Rant No. 9 Certain Popular Indie Games

Today, Steam brought me to the attention that Robocraft had had a fairly large update, and having not played the game in about half a year, I decided to load it up, just to see what had changed since what I remembered the game being like, and to see what new (and hopefully exciting) features had been added. What I found was not what I wanted, but, I suppose, I should have seen it coming.

Review No. 116 Star Wars Lighsaber Escape

Strong Points:
Fun
Free
Technologically Impressive
Phone works well as a Lightsaber
Equipment available for use
No download required

Weak Points:
Bad wifi can cause Lightsaber to disconnect
No real way to attack the Storm Troopers
A bit short (but this is expected)
Textures of some things are a bit too low resolution to be seen up close.

PC Building: Week 12 - Benchmarking

It's been 11 months since I officially started this project on my DofE blog, but I realised that I never got around to testing my PC! Here are the benchmark statistics from it:

App Review No. 94 Thomas Was Alone

Strong Points:
Characters have a real sense of personality (despite being rectangles)
Quirky, loveable graphics
Good gameplay
Good music
Good story

Weak Points:
A bit short
Can be frustrating

Live Blog: EGX 2015

A live blog of the events of EGX 2015. Ready to view at a time that suits you!

First Impressions: Orbital Gear

Harry, Satamer and I are going to EGX this weekend, and as part of the ticket, EGX are giving away a free game on Steam - Orbital Gear. Orbital Gear is a really fun, third-person, 2D space themed shooter, where the action revolves around players moving around and interacting with the various gravitational fields of planets in deathmatch. There is another gamemode, but due to the low amount of players on the servers, you can't find any games that are taking place, so currently the game is limited to DM and the single player game mode - Orbital Trials.

PC Building: Week 11 - SATA Cables and IDE Converter

This week, I did some research, and came up with a solution about how to access my files off my old IDE hard drive from my 2005 Dell Dimension 3000, which I recently disassembled as I don't use it any more.

PC Building Week 10 - Changing Default Installation and User Profile Location

This week, I did some registry editing in order to move my user profile and default installation directory to my secondary 1TB Hard Drive.

PC Building: Week 9 - Operating System Installation

This week, I decided to install my operating system onto my PC, which was a lot harder than it looks, due to my lack of a disc drive connected to my PC. First, I created an Ubuntu Live USB, so that I could at least use my computer to find a solution to my problem. Then I began to search for a solution, which I found in the form of a boot USB. At first I tried to do this straight from the Windows 8.1 iso that I had downloaded, but as this failed time, and time again, I decided to create one from the Windows 7 boot disc that I had from my old PC, but this, too failed. I had one final idea - to connect up my DVD drive in place of my main hard drive temporarily (since I only had 2 of the 3 SATA cables I needed) and install a temporary copy of Windows 7 onto the SSD. Once the Windows 7 installation was complete, I installed one program - Daemon Tools, a virtual disk drive application that I could then use to mount the Windows 8.1 iso. I then ran the installer on it, to install Windows 8.1 onto my PC. Quite a long winded approach, but the only way that I could think to do it without the SATA cable I needed for my disk drive.

This has been a Behind the Team post from Thomas (The Stacinator). Bye for now!

PC Building: Week 8 - Troubleshooting

The majority of this week, I spent troubleshooting why my PC doesn't boot to BIOS, removing each component in turn and seeing if it would boot. Finally, I came across the source of my problems: last week, I plugged the fans into both the PSU and the motherboard, as there is a fan header on the motherboard, but this is apparently not the way you are meant to do things! Either you connect the fans to one, or the other, but not both! I decided to connect it to the PSU, as although I am sacrificing control, the fans spin faster, meaning my PC will run cooler.

This has been a Behind the Team post from Thomas (The Stacinator). Bye for now!

PC Building: Week 7 - Building Part II - Non-Required Components

This week, I installed the last few critical components into my machine (my HDD, SSD and CPU cooling fan), and added the rest of the components to the motherboard to produce a machine that I hope will boot.

PC Building: Week 6 - Building Part I - Core Components

This week, I began to put my components together in the case to create a bootable machine. I attached the basic components (CPU and RAM) to the motherboard, connected the PSU and mounted both items into the case.

PC Building: Week 5 - Last Minute Changes and Ordering

After a discussion about cooling with my Dad, I have decided to replace the stock CPU cooler, I have decided to buy a Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO, as reviews state that this will give my components a longer life, and the system will run cooler and quieter. I also decided to change my mouse, keyboard and headset for a bundle, as they were cheaper, and matched better together.

I also received the case for Christmas, and have gained enough money to order my components from various sources. All in all, it cost just over £900. 

Merry Belated Christmas (again), and Happy Belated New Year!

This has been a Behind the Team post from Thomas (The Stacinator). Bye for now!

PC Building: Week 4 - Completed Price Comparisons

This week, I completed my price comparisons for the Non-Required Peripherals, meaning that I was ready to start buying my components next week, with my money from Christmas.

Merry Belated (or early) Christmas Everyone!!

PC Building: Week 3 - Price Comparisons

This week, I performed price comparisons on all of my components to find the best possible deal for the item I want. I managed to get a price for all of my required parts, and have pasted them below.

First Impressions: Terrorhedron

A few weeks ago, there was a game on sale on Steam for 19p, which Oli decided to buy me (thanks Oli!). That game was Terrorhedron, a 3D tower defence game where you have to defend your base at incoming 3D shapes (hence the name 'Terrorhedron' - a pun on the word 'Tetrahedron' - the simplest 3D shape - made of equilateral triangles).

PC Building: Week 2 - Finalised Component List

This week, I decided which specific components I wanted, balancing price and quality evenly:

PC Building: Week 1 - Researching Components

Over 3 months, I planned, built and tested a computer from parts as part of the skills section of my Duke of Edinburgh's award.

This week I did some research, and found that I require these parts in order for it to work.

Review No. 113 Far Cry 3 - PC (18+)

Strong Points:
Great graphics
Exotic location
Nice colour palette
Antagonists voice acting and characters are awesome
Quite funny
Lots to do
Quite a few vehicles and weapons to use
Superb story
First person makes the game very atmospheric
Lots of ways to complete an objective
Handbook is good at filling in the backstory and has some great humour
Side quests have good stories of their own
Plenty of stuff to do inbetween sections of story, or after the story has finished
Open world is fun (running over pirates, taking out camps etc.)

Weak Points:
The challenges (wanted dead, supply crates etc.) are repetitive
Protagonists voice acting and characters aren't quite as good as the antagonists
Will always run out of space for loot, money etc. unless you spend hours getting the required materials
Some bugs/glitches (e.g. Can't go up a tiny step without jumping)
So many weapons to choose from but you are only allowed a maximum of  4 at a time
Story is a bit far-fetched
Can't use extra mouse buttons for actions (e.g bind mouse button 5 to Sprint)
Asks you if you want to sell a skin or leaf (even if you have no use for it any more - lategame)
Once you complete the game, you lose a disguise that allows you to go undetected on the south island
Once you beat all the strongholds, little enemies respawn, which can make the island basically empty

Custom Built PC

Just a heads up to why there hasn't been many posts from me on the blog yet. I have currently been doing my DofE and, as part of this, have been building a desktop PC from scratch. As evidence, I have been building a blog for this, and hope to copy the posts over soon so look out for that.