Who says girls don’t play video games? They do… And then they obsess over them. Here’s a list of the top ten greatest fan girl characters from TV, movies, and games…

1. Sasuke (Naruto)

2. Naruto (Naruto)

3. Demyx (Kingdom Hearts)

4. Roxas/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)

5. Edward  Cullen (Twilight)

6. Batman (Batman)

7. Sailor Moon (Sailor Moon)

8. Kiki (Kiki’s Delivery Service)

9. Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)

10. Gir (Invader Zim)

-Steven Colson

Many people encounter the situation where their iPod touch home button has broken. Some are lucky and still have it under warranty and can return it for a new one. Others don’t, so in order to fix their problem they must send in their iPod and practically pay for a new one in repair costs. I have finally figured out a way to bypass this process, Jailbreak your iPod and install SBSettings. “But Ryan don’t you need the home button to enter DFU and jailbreak your iPod?” Well I have recently learned of a new Jailbreaking process, BlackRa1n. BlackRa1n is super easy and super fast method to Jailbreak your iPod and “fix” your home button.

1. Go to http://www.blackra1n.com/ and click on the appropriate operating system.

2. Download the file and run it with your iPod plugged into your computer (Restore your iPod first to prevent any files from becoming corrupted)

3. Once the program has started a button will appear saying “Make it Rain” click this and the software will detect your iPod and sync to it (When I tried running this on windows vista the software would crash, use XP if that happens.)

4. Your iPod will then show a picture similar to the website. Wait for a bit and once it is done, your iPod will display the icon “blackra1n”

5. Tap on this icon and install Cydia. Once installed, run Cydia and let it update.

6. Once the updating has finished, tap the search icon and type “sbsettings” find and install this package

7. Once complete launch Cydia and search for “Close Button Widget” find and install this package

8. If all worked well, swipe your finger across the top of the iPod and a window will come down and a button called “Close app” is present. This is your new home button and will replace your now broken one.

So now you can enjoy your iPod without shutting it down to change applications, plus keep a couple hundred bucks in your wallet.

-Ryan (Tech guy)

“As of 5 minutes ago, I have officially ordered all my parts.” 7:57PM 11/8/09

A while back, I decided i wanted to build my own PC. So I’ve ordered my parts, and plan on building it either this Wednesday or Thursday. So, I know this isn’t much now, but I plan on updating this page throughout the next few weeks. I’m going to include things like pictures of the process, pics of the finished product, little paragraphs about the process,specs, a Bio, stuff like that. For now, I leave you with specs and a picture of the case. I will update it with future weeks to come.

Specs:

~Video Card: XFX HD-477A-YDFC Radeon HD 4770

~CPU:Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66 GHz

~RAM:OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB 240 Pin DDR2 1066

~PSU:Sigma Shark 585W ATX 12v

~Motherboard:Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R

~Hard Drive: Western Digiatal 500 GB

God, that's sexy.

Downloadable content is a great thing. It gives you a bit more life out of your favorite games and the game creator gets a little more cash out of your purchase. However, this technological break through has had some negative consequences. Downloadable content has made consumers less excited for sequels

. Unless the sequel is on a new system, claims to be ground-breaking, or uses a completely new engine, most of us aren’t interested. But why? What’s wrong with buying a $45 game with $45 worth of new content? Games like Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Katamari Forever have been completely over looked by even the biggest fans of the series.

A sequel doesn’t have to be a completely different game because it’s a sequel, a new installment. Especially since it’s becoming easier and easier to pirate new content online, developers have seen more of a profit from creating completely new games.

Now doesn't this game look like fun?

So what’s so wrong with new content? You liked the first game didn’t you?

Video games and movies are two different things. You might read that and think, “Uh… duh?” but honestly, I’m not so sure if the actual game developers and movie makers fully understand this. And if there’s one thing that I am sure of, its that they sure as hell don’t understand each other.  At all. That is very bad, seeing as the two spend a ridiculous portion of their time trying to copy the other one into oblivion.

Movies have been copying off of other media since its inception. Many of your favorite movies likely started off as a book or TV show. But adaptations of video games rarely ever work out right. Why? Well, It’s a vastly different medium. Games are totally interactive, and almost always follow the exact same camera angle, on the exact same character for the entire game(excluding cutscenes). Fans generally like it when adaptations from one medium to another are as closely matched as possible, which is really difficult to do in movies. Also, video games have very little dialogue, which is kind of a major part of films. So all of that basically adds up to this: Movies of video games suck. And I’ve seen very little evidence that this can change.

Oh sweet Jesus why?

It’s exactly the same if you flip it around. Video games of movies generally suck, too. The gameplay is forced, boring, and uninteresting and the plot is never as good as the movie. Also, they’re rushed to a ridiculous extent so that they can be released alongside the movie. The movie basically has to be put together already so the developers know how to make the game, and the time in between mid-production and release is not enough time to make a game. Period. The example of this that comes to mind is E.T., a game so bad that it nearly killed off gaming altogether. That’s colossally bad.

If Uwe Boll was a game designer, this is the game he would make.

So really, some game developers and some filmmakers need to sit down together and enlighten each other as to why their mediums are so good. Maybe they can learn from one another, and I can play Saving Private Ryan: The Game and have a good time.

Igneous is a platformer (somewhat) where you are a sentient totem-head trying to escape from an erupting volcano. You will do this by running (or rather rolling) and jumping, true to platformer tradition. The game has gorgeous graphics (with lots of heat simulation, for lack of better words) and interesting physics which allow the totem head to jump off of any surface he is touching, regardless of whether he is on the top, bottom, or side of the surface. The game’s four levels should only take you 10-15 minutes to complete in “Normal” mode, but “Impossible” mode is more punishing. By playing Igneous, you have absolutely nothing to lose, because it’s free! It’s quite impressive, especially considering it was developed by a team of four college students.

So download it here. Now.

Igneous can even run at resolutions up to 1900 x 1200.

- Sam (somebody of some sort)

Review: Borderlands

Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Developer: Gearbox Software

Publisher: 2k Games

Borderlands, produced by Gearbox Software, is one of a select few games that list themselves under the “RPG Shooter” genre. Based around completing quests, receiving loot, leveling up, and playing with friends, Borderlands puts a fairly new twist on an old classic.

Roland the Soldier, Lilith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter, and Brick the... Brick

Story

As one of four treasure hunters, you arrive on the barren planet of Pandora in search of a relative, a friend, or a man to kill (although it does not tell you this in-game). However, while you are still on the bus, a pale girl starts talking to you through some sort of psychic communication, telling you that you must look for “The Vault”, a hidden warehouse of alien weapons, money, and all other desires. So, understandably, your character instantly forgets about why they are there and the original story that the website seemed to be setting up is completely scrapped in place of this new treasure-hunting one.

One thing that is fairly annoying is that in the intro it shows all four characters riding in the same bus, but once you select your persona, the others are thrown away, never to be seen in single player. The story is told through the main plot quests, although it can be hard to figure out which ones they are, and consists basically of you going into enemy bases, caves, and canyons, killing a boss, getting a part of the vault key, then turning it in. The main storyline will take you around 15 hours to complete, but there is much more to the game.

Gameplay

Tanks, Mining Machines, and Bandits? Oh my.

The gameplay in comparison to other RPG Shooters, such as Fallout 3, was best explained by Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford who had this to say: “The developers of Fallout 3 started with an RPG and added shooter elements, whereas with Borderlands we started with a Shooter and added RPG elements.” For anyone who has played Fallout 3, such as myself (Though only for 4 or 5 hours), the difference is quickly noticeable. The game runs very smoothly, most resembling Unreal Tournament (As it runs off the Unreal Engine), and the brutal man(and skag)slaughter is very satisfying.

The game also boasts to have “more guns than every other FPS combined”, and while this is true, they are simply made in a random stat generator, ending in some weird combinations such as shotguns that shoot rockets, or grenades that jump up in the air and rain lightning. Accuracy, a stat that annoyed me in Fallout makes a return, though it doesn’t affect gameplay quite as much. Having varying accuracy on a shotgun or SMG is fine, and in fact only serves to enhance the gameplay, but when I shoot 5 shots with my sniper directly into a bandit’s chest and they all fly whizzing off into the sunset it can be a tad frustrating.

The most epic boss in the game, this thing is HUUUUGE

Bosses are fun and challenging, although many can be easily beaten by dying, running back to the fight, and sniping them while standing off to the side of the arena. The game also utilizes a vehicle feature, and thank god, it would take forever to run everywhere, the developers spent a lot of time making the game world huge. Although there is only one vehicle, it is pretty fun to splatter 5 spiderants in succession, but not so much when you hit a sixth and the damage your vehicle takes from hitting enemies causes it to explode and completely kill your character. Speaking of dying, this game implements a really cool feature, the “second wind”. When your character loses all his health, you enter a state of dying, but if you kill an enemy in the allotted time you will receive a rejuvenation and can continue to fight, with the downside of reviving with fairly low health.

Multiplayer

This section of the review will be noticeably less developed than the rest as for some reason the developers decided to run the PC multiplayer through Gamespy instead of Steam, so there were major server issues and it was impossible to play with the three other people I bought the game with. I will not hold this against the score, however, as I am reviewing the game, not Gamespy, and it only was an issue for the first 5 days or so, a relatively short time in the game’s life. All in all the co-op I have played has been extremely smooth, and the loot is not hard to divide up. The enemies and loot scale well with the number of players providing a more challenging and more rewarding experience.

Graphics

This looks even better in game. Wow.

As Ryan said in his first impression review, the trailers and screenshots really don’t do the game justice. Heavily cell-shaded, Borderlands is really quite stunning, and watching a midget’s head explode and spray blood over his companions is only enhanced by it’s uncommon-for-shooters graphic style. A few shadows can become heavily pixelated, and some NPCs seem to have less time spent on them than others, but overall the graphics serve only to help Borderlands

Story – 6.5

Gameplay – 9

Multiplayer – 9.5

Graphics – 9.5

Final Score – 8.5

Hee hee

First of all, we have the Entertainment Glitch. This is a glitch that doesn’t restrict gameplay, but instead gives you a good laugh. These glitches can be both accidental and on purpose. All in all, it’s a harmless glitch that’s nothing to worry about.

Another species of glitches is the Restriction Glitch. I have encountered this quite a few times especially with iPhone apps. These are glitches that cause the game to be unplayable. This means anything along the lines of the game crashing at a certain point every time, to getting stuck in a place where your only option is to restart.

MissingNo, the glitch Pokemon.

Probably the most feared of all the glitches is the Data Glitch, and a classic example is the Pokemon MissingNo. This lil’ guy had his one and only debut in Blue and Red version. It started by graphically screwing up the game, and followed it up by wiping your data, forcing you to start all over again. Glitches similar to this one have also occurred in other games before.

This last glitch deals mostly with online gameplay. It is primarly known as the nOOb Glitch, or HAAX!. These suckers are malfunctions that allow players an unfair advantage that usually makes them nearly unstoppable. Now I understand these aren’t always glitches, they are sometimes hacks, but either way they’re still a pain in the ass. Now, as the name implies, this type of glitch is mainly used by… that’s right, you guessed it: nOObs! Unfortunately, no matter how much you yell at them and tell them to “GTFO”, they just don’t listen.

It's okay, the nightmares from this picture will end sooner or later. I hope.

Alright, that’s all the glitches I can think of at the moment, but I’ll be sure to update if anymore come to mind. And now, I leave you with some words of wisdom: “Glitches are powerful things. Use them wisely or you shall suffer the consequences.”

-Platt (Comic Relief Editor)

So just think about what you’re doing for a Halloween. If you’re gonna do something nerdy with your friends then go ahead and be something obscure but if you’re going to a regular party or trick or treating try to be something a little more recognizable. Unless you make a perfect Raiden helmet. Then do whatever the hell you want.

Anyways, even though Halloween is over doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate some good scary movies. So here’s a list of my top ten best:

1.Psycho

2.Exorcism of Emily Rose

3.Children of the Corn

4.Dawn of the Dead

5.Shawn of the Dead

6.Paranormal Activity

7.Cujo

8.Arachnophobia

9.Halloween

10.Rec

Hey Guys! Nothing too major today, Just a little video i made back in the day. I thought it should have a home here. Hope you enjoy it.
-Patrick