TimNC.com
Life – Computers – Games – Cars

So I finished the fight and started playing online with my friends.  Overall I’m relatively pleased with Halo 3.  I’m happy with the way the story ended and I am enjoying playing it again on a harder difficulty setting and trying to get all the silver and gold skulls this time.

 The only bad thing I can say about it is why did I buy this freaking Legendary Edition?  I think partially it was because the Collectors Edition of BioShock was unknown to me when I got it and I felt cheated.  I really wanted that sound track and Big Daddy statue.  Those were cool.  But this…. this is a helmet and 2 DVDs full of crap.  I mean look at how big this freaking helmet is.  It looks nice with the rest of the Halo 3 gear I have but did I really need it?  No Sir!  What am I going to do with this thing?  It’s not even that limited as a collectable.  Mine is numbered at 508,249. 

Look at how it was described on Xbox.com

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Legendary Edition: Individually numbered and available while supplies last, the Legendary Edition includes a copy of Halo 3 in a collectible Spartan Mjolnir Mark VI helmet case, as well as an exclusive collection of storyboard art and the same bonus disc included with the Limited Edition. You’ll also get the Legendary Edition disc, including remastered, high-res versions of the Halo and Halo 2 cinematics; an expanded digital “Bestiarum” guide to the creatures and cultures of Halo 3; The Cortana Chronicles; and exclusive machinima episodes.

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The special items that come with the Legendary Edition… they are DVDs.  One DVD has commentary and a audio/video setup which shows you how to set your Xbox 360 up to widescreen mode and a resolution your TV supports.  I felt it rather insulting.  It made me wonder how many people did this and went “Holy crap, I never had the HD option turned on on my console the whole time!” The second DVD has “remastered” video from Halo 1 and 2.  Now while it was a nice watch to remind me of some details of the story before playing 3, I couldn’t tell it was remastered at all.  In fact the whole time I kept thinking “Did my old Xbox look this bad graphicly?”  Didn’t the description say “remastered, high-res”?  Doesn’t that imply that they are going to be high definition?  Man it did in my mind.  Searching on the net it looks like I wasn’t the only one.  Someone from Bungie said that it was always known these were DVDs.  Well if all you know is the description above, do you know it’s a DVD?  Well I sure didn’t.

That “storyboard art” is a DVD insert booklet.  In my World of Warcraft Collector’s Editions I got a nice big hardbound book with art and stuff.  This is like a mini comic book.

And shouldn’t the Legendary Edition come with a nice game case like the Limited Edition did?  Nope, this is what it looks like front and back.
 

The Limited Edition came in a nice metal case like Halo 2 did.

So I’ve learned my lessons this time. 
1) Don’t listen to the folks at GameStop, do your own research. 
2) Not all Collector’s Editions are the same.

MattamusX said something the other night during multiplayer that was a good comment.  You can earn different looking armor unlocks from playing the game for use during multiplayer.  They should have given Legendary owners exclusive armor, that would have been a nice bonus.  All the armor is only for customized looks and doesn’t affect gameplay at all.  It’s just like getting a special pet with WoW CEs.

Overall though I love the game, and the new features they added for multiplayer are awesome.  Not having to wait on friend invites and just automatically joining in is the greatest thing ever!

Now what am I going to do with this gigantic head?

Yeah I know it’s strange, but sometimes that’s just how timing works.  A friend of mine was selling his 60 gig Playstation 3.  I wanted a 60 gig Playstation 3.  He gave me a good deal, and he brought it over a few hours before the midnight Halo 3 release.  After I get some time (this silly “work” thing keeps getting in the way) I will post a full review of my thoughts on it.

 The Halo 3 Legendary Edition is pretty sweet… but ultimately not practical.  Where am I going to keep this helmet?  Why didn’t the game come in the cool metal case that the cheaper version came in?  When will I have time to actually play the game?

I love Fatal Fury.  I hate the Xbox 36o controller.  I’ve gotten good at it though with a couple of characters.  But how come when I get on to play ranked matches, a couple of people dominate me while I lag?  How can I lag if I’m hosting the match?  The lag is so bad that any kind of move that requires me to charge down then up and hit a button will make me jump instead of execute the move.  Against some players this never happens, and with others it happens constantly.  Then the people that this happens with, I notice that their win record is astounding.  Something like 80 wins to 1 loss.  Could they be cheating with lag some how?  Am I just so old that I suck at fighting games now?  There are so few people playing Fatal Fury Special on XBLA it’s hard to tell.

So some time back I preordered the XBOX 360 Halo 3 Special Edition.  I’m still struggling with the reason why I did it.  I’m not a huge Halo fan.  I didn’t need a third 360.  I did like the design and the fact it came with an HDMI port.  I liked the fact that my XBOX would stand out from other XBOXs.  Whatever the reason is, I got it.  Several sites have touted this version as a poor mans Elite, with the HDMI port but without the 120 gig hard drive.  Others have blasted it for being ugly.  I decided to take a lot of pictures and document my experience with it. (more…)

So I’m working on a project that requires the Java SDK.  It requires a specific version, which I cannot find on the SUN Java website.  So I try the latest version anyway, and the application doesn’t work.  I finally find an old archive of the older version, and it still doesn’t work.  But I was shocked at the many many versions of Java available from SUN.  I like to think I’m pretty bright when it comes to computers, but what about an average computer user that finds out they need Java to run something… and they go to this site?

So Wal-Mart is doing extra stuff for the Halo 3 launch, and one of the things they are doing is giving away Halo 3 dogtags.  DOGTAGS!  Full Story

I could care less about getting it at midnight, I care about the DOG TAGS! GameStop has already convinced me to buy a Halo 3 wireless headset, Halo 3 XBOX and Halo 3 Legendary package….. and I’m not getting DOG TAGS!

Not that I would wear them, mind you…. but still I feel cheated.

Or Am I Too Old, or Is It The Joystick? Part 2

So late last night I was talking to my buddy Greg about my joystick problem, and he said he remembered seeing an arcade style joystick for the 360 in a pawn shop downtown Shelby.  I only knew of one joystick like that and it was made for Dead or Alive 4.  Greg couldn’t remember what it was like, he just remembered seeing it.So today I went to the pawn shop and there it was, a Dead or Alive 4 arcade style joystick with the game and a $79.99 price tag on it.  I offered them $40 for the stick without the game and they accepted, and now I’m the proud owner of this used stick.The only negative about it is the ball-style stick itself.  I really don’t like those.  It’s short and feels loose in my hand.  I prefer the old Street Fighter 2 sticks like these: So I may modify this DoA4 stick with one of these ultimate sticks from Happ Controls.  We’ll see…..

I love old fighting games.  Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Fatal Fury, Tekken, Art of Fighting and Killer Instinct.  Those were my games back in the day.  I was very competitive and I knew all the characters well.  I competed in arcade tournaments and actually won a couple.

So why is it that when I play Fatal Fury Special or Street Fighter II Turbo on Xbox Live Arcade I am getting beaten by kids left and right?  At 30 years old am I just to old to keep up with the youngn’s or is it this blasted controller where I can’t pull the moves off?

Only one way to find out.  I have to find a real arcade style joystick for the 360.

Well around a month ago I did the dumbest computer move ever.  A fan went out in my PC and I dove into it with the power running.  That by itself isn’t that dumb, but unplugging the power from the graphics card while I was doing it (it was in the way) was.  Even dumber was plugging it back in with the power on… and having the plug up side down.  I learned that even though it won’t fit upside down, the contacts can still touch.  POOF went my graphics card, and the machine shut itself off.

 So every Labor Day weekend Shelby has the largest Hamfest in the U.S.  Even though it’s mostly amature radio, there’s always a big showing of computer hardware vendors there.  I decided to wait till then to buy some new hardware.  I can’t buy a new AGP video card, cuz that’s old technology.  Time to dump the whole thing and get new stuff.  So I went to the Hamfest with this list:

1 Intel Dual Core 2.33 GHz minimum
1 Nvidia 680i for Intel motherboard
1 Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS
1 10,000 RPM Hard Drive
1 Power Supply
4 GIGs DDR2

So at the Hamfest things weren’t as I had hoped.  Prices were higher than on New Egg and only one vendor had my 8800 GTS and they wanted wayyyyy to much money for it.  I ran into my buddy Greg and he told me there was a guy in a tent selling good stuff at the other end of the Hamfest, so off I went.  While the guy didn’t have what I wanted in video, he made up for it in processor and ram pricing.  I comprimised on what I got, but I’m still thrilled with the result.

Core 2 Duo Processor E6750  2.66 GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 1333 MHz FSB
MSI P35 Platinum Motherboard
EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS Overclock edition with 512MB DDR3
Seasonic 430W power supply
4 GIGs RAM

He also had a nifty fan that displays case temp in lights, so I got one of those also.

No one at the Hamfest had a 10K RPM drive.  So for now I’m sticking with the old one.

After I got everything home and I ripped the AMD 3000+ out of my acrylic case, the nightmare began.
I carefully put everthing together, turned the machine on and got a blank screen.  I unplugged everything but the minimal items needed to boot, and still got a blank screen.  Then I plugged the floppy drive in and discovered that when I boot, the floppy drive keeps seeking for something.  I did some research and saw that the motherboard was prone to having BIOS issues and that they had to be recovered using a floppy disk.  This typically happens after the BIOS has been updated to a newer version.  Odd that my brand new board would have this issue right out of the box.  But anyway, I put a BIOS image on a floppy disk, put it in the drive and the BIOS restored!  My machine lives!  I tried upgrading the BIOS to a newever version, and the whole thing did the same no-video dance again.  So I’m runing the original BIOS version and none of the newer ones for this board.

The machine is AWESOME.  I was against putting Vista on it but it was so speedy I couldn’t help but try it.  I’ve used Vista on other machines and Vista was a complete dog, but on this hardware it screams like a bullet train.  Everything starts up fast, games load quickly and so far no crashes.  Ok there was this one time when the guys game over that WoW froze….. (sigh, so embarassed) but it hasn’t done it since then so I don’t know what happened there. 

Here’s some pictures.

  
  

Next step is to put Fedora and Beryl on a second hard drive and see how it does.