48 posts tagged “geek”
Why do you blog?
Submitted by Syafira.
'CAUSE I GOT NO PLACE ELSE TO GO.
What is your favorite classic video arcade game?
Submitted by northerngeek.
My mum and step-dad went to Ibiza one year. They decided to leave all of us kids with my step-dad's parents in Staffordshire.
Being rather hip and with it despite their advancing years, they decided to take us to not one but two theme parks over the course of the week. Alton Towers being one of the largest in the UK, and Drayton Manor being a smaller deal, albeit one with a mini-zoo and an arcade.
It was in this arcade that I, along with three unknown Japanese tourists, completed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game. I don't recall putting any more than £1 into the machine - and in those days, a credit was 20p, so that was a mere five credits.
The game remains the nuts. Go download it on Xbox Live Arcade.
I am writing this because I had trouble finding this information. Every forum thread, support page and tech tips site I found on Google was terrible.
a) The Microsoft Xbox 360's wireless adaptor *is* compatible with the Apple Time Capsule
b) You do not need *any* other equipment to get them to talk to each other
Here, in a nutshell, are the settings you need for your Xbox 360 to successfully find and talk to your Time Capsule. These instructions assume you know how to use the Airport Utility (Apple's support site).
In Airport > Wireless...
- Radio mode: 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)
- Wireless security: WPA/WPA2 Personal
In Internet > Internet Connection...
- Connection Sharing: Share a public IP address
In Internet > NAT...
- Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol: Yes
Assuming everything else is set up correctly (i.e. you can get online with other devices attached to your Time Capsule), your Xbox 360 should now connect, too.
From childhood 'til now... What's the best Christmas present you've ever received?
Another three-way tie this one.
1983 (I think): Castle Greyskull from Father Christmas
1993 (I think): me and my siblings pooled Christmas money for a Super Nintendo
2007: an electro-acoustic guitar from Jess
What do you love most about your job?
1. Problem solving. Although it's all in the field of nerdy computer things, I do like being given a problem then working out the best way to solve it. Or the best way with the time available, which are not always the same thing.
2. People. I work with several people who I love dearly and learn a lot from.
3. Learning. In the space of less than two years, I have learned a LOT and keep learning. It's great, and I attribute that to both the people I work with (especially my mentor, Eduardo, whose coding style is so easy to follow) and the fact that the company is too small for pre-defined roles to really stick on any given project. I was hired to do CSS and JavaScript, but spread out into SQL Server, ASP.Net, XML and other technologies just because I could and extra hands were needed.
Winner: Tales Of Vesperia
For: Xbox 360
Fifty hours. That's how much time it took me to get through this game from start to finish, an epic journey that took me all over a fictional world called Terca Lumireis, fighting everything from bouncing frog-things to shark pirates to rock giants to daft-looking dragon/fox hybrids with my team of typically gender-dubious misfits.
The story is the typical JRPG gibberish, recanted with twee abandon using regular animated cutscenes, in-engine sequences and bizarre headshot panel sequences. Blah blah blah, evil dudes plot to take over the world, accidentally unleash catastrophic intergalactic space squid thing, references to a great war and some entirely baffling pseudo-science about dragons that turn into glowy battery things. While the story is a potential turn off (especially when they keep repeating annoying things like one character being undecided about continuing the adventure after every bloody boss), it's at least well presented.
So why then is this my game of the year? It's simple: while it suffers the usual pre-boss grinding and some of the typical RPG quirks, this is the most perfectly balanced, beautiful, fun game I have played all year. The cel-shaded graphics are nothing short of jaw-dropping, the combat system is a pleasure, and the game - while a little linear - really makes you feel like you're making progress on your own merit.
And I really do want to single out combat. Battles aren't random like other examples of the genre: you can see enemies on the world map and avoid them if you want to (although some are hard to pass). When you do initiate a battle, your primary character is under your control while everyone else follows a strategy you had set in the menu system. The AI is a little clunky sometimes (once or twice, I found my mages wading into melee combat when I specifically told them to stay back), but generally they will play an important role in how you do.
The strategy system allows you to control what each party member does individually - with details like item use, spellcasting and the like - and as your party is made up of the usual mix of strong warriors, fast warriors, hunters, attacking mages and healing mages, you can tailor the game to how you want to play.
Runner-Up: Fallout 3
For: Xbox 360
Fallout 3 is practically the opposite of Tales Of Vesperia. On a visual level, while Tales douses your eyes in bright pastel hues, F3's desolate post-apocalyptic Washington, DC has a very flat grey/brown palette... and that isn't even the start of it. Tales' Yuri Lowell is a very well defined character for whom you just provide the input, F3's Vault Dweller is almost devoid of personality and story - the choices you make as a player define them, from the haircut to moral compass. And Yuri had friends on his journey, the Vault Dweller is very much alone.
With a very clever setup (where sequences showing your character's birth and adolescence cleverly mask the customisation options), the game introduces you to your father, James, who has raised you alone in a nuclear bunker called Vault 101 since your mother died during child birth. One day, your father disappears, his best friend is dead and you are urged to escape the Vault to go find him.
This is where the story picks up, with a hurried escape into the wastelands where your character sees sunlight for the first time in their life.
Although designed to operate more like a first person shooter with RPG elements, I have been playing the game almost entirely in the third person view. This would make combat (with the game's assortment of oversized bugs, stray irradiated mammals, mutants, ghouls and opportunist survivors) difficult were it not for the VATS system. Tap a button and the action pauses, with your character zooming in on the nearest enemy. You have a regenerating pool of action points which you can use to fire off shots at specific parts of the enemy's body. It makes combat less frenzied and more strategic, and I love it.
As well as shooting things, you have to complete numerous quests that take you around the vast expanses of desolate wasteland as well as the remains of the city of DC itself, quests for which you will have to chat, explore, fight, hack, lockpick and sneak in various amounts. All of this earns you experience, and at each level, you can assign points to yor various skill categories (for example, if you prefer combat, you can focus on being better with different types of guns) as well as choosing a perk. Perks run the gamut of allowing you to carry more items to making animals like you - a good thing with nasties like the mutated bear-things called Yao Guai roaming the wastes.
The game is a bit of a slow burner, but still great fun. Its quests try to give you moral dilemmas which, in the now-standard video game fashion, are still very much black and white issues with no room for blurring. The result is that you often gain or lose karma, with minimal benefit or penalty bar slighty different responses from characters. Depending on where you fall on the scale, you will earn a specific achievement when you reach level 8, 14 and 20 (the maximum level in the game), and later on, you will be targeted: I've been playing as a goody two shoes, so there is now a contract out on me, with the odd random encounter with mercenaries to deal with.
* * * * *
I would strongly recommend both of these games, although I can see how either might not be to everyone's tastes.
Show us your favorite piece of athletic equipment.
Seriously, didn't you get the memo?
Parties, dinners, pageants and more. How does technology help you survive the hustle and bustle of the holidays?
Sponsored by Best Buy.
If I get invited somewhere I've never been, Google Maps on my iPhone shows me the way. If I get bored, Facebook and NetNewsWire on my iPhone give me something to do. If I want to take a photo, my iPhone lets me snap one without carrying several devices. iPhone iPhone iPhone. Sorry, but that, my laptop and my Xbox 360 are my favourite widgets right now.
I wish I *could* feel better, Tylenol Sinus, believe me.
I have a cold. I'm not one of those men who somehow turn into the walking wounded when they get a minor sniffle. More than anything, being ill just pisses me off. I can barely breathe properly at the best of times with my stupid allergies, but this just exacerbates the problem and makes me snippy. And tired.
Then to make matters worse, I had to wear a scarf to combat the cold weather this morning. While in the summer, buses are air conditioned to freezing point here in Chicago, in the winter, the heat is full blast and you're too packed in to successfully remove and replace clothing. Scarf plus cold plus heat... ugh. Hate, hate, hate.
Other than my immune system coming under fire, this weekend was quiet. We spent most of it packing things up ready for our move (if it ever happens, we're still waiting for our mortgage nonsense to be signed off); I finally completed Tales Of Vesperia - an effort that took over 50 hours of play time, all in; and Josie came to see as us it's been a billion years.
After my last move (across an ocean, no less) I have definitely gotten more ruthless about throwing things I don't need away. Not that my brother Ricci can agree with this, seeing as his attic is half full of guitars and CDs and books.
Anyway, this week, we are crossing things that our mortgage and all that come through so we can just worry about being ready to move on 22 November. Yes please.
UPDATE: We are clear to close, we are definitely moving!
Show us how you workout now that it's cold outside.
