Inspiration for this poe...Err...Video Game

So we all get inspiration from many sources, and those of you reading are probably expecting me to have a funny story or odd little tidbit. Maybe later people, I gotta rest too you know :P but Hideo Kojima has listed off fifteen movies that has influenced the Metal Gear series. Surprisingly enough, Escape from New York isn't on the list, but here are the ones that are:

• The Guns of Navarone
• The Great Escape
• Goldfinger
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Planet of the Apes (original work)
• The Deer Hunter
• Dawn of the Dead
• Full Metal Jacket
• Predator
• Die Hard
• Heat
• Black Hawk Down
• Children of Men
• Bourne Series
• 007 Casino Royale

All of this proves to show that Kojima really loves his movies and the fact that each one of his MG games has enough cut scenes in them to make up two to four movies....well you get the idea. The man loves to spin a tale. If you can read Japanese, hit up the link and have a look for yourself otherwise you can just enjoy the pictures of the movies and Kojima himself.

In traditional fashion of my blog, I usually have a funny story or interesting little tidbit to add. This time around I think I will save that for another post. If you are on Halo and know me, drop by on my game. Good chance I will be trying to capture some good screenshots for a forum signature.

Anticipation Building....Road to Recon

Halo 3 has long since been one of my top games since it's release over a year ago. I have fought hard along the marines, ODST's, and Elites to drive back the Brutes and bring Truth down. The campaign still brings me back occasionally and as such, I had decided that it was time to round up the last few achievements so I could get the Katana for my Hyabusa armor. Yes, I know it has taken me forever but I stopped achievement hunting on this game months back. In one day I sat down and nailed the last three achievements that had eluded my grasp, and it felt satisfying slapping that asthetic sword on my Spartan's back. That was until I remembered.

I had nearly let it slip my mind, there was still one armor variant I had not received and my mission may have been complete for the Katana...but now I had to set out on a mission to get Recon.

Knowing I am not skilled enough or lucky enough to pull off some bizarre glitch in a matchmaking game that has never been seen before, I turned my sights towards the Vidmaster achievements. I needed to get them before the Mythic map pack to was released with the final Vidmaster. Seven on Seven was simple since I had six EXP in Lone Wolves already, I just waited till the seventh of this month and won one game to score the achievement. Three days later I was invited into a party to do a run for the Annual achievement....fourty-three minutes and thirty-seven seconds later I had that one in the bag as well.

Finally there was Lightswitch, a quick check of all my EXP so far indicated that Social Slayer had the most and would be the quickest to get to Lieutenant. That took me two days with sporadic playing and the final one was tucked secure into my little gamerscore vault. Now the waiting game starts...

Halo Wars will be my hope to get Brainpan I believe. March 3rd with the Limited Collectors edition and I can score a download to the Mythic maps then work on finding those skulls hidden in the levels. I know Bungie won't make those skulls easy to find. The search is hopefully going to test our knowledge of various in game tricks to get to the skulls. I sincerely hope that is the case because it will make the Road to Recon all the sweeter.

XBL, Sparta, and a Tool

News in from the front lines, or at least from the dev team behind XBL. As long as Live has been around there has been one thing that has been constant, you have a limit on the number of friends allowed on your buddy list. Currently that limit is set to one hundred but word has it that will soon change. Greenberg reported this change himself at the Consumer Electronics Show. No official word on exactly when the change will take place or how big of a jump the limit is being bumped up to.

Seems that Braid developers are not too happy with Microsoft. The dev team wanted to release a dashboard theme for free to everyone. Apparently Microsoft didn't want to do that and has slapped a two hundred and fifty Microsoft Point price tag on the theme. Braid developers say that if we choose to buy the theme...we can rest assured it is one of the few that doesn't have any sort of advertisement.

Time to settle down and pull one of my closest little friends for a nice...wait, you thought I was going somewhere else with that didn't you? I was talking about my PSP, what the hell were you thinking I was talking about? Bad jokes aside...I wrote that I would update as news trickled down from the PSP homebrew developers when news of the Gripshift Sparta exploit saw some of its first homebrew on the PSP-3000. That time is now, Gamers. With this new development, PSP-3000 owners who have a copy of Gripshift are now allowed to do the next logical thing after running a Hello World app. You are now ready to run...get ready for it!

You can now run Pong using the Sparta exploit. No, I am not joking. This is just step one for homebrew on this new model so be patient....meanwhile enjoy a nice game of Pong while you wait.

One more morsel of PSP homebrew news for you to nibble on. PSP Tool has been updated to version 0.8. Don't know what PSP Tool is? Well it has to be one of the most convenient packages dreamed up. If that doesn't do it for you, read this directly from the PDF documentation:

“PSP Tool is a multi-purpose application designed for the PlayStation Portable console to perform various general management functions with the console. One of the main benefits of this software which is not available in most other homebrew applications is the ability to extract the IPL from the Memory Stick, this is useful if the IPL is not obtainable through a file and you wish to make a full backup of your Magic Memory Stick. An example of when this is beneficial is extracting the Datel Action Replay PSP IPL which comes pre-injected with the Memory Stick included with the product. This application allows the user to extract that IPL and use it with another Memory Stick or for backup in case the Memory Stick becomes corrupt. ”

And what can it do you ask? Well, my dear reader...have a look at the feature list:

• Backup and Restore the IdStorage of the PSP

• Check the IPL injected on the Memory Stick or a file located on the Memory Stick

• Check, Backup, Restore and change the battery EEPROM

• Connect various devices through a USB cable

• Create a checksum of the IPL injected on the Memory Stick or an IPL located on the Memory Stick

• Create a variety of different Magic Memory Sticks

• Erase the entire IPL space of the Memory Stick

• Extract the IPL injected on the Memory Stick to a file

• Format the Memory Stick

• Inject a variety of included IPLs or an IPL from a file to the Memory Stick

So that is PSP Tool, a useful update but for now I will stick with my tried and true method. I do plan on testing this software out personally at a later date. If it works better then I'm sold.

That's about all the news I have for you at the moment, keep your reflexes quick and your eyes sharp. Game on.

K Syndrome

Ok, let's get this out of the way first off: this only faintly relates to Gaming in the fact that you may run into people who suffer from K Syndrome or one of its close variations in your adventures in Cyberspace.

K Syndrome is the term I coined on TBB for a good reason. What is it you may ask? Well my dear readers, have a seat...and get yourself (and me) an Irish Coffee so we can walk the planes of experience. It all started on Friday, January 9th. A user known as iKase joined the site. He was welcomed like any other user and he behaved like any newcomer thus far. At least that is how it began.

Turns out iKase had this habbit of continually spewing crap out into the main Battle Center at his opponent that continually got him warned by the admin staff. I witnessed quite a bit of this personally. Things progressed and iKase was negative repped, suspected of cheating in a game of Madden, and he had this deal where he would call out TBB|James in Battle Chat for riding his back. James was trying to keep the BC clear of unnecessary trash talk (and in this case excessive).

Things just continually progressed, and it was the night of January 11th that I was talking to TBB|Victor and decided to coin the phrase Kase Syndrome or K Syndrome for short. It is a term to be used to describe anyone who is just plain stupid or just appears to be stupid, people who decide to try to boss the admins around on their own site, or any number of things that can be considered just plain dumb.

Now, while I was writing my explanation out for K Syndrome...one of the most unlikely of things happened. I was forced to add an amendment to K Syndrome...effectively making it an umbrella term for many other things to come. This amendment will be called Dice Complex.

Dice Complex is where you take what skills you have, no matter how basic they could be, and try your absolute hardest to elevate yourself to near mythical standing in order to get a job. This just happened to TBB and I sat through the entire thing alternating between cringing, shaking my head, and laughing my ass off at how much this guy started to portray himself as an idiot. He insisted on becoming a dev for the site's user interface because he could take the site and make it "smarter" which as the minutes droned forward he was doing the exact opposite to himself. Dice Complex also entails that the subject makes the assumption or at least appears to be making the assumption that the person he is speaking to knows zippo about whatever skills he has elevated to the fake mythical level. A side effect of Dice Complex is anyone listening to the subject speak may actually feel their intelligence hurt when they try to make sense of the subject's topic of choice. Also a minor side effect for the subject is a complete unprofessional attitude despite wanting to get a job.

Fable II Patch Looming in the Distance

Word on the net has it that Lionhead's game is getting a patch released before the Knothole Island DLC, in fact next time you boot up your copy you will see that familar pop up notifying you that you need to update. Apparently a number of gamers have run into glitches in parts of the game's quest that renders their character stuck or unable to complete the quest. In fact, I remember not being able to complete the first TOBY quest because the item apparently never spawned in the game world. When I get my copy of the game back from my friend I plan on thoroughly testing the patch and seeing if it fixes my troubles. Although minor and I was still able to complete the game, it is a bit annoying not being able to finish a side quest just for completion purposes.

I'll keep you guys updated on anymore developments for this game, particularly when Knothole Island is released to the public. Keep on doing your thing, Gamers.

Game on.

Adventures of Jack Malick, Part 2

So my buddy, Jack, has that radio I told you about. Well turns out he figured out how to overide the Taco Bell drive-thru finally but the only downside...he doesn't know the frequency to listen in to the customer's so any pranks would only be half as hilarious. Some digging on the net showed us that the possible listen in frequency for Taco Bell are out of his radio's receiving capabilities. Seems like he should have just waited and saved up some money to by the next model, the Yaesu VX-7R which can receive a ton more frequencies than the VX-5R he bought.

Jack was slightly disheartened by this turn of events, but in usual Malick fashion...he found something else to cheer himself up with. This time a blatant Federal offense in the fact he's been whispering "tacos" at the local police department randomly for the last hour or so. For those who haven't caught on, it is extremely extremely illegal to broadcast on a police frequency or any other emergency frequency listed. I feel sorry for the fire department since "they seem really bored, and fires only happen here and there in this area so why not?"

I doubt Jackie-boy is ever going to change. He's found something he is good at, causing mayhem and mischief. Granted it isn't the best thing in the world to do....according to society that is...but when have I ever decided that society has been right about every single little part of life? Have fun Jack and I will see you around some time.

Tales from the Crypt

I thought the title was appropriate considering I will be briefly (probably not) discussing my PSP. This old lug has been around with me since a year after its release. Good times. Now my PSP found little use for many many months after my initial receipt because I never bought many games. That all changed when I stumbled across the modding community and found out that Lumines could downgrade my PSP and let me install Dark_Alex's custom firmware. Needless to say I have been a loyal user of his firmware ever since.

Things started out simple and I only toyed with things that wouldn't screw up anything in fear of turning my little pal into a brick. When the Jigkick battery and Magic memorystick were released to the general public that fear went out the window. Thank you Team Pandora and Dark_Alex.

I have used my PSP for many purposes on and off over the last few months. Anything from getting on MSN to streaming Youtube videos. Now what I realize is that this little thing is a great tool for a good prank. At least from what my friend Jack Malick has told me. He described a few scenarios and I have to agree with him.

One such scenario involved using Ahmen's shell replacement IRShell and using the infrared capabilities of the PSP-1000 to mess with people in department stores near the tv's. Not a bad idea all in all. May have to pull something like this on my old job. I am sure Malick would be more than willing to help out with.

I don't know if Sony realizes the potential some homebrew software and games have. I have played some interesting games and I've already mentioned some of the capabilities of the software out there for anyone with a modded PSP. I keep a memory stick in my PSP case that has all my homebrew apps and the few games I like to stop for a bit to play. Homebrew honestly has been the one thing that keeps me picking my PSP up here and there. probably will be since good PSP games in my book are hard to come by. Last good PSP game I played was Crisis Core, but I will save my full opinion on my adventures with that game for another time. Yes, I know. Cheap way of ensuring a future post. Gotta have something to do right?

With the release of the PSP-3000, a claim was made that it would be nearly impossible to hack. My first thoughts, someones just raised the red flag of a challenge. So far the only progress made is being able to run unsigned code on the user level portion of the kernel. This is just the beginning and I am sure Dark_Alex is out there working on this obstacle lain down by the Sony development team. Good luck to the homebrew developers out there, I'll be looking for some of those killer apps to give me a reason to use my PSP more than I do now.

The Battle Begins

Now I didn't find this website on my own, one of the founders ran across me on Twitter and followed me so I got curious. Turns out this site is a hub for competitive gaming and is fairly unknown since it is brand new. I am liking the way it looks so far because it will give me a whole new reason to play Halo here and there again. Playing to piss people off does need to be changed up occasionally you know.

I am a member of the site and already one of the staff of it has added me to their friends list, and he seems like a nice guy. I have yet to enter in a battle but I get the feeling that I will by the end of the day. Winners of a battle get spoils of victory too, usually in the form of Battle Points which can be redeemed for prizes. You can purchase credits (one dollar = one credit) so you can play matches for real money.

The site is very easy to navigate and I may just remain a member for some time to come. Might use it to pick up a few prizes that have caught my eye, need a new copy of Starcraft after all :P


The Battle Begins

Halo Wars

I think I will just throw out my little posting guidelines since I keep getting good little tidbits of news. This time around I received an update on Halo Wars. I have been looking forward to an RTS Halo themed game for some time so the release of this game has been very anticipated in my book. Joystiq posted an update that on Feb. 5th there will be a demo released on XBL for everyone to download. Thanks for the update Joystiq.

Halo Wars Demo Coming to XBL

Top Ten Suicide Countdown - Halo 3 Montage

Now, normally I would not put up so many posts in one day but I think this deserves a slot. Curiousity got the better of me and I popped on by Bungie.net to see if any news had sprung up. No major updates from them and just as I was ready to close the tab, I glanced down and saw a post with a Youtube video. I had time so I clicked on the url and let it load up. At first it was mildly amusing, but really the last three shown (numbers three, two, and one) really just made me laugh. Number one is truely the biggest Halo fail to have ever happened. Watch it for yourself.

Top Ten Halo 3 Suicides