I'm back! At last! Now everyone may officially stop bothering me about posting news. As Runez0r mentioned, about a week ago my XP decided, for some reason to trash my hard drives. I've recovered everything, and no data was harmed in the making of this news post. Thanks to Rune for finally posting some news to cover for me. :) We're back to the usual schedule, with at least 3 posts a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Even if it's nothing more than "I have nothing to say."

Anyhows, as Rune mentioned in his last post, I took him out to play paintball. In a sheer stroke of genius and hillarity, after shooting Rune in the face... I drew a little smiley face in it with my finger in front of everyone. Now that.. That was what I call funn-E. It's also lead to accusations that I had something to do with this. Now, while I have been known to go on the occasionaly letter and/or pipe bombing campaigns, this one had nothing to do with me. I was, at the time, trying to talk the aliens out of destroying the earth YET AGAIN. Not that anyone ever sends me truckloads of money for my efforts or anything, but that's OK. I'm not bitter. Besides, if it was me I'd have done a happy face like this: ;)

A few of my Forever Twisted teamates have recently had their lives taken over by the new Disney MMORPG Toontown. It's a free download, and is apparently a hell of a lot of fun. Seeing Vaytan as Donald Duck tho. I dunno, that's just wrong on more levels than I can handle. I have to play and be Mickey's evil cousin, Nikey. Evil? Bombs? Anvils? JUST DO IT!

Thanks to Wienerboy, we finally know what Mac has been working themselves up to all these years. The reason they've clung onto existance like a leech on the computer publics leg. Yes. They're making household appliances! Oh, and I can hardly wait for the iToaster and iOven!

Garage Games, the guys who are apparently going to be attemping to fix Tribes 2 (And let me just say here I'm MAJORLY pissed they they're patching the game again, over a year after it's release!) are pretty busy little beavers. I'm Just downloading Realm Wars, a game they're working on using their Torque engine. (Think Tribes 2 engine.) It looks pretty bloody impressive for a beta!

As sick of Spam as I am? Indeed I am! I hate that spam! I hate in my inbox, I hate it in a can! I hate it in my hotmail, and when it's from Japan! To stop this spam, in a can, or on a plane, or perhaps a train just download Spambar! Friends swear by it, apparently those f(*&*ing spammers swear at it. Hopefully it's not a nasty piece of spyware. :) Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony?

Hey, you like Dance music? You like Dreamtrance? I know you do. Check out Dream'ed, by a guy named Eddy. Some very, very sweet tunes here. All avaliable free on Mp3.com. All hail the computer gods! Hail! Hail!

Much gracias to Timmy Sanchez for dropping me an ICQ line and saying "Hey! I like FRAGtopia!" Nice to hear from you man. :)

Marauder out!

Greetings everyone! I am indeed back after pulling my patented Disappearing Rune act for a couple of weeks. Actually, being a college student I was pretty bogged down with schoolwork and finals. Marauder had some interesting problems when the computer gods decided to smite his RAID array one day last week so he's been out of action ever since. I'm nursing a few bruises thanks to a game of paintball on the weekend. Despite being a paintball newbie I like to think that I held my own, even managing to shoot Marauder in the back (and he might have gotten me in the mask a couple times). Well, enough blathering... on to the news!

I don't know who I'd have to kill to have been a part of this but apparently a few webmasters were invited down to Digital Extremes over in London Ontario to check out Unreal Tournament 2003 and now there are a slew of writeups on it. Paligap from XGR and JCal from HomeLAN have done up nice previews of the action. I'd summarize a bit of it but it's just way too big to summarize. Read the whole thing! Man, I can't wait to try out that new lightning gun! There supposably will be a demo released near the end of May after E3 and we're looking at a late June to early July release for the final game.

Hmm, the guys over at HardOCP thought that they'd ask a contact of theirs over at Hercules what was going on after the Hercules website was offline much of last week. Here's the response they got back from Kelly Ramsay, Director of Marketing for Hercules, Guillemot, and Thrustmaster:

Currently we are realigning our company to be better in touch with our customers and end users, and in that regard are making staffing changes accordingly. There are neither ‘official’ statements nor specific details available at this time.

Man, that sucks.. it sounds like they're going through a rough period over there. Good luck to them!

Hey look, Intel's finally introduced their new Pentium 4 chips and the 850E mobos. Marauder's all impressed with the small size of the new P4 chips. I'm more impressed with the whole 'Quad Pumped' 533 Mhz Front Side Bus thing myself. Tom's Hardware has got some comparison action going with the latest and greatest Athlon XP chips and it seems that the new P4's do indeed smoke everything in their path. Too bad they also probably cost the equivalent of a small country's GDP. As usual, Anand has done up an excellent in-depth review of this new tech. Check it out!

If that isn't enough to satisfy your hardware cravings then make sure to check out Overclockers.com's scoop on AMD's shiny new Thoroughbred chips (coming soon to a computer store near you!). Word is that these bad boys should be out anytime now. At 0.13 micron these chips ought to cut down a bit on the heat that Althons are so famous for. I suppose that being able to fry an egg on your CPU probably isn't a good thing.

GamePC has a review up of the new Gainward Ultra 650/XP Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128 MB (phew...trying saying that one three times fast!). The Ti 4200 has drawn quite a lot of attention lately as it seems to be a great bang-for-the-buck card. Sure maybe it won't strip the paint off of the walls like some of those other fancy newfangled cards will but it won't make your wallet cry either. I have a feeling that Nvidia delayed introducing this member of the Ti series for a while because they were afraid that it would kill off sales of the remaining Geforce 3 boards that were still on the shelves.

It looks like Marauder's favorite virus/worm is making news again. Apparently it can carry other viruses with it so if you get it you're potentially twice as screwed! Yay! The variant that carries the CIH virus is especially nasty. If you know of anyone who isn't running an up-to-date copy of antivirus software do them a favour and give them a good smack across the back of the head (and then remind them to get some good antivirus protection).

How's this for governement-condoned invasion of privacy? Sonicblue has been ordered by a federal judge to modify it's digital video recorders so that certain movie and TV studios can keep an eye on what you're watching. Big Brother and his entertainment company friends are watching you!

After a massive turnout and a boxoffice take of $114 million in the first weekend I guess that at this point the question shouldn't be if you've seen that amazing Spiderman movie (pun intended) but instead how many more times you're going to see it. I know that I'll definitely be picking up the DVD for this one the instant it's released. Supposably there are lots of mistakes in the movie which just makes me want to watch it over again to see if I can spot 'em. Check it out over at movie-mistakes.com but be forewarned, their site's getting hammered harder than me after my last day of finals.

Speaking of big movies Time Magazine has taken a look at the Matrix sequels that are being filmed in Australia. Due out next year, both of the movies are suppoably shaping up quite nicely. Take a look.

Those web advertising companies seem to be getting sneakier and sneakier Bad enough that some of them are now popping up web install prompts for spyware programs and hoping that people will accidentally click on the Yes button but now other companies have actually found ways to use an exploit in older browsers to install their spyware without even telling you. Ad-Aware... just do it!

Oh, we've got an election running in our area. Ernie Eves (Premier of Ontario is running.) So, it's time to post the 'ol banner yet again.

Heh.

Started playing Freedom Force a little bit.. Hmm. Interesting game. You take command of Super Heros and (hopefully) beat the hell out of the bad guys. It's quite different, sort of a Super Hero Adventure/RTS. More later.

Good news for my weary fingers, Rune should be back and posting very, VERY soon. He's done school for the season in a few short days... So he will no longer have any excuse not to post news. :)

One little piece of news from Rune for today. Apparently Sega is big time pumping out games for the Xbox (Heh. Ironic, isn't it?) I'm especially interested in Panzer Dragoon. I had this game years ago for my PC and it just blew my mind. I can hardly wait untill they get the Xbox emulators working properly so I can start playing these bad boys on my PC. Once they get the encryption cracked, I wouldn't think it'd be that hard to get it working, at least on an nForce mobo PC w. Geforce 3 video and Windows 2k or XP. If you read this site much, you may know I'm a complete emulator freak, although it's generally Amiga or C64 stuff running on my Tbird. It would be interesting to see Xbox stuff working!

Just a few quick things this morning. (Sorry, busy busy.) First off, some people really are stupid. I Just LOVE when people flame, and don't bother using english. Scroll down on this forum link to read what "arrowbullet" had to say about the Global Ops review. Read a little further to read replies to his "post".

I expanded a little on my feelings about sites such as Fileplanet and Gamespot having a premium pay only service in this little write up a few days ago. Hope I didn't sound too pompous or anything.

Hope everyone has their virus definitions up to date. Klez has been running wild, and I've been cleaning the machines of customers, both gamers and civilians all week now. Don't have a virus scanner running? You're an idiot. Go buy Norton's AV.

Just in from Rune! iD Software has updated their web site! iD SOFTWARE HAS UPDATE THEIR WEB SITE! I didn't believe it untill I actually went and viewed it with my own two eyes. At first I believed it was just a prank, on the level of the Orson Well's War of the Worlds radio broadcast. I was mistaken.

The reason for my awe and disbelief is the fact that iD's support site, as of a month or so ago only had up to "Pentium 200" for CPU selection when you were seeking help. Yes, 5 year old technology. Banished at last.

In case you missed it, I finally posted the Dungeon Siege review. I'm sort of surprised that we've had 500+ hits on it today, considering the age of the game. Lots of interest still. :) If you haven't played it yet, go download the demo and give it a go. prae still claims there's too much dungeoning, and not enough sieging... and I am sometimes tempted to agree with him. Then I remember that it was prae who brought about the downfall of the roman empire with his opinions, and so I ignore him and go on enjoying my new game.

In news that's bound to make Bell and others rejoice, some sort of Supreme Court has ruled that it's illegal to sell American satelite TV sets in Canada. One of the major arguments seems to be that our Canadian culture will be overwhelmed by the Americans if we allow this to continue. Personally, to this I answer as I do to the french when they bemoan their culture.... If your "culture" is that weak, perhaps it deserves to fade into obscurity. Besides, we all hate Americans too much to allow that to happen. It's like a national pastime to make fun of the yanks and their ignorance up here.

Hah. Thanks to Rune we can now read about the new annoying advertising tactics of scumbags online. (*cough* Gator! *cough*) I hate spyware, and I'd like to break the knees of those who install it on my machine. Yes, even if they trick me into it.

More tomorrow, too busy.. and umm.. well.. Lazy right now.

Glad to see that someone else used some common sense when they reviewed Global Ops. I'm getting a littlc sick of the irrational fanboy 90%-100%s.

One of my old buddies Goat, assures me that Legend of Mir is the best game on the interweb at the moment. I dunno, but with my new found appreciation for RPGs I may have to give it a go.

Heh. Thanks Vaytan. I have clients like this at times. :)

Heh. Wienerboy Dave sent me this little game a while ago and.. Hey.. It's actually alot of fun! There's nothing like "accidentally" setting the little creatures in your care on fire, now is there? This is the sort of thing that can keep me entertained for hours and hours on end. :):):):):)

Ever want to have every modern console as well as a gaming PC all in one box? I saw this guy on ZDTV on the weekend, and iLL just sent me a link to the technical details and photos of Yoshi's Boxx. You think YOU'VE got an expensive machine? Hah.

Darksiege has sent me to Acts Of Gord. Oh man, this is a great site, and will doubtlessly keep me amuzed for long periods of time. Thanks Kev!

Recieved a little gift in the mail today from our good buddy !FT!Reverand. Here it is below in all it's glory. Thanks man! :)

That bad boy is definately going right over my computer desk at home, in dank depths of the Maraudercave. And he even spelled FRAG all in caps. Awwwww. :) Attached was a little note, on which was the words Revelation 8:13. Upon looking up these words I discovered this:

"And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!"

I have no idea what it means, but I think it's some sort of code. I think the end of the world is near, or Lois Armstrong is about to do a solo. Something like that anyhows.

More tomorrow, of course. :)

Yes, yes.. I'm finally working on the review for Dungeon Siege, and I'll hopefully have it posted tomorrow. I've got hundreds of screenshots to work through, the usual.

Started playing Spiderman: The Movie yesterday. My, it's pretty, and it is fun running around (and swinging around!) as Spideman. However, the game really needs three hands to play, and the camera is really, really bad. *sigh* Going to keep working on it, review later.

Just one piece of news today: The End of Computer Rebooting? Sadly I thought this was a news article about Microsoft getting out of the OS business, instead it's all about a new kind of computer memory that's in development. Sounds pretty sweet, and very VERY fast. :)

Just on my way to bed after an exhausting day of moving litterally about half a tonne of dirt by hand. Well, by shovel anyhows. Just one quick piece of news... I absolutely hate Kazaa. I've seen it destroy far FAR too many people's Windows installs. However, thanks to 3FS's praet0rian, here's a link to a hax0r3d version, which apparently doesn't carry the devestating spyware payload of the original program. Thanks man!

GOD Games has just released the public beta of Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne. Never been a fan of turn based RPG/Strategy game, but I have to admit this one sure looks pretty. I know a few fans of the original, and they were all gah gah about it, so I'm going to download the beta and have a go once I get this damnable Dungeon Siege review done.

Apparently Microsoft is trying to make things more secure and reliable. I don't know about you guys, but considering their absymal track record in both categories, and the fact that everytime I install Windows I have dozens of megs of downloads to do... I'll believe it when I see it! As far as I'm concerned, you should never keep anything on your computer you wouldn't want to see made public. (Taking notes Osama?)

Been having some odd XP issues, and it's not just me. The most annoying one is that my desktop icons change. Suddenly a word document is a photoshop doc etc. And I just had another one pop up... For some reason the bottom little bar in all my explorer windows (AND in dreamweaver) vanished. You know, the little one that shows which zone you're connected to, and which site this hyperlink will follow. It was gone for two days and has now returned. Perhaps it was on hiatus to Redmon for training and has now returned, full of life and purpose! Let us all hope it never leaves me again, as it was most disturbing. If you've got any ideas or bug fixes, post in the forums.

More news later, when I have the time.

I forgot to mention this, but a few days ago Pappy informed me that I hurt his head. I'm so proud. My logic confounds even the vulcan like logic of the intelect that is Pappyz0r. :)

Been hanging in the #3fs IRC chan on the aniverse.com server. Prae of course almost died of shock at actually seeing me in chat, since I usually consider IRC to be a complete waste of time. None the less, there's some fun happening. Come. Join us.

Speaking of that chan, Warskull posted this link. I'm just busy laughing at the front photo. I'm not sure why it's so funny, but I almost expect the next scene to be Bush up on the table with his arms crossed doing a little dance, surrounded by Mel Brooks lookalikes.

Holy crap! I couldn't believe it when i saw this one. Who would have imagined you could hack up a Comodore 64 into a really crappy web server? Impressive if rather useless.

I have to admit I have a thing for guns. I love firearms of all types and shapes and sizes. And so do the guys at Gunnery.net obviously. Oh, do they love their guns.

Must have shadowbane... MUST HAVE SHADOWBANE! It's still delayed but looking and sounding freaking hot baby!

I WAS listening to some hot Oakenfold trance really, really loudly when Shiloh sent me this. So did everyone else. Yes, I am laughing. Once I turned off Paul anyhows. Somehow this thing and trance just do not go well together. Now everyone stop sending me this damned flash!

Frank just sent in another great link. Apparently doing someone's web site in isn't a crime in Argentiiiiiinaa..... Wierd huh? I guess they don't know that we have the interweb on computers these days.

A few links in from Rune, the mad grad student today. First off, are you sick of all that crap in XP? Want to hack it up like Dopper on a regediting spree? Check this out, and enjoy. Also in from Rune's house of horrors, we've got the news that Intel still rules the workstation world, and ATI and nVidia optimise for Intel rather than AMD. That blows, and makes me wonder... When will people learn? I find it pretty funny that the AMD still hammers the 512k cache P4. Intel=crap, ever since the whole 820 fiasco.

Chisel sent me over a link to the next gen Abit board. Holy. Mother. Of. God. It's just what I've been saying they should be doing for YEARS. Death to legacy crap! Move on! Get off your asses and inovate damn it!

Ouchies. Dman just sent in a post that gives a little more detail on Sympatico's plans for your DSL. And there's a complete text here. They're already slow as hell, now they're planning to cap your ass at 5gb per way for the month? I dunno about you guys, but I can suck that up pretty damned quick! Are you willing to pay more to get more from your already crappy ISP? (Symptico or Rogers.)?? I'm not. Chat about it in the forums.

Damn it! Now I've got that stupid Madonna song stuck in my head. Marauder out..... but the truth is, I never left you!

Hey all, wondering WTF is up with those little tiny boxes that most new games seem to come in? EA has an explaination here. I've been getting mixed reactions from people on these things. Personally I love 'em. They're cheaper to make, cheaper to ship, create less garbage and take up less shelf space at the store for which I work. Good deal all around... But some people just don't like them. Ahh well.

A few days ago I mentioned the email I got from Altair regarding the revival of the Dreamland Chronicals. Here's the Gamespot info on it, as well as a link to their previous coverage on the game. Worth a read if you like these Xcom type games.

Ohhhh! There's a free trial for Darkspace for a week! I've been trying to get ahold of someone over there to send me a couple 30 or 60 day accounts for demo/review purposes, but no one's ever responded. (Gods how I hate that.) Looks like a sweet game, with some nice eye candy.

Some interesting security news in from Wee Hughie. (Thanks bro) Suprise suprise, there's a serious secutity hole in NT and 2000 that potentially allows a hostile user root access. Oooops. It's just not even a shock anymore when someone anounces they're found a security loophole in an MS product. It's like someone announcing "My god, the world is flat." or McDonald's announcing they're food isn't technically "food" as such. *sigh*

The SOF2 Multiplayer test was leaked. Has anyone actually gotten the damned thing working? Graphically it's quite impressive, the guns are sweet and HEY! We've got selectfire! (woot!! Thanks for the headsup Runez0r.)

In other Rune submitted news, an interesting little game called Stalingrad has been announced. As you might guess, you play the part of a Ruskie sniper. Wonder where that came from eh? I dunno about you guys, but I'm SO there.

Been playing Dungeon Siege one HELL of a lot today. Wow. What a great game. Haven't played yet? Get it. Prae thinks there's too much dungeoning and not enough siegeing, but hell with him, he's too busy answering Jedi trivia. These days, if it doesn't get dismembered with a blade of pure orange light, he's not interested. :)

I've recently started putting counters on all of our reviews, so I can track hits on each one. Wow. We get quite a few people reading those things, and from the emails and ICQs I get I know they're being influanced by the reviews.

It's all part of my evil plot(tm). Here's how it should work in theory:

1) We do a pile of reviews, mostly on games and track the hits.
2) We go to publishers and manufacturers and say to them "Hey, we've done X# of reviews over the last few months. X# of these were your games. We average around 1,500 hits when we review a new product. Would you be interested in sending us products for preview/review, doing interviews etc?

This has one of three outcomes:

1) They realise that having 1,500 or so people coming deliberately to read about a product is the ultimate in directed advertising and go for it. We publish many more reviews, and stop paying out of our own pockets to advertise for these fellows.
2) They tell us to stick it after they read a few reviews and realise we're honest sorts, and won't post a kiss ass good review if the product has flaws, or just plain sucks. (Nope, not even for nVidia hardware would I promise to post good reviews of products I feel are inferior.)
3) We never hear back from anyone.

In the case of 2 and 3 things will continue as they are. If you happen to work at a hardware or gaming software company, and would like to help us out, email me! We need all the help we can get, and our priest is at his wits end. :) We'll have to see what happens. I'm hoping for #1, but expecting #3. I've noticed that many companies don't want to talk to smaller news sites anymore. I think the main reason is that they're sick of getting ripped off by idiots who just want free product, and either don't post a review, or do a really half assed job of it and run off with the goods. Pretty prevailent these days, much to my dismay. :( Ruins it for the guys who are honestly out to do something for real. Same deal with LANs, many companies don't hand out prizes or equipment anymore because of fraud.

I'm not interested in making money on this site. Myself and Rune do it for fun. However, it would be great to expand the site, without bankrupting ourselves in the process. I think we have a decent site, and we've put a hell of a lot of work in on it. I get lots of good comments from readers. Heh. And some flames, which are good as well. :) I'd just like to do more, get more content. We also need more people submitted reviews and articles. It's hard though, it is alot of work. Especially the reviews.

Anyhows, it's late. Must sleep.

Sitting here at work listening to Tunnel Trance Force cd 20 REALLY loudly on a set of Klipsch 2.1s and Rune sends me a link..Is online gaming a serious addiction? There's been quite a bit of news out lately that seems to be leaning that way, as more people look at the effects of games like Everquest (Especially evercrack it seems.) on people's lives. I dunno, I'm personally not adicted to gaming, or anything else I can think of... Other than breathing. That's become a habit I'm completely unwilling to kick, no matter how many people try to help me on my way to a cure. I do know quite a few people, including parents who freak out when their computer is down, or they're having net issues.. Usually because they can't play EQ for a day... And I mean, they're FREAKING. Many of them also hide their online fees from their spouses. This I can understand, I imagine that alot of people don't share all of their expenses with their significant others. (Saves on nagging. :) Perhaps it is a problem. In my head I can just picture a few years from now, when all these people are gathered in an EQ forest clearing in a big circle saying "My name is Sidlious. I'm a level 42 magi, and I have a problem." :)

I've been wondering. Do you dream of gaming? No? You're a scumsucking little liar my friend. Join us in the forums, and post your own gaming dreams... I've been dreaming of games for years. Usually I'm a sniper in a situation from a game I've played, or I'm controlling a Battlemech. (Some of this may be caused by the books, but I think it's the games.) Most recently, I've been dreaming of storming Omaha beach. Right out of Metal of Honor: Allied Assault.

I play paintball whenever I have the time and can afford it. Now thanks to Frank Rizzo I've found a new toy that looks like it would be quite a bit of fun on those big games up at Wasaga Beach. WHAP! :)

I have no idea how I ever found this link. But... Well... Ummmmm.... Just insert own joke here, to say the least. (Pun fully intended.)

I'm not sure why Duke Nukem Forever isn't out yet. Somehow I always suspect it's because 3D Relms is too busy bitching about Sam stealing lines from Duke, or making fun of him. (You DID use the phonebooth in the demo of SS2 right?) I also suspect it's because they've been busy releasing console games behind our backs, the bastards. Well, looks like we're finally getting another Duke game on the PC. Manhattan Project looks like it might be an interesting little time waster untill the big man finally shows up for the main act. Download the movie, it's not bad.

Anyone else remember The Great Gianna sisters from the C64? Amazing game, amazing music. A definate classic even consdering that it was quite short lived however, due to Nintendo lawsuites. It was bascially a complete Mario rip off, but done better than Mario in my opinion. There's been a new multiplayer version released. Woot! :) Downloading now.