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

Games, Games, Games by Sabrina. These would 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 ^^.

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!

What’s to sum up of the last twenty-four years I spend living… at least more or less. Prepare for fast-forward. Prepared for fast-forward? Fast-forward… Now: Born on the 17th of November in Bremen, Germany I started to puke all over this world. Lived in three different locations till now. Did nothing else but went to school. Damn it! That’s pretty much it! I went to school! I go to school for 19 years. NINETEEN!!! OK, the schools changed but always school. Elementary school, grammar school, college-preparatory and nowadays I study at the University of Bremen, trying to get my degree in Computer Science. Since I am 16 I work additionally to my school. And do not forget my 9 month with the German Bundeswehr as military service is duty in Germany (at least for the cool guys ^^’).

That is my life until this day in fast-forward. Nothing special as you can see. Nothing big that I have achieved. Just living and trying to get along. And if I have a look at other people my age or born at the 17th of November I get headache. Christopher Paolini, born November, 17 in 1983. Has written Eragon and Eldest. Great books, at least Eragon. Haven’t read Eldest yet but Eragon will be a major movie this December in cinemas all around the world. Or Jessica Biel. Born March, 3rd in 1982 she performs since she was 14. Next big movie will be The Illusionist with Edward Norton. Also in 1982 William DeVries transplanted the first artificial heart. Barney Clark was his patient. ICQ, Carl Zeiss, Danny DeVito, Martin Scorsese, Phrack and so many more have their first appearances, inventions, downloads et cetera on a November, 17.

Conclusion
What’s to conclude here? I am getting older but on the other side I still have so much time and so much to do. At least I have a blog. An achievement I… ahem… I… jeez, every idiot has a blog. But we had our little party this Friday with some good beer and fun (at least I think so). We will back us, anyone each other while we are getting older and someday we will look at the blogs of the future on our fluid displays and we will laugh at all those young internet freaks that have to share their life with the internet because they have no friends… ahem… I… think I have to go ^^

Movies, Movies, Movies
I have one more. A lot of movie news came up the last week. Many new facts and many new trailers. First of all I am looking forward to the Casino Royale start. I had my doubts but Daniel Craig seems to prove that a new, rough and emotional Bond has been born. The best of both worlds (Connery and Brosnan) from what I saw and read. I hope I won’t be disappointed.
I watched Children of Men this week because of the good reputation of Alfonso Cuarón and I liked it very much. It was a realistic look at a future filled with emotions that has become quiet. A very touching and emotional film that also was very brutal. But Alfonso Cuarón showed his expertise in filming. Great single shot sequences that will blow even those away that just want some action movie.
Two important trailer found their way into the net. Spider-Man 3 and The Simpsons Movie. After a good first comic adaptation the second Spider-Man got me kind of disappointed. To heroic, bad Octopus, worse love story between Peter and Mary-Jane so I was pretty happy to find out that the third one will be darker, has Venom in it and takes up the moral of the comics. And The Simpsons Movie… yeah, its The Simpsons so it will rock ^^’
I eventually wanted to give you a peek at Grindhouse, the new (two) Movie(s) by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez but The Weinstein Company don’t want us to see it. I watched it and I must say: This movie will kick ass and chew bubblegum. Horror-, suspense-, splatter-movie with a 70′s atomic cataclysm style! One hell of a movie with Rose McGowan and her M16 as leg ^^’
Another big event this weekend was the After Dark Horrorfest. After Dark shows 8 films to die for in selected theatres in the United States. Only this weekend from November, 17 to 19. 8 movies that would not have been released! There are six trailers at Apple.com and they look good. At least for people that like such freakin’ fuckin’ movies. I do!

Dark Ride

by Craig Singer

The Gravedancers

by Mike Mendez

The Hamiltons

by The Butcher Brothers

Penny Dreadful

by Richard Brandes

Reincarnation

by Takashi Shimizu

Unrest

by Jason Todd Ipson

The Abandoned

by Nacho Cerda

Wicked Little Things

by J.S. Cardone

So that’s it from me for this week. I will go take my drugs and cuddle myself into my rheumatism blanket. Until next week folks!

I went to my local retailer and asked for their help. With teardrops in my eyes, crawling on the floor I begged for mercy to give me the chance of holding The Sceptre of Light in my hands at the first day of the new dawn. And they had mercy. The Wii is as good as mine and you will hear from it many many times ^^

Doom your AcrobatReader
This Friday I had to make some changes to an old program I worked on. It is about programmatically report generation, so nothing very fancy or interesting but it had to be done. There is a “GuideProgramming” for this amazing report generator but due to the fact that it does not really apply to the library it is somehow worthless.
What’s with Adobe Acrobat? Ah yes! So I had this “NoGuide” and more and more reports for testing reasons. My whole system got slow, simple browsing or text editing with my editor was impossible. I was in a really bad mood and got more and more annoyed by the AcrobatReader. Always 10-15 seconds of waiting just to open a 2 sheet paper I want to read. Filling up the memory with 40-50MB. I thought “Damn it! It can’t be!” and started to look for alternatives.

I asked a friend and googled for alternative solutions. A simple PDF Reader cannot be too much to ask for, can it? The first thing you will find if you look for a “pdf reader” in Google without looking for Adobe products, is the Foxit PDF Reader. I found some more PDF Reader but every single Software was Shareware or had something else that pissed me off. So I tried Foxit and I instantly was happy. I clicked on a PDF and it opened up in less then a second even with Eclipse and VS running. Some titles and the page displays font was bold but the speed was so marvellous that I made it my standard PDF Reader.
There is one thing I hope they will implement very soon: Foxit opens an instance for every PDF, even if another clean instance is running. With more and more PDF Reports opening up for testing that can get a bit messy. But nevertheless everything else works fine and the idea of clicking on a PDF and actually see it at the same time makes this program worth a big recommendation. So download and install this rapid PDF Reader.

Intel Demo Competition
INTEL has called out for the first “Intel Demo Competition”. In cooperation with ASUS and Digitale Kultur e.V. Intel summoned probably the five best European Demogroups from all different countries. The contestants are as follows:

Farbrausch (Germany)

fr-054: polar

MFX (Finland)

Torpedo

ASD (Greece)

Lithography

Conspiracy (Hungary)

Duality

Fairlight (Great Britain)

Tactical Battle Loop

The rules are pretty simple. To show off that Intel is the best hardware manufacturer (and as supporter of the Demoscene for some years now) every group got an identical machine, an Asus Intel Centrino Duo Notebook to make a Demo on. A Demo has to be between 30 and 40 seconds long and has to run on that machine. How long the Demo has to be was determined by DJ Hell. He produced five tracks for these five Demos. All contestants had about 10 weeks time to finish their work and now is the time to vote.

All Demos can be seen online at the Intel Demo Competition Website or downloaded from the same source. There is a voting running to decide which group made the best Demo of them all. The voting is open till December, 1st. Then we will know who will be the first European Intel Demo Competition Champion. So go ahead, watch them all and vote for your favourite.

Blue Screen of Death
Oh hell yeah, Windows nostalgia. The Blue Screen of Death is back and we missed it, don’t we ^^!? And who if not Microsoft can give it back to us. No, Vista has not been publically released yet. But it is MS who brings you the BlueScreenSaver. A small ScreenSaver for your crash proven Windows PC that will make you reminisce about the good old Windows95, Windows98 and WindowsME times. It gives you just a simple BlueScreen with a more or less real error message. Actually there is nothing special about it, just 640×480 pixel of Windows history but I love it ^^’.

Fanboys
To end this wonderful, delightful and splendid post I would like to present you the Fanboys Trailer. A journey for friendship. A journey to give their dying friend his only hope to see Star Wars – The Phantom Menace. Fanboys shows us this journey of four guys that are way too much into Star Wars. See them rock the Skywalker Ranch and Role over the enemy, the antagonist, the villain Star Trek ^^.
Go, go, go and watch the trailer over at IESB! Itse very nice man!

Street Fighter – The Movie… AGAIN
I do not know if I should smile, laugh, cry, commit suicide or just kill everybody else. Yes, it is true: Street Fighter gets another movie. After a pretty much stupid and bad movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme Capcom intend to bring you a new generation of fighting. That nowadays fighting movies do not have to be good was mentioned by me before. Hyde Park Entertainment will produce the new Street Fighter Movie in a joint venture with Capcom and it is going to be released in 2008: Street Fighter’s 20th Anniversary! The story will be focused on Chun-Li this time and it is stated that less characters from the game will make their way into the movie.
I do not really know what to think about this. There are basically no informations right now only that there will be a movie. So before I commit suicide I will wait until they cast Jean-Claude Van Damme again.

Se2en and 28 Weeks Later
Yep, two more movies I need to talk about. This time real sequels and prequels. First of all the somehow successful film by Danny Boyle “28 Days Later” gets another Episode. 28 Weeks Later is a direct sequel to the events of the first movie. 6 Month after the Virus had infected London Great Britain is a dead island. The US Army declares that the War over the Virus has been won and is constantly repopulating the cities. Refugees and hope returns to London, families reunited. But the Virus has not been exterminated. It slumbers in the some inhabitants of the city…
28 Weeks Later is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo this time. Juan has not made many movies yet but those were damn crazy. Intacto and Psycotaxi were damn strange movies so he may be the right guy to direct Weeks. Overall the cast is pretty much new with some more or less famous actors (Harold Perrineau from LOST as example). It is going to be released next year in May but I think nothing has been confirmed in that direction.
The Movie has yet to release a trailer but I found some interesting raw material from the scene. See it here!

Another snippet of news itself is the make of a Se7en prequel. David Fincher’s 1994 movie with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt will get another Episode to enlighten us why John Doe is a freakin’ bible addict. Not much information here either but you can search for news on “Virtue” because that is the production title which turned out to have a twist to Se7en at the end.

So many movies, so many Zombies. If you are somehow into Zombies why don’t you have a look at ZOMGies!!!1 over at LoadingReadyRun!

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Everyone who knows me should know my affinity to the Wii Console from Nintendo. I preordered it and I am so looking forward to this. I can barely stand the wait and will probably have to freeze myself. I especially look forward to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I think anyone who ever played a Zelda game will immediately be fascinated by these games from the NES, GameBoy on to the GameCube. So with the Wii the newest Zelda will be released for the Wii (of course ^^’) and the GameCube and if you look at the videos or the images you will see what power the GameCube has. It just looks amazing! It will be one of the greatest games of all time, at least for me and for you I do not care. Play it and see for yourself. But why this post? In the latest 1UP Show they had an interview with the Localisation Managers of NOA playing Zelda and answering some questions. The 10 minutes video is filled with incredible scenes from the game. Go ahead and see for yourself. I had to post it!

So that’s it for this week folk. See you around!