I’m going to be making some changes to the site. The first thing I’m going to do is to remove all of the Google Adsense advertising that’s on the site. This is due to the fact that I’ve not been generating a lot of traffic to the site, and that Google wants some changes to be made to sites that use Adsense, including putting in a privacy policy.

Secondly, I’m going to clean up the site, getting rid of older content and links. There’s a new upgrade to Wordpress and I’m bout to upgrade to it.

Thirdly, I’m going to start posting more frequently. I’ve been really remiss about posting lately due to me generally just being a lazy ass (and being totally suckered into playing a few games lately) and spending most of my online life in FaceBook. If I’m not going to post to the site regularly, then why continue to pay for the domain and hosting, right? So, more updates will be coming.

Finally, I’m going to be using the site to expand content beyond just games. In the past, I’ve tried to simply post about games here, but I also do a lot of reading, and every now and again have thoughts on other topics. I’m not the kind of person who likes to smack his opinion on other people, so don’t expect the blog to suddenly become highly political, or turn into a platform for a cause I feel strongly about, but there are some things that I want to be able to talk about and discuss online, and as I’ve got a platform to do that, I’m going to do that.

For those of you still reading, thanks for doing so.

Categories: Administration // 808Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2009/06/18/administration-changes-to-the-site/Administration%3A+Changes+To+The+Site2009-06-18+14%3A00%3A34Teh+Bagder

I’ve been really horrible at blogging this past year, and have relegated this blog to back of the queue, mostly because I’ve been busy with family and school., although I took this Spring quarter off from college and pretty much squandered the time. That’s been fine because I’ve needed to take a break after six consecutive quarters. As part of an organizational change, my wife and I decided that we needed an easy way to keep on top of tasks, sharing them, as well as having access to calendars and email. Basically we needed a way to stay in contact cheaply and effectively. Initially I looked at Windows Mobile, but after a suggestion of my wife, I looked at the iPod Touch as a viable piece of equipment. Weighing up the pros and cons, and that fact that we pretty much have access to WIFI 98% of wherever we are, we decided to get two iPod Touches and to integrate Remember The Milk and our Google accounts. It worked like a charm.

Until we discovered iPod gaming.

Now,  you have to remember that being a gamer is part of our DNA, and this has been passed onto our kids. We’ve got a lot of access to games on multiple platforms, and we have a subscription to GameTap. Games are part of who we are, and we wholeheartedly believe that games can serve an integral part of one’s life and education. We grew up with games through the 8 bit years, through the first console wars, through the death and rebirth of PC gaming, and to the advent on iPod gaming.

There are currently over 50,000 iPhone/iPod Touch applications available to buy via iTunes, and Apple has just released the OS 3.0 update for the platform, integrating a lot of new features that game developers can use to improve existing games and new games. Some companies have already released products that have 3.0 features, and we just upgraded our iPod Touches to the new OS. My wife and I have found a number of games and apps that we’re using pretty heavily, so I’m going to post about some of them here. What do you mean there’s already a thousand other places posting about iPhone/iPod Touch apps and games? Of course there is, but this is my blog, so I”m going to post about the stuff I like and dislike. So, neener, neener.

I’ve discovered a couple of great gems of games, as well as purchased iPod versions of games that exist on other platforms, simply because wherever I go, my iPod goes, and that makes iPod gaming an easy to pick-up-and-do thing, certainly much easier than carrying a DS around with me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check on my status in a couple of social networking games and see if I can kill some things and trade some others.

Categories: iPhone/iPod Touch // 807Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2009/06/18/im-one-of-those-iphoneipod-touch-gamers/I%26rsquo%3Bm+One+Of+Those+iPhone%2FiPod+Touch+Gamers2009-06-18+13%3A45%3A31Teh+Bagder

Like most people, I’ve usually got a number of games that I’m playing at any one time, all at various stages of play. I need to get some of these completed so that I can wipe them off my list and get started on a few other games. These are the current games I’m playing:

PS2

• Tomb Raider: Legend
• Rogue Galaxy
• Ratchet & Clank Deadlocked
• Psychonauts

Xbox

• Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath
• Halo 2

PC

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
• Tron 2.0
• Puzzle Quest
• Majesty
• Command & Conquer
• Dune 2000
• Starcraft
• Dungeon Siege
• Guild Wars
• Civilization IV
• Prey

Wii/GameCube

• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
• Okami
• Metroid Prime

Nintendo DS

• Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker
• Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer

Yup, it’s about time I finished playing some of these games…

Categories: Behind The Curve, Guild Wars, Nintendo DS, PC Games, PS2, Play, Wii // 800Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2009/05/03/state-of-the-gamesave/State+of+the+GameSave2009-05-04+00%3A25%3A00Teh+Bagder

Where the hell have the last two months gone? Time to get back into Guild Wars, and other games, seeing I have the next 3 months off from school. Things have been hectic though, and it’s amazing how easy it is to find things to do when you’ve got nothing already on your schedule.

Categories: Administration, Guild Wars // 799Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2009/04/12/two-months-gone-already-urk/Two+Months+Gone+Already%3F+URK%212009-04-12+05%3A42%3A09Teh+Bagder

 
It’s Canthan New Year again, and we’re about to start giving the chefs the ingredients for the celestial meals. The wife, my daughter and I are all in District 29 in Shing Jea waiting for the arrival of the Celestial Ox.  Hopefully there’s plenty of other people in the district who have the remaining ingredients we don’t because we’ve only got about half of what we need. Some of the drop rates for the rarer items were really low and we didn’t get any of several. There’s still time to farm them today, so if things don’t go to plan in the next ten minutes, we can still recover.

Categories: Guild Wars, Kids, MMO, PC Games, Play // 793Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2009/02/01/guild-wars-canthan-new-year/Guild+Wars%3A+Canthan+New+Year2009-02-01+16%3A50%3A50Teh+Bagder

For those that didn’t manage to complete the four quests in the Guild Wars Wintersday Festival that unlocked the Jingle Bear in Gwen’s garden, there’s a relatively simple hack that will allow you to get access to and tame the Jingle Bear.  Just make sure that you have someone in your party that has completed the quest, and the bear will appear in the garden. Send in the character you want to tame the bear, and you’re all set. The bear will persist with the character until you get rid of it with a Tamer. The only drawback is that you want more than one character to have it, you’ll need to go back into Eye of the North then out again with someone who has completed the quests.

I see a whole income stream appearing in-game…

Categories: Guild Wars, MMO, PC Games, Play // 786Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2009/01/25/guild-wars-jingle-bear-jingle-bear-jingle-all-the-waaaaaay/Guild+Wars%3A+Jingle+Bear%2C+Jingle+Bear%2C+Jingle+All+The+Waaaaaay2009-01-25+04%3A25%3A54Teh+Bagder

One of the greatest things about Guild Wars is the various festivals that are held throughout the year. We recently just had the Wintersday Festival, but now it’s time for the Canthan New Year. With the Canthan New Year, this year being The Year of the Ox, comes the Great Feast, in which a number of chefs prepare dishes for the celestial creature of the year, and which players can get involved in by gathering the ingredients needed for each meal.

I’ve compiled a list of the ingredients and where to get them in one place, to make it easier for myself and others to know what to farm. The list below shows all five Imperial Chefs and what they are looking for, as well as where it may be found. Each entry is linked to the Guild Wars Wiki maintained at the original Guild Wars website so that you can drill down for specific information. Keep in mind that this information is based on what’s in the Wiki, and on last year’s requirements, and could be subject to change for this year.

[Read more →]

Categories: Guild Wars, MMO, PC Games, Play // 768Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2009/01/24/guild-wars-canthan-new-year-2009/Guild+Wars%3A+Canthan+New+Year+2009+Recipe+Ingredients2009-01-25+03%3A14%3A03Teh+Bagder

BioShock is one of those games I’ve been holding out on getting, mostly because I don’t own a Xbox 360 and I don’t have a powerful enough computer to run it well. I was planning on waiting until either of those situations changed, and the price dropped to around $10 or so. However, Steam are currently doing a huge Year End Sale with a lot of titles heavily discounted. BioShock, which originally arrived for $49.99 and dropped quickly to $19.99 was always on my list of games to buy, but this Year End Sale put the price at $4.99. There’s no way I can ever beat that price at retail, unless I get a used opened copy, so I bit the bullet and bought it. Even if I can’t play it right now, I’ll have it in my Steam account so that when I do get a better computer, I’ll be able to fully enjoy it. Of course, the wife’s laptop can run it just fine, so I might be commandeering that to play on.

Categories: Deals, PC Games, Play // 764Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2008/12/27/steam-year-end-sale-bioshock/Steam+Year+End+Sale%3A+BioShock%212008-12-27+06%3A02%3A46Teh+Bagder

While I understand the need to add copy protection to games, I have a special hatred for SecuROM, which comes with a number of different games, including Prey. I received Prey as a Crimble gift, but didn’t realize it had SecuROM protection until I tried to install it on my laptop. I popped the first install disk into my drive, where it decided to spin rapidly and do little else. This happened multiple times, and I was concerned that I had a faulty disk. I decided to switch of the real-time AV check, and disabled a few other programs, but to no avail.

That’s when I checked online and found that Prey used SecuROM in its retail incarnation. Great! Then the strangest thing happened, and the games started to install. I have no idea why, but the game managed to install eventually. I popped online to the Prey support site and found that the latest set of patches REMOVED the SecuROM protection. So, quick as a fiddle, I downloaded Patch 1.4 and installed it, took the disk out of the drive and loaded the game. Lo, it worked, allowing for the following piece of justice about 3-5 minutes into gameplay, just before Tommy got sucked up into a giant spaceship, and after he went to town on them with a wrench for hitting on his girl. These guys obviously can’t quit each other.

Now that the game is installed, and I’ve got the settings optimized for a decent, albeit three year old, laptop, I can enjoy the game, and knock some aliens on the head. I’ve played into the third scene, and the game really does deserve the M for Mature rating that it’s got, and not just for language. This game has gore in it, and lots of it, and it’s got that whole Doom 3 creepy monster-in-the-closet vibe going on, but with portls. I have a feeling I’m really going to enjoy playing this game all the way through.

Categories: First Impressions, PC Games, Play // 759Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2008/12/26/preying-for-no-securom-pays-off/Preying+For+No+SecuROM+Pays+Off2008-12-26+06%3A01%3A34Teh+Bagder

As part of this years Wintersday festivities in Guild Wars, if you complete four quests, you get to unlock a special bonus, which turns out to be the Jingle Bear, a modified polar bear that has bells that jingle when it moves. I decided the best character to have this bear as a pet would be Gwen, seeing as the bear is lurking in her garden. I sold her eagle, and had her tame her own bear, which you can see from the screenshot below, taken in the little garden she has outside the Eye of the North citadel, and where she grows red iris flowers.

We’ll have to get the kids up to level 20 quickly so that they can complete the quests to unlock this pet before Wintersday ends, because I know my daughter would love to have a Jingle Bear for one of the new heroes she gets from the Nightfall campaign we bought her.

Categories: Guild Wars, Kids, MMO, PC Games // 754Commentshttp://iam.tehbagder.com/2008/12/22/guild-wars-jingle-bear/Guild+Wars+Jingle+Bear2008-12-22+05%3A52%3A32Teh+Bagder