Below you will find a video of the alleged hacker showing off his supposed ‘Victory’ over major nelson. The video is NSFW.
A group of hackers that call themselves Fear have hacked into Larry Hyrb’s, also known as Major Nelson, Xbox Live account yesterday night (PST). Some Twitter snippets from the Director of Policy and Enforcement for Xbox LIVE Stephen Toulouse via twitter:
Thanks for the heads up folks. we have gotten Major’s account back. We’ll investigate what happened.
Looks like this was very specific and very targeted to Major. I’ll look into the details and report back later.
But for now everything’s back to normal.
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Don’t worry, this was an extremely focused attack at a very famous person. The hacker just wanted some quick fame before getting into trouble.
The odds of you getting hacked (unless you are famous) are extremely slim. But remember, the internet is a very unsafe place so follow internet safety rules at all times, Xbox Live is no different.
Metro 2033 Publisher:THQ Developer: 4A Games Platforms: Xbox 360 (Reviewed), PC Release Date: March 16th, 2010
The year is 2033. An entire generation has been born and raised underground, and their besieged Metro Station-Cities struggle for survival, with each other, and the mutant horrors that await outside. You are Artyom, born in the last days before the fire, but raised Underground. Having never ventured beyond your Metro Station-City limits, one fateful event sparks a desperate mission to the heart of the Metro system, to warn the remnants of mankind of a terrible impending threat. Your journey takes you from the forgotten catacombs beneath the subway to the desolate wastelands above, where your actions will determine the fate of mankind.Set in the shattered subway of a post apocalyptic Moscow, Metro 2033 is a story of intensive underground survival where the fate of mankind rests in your hands. In 2013 the world was devastated by an apocalyptic event, annihilating almost all mankind and turning the earth’s surface into a poisonous wasteland. A handful of survivors took refuge in the depths of the Moscow underground, and human civilization entered a new Dark Age.
Metro takes place within the train tunnels of the post apocalyptic Moscow. Metro 2033 is a single player first person shooter that blends together features of other successful titles all into one nice package. It has an atmosphere of darkness and despair as your constantly struggling to survive by any means necessary. Looting and scavenging for anything that will give you that little bit more of an edge. It’s first person perspective also adds even more to the desperation with the element of surprise and fear as you will never know what is lurking around the corner.
4A Games have created an excellent single player experience that will keep you on the edge of your seat as you make your way through dimly-lit, claustrophobic tunnels and walkways that will have you wondering about what’s around the next corner. One thing I would like to note and bring to your attention is that Metro is quite linear in level design, this could be because 4A Games wanted to give you the feel of fear and horror in close combat situations. Another thing I found that reminded me of Resident Evil was the Survival Horror aspect of ammo conservation and making sure you use you ammunition wisely. It’s a great little touch I must say as it fits perfectly in this sort of environment where bullets, weapons and food don’t grow on trees.
To add further fear and realism, 4A Game have removed any sort of Heads Up Display (HUD) from the screen, there is no health bar, no ammo details and certainly no MAP !! Which brings me to the next really neat feature. If you’re wandering around the dark tunnels and all of a sudden become disorientated and a little lost. You can pull out your trusty compass, which will appear on the screen while you’re walking around in real time, this way you can get your bearings once again and move on. Your Compass is attached to a clip board which also contains your current list objectives, something I found really neat, if you’re in a dark area and you can’t see where you’re going or what to do next, you can take our their trusty lighter that’s in the shape of a bullet, flip open the top and light it so that you can see what to do and where you’re going. Remember that all of this is happening in real time so if a creature decides to make an appearance and begin to start mauling on your head you’ll need to switch back to your weapon and defend yourself as quickly as possible.
Searching for loot plays a major role in your quest for survival. This can be done in a number of different ways, bear in mind as the game play is quite linear, you don’t have much freedom to go everywhere. The player normally has only one way to go to reach their next objective, there is however possibilities to explore your surroundings, and it pays off to look around, searching dead bodies and also ammo crates will result in you finding a very valuable resource which is regarded as currency in the game and that is ammunition. With survival being the most important aspect of the game in these desperate times, what else could keep you safe from what lurks in the darkness than bullets and ammo. It makes perfect sense and this is what the traders in the game will want as payment when they sell you weapons.
The sound and atmosphere in Metro 2033 focuses on the dark and depressing state of the world after its destruction, the music is meant to convey to the player a feeling of sadness, touching on their emotions and creating an even deeper gaming experience.
Now with good stuff out of the way, let’s focus on a few issues with the game. Metro 2033’s biggest disappointment is the combat system. When taking down monsters you have no indication that your actually making any dent in them as they do not show any sort of animation that they are taking damage. Usually in other first person shooters you’re used to shooting something in the chest and it would move back in pain or shooting them the leg and they’d fall to one knee. But unfortunately this is lacking in Metro 2033. At certain stages in the game I’d unload a full clip into a monster and thinking to myself if I was actually harming it or not.
Other little things that I believe were designed into the game for reason but were a little off-putting was the specific types of weapons having to be pumped to put pressure in them before they can be shot. I also found the right thumb stick was a little unresponsive, items such as flashlights will need to be recharged when they run out of energy. With the emphasis on a realistic experience these little issues could be overlooked as 4A Games are only trying to create an experience that is different from other FPS, and if you take that into consideration and keep an open mind then these little issues can be overlooked.
If you enjoy first person shooters with a great storyline then Metro 2033 is a perfect game for you. The single player experience is brilliant, the atmosphere, realism will make you feel that you are really there. Combat is the only drawback to the game with the creature animations.
Now remember this is an Australian Community Event. Further details will be made available on Community Dashboard of your Xbox 360 console closer to the date. For now start adding the following gamertags to your friends list MasterAbbott, Deathdude222, Kingroc69, xI ROCK Ix
Have you got Final Fantasy XIII yet ? If you haven’t nows the perfect time to pick up a bargain from Fishpond. At the moment they have a special on both Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
You can pick up either version for only $74.95 AUD !! THATS right and thats with FREE Delivery anywhere in Australia !!
Enter the following redeem code to get the $10 off when you make your order !! CODE : FFXIII
Good news PC gamers! Breach is also coming to the PC, but 6 weeks after it comes to XBLA. Atomic Games have stated that it will only be available via digital distribution, but they have not determined which distributor.
I hope games for windows, that way PC gamers can play against Xbox gamers and the online community will last even longer!
Well, it is Sunday here in the United States, and I have another analytical article for you guys. I say analytical , because these are based heavily in my analysis or the analysis of a group which I then in turn analyze in further depth. Some of you may find them interesting, while others of you don’t really care. Either way, everything you are about to read is based on analysis, true stories, and a bit of fact.
This article is an abridged version of a psychology paper I did for my college class. I got 30 out of 33 possible points because I messed up on the format of my paper (can you believe that he actually took a ruler and docked me points just because my border wasn’t 1 inch by 1 inch?). Enjoy the part that focuses on video games to reduce stress.
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Stress, Health, and Video Games
Stress is the term used to describe the physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are appraised as threatening or challenging. Many people become stressed when they are faced with a problem that they must overcome. Every stress that we face requires a fight or flight path. We can either stand and fight or run and take flight. These choices are based solely on a human desire to survive. The survival tactic is written into our DNA and was mostly prevalent during the times that our life was in constant danger from enemies or other dangers. The problem these days stands on the fact that danger is all around us and we can neither fight it nor flee from it. Since danger is always abundant, even if we don’t notice it, our body is in a constant stressful state. Our bodies interpret our reactions to certain challenges as stressful and flings us into a state of fight or flight, but in our society we are usually unable to do either. The buildup of adrenaline from the fight or flight state is meant to keep us alive, but when we do not use the adrenaline it festers and can be unleashed by accident at inappropriate times which will create even more problems.
The problem lies when we are unable to vent the access adrenaline, this creates health problems that can lead to problems in the future such as a weakened immune system, ulcers, or even cancer*. There are many ways to vent the adrenaline and video games are one of them. Video games have gotten a bad reputation over the years by parents and media who can only see the bad aspects of video games, but video games can actually increase our health and well being with moderate use. If used properly video games can help reduce the stress in our life by three main uses. The first use is by venting our frustrations into the game, the AI within a game can not feel pain and can be killed and yelled at as desired. This use has to be guarded; however, because we must keep in mind at all times that the game isn’t real. Some people seem to be unable to tell the difference between a video game and reality and merge the two together, but that is a totally different topic of discussion. The second use is by temporarily escaping reality. Many people already do this by reading a book, but we can also succeed in escaping all the agonies within life by playing video games, envelop yourself in the game and give your body time to calm down and function properly. By giving your body this time to cool down, it will be healthier in the long run. Remember that escaping reality is only temporary and a firm enough grasp on reality must be maintained in order to return. This is also known as meditating to many cultures, video games are just an extremely good median. The final use is nullification. When you play video games your body creates a different kind of stress that is extremely small. The stress caused by video games can act like a vaccination towards stress of that type. A good example of this is Xbox Live, the kids yelling and screaming at you through their microphones creates a slight stress that you may not even notice. The small amount of stress caused by their yelling will actually reduce the amount of stress you receive when being yelled at in the future.
Don’t be mistaken though, too much gaming is extremely unhealthy. The key to gaming is moderation. Gaming is fun and relaxing but there are other functions of life that must be sought after as well. Don’t let physical health deteriorate, exercise. Exercising doesn’t have to be running every morning and lifting weights, the most basic way to stay physically healthy is by weighing yourself on a weekly basis. If the weight changes one week exercise a bit more to balance it out. Both the reduction of weight and the increase in weight are bad to certain aspects. Working out a lot will indeed increase your weight as muscle mass weighs more than body fat, but if you are not working out a lot then an increase in weight would mean fat is beginning to build up and you should work out more to burn it off. A decrease in weight is also bad. A decrease in weight could mean one of two things, either muscle mass is being lost or the body is deteriorating, both can be fixed by exercising. Don’t forget to eat healthy as well; don’t eat junk food as you play video games. Personally I am not very active, but I don’t eat fattening food either. I usually have a tall glass of grapefruit juice next to me and a cup of oats for a snack while gaming. Finally stay social, online gaming has made this extremely easy to do while gaming but you should still socialize outside of the video game every once in a while. Humans are very social creatures and it is healthy to socialize face to face every once in a while.
*I explained the reasons behind the problems in more depth in my entire paper, but the paper was about 10,000 words long, and I have only pulled out the video game oriented sections in order to cut the entire article down to under 1000 words.
Overview:
Evil is spreading around the town of Emporion, and the Personal Knights, better known as PKs, must defend the city and fight against the mysterious evil that is beginning to grip the continent of Epion. You play Zach, a freshly initiated PK who has a bright future ahead of him, until he delves deeper into the evil that is across the land.
Story:
The story is quite generic when it comes to RPGs, there is an evil in the land and you, a fresh knight is the only hope to destroy the many creatures that wish to do harm to the people of Emporion. The story is driven through various quests that range from killing a certain amount of monsters, to gathering a certain amount of items, by killing monsters. Unfortunately there isn’t any variety among these quests, besides the type of monster to kill or the item you need to retrieve. There is one other type of quest, though this one is simply to find the next person you have to speak with to receive the next step of said quest.
All the quests in the game involve the murdering of monsters in the thousands. The quests are unfortunately very basic and all come from the only town in the game Emporion. Each npc has the potential to award you with a quest. Ironically the game plays the debt card, as the very first quest you receive is to pay back $100,000 to the local bank, though it may be a side quest. Quests are given to you whenever you speak to an npc with a yellow ! above their head, and then if there is a gray ?, the quest is still being done, and a yellow ? means the quest is completed and to retrieve your reward.
Graphics:
The graphics are definitely the high point of the game. Visually everything is amazingly well done and carries with it a bit of an anime flare, though this takes nothing away from the game. The environments that you fight in are all extremely diverse and whether it be forest, swamp, desert, or dungeon they environment is always top notch.
The character models are crisp and are amazingly well designed for an Ipod game. The battle movements of Zach are fluid and allow for no break in the action due to any character issues. Not only that but when in town and you converse with another NPC, a large picture of the person you are speaking with is displayed in the right of the screen.
There is a large variety of the original monsters you see for the first time. They are just as crisp as the character models, however they do start to get repetitious since the further along your journey brings Zach, the more similar the monsters begin to look. A large variety of the monsters are simple palette swaps but even though that may be the case, the enemies still look amazing without any errors.
One of my favorite things in games has always been when the playable character’s appearance changes in accordance to the armor and equipment that is being used. Zach’s pants, gauntlet, top, and weapons all change according to what Zach is currently wearing. This can vary from just a simple color change, to an entire wardrobe change, plus the potential for a different hair color oddly enough.
Audio:
Having a variety of music inside of the game is always a great thing, and Caligo Chaser accomplishes that. There is a different back ground music for each area type, and though some of them are short and repeat, they each compliment their own area. There is no actual voice acting in the game aside from the occasional greeting when conversation with an npc is first initialized.
Gameplay:
This is a classic side scrolling beat em up, with rpg elements mixed in. As you travel to the various maps, you will have a tiny map indicator in the top right and that shows where the enemies are, and where you are. Once the enemies are defeated, you must continue traveling towards the right always to continue fighting until the area is finished.
Once an area is completed you are given a grade depending on how good, or bad, you fought in that area. You are awarded points for less damage taken, combo level reached, style, as well as bonus for specific attacks used. These grades award you with up to three treasure chests at the end of the area with random items and money contained inside. Needless to say the better looking the treasure chest, the better the reward.
These specific attacks that you can use are your dash attack, and gauntlet attack. The dash attack is simple. A double tap on the d-pad in the left or right direction will make Zach dash in that direction, with a press of the attack button will perform the dash attack. While the gauntlet attack is a charged punch which deals heavy damage to your opponents.
In combat, the controls falter and can lead to some combo breaking moments. The d-pad is unresponsive when it comes to the dash attack. Sometimes you will be double tapping multiple times to simply dash once and execute the attack. Other times you will be pushing the gauntlet attack and it will not register, which is a small issue when you are in combat.
The game also includes a variety of different attack skills and passive skills, with various upgrades between them. These skills are quite powerful when used and can devastate your opponents. There is also a combination shop, where Zach can combine various items he has acquired in his battles into stronger equipment or skills themselves. This feature is quite nice and will constantly have you checking what you have in your inventory to see if you should make something in the combination shop.
Overall: Caligo Chaser is a very enjoyable side scrolling fighter, and brings along a few extra features that will have you coming back for more. Except for the lack of intuitive quests and a few unresponsive buttons, Caligo Chaser is one of the best in it’s class for iPhone/iPod Touch RPGs.
I give Caligo Chaser for the iPhone – iPod Touch a scrolling
So you have all had time to play the Splinter Cell: Conviction Demo. Well, below you will see me running through the demo on realistic in under 10 minutes (quite literally running, I tried to do it steathily… but you know… that never lasts). The opening cutscene, the interrogation, the demo, the scientist being threatened, and the ending cinematic and trailer. In my opinion that is way too short of a demo. Below the video you will find my thoughts on the demo and the gameplay mechanics.
Demo Thoughts
The demo was way to short, and required way too much memory for it’s short length. Having to watch the video and interrogation every time I wanted to play got annoying. Yeah, the interrogation is fancy and kinda cool, but it wears off very quickly.
Gameplay Thoughts
There are also many choices you could make towards beating the demo, but once you find the best route you hardly stray from it.
Even on Realistic it isn’t that hard, I messed up twice and i was still have to quickly recover before dieing. I managed to kill everyone before losing that much health.
With the new target system, killing people has become way too easy.
Tools are still completely useless, as you can see i didn’t use any in my runthrough. I could’ve but it would have been more hassle than anything.
I dislike the sensitivity to actions, sometimes you’ll want to do one action with ‘A’ but it will have you do something else.
Killing people is a much bigger focus, easier instant kills and the ability to target up to 3 people for instant kills makes the game way to easy.
On April 6th, we will be releasing a system update over Xbox LIVE for your Xbox 360 that will allow USB flash drives to be used for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more. I’ve been testing this feature out for a few weeks, and I have to say it’s really great. Once you take the system update on April 6th, you’ll be able to connect your USB flash drives to your console and head over to the memory section to configure your new storage device. Once you do that, the system will conduct a one time performance and integrity check to confirm the drive is working properly. You will then be able to configure how much storage to use on the device, up to 16 GB. The remaining space on the flash drive will be accessible by your PC or Mac. USB Hard drives may work, but like flash memory, you’ll only be able to use up to 16GB of space. Since performance on flash based USB storage is usually better, I highly recommend using flash based instead of spinning media like a hard drive…it’s just going to give you a MUCH better experience.
We’ve also enhanced the memory management functions, so you’ll be able to have better control on what you want to copy or move between storage devices.
A couple of points:
You can have 2 devices connected to the console at a time, enabling up to 32GB of simultaneous storage.
The system won’t just configure the device once it is connected to the console. You’ll need to head to the memory area in system settings, select your USB Device, and choose from Configure Now (Format and Configure the Full Device), or Customize (you can choose how much memory you want configured for Xbox360 from the free space on the device.)
While any flash drive can be used, we are partnering with SanDisk to release an Xbox 360 branded USB flash drive in May that comes pre-configured out of the box and ready to go. I’ll provide links to those drives once they’re available. Until then, starting April 6th (when we release the system update) you can pop any flash drive over 1GB into your Xbox 360 and configure it as storage.”
