Just one quick review today, Shogun: Total War. Another one that’s good on the gameplay side, but lacks in style.

Also, Que has just informed me that he is the Mad Phat Playa. I think that’s newsworthy enough.

Yeh, so… yesterday, amidst being sick 😕 , I did something to the music DB that Snake calls the “most boom thing [I’ve] done this year” 8) . [Chief Note: Actually, I said it “was the only boom thing [he’s] done all year”] I made it so that if a song doesn’t have a download or review URL filled in, the entry doesn’t have links in those areas. Of course, this makes it much easier to distinguish songs that can be clicked from songs that can’t… eliminating confusion (though I debate the possibility that it also eliminates page load time, since extra code has to be loaded to perform this trick). Also, Snake made it so that you can click the artist name and genre in the tables, and it’ll show all songs by that artist or of that genre!

We currently have 151 songs (mainly ones I added), and it looks like Quelog even rated one of the new ones! Maybe you won’t be dropped to contributing editor, que 😀 …

Probably the best feature of a game engine is its ability to be changed modularly. UT is a perfect example. Today, I took a break from my annual journey to hell (for Diablo’s asskicking) for some mutator testing. I was totally, jaw-droppingly amazed at this one called Lazy Matrix. With a little bit of tweaking through the much-appreciated mod setup menus, I have achieved utter slowmo bliss. 8)

“What’re you trying to say? I can dodge bullets?”

“No, I’m saying…when you’re ready, you won’t have to.”

So, Lazy Matrix is definitely a must for UT players. I suffered some crashes while playing it, but it’s been worth it. Other mutators that offer much value to your old UT experience include the following:

Pinata – you have the opportunity to pickup everything a fragged player was carrying. Sometimes, you’ll even rush back to your corpse to see if you can retrieve some of your weapons.
Relics – they come in a Digital Extremes addon and add so much to the experience. You’ll wish you had redemption when that vengence blows up in your face.
Akimbo – If dual enforcers wasn’t good enough, how about dual miniguns? Nuff said. 😮
Soul Harvest – A classic…not only do you have to kill people, but you also have to harvest their soul. (Adding the Relic of Vengence with this mutator has some rather interesting gameplay effects.)
MoreGore – Never enough gibs and blood…never.

There are others, but those are may current favorites. You can download them from our server here. On with the screenies…

I did some JavaScript yesterday that enables you to sort the Music DB dynamically. What does this mean? Well, previously, if you sorted, it sorted the entire database. Now, if you sort, it will only sort your search results. 😮

For example, if you search the Music DB for “Nine Inch Nails” in the top search box, you’ll get a list of all the songs by Nine Inch Nails that are in the DB. The trick here is that now you can sort by any of the columns by hitting the sort arrows and it will sort only what you see on the page. You could sort by the rating I gave the songs, length, alphabetically by name, artist, genre. Enjoy, that JScript took 4 to 5 hours to make.

Also, Quelog be da mad playa! 😛

µhhh… oh yeh, it’s late… and, I just installed Windows XP 8) . Yeh, I put it on my second partition that I created @ Surge 2.1… it’s pretty amazing… even installed my sound card and keyboard all by itself. It also has much better options for adjusting My Computer and Start Menu appearance things than Win98. I still need to activate it and convert to NTFS though (I wasn’t sure if I should, since I have other files on that partition already).

Also, the new Music DB is pretty much complete… we have 62 songs currently, and all that needs changing, as far as looks go, is the old MOD logo on the home page 😮 . Check it out.

Since my GF4 sucks badly (probably cause I put a fan on it), I gotta get a new card for Surge 2.5 (3.0 if I get a switch, too), so… I looked the other day, and found my dream card. It’s expensive, but I should have it in a few weeks. It is OCSystem.com’s Leadtek WinFast A250 Ultra TD nVidia GeForce4 Ti4600, w/ an extremely int heatsink/dual-fan cooling unit, 2 DirectX 8.1 games, and S-Video and DVI outs 😀 .

Finally, my IE problems are all squared away… Savior of DNS: Snake‘s dad’s Dell; savior of IE security: Que’s files; potential savior of modem-undetection-on-restart: Windows XP informing me I’m low on free IRQs.

Out…

If I ever figure out the mother fucker that changed the IP for the DNS AGAIN, I’m kickin his ass. 😡 DNS = Static IP. ISPs, read the equation until it finally sinks in.

Converting the MOD database to the Music database is slow in coming because of changes to the format and size of the database. But, when it’s done, Loogie and I predict at least 600 tracks/songs/whatever added to it.

As for Kat…I dunno, I was playing the most intastic MOD for Half-Life, The “They Hunger” Trilogy, when she popped up. I still think she’s a myth. And as for Que’s “different Kathleen”…How you doin, sweetness? 😉