That was the funniest game of Bad Compan…

That was the funniest game of Bad Company 2. Only one defender on a game of Rush (and he eventually left) so we all loaded up with C4 and it was a race to blow the crates! The last crate was the best. Someone was dancing on the crate, spinning around and around like in Cardnumber7’s intro while 2 or 3 more players threw C4 on there for special effect. Oh how we laughed.

A following game on Isla against a team who piled helicopter after helicopter into the MCOM stations was a touch and go thing. As an engineer I stood in front of the first Alpha, heard the heli incoming, saw it and fired a rocket point blank range and got a vehicle destruction. It couldn’t have been more than a few feet from the ground! It was a really long game and they managed to push us right back to the last base. They took Bravo and Alpha was on it’s last legs. They had 29 tickets but we whittled them down, until we eventually won.

I went recon during that game just to unlock a few more items. I also got my “Long Service Surveillance Ops” pin for 100 motion mine assists. Had some fun with the SV98 too, getting a few noscope kills and I unlocked the sniper spotting scope. Good games with Tye, Mike, Duck and Conor.

VVVVVV Preview

I have a new favourite game and it’s VVVVVV. I’d never heard of this game until this post brought it to my attention.

Apparently it’s an indie hit on modern platforms, but here it is for the venerable C64! Having played it I’m tempted to buy the modern original game and I’m looking forward to seeing the final C64 version!

So, go grab a C64 emulator like Vice or any of the other ones out there and give it a whirl. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about check out the faq on c64.com.

Great game.

Is the lag in Halo Reach coop as bad for…

Is the lag in Halo Reach coop as bad for anyone else as it is for me? Conor got himself an Xbox 360 and even though we’re separated by a matter of 20 miles or so the lag in Firefight and campaign coop was terrible!

Good game of Swat though! Skill matching rocks when you’re a noob! 🙂

Edit We’re not alone. 1, 2, 3 and many more. *sigh*

Get Angry Birds for free on Android!

The good people at GetJar.com are now offering Angry Birds as a free download for mobile phones running Android.

The game is ad supported but as far as I can see, adverts appear at the start of the level and don’t appear on each one so they’re not intrusive. Works flawlessly on my Samsung Galaxy S too. Great job!

Oh, you might have to wait a while before downloading. The GetJar website is currently down, but persevere and you’ll get it!

This advert disappeared after a few seconds.

I finished the single player campaign of…

I finished the single player campaign of Halo Reach and it was very enjoyable. Ending was…. well, good actually. Bit sad though, but it’s unlocked now for coop play. Make sure you watch through the credits. It’s worth it.

In other news, the lag monster attacked and destroyed a few games of Call of Duty WAW that myself, Mike and Conor had this evening. Sasben, hope the lag in MOH was better. Still, Mike and myself had one decent game of domination.

Everyone, leave a comment encouraging Mike to do a commentary. He’s a beast of a player and I for one would love to see him make use of that new PVR he has! 🙂

You buying Medal of Honor?

It all seemed so easy in the last year or so to pick what games to buy.

  1. Modern Warfare? Check.
  2. Modern Warfare 2? Check.
  3. Bad Company 2? Check.
  4. Halo Reach? Check.

Medal of Honor? I don’t know yet. I’m waiting to see what Mike thinks of the game!

Meanwhile, videos have started to appear on ye olde Youtube..


Geoff likes it. +1


NGT likes it. +1


d0n7bl1nk likes it. +1

So, thumbs up from a number of Youtube commentators. Apparently lag has been pretty bad on all versions, particularly the consoles. Hopefully they’ll get that sorted out.

I’m actually enjoying Halo Reach and wishing it was multi platform so I could play in a game with my friends on the Playstation 3, but maybe the next Bungie game will give us that opportunity. I briefly considered buying a PVR as all the cool kids are doing that, but Bungie Pro is cheap enough, and you can render 50 minutes of gameplay for US$5 which won’t break the bank. If I feel motivated enough to try that, add a voice over and upload it, then I’ll splash the cash. It’s not as if I get amazing gameplay all the time but I do have my moments.

Your Preferred Youtube Video Resolution?

If you have a super fast Internet connection you probably watch all your Youtube videos at their maximum resolution. Most gaming videos are uploaded at 720p which looks absolutely stunning but:

  1. My connection is either not fast enough
  2. Youtube might be throttled by my ISP
  3. Flash performance in Linux sucks
  4. Streaming videos over wifi in my house sucks

So I rarely watch videos in 720p. I know, I know. Sorry David and all you other commentators who spend hours rendering videos in high resolution. Even watching a video in 360p can be a challenge sometimes.

Watching videos on the iPad Youtube app is a lesson in patience. By default it picks a high quality setting and can’t be changed. If I view the video in Safari I can unclick the HQ button, but I think it changes the video quality to 240p as the quality is really bad.

So, what video resolution do you watch Youtube videos in? On a related note, what resolution do you watch WordPress.com VideoPress videos in? I find they can sometimes stream a lot better …

My phone is faster than yours

If you’re using a Samsung Galaxy S or one of it’s variants then my phone may well be twice as fast or even faster than your phone! How? It’s all rather simple actually.

First of all, I downloaded Quadrant Standard from the Android market. This is a benchmarking app that you can use to find out how fast your phone is. Run a benchmark and note the performance figure for your phone. Now, go look for “One Click Lag Fix” in the market and install that too.


This little app will root your phone, and install a new ext2 partition on your phone. The default Galaxy S filesystem isn’t that hot at running apps. The new partition will be used to store cache data, and because ext2 is supposedly better at caching your apps will load faster, and you’ll experience less or no lag when opening them. That was my experience with it anyway. This will help your phone’s performance significantly.

In recent updates to OCLF two new options were added, “Alter Minfree”, and “Change Scheduler”. Adjusting these will make a huge difference to your phone. Each one is explained briefly, with a recommended setting. I followed that advice and it’s like my phone is on steroids now! Apps open faster than ever and I’m just waiting for it to dance a jig it’s so fast and responsive.

Please be aware that running OCLF means rooting your phone and invalidating your warranty. You may brick your phone. That means it won’t work any more and can’t be fixed. It more than likely won’t happen and I haven’t read about it happening but you should be aware of the risks involved.

Bonus tip: If you’re running Linux on your desktop computer, the scheduler can be changed on that too. Must give that a go some time.