Well, I loaded up CnC Renegade yesterday. It was a slow day around here, I had a few minutes and decided to see how the game had improved with the huge number of patches they've had out for it. (Including flying vehicles. Ohhhhhh... Ahhhhhhh...)

Yeah. Right. First off, I couldn't remember my password for Westwood Online. I requested it and as usual I'm still waiting. (Please note that I personally believe Westwood Online to be one of the worse matching services in the world, with the possible exception of the piece of garbage refered to ask "Ubisoft Online." So, I tried using Gamespy. No problem, but there's only four servers up. None of which I could connect to. I guess when a game that launched with as much fanfare as CNC:R is dead in under a year, it's a lesson that gaming companies everywhere should pay heed to. Don't release buggy crap. If you have a few bugs, FIX THEM. NOW. (Listen up Sierra!)

Anyhows, just a few pieces of news. Playing Hegemonia. (Again) Good game, reminds me a lot of Homeworld, with more of a resource based feel/play to it. I'll post a review if I ever get around to it. Same with the Dragon's Lair 3D review. Meh. I'm lasy. I'll admit it.

Here's the one from the header. Thanks Figured. It's nice to know that natural selection is alive and well. I imagine this idiot will be featured in the Darwin Awards this year.

Kingpin swears that this Anti-Spam thing works. I use Outlook Express so I haven't tried it. If you're an Outlook typa person give it a shot and let me know.

From the wonderful world of Dman comes what is probably one of the coolest devices I've seen in like forever. It's a DVD player that actually plays DIVX! WOOOOOOOTTT!!! Gotta get me some of this. I find it amusing that it's all IDE as well. :)

Blue sent me a link this morning that had us rolling on the floor at work in yea olde computer shoppe. Yes, I've seen people do stupid things just like this, and more than once. :)

I've probably mentioned him before, in fact I know I have. But both Mr. E and Wienerboy Dave want Maddox mentioned. He has the best site in the universe, and it's kept me laughing for many many hours. Especially his hatemail section. :) You've got to love a guy who pulls no punches and rants and raves as he sees fit. (Note, it's offensive. :)

Enough for today. More on Wednesday.

Still sick, but getting back into the swing of things, including hopefully regular news updates again. :) (And yes, I'm alive. Stop asking.)

Rune just sent me an interesting little link. I dunno, this sounds like BS to me, and S3 hasn't released a decent card since the Virge as far as I'm concerned.... But it'd be nice if high end cards didn't cost $800, eh? I had a dream! A dream where a gamer could get a decent video card for a mear $100 USD!

In other Rune news, Planet Battlefield has launched. Yay! :) Yeah, I'm still totally hooked on that stupid game. It's just so deliciously good. Pappy-R has declared that it's too slow for him. I'm fairly certain he didn't give it a fair chance,

All hail the Church of the Comodore 64! All bow! Love it. :)

Gezer sent me a link to this most interesting video from CnC Generals. Looks like it's going to be a good game, I'll be trying to it out for sure! :)

Heh. Just what kind of computer nerd are you? Thanks Figured.

More on another day. :)

I R still sick, and I'm heartilly sick of being sick. Having a fever for two weeks really isn't much fun. It's been awhile since the last news update, and since Rune's too damned lazy I guess I better get off my sorry ass and do it. :) Some interesting links this time around. (Thanks everyone, in advance!)

I'm not really sure how much good this device would do keeping your room cool, but it's a nifty idea and Dman seems to think it'd work. As long as you kept your monitor off, I guess. Dman also sent me a link to a little site that has a pile of very useful tools, including a registry cleanup tool for XP that actually seems to work pretty well.

For those of you interested in the history of the good ol' Commodore computers, check this one out. It's got a pile of their TV, magazine and brochure ads. I love the William Shatner one. :)

Remember that $200,000 contest to hack the Xbox and get Linux running on it? Turns out it was sponsored by the Lindows guy, read about it here.

Techno/Trance fans unite! Lagoona is back with some sweet new tunage on their MP3.com site.

I like to read Bruce Campbell's website from time to time. The guy's got some damned good points. :) Thanks to Rune, check out "Are we bored yet?"

Back to bed, cyah Saturday.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, and got lots of goodies under the tree. (Lord knows enough of you bastards were bugging me on ICQ Christmas day for help installing your new toys! ;)

I bought myself Dragon's Lair 3D as a little gifty... and you know what? It's damned good actually, especially considering the price tag of a whoping $45 CDN. (That's about $2 American, to you yanks.) Not bad at all. I ran into a wierd bug where my camera went all fun-house wacky on me, but it seems to actualyl have something to do with my joystick, cause when that ain't plugged in it's all good. Just beat the game yesterday, review is under construction as we... er.. speak I guess. It's nice to see a remake that doesn't suck ass. We seem to be in the midst of a huge nostalga period for old games, they've redone damned near every big one that I can think of, (Including Rygar of all things!) and generally they bite.

Happy Birthday to my good buddy Skeezix. May you frag the day away happily. Amusingly, I sat and watched poor Skeez get his ass kicked in a Quake 3 1-1 match last night... I think the lads been playing too much 1942, and has strayed from Pappy's Quake flock. Excellent. Excellent. /me rubs hands.

Does anyone else remember the very cool One Must Fall on the PC from the DOS days? I stumbled across this the other day, looks like it's making a come back! W00t!

Thinking of uncaping that cable modem? Might want to think twice there bucko! Seems some lads in Ohio had a visit from the FBI for doing just such a thing. Oops. Nothing like being made an example of, I always say! You'd really think that these guys would have some murderers, rapists or terrorists to catch or something. Oh well, your tax dollars at work I guess.

Got some interesting screenshots from Iceman the other day, Massive Assault is looking like a very pretty RTS. I don't know that it will ever match Total Annihilation in that special place in my heart reserved for amazing games, but you just never know.

Anyhows, back to work for me.

Hey all, sorry for the lack of updates. It's Christmas time, as most of you may have heard, and I'm swamped with work and whatnot. Rune has apparently died of schoolwork overload, and won't be posting for a bit.

Just a few quick tidbits.

Playing Hegemonia, on the advice of my !FT! teammate Messiah. It is good. The Sims Online is out, won't be playing it, although Dopper has been and assures me it's good. (*Uh huh*) Dragon's Lair 3D is out, look for a review soon.

I'm getting more and more pumped about Planet Side. MUST HAVE PLANETSIDE!

I heard that ATI is under investigation for some insider trading and such. Hah! :) Rune sent me some linkage about it.

In other Rune news.. You always wondered about those Tribes 2 players didn't you? Well... Now you know!

There. It's a short news post, and uninspired.. but I'm in an uninspired mood tonight. :)

Hey all, just about to head out to a 1942 match, but I've got time for a few quick tidbits. First off, from the ever busy little student Rune we've got real story behind the "speed" of Apple computers. :) I'd like to see more tests done... Someone needs to write something like a linux graphics/CPU benchmark I think......

I'm not sure if everyone saw this LOTR spoof on MTV (?)... If not, grab it here. Thanks Escher. I damned near wet myself, especially with the "little hobbit" comment.

New ICQ/IRC Madness up over here-------->

Heh. Think you know Jack? Check out your facts against Superman's facts, all about Jack Schitt. It's always good to know more about the world. :)

I've got a few pieces of news in from Figured that I've been meaning to post, so here we go:

It's always nice to know that you can violate the laws of nature in interesting ways... I'm just wondering..... Did the house catch fire before the managed to slap that sink on??

I don't even know what to say about this one. Just read it.

And good news! We've got a link just for the ladies..... How to cope with a computer geek BF/hubby.

Out, more on Saturday! (I promise this time, even if Rune is too busy. :)

We mock Rune on a regular basis. Now, you will know why. We caught him on film @ Skeezix LAN(D). Check it out, and ph3ar him...... How's that for funny?

Huh. Halo look alike anyone? Thanks Skeezix.

Are you bored? Thanks to Rune, be bored no more.

More news when not so busy. (Sorry for no news yesterday, busy freaking out over some important stuff.)

Bored today, so I'm making fun of Mac users once again.

Kingpin is busy compressing the short clip of Rune gaming. It's too short, but funny.

I'm so jealous. Must get to Sweden and Dreamhack!!!!!!!!!!

Cam1
Cam2
Cam3

5000 people. Now THAT'S a demoparty/LAN!

ARGH! After sending a few dozen people to a bad link on 3DGamers to the new 1.2 patch for BF1942, they're apparently fixed the file. If you downloaded it it may have trashed your 1942 install. Sorry guys, should have tested the patch before posting it. :( Now that I've killed my 1942 I can't find my disk 1 to reinstall either. Argh.

Fan of game music? They've got some sweet, sweet action going on over at CrapRadio, including some nice C64 and more modern songs. (And we know how much Marauder loves his C64 muzax!) They're also using Rune's much beloved Ogg Vorbis codec for compression. Nice quality. :)

The Ubermouse lives! After a quick disassembly of the base station/charger and dumping the juice out of it (and much praying to the computer Gods) I judiciously applied my wife's hairdryer (Now forever refered to as "Mouse recovery tool #1") and all was good. When plugged back in, the Ubermouse returned to life, and has been sitting happily on my desk ever since. Remarkably it also still charges. I have to update the review with the "torture test" results. And yes, you can all stop writing me and telling me that I might not want to have large glasses of liquid around my computer. You can all bite me, I know you all do it too. And I've been doing it for about 15 years now and this is the first time I've EVER spilled anything. I think the problem is that I've had nary a computer problem for the longest time, and the Gods decided I needed a little humbling. Just to rub it in their faces, I imediately (once I was sure the Ubermouse was OK) poured myself another glass of juice, overclocked my video card just a little more, and broke 10,000 on my 3D Marks. Dear fate, kiss my shiney metal mouse. :) Skeezix by the way is a big panzy, giving up on the MX700 with claims of it being "too heavy." It's those skiny little wrists of his.

Haven't heard from Iceman in the longest time, I was assuming that he'd been killed in an unfortunate overclocking/space time continuum accident, like so many young computer geeks I used to know. Instead, he's apparently been adding a window kit to his box. Now, not to belittle the Iceman's work or anything... But is anyone else getting sick of window kits? I mean hell, everyone's doing it and you can just buy machines with them installed already. It's no longer the guy with the window kit and lights in his case who stands out at a LAN or other computer event, it's the guy with a $50 plain case. The whole point of a case mod is to be unique. Find something new to do people!

I want to see Signs. The trailer looks wicked. Just enough suspence to make you want to view it and find out what really happened. This guy has made me reconsider. (Thanks Wienerboy)

Doing some research at work the other day for some people who lost their XP password. Screwed. Had to do a reinstall. BUT I did find this. Very interesting and useful for all you techs out there, the password restore disk!

Out.

I just dumped a glass of juice into the Ubermouse. (tm) One quick news post, and I have to go clean it.

Generator has sent me what is quite possibly the best damned link evar..... Ever wondered what would happen if your Furby was hit by lightning? The question that has plagued mankind for decades is at last answered here.

Must save life of mouse.

I'm such a busy little beaver this morning. Prepare to view the images from the SkeezixLAN(d)!

Strongbad is of course, as Prae puts it "Pimptacular". Check out his guide to webdesign here. (Thanks Rob.)

New ICQ madness up. This week, Jube admits to using a voodoo card, and opens a brothel @ The Sims Online. Marauder considers unleashing his rage upon the Sims.

Yeah I'm up way to early today. Way, way to early. Had a new system come into the shop last night, getting some wierd errors on startup (customer's old hard drive.) passed all my burn in tests, yet the strangeness continued...... It was a bad IDE cable of all the (*&%# thrice accursed things. Argh. I hate computers sometimes. Anyhows, on to the news.

I'm sure all you old guys remember and hated Dragon's Lair in the arcade? Just like Space Ace, it sucked up quarters and was incredibly annoyingly addictive. (Damn you Don Bluth. Damn you to hell.) I always loved the original and Return to Singe's Castle on the C64. They were great games, and I'm very much looking forward to reviewing Dragon's Lair 3D. They've retained the look of the original, but converted it into a 3D world. Pretty amazing. It's sort of cool that all the old games seem to be making a come back. I guess I'm not the only one with a severe case of nostalgia. (link stolen from Homelan news.) Make sure you check out the trailer.

Speaking of Classic Gamage (as of course we were) Sonic is back! Seeeeyyyyggggaaahhh!!! Man, have they made their money back from this one a million times or what? It's pretty wierd that you can play games like this.. Games that took quite the gaming platform power, back in the day... and run them in Flash and Shockwave today. Amazing.

I should be getting the much anticipated Mechwarrior 4: Mercs today. Look for a review coming soon. (Woot!) Speaking of reviews, obviously people are interested in the Logitech MX700 Ubermouse (tm). We've had about 700 hits on it in the last three days. That's pretty good for a hardware review here. (AAA game we'd usually have about 1,200 by this time.. maybe a little more.)

In Rune related linkage, never before has so much pr0n been downloaded by so many, so fast. You just THINK that they're working on new graphics chips on these machines... they're actually working on removing the clothing from the Final Fantasy chick. We all know it, deep down inside... 'Cause that's what we'd be doing.

Everquest is being released for the PS/2. /me cackles. I'm uncertain as to why, I just find that amusing.

If you're sitting around waiting in the File Planet line up, why not play a little 3D pong against the computer. (Shesh, this IS Shockwave and old sk00l day here on FRAGtopia, eh?) Thanks to Wienerboy Dave for the link.

Anyhows, I'd better get back to work. So much to do, so little time before the sun rises and I'm driven back to my lair by it's burning rays.

Working on getting all the pics from the SkeezixLAN posted, as well as of course the footage we have of Rune thrashing and convulsing his way though a game of Serious Sam 2. Prepare for unmitigated hillarity!

Northern Brigade kick some serious ass.. and here they are as always, with yet another sweet 1942 short film, this one entitled "Hero" I dunno how they do this stuff, but man they're good. Check out their main page here.

Nice to know that you can see Harry Potter of DivX already.... What I'd like to know is.. Why bother? I hardly think that watching a rip is any comparison to going to see it in the theatre.... Especially consdering it's "cam" quality. Uh. Yeah. *cough*crap*cough* I think I'll wait thanks. Thanks for the linkage Runeage. :)

In other Rune news.. I knew it... Yet another Mac user to add to my list of people who need their teeth kicked down their throats. They're like voodoo users and other forms of inferior life, they just hang around....

Thanks to Protocal, we have pics posted from Marauder's suprise birthday LAN in October. Check it out here. (Go away now Figured. :)

I'm also happy to report that I'm testing the new MX700 mouse from Logitech.. and thus far.. Wow. What a sweet freakin' mouse! Review up in a few, for your reading pleasure. (No, not like that you sicko.)

Looking for batteries for that laptop? Screw paying full price for retail batteries, check these guys out!

Zombie, my long lost friend just sent in a link to one of the best sites I've seen in a long time. When you think you've got it rough, just imagine you are this guy, putting up with his neighbour, who appears to be a combination of Satan and HItler.

zMessiahz hooked me up with this page. He had to explain it to me, but when he did.. Yeah, that's some funny shiznit. :)

Some good reads in this ZDnet article. Although the comment that "consoles are already the platforms of choice for serious gaming" made me laugh, as I died a little inside. (At the thought that people would believe that crap. :)

More later, including some LAN pics from the Marauder birthday LAN, and of course the much beloved SkeezixLAN from last weekend.

Well. Mr. E isn't too damned bright. Like a few other people, he can't figure out what that thing on the O is. It's a witch, dumbass. It's Halloween. Shesh, some people's children. :)

Jube from Planet Wolfenstein has been pimping up this video. Download it, 'cause oh my various gods, it's funny! These guys did one hell of a good job on it.

Lack of reviewage: Sorry lads and laddettes, not much to report lately. Haven't been playing much lately other than 1942. Nothings really tweaked my interest enough to play and review it.

I don't know about you guys, but I've been looking forward to getting my greasy little hands on Planetside for a long, long time now.... Thanks to zMessiahz for the headsup on the Beta Applications! WOOT! Sign up! DO IT NOW! They're only open untill Friday, so move yo' ass. There's also a letter from Dave Georgeson that's worth a quick read.

Speaking of Mr. E, he obviously has a little too much time on his hands. Hah!

Gezerman sent in a few interesting things from the land of Dark Age of Camelot. First off, this screenshot just shows that our friends over at the DAOC dev team have a good sense of humor. In other news, he also can't wait for the expansion pack to come out and is panting and drooling all the time. It's sort of sad.

Just got an email from TerroX, the guy who was working on adding Hercs (The Tribes version of Mechs) to Tribes 2.

The walking war machine with multiple Triber crew is complete! http://mods.tribes-universe.com/herc to join a HREC server and play, all you need to do is download and run this file. http://www.borganism.com/temp/HERC_Destroyer_Player_File.exe (3meg) a .zip version will be online in a few days. then look for [SOW] Cerebrus HERC server 209.203.193.8:28000 no password.

There is a server download for both current versions of T2. 18 vehicles.. 1 HERC

This email comes to you because you either:
1 wanted to be mailed
2 wanted to be a herc beta tester
3 wanted me to help you make mods or models
4 gave me praise 5 or just looked at me funny

TerroX - creator of HERC Destroyer mod.

So there you go. Go download it and try it out. Screenshots look pretty damned sweet.

Thanks to Figured we have a link for Free AMD Tshirts! Woot!

Meant to post this one a few days ago before they caught the DC Sniper wacko. I thought it was pretty damned funny. Personally I'd blame god.

I was a big fan of the whole Homeworld series. They just got everything right with those games.... Could Hegemonia be the next game in the space RTS genre to do it right? Check it out here.

Thanks to Jube (all hail Pappy, then Jube!) we have a nice little link to a Counter-Strike stick people movie. Hah. :)

More later. ;)

Looks like Intel's getting set to officially release their brand spankin' new P4 3 GHz chips! They're starting to send them out to the major PC OEMs in time for the Christmas Sales rush.

It just makes me wonder how much higher they can crank these P4's. With extreme cooling these guys have almost reached 4 GHz! And if you think that's crazy check out what they did to the Radeon 9700 Pro card. Mmmmmm 20,000 3Dmarks!

Thinking about getting more RAM for your machine? Well if it's DDR you crave and you live in North America you'd better hurry up and grab it. DDR ram prices seem to be spiking due to a surge in demand... especially for the 256 MB sticks. Maybe it's just a bump in the road and maybe it's a sign of higher prices to come! Either way I made sure to run out and grab myself an extra 256 meg stick just in case. ;-)

New Detontor 41.03 drivers! w00! Grab 'em while they're hot. This new set of drivers weighs in at a hefty 14 meg but everyone says that they seem to be faster. The download link is actually on Nvidia's FTP mirrors but there's no mention of them on their site

Speaking of Nvidia, they have a little teaser up on their website that I'm sure many of you have noticed. Looks like they're updating it every few days. This is probably leading up to their NV30 annoucement on Nov 18. It could just end up to be a 'paper' launch though. Rumour has it that Nvidia's actually only going to be releasing a few NV30 cards this year (for romotional events, and a few for premium PC makers like Alienware).... they won't be able to get into mass production until next year which means for the average gamer the odds are that Spring 2003 is the earliest they'll be able to get one.

CD's shattering inside your new drive = not fun... ExtremeTech has a piece up about how CD burners are reaching the end of the road as far as increasing burning speeds on new drives. The media just can't handle it past around 52X or so. But when you can burn a entire CD in 3 minutes how much faster do you really need to go anyhow?! Time for the manufacturers to put pressure on the makers of the multiple DVD writing standards and bring us affordable DVD burners!

This Inquirer article originally suggested that AMD's Hammer would be delayed (yet again) but it's since been revised at AMD's request (to point out that the Hammer is in fact NOT delayed). We had to practically coax Marauder out of hiding after he read the original article... he's still gibbering incoherently but he should recover anytime now that we've reassured him that the Hammer's still on track. It was close though... any more of these nasty surprises and we may have to get out the defibrillator next time.

In the meantime AMD's been pimping it's latest Hammer benchmark results in hopes of somewhat placating the salivating masses.

Gaming in 3D has a little interviewage action going on with our very own Dillinger and Praetorian from 3 Finger Salute! Why does Dillinger have no social life? Will Prae's aging rig finally see an upgrade? Tune in here and find out! :-)

Oh god! Those Mac freaks have finally lost it! Mac Porn?! Normally I'd recommend that people under the age of 18 cover their eyes but it this case I'd recommend everyone to cover their eyes! ;-)

Look! They do exist! There are actually media people who don't blame video games for being the root of all evil! Thanks to HardOCP for the heads up!

What's with all of the Korean gamers dropping like flies after marathon gaming sessions? First there was that guy that died last year after playing Counter Strike for an insanely long time and now there's two more within the span of a couple weeks! hmm... maybe it's due to the fact that they have more bandwidth than God over there. I guess that Koreans love CS and Starcraft as much as Germans love David Hasslehoff.

Curious about the new Serial ATA standard coming out? It appears that a few high end mobos have support for the controllers but when are the drives coming out? According to this preview article over on Explosive Labs (gotta love that name!) it'll be soon!

Smackdown is coming! Signups should be up soon for the most excellent Smackdown 2003 (#4!) party in London, Ontario. We'll be going again this year, bringing prizes and 0wnage as usual.

Lonely? Desperate for a date? Hey, why not hook up with a chick in jail?? They're lovely, caring and serving time for henious crimes against humanity. Watch out for knives! (Thanks Vay.)

I was reading Rune's little link about the death/reserection of Visiontek and came across this, quite possibly the most disturbing retail box I've ever seen in my entire life. I don't think I'd be putting this one the shelves at my store. What the hell were those zany asian guys thinking?

I stumbled across Ianlabs quite by accident. (I believe they designed the HardOCP site.) Wow. This guy has some really, really funky flash stuff going on here.

Music link of the week: DJ Micro is quite possibly one of the coolest artists I've heard in a long, long time. Regretably you have to buy his tunes... but you can find quite a number of them on Winmx or other services. (Buy them anyhows, he's cool.)

Thanks to Dopper for crushing my hopes of my next big upgrade. AMD is apparently moving away from the Claw Hammer. (Damn it.) In theory this was going to be my next big toy. I'd gotten majorly excited when I read that the 800mhz CH smokes the 1.6 ghz P4......... Ahh well......

For you 1942 players, here's a little demo of what you can do by editing one line in a little file in your config folder. Quite the difference eh? Get the details on doing it for yourself here.

Over and out!

Heh. Gotten a few nice emails about the new ICQ/IRC Madness feature. Check this out. Another one who dares admit he's still running a Voodoo.

Your friend donut slipped through the cracks...well, uh...hehe, so did I it appears! hehe...it's sad, it really is; can't even play NWN with my old Voodoo4, arrg! oh well....i'll just have to wait until i getthe money i need to build myself a new, hot, sultry, DEAD SEXY gaming rig (or as good as about $1000 can buy, hehe)! One day....One day, many poor gamers shall bow down to the power of my GeForce4, muaahhahaha....uh....
Nice site, keep up the good work.
-Strazos

Thanks for the email Strazos. Because you've come forward, your death will be quick and relatively painless. :)

Welp, back to posting news the old fashioned way for a bit. *sigh* Dunno what happened to the news script, but rest assured we're working on it.

Paintball player? Live in Southern Ontario? You're coming out to the yearly Player Appreciation Day (PAD) at Wasaga Beach Paintball on Oct 27th right? Cheap paint, cheap rentals, free admision for gun owners, free air, free lunch, back to back games all day, 500+ players...... We'll see you there!

If you run a BF1942 server, this is just about the coolest damned thing I've ever seen. Thanks to Hammish for the linkage.

Speaking of 1942, I'm not sure if I mentioned a few things:

A)I'm recruiting for the Forever Twisted 1942 competition team.
B) I'm the OGL admin for the 1942 ladder. :) Yay for me. :)

In other 1942 news, you should really check out the Eve of Destruction mod. They've already got some sweet sweet napalm going on. Boom baby!

I'm looking for a good map editor for 1942. If you happen to come across one, please let me know.

Jebus, more and more 1942 news. There's a new 1942 comic strip out there, and my appologies.. I can't remember who linked me to it.. But it's funny as hell, and contains a disturbing number of truths. (Figured informs me that it was he who sent me the link. Thanks bud. :)

Dats it for today. More later, I swear. (Shut up Skeez)