Sat 25th Feb, 2006 -  Top 5: Worst Games I’ve Ever Played

Once in a while my common sense goes haywire and I end up (renting, borrowing, buying) really bad games. I mean everyone does this at one time or another and not only with videogames, who hasn’t rented a bad movie in their lifetime. Yesterday while talking to Edu, a few of these really bad games came to mind. So we’ve decided to each do a post about these games. So without further ado, I present to you my top 5 worst games I’ve ever played:

1. Ground Zero, Texas (Sega CD): This game brings back memories. You see, I never owned a Sega CD but one of my friends did and he invited me over to play this game. The premise of the game is that you’re a Government Agent who’s sent to the town of “El Cadron” Texas to save the people from the alien invasion. This game is a Full Motion Video (FMV) game and you basically had control of 4 camera views and a crosshair targeting system that let’s you shoot down aliens, some which are disguised as humans.

Ground Zero, Texas

I played this game for about 20 minutes, and I can tell you something, this game was repetitive as hell and frustrating as well. It was frustrating because once in a while, somebody who looked “like someone you could trust” would pull a gun out of their @$$ and shoot you. That sucked, you would have to start the FMV sequence again, and with all the bad acting going on it was not the thing you wanted to do. Interesting note, this game was the first game directed by a Hollywood director, Dwight H. Little, director of Halloween 4, Free Willy 2 and an X-Files Episode.


2. Friday The 13th (NES): Now this one I rented. I thought the game was all about fighting Jason one on one, man was I wrong. It was the other way around, you had to prevent Jason from killing all of the campers. Once you saved all the kids then you could fight Jason. I remember fighting zombies with rocks and that’s about it. What can I say about this game, it’s a really crappy game and I can’t believe I got influenced by the franchise. I found this awesome review/guide that will take you back to the good ‘ol days of camping.

The Pac

3. Pac-Man 2 : The New Adventures (SNES): This is not your run-off-the-mill Pac-Man game where you try to eat all the pellets and capture ghosts. In this game, Pac-Man is a married man with child and his adventures are based around this. He has to, for example, get milk for his baby. This is where the fun begins, you see, you don’t actually control Pac-Man, you get to remove obstacles in his way that prevent “The Pac” from reaching his objective. There’s nothing more fun than preventing the local neighborhood dog from eating Pac.

Clay Fighters

4. Clay Fighters (SNES): I remember this crappy game well, this game made me loose the 1995 local Blockbuster Video Game Challenge. I mean the controls in this game were horrible and the fact that the characters on the game were so unbalanced (in fighting terms) make this one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I lost 2 of the 3 rounds of fighting with Mr. Frosty, and I did so good in the challenge with the “Turtles In Time” game. Not fair I tell you, not fair…

7th Guest and CD-i Console

5. 7th Guest (Phillips CD-i): Now don’t get me wrong, the 7th Guest is a a relatively good video game, it was the CD-i that sucked. Around 1991 Phillips released the CD-i during that whole Nintendo/Sony/Phillips CD adapter for the SNES fiasco. Well the CD-i was a multimedia CD player with a focus on educational titles and games. It had a 1X CD drive so loading times were unbearable and this made games unplayble. The controller was horrible, it would be a miracle if you got it to click where you wanted. Well a friend of mine bought one, didn’t like it, and gave me a test drive of the system so that I would buy it from him. What can I tell you…. I currently don’t own a CD-i. Interesting note: the CD-i had a game called “Thunder In Paradise” based on the TV series of the same name.

posted by Administrator :: categories: Games ::  Comments (2)

Thu 16th Feb, 2006 -  My Super Mega Ultra PC Tech Case

Just bought a new case, $20-25 at the Home Depot.

Husky Tools Case

Case

Got the idea from this guy who used the same case to carry his Xbox 360. As you can see in the pics, it’s made of aluminum and plastic (looks like something to carry weapons grade plutonium in it,) it’s very spacious, plus it includes a shoulder strap and the divisors inside the case can be arranged the way you want.
So what’s in my Super Mega Ultra PC Tech Case:

Case Bottom

1: My CD’s (Including various Windows and Office Instalation cd’s, The Ultimate Boot CD, Bart’s PE, Knoppix
Live CD
, Norton Partition Magic 8.0, Open SUSE Linux, and PC BSD Linux)
2: RadioShack’s Cold Heat Soldering System
3: Compressed Air
4: Antistatic Bag / Power Cable
5: External USB Drive
6: Some extra cables and tools
7: Tools (I still haven’t filled it up yet) Pictured at the bottom

Case Top

There’s still a whole lot stuff I have to buy to finish the ultimate pc case, but man I love the way it’s shaping up. PC techs take notice…go get your’s at the Home Depot, for $20-25 this is a steal.
(This case reminds me of the attache case Leon carries in the Resident Evil 4 game.)

posted by Administrator :: categories: Tech ::  Comments (2)

Wed 8th Feb, 2006 -  Why Carpal Tunnel Sucks

A few weeks back, I remember waking up one day and feeling my right hand completely numb. It was my whole hand, palm and fingers, were numb. I thought that maybe I had slept with my hand in the wrong position all night and that it would go away in a few minutes, it didn’t. I spent almost the whole day with this numbness in my hand, by this point it had become an annoyance.

My numb hand
My Numb Hand

So I consulted with one of my colleagues and he told me it was probably carpal tunnel (Josue…thanks for the diagnostic). It made sense since I presented the typical numbness distribution and I spent most of the day before playing with my DS (hence the repetitive strain). At this point I got a brace for my hand and I let it rest for a few days till it healed.

Brace
My Hand On Carpal Tunnel

Last Thursday I decided to play a little Halo 2 on Live, my hand got sore as hell once again.

Culprit #1
Culprit #1

On Friday, my hand was still messed up and I had to help the American Heart Association with blood pressure taking at a local mall. 50 blood pressures later, my hand was so badly damaged, it was just pure agony at this point.

Culprit #2
Culprit #2

Today the brace doesn’t work; my hand feels like if someone was cutting the nerves inside with a scalpel, I can’t play Halo 2 (even though I recently renewed my Live subscription) and I almost couldn’t finish this blog post. I will probably have to operate my hand or get some steroid injections to reduce the inflammation. This is why carpal tunnel sucks, and if I had known my hand was going to this fucked up, I would’ve taken much better care of it. So to my fellow gamers, office workers, computer programmers, etc. here are a few guidelines to follow so you don’t end up like me:

1. Take breaks!!!! Don’t go playing on Live or typing for hours on end without a break.
2. Do hand exercises.
3. Maintain good posture, it helps a lot.
4. If you think you have carpal tunnel, visit a doctor before it gets worse, you can lose your finger mobility for good.

posted by Administrator :: categories: Uncategorized ::  Comments (3)