Holy Shmoly! » Games

No More Darwinians

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:21:14 +0000

Oh well, Darwinia was one of my favourite purchases of 2011 but Introversion are done with Darwinia however. Thanks Gnomeslair for the link.

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Humble Bundle on Android

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:57:37 +0000

The latest Humble Bundle is out and features Android as well as Windows/Linux and Mac versions of the following games: World of Goo, EDGE, Osmos and Anomaly Warzone Earth.

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Please hack me I need it!

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:33:34 +0000

Just one of the many kids on ps3 who message me asking for Modern Warfare 2 hacks.

10th prestige hack anyone? There’s a ready market of players who want to cheat their way to the top!

BTW – the new WordPress app for Android kicks ass!

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Can’t login to Games for Windows Live?

Donncha O Caoimh — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:33:33 +0000

I changed my Xbox Live password recently and found I couldn’t login to GFWL this evening. “No problem”, I thought. Just change the password to my new one.

No, I can’t change the password. I can select the password field. It’s active, I can move the cursor back and forward but I can’t type or delete the * characters.

Luckily it was a simple, if non obvious, fix to get around this. Uncheck the “Save my e-mail address and password” and “Sign me in automatically” checkboxes. Now you can select the password field and change it. Don’t forget to “remember” the password again..

Yes, Games for Windows Live is a POS.

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Skyrim’s Whiterun built in Minecraft

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:14:23 +0000

Are there Skyrim fans in the house? Sure there are! You’ll recognise the town of Whiterun in the video above, all built in Minecraft. It looks pretty good too! Download link for the map in the description of the video!

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Syndicate on Thursday

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:09:36 +0000

One of my favourite Amiga games of the 90′s was Syndicate. The PC version will be available on GOG.com from next Thursday. Great little shooter, go buy it! (via)

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Ancient DOS Games – Star Wars: X-Wing

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:53:32 +0000

I think this game is the reason I bought a joystick for my PC. I still have that joystick (or maybe it’s the second one I bought) up in the attic but I haven’t used it this century yet and I don’t have a PC with a joystick port/parallel port any more! Remember the joys of calibrating your device so your game was simply playable? You young ‘uns with your Xbox 360 controllers have it easy these days! I never understood why joysticks had to be so fiddly on PC when they just worked on the 8 and 16 bit machines.

This game ran in 320×200 pixels and 256 colours. I do remember when that was and impressive screen resolution. (via)

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I think I may be done with Battlefield 3

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:51:19 +0000

It’s the game that many people upgraded their PCs for but Battlefield 3 isn’t the darling that Bad Company 2 was, at least for me and the guys I play with.

Expectations were high for this game. The trailers promised massively destructible environments and so much more but the final game did not live up to the hype. I guess it couldn’t really, could it? We were expecting a game that would be the second coming of Christ in gaming terms, weren’t we? If Jesus played any game, he’d choose Battlefield 3. Now I think he’d probably pick up Skyrim and go adventuring by himself wielding swords and magic fireballs to defeat his foes!

I played Bad Company 2 since early 2010. It wasn’t always a rosy relationship (remember C4 on the MCOM stations?) but it took over a year for me to become as apathetic towards it as I am about Battlefield 3 now. The latter game only came out in September! Veterans of PC gaming gush about Battlefield 2. Do you feel the same about Battlefield 3?

I’ve let my Xbox Live subscription lapse, and I’ll probably trade in the Xbox version of BF3 for store credit. I’ll still jump into a game (on PS3) if anyone wants but the heady excitement of the early days has already worn off.

There is a ray of light, for me at least. I’ve rediscovered single player gaming. Skyrim kept me distracted for a few hours over the Christmas holidays but it’s Saints Row the Third that is my favourite game of 2011. There is so much silly and creative fun and idiocy in that game that it’s a pleasure to play. It’s even better coop!

Closely following that game, I have to admit the many hours I put into Darwinia were a pleasure too. Such a simple game but the story gripped me – help a developer rid his computer generated world of viruses! Loved that.

Catch you all in Killing Floor, L4D2, or most likely anything but Battlefield 3…

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Xbox 360 vulnerability? No, just weak passwords!

Donncha O Caoimh — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:25:26 +0000

If your Xbox Live account has been hacked chances are it’s because you used a weak password. According to this post xbox.com reveals if a hacker has found a legitimate email address by printing the following error:

The email address is or password is incorrect. Please try again.

After 8 attempts with a wrong password a CAPTCHA is shown but that can be easily circumvented.

Now, showing that error message makes the job of hacking accounts easier but if it wasn’t there you can be sure that login page would be (and is being) hit by dumb bots that stuff the login page with random emails and passwords. My blog gets hit by so many bots exploiting vulnerabilities for software that doesn’t even run on here that nothing surprises me any more about the intelligence of script kiddies.

It would be super if Microsoft used something like Steam Guard or at the very least put time limits on successive password checks but in the meantime what can you do?

Use Lass Pass or another password service and pick a strong password. Use a pass phrase, “talking heads is a great band”, “i wish i had super powers”, “use your own imagination”. They’re all a lot better than “abcdefg1″ and a lot easier to remember! Connect a keyboard to your Xbox to type a long phrase in or you’ll be discouraged.
Limit the damage. Don’t add your credit card to Xbox Live. Sometimes you can buy an Xbox Live Gold subscription at half the price Micrsoft charges. Buy points cards if you want to buy stuff. Until recently it was hard to stop XBL auto renewing if you used a credit card.
Go live in a hole in the hills and play marbles with the mice.

My XBL Gold subscription ran out a few days ago so I’m back to being a silver member. Not too fussed as almost everyone I play online with has a PS3 or PC too. I’m left wondering why I need an Xbox 360 any more! I will make doubly sure that I have a strong password on the account.

Thanks Gavin for linking to that article, even if we do disagree about what a security hole is.

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Skyrim is pretty good and on PC you…

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:10:39 +0000

Skyrim is pretty good and on PC you can use mods to change things around. skyrim nexus appears to be a good place to get those mods and I’ve tried a few:

A Quality World Map – With Roads
Serious HD Retexture Landscape Skyrim
TESV Acceleration Layer – haven’t noticed any difference but I have to test it some more.

Edit: two articles on being a battlemage and a followup article.

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