Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: Dec 16 at 11:48:05
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: Dec 15 at 15:11:11
And now for something completely different.

Hi all, been a while. I've been in training for the last few weeks for my MCSA (doing the work for years, just need the paper), so classes and studies have taken up a lot of my time. Holidays on the way have not helped either. I have been able to watch a little Naruto and some FUMOFFU, but that's about it.

So, how about a World of Warcraft music video? It's crude, its rude... but there is a lot of truth to it based on search engine hits!

So without further adieu, here is fan short WoW meet p0rn.

Oh and this was stolen at least in part, you can find the original at AvenueQ, but it requires RealMedia (yuck!).
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: Aug 30 at 16:51:29
I went on a rare gaming rampage last night. Of course I was not planning to, it just happened that way.

I started out in CounterStrike: Source with my buddy Lethal in Florida. We used to play the original back in the day, had a clan, and we were pretty 1337 back when it still meant something.

Well, maybe it never meant anything, but we played a lot.

I've had CS:Source for about 6 months now, but I was afraid to even boot the damn thing up because I did not want to get my @ss handed to me by the new 1337 kiddies on the block. You know, getting p0wnd by gamers that were not even born yet when I was playing Doom with Lethal and Joviax on a coax Lantastic network back in college. (Still love that 486DX4-120, great chip that was.) But, since I started to knock the rust off with CS in Xbox (thank you M$ for the free game), I figured I'd give it a shot for real on the PC.

What a game. Man it is beautiful now, gone are the bitmapped images of CS of old, and gameplay was smooth as could be. I think I have been in MMORPGs for too long, this was a nice change of pace.

And I did not suck too badly, keep about a 1:1 kill ratio.

We did not play too late, and after Lethal signed off, Laz in NY hopped on AIM. He's never on AIM, guy lurks more than anyone I can think of. I cornered him for a game.

So, we went the social gaming route, hopped on Xbox Live and played some Project Gothem Racing 2 and caught up on news. For chatting and being social, you cant beat PGR2 on Xbox Live. We played for a few hours... I had my beer, he had Scotch, and before I knew it it was 1:00 am.

I know to most gamers, 3 hours is not a long time and 1:00 am is not too late, but for the 9-5 working stiffs such as myself, rush hour can come a bit early.

So, sometimes you just gotta binge.

Comment in the Forum.
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: Aug 18 at 21:23:12
Again yesterdays news, but I have been out of the loop for a few weeks. It's nice in the mountains of Virginia, but dial-up was more than I can take ... I just stayed unplugged.

Better shell out the cash if you want the Xbox 360. News on the street is that if you want a 20 gig hard drive in the unit (which means backward compatibility, multimedia content, and downloadable packages) you'll need to shell out $400 for the premium Xbox 360 package. The $400 version will also come with a wireless controller, Xbox Live headset, and a built-in Media Center Extender (for displaying videos stored on another computer). Microsoft will also be preloading the Drive with some videos and media for you.

However, if you want to try an get the 360 on the cheap, they will be offering a $299 version (dubbed the Xbox 360 Core Edition), but all you get is a wired controller and the Xbox 360. Users would need to save games on memory cards. Does not sound too exciting.

Neither version has wireless as a standard, which is a disappointment as well. It will be an optional add-on for both versions. Wireless will run the user $99 to add the 802.11 a/b/g card to the unit. At that price I'd stick to my external wireless bridge.

All-in-all, a bit of a disappointment - but I'm not surprised. M$ wants to turn a profit on this one, and I'm sure the hard drives in the original Xbox ate into their costs quite a bit.
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: Aug 04 at 21:20:19
It's yesterday's news, but I'd be remiss if I did not mention the fact that Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 will be priced at $300 at launch.

Given that the Xbox and PS2 were both $300 when they launched several years ago, I think it is a really good price for what you'll be getting. The games will not be cheap however, most are targeted at $65 at launch.

For more info, check out the item in our store. It's not available for preorder on Amazon yet, but I'm sure it will be soon.

Oh, and as a follow-up to a much earlier entry, I FINALLY got my free Xbox game from Microsoft this week. Only took them 13 weeks!

Yeesh!
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: May 17 at 11:19:51
According to Reuters and Gamespot, Microsoft has announced that that the Xbox 360 will be backwards-compatible with many, but not all, of the Xbox 1's games.

Additionally, the 360 will launch with as many as 40 titles on release date. Most consoles to date have launched with around a dozen. With a variety like that, there should be a game directed to every type of gamer on the date of launch ... another smart move my Microsoft.

But in one of the biggest wins, M$ announced that Square Enix has signed on to develop Final Fantasy XI for the 360. One of the issues that plagued the Xbox 1 was the lack of support from the biggest Japanese gamemakers, it looks like that is not going to be a problem for the Xbox 360.

Purchase Xbox Bestsellers in our online store at great prices!
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: May 17 at 10:10:34
In continuing what appears to be a week of mini-E3 coverage on Animation Unlimited, here are some links to articles on the new PS3. First, the Gamespy PS3 Article, and then the CNN PS3 Article.

As for the good, bad and ugly here are my thoughts.

Good
- PS3 will be fully backwards compatible with current PSOne and PS2 games.
- Uses PowerPC core processing, 35 times more powerful than the PS2.
- Has Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-FI b/g built-in.
- Has support for up to 7 Blutooth Controller and 2 HDTV monitors
- Blu-Ray DVD Drive built in. (What could shape up to be the winner in the next-gen DVD wars)

Bad
- May 2006 release date. Better than it was, but Xbox will get a full X-mas season (and it will be an Xbox X-mas, I promise that ... Microsoft, I want royalties if you use that!) before the PS3 release. It will hurt the market in the US for them.
- Not as Sexy as the Xbox 360, IMHO.

Ugly
- That horrible "Batarang" Controller! It looks like two bananas stuck together, I can't imagine it will be comfortable!

So there you have it, more gaming news from your Animation HQ, Animation Unlimited.
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: May 16 at 16:30:42
Don't Microsoft fool you, you can change your Gamertag despite what they say in the Xbox Live FAQ. As it turns out, M$ will let you change your Gamertag if you "persuade" them in the correct way.

I really could not stand my old Gamertag. When I got Xbox Live 2 years ago, I tried to come up with something interesting as my old CounterStrike handle just did not do it for me anymore. I thought for a while on it, tried a few choices that were all taken, and then went with an alternate. I regretted it soon after, the name just did not flow right and was not that great for online gaming.

My subscription for Xbox Live was up for renewal today so I called Xbox to cancel my account. I did not want to be stuck with that name for another year and I figured I'd come back with a new one at some point down the line. I told the representative exactly that: hate name, may re-up account later. To my surprise, he decided to pull out all the stops so I would not cancel. The rep asked if they allowed me to change my name, and if they sent me a free game for my trouble, would I keep my account? Let's see, new name to replace my crap one, and a free game ... and I just pay for the subscription I was going to redo anyway in a few weeks?

Sounded like a win-win to me.

The rep invalidated my old Gamertag so that on my next Live session I would be told to choose a new one (and also said this was a one-shot deal, no more changes after this). I had a list of games I could get as a free one, and I chose CounterStrike (ironic given my story above).

Now I doubt they would have offered to allow me to change the name had I not been ready to cancel, and they may call your bluff on this if all you are trying to do is get the free game; but the point is, they are more customer-service oriented at Xbox than I expected ... and I am a happy camper with my new handle. Thumbs up!

Purchase Xbox Bestsellers in our online store at great prices!
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: May 13 at 21:18:03
Well, here they are, the specs on the Xbox 360 ripped from the pages of RPGDot and MTV. Got to give credit where credit is due!

I'm still blown away by the tri-PowerPC core. My company has a few of these running big chunks of the datacenter for all of our North American offices. That is a ton of power for one little gaming box. The Xbox 360 has positioned itself to not only be a gen-2 console killer, but also a PC-gaming killer.

Wireless controlers, wi-fi ready, DVD-everything... I was going to wait a while, but I keep wondering if I'll need to pre-order the Xbox 360. But, of course, I want to know how much this puppy is going to cost.

Another thing I am waiting to see, but have not found an answer yet, is if this going to backwards compatible with Xbox 1. Hopefully we will know more after E3.

Until then, drool over these stats!


1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture

Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
Category: Video Games
Posted by: Johaan
Posted on: Apr 27 at 15:45:03
Looks like the folks over at Kikizo have some leaked photos of the new Xbox 360 ... scooping the MTV release party. For pictures of the controlers, you can head to Joystq.

This is one sweet, sexy-looking beast - very unlike the Xbox 1.

Silver case, wireless controlers, 40 gig hard drive, 3 processors ... I think it is more gaming machine than most people can handle. I am really curious what kind of price point Xbox 360 is going to enter at, I'd lay bets at around $400-$450 myself. Probably more than I'll shell out given the fact that I have an Xbox with more unplayed games than I care to think about, but it is sweet.

Regardless, we'll know more on May 12th on MTV.

Purchase Xbox Bestsellers in our online store at great prices!