MOAR LANZ!

Seems to be LAN season at the moments as I will have attended at least 3 LAN's within 3 week(ends) in a row.

At the 1st one we fired up AVP2 (which lasted most of the night :D ).

The last LAN is a student oriented LAN at which I will be adminning game servers (that I installed, patched and configured using Linux dedicated server software) etc.

On another note. It looks like the UT3 Linux release (rumoured to be released soon) won't make it in time for the last LAN unfortunately :(

Now, this begs the question: Before the last LAN, what should I spend money on:

• 2 x Western Digital Scorpio 2.5" 7,200 RPM HDD (for the XPSM1730)
  or
  
• 2 x 1Tb Western Digital HDD's for the server...?

I really should buy myself a Gigabit switch, but HDD space is more important. Apparently :)

Soul Calibur 4 & PSP Tinkering

Soul Calibur 4 has become available and a friend of mine is offering a gathering for some practice before the big weekend of pure Soul Calibur...

On another note, I have managed to make the ulitimate (well, a slightly custom) Despertar del Cementerio (Pandora) Kit with ELF-Menu and... USB support! (think of it kinda like a Live bootable PSP OS :P).

All using homebrew...

Next up, Wii CFW ^_^

Dusting off the PSP

In a feet of awesomeness (and some help from a fiend), I was able to get 3.52 M33-4 (CFW) on my (Japanese) PSP Last night :)

I'm not sure if this is even worth it because I can't find any decent (working) media players for ogg/flac/vgm/ffmpeg and I want to be able to play my games as iso's but so far, no success.

I am also going to pandora (battery) it, but I would like to wait until I have at least 1 spare battery.

At least I have emulation :)


UPDATE: 26/03/2008 @1307
I found out why some homebrew apps and iso's won't load, I apparently have fake memory sticks that don't properly implement magicgate :(

I'm shelling out $150 for a genuine 8Gb SanDisk (I won't buy anything Sony anymore), I should be able to run just about everything :)

In what appears to be an attempt to (possibly) minimise FUD, this GameTab article points out that Vivendi (aka Blizzard) are purchasing a significant amount of ActiVision and will be merging with them creating the company name Blizzard Activision (for corporate brnding only).

I for one, welcome the new Blizzard Activision overlords... Well no. I don't :P

I foresee another EA simile, that is going to drive developers away from quality game development and instead towards a kind-of "sweat shop" like setup.

But I could be wrong. I can only hope that they don't become an "EA-like" managed company, although it would be nice to a Diablo-based MMORPG in the near future :)

Importance of Video (and Computer) Games

How often do you find yourself longing to play a particular game only to have other affairs interfere with your ability to be able to (at least) play? Does this affect emotional status and/or mental alertness?

I find that it does. Too many times I am pulled away from games like WoW (and allot of computerized puzzle games) only to find my mood to be that of a disgruntled/depressed/grumpy/negative nature. Which people around me generally don't like.

As a friend of mine pointed out; It is similar to the likes of denying an elderly person from trying to watch their favorite TV show...

This is also one of the reasons that I loose sleep. I am sometimes forced to play games during hours that conflict with normal everyday life, such as staying awake until 0300h just so that I can get the (uninterrupted) playtime that keeps my mood in balance and my mental alertness at it's peak, however a lack of sleep contradicts this entirely!

There is considerable study showing that Video Games are not only an important aspect of entertainment^[1], but can also be an automatic (subconscious) learning experience^[2]

So how does one go about trying to fit more game-hours into one's life, without sacrificing too much (eg. sleep, work etc)?

References:


1. 2006, BAFTA, Video Games are as Important as Film and Television: Video Games Awards become BAFTA’s ‘third arm’ [PDF]



2. L. Bedigian (2006). Professor James Paul Gee shows the world the importance of video games. [HTML]

Draino's Networking and Tech: Dead XBOX HDD???

Draino's Networking and Tech: Dead XBOX HDD???

Laziness prevents me from re-posting the above linked article here :P