You ever go to help a friend whose wondering why their computer is running slow, get there and discover that they have about half a screen filled with toolbars? Normally I’d just figure the person was an idiot and didn’t realize what they were downloading. In reality there’s no reason to even download toolbars anymore, since most browsers now come with search boxes built into them. But toolbars still exist for browsers mostly so the company which made them can track your internet usage. If there’s a real use for browser toolbars, I haven’t seen them yet.
But lately I’ve been noticing a new trick that is annoying as hell. You go to install a game and your given the choice between the manual or automatic install. Now back in the day this was sort of important. Games would run largely off of the CD, but the installer gave you the option of installing all the files to the computer so the game ran faster. This mattered back in the day when your hard drive was only a gig and installing everything from the CD could take 200-400 MBs. Now it doesn’t matter as much given the size of hard drives, but most installs give you the option of custom installs.
Custom installs are largely jokes these days, but something that installers have been doing lately is sneaking in a toolbar installation. Now this isn’t something new, but in the past you would get a screen asking you if you wanted to install a GoDaddy Toolbar. Now though when you go to select what items you want in the custom install it seems to be a choice of game components, toolbars and useless non game related crap. I can only imagine the number of people who do the automatic install and wonder why they suddenly have a new toolbar.
It’s time to stop this. Trust me game companies, I’ve had a million chances to download a new IE toolbar. It’s not as though I’m suddenly going to change my mind about them because it’s on the install program. Packaging toolbars with installation programs is one of the most annoying trends in gaming today. I can only imagine they do it because they are getting paid to. But it’s a disservice to anyone who trusts installers to just install the games and wouldn’t actually look to see what is being installed.
As long as I’m bitching, I’d also like to see the return of actual options of what to install when installing a game. If it’s possible to run stuff of the disc, that would be nice. Not all of us have 1 TB hard drives growing off of the trees. I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff (including the god dam music) that can be left on the CD just fine. Especially if you are going to force us to have the CD/DVD in the drive to run the game anyway.
Look online for any information about the Resident Evil movies and you’ll find a thousand nerds bitching about how bad they are and why do they keep making them. Or they bitch that the director/producer is just making them to give a starring role to Milla Jovolich. Listen, I’ll admit straight up that I have always been a huge fan of Milla Jovolich, so that is probably part of the reason I like the Resident Evil Movies. But even so, the fact that they keep making tons of money on a relatively (last one was made for 60 million, most of the rest were 40M or under) small budget is the reason why they keep getting made.
Quite simply, people are going to see them. Most of the people who are complaining don’t seem to realize why the movie has so little to do with the games. At the time Resident Evil Movies started most of the Video Game movies had been busts. Since for the most part at the time you were talking about 8 bit and 16 bit games, it was rather tough to transfer some of these games stories to the big screen you ended up with stuff like the Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Street Fighter Movie. A lot of the characters, but a modified plot. Of course it’s been almost 10 years since the first movie and things have changed a bit.
Here’s the other part of that. The stories to Resident Evil are AWFUL. Run around, find keys, solve stupid puzzles and OCCASIONALLY find a few zombies to fight. I tried the original Resident Evil a bunch of times and never had any fun. I found it even dumber that you needed keys, considering you had a gun on you and the keys were FOR WOODEN DOORS! All the Resident Evil plots suck. No one in their right mind is going to make a direct conversion of the Resident Evil games to movies. If your a fan of Resident Evil you should know how much the plots suck.
In the end though, the Resident Evil movies aren’t even for the nerds bitching about them on the internet. We’ve already seen how weak the internet is when it comes to movies. Remember how the Internet was going to make “Snakes on a Plane” a huge movie? Yea, that didn’t really work out. Why? Cause the internet doesn’t watch movies. Just look at the box office totals for Scott Pilgrim.
So it’s time to stop bitching, and just enjoy the Resident Evil movies for what they are. Popcorn action flicks with no real point or ending. A flimsy plot and somewhere along the line an excuse for Milla Jovolich to be half naked. That’s plenty to make me happy with the Resident Evil series. Hell, I hated the 2nd movie in the series but I keep watching them. So if your a fan of Resident Evil and pissed that they keep making movies, just keep going on youtube and putting up annoying rants. People will take you seriously and stop watching the movie, it will stop making money and no more Resident Evil movies. Problem Solved!
Got an interesting Email message inside one of the Facebook games I play:
i hope you all enjoy kenny’s company because this damn game has ruind my life. He neglects his business responsibilities because of this game-lost a business partner. He negelects the manly responsiblities of earning an income. He ignores the needs of the ones that love him. He allowed a huge electric install that was pertant to business opening be installed in all the wrong places because he was playing this game. he killed the love of his woman because he brought this computer to her bed every night. he chose you so keep him….he is yours. We don’t want him or his tin soldiers anymore. thanks your mighty kingdom for the best christmas ever…he has cost me $17,000 and my career over this game…i hate all of your kingdom, you all need real lives…i feel sorry for your families. and school teacher retire we don’t want you around our children-worthless
Spelling errors aren’t due to me. This made me laugh, hope you all enjoyed it too!
It was almost exactly a decade since the last time I saw an Islanders home game. I got to see Kevin Weekes backstop the Isles to an overtime loss on Martin Luther King Day back in 2000. It was great to see all the banners and to see the old barn at least one more time before it possibly gets torn down. Thanks to Dom from LHH for the tickets, we were almost close enough that we could taunt Boucher.
As I noted during my Victoria 2 review, I tend to prefer gameplay over graphics. Hearts of Iron 2 is now Five years old, Victoria is now Seven years old. Yet I have played them more in the last few years then any other games in my whole collection. They are even getting more play then their newer sequels. So it might not be surprising to find out that I enjoy games like Dwarf Fortress and a few other Roguelikes I’ve played. But another reason I don’t review is I tend to play a game non-stop for a week and then get bored and never touch it again. So I bring you my current flavor of the month:
The UnReal World RPG
The basis of the game is that you are dropped off in the middle of Iron Age Finland and have to survive. There are many beasts you have to fight along the way that could have their way with you. There are also Raiders from the far east looking to make life even worse. There are many ways to survive, from farming to trapping to fishing and you are given a wide open world to live in. Of course you could just walk into a village, kill everyone, eat their flesh and enjoy their goods. In the end it’s all up to you how to live. Sometimes I like to carve up the Raiders for meat, not because I need it but just to send a message.
There are scenarios and lessons to ease you into the game, which is good if you’ve never played a game like this before. The real challenge though is just to survive the winter. The winter is so cold that as soon as you walk away from a fire you will start to freeze. Unless your clothing is just right, or your covered in bear fur. It’s even tough to fish in the winter because the rivers freeze over except for the rapids.
Now the game does become tedious, and sometimes the controls are a pain (if your thirsty at a river drink enough so your not thirsty anymore damit!) but as you improve at the game you can always add new challenges in. Or you could even try starting out in winter, a position that is just asking you to die. Also the NPCs, although lacking in dialogue can definitely be fun. The world is in constant flux when your away, so you may find that NPCs have fallen into your traps and died.
It costs three bucks to buy the one time license, and considering this is just a single person’s hobby/dream, it’s money well spent. At the very least the game should give you a few hours of fun as you try to survive beyond a month. Eventually you’ll set yourself up a little too well and the game will become boring. But if you can make your own story and find guidelines for yourself to make it interesting it can be fun. Also make sure to swing by the Wiki, it can definitely give you some great tips.
Entertainment
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Cannibalism, Finland, Game, Independent Developer, Iron Age, Nejerpez, review, Rogue, Roguelike, RPG, Strange meat, Survival, UnReal World
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