Sphtman's blog

Okay so I was searching through Yahoo News and I stumble upon what has to be the most condeming evidence that the world is doomed. Read this article first then come back to read my reply.

Okay so you've read it? Good.

So as I was gonna say, here is proof that there something wrong with people, they give grants totalling quite a bit of money to the dumbest, most pointless, most retarded things possible. Cutting the Perfect Cheese slice!? What the hell does effect anyone!? Is anyone seriously going to cut 2.8mm of cheese when the make a sandwiche? NO!

This is just pathetic, I mean why do some study on the most asnine thing possible? Instead of doing this they should of used the time and money to develop some other kind of study or technology.

C'mon people...

Well with a few hours there has been quote a few notable things to happen. Here's a quick briefing on them.
A Halo PC Server Stats Program
HBO spots a new program meant for Perl Object Enviroment has been released that can show the details of Halo PC Server games.
The Making of a Halo PC clan
Our buddies over at Battleground Halo have released an interesting article about putting together a Halo PC clan. Its an interesting read.

Thats about it for now.

My MacAddict issue has arrived, and as promised there is a Mac Halo preview , about 3 pages in length with a handful of screenshots, some of which seem new. Here's a snippet:

"Like a prodigal son, a legendary Mac game returns from the Xbox wilderness... with bells on.Halo's Here (at Last)When it was first shown to the world in 1999, Halo was a Macintosh game. Steve Jobs himself did the honors, presenting Bungie's magnum opus at MacWorld New York to a mixture of awed astonishment and palpable glee. A Macintosh killer gaming app!Or not. Microsoft acquired Bungie (of Marathon and Myth fame) and turned Halo into a Xbox exclusive, simultaneously wowing the gaming world and dissappointing Mac owners."

Personally I think that "disappointing" is the wrong word, I think the appropriate word would be "pissing off". Anyways, the preview isn't very revealing about the status of the Mac version.

Well it looks like IMG has gotten its hands on a preview of Mac Halo. The preview is 3 pages long and contains a few screenshots, some of which seem new. The only problem is it doesn't really refer to anything specific to Mac Halo, its just more info for those who have been hiding under rocks. I am soooo jealous; someone send me a copy of Mac Halo darn it! Anyways its mostly a preview of the story and a little about the original development of Halo. Here's a snippet:

IMG Preview: Mac Halo:

"One of the first things players will notice about the game is its graphical beauty. Gearbox has gone through tremendous efforts in bringing the visually-rich Xbox game into the realm of high resolution PC graphics. Through extensive use of vertex and pixel shaders, the latter which have never been seen in a Macintosh game before, Halo brings a rich and vastly textured alien world to player’s screens. Taking advantage of today’s high-end graphics technology, Halo pushes graphics cards to their limits with gorgeous exterior environments, stunning visual effects like reflections and glows, and multi-pass texturing to put the latest versions of Unreal Tournament to shame. While the game is being programmed for the latest and greatest hardware available, the porting teams over at Gearbox and Westlake are putting great pains into making sure the game is scalable for some of the older graphics cards out in the market today..."

Unfortunately it doesn't reveal anything new except the interviewer is a little behind the times, the status of Mac Halo has been at Beta for a short while.
Total Linkage

IMG Takes a First Look at Mac Halo

IMG Preview: Mac Halo

I guess its rather appearant to many Halo game players, that Halo has started a new trend. Whats this trend? Well, we have Intelligent AI, Vehicles, non-linear options, oh and realistic gunplay.

I find it hilarious that Unreal Tournament 2k4 (Yes, 2k4), FarCry, and Killzone claim that they are "Halo-Killers" just because they are ripping off things that Halo did first. After the other gaming production companies saw the success of Halo, they decided to do the same thing, and then claim to be original. Its funny how people like to over estimate their work, but not realize they lack the substance.

Ive watched the Killzone videos and seen the pics. It may claim to be a Halo-Killer, but it probably won't be. As it stands the only thing that makes Killzone look interesting is the bleak surroundings, but notice that every image and even in the movie there is always fog. Fog is well known to be as the perfect way to hide flaws with the engine, such as the fact of draw-in problems (pop up polygons!). They cant even use real pixel shaders to create textured effects for the love of gawd. PS2's hardware is way out of date by todays standards. Its got a friggin 4mb buffer!! Thats like having a jaguar with bald tires and no gas. The group that is creating this game dont even have a game to their name anyways. Friggin newbies.

FarCry however looks more interesting, but the fact that they claim to have the best AI in a game ever is hilarious, everything they claim to be soooo groundbreaking was in Halo, and Halo is far older than FarCry. And of course, wow, vehicles soooooo cool, never seen that done before.

Personally Id rather watch Killzone, and FarCry fall flat on their faces. Halo-Killers my butt, Halo 2 will mop the floors with these cheesy knock-offs. Halo 2 will crush them like a Scorp tank crushes grunts with its treads.

Just two articles for the moment

FarCry

 Click here for the complete text.

Not really big news, but Halo is still in the top ten in the UK. Sadly, it's no. 8, and somehow StarWars, Colin McRae Rally, Mace Griffin, The Italian Job, and The Great Escape made it on the list. Crazy Brits.

Charts: Xbox Top 10

1. Soulcalibur 2
2. Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic
3. Conflict: Desert Storm 2
4. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004
5. Colin McRae Rally 04
6. Freedom Fighters
7. Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter
8. Halo - Combat Evolved
9. The Italian Job: L.A. Heist
10. The Great Escape

Well, it was announced earlier today that Valve software's source code for Half-Life 2 was stolen.

"In a bit of shocking news, Valve recently confirmed rumors that a copy of the source code for Half-Life 2 has indeed been stolen. According to a preliminary report from Valve's Gabe Newell, hackers used flaws in Outlook Express to get into Valve's network and retrieve the code..."

Sure that may sound like good news to the people that say "0MG H4L0 2 PWNZ H4LF-LUFE!", but you must realize that things like this are not always good.

With a games source code, a person can create really nasty hacks such as information stealing, crashing, and even wiping files right off your drive. But this is if the person who did steal the code for malicious reasons. Hopefully its not, if they port it to the Mac.

Now if the person who stole the source code for I guess would be "good reasons", maybe some good can come out of this; Half-Life 2 for the Mac mb? Personally I wouldn't mind having Half-Life run on my Mac, it was a great game.


IMG News: Half-Life 2 Source Code Stolen

Half-Life2.net Post by Gabe

Hopefully this will never happen with Bungie and its source codes.

Well, lets see. I'm bored so I finally decided to login and see what I had available to me. Im a little disappointed at the lack of hot teen action, but I guess gaming will do for now.

Just spotted new news on Halo Mac; its finally reached beta. Hopefully it will be in final canidate within 2 weeks, now just to wait for my new mac. Anywho... I checked my email again for the second time today, got about 52 new pieces of spam. I find it insulting that people are making judgements about me and they do not even know me; I don't need no stupid penile enlargement, and I don't want a firmer larger chest in 30 days.

Seriously what the hell is this? Two emails one on penile enlargement and the other about breast enlargement, both from the same source. What do they think I am? Some kinda mutant? Anyways, I guess I should head off to my next programming class.