The Legend of Zelda”, “Super Metroid”, The “Castlevania” Series, “Altered Beast”, “Golden Axe” to name some. Actually as I think the games are pretty expensive (5€ for the cheapest games, up to 10€) measured by their age, I already have spent to much money and time on them and probably will much more ^^’.
For those who do not own a Wii or want to play other old games I collected some common known good emulators.

ScummVM
To those who remember the SCUMM System I would point out the ScummVM Project. And to all you others: Damn scumbags ^^’! Read and learn!
Scumm was LucasArts’ (LucasFilm at that time) Adventure Scripting Engine. Fabulous games as Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island and Indiana Jones are based on it! Written also by Ron Gilbert, who just announced his new project, it was one surety for the success of LucasFilms at that time (besides Gilbert and Schafer). So who loved those old skool games and many more back then (Beneath a Steel Sky, Flight of the Amazon Queen to name a few), go ahead and download ScummVM.
ScummVM is a Virtual Machine that emulates all old gaming frameworks (mainly SCUMM but many have been implemented like Sierras AIG …) to allow you to play all those original Adventures that gave us so much fun. It is available for several platforms on the market, not only the PC but UNIX, MacOS X, NDS, Symbian, Amiga and so on.

PicoDrive
Another great emulator for PDAs and Symbian Phones is PicoDrive. It emulates an old Sega MegaDrive/Genesis System to allow you to play classics like Sonic - The Hedgehog or Golden Axe.
The Cyclone 68000 based emulator for WM PDAs is just one example of those many many emulators for nearly every system that was ever build. But especially on a good Symbian Phone this is just fun. To play Ghouls’n'Ghosts or Sonic or Streets of Rage (The Original) is sometimes better than playing through graphically great but boring nowadays games.

PCSX2
A more modern approach for emulation is PCSX2, a Playstation 2 emulator for Windows PCs. Playstation 2? you might ask. Yes, the PS2! The PS2 that still is being sold by Sony Computer Entertainment to compensate the PS3 sales. And as such the emulator works better every new release but has the flaw that it needs an original PS2 BIOS, and those are solely copyrighted to Sony. Therefore the emulator is somewhat legal but delivered without a PS2 BIOS. But today’s computer generation probably know enough possibilities to find these, but I am so not encouraging this ^^#.
As said the emulator works good. Not perfect, but good. An overview of the games that are playable, PCSX2 has put up a compatibility chart. There are many games like Final Fantasy or Metal Gear that are nearly flawlessly playable. But one requirement is a very good computer as the emulator and it’s plugins need a good load of CPU Power!

WinUAE and TBL Demos
As introduction I told you about my old Amiga500 and the Demos I loved to watch. I still love the Scene and it’s outcome. One of my favourite groups throughout the years are TBL, The Black Lotus.
Those magicians at the keyboard have created more masterpieces than Kubrick or Spielberg. And even if they made some PC Demos over the years, there best works are on the Amiga System. Silkcut, Starstruck, Ocean Machine or Little Nell to point my favourites out (more on pouet.net). They fascinate by teasing out even the last crunch of the System, the last breath it can bare.
To watch those Demos you must have a Amiga System or you must stick with the screen caps. But there is one alternative: The WinUAE! The Amiga Emulator is commonly known to play most TBL Demos at a decent speed rate. Besides Demos you can also play games like those old Cinemaware classics. So this is probably a good solution to feel this old AmigaOS feeling.

Again THX to all Site- and Emulator-Makers for their time and effort to give us this fun (and images). For a very good overview of all those Emulators around have a look at AEP Emu.

Two of those things that troubled me the last weeks (besides Christmas and New Year) were the announcements or better first/new materials of Street Fighter IV and Duke Nukem Forever (And YES! I always believed it will be released…).

Street Fighter IV
First of all Street Fighter IV was announced some weeks ago with a very stylish trailer.
After much speculation about which dimension Street Fighter IV will conquer (3D like Street Fighter EX3 or 2D like the old Street Fighter World Games, which we liked so much) two weeks ago 1UP (better EGM) had an exclusive first look at an early development stage of the game… and damn, it looks very very good.

It will be a 2.5D fighting game as the whole graphics are 3D (not really classic Cel-Shading but very pastel like texturing and colouring) but the fighting will be on a traditional 2D layer with some additional special effects and environment interaction. Not much is known at this moment as the Capcom states that the development has just started, so the release won’t be before the end of 2008 (and a new “Happy New Year” post ^^’) but EGM managed to get some information out of the developers.
The characters of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Dhalsim are already somehow integrated. No final word on the character selection later on. Additionally to classic “Hadokens” and fighting there will be Ultra Combos integrated (probably known from games like “God of War”) and a “Rescue System” that will allow players on the edge to come back with some kind of blowout. For the whole story (I am too lazy to retell it here) have a look a the 1UP Feature.

Besides a new game in the franchise the rumour about a new movie (after the disaster movie with Jean-Claude) was spread month ago and they came out true. With “Street Fighter - The Legend of Chun-Li” Andrzej Bartkowiak (director of DOOM and respected for his camera work) will helm a new movie starring Chun-Li (hard to tell). Less than for the game is known what the movie will deal with (but Chun-Li) but what is known already is that the main actress will be Kristin Kreuk. Most people probably know here as Lana Lang from the Superman-Series “Smallville”. And actually as much as I think she looks lovely I cannot really think of here as Chun-Li.
But until we know more, see the first trailer and watch the final cut we can kill time by watching the hilarious Later Years of Street Fighter!

Duke Nukem Forever
Another bit news story made our Christmas more wonderful than the last 6 years. As Broussard lashed his men to finalize the first trailer since E3 2001 Duke Nukem Forever lives again. Declared dead by many, honoured with a Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award but the Duke IS Forever.
Much could be said to this achievement, a recap of the last ten years with Duke Nukem Forever has been summed up by Shacknews so I let them do the writing and just give you the trailer.
But remember: Broussard once declared on the 3DRealms Board that the first new material will be shown if the release is within the next 12 months. So let’s hope he is right and is true to his words!

I prepared the Duke Nukem Forever Trailer from ‘98 and ‘01 for your pleasure after the jump!
Thanks to 1UP/Gamevideos, Gametrailers and the developers for those great resources!

“The Hero that is FOREVER!”

Games, Games, Games
You’re looking for a good game
Games, Games, Games
Get ready for my games

Games, Games, Games by Sabrina. These were probably be the lyrics if Sabrina was a nerdy gaming girl looking for some good and free games.

Some time ago I posted about the small game Nanozoa which was some Virus remake with a cool look and some addictive gameplay. Over the time I collected and found some other free games or remakes that I want to show you.

Streets of Rage - Remake
Bombergames did a good job with their remake of an old street fight classic: Streets of Rage. If you liked the original or a fan of street brawl games like Final Fight, go ahead and grab it. It’s worth every bandwith.

Additionaly there is a Streets of Rage and King of Fighters Remake by the Senile Team (probably not that senile after all). The name Beats of Rage says it all. Screenshots do look good as well as the game itself. If you wanna be a King of Fighter, a real Brawler, go to the download page and get it. It is available for several platforms depending which you like the most.

flOw
As the Playstation 3 has finally be released in Europe I want to give you flOw. It is actually no real game, though you have goal: Eat! You are flowing in the eternal juice and you are eating everything that is smaller than you. With the time you grow up and former bigger germs can be eaten. So it’s nothing exciting but still fun.
What does that have to do with the PS3 release? flOw is the thesis of Jenova Chen from 2006 and has become a game, with some more effects and motion controlled actions on the Playstation Market Place. I think it costs about 5$ and looks nice, but the original is still free. So go ahead and munch through time and spice and get bigger and bigger.

Rick Dangerous 32
Oldie but Goodie! Our all hero Rick Dangerous in a wonderful 32bit version. The much cooler Indiana Jones version which accompanied us through every plattform probably available on the market.

This plattformer is a simple but not easy somehow Jump’n'Run which demands right timing for button mashing. It’s pretty damn hard and you will die many times as you do not know what comes next and have to pay with your live(s) to see it, but it’s defintily worth the effort as Rick Dangerous is simply a hero of my childhood.
So go get it and help Rick rule the “underworld” with his Gun and Dynamite and don’t get caught by those little freakin’ natives or something else like the Nazis (as always ^^’ and in comparison with Indiana Jones needed).

Railroad Tycoon (The Original)
We all know Sid Meier and his fabulous games like Civilization. Not long ago a remake was made called Sid Meier’s Railroads. It is a nearly direct remake without much change (apart from the graphics) of his original Railroad Tycoon. The problem is they did nearly everything wrong you could do after such a long time. The controls are easy, ok, but they are too easy. Complexity was thrown overboard and everything was made to fit a childish hand, somehow. The fun that made the original is gone. And instead of doing a remake why not make a new one like Civilization 3 which was just great!
So, why this text about a game you have to buy??? You do not have to… at least not the original. With the release of the remake the original Railroad Tycoon was made available on the same Website. So go get it and do some nostalgia!

Warcraft Tower Defense (in Flash)
At novelconcepts.co.uk David Scott put on his Flash Version of the common known Warcraft Tower Defense.

Tanks to mobygames.com, the Internet and all those great gamemakers for images and games.

But first: I wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I’ll be back with new posts, new nonsense and many MANY links to click on! First new entry tomorrow!

Most of all I like Firefox’ great Plug-in structure and its massive Plug-in community support. And of course it is Multi-Platform. So as it is my favorite browser at the moment, I give you my Top 5 of what makes Firefox my very own perfect Internet Browsing eXperience (IBX, I think I am going to patent this ^^’).

All-in-One Gestures
Mouse Gestures may be standard in most browsers today but I still prefer one of the first extensions for the Firefox, the All-in-One-Gestures. There may be newer ones, there may be better ones but I am totally fine with this one. It has everything I need. Customizing gestures, add gestures, mousetrace, gestures on links and much much more.
I don’t know what to state but this is one of the finest extensions ever.

BugMeNot
Everyone knows the situation: You’re at a site, just need to read a topic because it is your ultimate problem solution, or you just want to download a file, maybe the newest driver, but err… LOGIN REQUIRED! And that’s where BugMeNot comes to play…
BugMeNot is a site where people can post their logins (most likely with temporary or fake emails of course) for different websites and other can grab them for their own needs. It is a very large community and additionally rates the success rate of login attempts (users can rate them). Just enter the website you like to log in and BugMeNot gives you all stored logins with there success rates.
This fabulous website has an even more terrific plug-in. With the BugMeNot Extension you just easily right click on the username or password field of the current site you need to get into and from the context menu you pick “Login with BugMeNot”. The extension will now fetch logins and automatically fills them in. It submits and if a login has not worked it will try the next… fully automatically (with most websites)!!! Need I say more…

AdBlock+

Bender: Behold… The Internet!
Fry: My god! It’s full of ads!

- Futurama - A Bicyclops built for two

Yep, the net is for porn… uh, I mean for ads. Many many ads, popups, flash-ads, textads, Google and more. Yeah, I know, it’s for financing and stuff but damn it, must it be just directly over the whole text I want to read? Does it have to be flashing so that people get an epileptic seizure? The answer is no!
I show you who’s your daddy, it’s AdBlock+. But do not be mistaken, this is not the AdBlock+ you will find of you Google for it. There are several AdBlock+ versions out there, but no one can keep up to this one. It’s straight, it has everything you need and it will clear your sight.
Uh, “AdBlock+” you say? Well, golly gee, you mighty blogger of the future have shown me whats the fuzz about. Right you are, so now go ahead, install the extension and get an ad-free IBX (patent pending).

Web Developer Extension
Another great extension, especially for webdevelopers is the Web Developer Extension. A must have if you are writing websites.
Basically its another toolbar that gives you extensive extra features while surfing with Firefox. To name some functions, it’s able to let you alter the CSS while rendering, outline table cells, disable images, show id information and the very important private cache clearing ^^’. As you can see a very very helpful toolbar.
Nice to have is that you can customize the toolbar and add an extension button to it to hide the toolbar. For those who cannot stand more and more toolbars.

ReminderFox
My last most favorite extension is the ReminderFox. It is my personal small ToDo list application that helps to keep track of some issues.
In addition to its simple Reminder features it allows you to store the information on an external ftp or WebDav enabled location. I have a Firefox running on the several systems that I use so it is very helpful.
You can set a time reminder, have it floating every now and then to remind you etc. Actually it is nothing special but based on Firefox it gives you access to a small timetable from different machines with different Operating Systems. Most ToDo or Reminder software on the market is either with costs or does not work on different systems. So this is a good choice. And if you are like me, you have Firefox open the whole damn day ^^.

OK, so why do I break the silence? I am currently setting up a linux system as base for my diploma thesis. As I like Debian but wanted to have some more comfort I installed Ubuntu in its newest version 6.10, called Edgy. Dapper Drake (6.06) still is the LTS release and Edgy is known to have some problems but overall everything worked fine for me.
I downloaded the DVD, started the Live Ubuntu version and installed Ubuntu to my harddrive just by simple clicking. Some 30 minutes later everything was ready to run. And it runs fine!

Debian’s APT/DPKG system is just superb. Combined with the nice given user interface its just plain great. You can select from a large amount of good software to install without the need to compile or configure anything. Ubuntu is currently probably the best approach for a Desktop Linux overall. And in my opinion with all its comfort and the typical Linux software features it can stand up to Windows, MacOS X etc and outperform them.
I do not know how to describe it, but I am some kind of addicted to Ubuntu now. It just gives me everything I need and more. Features I haven’t even thought about that are just there without slowing down the machine while eating up my performance. I am happy…

…until now! For development I am using Eclipse. A great and free IDE especially for Java development and more. Fast and supportive with a large amount of plug-ins to use (a post about those is coming, too ^^). Again, Eclipse 3.2.1 made absolutely no problems during its installation with Ubuntu’s own program installer/deinstaller.
As I am developing in Java I needed a JDK. JDK 1.4.2 was already configured and ready to use but is out-dated. As JDK6 is the newest installment I wanted this package. Apparently, even if final for some time now, Debian still counts it as unstable. So your only chance is to get the binary from Sun’s official homepage with an own installer given (so no problem here) or to add the unstable packages sources to your source.list and install the “unstable” package (runs fine!!!).

Everything worked, you might say. What is he complaining about, you might ask. Those were no real problems, you might state. And you are right. BUT development is nothing without code. And code is often stored in a repository, in this case a Subversion repository.
Tigris, the Subversion developer, brings an own Eclipse Plug-In called Subclipse. It offers easy access for checkout, commit, update, delete etc. By using the Eclipse Update Manager it is an ease to install it. Strictly speaking Eclipse is doing the work while you are getting another java (damn… I couldn’t withstand this joke!).
Subclipse uses the JavaHL adapter by standard, which is part of the Subversion project and used as native API (per JNI) to access Subversion. Again, it’s just package that can be installed with the synaptic package manager. I did so, installed it, installed the libapr0 as needed too and thought everything will run fine now. WRONG! Eclipse did not start anymore.

What has happened? System is clean. 5 seconds ago it was still running. Now it crashes while loading the Subclipse perspective. Why, oh why?
First of all I cleaned Eclipse from the Subclipse installation. Eclipse started again but after installing Subclipse again I had the same problems again. So I reinstalled the complete Eclipse SDK after cleaning every configuration. After updating to Subclipse Eclipse was still running and could be started. But after changing to the Subclipse perspective it crashes. Damn, I thought. What is the problem?
I asked my magical crystal ball (also known as Google) what the problem could be. And it gave me an answer straight away. It was neither Eclipse nor Subclipse but libsvn-javahl in addition to libapr0 that caused the error. Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06) had no problems with its JavaHL compiled package. Eclipse, Subclipse and JavaHL work fine. But since Edgy the package seems to have problems with apr. Those problems are well known but still the package was officially opened to Edgy (at least so it seems).
So long story short: After trying to figure out what the problem was, I could locate JavaHL as the root of all evil. I deinstalled it and am using the Subclipse Java SVN API. That may not be the best solution but it works. There are some “howto’s” that explain ways to compile your own JavaHL with another apr that will work with Subclipse but I am just too lazy.

So, what do we learn from this? Never trust a running system: If it’s running, it can still crash! And of course, always ask Google before complaining on a Mailing List.

I don’t want to make this very long as the new year has just started and should not be filled with that much stupidity right along but what troubled me the last weeks:
I got my Wii as the countdown suggested and I am very happy. It is a good and solid console with more good games to come. The control works great as if you have never used anything else before. The Party Games like Wii Sports and Wii Play are pretty good. Much fun with some people and some beer ^^’. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is just terrific, great, best game from Nintendo ’till this day. Most other games don’t work as they should but time will tell if Nintendo can keep up some more good games, as every console has a hard game start. Red Steel should have been the new experience in the Ego-Shooter genre but it did not quite work out. Most reviews rated it pretty bad. I tested it for 2 days and I must say: The controls could be better but are easy to adopt. After some hours you will know how to fight, how to move. From then on it is a funny and cool game with intermediate graphics and a very nice Arcade-Feeling like House of the Dead with your Lightgun. A sequel is already in the work so I hope they learn from their mistakes and will make a great next-new-gen-Ego-Shooter ^^’. And as NexGen Wars shows I am not alone with my positive thinking.
Two things could be better. First the Virtual Console. Itself is just a great idea and works great but the prices for such old games like the first Sonic, the first Legend of Zelda or R-Type are with 5€ to 10€ just by far too much. And the overall internet capability of the Wii is pretty limited. Currently no game can be played with others online, not even Red Steel and things like the WiiShop are pretty slow. Everything requires reload. I hope Nintendo will improve and focus their work on these two things.

Everything else just somehow goes and goes on. University sux as always, still no very concrete diploma thesis. Life itself is the hell of a burden ^^. Some good movies have been released. Apocalypto by Mel Gibson. Maybe controversial but I pretty much liked it. It was true and strong with great stills. The newest James Bond… long story short, best Bond movie with the second best Bond actor. Now I am looking forward to Babel and Pan’s Labyrinth, two very promising movies and I will tell you about as soon as I have seen them.

For now… the end is near… the year is over… another one just started… 2007… The End!