Naturally, Alvin was in front of his computer awaiting that familiar new email sound. He could practically see the email before it even arrived, and opened it as quickly as he could. He couldn’t believe it. He was in the beta for Starcraft 2. The client weighed in at a hefty 12.5GB but he wanted that game badly. He immediately twittered his elation, facebooked his excitement and blogged his amazement. His friends from across the globe began checking their own emails, finding the same email sitting there, waiting…

In an unprecedented move, Blizzard had invited everyone they had on record.

Meanwhile, Alvin had eagerly sat through the download which had seemed to take an agonisingly long time. The progress bar ticked slowly to 97%… 98%… 99%… the sweat gathered on Alvin’s brow as he steadied his hand over the “Open” button, ready to start the install. Ready to become the world’s first player of Starcraft 2 Beta.

100%! Alvin clicked with all the speed his SC1 trained reflexes allowed. Another progress bar and then… a glorious ToS. Never had Alvin been so happy to see a ToS screen. He quickly clicked his way through the installer, stopping at nothing, accepting all the defaults – his carefully organised hard drive be damned! Finally, the installer had done its task. The Starcraft 2 Beta was installed and ready to fire up. Alvin held his breath and in tandem with millions of people across the globe he double clicked the icon. The hard disk whirred into action, millions of HDD LEDs flickered in harmony as everyone’s monitor went black – the dark before the dawn as the introductory cinematic loaded. In that moment on millions of computers around the world, a beautifully crisp high definition video began to play and Rick Astley began to sing Never Gonna Give You Up.

It was Monday, September 21st, 2009 – the day Blizzard rickrolled the entire world.

SC2 will never be released

Team Fortress 2: my favourite class, the Pyro

I’ve been helping my mate Ash out with some web stuff lately and in return he bought me The Orange Box.  For those who don’t already know, The Orange Box is a set of six games from Valve.

• Half Life 2
• Half Life 2: Episode 1
• Half Life 2: Episode 2
• Half Life 2: Lost Coast
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

The one that demanded my attention was Team Fortress 2.  I saw Ash playing it a while ago and loved the whole look of it.  Having recently upgraded my computer, it was one of the first games on my list of games-to-buy.

Having played for a short time now (a total of 3.7 hours) I can honestly say I dig the shit out of this game (and not in a gay way).  It’s very fast-paced, there are a LOT of small goals to shoot for in the form of achievements (so you always feel like you’re getting somewhere, even if you’re losing each game) and there is a great selection of play styles to choose from in the form of classes.

You can get up close and personal with the Pyro, blazing a fiery trail through the other team while bouncing their rockets and grenades right back at them.  Your flame thrower comes equipped with the ability to emit a compression blast, capable of flinging other players around and putting out team mates who have been set alight.  Or you can just use your flame thrower to shoot bursts of flames at your team mates, in the hope they might catch alight, thus being revealed as an enemy spy.

You can infiltrate the other team as a spy, disguised to look exactly like a teammate to them, allowing you to destroy buildings and backstab key players. The spy is also capable of moving around the map entirely undetected, unless you accidentally bump into someone (you can run through teammates, but you bump into players of the opposing team.  This is a key factor in spotting spies).

You can work as an engineer to fortify your teams position, providing the crucial support your team needs to gain a foothold in a tricky game.  Engineers have the ability to strengthen the current position and the front line with a combination of automated turrets and teleporters that enable players to reach the front line in no time.

You can protect your fellow team mates as a medic, healing them in a tight spot and even deciding the game occasionally with a carefully timed invulnerability.  Even better, why not team up with another medic to become a nigh unstoppable chain healing duo?

You can play as the soldier, blasting foes away with a well aimed rocket blast.  Gaining access to tricky areas is no problem for the rocket jumping soldier.  If you come across an enemy Pyro who enjoys spitting rockets back at you, feel free to break out the ol’ Shotgun and outgun him from outside his flamethrower’s range.

Additional classes include the Heavy, the Sniper, the Demoman and the Scout.  All of the classes offer a very unique style of play and should afford a huge level of replayability.  I have so far played primarily as the Pyro (which I’m told is the best class for beginners) with a brief stint as a Spy and a Demoman.  The game is one that seems deceptively simple on the outside, which means new players can jump straight in and enjoy themselves immediately.  At the same time however, there is a lot of depth to the game just waiting to be explored by the more enthusiastic players.  As an example, one of the achievements I earned last night is called “Pilot Light”.  How do you get it?  You need to wait for an enemy soldier to rocket jump, and then set them on fire while they’re in the air.  It’s that kind of crazy shit that will keep this game fresh and fun for me for a long time.

If you’re looking for some examples of how fun this game can be, check out Ash’s regular feature “TF2-uesday“.

Weird KIDS

Submitted by Sims3rockzmysocks9

Description: No description provided.

GHOST CONCEPTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!GHOST BABY!!!!!!!!!!

Submitted by champsofky01

Description: LIFE AFTER DEATH EXISTS.. !!!!!!!

A TRUE love GHOST Story

Submitted by champsofky01

Description: Who says love dies when life ends? This story proves that is wrong, It’s long, But watch it to the end, for a surprise.

TALKING ON 5 PHONES ALOT!!!!!

Submitted by kevinislove

Description:
PEOPLE HAVING A CONVO AND IT IS REALLY AWKWARD!!!HAHA

pregnant causes problems

Submitted by bubblegirl226

Description: No description provided.

A Hobo in Sims 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Hobos Rule!!1

Submitted by Sims3rockzmysocks9

Description: A video of a Hobo!

Please, please don't be a terrible and shitty game

As I mentioned in one of my other updates, I’ve been reading a LOT about Diablo III lately, and figured I would post an entry detailing why exactly I’m so excited about it.

Diablo & Diablo II

Both Diablo and Diablo II were amazing games with a lot of replay value, meaning I played the absolute shit out of them.  That being said there were a lot of annoyances that will hopefully be removed in Diablo III.  Of the few I can remember, these ones stick out the most:

• No ability to “link” items to others in multiplayer, meaning you have to manually type out the stats, or drop it for the player to check out themselves.  Neither is really very convenient.
• ‘Tetris-style’ inventory resulting in constant juggling of inconsistently sized items to free up more space.
• Skills & stats are set in stone and all changes are permanent making it very easy to completely ruin a character.
• Resolution permanently set to a maximum of 800×600 (or 640×480 in the case of Diablo).
• No real incentive to apply stat points and/or skill points as you get them.  The player can effectively hoard their points and them place them all into some really high skill.
• No real indication of whether an item is worth keeping to sell or not.  Picking up a magic item, then identifying it and selling it can often leave you at a loss, if you had to purchase a Scroll of Identify.  Gay.

As you can see I whine a lot, but I really do love both the games.  The good news is ALL except one of the above points have been confirmed as solved in the newest Diablo.

Skill Points and Stat Points

Current word on this is that the game will allow you to reset your skill points and stat points will no longer be configurable.  The exact mechanic for resetting skill points has not been decided upon.

Regarding the stat points, a lot of people were very upset by the decision to up stats by set amounts every level instead of allowing the player to distribute them as was the case in the other two Diablo games.  Personally I haven’t made up my mind whether I like the decision or not, but I definitely don’t share the same level of concern as the fans who are raging about it.

Inventory Changes

One of the biggest frustrations in Diablo and Diablo II is the juggling of variously shaped items in order to cram that latest drop into your inventory.  The creators said they didn’t want to remove the differently sized icons as they felt it provided depth (it did).  What they’ve done is separated the bag space into three sections – big items, small items, and quest items.  This allows things like scrolls, potions etc to take up less space than a shield or y’know, a great big fucking poleaxe, while still removing the need to constantly shuffle items around at the breakneck battle.net pace.

Resolution

I don’t know if this has been confirmed now that I think about it, but it can safely be said that the resolution will be able to scale right down for lower end systems, or scale right up to a beautiful maximum for the top end systems.  If I looked around I’m sure that’s confirmed somewhere, but I’m so positive it will be possible I haven’t even bothered to check.

Item Value

While there have been plenty of screenshots showing item tooltips with sell value included, I haven’t found any conclusive evidence that this is intended to remain in the final version.  The fact it’s in there now is a good sign however, and if it stays will provide a LOT of help when deciding whether you should sacrifice that spear to pick up that axe.

Item Linking?

No word on this as yet, as far as I can tell.  Battle.net is getting a complete revamp into what will become Battle.net 2.0, so I would hope that the feature will be supported and included after the reworking.  So again, no official word to my knowledge, but it’s highly likely you’ll be able to link items to people so they can see the stats without having to own the item.

Conclusion

It seems highly likely that all the major issues with the past two games have been seized upon and removed, but only time will really tell whether the new solutions are any better than the old problems.  The game looks incredibly good from what has been seen so far and if the web site is anything to go by, the lore involved will be deep and thorough (though apparently skippable if that’s not your thing).

All I can say is at least Starcraft II is due this year, so I have something to hold me over while I await Diablo III.

The first of these is “The Bugaler”. Continue reading to see the movie and a brief synopsis…

the bugaler

This amazing contribution from alis102938 is the story of a family who is ‘burgled’ one night and are capable of communicating only by phone.

The story starts in the house of some people I don’t care about, where a burglar is doing burglar things like sneaking around and such.  A girl then phones some guy (presumably brother and sister) to let him know “it’s happed again”.  He initially responds with disbelief:

But she proceeds to set him straight:

The brother, convinced the house has in fact been robbed, decided to phone his mother who is understandably upset:

The house now being a dangerous place to stay, the mother phones a friend to organise temporary accommodation.  The brother is impressed with the relocation:

And the mother is finally able to relax…

And all is well until the mother reveals to the friend that they intend to stay for several months!  This doesn’t go down well…

The mother heads home to pack up her children and her belongings, but what’s this?? Their NEW place is being robbed!

The mother won’t stand for this, and a fight between two as yet unmentioned characters occurs.  (I think we’re supposed to think it’s the mum vs. the burglar or something?)  At any rate, it seems the mother scares away the burglar and the friend is so pleased she lets the family stay with her.