The world jeers the Xbox One!

The world jeers the new Xbox!

Last night Microsoft revealed the new Xbox called, Xbox One.

So far the world’s reaction the event is largely negative. For one thing, the design of the Xbox is shit. It looks like a Beta video machine from the 80’s. User@taherrangwala cheekily tweeted:  

Second issue the world has with the new Xbox is the stupid name.

But, the issue that is overshadowing the whole event was Microsoft’s announcement that you will have to pay a licence fee if you want to play a second hand game. Any game will be tied to a console the first time it’s used. After that, anybody else that wants to play the game must first pay a fee.

To do some damage control Larry Hryb, one of the big wigs at Xbox, went on his blog to clarify the statement by saying: “…today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail…”

That quote does not really mean much and has not soothed gamer’s fears that they will have to pay to play old or borrowed games.

Currently Larry is being roasted alive on his blog by the commentators. A lot of gamers speculate that they will rather buy the new Playstation then the Xbox on condition that they don’t get screwed by Sony, since it is believed that Sony might also implement a similar kind fee.

 

It is a shame that Microsoft fucked up the announcement of the new Xbox. I was looking forward to hear all about the new Xbox and its new innovations. Unfortunately, all we got is news that Microsoft wants to screw us harder.

What Microsoft should keep in the back of their minds is that EA Games has won the award for the worst company in America for the second year in a row! There are so many horrible companies in America such as Halliburton, AT&T, Ticketmaster, etc but the people have decided that a gaming company is even worse than them. Why did they choose EA? There are a lot of reasons but the chief reason is EA’s insistence on treating their customers like milk cows.

Watch out MS, next year you might win the Golden Poo!

You can join the world and harass Microsoft on Twitter with the currently trending tag #XboxOne.

Watch user Darkbeatdk delightedly taking the piss out of the new Xbox:

 

Review: Cut the rope

Review: Cut the rope

 

Review: Cut the rope – Caution: Addictive personalities should steer clear

This creation from Zeptolab got me hooked and FAST!  I first downloaded the free game on my Samsung tablet and needless to say did the same on my phone. 

The game consists of 3 seasons and within each season there are different levels.  To unlock these levels you need a certain amount of stars.  Below is an illustration of the different games and levels.

Game	Number of boxes	Levels per box	Total levels
Cut the Rope	14	25	350
Cut the Rope: Experiments	7	25	175
Cut the Rope: Time Travel	6	15	90
Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift (no longer available)	1	25	25

Source - Wikipedia

In each game you can obtain a maximum of three stars.  If you obtain only one star and get the candy into the weird looking frog’s mouth then you can proceed to the next game.   Here are 2 pics to illustrate just what I am talking about:

 



At first I thought that in some of the games it is just NOT possible to obtain 3 stars, BUT behold if you’re clever enough and kind of a good strategist you will find a way to obtain all the stars!  Being bit of a perfectionist and very competitive nothing less than 3 stars was acceptable for me hence the hours of fun me and the hubby had in bed at night! Yes, cutting the rope, and not the dope!

 

 

Go to Google Playstore to download your free game today! You won’t be able to stop the craziness!

Written by: Yvette de Villiers

 

FIRST TIME GAMING FOR THE “NOT SO GEEKY GIRL”

First time gaming for the "Not so Geeky Girl"

 

 

When I was a little girl, I played the odd Mario Brothers, Pacman and other well known games from the early nineties.

It was only when meeting my husband at the ripe age of almost thirty, that I got re-introduced to gaming, this time on an Xbox 360.  I thought he was a bit nerdy for playing games, but then I got hooked myself.  NO! I am not nerdy, okay maybe just a little!

We started off with Call of Duty.  And it was a nightmare to get use to the controller. I couldn’t even bring myself to walk forward let alone shoot the enemy.  Luckily my nerdy husband had the patience to teach me.  We played Xbox Arcade games to teach me how to use my controller, and that changed everything for me.  I wasn’t afraid of the controller anymore, and I could now kick some serious arse in Call of Duty.  Just a pity that when you play Call of Duty split screen and you don’t finish the whole game, you will start from scratch the next time!  Darn – and for the “not so geeky gaming girl” this meant: chuck it in the fuck-it bucket!

Next mission: Gears of War 3.  I loved it!! It gave me such a kick to kill aliens, all that built up frustration and anger (from being a bean counter – NO THAT IS NOT NERDY!) was now aimed at aliens and no longer my husband! BUT then, my profile got corrupted and there was no more Gears of War 3 L,  apparently it was a common problem when you played split screen co-op, thank you Epic Games for ruining that for me.   See below a news article.  See I did not seek an excuse to rather go paint my toenails.



 

Gears of War 3 bug crashing consoles, corrupting profiles

Epic “working every second” to resolve the problemQuinton BronkhorstOctober 11, 2011

If you were planning on a split-screen co-op session of Gears of War 3 any time soon, you might just want to hold off on that a bit.

According to an increasing number of reports over on Epic’s forums, some kind of serious bug is hanging the game at load, and rendering one or both of the profiles present unable to play at all after that.

The bug seems to turn up in multiple game modes, including Horde, campaign, and versus multiplayer.

For the moment, Epic’s official line is that “Getting this resolved is a priority for Epic. We are collecting information internally, sourcing as much as possible from the community and exploring potential fixes. We do not have any recommendations to share with players just yet.”

Or, basically, don’t play split-screen co-op.

Don’t even play Gears of War 3.

Don’t even switch on your Xbox, man.

The worst bit? Gears of War 2 had exactly the same bug

-       Source: mygaming.co.za

Luckily I forgave Epic games and we started with Gears of War 1, because Capcom’s Resident Evil 5 was just too evil, no not the gruelling zombies, but they are very stingy giving away achievements AND you find yourself backed up in a corner too much for my liking. 

I am now on a journey discovering the weird and wonderful world of gaming.  And because there is not so many games that will attract a girls attention in a gaming store, I might just one day write my own game.

 
Okay hubby, “I got you back like a butt crack” lets continue with our gaming!

- By Yvette de Villiers

End of the cube insight

End of the cube insight

Image source.

 

 

Peter Molyneux’s  new brain child Curiosity, which is less of a game and more of a social experiment is quickly coming to an end. 
 

All the game is, is a gigantic cube floating in the air, hidden inside, an earth shattering secret. The cube consists of billions of smaller little cubes. By clicking on a cube the cube disappears and reveals the layer below it.  
 

Everybody in the world is helping each other to chip away at this mammoth to see what is inside the cube.
 

Unfortunately, only one person will see the secret. The person to break the last cube will get access to a live changing secret. What they do with the secret is up to them. Will they share it with the world or keep it to themselves? Will the secret even be worth it?
 

There is so much hype around this secret that is not possible to ever live up to the hype, however Peter M is confident that whoever is on the receiving and of that secret – his or her live will change forever.
 

Currently they project that the cube will be broken by the 9th of May. However as the race heats up and people’s curiosity piqued the end date might just move forward!
 

So join now while there are still blocks left to crush!
 

You can download the game on Android or iOS.
 

 

Curiosity Game Play

 

 

 



 

The baddest dudes on the Internet

The baddest dudes on the Internet

Russian Business Network might sound innocuous, but believe me, they are very bad dudes. Russian Business Network could be described as the I.T. department of the Russian mob. They use the Internet to commit their crimes, which include: identity theft, child porn, phising, spamming, scamming, hacking, cracking, malware, viruses, Trojans, etc. The lists go on and on…

The Russian Business disappeared around 2007 / 2008 but some experts don’t believe that they are entirely gone.

This is their story.


Emblem of the Russian Business Network

Who or what was the Russian Business Network? 

Alleged home of the RBN in St. Petersburg, Russia.

 The Russian Business Connection (RBN) was an organisation that provided webhosting, Internet related services and tools to aid their customers. It does not sound too bad; unfortunately their customer’s main goal was to rob your ass blind.

The main service they provided was ‘Bulletproof webhosting’. For around $600 a month you could host anything on their servers. Anything.

Their servers were rife with porn, child porn, scam sites, phishing sites and other undesirable stuff.

Normal Internet Service Providers would take down illegal content the second that it is brought under their intention. The RBN did not give a shit what you were doing as long as you paid them.

They would even sell you the tools and services that you needed to operate your scam site. The services included mailing lists, malware for your website, access to bot-nets, spam blasts, etc.

But so what if some dude in Russia is running a scam site in Russia? I don’t surf Russian websites. The problem is they don’t wait for you to come to them. They come to you.

Spamming

Take a quick look at your spam folder. If you are Internet savvy you hardly pay any attention to the emails here.
 

However, not everybody got your shit-spotting skills and some people actually fall for this. Emails that promise you easy money, easy girls, etc. leads to websites that are dirtier than the dumpsters behind a stripclub.

The website might look legit but while you are browsing around, hidden scripts on the site are trying every grubby trick to install software on your computer. We commonly refer to this type of software as malware or Trojan horses.

Once the bastard is on your computer, the malware opens a backdoor on your computer and signals its masters that a new disciple has joined the cult.

What does it mean to have a backdoor open on your computer?

Let me explain via the way of metaphor.

It is little Billie's first time in a jail shower, the soap slips and Billie bends over to pick up the soap. Billy is your computer. The big hairy guy called Bubba moving in behind Billy is the RBN.

I would explain further using Billy as a metaphor, but I think you get the idea.

After opening a backdoor on your computer a number of things can happen. How about installing a key stroke logger to get some of your usernames and passwords? They will make your machine part of a botnet. Now your computer is sending out spam mails for them!

Hacking

Another nifty way to help you part with your identity and / or cash is to infect a website that you already know and trust.

 

During 2007 hackers placed some malicious code on the Bank of India website. The code directed the user's browser to some RBN servers that silently installed keystroke loggers on their computers.

When logging on to your online bank account, you seriously don't want someone to be logging your keystrokes. (Once again, I refer you to Lil' Billie)

Terrorism

RBN's primary concern is stealing your stuff, but they have also tried their hands at cyber terrorism. Disagree with Russia and they will mess up your country.

During 2008 Georgia mentioned something about breaking away from Russia and governing themselves. That did not sit too well with the Russia and the RBN.

They hacked the website of the Georgian government and replaced the photos of the president with photos of the president in similar poses as Hitler, because you know, people talking about freedom and peace must obviously be Nazis.

Freedom loving facist.

The situation deteriorated and soon the Russian army started marching on Georgia. In sync with the Russian army the RBN used the vast botnets at their disposal to launch massive denial of service attacks on the Internet infrastructure of Georgia. The attack killed Georgia's Internet and halted most electronic communication.

It is speculated that the RBN and the Russian government worked together to launch the cyber-attack on Georgia.

This brings us to the question - If they commit their crimes so openly why did the Russian government not do anything to stop them? The crimes they commit were always outside the borders of Russia and they probably paid a few handsome bribes to officials. One rumour suggests that a highly placed RBN member had an uncle in politics.

These days the Russian Business Network is not as active as they used to be, but experts think it is because they are keeping a lower profile and moved most of their business to China.

According another conspiracy theory* some of the top hackers have been hired by big corporations as security consultants. But that’s ridiculous, stuff like this does not happen in real life. It doesn’t, right?

*This one is hearsay; I don’t have a source to back it up.

Why Space Marine? Why?

Review: Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine

I have just finished playing Space Marine. I had a lot of fun but I feel a bit let down by some bad decisions by the game developers. 

First of all, while the character art is awesome, the game world is a lack luster affair. Not much detail has been put into the world and all the levels look the same.  

But the greatest sin committed by the developers they left for last. There is no end boss battle! Instead, the final battle was replaced with a series of fucking quick time events! They took the thing we love and replaced it with the thing we hate.

Seriously, there must have been more than a hundred people involved with the development of this game. Did nobody at one stage put their hand up and say that this is a stupid idea? 

Jokes aside though, Warhammer is non-stop action rollercoaster with very little to hold you back from getting into the action. You don’t need to hunt far for ammo pickups and you always have at least one weapon on you that won’t run out of ammo. Health is also no problem since it regenerates when not in battle. 

If you are a fan of any of the Warhammer games you should definitely get this game.

Play 1942

Play 1942

 

Arcade Games  

1942 was developed by Capcom in 1984 as an arcade game. It was Capcom’s first big hit and inspired four sequels.

 

It is a fast action packed top down scroller based on the World War 2 battles in the Pacific Ocean. You pilot a fighter airplane that battles Japanese airplanes and warships.

 

Since Capcom is a Japanese company, I wonder how they felt making a game where the object is to kill as many Japanese as possible? I guess, the ton of money the game made helped to soothe the pain.