Reminds me of Project Zomboid, only less brutal. Top down zombie survival with base building, crafting, hunting game, fishing and cars!
There are also NPC survivors like the trader and some that might want to take what you worked for. Repair the Radio Tower and you can call the trader to your base. The repaired Radio Tower also enables cargo drops.
Pro tip: do not eat your fishing bait.
Problem:
Windows 7 transfers files very slowly with 100% CPU usage and system slows down to a crawl. This problem is consistent with transferring files across local drives/partitions as well as transferring files across the network. Transfer speed is only around 7 MB/s which should be around 30-60 MB/s.
Solution(s):
Set Power Options to High Performance
Go to the Power Options in Control Panel (Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options) and set it to High Performance if you are using a desktop computer. For laptops, set it to high when plugged-in; there should be manageable rules for power consumption that you can set, just fiddle around... because setting it to high will drain the batteries faster if not plugged-in, or you can manually set it to high only when transferring files.
Install Mass Storage DriversMy Windows 7 is set to Balanced (Recommended) Plan in Power Options by default even if I installed it on a desktop computer. Balanced or Power Saver plans tend to minimize power consumption on devices that support it, and that includes your hard drives, network and USB ports. This seems to fix the problem with very slow transfer speeds both locally and on the workgroup.
I did not install the raid drivers for my board since there were no unknown hardware in Windows' Device Manager so I've experienced this problem myself. After installing the updated RAID drivers, file copy is now about ~45 MB/s and CPU usage is very minimal.
If Resident Evil 4 (PC version) gives you a black screen after choosing your preferred language at startup, it is probably a codec conflict. You may need to unregister the specific codec to make it play the intro movie and the cutscenes (and thereby allowing you to get past the intro FMV and play the game normally).
I checked with Process Explorer to find the codecs used by the game and it gave me quartz.dll and splitter.ax, the former being part of windows while the latter is from haali. The haali filters were installed from an old version K-Lite Codec Pack which I forgot to uninstall when I got another codec pack. You will need to unregister the codec responsible to fix the issue.
To unregister codecs and COM type: regsvr32 /u <file-to-unregister>
So in your command prompt:
Find the codec splitter.ax usually installed in Program Files:
Iron Man 2 [2010]
Who you will see:
Estranged
Video Director: Andy Morahan
Video Producer: Warren Hewlett
Producer: Mike Clink
Performed By: Guns N' Roses
(C) 1993 Guns N' Roses under exclusive license to Geffen Records
Watched this video many times, and now I finally get it why they used dolphins. Slash's guitar solos are making dolphin (or another sea mammal, whale) sounds. Watch the video on youtube while it is still available (embedding disabled by request).
After almost 11 months, my 160GB Western Digital SATA II Drive is failing. At first I thought it was just some bad sectors.. well I checked and scanned and used Data Lifeguard from Western Digital.. there were no bad sectors. It was the controller board inside the disk that was malfunctioning due to overheating even though I have three fans in the ATX Casing with one exclusively for the disk. Now, it would fail to read/write once in a while.. or after a few minutes or so, and I have to shut down the PC and turn it ON after a few minutes of rest to make it work as it was 10 months ago. Guess these drives weren't meant to last especially if your PC is "ON" forever with occasional rests every month or so for a few hours.. because I am hosting my own web and email server on it.
All my data and games I wiped clean from the drive because I wanted to format it at low level using Data Lifeguard's "Write Zeroes". Well since it is not caused by bad sectors, there was no hope of reviving it back like a new disk. A month ago I've been experiencing symptoms of Delayed Write Failures (DWF) on Windows XP. And accessing of the disk is very slow. The good news is, I can send this back to WD Services since it is still on warranty till 2010 and have it replaced. The bad news is that this is my only disk and I cannot afford to buy another one while I wait for the replacement which would take about a month and I cannot live without my PC for a day.
Perhaps when I could get a new disk I would send this back for replacement, but for now I am using a ramdisk with 1GB out of my 3GB memory so I can at least browse the net or play low-end small installation games. I am also using firefox portable on my 1.9GB usb drive to browse the net so only windows accesses the hard disk to prevent damaging it some more. My other applications on the ramdisk and usb drives runs very smoothly since it is not using the "slowed-down" disk. Maybe I should consider Seagate Drives next time.
Games stopped: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SHOC
Application data lost: My 3D Models/Projects and Programming Projects
Low-end games played: Starwars KOTOR, KOTOR2, Outcast, Jedi Academy since they do not access the disk most of the time (only when loading/saving which could fail in my damaged drive sometimes).
I would probably lay low from the Internet for now..
Far Cry (2005)
When I heard about Far Cry 2 and saw the development reviews and previews of the game, I thought it would be a great 3D game and got the first installment of the title since at that time I haven't played Far Cry... yet. The other day I have just finished the game in "Challenging" difficulty and played in "Realistic" afterwards and I am now halfway through with no other sign of difficulty changes except for more accurate enemy fire that kills you with four hits on a full armor and health status. With the upcoming second installment of Far Cry with a more realistic and stunningly beautiful environment, I can say that the first game already has a great jungle environment that makes me wonder what Far Cry 2 would look when released.
Anyway, you are Jack who has been hired to take this lady Valerie into a group of islands somewhere out in the middle of nowhere where you get hit by a rocket propelled grenade. You have no choice but to swim to the nearest island and figure out how to get out of the jungle. As the story unfolds you will then find out that Valerie is a CIA agent on a mission and have chosen you to get her into the "jungle islands" because you are the only boat for hire with special forces training and thought that you might be able to help. There have been mutation experiments on the islands and both of you are there to stop it whether you like it or not.
The first encounters with the mutated creatures are mutations of monkeys/apes. You later find out that what you encountered were just the untrained mutants, which means there are trained ones out there and I'm not talking about monkeys trained to hunt down prey. They have been inoculating trained human soldiers that mutated into firearm-carrying mutants that could kill you not only with their guns but with one or two swipes of their claws. This game feels very similar to Half-Life but with a jungle theme and mercenaries. I like the part where you get to blow out everything in your path and also the stealth infiltrations at night with your night vision goggles.
The boss fights are very frustration as you get to battle not only the boss but some mercenaries and soldiers as well who snipe you if you don't take them all out first to concentrate on the boss. Better carry that rocket launcher all the way in the game with full ammo as it will help you clear out these enemy soldiers on boss battles very quickly. And when you get the chance to carry that Machine Gun with a capacity of 100 bullets, then do so as it will help kill those big nasties with rocket launchers on their arms with a full burst at their heads.
Some jungle tips. Before entering an enemy encampment on the jungle, try to get everyone on the binoculars as this would enable tracking of your enemies on your radar. Just prone in a good distance away from the camp, use the binoculars and wait for most of them to get registered for tracking. Then snipe or shoot the enemies on guard towers first as they would be your most likely killers from above with sniper rifles and rocket launchers. Move to another location as the mercenaries would be converging on the last known disturbance, which you can see as red dots on the radar which means they are alarmed by your presence. Always aim for the head to deal with them swiftly. You can drown mutant apes if you are near deep water by letting them follow you to the depths. And finally, do not waste your ammo!
I will be gaming with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Shadow of Chernobyl) tomorrow as my game break is still ongoing. Stalker is very much similar to Fallout which I am a fan of, and I'm also waiting for Bethesda's Fallout 3. Will also try to acquire the Stalker film for the Stalker game review after playing the game.
FABLE: The Lost Chapters (2005)
Fable was first released in XBox while PC gamers felt left-out. But when it was released in Windows (PC), XBox users felt left-out because the PC version has additional content: The Lost Chapters where you get to go to the Northern Wastes in the Old Kingdom after defeating Jack of Blades in the original Fable storyline. The Lost Chapters offer new weapons, new quests and more choices to make... whether you continue to be a good hero or an evil villain of the Heroes Guild.
You will be able to get the Holy Warrior Helm, a perfect fit for that Bright Plate Suit of yours or the Demon Warrior Helm for you terrifying Dark Plate Suit. You can also acquire Archon's Armor, a more powerful plate suit with better defense but gives a good modifier for those planning on playing with an evil character. In the Northern Waste you get to battle Jack of Blades once more in his new (a perhaps his true) form, a fire breathing dragon. In the end, you get the option on wearing Jack's mask or destroying it, which if you plan on wearing it you become Jack of Blades himself and play as Jack at the end of the storyline after waiting for the game credits to roll out.
The Lost Chapters starts as with the original Fable game. You are a boy where the village you start out with gets attacked and burned to the ground, with your father as one of the casualties. Maze, a wizard from the Heroes Guild will somewhat find you and train you as one of the heroes in the game. You then decide which abilities to hone and master as you grow old (at about a few game minutes or a few hours in real time). As you grow you become older, become scarred and grow your hair and beard if you decide not to get to the local barber of Bowerstone. Experience is dropped for everything you kill (as long as they are not inanimate objects) as experience orb. A battle multiplier is also present for every strike you make which can multiply the experience you get from enemies and will slowly count down to a multiplier of one if not attacking, or will be halved or lowered by ten if you take a hit.
Experience distribution is applied to skills you need to improve in the Heroes Guild's Map Room. General experience (green) can be distributed to all skills (warrior, thief and magic) while red, yellow and blue experience can only be distributed to warrior, thief and magic skills respectively. You gain red experience by using your melee weapons or fists, or eating strength enhancing food like meat. Yellow experience is acquired with using your bow, or eating carrots (not the golden ones). You get blue experience points by using your Will/magic and by eating certain types of fish. If you master one or all of the three skills, your appearance will also change. For example, mastering most of the magic spells will grant you magical tattoos just like Maze's, plus your hands will be glowing with Will energy. Mastering warrior skills of strength will give you muscles and a pumped up body.
You will also have choices to make in the storyline which will bring you to the path of good or evil depending on your choices and actions. Stealing, breaking barrels and killing innocents will bring you closer to the dark side while fighting monsters and some good deeds/choices/missions will bring you to the light (the good side). Some food items will also change your alignment like eating a crunchy chick will give you an evil alignment while tofu will make you good. The good character will have blue eyes at first, then butterflies flying around you on the second level, a halo on the third and a bask of holy light on your feet on the final level (with a more distinct halo). The evil character will have red eyes, small horns on the head, flies, and finally an evil red glow on your feet/path with full grown horns. Some magic spells can only be mastered depending on your alignment like heal for good and drain life for evil but regardless of your alignment you will still become a Will Master if you master enough spells.
For every town you can get to buy your own house where you can rent it out for extra gold, or get married and live in the marital home you bought, so you can have a wife for every town you have a house on. You can also marry Lady Grey in Bowerstone North even if you don't own a house. Married life can have its rewards, your wife gives you gifts like powerful weapons or armor which you can sell since you already are using that legendary weapon (artifact) which is more powerful than the expensive weapons. And if you're evil, you can sacrifice your wife in the Chapel of Skorm which might bless you with the game's most powerful bow if you sacrifice her at midnight. If a villager or shop owner is killed, you have the option to buy the house they live in or the shop, but make it quick as when the game respawns a new villager or shop owner, the replaced villager will automatically buy the vacant house or the replaced shop owner will resume the shop's ownership. Taverns can also be bought if you kill the game master, the bartender and the bar maid.
Fable provides a good role-playing theme, and will also change your appearance for the role of the character you are trying to create... somewhat different from other RPG's where you decide the role of your character at the start through a character generator. I will also be keeping an eye out for Fable 2.
Overlord (2007)
This is a first person fantasy game where you are the overlord, master of goblin-like creatures called minions. You start the game with brown minions waking you up from your evil slumber on a sarcophagus with a steel helmet, armor and axe. There are four types of minions. The brown minions are your standard melee attackers and are available in the start of the game. The red minions are the ranged fighters, hurling fireballs at enemies and can survive on fires (can extinguish them as well). The green minions are your stealth assassins, when grouped (flagged) they can become invisible and can back stab enemies within their range while the enemy is looking away from them, as well as survive poisonous areas and can disable poison producing plants that block the overlord's path. The blue minions are the support creatures, they can resurrect fallen minions and can swim/traverse water but are weak fighters (but can swarm an enemy and resurrect the fallen comrades if some will die).
You start with only five minions that you can summon but the maximum number of minions can be increased by collecting creature objects or by upgrading your helmet on the forge. Minions can only be summoned on summoning pits: browns are summoned on brown summoning pits, reds on red summoning pits, etc. Your tower is your headquarters, where all the tower objects are placed like creature, health and magic objects as well as creature hives. In order to summon creatures of a certain type, you must acquire their hive.
Weapons, armors and helmets can be created on a forge somewhere within the tower but first you must acquire the steel forge and command your creatures to carry it to the nearest teleporter to your tower. You can also upgrade your equipment on the forge, sacrificing minions to give it additional damage, power and abilities. For armors, you can sacrifice green minions to give it health regeneration, with a percentage depending on the number of green minions you sacrifice. Brown minions increase the armor's defense, red minions increase your maximum life bars and blue minions increase your magic capacity. You can get two other forge types as well which increase the maximum number of minions you can sacrifice to give your battle equipment more abilities.
Although you can summon a limited number of minions (from you current maximum summons), you will have a pool of available minions that you can summon to replenish your ranks which reside in your tower. You can increase your minion pool by gathering lifeforce. Sheeps that you or your minions kill will generate brown lifeforce (with a yellow color) and is the most common. Red lifeforce from certain creatures/enemies will increase your red minion pool, green lifeforce for greens and blue lifeforce for blues. There is also an arena in your tower where you can battle previously encountered enemies, very useful for filling up your creature pools because these arena enemies will drop lifeforce. The bugs are a perfect arena combatants as they drop lifeforce depending on the species and I would suggest you try to find these bugs in the game to make them available in the arena as soon as possible. The battler beetles drop brown lifeforce, the magma beetles drop red lifeforce, the puff beetles drop green lifeforce and the dazzler beetles drop blue lifeforce for a total of 75 lifeforces in every arena battle with a specific bug.
---spoilers---
Now on to the summary of the game storyline. You were actually a gallant knight who once fought an evil overlord along with your other hero comrades. You were left for dead in the last overlord's tower after that overlord was defeated by the other heroes. The leader of the heroes was a wizard who was determined to stop the overlord's evil reign. Unknown to all, the wizard was possessed by this overlord in their battle and all came to believe that the overlord is dead. The wizard then corrupted the other heroes and the new overlord (you), the knight left for dead in the tower was resurrected/awaken to take over the overlord's tower temporarily which the wizard planned in taking back later. You will battle all of your corrupted hero friends and finally meet the wizard who you must defeat to remain the tower's current overlord, your minions will battle against his minions and prove yourself to be the best overlord. In the end, the minion jester who you beat up in the training sessions and kick around in your tower will give an evil grin with eyes glowing, probably possessed by the overlord wizard.
There is also Overlord: Raising Hell expansion which I plan on acquiring.
Went on a game time break with three PC titles: Overlord (2007) by Triumph Studios, Fable: The Lost Chapters (2005 PC) by Lionhead Studios, and Far Cry (2004) by Crytek Studios.
With Overlord, you control an evil master of creatures (minions) in the game to help you do your evil deeds. You can just be an evil overlord or become more evil by choosing your actions in the main quests. Your armor, helmet and weapons can be upgraded by sacrificing your minions in your forge. This game reminds me of Dungeon Keeper and enjoyed it for 1 week of full game time.
Fable has been released for XBox, but the PC version includes additional contents: The Lost Chapters. You start out as a little boy, gets trained in the Heroes' Guild... then you choose which class you are going to develop your character with. Your character will also show signs of aging and scars from battles as time goes on. This is one great first-person role-playing game! Enjoyed it for a week and a half, finishing the story as both good and evil hero.
Far Cry has a wonderful game world, a paradise of islands in the middle of nowhere. You can enjoy the scenery while blasting out mercenaries on your way to the mission area. Then you fight your way through hordes of mutated creatures; mutated monkeys at the start of the game to mutated mercenary soldiers which are trained for combat. Got this game after reading up on the upcoming Far Cry 2 PC title, with a better paradise and lots of terrain to cover. Finished it on "Challenging" difficulty and still halfway on "Realistic".
Full reviews coming up while getting ready with another game title, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.
This post is an instruction in setting-up your CO.CC (sub) domain's Zone Records. If you do not have a CO.CC domain yet, you can get one here for free (if it qualifies as a free subdomain of CO.CC)... and be able to have an almost total control with this domain without any ads or banners whatsoever. Currently you can register a maximum of two CO.CC domains. It is actually a subdomain of the co.cc top-level domain, but a domain nonetheless and a short one too ;-)
There are three ways to make your CO.CC domain point at your web site. First is by pointing your domain's nameservers to the nameservers of your site's web host. Second is by editing the zone's A, MX, NS and CNAME records. And third, is by redirecting to your site. I shall talk about the second option... the zone records.
When I say that you have almost total control of your free CO.CC domain, what I mean is that you can change/edit the most useful parts of the zone records without going to the hassles of the common ones which will be handled by your hosting company or by CO.CC themselves. You don't need to edit the SOA, or make reverse-ip entries.
What you need is just the ip address of the site which you are going to point to. This is usually a shared ip address for all the users in the server and you need to park your domain to make it point to your actual account in the hosts (unless it's a dedicated hosting or you have a static ip address for your site). You can get the ip for your site by doing a DNS whois or lookup, or it may be written somewhere on your control panel depending on your hosting. There are many online whois tools available like in DNSstuff.com, or just do a search for something like "online whois".
So let's say the ip to your site is 74.86.133.24 (from x10hosting.com) and your free domain is example.co.cc (currently for sale at CO.CC). Go to your CO.CC account panel and choose Manage Domain, select the second option which is Zone Record. Add "example.co.cc" for host, 1D TTL (1-day time to live, default), A type record and enter the ip address 74.86.133.24 as value. After that, you wait for the dns to propagate (usually 1-2 days, sometimes much shorter) and it will then point to your site if you parked the domain or created a hosting account with "use my domain" option earlier in your web host. The "www" subdomain (www.example.co.cc) is usually entered as a CNAME of the domain example.co.cc but that is not currently allowed in your CO.CC account. So if you add an A record for www.example.co.cc with the ip of your site then example.co.cc will cease to function.
If you use google apps, you can enter MX records as well in your domain's zone records with these values:
I watched this film mainly because of being a fan of the Dozor (Watch) series which were directed by Timur... I wanted to see Timur's new movie. It also casts one of the primary characters in the Dozor films, Konstantin as a Russian fraternity member (The Exterminator). Info on Sergei Lukyanenko's ongoing tetralogy novels on film: Nochnoy Dozor (Night Watch, 2004) and Dnevnoy Dozor (Day Watch, 2006), both directed by Timur which I'm still planning to review. I am also waiting for Sumerechny Dozor (Twilight Watch) and Posledniy Dozor (Final Watch). Wanted also has the "articulated action sequences" of the Dozor films.
Wanted [2008|Action]
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Cast: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Konstantin Khabensky... (more)
This film was based on Mark Millar's comic book mini-series of the same title (J.G. Jones was the artist). It tells the story of an ordinary accountant who is recruited by a group of assassins known as the Fraternity. The film added a new element to the story by including the looms of fate to determine the Fraternity's assassination targets.
The film starts with Wesley Gibson (McAvoy) narrating about his pathetic life, then the scenes shift to Mr. X being assassinated by Cross, a rogue Fraternity member who has been killing the assassins one by one. At a later part, Fox (Jolie) appears on Wesley's side to protect him from Cross, because Wesley was Cross' next target after killing his father Mr. X (plot related).
Wesley is then recruited to the Fraternity (same old stuff about "your dad was a member now its your turn") with his primary task: to kill Cross.
The film ends with Wesley taking back control of his own life and putting a bullet on another assassin; with the bullet travelling from his sniper rifle - to his untrustworthy best friend's drink - to his glutton-bitch-boss' donut - to his target.
Final note: bullets don't fly straight!
The Ruins [2008|Horror|Thriller]
Based on Scott Smith's novel "The Ruins"
Directed by: Carter Smith
A group of American and Greek tourists explore an uncharted Mayan ruin in Mexico. Mathias' brother had just met a beautiful archaeologist who has been exploring the ruins. He has not come back since spending the night at the archaeologists' camp there. Mathias met with the Americans and invited them over to the ruins to find his brother. Once there, they find a group of armed Mayans who try to drive them away at first, but then won't let them leave once they got into the ruin's vegetation.
The Mayans were actually placing the tourists in a quarantine, for the vegetation was actually a sentient creature-plant. The plant is capable of mimicking sounds and even the voices of people around to lure it's victims. It is somewhat like a parasite that enters human bodies, either as an unwilling host or to populate and spread.
The ending in the book tells how the last survivor commits suicide to warn others of the danger, but the plant drags the body so no one will find it. In the movie, the survivor escapes on a jeep and the camera focuses on the face to reveal the worm-like movement of the parasitic-plant under the skin.
Internet directories provide links to your site and (may) improve your SEO rankings and traffic. Most of them allow you to submit your site for free with a reciprocal link to their site. You can also post articles on some of them. After submitting your site, be patient.. some directories are approved by volunteer editors and may take months (or a year) depending on the volume of submissions and the editor's time.
Here are some internet directories where you can submit your sites for free. It will be updated once in a while with every free directory site that I would stumble upon.
www.dmoz.org (highly recommended) :: The Open Directory
www.wowdirectory.com (recommended) :: Free Weekend Submission Review Directory
www.topsitelisted.com (good) :: SEO friendly internet directory of free listings
www.searchpowertour.com :: General Directories - Free Directory Listings - Free Website Submissions
www.urlguidenet.com :: Web Site Search Directory -URL Guide Net Web Directory
www.freeonlineindex.com :: SEO Friendly Web Site Search Directory-Free And Cheap Feature Listing Sites
www.worldurllink.com :: World URL Link Directory -General Web Directory Free Website Submission
You can also find more free internet directories with comments and reviews here.
---Updates---
www.valid8or.com (recommended) :: Not only adds your site but validates it as well... for free!
