Darned Endermen

One of the cool new features in Minecraft 1.8 was creative mode which allows you to fly around and build things without running out of blocks. It also stops you taking damage from mobs so I switched them on in the server for the hell of it.

Unfortunately the new mob, the Endermen, caused problems for David’s pyramid.

They kept robbing bits of it and moving them about! I didn’t want to disable mobs and thankfully someone created a plugin that restricts what the Endermen will pick up. After verifying that cobblestone wasn’t on the list I restarted the server and the pyramid was safe!

Pity about all the other structures made of “natural” material ..

BF3 Beta is Fun

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Well, finally it’s here! I couldn’t get into any Xbox games because of problems connecting to EA but I had few problems connecting on PS3 where I teamed up with Mike, Gavin and Conor. Unfortunately the game split our squad up so we were on different teams and squads so we couldn’t talk. Next time we’re getting on Skype!

The games were a laugh, hardly anyone knew how to play rush from what I could see. While attacking I sauntered into the first base and blew up a crate with only 2 defenders coming to see what that noise was after I set the timer going. My own team weren’t much better as they ran past crates (or whatever they are now) without arming them!
It’s sort of annoying that your own team mates can push you when you’re arming. That happened to me a couple of teams but I still got the arm 🙂

Also when a squad member spawns on you you’ll get pushed forward if room is limited. Right into the line of sight of the enemy. Grrrr.

Good news is, you can still tea bag the enemy, only now it probably looks like doing press-ups.

An hour of Caspian Border 1080p footage

After his less than positive look at Operation Metro Total Biscuit got into the Caspian Border beta server and has a much better experience. I have to agree with him, why wasn’t Caspian Border the main map for the beta? It’s so much more Battlefield than that other one. From what I’ve seen anyway. I haven’t played either yet.

Make sure you watch both videos in 1080p. Amazing stuff.

(Oh yes, it’s not quite an hour, but he gets close..)

Magical Friendly Fire

David said he was going to upload a Magicka video showing me, errr, being overly enthusiastic with fireballs. Instead he uploaded this one which is much more entertaining as it shows us all killing each other in more varied ways. The joy of magical friendly fire.

Next time I play I’m not taking that sci-fi wizard. He catches a cold at the mere mention of water and loses health. On the plus side, when you’re in the way of an electric bolt you get a nice heal! I’m going with the crossbow wielding guy next!

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Wing Commander IV

Oh look what I found at home a few days ago! A boxed copy of Wing Commander IV for Windows 95 and DOS. I have never even played this and honestly don’t remember buying it but since GOG have just released the third game in the series I should give this a go. The game comes on 6 CDs so I might just wait until the GOG release of one nicely zipped up download. I wonder if they’ll give me a discount if I send them a scan of the barcode?

I also found Resident Evil 2 for PC, which boldly says it only requires a P166. Imagine that. A PC running on a 166MHz CPU. How quaint. My phone is close to ten times faster than that. Gulp.

Samsung Galaxy S II Blues?

So you just bought Samsung’s new Galaxy S II smart phone. Nice isn’t it?

One of the first things I noticed when I turned it on was the unusual blue colour cast on the screen. It’s impossible to capture in a screenshot but I soon found out how to fix it and promptly forgot about it again. I was only reminded of it by the Ars review of the phone. Oddly they found the phone to have a yellowish colour cast:

But the screen has a very warm cast to it even at the brightest settings, so whites look yellowish-brown, like you’re looking at the phone through sunglasses. Samsung may have tuned it this way to mitigate the AMOLED’s brightness, but we found it off-putting. This isn’t an obstacle that can’t be overcome, and we’d likely get used to it after a while—some people prefer warmer-toned screens. But every surrounding phone’s screen will always look bluish and undersaturated by comparison.

It’s easily fixed by going into Settings->Display->Background effect. In my experience, “standard” looks a bit pale, blue and cold, “movie” looks a bit yellowish and warm. I finally selected “dynamic” and that looked the best. Whites look white. Persil would be proud.

Oh, the phone is fabulous. The default launcher sucks but it’s simple to change that (Go Launcher EX, thank you!). Google had all my settings already recorded so it was only a matter of logging into Google and it sucked down all the apps I had previously from the Android Market. Same with contacts. Definitely the easiest phone upgrade I’ve ever done.

Also check out this lengthy Anandtech review of the phone. Quite a bit of reading!

Rock of Ages Gamespot Review


Rock of Ages – Final Trailer (PC, PS3, X360)


Gamespot review

Rock of Ages came out a few days ago on Xbox and it’s reviewed here. It’s not too positive however noting how powerless the defences are against the boulder. Comments on the video differ though and there is a demo on Xbox 360. I have it queued to download so I might try it tonight.

If I get it, it will probably be on Steam. (More on RPS)

Edit: I should point out that discussions on the Steam forums (here and here) are more positive.

My only grudge with this review is that she says defensive units are useless, and if you watch the video review the player that is playing is getting knocked off & damaged on several occasions. That didn’t seem like “useless” to me.

Actually I was bested yesterday by a smart opponent when playing an online match. He used towers and blowers in a very effective way that I didn’t expect.

Oh, and here’s the review thread. It’s a sticky so they’ll collect the reviews there. Looks positive!