Be patient

Posted on November 29, 2011 by InV4d3r

The last couple of days and my rare time on my evening got wasted by downloads and updates. It’s nice to have the opportunity to download games from platforms like Steam and everything gets automatically updated, but at one certain point it starts to simply suck.

Firstly, when you have TON of games that start updating at the same time with an amount of data far from good and evil.

Secondly, when those games that try to updates themselves don’t actually update, but prefer to rot in your data stream with 0.0001KBit/s and the progress bar doesn’t even think about changing.

Last but not least, after everything got finally updated and patched and whatever else was happening, the game does not work as expected. I don’t want to give names, but I had application crashes, performance issues and stuff like that after my odyssey which already stole my last bit of patience.

There’s no final resume in this post. I just wanted to share my wonderful experiences I had the last couple of days.

The Good, The Bad, The Disappointed

Posted on November 17, 2011 by InV4d3r

Everything started very promising this year. It started with the frightening and totally awesome “Dead Space 2”, a game that absolutely gives you creeps shouldn’t be played alone in the dark. Well, actually, you MUST play this game alone in the dark, but beware. You may find some embarrassing surprises in your underpants.

After this fright odyssey the year continued with the manliest shooter I’ve played since a long time ago. BULLETSTORM. Yeah, this was just great. Stereotype conversations and one liners and just great action. Explosions. And guns. And explosions. And guns. And destruction. “Bulletstorm” wasn’t by far a brain cracker but it was some great entertainment, worth to be played a again.

“Portal 2” came out and it could exceed my high (extremely HIGH) expectations. It was a short game and till today I haven’t managed to play this awesome game in co-op mode but it was worth every minute. The whole level design, the story, the humor, everything fit. And I was totally surprised what Valve managed to make with the almost nine years old Source engine. “Portal 2” wasn’t looking like a game from the past, it can compete with every other title these days.

Speaking of graphics, “Crysis 2” came out right at the beginning of 2011 and what I did, I denied playing. I said, I only play “Crysis 2” when I have the ability to play it on DX11. Crytek put out a patch with DX11 support and hi-res textures in mid-summer 2011 and I found absolution. My game rig started to sweat by lifting the heavy weight graphics of “Crysis 2”, but hey, there’s a reason why I invest lots of bucks in a high end system and why I’m a passionate PC gamer. Despite all these graphics, “Crysis 2” is a good game, but for me personally, I still prefer its predecessor. Open world and free decisions, you know?

Some great indie games also hit the shelves. One that I totally adored and where I just couldn’t stop playing was “Limbo”. Took me like two or three sessions and I was at the end, or the beginning again. Whatever. “Beat Hazard” was another title that kept me playing for a long time. A download only title called “From Dust” was able to entertain me for several days and nights as well. But what happened next was a series of disappointments.

It started with the long awaited “Dead Island”, which had more bugs than features. Seriously, the game was almost not playable during the first days and needed lots and lots of patches. My 7.1 noise sound bug hasn’t been fixed till now. It continued with “Rage”, the first id title that, well, I don’t know how to say it. I miss something. It’s not the kind of id game that I actually expected.

My personal heart’s desire “Alice: Madness Returns” will be discussed later in another blog entry.

“Deus Ex: Human Revolution” was a game that is basically good, but it offers lots of moments of frustration as well. I guess, this is the kind of game that you love or hate. At the moment, I’m somewhere in between.

Biggest fail and disappointment of 2011 is definitely “Duke Nukem Forever”. They just should’ve canceled the game or buried it somewhere really, really deep. This shooter is not old school, it’s just ridiculously old-fashioned. I mean, what the f#+k? Seriously? Why? I got the “Balls of Steel Edition” and you totally need balls of steel and also nerves of steel to compete with this terrible game.

I was so happy, that “Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition” made everything right. There’s light, at the end of the tunnel.

But when I take a look on titles like “Battlefield 3” with its evil companion called Origin or the blurry texture fest called “Skyrim” I see black for the end of the game year 2011. My last hope lies on “Batman Arkham City”

Cutest animal on this planet

Posted on November 15, 2011 by InV4d3r

There’s one animal on this planet that is soooooo cute, you CAN’T not like it. The Loris. C’mon, just look. Isn’t he cute? Isn’t he so tiddely-tiddely cute?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y77Oqe21r4[/youtube]

Apologies for this tiny embarrassing post but I had to share this with you guys. Next time for something completely different. Promised.

Pedotrophy

Posted on November 3, 2011 by InV4d3r

“Next station – Child. This life terminates here. Please leave all your personal belongings and don’t look back.

If there’s one discussion that I absolutely hate, it’s the discussion about kids and how they enrich your life. I can’t see how a crying, little midget should enrich my life and bring me pleasure. I also can’t see what’s so cute about a wizened baby with all this slobber around the mouth and the tongue hanging out.

They next period when a child grows up is this walking period and the time where it starts to grab everything, even it was forbidden. You have all these proud adult and mainly parents sitting around, laughing on every “cute mistake” little kiddo makes and you always here excuses like, “Hey, just leave him be. He’s just a kid.

The thing that disgusts me the most these days are mainly the parents breeding nowadays kids. They simply let them do whatever they with the sodding excuse that they are just kids. They don’t have to take care about rules and bans. Whenever I have kids around me my personal stress level instantly hits its peak and brings me to a point of agony. I could punch everyone involved with these kids in their faces. The very rare moments where I actually tried to spent some time with kids ended in a child crying endlessly without any clear reason. Children are so incomplete and stupid.

Another thing is, when you take a look at all these parents, the most of them abandoned their lives for the little kiddos. Some move to bigger apartments, some build houses, some don’t travel anymore, some give up their hobbies. And you always here, “You know, since the kid’s arrived, we don’t have money for this and that.

I give a rat’s ass about children when I have to twist every cent twice and I’m personally nothing else than an empty shell without hobbies or interests. I’ve to admit, I’m a person with hobbies that waste a looot of time, but on the other hand I can’t see why I should give them up for a tiny incomplete.

A lot of people take my opinion as a offense and get terribly annoyed, but we live in a free world and that is my opinion. I hate having children around me and I don’t want to have any of them on my own. Saves time and money and does not stress my nerves so badly.

Whatever the case, maybe I’ll look back one day when I’m old and doting and say, “Maybe I should have known better and should have gotten some kids to give me some company in my pale and dirty chamber.

But that’s another story.

Outta shape, dude!

Posted on September 25, 2011 by InV4d3r

After having celebrated the couch potatoe-esque way of life for quite a while I’m finally tired of it. Over and over again do I reach a point I feel like “Hey, now it’s getting seriously out of control.

I’m not announcing a big program, like I did in the past, here but right now I’m at a point where it is time to get a little bit more healthier and find a way back on regular track. This is also because I found that I’ve finally reached an age where the “DeLorean is far beyond the point of no return”

I’ll maybe explain this in a later post but not right now. Anyhow, my bag is finally packed for gym tomorrow and I also have to say that this time I feel a little bit afraid. I’ve gained massive, massive, massive overweight and I also feel a little ashamed about me BUT it’s no condition that cannot be changed. My daily schedule leaves enough room for fitness once again and one slightly set goal is go for a jog by the beginning of November that will last for about half an hour or more. Till now I’m only used to these machines in the gym but I feel more like getting out a little bit more.

Another urgency, it’s getting colder and colder and the point where I HAVE to wear long pants draws near. Actually, I won’t fit in one of those at my certain condition, or I simply die of frost this winter 🙂

I’ll keep you informed and wish me luck…

This thing called… what did you say?

Posted on September 22, 2011 by InV4d3r

It’s been a while. After having almost a month of free time to waste on pure debauchery I’m finally back to the working class heroes with a regularly, fixed schedule. I feel much in my new company and I’m a thousand per cent certain that it was the right decision I’ve made. It’s a huge challenge, also a very interesting and intriguing challenge, but most importantly, no pack of Hyenas surrounding me bothering me with ideas and tasks of non-sense. Please understand that I’m not giving any further details on what I’m doing and so on, discretion is advised. Just feel informed with the fact that I like it where I’m at and I hopefully can be here for a while.

Once upon a time I had the will and lust to do some sports again but in the end I simply though “What the heck!

Well, I gained a massive amount of weight, especially on my free days, but I also have to admit that I’m not feeling very unwell. With this new job and the fact that I have to travel each day 120km I wanted to get a little bit more in comfort with ‘the new situation’ before starting this sporty thingy again. I also have to say, that I’m not in the mood to do any sports and I don’t want to force me to do anything I actually don’t want or like. Maybe my attitude on that is a completely different one tomorrow and I’m going to jog for like an hour.

Despite, I’d rather stick to gaming these days. I just started “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” and I’m also playing “Dead Island”. Both are great games in their genre BUT both are totally buggy or have several issues.

“Dead Island” is the game that has a lot of serious hardware related issues on my system. First of all, I use a 7.1 sound system on my gaming rig and I gain a lot of terrible, loud noises when I have the 7.1 speaker configuration turned on. I could fix by running in 5.1 mode only. The graphics are, let us say okay, but they stutter. This shouldn’t be an issue on my system due to the fact that the game runs at 180-200fps on maximum details at a resolution of 1920×1200. Hopefully they’ll fix this issue.

Another thing I don’t like, which is not hardware related, is the fact that you have a save point system and there’s no real indicator given when the game actually saves your progress. Terrible on a PC. Why no quick-save? Anyhow, the game itself looks promising and despite these issues I’ll continue playing and see what’s up next.

“Deus Ex: Human Revolution” is in my personal opinion the sequel the first “Deus Ex” deserved. It’s still far away from the class of it’s pre-predecessor, but it’s good and feels like “Deus Ex” and the developer does not go strictly mainstream as they were trying with “Deus Ex: Invisible War”, which was terrible game, if you ask me. I play “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” on highest difficulty level and I’m stuck at the first boss right now 😛 Anyhow, this game is definitely worth the play.

Game of the week #10/2011 – From Dust

Posted on August 22, 2011 by InV4d3r

I’m still on my free days and I still use this time to finish and complete a lot of games I haven’t found the time for yet. These days I stick pretty much to some download only games. One of them is the long awaited “From Dust”. I personally always wanted to have a game like “Populous – The Beginning” again and Ubisoft made my dream come true and released a game that is pretty much the same. You play a godlike person that is able to manipulate the elements. In the old “Populous – The Beginning” it was a shaman that was able to control several elements. Shamans in “From Dust” play a minor role.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8nABQLSfmU[/youtube]

The game is basicly about capturing totems, these totems gives you the opportunity to control several elements, like water, lava and of course earth. It’s by far not that easy because your tiny and progressively stupid worshippers are in danger due to some catastrophes coming up, like floods, volcanos and earthquakes. The first levels of the game are easy compared to the ones you have to face by the end of the game. Unfortunately, if you’ve found the strategy needed to finish a level, it turns out to be too easy, even on the last levels. You don’t really have to solve submissions and such, it’s always the same schema. You enter the new level, you find out what the catastrophe is your people have to face and develop methods against it.

Anyhow, “From Dust” is an intriguing game that has some gameplay issues and is far too short and easy for my concerns. I used to play the game in a way that I was able to finish every level with a 100 per cent rating and it took me almost eleven hours of pure gaming. Ubisoft announced, if the game will find an audience they might add some content to the game. Even a mod function would be a nice feature, too. But games like these are pretty rare nowadays and I recommend it to everyone who just feels like playing something different. You’ll feel entertained.

Happy, lazy days

Posted on August 15, 2011 by InV4d3r

It’s been quite a while since my last post and the reason for this is simple, I’m on my free and enormous lazy days. Actually, I had several of what to on days like these but I finally decided to do whatever comes up on my mind. I have to admit, once you’re into this vicious circle of laziness you probably don’t have much you actually want to do. I prefer waking up late, watching some stuff on my HTPC, play some games I always wanted to complete and so on.

This week is a little different because I suffer from some things broken. Most importantly, the hard drive storing all my TV stuff on my HTPC alerted me with a SMART error. The drive is still functional in some kind of way but it will completely break down in the very nigh future. As far as I found out does this drive have some spinning problems and several bad sectors appeared during the last couple of days. Till now I’m able to do the backup, which takes some time, approximately around 32 hours due to the spinning problems. Normally this drive runs around 60MB/s but currently it gains around 8 – 24MB/s on average. Anyhow, I’m able to backup and the exchange drive is already on it’s way.

Another weird thing happened the day before, my office chair broke. By leaning back I totally fell backwards because the top of the vertical axis ripped off the attachment beyond the seat. I cannot deny that I have a massive overweight right now and that this was predictable, but it’s pissing me off because it finally happened during my lazy days where I use to sit a LOT on this particular chair. Whatsoever, I’ll replace this broken chair as soon as possible.

I’ve finally made to finish a lot of games that I always wanted to have completed. “Limbo” got released on Steam I completed it. A fine noir-esque indie title that totally deserves a try. Another game on my list was the awesome “Batman Arkham Asylum”. I completed the main plot and now I only have got some Riddler trophies left to gain the 100 per cent. Besides this I revisited Liberty City in “GTA IV” and I would say I am at 90 per cent of the main plot, almost finished per say. Most importantly “Mirror’s Edge” gained back my attention and I’m already in chapter 7. It’s a pretty tough and sometimes frustrating game but it’s still a very awesome game. The whole graphic style is unique and beautiful and the parcour gameplay is just great.

Besides these games I started playing the new Alice game “Alice: Madness Returns” which a little disappointing under some circumstances but on the other hand pretty intriguing. The levels are a pleasure to look at but at the end of the day you’re always doing the same and it’s pretty linear. It feels pretty much like jumping section, fighting section, jumping section, fighting section and so on. Anyhow, I guess I’m going to complete this game, too though.

I wanted to do some sports during my free time, but I actually haven’t found the will to do so. Maybe, within the next, let us say, in the nigh future.

Time to waste

Posted on August 1, 2011 by InV4d3r

Changes, man, changes! I’ve got two days left at work and then I’ll enter a longer period of free time. Almost the whole August is free. I’ve got a job offer that I finally couldn’t resist in a company that captured my entire sympathy within a couple of moments and that looks very promising. My new life starts on 1st September. In the meantime I’ll try to use my free time to get a little bit more time with photography and learn my new lenses. On the other hand I plan to get back to sports. As mentioned before, I’ve got a lot of free time and want to use it as useful as I possibly can.

I gained several pounds during the last few weeks and I want to get rid of them as soon as I can. The answer is simple, lots of sports is the solution. I’m really excited about this, because I never had a training period like this before. It’s just me and my free time without getting distracted by work issues or everything else that might bother you in daily life. Right now, my weight is something around 108kg and I want to push it down to at least 100kg. I personally think that this is possible within four weeks and a half.

Besides this stands my second ego, the gamer. I’ve got so many games that I haven’t already that deserve a play through that I’ll jump on these, too. My fave at the moment is the absolutely brilliant “DiRT 3”. One of the best racing games for years and as addictive as the all time classic “Colin McRae Rally 2.0”

“Colin McRae Rally 2.0” sucked hours and hours of my weekends and free time and there wasn’t a single moment where I got bored. “DiRT 3” is actually the same, very motivating and entertaining for every single moment. The only thing that bothers me a little are the DLCs. I bought Monte Carlo and Japan, but they could have made into the final retail game, too. These two DLCs cost me around 15 Euros and you have to keep in your mind, that you can get a great budget title for that money, too. Hopefully, this rip off will have an end in the near future.

Finally, and I hope the weather god is good to me. I’ll go out in my town and probably Berlin and do some photos. I’ve got this new fish eye lens that deserves a little more attention. Anyhow, I wanted to go out for pictures for such a long time, but I felt really exhausted and stressed by nearly everything over the last few weeks that I actually haven’t found the time and intention to do so.

Whatever the case, a new job starts on September and I’ve got a lot of free time in the meantime. I’ll try to use it to recharge and to get back into shape. I’ll keep you informed.

What’s happening…?

Posted on July 19, 2011 by InV4d3r

A short update of what happened and is actually happening right now. First of, I was off to the countryside, the forest to be exact and got a little rest. I’ve been there with my parents and my grand-mother and it was a weekend with simply doing nothing. I took the time to take some pictures of some flowers and the nearby lake. And I also tried to clean my tent, with tiny success.

On the next weekend I’ll be off for a small festival that is going on pretty nearby and I’m going to see bands like Sodom, Vader and the Excrementory Grindfuckers. I haven’t been to a festival for years now and I’m totally longing for that. It’s a very small festival, but my experience tells, this is going to be one hell of a show. Maybe, but just maybe, I’ll do some headbanging. It also depends on my level of alcohol consumption.

Games, I play Tropico 3 and some Crysis 1+2. More Crysis 1 because of the summer I feel more like jungle jungle than city jungle. One side effect of Tropico 3 is, that the music in this game is very intriguing and as soon as my girl-friend enters the room it affects me to dance some merenge or salsa or whatever these latin american dances are called like. Embarrassing, but hey… I’m also a little ashamed that the three year old Crysis 1 still manages it, to bring my system down on its knees. Kudos for that Crytek.

There’ll be some bigger changes in my life coming in September, approved subscribers will get some details on this particular situation in another private post.

The game of the week is off and missing, I know. As soon as I got little bit more into indie gaming again, I’ll give another recommendation.

PS: I’m looking for some nice headphones at the moment and I focused several models made by AKG, anything you would recommend? Or maybe a totally different manufacturer?

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