I found a MDR-G72 street style headphones in my box of computer stuff. Looks like a BestBuy price label. Weird. I don’t buy Sony stuff, nor do I shop at BB. Hooked it up to my system and gave it a whirl. At first, I was appalled at the shittiness of the sound. Then I listen some more. I guess it is acceptable for a cheap (~40 bucks) set of portable phones. That and I am spoiled on my fullsized Sennheisers. They don’t produce a very deep sound stage: the sound is right next to your ear as opposed to immerse you in sound. Of course, you look a ton less dorky with these on than the fullsized cans I won’t even go into imaging and detail. I’ll just say it is lacking. I am still eyeing that CX500 for my portable music needs. I just need to get off my ass to buy one. Until I do, these are almost tolerable

Update:
I left the Sony playing trance all night loudly to break it in. Of course this is very subjective and people will say this is bullshit, but there is seem to be a change in the sound for the better. Ya it still doesn’t knock my socks off but it is there. The depth seem to increased compared to when it is out of the box. It sounds less muffled. The bass is still a bit overpowering, but the mid range and highs comes through a little better now. Theorhetically, break-in is supposed to loosen up the diaphram, so don’t ask me why highs comes through better. I double checked my ears on 2 other fullsize big dollar cans to make sure my ears didn’t go bad overnight. The break-in doesn’t make the Sony a good sounding a pair of phones, but it has made it more tolerable. This reminds me to pick up the Beyerdynamics DT880. I wanted it for a year… Just when I stop thinking about it… I could pick up something for my portable when I go get this No I don’t think there is too much of a difference in quality after you go over 200 bucks on headphones. It is mostly taste on what you like your phones to sound like. I do LOVE the DT880’s sound though.

I just got a HD4870 reference card after swearing off ATi for awhile. Ok seriously, I thought they would have fixed their shitty drivers by now. A big fat NOPE at that.

First off, come on it has been 2 weeks since the card been on the shelf and where is the official driver? Oh there are BETA and HOTFIX drivers Then how about drivers that takes up 60megs of memory? Ok CCC disabled and got my memory back. Oh, now I don’t have access to settings and monitoring. This is the most annoying part: everytime I close a fullscreen 3d game or go from fullscreen to windowed, it blinks the display like it is changing the resolution. Seriously annoying. nVidia doesn’t do this. I mean resolution wasn’t changed, 1920×1200 to 1920×1200 and it takes a 1-2 seconds to do whatever it is doing. Um… ya Come on, that is seriously annoying. It is always the little thing that grinds on your nerve. Yes the card is fast and a good card for the money, you just have to put up with alot of shittiness, as compared to just a bunch of crappiness from nVidia. Meh. Color me underwhelmed from all the annoyances that comes with every ATi. Free with every purchase, y0! Man, I miss the old ATi control panel. Wish they would bring them back. Who gives 2 shits about live preview of the settings?

I guess I’ll give it a score: 79%. Almost, but not quite there. Buy it if you don’t mind the crappy drivers from ATi. It is just good for the money. A Dodge neon was good for the money; it just isn’t very good in grander view of things. GTX280 and 9800GX2 are still much faster. At least I know nVidia don’t have this annoying blinking problem and the driver are less bloated (still bloated of course). *GTX280 is quite mediocre too, perhaps even more so than the HD. I am an equal opportunity hater.

PS: The review is negatively biased on purpose. If you want to read the good things, just go flip through any other HD48xx review. I mean, people are giving too much credit to this card. Sure it may be an unbelievably good card compared to what ATi was churning out for the last few generations, but it doesn’t make it a grand slam. Someone need to balance out all the ATi dick sucking.

I just tried Bioshock for a few minutes. I am so sorry that I ever said GoW’s control sucked. This is 100x worse. Being a pr0 CS player CS n00b terminator, you can bet i am a super low sens player. I touch the mouse and I did a 720. I was like wow. Turned the mouse sensitivity down to lowest and it gets stuck here and there. It just won’t move. So I tried some tweaks and it is better, but it still feels like crap. Chalk one up for another game dumbed down for console with retarded controls. Ierno, I am gonna restart the game on easy and just blast through this. I am in it for the story as the combat BLOWS GOAT’S SWEATY BAWLS. Or dare I say, use the trainer

Game looks pretty good with very interesting art style. It is a bit too cartoonish for my taste, but not THAT bad

Well, since I am already on the topic, may as well make this a full blown pitch my bitch post. I’ve already written about how games suck when they are controller oriented. This game brings it into a whole new territory. It isn’t the first, but it is the one that makes me want to cut off my fingers. I just want to play this stupid game. Tight controls is necessary for a FPS. Mouse and keyboard should be their focus, not an afterthought. This game is bleeding edge. In terms of technology AND crappy controls. People saying the control in this game is fine should go try some other shooters and come back to this game. Then you’ll see how much it SUCK DONKEY BAWLS. I don’t mind loosey goosey controls in games like Oblivion or some other non-combat oriented game. If you’re going to make a FPS, get it through your skull that KEYBOARD AND MOUSE COMES FIRST.

So anyways, tweaked the game setting for mouse again, and about to go for another session. Hopefully it feels better this time

Edited impressions:
After tweaking the mouse setting for awhile, it finally feels OK. Just OK, no more. I don’t understand how the control is so butchered considering all the other games built on the UT3 (or UT2.5 hybrid) engine are really solid. As for the story, the game feels like an advanture game in FPS guise. Not bad so far. I really like the over the top atmosphere. Will finish this game later

Portal.
Innovative. Funny. Craziest gameplay ever.
Only if it wasn’t so short.
Just wanted to write that for some reason. Only a Month late or something

Runner up: UT3, man is this game fun… This is how 3d engines should be built! Latest technologies yet not bogged down to slideshow framerate. Yes, it is formulaic and derivative, but you know I am a sucker for good online play. It is familiar yet new. Ya it is no CS, but still fun none-the-less. It would be fun if I had my old team to play with

YES. BITE ME. I didn’t play Bioshock. I have to let the hype die down, so I don’t get disappointed.
Crysis. Didn’t play. I don’t wanna I want to experience it the first time in 1920×1200 in DX10 with all goodies turned on with high frame rate. I know the gameplay is short, and story lame, but still I want to experience it in all its glory first time around. Perhaps it is the only thing it is good for, you know like admire the graphics slideshow
Installing Bioshock now. Crysis… Ierno. May be later

Biggest surprize: HL2EP2. EP1 sucked. It is like a demo in term of how much story it gives you. EP2, only slightly longer, gives you sense of accomplishment when that thing goes in the air… and killing the striders with them sticky bombs. Not to mention the awesome Cuda There is almost no need to play these 2 expansions though, as the story parts are on Youtube. Orangebox is A-OK though for having Portal. I hope We’ll see EP3 this year, and it better be good (you know, like a real ending assuming it is a trilogy and not a ten-million-ogy ).

Well, time for another game review. This time, it’s The Witcher. Lemme get this out of my system first: the game looks awesome! The landcape is filled with lush vegetation. The art style is “just right.” The water shader effects are pretty cool. Watching the sunset or sunrise is really nice too.

As for the story, it is somewhat interesting. In a way that it makes me want to read the novels written by the author set in the same universe, but not really all that interesting in terms of bringing something new to gaming. Sure it doesn’t present you with the stupid good or evil decisions, but the game still didn’t make me like enough about the sides they make me choose. There are other parts that do make you somewhat care about the characters. Still, I liked the story, eventhough it feels a bit overdone at times. How many dwarf and elf fantasy games can you name? I can name more than 10 off top of my head.

As for the game play. I didn’t like the combat system. Sure it isn’t a Diablo style clickfest, but now they added timing element to chain your attacks together. I still prefer realtime player’s skill systems like in FPS, or just plain old stat based system like in Morrowind. THe game have almost endless choices of armor, as long as you consider 3 enough (2 of which looks the same, and you don’t get the third about 1 hour before the end). How about weapons. Great variety, except your inventory doesn’t hold weapons. Goodjob on the inventory system! It is the worse I’ve seen in awhile. Oh, the weapons usually suck. The best weapons are given to you in quests. So it doesn’t really give you the incentive to explore. Well, not like exploring is really all that interesting since the maps aren’t as interesting to explore like in Oblivion (which pales in comparison to Morrowind of course).

Back to the story element, I think I won’t bother replaying this one. I was eager to finish it, but from what I’ve read else where the decisions you make really doesn’t change the ending of the story. Therefore, it is just minor change of path to the same ending.

So anyways. I liked this game from a storytelling perspective, but the game part still needs some polishing. Well, the obvious question is that do I think it is better than Oblivion. Well to be honest, I don’t really like oblivion (as in plain jane. Very ok with expansions and mods). It was dumb down for console compared to its Morrowind predecessor. Oblivion lacks the depth of Morrowind. So in a way I do like it more than Oblivion, though I do wish I was given more freedom. It feels like a rollercoaster ride in how it wants to shuttle you from chapter to chapter. Of course you’re free to do the quest in any order you like within any chapter, as long as you don’t touch the main quests. Overall, this may not be a game of the year, but the RPGs to follow have a pretty high bar to clear.

Score: 85% (cowinkidinkily, GS and IGN both gave it this score )

Addendum: Sure there are hookers and stuff in the game, but it isn’t quite as fun as Fable: the Lost Chapter’s Bordello. The mechanics to get laid in this game has more depth than Fable though… You need different gifts and select the right dialog. Compared to just straight gifts in Fable

Edit: Apparently there ARE different endings… I was thinking more along the line of the ending movie. Not the epilog. I guess that is where the “different endings” are. Still not going to replay it for the less than 2 hours of epilog. The different sides seems so minor of a difference to me. The game crashes way too often to put myself through it again… 80+ hours of gameplay it says. Beat the game in less than 20 hours. Where did the rest of the 60 go (I did do all the quests)? I hope they don’t include replay. Otherwise online FPS would have infinite gameplay time /CSwhore

Who writes these fawking game reviews. I just do not understand how Gears of War gotten an average of about 90%… WOW. It is just a rolling piece of turtle shit wrapped up in shiny UT3 powered graphics. Ok, game isn’t THAT bad, but the controls makes it stupider than a pack of dogs licking their privates. It is yet another game dumbed down for the console retards and forced down our collective PC gamers’ throats.

All I want is to reliably being able to enter the run mode. No I don’t want cover now, I want to run. Sometimes the game will throw you a curveball and make you do sideway matrix dodges. Hey, that is nice and all, but how about making it predictable about what you’re gonna do. Don’t use 1 stupid fucking button to make it do all those things. I mean, it isn’t a hard game or anything. I got killed mostly because of the retarded controls. I seriously doubt the Gamespot reviewer played the same game I did. Holy wow, they actually gave it an medal for having tight controls? How much is Microsoft paying you to write that junk? Remove mouth from Gates’ pole please.

Then there are the guns. WTF am I shooting? Pieces of marshmellows of love? I mean, I could spit on those enemies and make them die faster. It doesn’t help when they are about accurate as a 3 year old boy at the public restroom. It just goes every where. They can make people bulge to that size, yet they can’t figure out how to make guns that actually that shoots where you’re pointing. Our alternate universe looks bleak. No wonder it is war torn. Otherwise they would have zero problem taking care of those monsters. Oh I get it. If they actually had an accurate gun, there would be no story. Gotcha!

So in summary, the story is forgettable, combat lame, but hey it looks nice. Ooh, it is another of THOSE games. I can’t believe how hyped this game was. I don’t understand how people who’ve played this game can say it is good. It is average at best (then again, those console tards actually liked Halo series… ). I mean, if you’re 12 years old and get your kicks from hearing someone saying FUCK. Then this is the game for you. Otherwise, ya, go waste your time on some other game.

I’ll be nice since it looks nice: 65%

I’ve found the center of the universe. Giant black hole? Hell no. Giant asshole more like it
(ask me about it )

A few weeks back, I’ve finally switched completely over to Opera. I do miss some of my plugins from FF. Most notably, the menu editor. I’ve customized my menu, but it is just painful. It was done in NOTEPAD. I mean, i love notepad, but it is just so un-userfriendly. Ah well. At least Opera has lots of build in functions, which replaced many of my plugins in FF. I still want my Firebug, FireFTP, FaviconizeTab, etc I may like lean&mean programs, but I do miss all the awesomeness that can be put into FF
Opera, the awesomest fastest browser… and I’ve finally found something that is faster in Firefox than in Opera!
Open a LARGE .txt file and just do a in page text search and do it a few times with both browser. I was amazed when I noticed that Firefox is exponentially faster than Opera
I noticed this when i loaded both my CPU core down to 100% with PCSX2, and was doing in page text search in Opera. It was painfully slow. There is less of a difference in speed within Firefox.

My Opera experience:

What I hate about Opera:

• Speed dial… completely useless. I do not see what the fuss is about.
• Mouse gestures. It is faster with my left hand on the keyboard.
• No find as i type well, not exactly not having it. It requires me to hit the backslash “/” before i type. Where as in FF, i could just start typing.
• No ability to customize the interface like FF. Like placing any menu anywhere to make the interface smaller. See Attached Images at the end, with better explanation.
• Rudimentary AD blocking… Very Meh!
• Can’t rightclick inside a frame and reload inside of the frame only.
• Can’t rightclick and save the background image.
• Can’t centerclick in the bookmarks MENU. It is helpful to open bookmarks in new tabs, or even the whole folder of bookmarks. The sidebar’s bookmarks menu lets me center click folders. I’ve somewhat remedied this by making all bookmarks open in new tabs, even searches open in new tabs. Me like!
• Opera:config seems less powerful than about:config in FF
• Widgets. Enough said
• Spell check of textboxes. Sure I may have hated when it was introduced in FF2, but man do I miss it. I missed it while I am typing up this post… Opera’s spellcheck needs an external program.

What I love about Opera:

• Speed
• Speed
• Speed, Ok fine. I’ll explain the speed. Faster rending speed, scripts run faster, you can go back into your history and they show up almost instantly, and plenty more
• Lots of built in options! So much so that many FF plugins would be obsolete
• Trash can of closed tabs! Sure FF has the “recently closed tabs”, but it is a menu inside a menu. Not as fast as a button menu. I am sure someone could code a plugin for FF with this though.
• You could customize things to place menu items even on the tabs bar! Default has new tab and trash, but you could add other stuff there. Very cool
• What Opera lacks in plugins, it makes up in awesome tiny little code to make new buttons. See HERE.
• Changed theme shows up instantly. No restarting the browser.
• A USEFUL sidebar. FF’s sidebar is a joke, so i never used it. I like how it hides and unhides too. Just click on the left side.
• A forced open “new window” is just a floating window with a tab inside the browser. you can also unmaximize tabbed pages and put it side to side with another tabbed page. VERY VERY cool.
• Right click on a search box and make it into a search in the Opera search bar!

This is what i got so far from the top of my head for likes and dislikes. I am sure I’ll run into more as I use the program some more.

Note: I made the browser window tiny and resized the images so it would fit the format of my blog.
FF With “minifoxflat” theme:

Opera with “Oxid” theme:

Same as above, except I hid the menu:

The Nav buttons and address bar thing cannot be made to occupy the same line as the menus. I added a custom button which has all the menu items, so i could just hide the menu bar, otherwise it would take up too much screen space. Also, see how much more screenspace Opera takes up more than FF with minifox. I could move the Statusbar up where the address bar is to get more space, but status bar is kind weird and it doesn’t set its width well. There should be an option that lets you set how wide the status bar is. (Yes I know breeze micro for opera is very compact, but it is so ugly. And FF+minfox is still more compact without hiding the menu.)

PS: I haven’t made such a long post in awhile. You sure got your money’s worth from this
PS2: Kind weird that Opera is more compatible with badly written webpages than FF. Like the University students I am advising. they are pretty new to writing webpages and their page cannot be rendered correctly within FF. But it works better within Opera. Though, their page is best viewed in IE I may or may not be implying that the pages the students wrote are badly coded

need for speed most wanted: 7.5
game looks and sounds good but it is a stupid arcade racer. kinda boring. wooo evade police. not all that exciting. people say how smart the police are at the later level. ya they just appear out of no where. with the stupid bullet time thingy, the pursuits are easy. just keep go round and round on the highway and once you only got 1 person left on your tail, just ram him into the wall and go into a hiding spot. the final chase is stupid. artificially inflated hardness. hey the road is clear. then the roadblock appear out of thin air. gj. do it a couple times and you can easily get away.

Fable: the loast chapter: 8.5
Discounted for being so short. good game though. interesting that you can run a whorehouse and get your hero laid for free. much easier than showering your ingame wives with presents to get laid. wow true story hilarious. but getting laid doesn’t do anything so why bother. wish the game was longer with more quests and have more variety of NPC faces and sounds. they all pretty much look the same