A Rambling Geek

Wireless Woes

We been with O2 Broadband now since May I think and everything has been great. Faster speeds than Virgin absolutely no traffic shaping and I sight cheaper too. However Monday night things took a turn for the worse.

While attempting to continue the Gears of War 2 campaign with Davey Pitch I suddenly got signed out of Xbox live and my first thought was my wireless access point had snuffed it. Thankfully that wasn’t the case so rebooted it and our router to be safe so we tried again and again and again. It just wasn’t signing me into anymore despite the tests all passing and to add insult to injury my iBook was no longer working with the wireless adapter I’d bought.

Various tests and reboots seemed to indicate the wireless signal was active for a few minutes then went off. Google yielded some unwanted news that this generally meant I’d have to call O2 and get the box replaced which meant we would to wait till early next week if they sent one out. Other suggestions were to update the firmware of the router, which seems like a simple process and replacing it all together was the last things to try.

By Thursday evening I was sick and tired of trailing a cable round the lounge and had exhausted all everything I could think of including changing channels, frequencies, trying 802.11b instead of 802.11g. So I decided to give technical support a call and after 3 rings of my phone someone answered. After the usual security questions the chap had a look at our router and suggested changing the channel because 13 (the one I’d chosen) wasn’t good so he reset it to 11. The wireless network was immediately visible and I could connect so thanked him and hung up. Tried the 360 still no connection to Live and looking at the iBook noticed the network was gone. Back on the phone to O2 again and this time the fella looked at our router and noticed there were a lot of disconnections on it, which would also cause the wireless signal to drop. He altered the signal to noise ratio (SNR), explained we would lose some speed (we haven’t) and the router has been rock solid since.

So if you are having trouble with your O2 Wireless box and the connection keeps dropping give O2 technical support a call and ask them to check your SNR.

Can He Fix It?

In the early hours of Wednesday morning here in the UK it was announced that Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States. He will take office on January 20th 2009 and for me it’ll be a welcomed change. Finally the US will have a leader who when he speaks, people will pay attention and not be sat giggling in the corner waiting for him to utter some idiotic comment such as “The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country”, “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully” and my personal favourite “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we”.

To celebrate Barack’s success Jonny Saunders from Chris Evans drive time did some Barack Obama tribute songs. They included greats such as Abba’s Mamma Mia and Take That’s Back For Good but the best by a country mile was his version of Bob The Builder’s theme tune Can We Fit it. For a giggle have a listen here.

Liverpool 1 - 1 Athletico Madrid

Liverpool matches are nothing if not eventful and nail biting as last night proved. It was almost a mirror image of the game 2 weeks ago only this time they took the lead and we equalised late on. Sadly Fernando Torres was still out with his injury but on paper the team looked good and we were hopeful of a good win. Unfortunately for me I was only able to listen to the first half of the match as I was fixing our downstairs toilet which was leaking. Mardid scored after 37 minutes with a good goal from Maxi Rodriguez slotting the ball past Renia into the bottom left corner. To be fair though we had plenty of chances from Daniel Agger and Robbie Keane but again we can’t seem finish in the final third. 

The second half kicked off and again Agger, Keane and even Stevie G’s shots were wide it started to look like it was one of those nights. There was also a penalty decision we didn’t get with a blatant handball from Mariano Pernia. Despite all of this we still poured men forward to try and get the equaliser even Jamie Carragher had a crack from around 30 yards out to no avail. Robbie Keane was subbed around the 70 minutes mark for Ngog the young French lad. I have no idea why Rafa made this decision, I mean it isn’t like we have extremely tough oppositions at the weekend in the form of West Brom. Why take off our only main striker and replace him with an inexperienced youngster?? Anyway we finally got our breakthrough after 93 minutes when Gerrard was awarded a penalty. Looking at the replays I don’t really think it was a penalty but my perspective is that we didn’t get the handball decision so it evens out. 

So after 97 minutes we are in exactly the same situation we were in 2 weeks ago with Athletico still top of the group on goal difference and this could go down to the very last game as to who tops the group. Assuming we win our next game against Marseille who currently reside 3rd in our table we can certainly clinch second spot but we need to win both our next games hoping either PSV or Marseille cause an upset for Athletico Mardid.

Top 5 Games

The problem with top lists for me anyway is that they constantly change. What I’ll put today will no doubt be different tomorrow and that in turn will have changed in 2 weeks. So to make this fair I’ve decided to write my list now so not to include Fable 2 and Gears 2. My list spans different platforms from the PC and Gamecube to Xbox 360. I can’t bring myself to order these games so will just say they make my top 5, so are in no particular order. They are Gears of War, Resident Evil 4, Call of Duty 4, Super Monkey Ball and Half-life. Instead of making this the longest blog post I’ve ever written I’ll split it up into one game per post and publish them over the next few days. To kick things off I’ve chosen Gears of War. Given that the sequel will be out in just over a week I thought this would be the prime time to reflect on what I believe to be a master piece.

I’ve mention it before but for those that don’t know I can thank Gears of War for steering me away from the dangerous path of PS3 ownership to the sometimes turbulent but ultimately satisfying Xbox 360 camp. After I had completed the main story in Resident Evil 4 back in 2005 I was desperate for a sequel and happy to purchase whatever system it would be released on. E3 2006 had pretty much cemented my plans to buy a PS3, with RE5 being an exclusive and especially after seeing the rendered Kill Zone 2 video. However I stumbled upon a 10 minute video from the first level of Gears hosted by Cliff Blenzinski. At that point I was sold and began researching everything I could find on Gears of War. I watched every video, read any article and poured over all the screen shots I could lay my hands on. Christmas Day 2006 arrived and I eagerly opened the large box which I already knew contained my 360 premium, Gears and Tomb Raider: Legend. As I had already seen most of the first level I knew what to expect but still was stunned at how good it looked. It was the best game graphically on the 360 at the time and still may be, only to be eclipsed by its bigger brother on the 7th November. This game made my list for a number of reasons including the graphics, gameplay, story and controls. Gears’s basic premise is that the world of Sera is under attack from subterranean enemies known as locusts. You play the role of Marcus Fenix, a soldier imprisoned for disobeying orders. With the help of your close friend Dominic Santiago and other soldiers from Delta squad and attempt to eliminate the locust threat. You see a variety of locations on Sera ranging from prison, an imulsion factory, locust tunnels and even Marcus’s house.

There is no getting around it, Gears of War is sight to behold, it is absolutely stunning. From the moment you leave your cell you can tell there are some very talented artists at Epic. Even now nearly 2 years later the game still stands head held high, even against the like of GTAIV. The broken landscape of Sera is an excellent back drop to show off the engine as is the character models which are details and the animations smooth which further add to the atmosphere of the game. My favourite animation or action in the game is the roadie run. Game music becomes quieter, you hear a loud heart beat and the view switches to behind you jostling around as though a camera man is following you in your run from cover to cover. Weapons in the game feel meaty, chunky but not overpowered and if I had to pick my favourite I’d say it would be the torque bow. The torque bow is a locust weapon similar to a long bow but the arrows are actually explosive and if the bow is pulled tight enough the shaft will embed itself in the target and explode.

One thing the developers did which helped the game feel more realistic despite the setting is the fact you can only carry 3 weapons including a side-arm. It seems with alot of shooters you have this massive arsenal of weapons at your disposal but where do you put them? Gears opted for a 3rd person perspective so it would be rather stupid with Marcus travelling around the world of Sera with lots of guns attached to him, how would he get through doors? First person shooters on the PC were the first to have the massive collections of weapons which I think can make games too easy and therefore there is no tactics to how you play.

Cliffy B has always referred to Gears as a tactical shooter and you do need to be aware of your surroundings when playing. Enemy locusts are quite clever in that they would attempt to flank you. The tactical aspect really comes into its own when you play the game co-op with a friend. Gears becomes an entirely different animal when you have a buddy controlling Dominic Santiago. One of the main advantages of co-op was the ability to revive each other if you got into trouble. During the single player campaign if you took enough damage you could drop to your knees and die meaning you had to restart from the most recent checkpoint. Whereas in co-op, if your friend can get to you in time they can get you ready and back into the action by just pressing the X button. The last boss in the game is extremely hard to kill on your own but with 2 players it took me and Daz 2 goes and he was dead, that was on the hardest difficulty.

Gears was one of the first games to implement a good cover system. It was that good and influenced my gameplay that much I started playing Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 and attempt to get into cover to avoid being shot. In the game though once you were hunkered down in cover you could pop up release a few rounds in the charging locusts and advance to the next spot. I’ll admit there were some issues with it where you would stick to the wrong surface but on the whole it worked really well. Weapon selection was taken care of through the d-pad and the usual left-trigger aim, right-trigger fire which all fitted well. There is an active reload feature which I haven’t seen anywhere else. Your ammo counter is shown in a box in the top right-hand corner of your screen and you reload the current weapon by pressing the right bumper button. When reloading a slider moves across this box and inside it there is a small bonus area which if you press the right bumper again while the marker is in the area you get an active reload. The bullets you just reloaded your weapon with begin to flash and will do extra damage to whatever they hit. This works really well if you are fighting something beefy like a boomer and you can time your active reload just right to take it down with ease. One activity I discovered during my 2nd or 3rd play through was that with a shotgun you can kill more wretches with one swipe, great to know because on Hardcore or Insane difficulties they can kill you with one slash.

I can’t really say much about the story for the game without giving away too much of the plot. What I will say though is it’s rather short, which is a great shame as you get very immersed in the missions and then before you know it the game is finished. You pick up bits of the back story during various cut scenes, which has immense potential for future games. One such setting for a game is the Pendulum Wars where according to Wikipedia countries on Sera began fighting over the fluid substance found below the planet called Imulsion. As this was the first game set in the Gears universe I think the developers had so much history and ideas to cover that they could not cover or include it all. There were so many unanswered questions at the end of Gears 1 like why are we fighting the Locusts? Why is the imulsion so important to them? Little is known of the plot for Gears 2 but we do know it continues not long after the end of the first so hopefully we will get answers to some of our questions, I for one can’t wait.

Cheslea’s unbeaten run broken

Today Liverpool broke Chelsea’s run of 86 unbeaten games at Stamford Bridge. It wasn’t a pretty win but a win all the same. We took the lead after a deflected shot from Xabi Alonso which was rather ironic, considering the Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard is one of the most luckiest players when it comes to deflected shots, to the extent that the ball can ricochet off the corner flag post and still end up in the net. Solid performances from everyone despite our midweek game and the fact we’re missing Fernando Torres.

With this win we now go head of the Premier League and our odds at winning the title dropped from 6/1 before the game to 4/1 when the final whistle blew. I’m not getting carried away though as there is still along way to go before we could be crowned champions of England.

Rugby League World Cup 2008: GB vs PNG

Today the 2008 Rugby League World cup kicked off in Australia consisting of 10 teams from around the world. They are Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and France. Australia are the current holders and I think we (England) stand a real chance of winning it, especially after our outstanding performance against the Kiwis in the Gillette Fusion Test Series back in 2007.

The first match of the tournament was England vs Papua New Guinea at the Dairy Farmers stadium in Townsville, Queensland. We got off to a flying start with Saints player Ade Gardner crossing the line and Leeds forward Kevin Sinfield converting after 11 minutes to give us a 6 point lead. PNG hit back 8 minutes later squaring things with a try from Rod Griffin and John Wilshere adding the extras. A stroke of brilliance from Rob Burrows and Paul Wellens gifted Lee Smith his first try of the night. Again Sinfield delivered the goods bringing the score to 12-6 with around 10 minutes left of the first half. Unfortunately for England it was here where things went wrong. With a fumble from Ade Gardner after an unlucky rebound and a stupidly conceded penalty, our lead was wiped out with tries from Jason Chan and George Reppa. The half-time hooter sounded and England left the field trailing 16-12. At this point I was considering the fact we could loose the easiest game of our pool with both Australia and New Zealand yet to come.

Tony Smith, the England coach had his half-time talk planned out for him. Our biggest problem was not being able to finish in the final third of the field and get over the line. This was puzzling considering the 2 excellent tries scored by Ade and Lee in the first-half.

Substitutes Adrian Morley and Jon Wilkin combined together to put Lee Smith through Lee Smith scored his second of the night which gave England a much needed boost despite Sinfield missing his kick. Just 2 minutes earlier the Kumuls had a try disallowed because of a forward pass. Less than 10 minutes later an inspired offload from little Rob Burrows puts Martin Gleeson over the line and along with Sinfield’s third of the night we’re cruising at 22-16. Danny McGuire’s clever footwork put fellow Leeds teammate Smith through for what he thought was his hat-trick only to be thwarted by a forward pass. We were now battering the Papua New Guinea defense and Ade grabbed his second after a fantastic pass from fellow Saint Leon Pryce. Kevin made it four out of five and all the English fans including myself finally started to relax. Lee finally got his hat-trick after fellow Rhino Keith Senior spots a gap and passes him the ball. Unfortunately Sinfield misses the conversion so the score stands at 32-16 with 8 minutes to go. It looks like we’re home and dry but the Kumuls aren’t finished just yet. With a last minute surge Paul Aiton grounds the ball down to reduce the gap to 10 points. Thankfully we held out for the last 5 minutes and the hooter echoed around the stadium signaling the end of the game. We survived the first game of the competition and can take a lot away from this match.

We put in a good performance, I would not say great one because we made some glaring errors giving away silly penalties but we can go into our match against Australia with our heads held high.

It’s Hero Time!!!

Just called off at our local Tesco on the way back from seeing my mate Russell and what should I find in the store but a copy of Fable 2. I haven’t actually unwrapped it yet but thought I would share my happiness in finally getting my grubby little mits on a copy!

A Draw In Spain

Liverpool played Athletico Madrid last night in the Champion’s League for the chance to steal top spot in group D. It wasn’t exactly a must-win game but would stand us in good stead to win the group and avoid the other group winners when the stage ends in early December. 

We travelled to Madrid missing Fernando Torres who is currently recovering from an injury during international duty the other week. It was a shame for him not to be able to play against his old club as he arrived in a record breaking deal which also saw Luis Garcia go the other way. Turns out Garica wasn’t the only ex-Liverpool player to make an appearance that night, Florent Sinema-Pongolle also moved to Athletico after a successful loan period. I was always a fan of Garcia, so much so that his name is on my Champion’s League top, which I didn’t wear last night out of superstition incase he scored any flukey goals.

On the whole, I think it was a promising performance by Liverpool. Even without our star striker we were able to make chances and capitalise on them. Those “chances” though don’t include an absolute sitter missed by Robbie Keane from around 5 yards out, where it could have been game over for madrid. Robbie would have doubled his tally and we would be 2-0 up. To be fair though, we did not have it all our own way as the night was riddled with dubious off-side decisions, especially on Ahthletico’s part. The linesman was having a torrid time with his calls, as quite a few replays showed their player to be on-side when the flag went up which meant 1 of their goals was disallowed. Things were looking rather rosey for us until around the 84th minute when due to some shocking defending Simao slotted the ball into the bottom corner. Apart from a bad miss by Babel the last 6 minutes plus injury time were uneventful.

Currently we are joint top of our group with Athletico Madrid both on 7 points, but unfortunately they have a better goal difference. If we’d won the game we would be in a strong position for the return leg of last night’s game in 2 weeks time. I’m expecting nothing short of a win at Anfield on the 4th November as we would then be 3 points clear with the possibility of tying up knockout qualification when Marseille visit us on November 26th.

Gaming Overload

It’s going to be an extremely expensive couple of weeks/months for Xbox 360 owners around the world. Things have been rather quiet over the summer for game releases then we get a massive pile up, with loads of great games coming out within weeks of each other. With games being around £40 a pop I’m reluctant to buy very many and have fired up my swapgame subscription again. Tilly and I are currently working our way through Lego Star Wars the original trilogy. During the next few weeks there are only 2 titles I’m purchasing with my hard earned cash and they are Fable 2 and Gears of War 2. However going on my rental list are Brothers In Arms: Hells Highway, Dead Space, Saints Row 2, Mercenaries 2, Far Cry 2, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Left 4 Dead, Mirror’s Edge and Fallout 3 to name but a few.

Since GTAIV I’ve tried my hardest not to get drawn into the hype machine because I think it is capable of ruining almost any game. You build yourself up to this dizzying height with all the videos, screenshots and articles only to end up disappointed. Now don’t get me wrong GTAIV wasn’t a disappointment at all, far from it I just think in my mind I expected it to be something it wasn’t.  In fact I’m rather embarrassed to say that apart from the first week it was released I didn’t touch it then until early September. In my defense most of my time was taken up with the multiplayer phenomenon that is Call of Duty 4, anyway back to the topic, yes, hype!

Gears of War was a turning point for me with regards to my Xbox 360 as the only other console I have ever owned was a Gamecube.  Aftering playing Resident Evil 4 I was hooked on the RE franchise and wanted the next game regardless of the platform. At the time it was only announced for the PS3 so I started looking into the release date, prices and was happy with my choice. There was a Kill Zone 2 video floating around at the time too which sold me and I was just patiently waiting for the console’s launch. However whilst mooching around on IGN sometime later I found a video showing the first 10 minutes of Gears 1 and decided there and then that I wanted a 360 and that game. I would figure out the RE5 issue regarding getting a PS3 when the game was released as there was no date announced at that time but thankfully since then it was announced that RE5 will be available on the 360 in March 2009.

Gears 1 was my favourite 360 game and probably still is even after all this time. Yes the story was a little short and certain parts seemed rather rushed but on the whole I think the game had an excellent atmosphere and the cover mechanics were a breath of fresh air. If you haven’t tried it yet I highly suggest you go find a copy and when you sit down to play it get a friend to play co-op with you. I went through the game on the first 3 difficulties and most of the 4th on my own, but after playing it again recently with Daz to help him get the achievements, the game took on a whole new light. My partner actually watched my back, came to revive me when I was downed and we worked very well together. I’m not saying the Dom AI is bad but it will never be a substitute for an actual human player who reacts to events and someone you can plan with. Thankfully there is co-op in the new game but we are still restricted to only 2 players, I’m hoping that we’ll see 4/5 player in the Gears 3 but for now 2 will suffice.

It looks like they’ve made Gears of War 2 bigger, better and to quote Cliffy B “more badass”. We’re getting better weapons, more enemies and new abilities which all add to make the game even more special. The basic premise is still the same, duck and cover but now if you down a charging locust you can run over, pick him up and use him as a meat shield. You also have moveable cover too in the form of a shield which you can carry round or plant in the ground. There is the mulcher, which is a kind of gattling gun, the scorcher being a flamethrower which looks absolutely fantastic and a mortar canon which will be deadly in multiplayer. Moving onto multiplayer we are getting new modes and maps, as well as some of the first MP maps redone, but the biggest and most exciting addition is a mode called Horde. This is a 5 player game where you choose a map and attempt to kill wave after wave of attacking locusts which become more difficult as you progress. There are 50 levels and I believe the people at Epic have only gotten as far as level 30 so to say it’s challenging is an understatement. Gears 2 hits our shores on November 7th and I can’t wait.

The other game I’m buying is Fable 2 which after playing the first game and really enjoying it, I’ve decided to pre-order, despite not being entirely sure what I was doing most of the time. My one criticism of the original game was I finished it without actually realising I was actually fighting the last boss. I expected more side missions and the last fight to actually be a challenge, but it did seem towards the end my character became uber powerful.

From all the information I’ve read and watched the game looks to deliver on the promise of being a very immersive experience. Good and Evil play a big part in the sequel and as with the first I will be following a good path. I just don’t know what it is but I can’t bring myself to be mean or evil even in computer games. Don’t get me wrong I’ll kick chickens and tell my dog off if it’s naughty but I won’t go around slaughtering innocent people. The various reviews which have started to appear are all very promising and it seems Peter Molyneux has actually delivered on the promises/features he claimed would be in the Fable 2. Unlike Fable 1 where he listed all these amazing activities and components that never actually made it into the final game

For me the biggest change is the removal of the mini-map because in the first game whenever I entered a new area I immediately knew where the enemies and treasure was located, which just made the game feel too easy. This time around there is no mini-map instead we have a living, breathing map in the form of a dog. Though it does appear he may be no more than a glorified treasure detector which is very disappointing but I’ll reserve judgment until I get the game on Friday. Co-op is another great addition which will be available on launch day via an update, meaning Tilly and I can play together in Albion completing missions and collection treasure.

I’d be here all day listing the features of Fable 2 but thought I’d share one tiny bit, which I think is pure genius on Lionhead’s part. You can own property in the game exactly like the first, for example you can buy a house for your family to live in. In Fable 2 you can also own businesses such as a blacksmiths, food stall and pubs. Here comes the genius, you can purchase a pub which will give you regular income from each pint sold, great! However you can control the price of beer so you can actually set it to 0 and watch as the entire village/town/city become intoxicated, how awesome is that? The game is out on October 24th so I’ll try and get some thoughts about it up over the weekend.

A conference of epic proportions