Happy Canada day my canukistan chums!

Limited time off, getcherself pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium or Pro for 1/2 price. Details are here. Doesn't appear to apply to us Canucks. Yay.

Wondering about this Bing thing that suddenly and rather alarmingly appeared on my IE search tab when I upgraded to 8. It's harmless, just more schenanigans from M$. Uv points out that "Bing" is a really stupid name for a search engine and I find myself agreeing.

Always a little odd when a famous celebrity passes away, but how often do two die in one day? RIP Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

Wow. Never thought I'd see iD Software get sold to anyone, but I see on Planet Quake this morning that it is indeed true. Damn. Rune sent over an article from Kotaku about why the sale was done. Interesting days in the gaming industry.

lol. The Overlord Show. Love it. Nothing like a little seal clubbing. This offically wins for best FAQ ever.

So I got myself an iMac G4 at Christmas time, and I've never had a chance to really do much with it. A little slow at work today so I decided to load up Mac OS X and play with it a bit. CD stuck in the drive, no manual eject, eject on keyboard no worky. Sigh. Luckily I found a helpful forum post. Hold the mouse button in on power up and lo! The thing ejects. Apple, you suck.

So many MMOs, so little time.

The Fallen Earth MMO closed beta is on. Go sign yourself up. Zombie MMO!

The more I use Windows Vista, the less I like it. It's sort of funny since for my job I'm required to sometimes sell people computers with Vista on them. I highly recomend NOT getting it, and the vast majority of systems I've sold for the past two and a bit years since Vista came out have had Windows XP on them. I still run Windows XP myself. It's comforting and I know it well. It still does everything I need it to do. On the other hand it is starting to show it's age a little bit. Vista however for me at least, is not the answer. It's slower than XP, it's awkward and other than being pretty and offering marginal gaming benefits from DX10, there's no reason to get it. Very disapointing. Eagerly awaiting the release of Windows 7. Microsoft had better not screw it up or I'm going to be majoryly pissed.

 Darkdaysarecoming.com. Ohhh. Creepy.

Ahhh good ol' fashioned games. Was doing a little reading about the classics the other day and stumbled across Speedball 2 Tournament. Speedball was such a great game back in the day. The Speedball website is great, doesn't look like the game is downloadable anymore, but it is avaliable on Fileplanet. Gotta download it and check it out.

Nice!! Overlord was one of my favorite little games a few years ago, and Overlord 2 is looking truly diabolical. Download the demo and unleash your inner villian now!

Yay for Atari for publishing Ghostbusters the Game, and yay to them for alliviating my fears and putting it out for my precious PC!

I've lately been watching quite a number of World War 1 and 2 videos posted on Youtube by Sonicbomb. Some great videos, and man, this is one hell of a crappy way to fight a war. Like the trenches weren't miserable enough.

Or so this study shows. Interesting.

Just got a press release from the folks over at Dreamspike Studios, and I've got to say that they should be applauded for their decision to release a DRM free version of their strategy game, Space War Commander. Hopefully people don't take advantage of their kind and trusting nature. If you do, you're a bastard.

Space War Commander Going Completely DRM-Free!

June 16, 2009 – Space War Commander made a splash earlier this year as a unique strategic experience. It drew critical and popular praise as “One of the most original and challenging games ever made.”

Now, Dreamspike Studios, the indie developers of Space War Commander, are announcing a DRM-free version of the game available at their website www.dreamspike.com. As a result, fans of the game will be able to enjoy it on as many computers as they like and for as long as they want.

Space War Commander is also available at other popular online venues, including Direct2Drive and GamersGate. Players will experience a depth of strategy unavailable in other games: run blockades, lure enemies into traps, and defeat enemy forces using hundreds of other cunning tactics!

Last but not least, stay tuned for the upcoming announcement of Dreamspike Studios’ secret new project!

Alex Kutsenok
Dreamspike Studios
www.dreamspike.com

Went to a performance at Hugh's Room in Toronto on Saturday evening called "Oliver's Cake Parade", to celebrate the life and work of Oliver Schroer, who passed away almost a year ago. Gotta say, that was a truly amazing evening. So much love and passion in the room. It's not the sort of music I normally listen to (being more of a metal/electronic sort) but Oliver's music has given me a real appreciation for folk and fiddle music. His stuff is quite often playing on my computer these days. If you've never heard of this guy, check out this, this, and my personal favorite, this. Many thanks to Xan for taking me to the show. :)

It's a musical sort of day and Uv sent along a link to this crazy guy. Lookit him go. That's some very cool music, and I could see it as a game soundtrack.

Played a bit of the Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. demo. (For some reason I want to call it "Tony Hawks Clancy". I have no idea why.) It's... Not bad... Very, very arcadey. It's fun, but it would be nice to have the ability to be just a little more simy. I guess when compared to something that really hit a good balance between sim and fun like Jane's USAF it just doesn't match up. If you're just looking for an Afterburner type air based shooter, with a touch more realism than the arcade games, it's good. I really like a few features such as the A.I. guidence for when you're trying to get on someone's tail, or doing a ground attack on a shrouded target. That's very cool, and I'd love to see it in a full blown simulator. It's a fun little game, but I was just looking for a bit more. Boo.

Art Bell was right! Aliens on Mars! No wait... it's a rock. Crap.

Killer wonders "What happened to you China? You used to be so cool."

Not much to talk about today, other than a little game called Huxley.. It's an MMO first person shooter and I've been anticipating it for quite some time. The File Planet subscriber beta is open, I'm signed up, got the software downloaded and I've been too busy to even run the software. Argh. The America's Army 3 beta is open as well, Proto say it's pretty darned awesome thus far.

Like space? Yeah, me too. Check out these sweet photos from CNN's Space Spotlight.

Nothing says "Bow down and worship me, o' lowly nerds" like having a 4gb Dual GTX 285 video card. Check this Asus out. Man. They make that into a production card and you buy it you'd better get practising your aussie accent so you can say "Thah's not a video card! THIS is a video card!" Thanks Killer.

More on our old skool computer theme we've had going for the last day or so, I consider Karsten Obarski to be one of the fathers of modern computers music. You can read all about the reasons behind my logic here. I'm busy downloading a wack ton of remixes from Amiga Remix based on his original Amiga classics. Some really nice stuff here. I think that my favorite is the Firefox remix of Sleepwalk, which along with Crystal Hammer are my favorite Obarski tracks.

Oh yeah, almost forgot what got me all nostagic today in the first place. Chisel dropped by today for a visit and mentioned that they're making another Monkey Island game! Guybrush is back, baby! Hmmm.. Monkey Island Episodic goodness.

Where the heck does the time go? I just spent a little time reading up on some of the old Amiga and C64 game developers and publishers that I remember from back in the day.Companies and indivduals that made some truly phenominal games. Heck, I even watched a few gameplay videos on Youtube and download a few new Karsten Obarski remixes to add to my old skool music library. Games like Jumpman, Frantic Freddy. Druid. The Last Ninja. The Last V8. Cystal Hammer. Lemmings. The Killing Game Show. Awesome. Maniac Mansion, Blood Money. Demo from The Crusaders, Razer 1911, TRSI, The Silents, Fairlight, Future Crew... The list just goes on and on.

Where the heck does the time go? I can still remember sitting in the AV room at high school with Intuitracker running on the school's Amiga 2000 rocking out to Karsten Obarski tracks and playing around in Deluxe Paint. Those were some of the happiest moments of my younger years. A quiet room, a great computer, amazing music and great graphics. The was 17 years ago and I can still remember it clear as day. I've still got quite a bit of my art work that I did back in the day on my modern PC. A PC capable of feats that the humble Amiga, C64 and XT never imagined... And yet I have a sense of nostalgia for those days. I think it's the same sort of whistfullness we all get when we talk about times past. It's not just me either. I have a few other nerd friends (Goshwin, I'm lookin' at you, grampa) that I can sit and talk about the good ol' days with for hours on end. My dad gets the same way talking about old cars that he owned when he was younger.

I think we're all just getting old. One day we'll be sitting on the porch in rocking chairs. "Why I remember when PCs only had 16kbs of RAM!" etc.

Ahhh well, time moves forward and so must we all... But it's really nice to go back and look at some of the C64 and Amiga game play videos and listen to the music and remixes of the music and realise with a certain sense of sadness that we're not likely to ever have a time like that in the computer world we've come to take for granted.

P.S. Going to be working on getting the FRAGtopia site a little bit overhauled and perhaps into a WordPress format so that it'll be easier to get other people posting news and reviews on here. It's been a many many moons since anyone also has had anything to say other than sending me links and news articles. (This means you, RUNE.) And I really should get around to posting up some more ICQ/IRC madness posts, I've got dozens and dozens of humorous texty thingies just waint to get used. Dating back several years at this point.

UV just sent me over a video from ARMA2. Damn. That's one fine looking game.

Messed around with the Braid Demo last night some more.. So far it's looking like that game is (for a puzzle game) sheer genius. Brilliant music, graphics and design.

Some people are just plain stupid. Incredibly stupid. Thanks Proto.

Hmmmm.. The SATA 3.0 Spec is out. It looks deliciously fast. Interesting they're planning on new connectors. Hopefully they make a retaining lock a standard on both the power and data cables. And maybe make them a little less delicate. I see an awfull lot of broken SATA cables and connectors. Thanks for the linky VA_Killer.

Netterick wonders, is there anything an iPhone can't do?? Check out this iWoW Project video. Impressive. Jam a Geforce 8800 into that bad boy and away you go.

Well, working away on a little article entitled "How to protect yourself on the internet" which I'm really debating subtitling "because you're dumb" but it's mostly a work project, so I guess I'd better not.

Sort of looking forward to Tom Clancy's HAWX. Downloading the demo now, looks like we might actually have a fun little arcade style flight sim with a bit of a story on our PCs. Can't remember the last time that happened.... USAF maybe? This looks more arcadey than that, but still looks good.

That's right, Intel gets fined 1.45 billion by the EU. Uh, ouch. That's gotta hurt. Damned anti-trusters.

I find PETA quite annoying most of the time. I'm sure their hearts are in the right place but everytime anyone mentions them I find myself wishing that they'd all go fall off a cliff into a vat filled with razerwire and pickle brine. Mind you, a maple syrup ban in Vermont would be fine with me. More delcious syrup for the rest of us. Thanks Proto. Before anyone sends me any hate mail, I'm not in favour of animal cruelty (duh) but I've got nothing against hunting and the fur trade in general.

Thanks to Bryan for pointing out I'd mislinked the Modern Warefare 2 trailer. This link works. I blame Rune.

Watch yourselves out there kiddies. Facebook virus = bad. There, "Facebook Virus" should get some Google hits. :P We've had a few calls this morning from people who have either a compromised account or some sort of nasty on their PC. It's sending messages to everyone on their friends list with a "check out this video" link. The link is to a page that attempts to trick you into installing "Macromedia Flash.". Needless to say it's a virus or some sort of malware. IE users beware.

Just downloaded the Braid demo. I'm intruiged. Must try it out and see how it is. Anyone else noticing the quality and quantity of indie games lately? It's refreshing.

Modern Warfare 2 trailer. Damn. Thanks Rune.

The "Meet The" videos just keep gettin' better. The latest? Meet the Spy. lawl. So so very, very many James Bond jokes.

"He is a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in riddles, lovingly sprinkled with intrigue, express mailed to Mystery, Alaska, and LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! but it is too late. You're dead. For he is the Spy—globetrotting rogue, lady killer (metaphorically) and mankiller (for real). "

Now this is very neat. Christin Engelberth , a 12 year old girl from San Antonio won out against 28,000 other entries for first prize in Google's Doodle contest this year. Sweet.

lol. From UV comes the Thriller Menu Mod. Awesome. Just awesome. Haven't actually tried it yet, but to me nothing says Left 4 Dead and Zombies like Michael Jackson. There's instructions in the download, seems pretty basic.

Just reading more security stuff today. We've heard rumors that some of the new DNS redirecting malware will actually log into your router and modify it's DNS settings. Turns out that it's actually true. Bastards. Make sure you've changed your router's default password.

Some music is far too catchy. I've been listening to Electro Gypsy from Savlonic and watching Weebl's video for said catchy tune for a good part of the day today. Yahma yahma ha!

Thanks to Sinister Sniper I now know that Battlestations: Pacific is out. I never did do a review on Battlestations:Midway, but I played the heck out of that game and it was amazing. I'll have to try the new one, but I really don't have the time to play much in the way of games these days. Life gets busy and there's better things to spend one's time doing much of the time. Must be getting old, I never thought I'd hear myself say something like "There's more to life than playing video games."

Thanks to everyone who joined my Brute's Dojo. 31 students. Eeeeehhhcccellent!

I spent some time last night reading up on Botnets and various security issues that are related to work things and man, there's some really, really nasty stuff going on out there. The Storm botnet is a good example, and these fellows are another example.

Played a wee bit of the Cortex Command 23 build at lunch today (one of the advantages to taking your gaming machine in to work everyday!) and I'm impressed. Definately a big difference between 23 and the last build. More weapons and units, including some real doozies. (Laaaaaazer beams!)

They've completed some more campaign maps and two of them are quite fun. There's still no real campaign mode but it's fun to mess around with the AI. I just tunneled all the way into an enemy's base, made a little hole in his brain room and took out his controlling brain with a single shot from a heavy sniper rifle through that hole. It took a while, but it was delicious when it all worked out.

I'm actually very excited about CC. No idea when/if they'll actually get the game done, but it's showing a lot of potential for greatness. Now to see if it actually comes to fruition.

The fellows over at Data Realms have released their much anticipated 23 build of Cortex Command. It adds some new missions, go download it.

Spammers never give up. Now they're harvesting valid email addresses from Twitter. It's be nice to see an end to these nasty little parasites of the internet wouldn't it?

Hai! I challenge you all to automatic cartoon Brute combat! Accept or forever hang your head in shame. Amazing how adictive such a simple little game can be.

Happy Victoria Day my Canuk buds.

Red Leader sent me a link a while ago to Wolfram/Alpha. They're working on infastructure issues and preparing to declare themselves operational on monday if all goes well.. It's an interesting concept, not so much a search engine, they describe it as a knowledge engine. It knows things like the answer to "Why did the chicken cross the road?". Oddly enough, it doesn't know "Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?" Poor Bill.

If anyone happens to do their Windows update to IE8 and you get a sudden internet slow down (yes Firefox users, insert joke here) or an error along the lines of "A program installed on your computer has corrupted your default search provider." the solution is to uninstall IE8. I'm working on a fix for the search provider error, seems that it's quite common with IE8, but nothing I've found or tried so far has fixed it.The issue only seems to be occuring on systems that have been running for a while. Fresh XP installs never seem to encounter the probem. Nothing on Vista systems but I just don't work on the same number of Vista machines, so I'll probably start seeing it on Vista boxes sooner or later.

DO NOT DO A SYSTEM RESTORE AT THIS POINT. I've had a number of customers panic, and rather than just installing the software, they do a system restore... Which then really breaks things. Just use add/remove programs to pull IE8 out, do your windows updates, uncheck the IE8 update and select "Do not show this to me again". Use IE7 for the moment or go download Firefox. www.firefox.com. Go Microsoft.

Wow. Killer wanted us to know that attacking the US military's computers could get you a cruise missile upside your head. Hooah!

Who the heck does a dance video with hot chicks dancing, all about a Warcraft III mod? Nordic people, that's who. Hmmm. It actually has a pretty good beat, if you're into Euro.

PC World has an interesting little article that I've been meaning to post for a while. It confirms what any good computer tech could tell you: Your computer's onboard diagnostics probably aren't going to tell you that your hard drive is about to go china syndrome on you. Give it a read, it's worth it.

Goshwin sent over a link to Festo. These guys make some freakin' cool robotics stuff. Hmmmm... Fluidic Muscle. Fascinating, Captain.

Wow. Thanks to Ariak we have a link to the oddest thing of all. WTF. Seriously, this is wierd. At least it's small enough to double as a coffin.

Ahhhh man. Looks like another long time game developer bites it. Hard to believe that a company whose games I started playing in the early '90s is done. R.I.P. 3D Realms. Such a bummer. After they finally got Prey out my hopes were pretty high for DNF. I really hope that someone else gets the project and finishes it. The 2007 Christmas trailer was looking pretty sweet. The end of an era indeed. Soooo many games that I remember playing since 1996.

Beyond the Titanic
Block Five
Diamond Digger
Maze Machine
Maze Runner
Kroz
Supernova
Night Bomber
The Thing
Trek Trivia
Word Whiz
Meteors
Phrase Master
Arctic Adventure
Crystal Caves
Duke Nukem
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure
Secret Agent
Bio Menace
Duke Nukem II
Major Stryker
Monster Bash
Rise of the Triad
Realms of Chaos
Stargunner
Duke Nukem 3D
Shadow Warrior

I feel really badly for their employees, they don't seem to have had any clue or warning what was coming. I see they were still posting news updates on their website as of yesterday.

Thanks Rune, for the horrible news.

MSI's got themselves some funky new products, including some comps that look suspiciously like a Mac. The niftiest new toy they've got though is the Windbox. This is just completely awesome. Rkhan points out that it's not exactly a L4D powerhouse but for what most people do (Internet, solitaire, photos, email, music) or a point of sale system it's be perfect.

In worse news, Sony's going to be publishing Ghostbusters? I hope like heck this doesn't mean that we're not going to see it on PC.

R.I.P. Dom DeLuise. Can't believe he was 75. Man. Makes me feel old.

Got a raft of stuff to talk about today. I really need to spend more time writing news and things for FRAGtopia. Once I get into it I always enjoy myself. Stupid work, stupid hobbies. I'm going to lobby for getting some large rocket built and moving the Earth just a little further away from the sun in it's orbit. I need more time. Goshwin's a mad scientist sort, I wonder if he could come up with anything.

First off I just stumbled across a nifty little indy game: Cortex Command. As a disembodied brain you're in control of an army (Well, a small army, but probably more troops than say, Lithuania has.) of robots. The physics are great, and I've got a weakness for chiptunes and 2D side scrollers. The game isn't nearly complete, but it's still a riot to mess around with. Looking forward to seeing the finished products, innovation and fun are good. You can grab the demo here.

Our good buddy Dman has a new preview tune out. Darren's a heck a musician if you like your electronica, I've been listening to his stuff since the days of .mod files. Anyhows, you can check out the new tune (Alive) by clicking here. Unlike the movie, everyone goes home and no one gets cooked.

Just helping the GF out with her website the other night. Not our regular news item, but what the heck, we'll give her a plug just because she's so awesome as a person and with what she does. Know anyone in the Toronto area who needs some really great Facepainting done for an event or party? Consider Xan @ Faceart.ca. She's also participating in Yoga in Motion, a fundraiser for Breast Cancer at Mount Sinai hospital this sunday. Nice work Xan, have fun.

Think World of Warcraft isn't adictive enough? The guys at Popcap games have apparently made themselves a little mod so you can play Bejeweled and Peggle in WoW. You bastards. If you're really bored they've also got a little game that allows you to make your own zombie. Sweet, it's like college biology class all over again.

Before I go out the door, I'd just like to say that I miss the Amiga.

Hmmmmm.. So far Demigod isn't bad, but it's certainly not the best game evar. I'm enjoying it, but it's fairly obvious that the folks at Gas Powered envision it to be a multiplayer only game. The single player isn't bad, but it's somewhat lacking in depth and story. More laster.

Ever wonder how big the universe is? There's some HUGE stuff out there. Even larger than Tom Cruises' ego. Thanks Runez0r.

Well, my copy of Demigod arrived in the mail a few days ago after many many months of waiting for it. I can't recall when I ordered it, but it was a looong ass time ago. Haven't had a chance to play it much, but I'll letchyall know what I think soon hopefully.

I've often commented that the Japanese are wierd. Here's some more evidence. I'm sorry, Obama seems like a good sort, but able to take on Darth Vader? I don't think so. Thanks for the linkage Zyzyx.

I blame their days in India. Darned hippies.

Just got an email from Gas Powered Games, Demigod has gone gold, and should be on the streets April 14th. I've been beta testing this one for a while now, and it's a lot of fun. Can't wait to get my hot little hands on the final product and give it a go.