Free game, free music - with bonus Beagles

I love free things, games and music and I adore Beagles. So this post fuses quite a lot of good things in one, namely a game appropriately called Rescue the Beagles.


It all started with me browsing lists of best free indie games of 2008 (available here). I have ambivalent feelings toward free games, since in general the vast majority of them sucks. Being a cheapskate from the third world country, however, I still occasionally dig into the piles of poo and every now and then dig out a little jewel, such as Every Extend, N or Gnome Carnage for example. I still prefer to go through the lists that someone already sorted for me, lazy bastard that I am.

This time there were not that many titles I cared enough to try, much less play for more than five minutes - nevertheless Rescue the Beagles managed to catch my attention, hold it and provide enough fun not only to play but also to write a post about it, so you can appreciate it as well.


The game, created for procedurally generated content games TIG competition, revolves around, you're right, rescuing the Beagles (hey, you're still a great crowd!). There's some story, if you really must, but the objective is simple - catch all the stray dogs before evil scientists get them.

I like almost everything in Rescue the Beagles, excellent choice of colours, randomly generated levels, minimalist sound effects, sweet retro pixel art, catchy background tune. The only thing I pretty much hate about it is the difficulty level - the game is unforgiving in truly 8-bit spirit. That or I have grown too old for arcade games.

Below you can watch someone playing the game to get an idea what it is all about:

As a cherry on top this cake, the stylish retro soundtrack is totally free. There's the initiative of creating database of free indie games music and tunes from Rescue the Beagles is one of (so far rather few) game soundtracks available.

Download game music here and the game itself here, you can also check other games by Nenad Jalsovec.

Many passengers of Nostromo

If you have been following this blog for a while, you probably noticed that I don't really have a thing for online flash games. During last three years I have just recommended two of them: N (note to self - write about N and N+ soon) and Flash Element Tower Defence, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that I will now recommend the third one.

Called Evacuation, this wonderful little gem puts player in command of a spaceship invaded by aliens, his job to open and close gates of different colours in order to vent aliens into space. Simple? Simple, yes, but brilliantly executed.

I should have opened the pink door...

Delightful graphics reminding me of 16-bit era, sweet music, cute sound effects - it's all there. Add randomly generated levels (getting harder and harder along the way, but different each time) and you have a game that has eaten my precious work time more than I would admit to. There's nothing more to write on the subject - Evacuation is totally awesome, just go and play it already!

How to install Bookr - video tutorial

Long time ago I wrote this comparison of PDF reading software for PSP. In short: Bookr is the best. Almost two years have passed since then and the post remains up to date - situation in this particular homebrew niche has not changed.

Recently, I have found a YouTube channel with many interesting PSP video tutorials, higly recommended, even though some of them are more on the illegal side of things. Nevertheless, since I got a few questions concerning Bookr and how to install, here goes the video for all those that have any trouble with the process:

It also shows how to use it, something that I would never thought anyone would need instruction on, but then again, I thought installing Bookr is dead simple.

PSP-Disp

I don't remember when was the last time I was as excited by a homebrew utility (emulators don't count) as it in case of PSP-Disp. At the first glance, it is merely a deceptively simple application that allows user to use their PSP as external monitor for a PC. The author describes it as follows:

...it basically gives you an additional monitor with a 960x544 resolution (four times the area of the PSP display). There are four components working together, on Windows a display driver, an usb driver and the interface application which captures the screen, compresses it and sends it over USB to the PSP. On the PSP side there is an application that decompresses the frames and displays them. All settings are adjustable from the Windows side, the PSP really only acts as a passive display...

Pretty cool, but why all the fuss? Because when we scratch the surface, there is so much more to it - I think that the power of this homebrew lies A) in the fact that it just works, which s not always the case for every home-made application out there, and B) in its wide range of configuration options. Not only can PSP be connected via USB or through WLAN, but also display can be tweaked to fit user's preferences and thanks to control mapping options, PSP can act as a joypad too. Now that's really neat!


Speaking of tweaking display modes - you can configure PSP-Disp to have the PSP screen follow the mouse, thus acting like a zoom on the cursor (useful in some graphic programs), or you can have it show a defined fragment of your PC monitor, so it becomes a zoomed scope of your rifle.

You can use it as a separate screen, so that your Winamp controls are always visible (lame, depicted above) or to have communicator window open in order not to interrupt your Half Life 2 session (l33t, depicted below).


You can use it to mirror your PC screen, so you can play a PC game on your PSP, using controls mapping, which essentially makes your PSP a joystick with a cool monitor (see the video). Also, it opens door to so many pranks on YouTube (Windows Vista on PSP! Linux on PSP! Linux on Virtual Machine on Windows on PSP!...) that I don't even know which one to start with.

I am very pleased with this application and find it useful, pretty (PSP as sleek additional monitor looks really great) and a breeze to use. I congratulate its author and am keeping my eye on the project updates. I will also donate through PayPal, once I setup my account there. Feel free to give the application a try and download i from PSPUpdates or from program homepage.

You can observe PSP-Disp in action on this YouTube video, with the coolest part near the end, namely Resident Evil 4 being played via PSP (link for the impatient):

Ending this note, I would also like to remind everyone that there exists anoption to have it the other way round, meaning PSP screen displayed on your PC. You can see it in action here and if you would like to set it up yourself, check this great video tutorial. What makes it even cooler is that you don't need TV-Out, meaning PSP-1000 (Phat) can be used as well.

SketchUp Warehouse in Blender

SketchUp and Blender are two great free tools that can be used for creating 3D objects. This is quite a simplistic description, because there are many differences, which I will briefly outline in this note. One is extremely easy to use and has a ton of free models available, the other one can produce stunning visuals - the questions arises how to make them work in tandem. Good news is - you can. Now read on.

SketchUp aims for quick and easy visualisation of architectural features, such as buildings and interiors. Its very user-friendly way of creating 3D content is one of the main reasons for its popularity. Its other strong point is its gallery of ready to use 3D objects. Hosted online by Google, it is called 3D Warehouse and contains almost anything one could think of, with the possibility to watch the model in 3D before downloading it.

Simple house in modelled in SketchUp

SketchUp is free for home user in basic version, but it remains proprietary software with some limitations that this imposes, namely the free version cannot export models in any other format than their own proprietary one, only good for exporting something for Google Earth. For access to more robust functions, users have to purchase the non-free Pro version. Also, it's only available for MacOSX and Windows.

Blender, on the other hand, was designed for rendering digital images and creating animations, with game engine being added later on. It has enormous amount of functions and many applications, which also makes it more difficult to learn and use. The results produced with Blender, however, can be nothing short of stunning and skilled user can obtain far more visually appealing visualisations than what can be done in SketchUp. Contrary to Google's application, Blender is 100% free software with no strings attached, distributed on GPL licence and has been ported to a huge number of systems.

Same house imported to Blender

So there we have it: two great but very different programs, each with its own advantages. Wouldn't it be great if we could make them work together? It turns out that this is both possible and relatively straightforward.

First information I have found on the subject dates back to 2006, so it's definitely not news. The general idea is simple - Google saves its file as a zip containing file in Collada format. All that user needs to do is to rename SketchUp file, unpack the archive and import Collada file into Blender using appropriate script. Voila, your recipe is ready.

When I was investigating the topic while creating animated music video with 3D elements, I used Alexv's tutorial (which is well written and contains a link to Spanish version too), but not so long ago I have stumbled upon the other tutorial on Katsbits and I believe that this is the ultimate one. If you are a regular PC user, you shouldn't have any problems with my one-sentence instruction above, but if you do, check this tutorial and almost every doubt and possible difficulty are explained in detail.

I wanted to illustrate this post with my own screenshots, showing the process of importing Fiat 126p from 3D Warehouse through SketchUp to Blender, with the final result being cel-shaded car for use in 2D animation I am hoping to complete one day, but I have realised that unfortunately I have lost my screenshots and files during system reinstall in 2008 and since I'm short on time recently, I allowed myself to use screens from Katsbits.

A love note to Saints Row 2

Oh, Saints Row 2, how I wanted to love thee!

At first, Yahtzee was kind to you in his video review, which is something that does not happen often. My interest was tickled. Then, he gave you The Copulating Jelly Baby Award for a fuckin sweet game in his Games Awards 2008 video, and I knew I had to meet you.


Before we got together, I saw Obama and McCain in the co-op trailer and it solidified my lust for you. I then saw the GTA IV spoof trailer and it put a broad smile on my face. Then there came Ultor (as in Red Faction) trailer and I appreciated your wit even more:

I eventually saw Story trailer too, but it was cherry on the cake, since we were already together, enjoying our honeymoon.

I felt like I got mysteriously carried away back to sweet GTA:Vice City times. Running people over, shooting cops and blowing things up was fun again, except that there were more options to do wacky and immoral things and graphics was better. Mmm, it was good. So good.

Alas, my love!

Your hardware requirements ruined it for me. On my decent gaming rig, you run slow like molasses, losing our precious FPSes. Just look at Left 4 Dead, it can push ten times more frames on the same equipment. I know that inner beauty is what counts most, but how can I appreciate your wit, charm and gameplay, when the game changes into a slideshow?

Therefore I believe that the best we can do is to give each other some time apart and rethink where this relationship is going. We might eventually hook up again (when I buy better gaming rig), but for now let us go our own ways.

Yours truly,

Barts

This... is... PSP!!!

I'm going to reveal a bit of a history here - when I first bought my PSP, the trick to enjoying Custom Firmware was to find one with firmware 2.00. It contained the exploit allowing the user to pass to the dark side. Unfortunately, my first PSP was a Japanese one with firmware 2.60, so I sold it and went out to hunt. Since I was aware of the screen differences back then already and wanted PSP with better screen, I had to find such combination (rare firmware plus good screen) - not an easy task, especially here in Poland, where PSPs were not a popular commodity (early 2006) and shop clerks were very reluctant to allow me to play with the console for a while to see it in action. I eventually found one, bought it and couple months later firmwares up to 2.60 were hacked using GTA exploit... Story of my life.

Later on we've seen a couple of breakthroughs, including creation of Pandora battery and Lumines exploit. The last one was an interesting story: at first exploit was found and Hello World program was made, then Homebrew Enabler appeared, in the meantime Lumines price sky-rocketed and some folks began selling it on ebay for huge money, causing Fanjita (the man behind the exploit) to publish a rant on how it's nasty (read more about it here).


It seems like the history indeed likes to repeat itself, as the new exploit's story follows the same pattern: at first the exploit is found and proof-of-concept Hello World program is shown to the public, then a simple game gets created (in case of GTA exploit it was GTA Tetris), Fanjita and Team Noobz start working on a proper downgrader and/or homebrew enabler, some enterprising individuals start selling game for huge money...

Okay, this time it's a bit different, since this exploit will supposedly allow PSP-3000 users downgrade their machines, but we've seen hardware issues overcome in case of TA-88 mainboard and later when PSP Slim appeared, so it's neither entirely unexpected nor all that shocking. So if you have just recently bought PSP-3000, there's a high probability you will be able to use homebrew and enjoy custom firmware quite soon.

I've forgotten to mention that this exploit has been named Sparta exploit due to text used in Hello World (or rather This is Spartaaaa!) program, hence the title of this post and accompanying image.

Update: More drama. Sheesh.

Making music on the go

It's been quite some time since I last ventured into PSP homebrew territory, so here's a quick note on two programs that serve one of the less obvious applications of PSP, namely, as the self-explanatory title suggests, making music.

Essentially, there are two competent homebrew applications that can be used for this purpose - PSPSeq and PSPRhythm (which I have already written about way back in 2007). Each of them is backed by online community, in form of Google Group (almost dead recently) and quite vivid forum respectively.

PSPSeq

PSPRhythm

Being quite illiterate when it comes to music in general and music creation in particular, I allow myself to quote this forum thread when it comes to differences between two programs:

the main difference is that PSPSeq primarily uses software synthesis while PSPR is most based around the idea of sample playback. this isn't strictly true because PSPSeq does have WAV file playback and PSPR does have some synthesis capability.

If you understand this musical mumbo-jumbo, good for you - there's more detail in the thread. I don't, but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying music made in both applications. You can read more about them in this article as well (and about some DS homebrew as well).

If you would like to see more of these applications in action, check two music demos here and here, as well as the famous Tetris tune remixed for a glimpse of PSP Rhythm, and this blurry video for a taste of PSPSeq. Also, have a look at this PSPRhythm trailer:

There might be a new competitor stepping into this niche soon, as I learned recently that there is yet another similar PSP application in making. It is called LittleGPTracker (commonly referred to as "piggy"), hence the cutesy icon below.


The author adopted a curious approach of asking for money before he starts porting the application. He seems to have secured 310 out of 410USD, which constitutes about three quarters of his goal, so the chances of PSP community seeing his creation come to life are quite high.

Other than homebrew, I will end this post by mentioning Traxxpad, a commercial music creation software/game for PSP. It seems a little more user-friendly, unfotunately you have to pay for it. Feel free to check the official trailer and read some more information in this post, as well as have a look at what can be done with it in the hands of enthousiastic amateur here and here.

In the commercial depatment, I believe that there also was similar feature in Beats and DJ Max Portable series, although in both cases it was not the core function - they were principally rhythm games. What's more, I am not 100% sure about it, since I have played them long time ago and never really caught the virus, so I guess you'll have to check it by yourself.

Revolutionary Apple laptop with no keyboard

I promised you posts with more substance to it and I'll stick to that, but sometimes there are things that are just too funny to let them pass:

This is The Onion's spoof of Apple news - I should perhaps write more on how well this has been made or why it's actually so funny, but I just can't stop snickering.

Everyday Shooter versus Super Stardust Portable

Everyday Shooter (ES) and Super Stardust Portable (SSP) - these two shoot'em ups appeared recently on Playstation Store and I have tried them both, so here comes the inevitable comparison for all those unsure which one to buy.


If you have read what I had written on the second game (in short: yay! shooting!), you might suspect that I will be biased. Rightly so, I totally love it, but my preference should not influence the comparative evaluation brought to you by yours truly - or at least so I tell myself.

Origin:

- making its first appearance on PS3, Everyday Shooter was a strange indie game developed by Jonathan Mak that got picked up by Sony on Independent Games Festival and received generally warm welcome. It then got ported to PC and later on to PSP as well.

- a younger brother of Super Stardust HD, critically acclaimed old-school shooter with amazing graphics for the PS3, this is a PSP port of SSHD. Quick googling reveals that Super Stardust HD was a spiritual sequel to Super Stardust which itself was a sequel to Stardust and so we go back to good old Amiga days.

Graphics:

- strange shapes move and shoot other strange shapes, with strange shapes appearing in the background. It's all pretty, colourful (although mostly in a toned-down mellow way) and varied, but too abstract for me. However, if you dig Kenta Cho's shooters, there's a strong chance you'll like the art direction of ES as well. Lack of anti-aliasing is noticeable and there is some pixelisation.

Everyday Shooter

- the following words come to mind: classic, good-looking, sparkling, vibrant, colourful, futuristic, smooth. Oh yes, very smooth indeed, the framerate is excellent and never slows down, no matter how many particles, explosions, enemies and other things. It looks good on screens, but it looks incredibly well in motion.

Super Stardust Portable

Audio:

- soundtrack to ES consists of guitar chords, ambient sounds and other acoustic noises. If you enjoy boing boing PLINGGG bdoink! as your musical background, you'll love it, otherwise it will get on your nerves quite easily. I should mention that the sounds in ES are tightly coupled with gameplay and visuals, so if you make a chain combo by destroying tens of enemies at once, you'll be rewarded with a cascade of guitar chords.

- from the very first moment when you hear the bombastic introductory music making you feel like a space soldier just embarking on a mission to protect your home planet, the musical score is just spot-on and very fitting, even if number of tracks is limited. Excellent sound effects make shooting rocks and space-things very enjoyable and in many cases player can realise something is happening off the screen (enemy vessel approaching) just because of specific sound.

Gameplay:

- strange shapes move and shoot other strange shapes... sorry, I already wrote that. Each level has a theme to it not only in terms of graphics, but also in terms of enemy types and rules, to the point where some reviewers describe ES as a collection of minigames (which is totally wrong, in my opinion). These sets of rules are changing from level to level, and as you gain experience, you will gradually notice patterns that govern the behaviour of some more tricky enemies, patterns that can also evolve sometimes. I know this description is a bit fuzzy, but trust me, this game is a bit fuzzy as well.

- Asteroids on steroids pretty much sums it up. There are some tactics in SSP as well, such as knowing when to escape a circling swarm of enemies with a dash or how long to wait for a pick-up bonus in order for it to boost other weapon than it initially would, but the core gameplay is shooting A LOT and having eyes around your head in order not to hit something. Enemy types are mostly similar in behaviour, the variation coming from being forced to use different weapons on different enemy types. Switching between them in the heat of battle is really tricky.

Wrap up:

- If you are some weird tree hugger, excuse me, I meant indie game lover or you simply happen to like abstract, quirky aesthetics, coupled with discovering strange rules while simultanously shooting , you will draw your perverted pleasures from Everyday Shooter. Weird visuals will flow in the rhythm of guitar chords and you will reach your gaming nirvana, although you might be as well indulging on LSD while playing a game of darts.

- If you are a retro gamer who remembers rapid fire buttons on Amiga joysticks or a die-hard shoot'em up fan, the odds are you'll prefer Super Stardust Portable, a game in which the key to survival is mashing fire and littering space with myriads of bullets. Bright explosions, powerful music, shooting till you drop - if that's what you are looking for, look no further.


A word of warning, too: if you played any of these games in their first incarnation (PC or PS3 one), you might find that there is nothing new here and be disappointed with lack of bonus content and/or control issues and/or limitations in presentation layer. If you are looking for some fix for those moments away from your PC/PS3 on the go, though, these titles may feel familiar enough to overlook their little shortcomings.

Also, I remember playing Everyday Shooter on my PC and being annoyed by its high difficulty level. No such feeling here, which probably means that it has been toned down somewhat for the PSP version. As for the difficulty of Super Stardust Portable, in December I actually got a cramp from playing the game too much and later injured my thumb. This goes to show both how frenetic and addictive it is.

So there you have it. Both games are great, but they are also very different. Which one is the best choice for you depends on your personal taste and kind of gameplay you prefer. In my case the winner was (and still is) Super Stardust Portable, but this is a very personal and subjective thing. I highly encourage you to give them both a try in order not to miss anything, but if you have just ten dollars in your pocket itching to be spent on downloadable title, then perhaps the above comparison will prove helpful.

Games'n' Girls Calendars for 2009

Right about time to shop for a new calendar for 2009 - and what better for a lonely geek than a calendar that combines their two fetishes, games and girls?

I have taken the ungrateful task of finding appropriate products for your viewing pleasure and voila! the results are presented below.

First comes the ever tasty Nerdcore callendar (I still am in love with the girl from 2007 wearing Nintendo Power Glove):


Secondly, gaming site GameOps also has prepared a little something for male gamers, and their choice of ladies is excellent, even if they all look like taken from the same game :


And surprisingly, Russians also have games'n'girls calendars (although in Russia the girl calendar watches you, ba-dum-psh!) and while some photos are not that hot, it still is good enough to provide you with a link to it, if only because of Mario girl:


So there you have it, make your choice ladies and gentlemen, make your choice. Me? I'll stick to Playboy's calendar this year, but hush!, don't tell my girlfriend.

Ah, one more thing. Kind folks from GameOps have assembled a really cool looking video preview of their calendar and I wouldn't be my usual filthy chauvinist self if I didn't put it here for you:

So once again - Happy New Year!

Kindless Kotaku Kontest

The story behind this post is simple. My favourite gaming blog, Kotaku, has announced a contest in which one could win a bag of schwag, but more importantly, status of contributor for the site for one day. As much as I love gaming paraphernalia, I craved the opportunity to write for Kotaku even more. My inner aspiring blogger was kicking and screaming "I want that!", so I had no choice, sat down and began working.

Barts with Brian Crecente and some other folks

The contest required finding three best and three worst posts among original Kotaku posts, writing some justification of contestant's choice and suggested that finalists would be chosen based on what they wrote:

We'll sort through them a select a batch of finalists who will then need to submit a writing sample for the whole class to read, so that your future readership for a day can have the final vote.

As I like to think of myself as a writer, I decided that I stand a chance in this competition. It was not random drawing, my writing is surely not the best there is, but is quite sufficient for a contest, and also the choice of posts mattered. That's what I assumed - but I was wrong.

I spent quite some time scanning last year posts on Kotaku, and trust me, there's a lot of them. I then spent more time on writing and proof-reading. Altogether I believe it took me somewhere between three and six hours, but I didn't measure it (perhaps all for the better).

The shit hit the elevator when the finalists were published - turned out Kotaku staff were too busy to actually read through all the entries, so they drawn five finalists at random. You can read my ranting about it here if you really must. I admit I was being bitter and disappointed, not only because I have not won (which, while childish, is something normal), but more so because I considered that the change of rules during the contest was a nasty thing to do. Had I known the selection process of finalists were to be random, I would have spared myself the effort and skipped it altogether, hence missing on the disappointment. I have never won anything by random draw - all the competitions that I won were the ones where I had to put some serious work into my entry.

Kotaku folks have chosen not to react to the controversy at all, which, while understandable, once again seems not too nice. Some people complained a bit in comments under next post, but then the whole ruckus ended.

While I have totally nothing against other contestant and I wish all the best to the winner, I was definitely disappointed with both me wasting my time on writing something no one would read and the behaviour of Kotaku staff. In order for my work no to be entirely useless, I have decided to publish my entry here. After all, this is my blog, right?

I have decided not just to point out to three stories I like, but rather use them as particular illustrations of more general preferences. There are some things I like in Kotaku (many), some that I don't (few). I used this competition's formula to provide some feedback.

LOVED:

NUMBER ONE - GAME REVIEWS
Post example: Left 4 Dead review

I really like the reviews and I consider them one of the most important additions to Kotaku in 2008. They are concise, structured and in case of games I have actually played myself, I checked that I pay attention to same points (except maybe I wouldn't articulate them so well). I am all for lack of numerical score, I really like how there are positive and negative points listed and as icing on the cake, the details concerning how long the reviewer has played the game, what modes they unlocked etc. After reading the review of Dead Space I actually went out to buy it, making educated decision despite it flaws listed in the review - because I knew they wouldn't spoil the fun for me.

NUMBER TWO - PERSONAL POSTS, ESPECIALLY BASHCRAFT'S
Post example: Brian Ashcraft's dilemma

I totally love posts that contain little glimpses of Kotaku Krew's everyday life. I have to say that when I started reading Kotaku (early 2005) I was annoyed by these tidbits: "I want to read about games, goshdarnit, what do I care for some nerds' private life?". Funny, how I have grown fond of this formula. I now know the name of Crecente's wife and kid, I know quite a bit about Bashcraft - and these small fragments are something that makes you folks much closer to and less anonymous. It has become a thing that keeps me attached to Kotaku, as if I knew you, and it has created a bond of sort that keeps me coming back. As a result, last year I could shake hands with both Brians and bunch of Kotakuites (including Witzbold!) during party in Shimokitazawa.

NUMBER THREE - INSIDE INFORMATION PLUS BOOBIES
Post example: Activision's Playmate

Okay, this one is tough. Kotaku sometimes pulls out of the hat some cool behind-the-curtains industry information, which is cool, and sometimes a post that gives the excuse to show some breasts, which is also cool. Rarely, there are posts that fuse these two powers combined - and this is the nirvana of game journalism, exemplified by the post above (which I have found really interesting, by the way, even more so due to appearance of the main heroine in comment section). Now you may label me a sexist pig.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Ten most terrifying video game Enemies
I totally loved this post because of the discussion below it and also because it spawned a series of posts on my blog on fear in videogames.

DSi Manual Kommented
The creativity of Kotakuites at its best - couldn't stop laughing after seeing some of the comments.

Trailer's Trash
This was the best video podcast of the year here on Kotaku. I am so disappointed that it was not continued that I almost put this in "Didn't like" category to let you know that I absolutely want more of those. Lens flare!

DIDN'T LIKE:

NUMBER ONE - "TELL US, DAMMIT" SERIES
Post example: Did you buy any games on Black Friday?

I'm sorry, not only are some of the questions lame (the one above is a good example - Black Friday is something typically related to USA, putting it on a global site is a bit off in my perspective), but it makes me think of a telemarketer calling to ask me questions about products I like and why. One thing that makes Kotaku less annoying is that you don't call me when I'm enjoying a bath or quiet (actually, not so much) moment with my girlfriend. Other than that, I can't shake off the feeling that you are processing data acquired from these posts and sell them to EA. Definitely don't like.


NUMBER TWO - TROLLS MAKE ME LOSE FAITH IN KOTAKU READERSHIP
Post example: Clearly no one black worked on this game

On the whole, Kotaku community is cool and is one of the reasons why I like coming back to this site. Good part of interesting information, opinions and risky jokes are shared in comments. But while there are fewer trolls, haters and idiots here then on other sites, there are some cases when I really am saddened at how ignorant, obnoxious and racist some commenters can be. The above post was a fiesta of nasty comments and I really think that they should be removed from the site (not only users banned, but some comments deleted as well - you know which ones I mean).

NUMBER THREE - KOTAKU CAN F**K UP TOO
Post example: What is the Xbox Pure?

This one is not really a trend per se, but it happens sometimes Kotaku will screw something up. In this case I was not really judgemental, so I won't be pointing finger at anyone. I didn't really consider CAG's joke to be the best (to put it diplomatically), but I didn't really like Kotaku's reaction to it - yes, you guys caught the bait, but then again, a bit more distance would perhaps be more appropriate than getting angry at CAG in general. On the whole, slight taste of disappointment here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
There aren't any. Kotaku is my favorite gaming site and it was actually quite hard to find things that I didn't like. I pointed them above, but there are no runners up.

Ironically, the contest title was Winners and Losers. Har, har. Nevertheless, Kotaku still remains my favourite gaming site or at least the one I frequent most often, and I stand by what I wrote above. I know folks there, both among staff and among commenters, I have my little star as a long time tipster and commenter, as well as a small bunch of followers and generally I will still hang around there. I just didn't like how this turned out, that's all.

First post in the New Year

Welcome in 2009 everybody!

I am so sorry for the silence on this blog during Christmas period and until the end of 2008. A lot has been happening in my life, some of it very pleasant, but a good deal of it not at all (unfortunately). I'll spare you the details, because this should be the place where you come back to read some news on games and technology, not some private rants. So without further ado, let's get back on geeky topics.

2008 Wrap-up

Last year saw Barts News change quite a bit, both on the graphical side of things and content-wise. I have finally gotten around to updating page template and so the look of the site has finally moved away from default Blogger templates.

As for content, I have decided to write less posts but more juicy ones - so instead of barely reporting the news or fun stuff I have found on different gaming pages, I try now to focus on writing comparisons or features that you would not see elsewhere. Also, since I have less time for playing games but instead dabble in programming, graphics and other non-entertainment activity, I began adding posts on useful programs or interesting services found in the meantime. We'll see where this takes us, so far the only immediate result is that the number of visitors dwindled again. :/

Speaking of which, this post dating back to 2007 has generated the majority of traffic on Barts News last year (Pareto rule in action, I guess). Ironic, isn't it?

2009 Perspective

What's coming up in 2009? Well, there will definitely be some changes. I am considering moving to some new platform ever since struggling with pains of updating site template. This will also be the opportunity to update graphical side of things once again and maybe finish that damn log once and for all...

There are some large posts waiting in the line (sneak-peek: my personal history of Final Fantasy VI and its remakes, and comprehensive list of cultural references in oldschool shoot'em up game Blood - among other things) and I definitely intend to wrap them up. Yes, I know I have promised you post on Blood last year already, but it's already in the making. I have made the mistake of writing too many posts at once in December, so there is a lot of unfinished writing pushed back due to lack of time, but they will appear on Barts News soon.

Speaking on incoming posts, I have also wasted good couple hours on Kotaku contest, which then turned out to be a random drawing - I will use the writing from the contest here, in order for it not to prove totally useless.

Also, the commenting has been reopened for anonymous accounts - Dhoine drawn my attention to this and I have decided to give it a try. If the site gets overflowed with spam, I will have to revert to what it was before.

So there you go - you know now that I am not dead, you know that there's a bunch of posts in making, you can expect some changes, possibly for the better. Hopefully you'll still visit this blog from time to time. As always, I am waiting for your comments, impressions, suggestions, advices and insults.

All the best in 2009!