Gamer Mania 2

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Could It Be?......A PSP Headset?

A bunch of gaming and technology sites have been trying out the new Socom for the PSP. Most of them have noticed a little pic in the corner of what seems to be a headset icon. This triggers the idea that Sony may be releasing a headset on November 8th (release date of Socom) for the PSP. There are a lot of clues to confirm this. If you look on the bottom of you PSP's headphone jack you will see a little headset icon indecating that it is probably ready for a headset. Also, Sony sent Peter Rojas (webmaster of Engadget) what seemed to be a headset. I have the pic for you. So, we will see on Nov. 8th if this is true.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Flash Fridays.....The Segment That Smells As Good As New York City Did Today

Yes another edition of Flash Fridays. Since I have a lot on my plate this week, I am only going to tell you one game I found. This game is called Grid Lock. In this game you try to move many blocks around to make a clear path to get the blue block through the hole on the side of the square. Yes it does sound a bit confusing, but just play it, very good puzzle game. I couldn't stop playing it. Eventually, I couldn't figure out on of them. Once you beat a level, you go to a next level with much more blocks you have to move to make it much more challenging. The game looks very hand drawn and cool. So, if you like a good brain puzzler, and have some time for a long game like this one, go check it out. That is all for this edition of the great maple syrup smelling Flash Fridays. Join us next week when Flash Fridays will be as tasty as a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, and oooooooh sounds so good I can't talk any more about it. Well enjoy. Also, in the comments tell us what level you get to. I got to lvl 16, see if you can beat me.

Aw C'mon

Well, now I have double the work load on my side, so don't expect 5-star segments. I am going to skip release recap today and just settle on Flash Fridays. I also have an up and coming review for all of you of the brand new game Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the PSP. I am well on my way to finishing the review and will have it for you in a few days. Well anyway, um..........., anyone want to say anything in the comment (like I pwn) it could sure help. So, be expecting a lot of be this week.

How Sad....

Well, I can't do much posting for a little while, my computer's power supply went out and the one I am on is not very good for posts. It is dead... So, you'll be left with Zam for a few days. However when I get back I have 2 cool website/downloads for you.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

In Other News....

There are only a few things that happened today in the news. First, Zoom, the company that makes the electronics vending machines, has decided to expand from the 2 airports they are already in. They say by 2007, they should have 10,000 machines. That means you can just go to your airport to get a new iPod Nano and watch it break when it falls out of the vending machine! Also, Apple has announced that for a limited time, they will replace the new Video iPods no matter what happens to them - even if it is abuse! This probably is an effect of the Nanos breaking so easily. This means 2 things. First: Break your new iPod now! Second: The new iPods probably have some kind of problem. The other thing that happened today was Google revealing some stuff about their wifi network. They said they will offer free 300kbps wireless internet (That's 6 times faster then the Charter high speed I get for $40 a month!), with faster being available for a cost. Of course, the network is only being installed in San Fransico for now.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Advanced Wars: Dual Strike

First off, I want to think Zam and Ton for letting me offer my opinion on their blog. Secondly, I want to tell everybody out there who has a Nintendo DS, to GET THIS GAME. If you don’t have a DS and you are considering one, this is the game to get. This game alone will make owning your DS worth it. And I should know, it’s the only game I have. I also want to mention this. Advanced Wars is a real time strategy(RTS) game and I hate RTS. With that said, you nowAdvance Wars: Dual Strike on the Nintendo DS have to understand just how good this game is, if someone who hates RTS games likes this one.

First off, If you’ve ever played an Advanced Wars title in the past, this one hasn’t changed that much as far as gameplay is concerned. It's a turn based RTS. Each player,weapon can move different amount of spaces per turn, and can shoot from different areas. Some are for direct combat, and others are for indirect combat.You also have to try and capture buildings to earn money to build new weapons. The biggest change to the game is having two battles going on at once. Sometimes you have a ground battle and an air battle going on at the same time. You have the option of controlling the air battle yourself, or letting the other CO (controlling officer) do it for you. They’ve also added some new weapons to your arsenal this time around.

The best thing about this game is that there are so many game modes. The main mode I play is Campaign mode. This is basically the part of the game that has the storyline. You basically travel around a country taking on all comers and you learn more and more about the story as you go on. Same as any other game.

The next mode is known as War Room mode. Here you battle against the computer and try to earn points for using good strategy. The more points you get, the higher rank you earn and the I see little green men!better your CO will become. Each CO has different strengths and weaknesses. Some are good for ground battles and some are good for indirect combat. It all depends. Picking a CO becomes important.

I haven’t used this mode, because I have no DS owning friends in the area, but they offer versus mode. I think you can figure this one out on your own. You battle your buddy to the bitter end. Die boy Die!!!!

My favorite mode is suvival mode, and within this mode you have 3 options. The first option is money. You have to beat as many maps as you can with only a certain amount of money. So that means once you run out of money, you can't buy any more weapons. The next option is Turn. You only have so many turns to beat a given map. For example, you have 15 days/turns to beat a map. If you take longer, you lose. The last is Time. You have so much time to get through as many maps as possible. It's a lot of fun. Very fast paced compared to the Campaign mode.

Another thing I've yet to try is Design Mode. You can build your own maps to fight on. I'm sure this is cool but it's not something I've had time to get into yet. I've been working on my Campaign mostly. One thing I'll say about this game to potential buyers. Be prepared to put in some time into this game. Some maps can take as few as 5 minutes. BUT, there are some that take an hour and half to get through. Normally, I can't hold my attention that long, but this game is so fun I forget about time and just keep trying to win. This is a must get for any DS owner and it's a reason to buy a DS if you are looking for one. I give Advanced Wars: Dual Strike 5 missle strikes out of 5.

Doug (D.S)

(For more from Doug, go check out his blog - The Only Opinion That Counts)

I Am Bored On The Internet........That Is Why I Provide Website Wednesdays!

Yes, we are back with another Website Wednesdays that everyone loves. Today's is for all of you hackers out there. Think you are good? Well, I have a test for you. There is a website that tests you hacking skills called Try2Hack. This site is an EXTREMELY hard test to try to hack to find usernames, passwords, etc..... Ton and I couldn't even get passed level 2. So I want to see how you do. Drop us a comment to see how far you can get until you just give up. If you can't get past lvl. 1, just leave a comment saying that and I guess we will tell you how to do it. So go and enjoy. Yes another edition of Website Wednesdays has just brought it to you. So enjoy this hacking test, if you dare, muhahahahahahahahahahaha.

Who Are You? Who Is Reading This? Tell Us

Well, we have noticed that only occationally someone other than Doug, or Ton or I leave a comment, but not often. We really want to know who reads our blog. So, we ask you, on this post, leave us a comment. In the comment say how often you read the blog and if you like it and think it is helpful. If you don't know how to leave a comment, I will tell you. Under this post there are little blue letter that say either 0 comments or 1 comments or 2 comments and so on..... Click on this. If you are using any other browser than Internet Explorer, it would be a good idea to open it in another (new) tab (right click on it and click on open in new tab.) Once in the comments you will see an empty white box. Type your comment into that box. Once you are done you need to put what name you want to be. There are three options. Blogger name (if you belong to bloger), Other which you can type in your own name that you want, or Anonymous which is of course, Anonymous. Once you pick your name, you have to fill out the box with the letter above. The letters I am talking about are the usually squiggily letters that are usually a different color. Under them is a box. In this box you need to type the letters you see in the letters above it. Then once you do that, hit Login and Publish. Now you have left a comment. Now everyone reading this, LEAVE A COMMENT!! Thank you.

Nano vs. Video

This is one of the big questions on everyone's mind - Which is better - the iPod Nano or the iPod Video? So, we want your opinions. Which would you buy if you were getting an iPod? The scratch-worthy iPod Nano or the $1.99 iPod Video? Opinions please.

A Shadowy Tips and Tricks Tuesday

This week, I am working on a special surprise for all of you. I won't be done with it this week, but you will be glad when it is done. No I'm not going to tell you what it is. Anyway, I will be rather busy working on that for a while. So, this is a TTT with just a bunch of Shadow of the Colossus cheats listed.

Play as Dormin-Defeat all sixteen Colossi to unlock Dormin, the demon Colossus.

Brown Agro-Defeat all sixteen Colossi and get all items in Normal Time Attack mode. Then at the title screen, hold Square.

White Agro-Defeat all sixteen Colossi and get all items in Hard Time Attack mode. Then at the title screen, hold Circle.

Reminisce mode-Go to the corpse of the Colossi and press Circle to pray. In this mode, the graphics will change to an old film appearance.

Secret garden-Successfully complete all four modes and have a large amount of stamina. Then, climb the back of the temple you first started in. Climb up the ivy and follow the trail all the way up and around the ledge to the right. Jump across at the other end of the ledge to reach the next set of ivy. Continue on until you get to another ledge above that you must climb around. Once at the other side of this ledge, climb to the right then shimmy across another ledge that leads behind a column. Jump to the ivy-covered column, then continue climbing. The ivy will lead to a walkway. Climb the stairs and walkway to the left of the garden. A sequence will begin and the seventeenth Colossi will appear. Defeat the Colossi to open the path to the top of the temple. Note: Eating fruit from the trees in the garden causes damage.

Alternate ending sequence-Eat fruit from the Secret Garden to reduce your HP as much as possible. Dormin will now be killed when shot by the crossbow, and will alter the following sequences.

Ride a hawk, bird, lizard, or eel-Sneak up behind them and press R1.

Sorry, but that's all...

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Want Cool Stuff? Just Ask

Yes, more cool stuff for my favorite readers. Lets start off with a continuing thing. Remember on my last cool stuff when I showed you the Star Wars EP IV .GIF? Well, they just made a EP V!! This one is still as good and as summarizing as the other, and looks really good. Enjoy. How much is your blog worth? Well find out at Business Opportunities' weblog. They have a little thing where you type in your web address and they tell you how much it is worth. Apparently, ours is worth a lot. See the one near the bottom? That is how much our blog is worth. Ok, ok, so we played with the code to make it that amount, but hey, I know you are going to too. Just go and get yours here. Well anyway, like Katamari Damacy? Like text based adventures? Well this guy turned KD into a little text adventure game. You can't actually play it, but this guy typed it as if it were one. It is pretty fun to read.


My blog is worth $9,204,693.82.
How much is your blog worth?

Just go and read to see what this Katamari Damacy Text Adventure Game is all about. Ok, last one. A really, really hard quiz. More of a puzzle than a quiz. It is called Godtower.com. This is definitely one of the HARDEST quizzes/riddles/puzzles I have ever done. I could barely get past level 5 without help. Well, now you have two places to test your skillz. Well, I Zam is really glad he could share all of these things with you. Oh man has it

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Well, today there is not much tech news. Only one important story. Google (always in the news) is said to be soon offering a new service that is pretty much an expansion on their classified ads. It is called Google Base. This is going to be a FREE online thing. Ebay is crying because they charge so everyone will want to go to Google, which is true. There was a screenshot released the other day. So everyone go check that out. We will have a further report when we can. So Google can finally say, "All you base are belong to us." Oh yeah!

Link

Monday, October 24, 2005

There Are Really No Good Deals For Marked Down Mondays This Week

There are NO good deals this week. Only one. Toys R' Us/Amazon.com is having a buy 2 get 3rd free deal. This is good on all Ps2, XBOX, and Gamecube games. It of course has a catch, the dreaded equal or lesser value. Also you can't use it for preorders. You can either head over to you local Toys R' Us and be stared down by tons of mothers with their 5 year olds wondering why a 25 year old is in a young children's toy store. Don't want this to happen? Just head over to Amazon.com to be in the comfort of only your monitor staring you down. Now go and buy your 3 games for the price of two. YAY!!!

There Is A New Browser On The Block

There is a new browser just released called Flock. Sure, it is just a browser that is pretty much the same as Firefox or some others, but this one has some more features. Have a blog?? Well this will be very helpful. Right inbetween the "Home" and "Open The Favorites Manager" (also a new feature from other browsers) is a "Create a blog post button." On this while you are searching the web, you open this to make drafts. This is very interesting. Then it even lets you connect to your blog and add the post. It lets you log in and everything. Lets see how it works. This post I did in Flock, so hopefully it will connect. Well, go check it out if you don't want to keep going back to your dashboard to post something. This is very convienent. Go download Flock if you are a blogger, now! It is currently in version 0.5 pre, which means it is for developers, but it will let you download it, don't worry. Thank you for your precious, precious game time.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

I Want To Live In Jell-O City!

FINALLY, someone has made a 3-D map of San Francisco out of Jell-O!!! If you have read the blog lately, you would know that I, Zam, love Jell-O, so this is big for me. These people are now my new best friends. There are some great pics of many different places such as the whole city, city hall, Alamo Square and a few more here. Well, I am going to put a pic of the whole city up for you because you are all my little Jell-O people. YEAH! (Link via BoingBoing.net)

EB games and best buy

Ok in the news a few days ago i said that EB wouldn't be selling pre-owned games anymore. Well, I found out that it is just PC games. I don't get how they did used PC games anyway. Also, Best Buy is testing doing used games, which is cool because then you can use the credit you get on any tech stuff.

Earth 2160

Hmm, what are my favorite RTS games? Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Earth 2150, The Moon Project (Earth 2150 2), Outpost 2, and Submarine Titans. Earth 2160? No, I've played about a half hour of the demo, and I can tell this is no Earth 2150 or Moon Project. I think that they shouldn't even call this Earth 2160, this is nothing remotely resembling Earth 2150 or the Moon Project. Sure, the graphics are more advanced, but after looking at The Moon Project and Earth 2160, I have to say I liked TMP better. It might be just me, but I think 2160's graphics look rather unrealistic. However, some of the tanks and vehicles look cool, but that alone can't make the game good. Also, when the people talk in the campaigns, it shows their faces blown up, and they are 110% UGLY! In the gameplay department, I noticed a few glitches that I've never really seen in RTS games, and I've played a LOT of RTS games. First of all, selecting units was REALLY annoying, sometimes when I was trying to select more units using shift, some of the others would come un-selected. I don't know about you, but to me, that gets really really annoying. The other thing that really ticked me off was when I was controlling a group and I told it to go somewhere, some of the units went the right way, but a bunch of others ignored me and went the absolute other way. By the way, going to the other way got themselves killed. That REALLY ticked me off. Those two things alone make me not want to play this game. One thing that does make this game different is some characters have inventories and you can equip different stuff to them. To me, that isn't something that belongs in an RTS. What else could go wrong? Oh yeah, it looks like don't have the unit customization anymore. That just drops this game from maybe being awesome to being nothing. This game ends up being just a average/below average RTS game. Only buy this if you have a huge need to play a space RTS, even then try and get a copy of Earth 2150, the Moon Project, or Outpost 2. I guess this just has to do with the fact that Ubisoft isn't making it anymore, Midway is. So based on the demo, I give Earth 2160 2 bad RTS games out of 5. Don't waste your time downloading the 360MB download file. That's it everyone, I am off to play the Moon Project.

News from around the world

Hey all, Zam and I have a few things to say. We are the popular kids in school now, we have gotten 2,000 hits!! It's been just around 2 months, we never thought the blog would be this popular. Granted, a couple hundred have probably been us, but still, it is an accomplishment. Also, our Yahoo Ads have earned $152 in the past week and a half! So thanks for all the hits and ad clickage. Also, a little inside information: I am working on making a website port of the blog. No, once it is up, the blog will not drop over and die, we'll still make sure it is alive and well. One last thing, I am downloading a demo of the sequel to one of my favorite RTS games other then Age of Empires, Outpost 2, and Empire Earth. I am speaking of the space RTS called Earth 2150, and the sequel is called Earth 2160. I will write a little about it so you don't have to waste 360 MB of downloading if it sucks. Remember, peace go good with carrots.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Some Cool Stuffs

Hey, Zam here. I have got some cool stuff I want to show all of you. Also, some places to buy some cool stuff. Also, a little bit of news. The Gizmondo was finally released in the U.S and no one has it. Wow, sorry. Well forget about that and lets talk about the handheld that pwns you all, the PSP. I have found a place for you to finally buy the sleek white one. One problem though, the thing is in Japanese. This thing is not that bad, you can still play games on it. It is $279.99 american, so $30 more, but it is still sexy, but it here. When you get that sexy White PSP, why not get a sexy white charger. This website has a charger called the PSP Smart Charging Dock. It goes for $15. There is also a black one, but white is much sexier. It lights up and is really pretty. A nice sight. Next. Someone has made pixel Mario out of rubix cubes. It is very, very cool and very very similar. Doesn't look at all different. Go check it out here. Next, a Star Wars freak has made a PC case mod. Guess who he made in the shape. Can't? Well I will tell you, R2-D2!! This case looks so cool and actually works. There was a contest for the coolest case mod. He would have won, but was beaten down by a TIE Fighter case. Too bad :-(. Well, the R2-D2 case and TIE Fighter cases are cool though, just go and check them out. Speaking of Star Wars, another Star Wars geek had turned scenes from Star Wars Episode IV into a pixel .GIF image. It is all pixels, and works quite nicely. Really cool. Go and watch it. Finally, there are some really cool stamps this guy has pics of. He even has Space Invader enemy stamps. These are really cool. Along with those he has many others such as Desperate Housewives, Harry Houdini, Kirby, and so many more. Go and see all of them here. Well that wraps up this round up of cool stuff, I will be back with more in the future. Thank you, and may the force be with you and your Jell-o.

This is all the news for today, right here

but....I thought shinier was better.......There was a lot of news today, and for once, most of it wasn't about new phones or mp3 players. Speaking of mp3 players, you know the iPod Nano, you know, that thing that is a nanometer big. Well, Apple is being sued because they scratch too easily, hahahaha. I can't say I and everyone else in the world didn't know something like this would happen. Oh wait not everyone else, Sir Jobs didn't know. Also, in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray War, 2 major companies took Blu-Ray's side. Warner Brothers and Paramount, now all they really need is Fox and Blu-Ray will be the dictator of next-gen DVD's. Roman Kriheli created the first total-LCD phone. The whole phone is an LCD display, so it can change Girls everywhere rejoice - the phone of the future is here! Like oh my god!it's function to all sorts of things. It even has an induction charged battery which means you can put it down on a "pad" and it will charge. Of course this is a concept, which is why it is so out there. Just something cool - There is an $880 Levis jacket that is bullet proof - it can even stop a .44 Magnum bullet. You may or may not know about Yahoo's music service that costs $5 a month, well, Yahoo decided they need more money so now it's $10 instead of $5. I think we should all raid the Yahoo headquarters and whack the person that made this change, IT'S HORRIBLE!!! One last story and then story time is over little furballs. In Japan, Sony released a Satin Silver PStwo, however good it may look, it has problems. Many of them can only play 7 PS2 and 40 PS1 titles!!! How cheap of them...Ok well, goodnight little godzilla kittens. Peace and Carrots.

Flash For Flash Fridays!

It is Friday, so it is time for some more flash games. Let's start off with a game genre everyone loves, puzzle game. This is actually a really cool one. Fulfillment is a game where you fill this square with puzzle pieces that can't overlap or go out of the square. It is pretty much a regular puzzle. It is fun though. You are timed which makes it challenging, but go try it out. Next for you, I have a game called GunRun. GunRun is a game where you are a little stick figure with a gun and an incredible double jump. You must run up and down hills while shooting your enemies which are alligators. They can be hopping, walking, or flying. While on your journey, you can collect $s which looks like health. This is a nice shooter that is appropiate for the whole family (not really.) The final is Flash Strike. Have you played Counter Strike? Liked it? Well, someone has made an amazing looking replica of this game in Flash!!!! This game looks sooooo good. It is a basic fps where you stand there and shoot. Very, very easy. That wraps up this quick paragraph edition of Flash Fridays, but remember, may all your free online flash games be good ones. Thank you muffin kitten men.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Star Wars: Battlefront 2

Welcome everyone to my first mini-review. It is of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 on the PS2. This is very good from what I have been able to play on the demo. There were two playable things on the demo, a 3 minute space Battle Over Coruscant and an 8 minute land battle on Utapau - the big hole inStar Wars Battlefront 2 on PS2 the ground. First I'll go over the Battle Over Coruscant. The space battles look very promising, but with 3 minutes, I couldn't get very far. However, one thing I noticed is the addition of little objectives in missions, they can get a little annoying. It's like you're about to win the game, there's one wookie left to kill, and it tells you you have to blow up a satellite tower. Then, after you blow it up, an army of wookies runs over you. That could happen, and I would be pissed at Pandemic for adding objectives. Also, there are tons more ships then in Battlefront 1, I got to play against the CIS, and I saw 6 ships from both teams combined. That's just the Episode 3 ships too, there's bound to be tons more from the other Ep's. Ships can now boost so fast that it doesn't even look like they're going fast, in addition to the 3 speeds from BF1. One flaw I saw was the amount of ships, there aren't enough for how big the maps are, it looked empty when I was playing. The farthest I got in the objectives was: Blow up the communications tower, Enter the enemy hangar, and then blow up the main generators. Overall, the space battles play pretty well. Ok now to Utapau, the holey ground. Not that much has been done to land battles. Oh wait, how dare I say that. First of all, at certain times in the game, you will be asked in you want to be a jedi. I got to try out Obi-Wan, and it seems you have to kill people to stay as the jedi. The controls of the jedis aren't the best, they can use their lightsaber, force, and a high jump called force jump. They are pretty useful, but not incredible. Also, they have added a new class to each faction, from what I know, the Republic has Clone Commanders, I didn't get to see any others. The Clone Commanders are these people that look like Zam (Wessell, not THAT Zam) and have these huge chainguns, which have strengths and weaknesses, and I am going to believe in you and think you are smart enough to find out those on your own. Also, the look of all of the character classes have been updated which is good. One very good new feature is the ability to switch class at each command post that your team owns, so you no longer commit suicide just so you can blow up a tank, then commit suicide again because the tank is gone and you don't need a rocket launcher anymore. Speaking of tanks, the Can't this ship move any faster?!?!? The sun is closing in on us!walkers from Ep. 3 are now in the game. Now to the map - Utapau - well, it's ok. The problem is it's very small, sure it will probably be bigger in the real game, but not in the demo. Another issue is the lighting, it is very dark and hard to see. Another dissapointment is the map is only one level, you'd think with a place like the hole in the ground, they'd make it like the movie with the different platforms at different levels, but they didn't. So it is an ok map, not one of the better ones though, but hey with 24 maps confirmed, it's not like I HAVE to play that. There are tons of objectives in it just so you know, stuff from killing General Grievous to blowing up some anti-air guns. Now just to the overall game, the in-game design has been a little more streamlined. They have added targeting to both air and space so you don't lose your target, it's not very useful. They haven't really updated the graphics however, I am not complaining though, they were pretty good in BF1. An addition to the overall presentation is that they now have actual movie footage on the menus, including Episode 3 footage. That's all I have to say about the demo, it looks like this will be a 4-5 star game when it is done. Peace and carrots.

Congratulations Mozilla Firefox!!!

Just recently, Mozilla Firefox got its 100,000,000 download. I really like Firefox along with many other people. For all of yous who don't have it, download it here. Well, I want to know somethings about you guys (you.) When did you first download Firefox, what skin do you use, what is in your bookmarks? Well, I downloaded it around February 2004, I use two skins that I switch back and forth from, iFox, and Silver Skin. In my bookmarks I have, tons of things. I will name a few. AIM Fight, Geek Fantasies, the Pocketmod, and so many more. Ok, so leave a comment and tell us what you have. Peace out muffins.

Condensed Release Recap Volume 1

Hi, I'm Ton, your substitute teacher for today. This is going to be a quick RR since today has been filled with junk and joy. We reached $116 from Yahoo Ads which means we are getting payed! THANKS EVERYONE!!!

  • Fable: The Lost Chapters for XBOX

  • Everquest Chronicles Volume 1 for PC

  • Shining Force Neo on PS2

  • Chicken Little on XBOX, PS2, Gamecube, and GBA - Eww! Get it away! It's funny this is rated E10+, like anyone in their right mind over 10 is going to play this

  • Mall Tycoon 3 on PC

  • SPLAT Magazine Renegade Paintball on PC

  • Sponge Bob Square Pants: Lights, Camera, PANTS! on GBA, Gamecube, PS2, and XBOX - I don't want to know what this title is suggesting

  • Age Of Empires 3 and Age Of Empires 3 Collector's Edition on PC - The single best PC RTS game in the world

  • Crash and Spyro Superpack on GBA

  • Crash Superpack on GBA

  • Crash Tag Team Racing on Gamecube, PS2, and XBOX

  • Dig Dug Digging Strike on DS

  • DragonBall Z: Budokai Tenkaichi on PS2 - WHEN WILL IT END???!?!?!??!?

  • Greg Hastings Tour Paintball Max'd on XBOX

  • Jak X: Combat Racing on PS2

  • Madagascar: Operation Penguin on GBA - Make sure you DON'T waddle on over and get this

  • MLB 2K5 World Series Edition on PS2

  • NBA Live 06 on PSP

  • Shadow of the Colossus on PS2 - The game-long boss battle

  • Sniper Elite on PS2 and XBOX

  • Spyro Shadow Legacy on DS

  • Spyro Superpack on GBA

  • The Con on PSP

  • Tony Hawk's American Sk8land on GBA

  • Tony Hawk's American Wasteland on Gamecube, PS2, and XBOX

  • World Poker Tour on PS2 and XBOX

  • X-Men Legends 2: Rise of the Apocalypse on PSP

  • Zoo Tycoon 2.0 Endangered Species on PC

  • Backyard Football 2006 on GBA

  • Blitz the League on Ps2 and XBOX

  • F.E.A.R. on PC

  • Fire Emblem on Gamecube

  • Forza Motor Sports on XBOX

  • GTA: San Andreas Special Edition on PS2

  • GTA: The Trilogy on XBOX

  • Halo 2 on XBOX - IN SPANISH - Like anyone who speaks spanish is going to go into an english store and buy this

  • HipHop ejay 6 on PC

  • Law and Order Criminal Intent on PC

  • Quake 4 on PC - So THAT'S why there have been so many earthquakes lately

  • Scooby Doo: Unmasked on GBA

  • Shattered Union on PS2 and XBOX

  • Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse on XBOX

  • The Warriors on PS2 and XBOX

  • Ultimate Arcade Games on GBA

  • Worms 4: Mayhem on PC

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Calling, Trojan, Internet Viruses, Oh my!

Well, now to a little breaking news. Skype has just updated it software to version, 1.4. Apparently, it carries a little virus thing. The Trojan e-mail virus (no, it is not one that tells you to buy condems.) This virus cuts off all Microsoft Windows update services. Then it tries to connect to IRC, but fails. This is not widespreading, but is pretty serious. You can get the full news story from Yahoo! news here. Thank you for your girlfriend, I mean.........attention.

You Get What You Pay For

Hey guys, I just saw this really funny news story yesterday that shows how reliable the people that pack computer stuff are. Any way, some average guy walked into some average Staples and bought some average 300GB hard drive. Well, he got it home, opened the package, and saw that he got what he had payed for, 2 D batteries. Thats about how much a 300 GB hard drive is worth now, and anyway, it's not like you can't use D batteries. Umm.......what does use D batteries anymore? I don't know... Oh yeah, did I mention they were rusty? So the guy took it back to Staples and I guess got a new one. So, this was either a plot by Staples hoping that some idiot would pick up the hard drive, open it up, see the batteries, think they were the hard drive, put them in the PC, and mess it up. Then, they would have to buy a new computer from Staples. Pretty good plan. The other thing that could have happened is some guy in the Maxtor assembly facility was playing with batteries and put two in the box. Either way, it's pretty funny.

The Today Show with Ton

They should call this the Broadband BubbleIt's time for the news and booy is there a lot. First of all, all you EB Games worshippers out there, bad news fo you. EB Games will no longer be selling pre-owned games!!! Which also means they will not be buying used games either. Who knows what they're going to do for all of the people that bought EB Games cards for pre-owned stuff? I am thinking they will let you use the EB card at Gamestop since EB Games is now part of GS. If they don't, you have just lost $10, boo hoo. Something else big is an interview between a Seattle Post worker and J. Allard of Microsoft. Even though many online stores have said that Halo 3 is coming out, Allard could not confirm that Bungie's next-gen game is Halo 3. That could mean NO HALO 3!!! No, they have not announced that it is NOT Halo 3 either, so I guess just wait and see what happens. All I can say is if it is not Halo 3, I think there will be many an angry villager sieging the Bungie headquarters with pitchfork and torch in hand. Now for some confusing news. Microsoft released the XBOX 360 controller for Windows today. Now you can go golfing without leaving the safety of your monitor!available now for $40. Apparentely it can also be plugged into XBOX 360's. I'm not sure if it's wired or not for XBOX 360, but it is for PC via a breakaway cable. I dont understand much of this, except that it is Also, yesterday, Ronald Mcdonald decided he wanted to make kids fatter by making them want to live at McDonalds even more. McDonalds is now going to have free wireless net for Nintendo DS's, so that people don't have to go home to play their DS's online, they can just stay at McDonalds all day and all night like they want to. Now on to a weird story. University of NY and BT have created a broadband balloon. Yes, that's right, a balloon. It would be cool if only when you were on the net using it, you didn't suddenly lose connection because it blew away. Anyway, it was tested at about 15 miles out and an 11mbps connection was maintained. Yesterday, the Video iPod was cracked allowing people to take video off of their TiVo's and put it on their shiny new iPods. A day later, a way to use Bittorrent on it has been figured out. Now just a bunch of news that is nothing special. Now you can play real sports How do you press sand and make liquid?without even stepping away from your monitor. The color LCD on the Quartz Gyrosensor Putter, that is. It looks pretty cool but it will probably cost an arm and a leg, and since I don't have an arm and a leg to spare, goodbye Quartz Gyrosensor Putter. In Korea, there is a new phone from Samsung with Satellite TV. It has 11 video and 26 audio channels, which is really cool. According to DigitalWorld Tokyo, it looks great even in subway tunnels. As you all know, Sir Jobs (If you haven't noticed yet, that is my new name for Steve Jobs) announced that the Mac G5 was coming out soon. Well, it is out, and you can get it with up to four G5 cores in two dual core G5 CPU's. This is just one of the many things available on the new G5s, other things include support for up to 1TB of storage and four 30" monitors. You can pimp these new G5's so much that you can make them cost $18,000 without a monitor. That is total pimpage, seriously, 16GB of RAM is just off the hook. This would be cool, if only there was a reason to buy one, like maybe gaming, which Macs do not do much of. Also in the wide world of Apple, upgraded 15" and 17" G4 Powerbooks were announced. Also today, the first Smartphone with a 4-megapixel camera in it was released by Lenovo. Two new Media Center PC's were announced by Sony, the Vaio VA and the Vaio XL1 Digital Living System. The XL1 Can I please borrow $18,000 someone?...I'll pay it back...has Wifi, and external DVD changer, a wireless keyboard and trackpad. Get this - the DVD changer holds 200 CD's or DVDs, and can burn 200 DVD's without being supervised, that's cool. Of course it will cost $2,300. The VA has a whopping 20-inch widescreen monitor, dual layer DVD burner, and Window Media Center, and will cost $2,000. Dell is continuing their television line with the new 37" LCD which will cost you $2,300. This is really cool - E Ink and LG.Phillips have designed the world's first flexible LCD - a 10.1" white display. Sadly, it is only black and white right now, but it is still cool. Also, Maxtor is releasing an external hard drive that will be available in 600GB and 1TB sizes. I don't know about you, but I think that 1TB in any hard drive is cool. They will be released in December and be asking for donations to the Maxtor Needs More Money Fund- $550 for the 600GB and $900 for the 1TB. No more news for you!

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Our shortest post yet.....I think

You know how Zam said we have made another blog just for reviews and previews? Well, we finally got all of the reviews and previews ported onto there. Enjoy.

Fur is going to fly in this Website Wednsday!

...KITTEN!!!Today I have decided I am doing a themed WW. It's all about the furry things that everyone love. You know - KITTENS!!! The lovable fluff balls that fill the net and plot to take over your mind. So I have found 2 really good sites about cats. First off, what are cats good for? Playing video games? No. Frisbees? Yes, but forget about that for now, you will have plenty of time to use your cat as a frisbee later. How about using them as shelves? YES!! They are PERFECT for that!! Oh you didn't know that? Well, I have proof! Go to Stuff On My Cat, and you will see! They love putting stuff on cats, anything from socks to post-it notes. Go check this out, you will laugh your head off. You can even pile stuff on your cat and send it in so everyone can see what a great shelf your cat is. The second website is Rate My Kitten. The point of this site is, you get to vote on how cuddly, fuzzy, and cute cats are. You can vote anything from 1-10, and you can even submit your own cat to be judged. Please note: whichever cat gets the highest average score will be our next president, so vote carefully. Then again....any kitten would do a better job then George Bush is doing right now (You got pwned George Bush!). That is it for all the fluffyness today, but have no fear, they shall return.....someday.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

A nice, quick, down to the cheat Tips & Tricks Tuesday

I am also very busy. So, I am going to do a quick, down to the point Tips & Tricks Tuesday.

Ultimate Spider-Man (PS2 & Xbox):

All landmarks:
Go to the controller setup screen and do Up, Right, Down, Left, Down, Up, Right, Left

All Characters:
Go to the controller setup screen and do Right, Down, Right, Down, Left, Up, Left, Right

All Comic Covers:
Go to the controller setup screen and do Left(2 times), Right, Left, Up, Left(2 times), Down

All Concept Art:
Go to the controller setup screen and do Down(3 times), Up, Down, Up, Left(2 times)



The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge:

Pumpkin King costume:
Defeat the spider Boss to unlock the Pumpkin King costume

PJs Jack costume:
Successfully complete the game to unlock the PJs Jack costume

Dancing Jack costume:
Successfully complete the game to unlock the Dancing Jack costume

Now with these quick codes, go and pwn the world!!!

The News and some cool stuff

Time for a little news for all you jell-o men. Engadget has already figured out how to get Tivo programming on your iPod Video. Finally, you don't have to be limited to Desperative Housewives and That's So Raven, you have your favorite shows. Go here to find out how. The next one is for all of you in High School. Isn't Algebra 2 and World History boring. Want to do something with that TI-83 then just making charts and graphs and bla,bla,bla. Well, there is now a way to get a mini version of Dance Dance Revolution on it. This is not that bad either. Looks pretty good. There is also a way to get Wolfenstein on it, but that looks pretty bad and too good to be true. It might be like Doom on the iPod. Maybe. Well, go check them out. Like purses? Like Keyboards? Well you'll love these sexy keyboard purses this guy has. They are really nice. Go check them out here. It is a pretty cool find. Ok, next. Like technology? Like robots? Like robots with incredible AI???? Well, that is nice, but Japan has a really cool watch. It does morse code and audio. It is really cool. Check it out and maybe buy it here. Well that is pretty much all you need to know. Yeah.

A mini-MDM

I've been kind of busy today, so I'm just going to list some deals I found at Best Buy this week.
So, a short MDM, but still some very good deals. I hope they save you some money. Peace out.

Just a little everyday news today

You're tuned to GM2TV, and now it's time for your local news. The biggest news today is the Apple War. No, no, not the one where they throw apples, the one about the videos on the new iPods. It seems that Sir Jobs pulled a little sneak-a-roo and didn't inform some of the major people from the shows they now have for download on iTunes, and they are angry. They are saying, "$1.99 FOR A SHOW??? THAT'S WAY TOO LOW!!" Of course, if they raise the price, no one will buy them, and they will lose money. Basically they can't decide how much each ...and on your left you can see the rear end of the new Sony phone/mp3 player....person gets from the sales. Next is one of the weirdest things I have come across in a while, the EASY5 GSM phone. I have no idea how it works, it only has 5 buttons. I'll leave the figuring out to you, look at the picture and ponder, good luck. We all know PSP memory is expensive, and you can't deny it. Datel has realized this, and is coming out with a solution. A black memory dongie that hangs off your PSP and has 4GB of storage. Sure, it may look odd, but it's cheaper then most memory. You will be able to pick it up soon for 200 smackers. So a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of Zam told me that AOpen might be releasing Blu-Ray drives next month. No details have been released on this thing that might come out. So if you pay the amount of money that will have you filing for bankruptcy for this, at least you will be able to brag that you have the thing that won't even have a remote use for months. Dell is releasing a 6GB XM Satellite Radio device It's a phone! It's an mp3 player! It's a camera! It's a Sony Ericsson!sometime in the future. It will be available in black and titanium (Dell, you copycats!), a color display, and an FM radio, which means they obviously think the XM satellite won't work. Sony is releasing a very cool phone/mp3 player. It will have a 2.2 inch color display, FM radio, 2 megapixel camera with flash, it records and plays video, and has 470 MB of memory which can be expanded via Memory Stick Pro Duo. It has music controls on the front and a swing out keypad for the phone. It even has Bluetooth! Sadly, no release date has been set for the US yet. If you took a time machine trip a little while into the past, you would see that the Motorola ROKR, the first iTunes phone was just released. In my opinion, it is ugly. Which is whyThis DS is on fire! I rejoice at the news that Motorola is releasing another iTunes phone - the VX3, which looks just like the RAZR. As well as the iTunes, it will have a 2 megapixel phone, video calling, and bluetooth. It should be around here in November. You all should know about Mario Kart DS coming out soon, and Nintendo knows it's going to be hot with the online game play. So, they have released a hot DS to go with it, it will be red, with flame and racing decals. The bundle will The world's hardest puzzle.....in a phonebe available on the 14th of November and will cost about $150. A second weird story I came across was that Lamborghini and Intel are making a laptop. Sure, it will cost $400,000, but at least it will look good. 2 other pieces of news - Yahoo might be striking some kind of deal with AOL, but no real details have been announced. Also, Microsoft has been PWNED by their own doing. You know how the emphasized the fact that the 360 would be the first next-gen console out? Well it has screwed them over. Now, they are almost out of time, and they have realized that they are either going to have to decrease the features of the 360 or push the date back. I laugh in the face of you, Microsoft. Those are all the newses today. Thank you for watching.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit

Well guys, I saw Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit this weekend, cause those guys rock. So I thought I would do a little review of it. Before I start let's take a moment of silence for the Our new clay moves at the speed of light!creator of Wallace and Gromit's warehouse that burned down this past Monday. Ok moment over. I'm going to do my best not to spoil it, but if you already want to see it, don't bother reading this. So Wallace and Gromit have started a humane pest removal program called Anti-Pesto, even though I don't remember seeing anything about that in the last Wallace and Gromit cartoon thingy mabobers. Anyway, it's a little while before the town's giant vegetable contest, which seems to be the reason they live (Yeah, they're loopy). Well, Anti-Pesto has to capture rabbits so they don't eat the giant vegetables that everyone loves. Wallace and Gromit's basement starts to get full of the rabbits they have caught, and they need to do something else with the rabbits. As you know if you've seen any of the other Wallace and Gromit thingys, Wallace is a great inventor. So he makes a thought transfer machine to make the cute little bunnies not want to eat vegetables ........What'd I miss?any more. Well it all goes horribly wrong when Gromit accidentally turns the machine from suck to blow and the bunnies get all weird. Not only is a were-rabbit made, but there is a weird guy that wants to kill the bunnies, but the town mayor won't let him. It all ends up making a very funny movie, in which you will experience a bunny vacuum, dogfighting dogs, a man with a bunny for a wig, and lots and lots of cheeeeese. I also think it's cool how they take scenes from King Kong and use them with the were-rabbit. This is the first animated movie I have seen in a looooong time, and I'm glad I saw this one. It really amazes me that they made this whole movie out of clay. In the end, I give Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit 4 radioactive bunnies out of 5, go check it out.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

We disappoint.....again...and new overall results for my face-off.

Sorry guys, we got one debate up, but not the other. Sorry we got your hopes up then dropped them like rocks. We'll get it up sometime, just not now. We kind of just wanted a week off because we've been doing a lot of work lately. At least we got one up...Thanks for the feedback on the both of the face-off stories too. As a matter of fact, I got to thinking about the overall winners of my face-off, and I looked the browsers over more thoroughly and i have come up with some new results. 1st place goes to Opera, I found some great features in it like a sidebar that does a lot. 2nd place is Firefox, there are some great skins for it that make it look great, and the security is strong as a brick wall. In 3rd is Netscape, though it is very close to 2nd. I love the loading icon and the toolbar, but it is a bit crowded. In a close chase of Netscape, is AOL Explorer in 4th. It's very shiny and it has some good features, but it is in Beta right now and it isn't very supported yet. Lastly is Internet Explorer of course, because it just sucks. It was a very close race for the 1st through 4th places, but each one had an edge over the one in the rank below it. This is my final verdict finally. You should do your best to try and use one of the top 3, but #4 is good too, and absolutely don't use IE. I just hadn't looked over all the browsers enough, sorry.

The world has voted, and the winner of World Browser 2005 is..........

You need a browser to surf the web, but which one is the best. Originally, everyone used Internet Explorer, because when you thought internet, you thought Internet Explorer. But now there is a whole new world of choices. Out of the many, I decided to take 5 browsers and put them against each other. I will have different categories on which they will win on. My 5 are, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, AOL Explorer, Avant Browser, and Maxthon Browser. All of these browsers are good ones, but lets see which one is the best. First let me talk about some of the browsers. Internet Explorer is definitely one of the most popular. People who don't go on the internet a lot and don't know much about it, use what is provided, which is usually Internet Explorer. The thing is ok looking. Not too pretty though. Pretty much gray. One major problem is that it is really considered old right now. It is currently on version 6.0, but there is NO TAB BROWSING. This is really bad. Pretty much every other browser has tab browsing. Luckily, 7.0 will have tab browsing. I know this because I have played with the Beta a bit. It is acutally pretty nice to see a familar browser being stepped up a level, but c'mon, you need to make it a nicer color. On it you have your basic options. There is some good stuff to it though. Most toolbars out there work or are only for IE, it doesn't freeze a lot, and is pretty basic. So this would be good for basic internet visitors. Next up, Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is one that a lot of people are using now. It has shot up in popularity. Firefox is definitely IE's biggest competitor. Firefox is pretty nice though. It was one of the original browsers to have tab browsing. Of course, it still does, which is excellent. You can change the skin with many different choices. You can make it look sexy in your own way. There are a lot of hacks for it, some basic and easy, some not. It is good to modify it, but you don't know what it can do to it. There are tons of extensions. As Ton said, our favorite is Sessionsaver, which saves all of the web pages you are looking at when you close the browser. This is very helpful. There are some problems/bugs with firefox though. It freezes A LOT. This really interferes with your work. Also, if it freezes and you are expecting sessionsaver to save your work, it doesn't. Pretty much all extensions that are supposed to activate when the browser is open deactivate and start back up. This is not good. Overall Firefox is a really nice browser. Third up to bat is AOL explorer. AOL explorer is the new browser provided free from AOL. This is not the regular AOL dial-up kind of version. This one is much sexier and innovative. It comes with AIM as you download it, and for people that don't have it and do have AIM, AIM asks you sometimes if you would like to download it. That is how I found out about it. So try to read you popups on AIM. Ok, now the description. It has tab browsing, which is now all the rage in browsers. A cool thing it has are little tabs on the side that are Favorites, Channels, History, Beta, and you can set the other ones. These are helpful so you don't have to search through the menu bar or the internet to get what you want. It comes with some kind of spyware blocker thing, but I haven't tried that out yet. This browser is definitely one of the better ones. Avant Browser is next. The Avant browser is one that not many have heard of. I didn't know about it myself until I found and downloaded it. And let me just tell you. IT IS GREAT. Everything is there. It pretty much merges with all of your favorites and stuff from other browsers and puts them in it. There are tons of things you can do with you tabs. There is a switch from this tab to this one button, split to one tab is in a window and the other is in a window and they are under each other all in the same big daddy Avant browser window. There is side-by-side, an annoying one that I have no idea what it is used for, close all tabs button, close one tab button, and of course your basics, minimize, make bigger or smaller, or close. There are all right next to each other. This browser is also pretty shiny. I think it has a certain glow to it. It is a very goooooood browser. The final one is the Maxthon browser which not many people have heard of either. This browser is actually very similar to Avant. It sort of looks like the Avant browser and Internet Explorer combined into one. This one basically does the same thing as Avant. Not much different, except for one thing. When you open it, after it askes you to donate and stuff like that, it has tips. These are useful tips that you can use while searching the net. They teach you some special things you can do with the browser and things like this. They are pretty helpful. Oh wait, one more thing, the Avant and Maxathon browsers ask you to donate everytime you open them. I think there is a way to turn that off but am not sure. Just given a little heads up. Now on to the competition. Lets start off in the sexy category. First will be the swimsuit competition. Wow, Internet Explorer looks great in that little bikini acquippted with thong. Ok, seriously. The sexiest out of all of them is AOL Explorer. This thing is really, really sexy. It is nice and blue (or purple) and shiny. I like shiny browsers. It does show a nice array of colors. Very colorful. In close second comes Mozilla Firefox. I chose this for second because of all you can do with the skins. It can look nice, or bad, you decide. Third is the Avant browser. This browser has a cool symbol, and there are some nice colors on some of the buttons. Nice colors though. It deserves it's third place title. Next for sexiness is the Maxthon browser. This browser is not that pretty. It is pretty dull. Only a few colors grace its window. It is not that nice to look at. There are about 3 colors on it and that is all. Not sexy. The last and least is Intenet Explorer. This is so, bleehhhhhh. Gray. Gray. That is what it is. Gray. So, you get the point. Ok, next category, functionality. Firefox wins. There are so many plug-ins that work in perfect harmony with this browser. AOL Explorer is 2nd because of the sidebar, Internet Explorer 3rd, Maxthon next, and Avant last. Now, the next category, Ease to use. I would probably say, a tie between firefox and Internet Explorer. Firefox is pretty much pressing Ctrl + T and typing in an address. Internet Explorer is typing in an address but pressing Ctrl + N for a new window. So, it is pretty much a combination of buttons. Besides that, they are pretty basic, back, forward, home, stop, refresh, bla, bla, bla. AOL Explorer comes in third because it has a pretty confusing sidebar. Maxthon 4th, and Avant 5th. Avant is pretty hard because of all the buttons. There are the different ways to set it up, there are so many buttons, etc. But you can get used to it pretty fast. Compatability is next. Again a tie between Firefox and Internet Explorer. Lets just say there are so many toolbars and plug-ins that work for both of them. AOL third, Avant 4th, and Maxthon dead last. In customization, Firefox by a landslide. So many hacks, extensions, so many plug-ins, etc. Great stuff. AOL next, followed by Avant, Internet Explorer, and Maxthon. Now for my 2 own categories that I am only doing, starting with sexiest symbol. Avant wins by a great distance. It has a cool blue gem thingy that just looks sexy and shiny. We all like sexy and shiny. Firefox wins second because it has an interestingly unique symbol of a fox that is sort of on fire (thus the name firefox) holding the earth. Interesting. AOL explorer wins third place with it's interesting marble gem thingy. They have recently changed it to a sideways AOL symbol, but they still have the marble in the corner when you open the browser. Internet Explorer wins 4th. It is a lowercase e with a blue ring going around it. Not too sexy. Maxthon is last. It is a weird M just surrounded by blue. Not sexy. Now for my other unique category, SHINYNESS! Avant wins. It has a nice glow when you open it. Very shiny. Avant's symbol is very bluey and gemey, it is so shiny, it makes me want to make up words. AOL explorer takes 2nd because of it's purple. Shiny! Firefox next because of it's shiny skins. My favorite is iFox and Silver Skin. Those are both good. Maxthon third, and IE dead last. Not shiny. Gray. Ok, now what you have been waiting for. The best browser of 2005 is....... Avant!!!!!!! The shinyness and ways to arrange your tabs are great. Firefox lost by .1 point. The cool stuff you can do with that are great. AOL explorer 3rd, because of the shinyness and great stuff, and Maxthon and Internet Explorer tied for last with bad stuff. So, remember, this is my opinion. I am not biased. I like all of these browsers. So try to use all of them. They are good.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Watch browsers battle to the death in this face-off! (Ton's side of the story)

Ok this is probably the question that is always running across your mind, what is the best browser out there? I mean, everybody used to use Internet Explorer because there AOL Explorer, now new and shinierweren't many others that even competed, but now, there are bunches of them. I'm going to face-off 5, Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox 1.5, Opera 8, Netscape 8, and AOL Explorer. All of them are at least fair, but some of them are absolutelyI swear when I opened Firefox once it said Mozilla Moonhippo stunning. First off, I'll go over the most popular browser, Internet Explorer 6. Well, it's pretty basic compared to all the others. Let's see, no tabbed browsing, it's really ugly. There's pretty much nothing good about it, except it's easy to use. Also, absolutely every plug-in works with IE. However, it's not customizable, which is bad, especially for girls who just love accesorizing (A.K.A every girl in the world). Ok, that's all about IE. Next, I'll talk about Firefox. This was the head of the tabbed browsing revolution, which means it should be the best. However, all of the other browsers have gotten really good, better then FireFox even. What I think is really stupid is, they took a long time to make FF 1.5, and Internet Explorer 6, the world's oldest browserthey didn't do any design updates. Sure, Firefox is great, I mean, what other browser can be changed so much by plug-ins that people make? None! It's really cool finding all the stuff people make, and a lot of them are very useful. One of my favorites is SessionSaver, which saves any tabs you have open when you close the browser, very useful indeed. Also, there are skins, which are very "in" right now. If you have to be trendy, then you need Firefox. NEXT. Hmm, I guess we can do AOL Explorer. A firefox clone this is, but a hot one at that. It's SHINY. The whole thing is platinum which is really hot. Tabbed Browsing is obvious, as it is a must-have this browser season.Go check out Opera, the browser not the loud thing, idiotOpera, and yes, the fat lady will sing when I am done. This is a really cool browser, especially since it is finally free. I really do like the design of this browser, it's cool. The browser loads very fast, has tabbed browsing, integrated Google search, and more! What is more you ask? More is a good deal of customization, a password manager called Wand (Which is a seperate program), and integrated RSS feed. Also, graphics look great thanks to Scalable Vector Graphics. *Fat lady sings* Ok to the last browser, Netscape. You know Netscape, it's that browser with that feature and that thing. Ok really, lots of people use Netscape. Now, Netscape is improved! For the small fee of some of your bandwith, you can have Netscape!Netscape toolbar = utter confusion This is a great browser, tabbed browsing, the ultimate customizable toolbar, and a lot of other junk. My favorite part is the little loading symbol with the fireworks , I stare at that for hours, as you can tell, I am easily amused. Ok now for the judging. JUDGES. WHERE ARE THE JUDGES?? What? I'm the only judge? Well that is stupid. Here are the winners:

There are 6 categories: Design, Functionality, Ease of Use, Compatability, Customization, and Overall.
In the Design category, we have AOL Explorer sliding away from Netscape for the win. AOL Explorer is the best in my opinion because, well, it doesn't have much clutter on the toolbar and it's just so streamlined. Netscape comes in second because of the loading symbol :-)

In the Functionality category, Firefox wins, with Netscape right behind it. Firefox is the best just because of all the plug-ins, they really enhance the browser. Netscape is a close second because of how much the toolbar does.

In Ease of Use, Internet Explorer flies by every one else, because well, it's easy to use. There's nothing complicated about it. No tabs, not much on the toolbar, just a basic browser. For second I will just give it to AOL Explorer because it's pretty straightforward, with nothing to confuse beginner computer users on the toolbar.

The winner of Compatability is Internet Explorer because, well, everything runs on it, there is not a single plug-in like Flash that doesn't work with it. Firefox is about the same for second, with the loss of a few smaller plug-ins.

In Customization, Firefox wins, no debating that. There is no other browser with as many add-on plug-ins or skins as Firefox. For second, Netscape wins because of how much you can customize the toolbar.

*Drum roll please* And the winner of the overall best browser of 2005 by Ton of Gamer Mania 2 is......NETSCAPE 8.0! This browser is just so cool, it's pretty streamlined, the toolbar is so customizable, and of course the little symbol in the corner. So Netscape gets the biggest trophy.

In Second Place for Overall, is AOL Explorer. This is a great browser from AOL, they are really stepping up every thing they do. The design of this browser is incredible, and it has a good deal of functionality, and it is easy to use.

And finally in Third Place is Opera. I know this didn't get any of the other categories, but it is a good browser one way or another. The picture quality is great, it loads fast, and it even saves your tabs without an add-on.

Basically, I say get Netscape, AOL Explorer, or Opera, they're all very good.

Burnout Legends Review

Since you guys were good with clicking, here is a reward.



Burnout, Burnout, Burnout, what a series. Many different titles. Well, their latest is Burnout Legends for the PSP. Ok, I can sum this review up in two words, it's ooooooookkkkkkkkk. We have seen many good Burnout games in the past such as Burnout 3 and Revenge, but this one actually disapoints. Ok, now lets get into the review. The game is still fun. The concept of the game is getting pretty old though. The whole idea of the game is, crash, crash, crash. Honestly, it is starting to get boring not having much new. The graphics are astounding. They are very crystal clear, and the damage is incredibly detailed. Although the cars look good, the environments could use a jump. The buildings look very pixely and blocky. There are a few different modes. The racing mode, the crash mode, and a choice of car modes. You can play in different races when you go into the different car modes. But you have to unlock them first. If you are like me, you will definitely spend the most time in the crash mode. That is pretty much the only good part of the game. Now we shall talk about the races. Well, they are ok. The problem is, you can only have 4 computer cars on a track at a time. So there will not be a lot of crashing. Luckily, you can hook up to up to (I think) 4 PSPs at once with one single UMD. That is really good. There is online, but when I tried to go on, no one was on. I tried a day later, and no one was still on. So, either I go on at the wrong time, or no one cares much for online play. You decide. The controls are nice. Pretty smooth. The audio is pretty good. Nice licened soundtrack of songs that are popular, and songs you have never heard before. Luckily, THERE IS NO ANNOUNCER!! So you won't have to hear that annoying guy that really needs to be run over by about ten cars, and hit with shovels. I think EA finally realized how annoying he was, and took him out. Hopefully fired him and put his annoying ass on the street. Ok, that was harsh, but c'mon. There is an autosave after every level, which can really come in handy. So overall, this game may not be as good as Jell-O, but Bill Cosby didn't promote it. This is definitely a good way to waste time. Still overall, crash mode is what makes this game. Burnout Legends gets 3 drunk singing great uncles, out of 5.

Say Goodbye To Tech News Thursdays, or Keep It, you choose

We have decided with the need of news, that we are going to get rid on TNT. Big things don't only happen on Thursday. So in TNT's place, we will put Release Recap. Release Recap is the only segment without having it's own day. So it will fit nicely into this vacancy. So, now, we will tell you about the stories as soon as we find out about them. We have decided to do this because people don't want to wait a few days for news. They want it there and now. But, we still respect our readers so you choose. Wait til Thursdays, or wait til when it happens. So leave us a comment.

WOW, That was fast

I told you yesterday that if we make $30 on our Yahoo! ads, that we would click on your ads. Well, you guys did it, IN 3 DAYS!!!! So, I have 2 choices for you. We can click on your already existing ads, or we can give you links to the different places to apply for ads such as Google and Yahoo! So leave a comment to say what you want. Also, when we tell you how to apply for ads, and you get them, then tell us and we will click. Ok, I have another gift for all of you. Since you were so good, I have decided that I am going to put up a review of the pretty new game Burnout Legends for the PSP. We were going to wait til next week, but we have decided to put it as a present. Enjoy. Oh yeah, click clicking, and THANK YOU!!!!

A TNT with a short fuse

This week, we are going to do the debates, so less power to the segments. As a matter of fact, we are considering letting you HEAR the debates. So, this week's TNT is going to be pretty short. Also, this is the last week of TNT. I see into the future and I see that next week we will start having news reports every day instead. That means you'll actually hear the news before your local news station tells you (Yes, local news stations have been telling you faster then we have). Ok to this week's TNT, 2 big news stories. Sir Jobs at Apple announced 3 new things this week. 1. iPod Video. 2. iTunes 6. 3. Apple G5. 3 big things from one big guy. The iPod Video is awesome and it will be released very soon. It will be a little bigger then the Nano but just as shiny (and also they took away the portability feature - this one doesn't break in half). It will be available in black and white like the Nano, and let me tell you, the black is S-M-O-K-I-N-G. Oh wait this is a no-smoking zone so that means the iPod Video can't come (waaaaa). It will also be available in 30GB at $300 and 60GB at $400. I really do feel bad for the people that bought the iPod Nano because this is about the same size, $50 more, and 24 GB bigger. The 2.5" screen is crystal clear according to people who saw it. It will hold everything the latest iPods do, and of course video. This leads me to iTunes 6. You can pay $2 on the new iTunes 6 and download a music video, select TV show, or Pixar short (ha...ha.....they actually think little kids will have these). The music video selection will probably get huge, right now they only have 2,000 though. As for the TV shows, right now they have Lost (A cross between Survivor and Gilligans Island, I just pictured that and it's weird), Desperate Housewives (I see they're pleasin' the ladies), Night Stalker (Corn in the night), That's So Raven (Kiddy show from Disney Channel), and the Suite Life of Zack and Cody (Kiddier show from Disney Channel). Whenever a new episode comes out, they will have it for sale the next day. Of course the selection will grow, but that's it for now. They have about 6 Pixar shorts for the kitties (or kiddies, I always get those mixed up) out there. I really hope this gets as big as movies, then you will be able to buy them on there for your iPod and also burn them to DVD to watch on your TV. There are a few other new features in iTunes 6 but nothing major. Also, G4 is no longer making Apple computers, now they have moved on to G5. They actually look pretty good, they are LCD monitors and I think the computers in the LCD too. There is a new OS for it too called I think OS X Tiger. One last note about the iPod Video, I really dont know why they don't call it the ViPod, I guess they are just obsessed with leaving it iPod something. Ok enough about Jobs. The other big news is MSN and Yahoo are merging their messenger programs. This is huge, they will actually be able to compete with AIM. I really like Yahoo, and MSN has some cool features, but I hate using both, so now I dont have to. I think they should call this MSYahoo, but I guess they don't care what I think. It seems they will just be working on plain IM for now, other junk later. They say 50 million people use AIM and 49 million use MSN and Yahoo together, which means it's a close race. The thing is, most of the MSN and Yahoo accounts are the same people, so you'll be able to talk to your self.......joy. Nothing much else about this. That's all folks and cheese heads of all ages, see you later.

(Imageshack is down, so no pics for you yet)

Thursday, October 13, 2005

A Baby Blog has Emerged

After discussing with Ton, we have decided that the main thing that everyone wants on our blog is the reviews. So we decided to put the reviews in a whole different blog. That way you will be able to read you favorite reviews, or you won't have to search our archives for our reviews. We will put all reviews on there, and also, you should go there for the old reviews because we revised a few of them. We will put our latest review on this main blog, but then we will place it there forever. The name of the blog is Gamer Mania 2 Reviews & Previews. Please go and enjoy.

Yahoo! ADS!!!, Yahoo ADS!!!!! CLICK THEM MANY TIMES!!

After Google took our Google Ads away because someone was playing around with some clikcing software, we applied for Yahoo! Ads. And we got em'!!!!!!! These ads, if I do say so myself, are much better than Google's. Very nice links, and look a bit better as well. Well anyway, we ask you, PLEASE CLICK!!! We could really use the money. Games don't just fly off trees people. Gamefly accounts just don't pay themselves, so c'mon. Help us help you. I'll tell you what, if you click on our ads, and we make over $20, leave a comment about your site (if you have one) and we will click on your ads (if you have them.) Also, how about another thing, if we make over $40, we will do a special weekly suprise that you will probably enjoy. Maybe not, but it is pretty nice. Let me just say you won't have to read much news anymore. That is all I can say. I will reveal what I mean as soon as we reach our goal. Thank you.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Here is a coupon for 4 segments off when you buy 2 faceoffs (Valid this week only)

This week we are going to be slackers. Sloths. Lazy. Whatever you want to call it, we are not doing most of our segments this week. Of course we are still doing Marked Down Mondays and Tech News Thursdays, if we didn't we would be crazy. This does not mean we aren't working, of course not! Do you really think we are that lazy? Well actually we are, but you don't need to know that. We're going to still have face-offs of the browsers and IM programs, maybe debate them in a cool-SOUNDING (hint hint) surprise. What more? Our good friend DS will be flying in all the way from his blog and will be doing a guest review of Advance Wars DS, because we are too cheap to buy it for ourselves. It will be up sometime.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Food, check, clothing for this week, check, discounted tech product, not check...I need Marked Down Mondays

Ok, so I was pretty tired yesterday, but today I have had my caffeine and I'm ready to go.
Now lets start off MDM with a good deal. Want AIM away from the computer? Want if for Free?? Well, Tigerdirect is crazy enough to give away a Motorola IM Free Wireless AIM/AOL Messenging! You get this for free after a $30 mail-in-rebate, so class, how much did it cost in the first place? If you said $10, then you are so dumb you need to go and become President (ok, I admit it, that was pretty cold.) Well the answer is of course $30. So this thing may have a black and white screen, but at least you can get a range of 150 ft. away from a router, and if you don't have one, my next deal with solve it for you. Comp USA, which have been known for great deals on routers, have a Netgear Wireless 802.11b router for $2.99!!!! This will solve everything with wireless. And this thing won the c|net editors' choice in November 2002, so it is not that crappy. Now the $2.99 price tag is after those annoying mail-in-rebates that we all hate so much. So, if you still want to go wireless, they also have a Gateway Router (i think it works for non-Gateway computers too) still 802.11b but $4.98. Which is still very, very inexpensive. I am sorry, but that is all I have for this week. Remember, may all your wireless router deals be good ones. Good-bye kitten people.

Sorry about MDM

Well yesterday after checking my mail, I tried to contact Ton so we could go and find some deals to put in MDM. Ton was logged out ALL day and is still logged out. Yesterday I was working on it by myself, but fell asleep (you know how it is after a hard day.) So I am going to put it up in a few. Can you guys forgive me for not putting it up? C'mon, I am your friend. I gave you codes on how to see hot comic book characters in swimsuits. Well, just look out for some good deals coming you way.

Gamer's Opinion - Signs of the Apocolypse?

This is one of those GO's that is kind of off the topic of gaming. Actually it's totally off topic, my mind was wandering around and I thought about this. Two major hurricanes have hit the U.S so far and it's only half way through the hurricane season. We have one more named storm and then we're out of the alphabet. Now, a 7.6 (I think) magnitude earthquake in Pakistan. With so much abnormal weather, doesn't it make you think something's wrong? I think these are signs of the apocolypse, what about you? Whatever you do, don't panic, the sky will hear you and get angrier and make more hurricanes. [We're all gonna die! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!] Opinions please.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Baby reviews are being brought to YOU

Hey guys, I have kind of been quiet on the review scene. So, I have started getting demos for the PS2 and I will start writing little reviews/previews of the demos I get. It will give you a little more info about upcoming games, so you don't waste your money on junk, you just waste your money on good games. So, I hope they help you, if they don't, oh well. I tried.

Trivia Facts For Your Everyday Life

Alright, I said I would tell you when Cameron's Trivia Facts was back up. It is back up. They were having some server issues there, but now the server has no more issues. I think it went to a psychologist or something. So go check it out, it's a cool site. So clicky here and be amazed. *Reader (you) goes Ooooh Ahhhhh*

Gamer's Opinion: Best Web Browser

Now, we are going to have a review of several browsers this week, so we want to know what your favorite one is. If you don't know what a browser is, it is the thing you open to get onto the internet such as, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, AOL, etc. We want to know which one is your favorite. So leave a comment.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

I'm looking into the future just for you, you better pay attention

This week, we'll be doing some pretty cool stuff. First, just so you know, Zam is gone for the weekend again and maybe Monday, he's in New Jersey and New York. Let's see, this week. Hmm....We are going to be facing off the 4 different instant messenging programs and the 5/6 different browsers this week. I have all of them but I dont think you want them, but hey, I'm probably wrong. Also, I am getting a demo of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 this week for PS2, so I'll put up a little about that game. All the regular stuff will be there as well, duh. We also might throw in a cool-sounding surprise (yes, that was a hint).

A very fun (just kidding) and flashy (yeah, riiiight) Flash Friday

In this week's Flash Friday, I have a game that kind of bend the rules of FF. It's not made by Flash, it's made by the people who drink Hot Coffee all the time, Java, which is close to Flash. Also, it is free unless you want the best features as a member, which costs $5 a month. I am talking about Runescape. Yes, it is an MMORPG, basically World of Warcraft for dummies. It is ook except for the fact that it is loaded with teenage guys who have very short fuses and will start yelling veeery easily. It's a pretty popular game with about 80,000 people at any given time. It is VERY easy to learn how to play so you aren't just wandering around swinging picks at shopkeepers because you don't know any better. They update it about every week and add a lot of stuff. The graphics suck though....if you tilt down enough, you will see a black hole in the distance. You can't choose race or class either, which is bad. As of now there are a little over 25 skills which is a fairly good amount. The are no vehicles of any sort in this game, I think even riding a camel would be better then walking everywhere. There's not much else to say about this game, if you decide to play, you can use a website called RuneHQ to find anything you need about it. So basically, if you are thinking of doing an MMORPG, try this out first just to get an idea of what they are like before paying $50 and $15 a month. You'll probably get hooked for a little while and become a member but after a few months, you'll be calling it Prunescape just like me. One last thing, if you ever want to play RS with me, I'll be logging in a little bit and my screenname is cat72656.

I'll be questing forever now

Hey guys, I was bored so I thought I'd say that I'm joining Everquest 2 today. I got the software free from G4 for asking AOTS a question, so I thought what the heck, I'll give it a shot. Right now it's loading updates, even though it was 10 CDs. If you'd like to do anything in the game with me, I am linkofhyrule007.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Hmmm.......I need news.....That is why there are Tech News Thursdays!

Ok, so some people like news, and some people couldn't care less. But we make news fun, yay. Some important things happened this week. First let's start off with what I think is the most important news. Weblogs Inc. which owns popular blog such as Engadget and Autoblog, is being bought by AOL for $25 million. This is big news. This may change the way you look at Engadget forever. This will further help AOL rule the world. So it isn't only 2 blogs, it is 85 blogs that AOL will be taking away. They will use these blogs as things such as they did Moviefone. Who knows, maybe you get a exclusive game trailer or something. Next up to bat, is the Gizmondo. People have been talking about this since a little before the PSP came out. This has been advertised for so long, that people have forgotten about it. Well, it is going to be released on October 22nd for all of those people care. Now I am not saying not to go buy it, but with the PSP out, why would you want to. They are both pretty much the same thing. Well that is up to you. Here is another story. Ton and I were going around the interenet the other day, and (for some reason) went to www.aim.com. There we saw a little graphic that said, "AIM Triton is here." We were both wondering what the heck that meant. Well, it is the new AIM Beta, and let me just tell you, IT IS SEXY! We were wondering when AIM was going to compete with Yahoo! and MSN messengers, which are both sexy and smart browsers with a lot of features. Well now they have. There are some really cool things in this one, tab talking, free XM radio(!), voice chat, and some other cool stuff. Ton and I will have a review coming soon where we will go into further detail. But if you don't want to wait for that, just go here to download it, and see for yourself. Going further into the news, apparently, Google has called war on Microsoft. Slashdot said that Google will be releasing a sort of chart/graph software to compete with Microsoft's Office Excel. Excel costs some money, yet Google's software is going to be FREE! This is definitely going to harm Microsoft. Then AOL will buy Google and they will team up with EA to rule the world, (not really, but they would rule the world if they did team up.) Now for some quick news summaries. Bill Gates has announced that they are going to put Palm's newest Treo will have it's first Windows OS (operating system). Next, Oakley just announced the Thump 2 glasses. Those not familiar with the Thump glasses, it is the ones with the built in MP3 player that everyone has been talking about. The 1GB ones will go for $450, 512 MB will go for $350, and 256MB will go for $300. Great for people who want to listen to music while not staring into the sun, that will melt all gamers. Video Game developers have just released a big list of games for the Xbox 360, first, first party company, Microsoft, is releasing, "Kameo: Elements of Power", and "Perfect Dark Zero." Take Two will be releasing "NBA 2K6", "NHL 2K6", "Top Spin 2", "Amped 3". and "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion." Activision will be releasing "Call of Duty 2", "Quake 4", "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland", and the game "GUN", which at E3, they didn't release any info for. EA will be releasing "Need For Speed: Most Wanted", "FIFA 06:Road to FIFA World Cup", "NBA Live 06", "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06", and "Madden 06." Now you know what to buy if you are buying the 360. Next week, Apple is going to reveal a new iPod (to add to the 5 billion different kinds they already have.) Many believe it is going to be a video iPod, but are not sure if Apple will disapoint them or not. I think it is a bit too soon, they just released the Nano a few weeks ago, if people know what they are doing next, they won't buy the Nano and just wait for the next system. Oh well, it is Apple's decision, Steve Jobs doesn't care what I have to say, he is scared I might crack his screen (oooohhhh, just got served Stevey.) Now lets switch to some news about Apple's rival, Microsoft claimed that they will not be releasing any Microsoft Office software for the Linux operation system anymore. Some employees are saying that Microsoft is 100% focused on Windows. Which is starting to seem true. Sure, lose money Microsoft, see if Mac and Linux users care. Just keep spitting on them, just keep sitting on spirits while laughing at the name of thier mascot operation systems and downloadible free operationg systems. Go ahead, see if they don't destroy your company in a terrible "accidental" explosion, or 1 billion missing CDs of Vista, just see if they don't do that (ahhhhhhh, ok, I am fine now.) Japan is striking back by making switching some of their goverment computers to Linux. Ha, take that Microsoft, now Japan is striking back to your operating system after what they did with the Xbox. Hahahahahahahahahahaha (ok, now I am done.) Ok, now that is all for Tech News Thursday, join us next week well we will yell at Sony (stupid cheap, defective processing chips, grrr).





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