Galcon Fusion Review

March 7th, 2010 by Mike

I love Steam for their occasional deals, such as the recent Indie Game Pack they had on sale for $7.99. The pack came with a number of independent games, including Galcon Fusion. If not for that deal I would have never known what a great game I was missing.

The game play is fairly simple, in theory. Galcon Fusion is a RTS game set in space. Games start with each player controlling a planet (or multiple planets, depending on the settings). The number shown on controlled planets represents how many ships you have on that planet. Controlled planets also generate new ships, the larger the planet, the faster it generates ships. Neutral planets that are not owned by any player show a number on them, representing the number of ships you need to take over the planet. Clicking on one of your controlled planets and then right clicking a neutral or enemy planets sends a percentage (which can be changed from %5 to 100%) of ships, represented as triangles, from your planet to the neutral/enemy planet. If you send more ships then the neutral/enemy planet has, you take it over. The goal being to take over all the planets on the map.

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Mega Man 10 Retro Commercial

March 7th, 2010 by Mike

I love how Capcom takes the retro look even into their commercials. If I saw that when I was a kid I would have wanted the game. And more locks on the door to my room. And a nude poster on my door.

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Halo Reach Multiplayer Beta Trailer

March 6th, 2010 by Mike

Finally, jet packs. It’s like Tribes all over again.

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Activision Fires Infinity Ward’s Studio Heads

March 2nd, 2010 by Mike

Activision has fired the two studio heads of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, sighting “insubordination” and “breach of contract”. It’s been rumored that there had been tension between the publisher and developer regarding the creative direction of the Call of Duty series. I’m guessing it went something like this:

Activision: Hey Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare 2 sold like a ton of copies. Can you make them faster so we can get more money?

Infinity Ward: Well, yeah…the thing is, we kind of want to branch out with the Call of Duty series and do something different. Maybe a Call of Duty racing game or something. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is sweet as hell. I don’t know…all these FPS are getting kind of boring, we can’t keep doing this stuff. I mean, did you see that totally over the top Airport level, how can we ever hope to beat that?

Activision: Well, yeah, that’s not going to work. I think we’d rather make a bazillion more dollars. Even better, maybe if you could make four Call of Duty games a year…we could make four bazillion dollars! You like money, right? Oh! Don’t forget DLC, we need to be more aggressive with that stuff. Maybe $10 extra to enable online play or something, that would be totally sweet for us.

Infinity Ward: Fuck you.

Activision: No, fuck you.

(physical violence ensues, security gets called, etc.)

Seems similiar to what Bungie went through with the Halo series. I guess I can understand both sides of the issue, but I hate seeing creativity stifled in favor of a quick buck.

Regardless, I can’t wait to see what happens to the Call of Duty series. Probably not a good thing.

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Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Trailer

March 2nd, 2010 by Mike

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey has everything I want in a Shin Megami Tensei game: demons, lots of demons. I can’t wait to negotiate with demons, only to use them to kill other demons.

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Valve Updates Portal, Adds New Achievement, Mystery

March 2nd, 2010 by Mike

Normally it’s not a big deal when someone updates a game and adds a single new achievement (Transmission Received), but it’s Valve and Portal might be one of my favorite games of all time. I also love a crazy video game mystery, which it turns out this update is. Along with the achievement Valve also added in a bunch of radios through out the game, probably in reference to the achievement, with Morse code and what sounds like a bunch of random noise. Not that interesting, but then people decoded the Morse code (the sound files are all called Dinosaur 1, 2, etc. so that’s what they are referencing):

1-Dinosaur 1

INTERIOR TRANSMISSION ACTIVE

EXTERNAL DATA LINE ACTIVE (Presumably the telnet number)

MESSAGE DIGEST ACTIVE

2-Dinosaur 5

9-E-J-0-7-D-3-7-2-B-B-6-8-2-6-B-D-8-1-D-3-5-4-2-A-4-1-9-D-6

(Which sanitysama says is “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”)

3-Dinosaur 12

SYSTEM DATA DUMP ACTIVE

USER BACKUP ACTIVE

PASSWORD BACKUP ACTIVE

4-Dinosaur 17

B-E-E-P

B-E-E-E-E-P

B-E-E-P

B-E-E-P

B-E-E-E-E-P

B-E-E-E-E-P

B-E-E-E-E-P

B-E-E-P

B-E-E-E-E-P

B-E-E-P

B-E-E-P

And if you turn all those Beeps into individual morse code it spells LOL.

- The other 22 are all images after decoding with SSTV software. Click for a Steam Forums thread with all of them.

- Some of the images clue letters/numbers; each has a number out of 32 in the bottom right of it. Putting these together leads to an md5 hash of a BBS number. Figuring out the login is what we’re currently stuck on.

Getting interesting, but not amazing. It started to get really good when another poster decided to run the stuff that sounded like random noise (not the Morse code) through a program called SSTV (I don’t know what that is) and got a bunch of random images.

dinosaur2 – http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/2862/dino2.png
dinosaur3 – http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5395/dino3.png
dinosaur4 – http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8126/dino4.png
dinosaur6 – http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/474/dino6t.png
dinosaur7 – http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/804/dino7.png
dinosaur8 – http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4015/dino8.png
dinosaur9 – http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1900/dino9z.png
dinosaur10 – http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/6002/dino10.png
dinosaur11 – http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/5893/dino11.png
dinosaur13 – http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2015/dino13.png
dinosaur14 – http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6633/dino14.png
dinosaur15 – http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/2716/dino15.png
dinosaur16 – http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/3671/dino16.png
dinosaur18 – http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5874/dino18.png
dinosaur19 – http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8443/dino19.png
dinosaur20 – http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/8295/dino20.png
dinosaur21 – http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6334/dino21.png
dinosaur22 – http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6657/dino22.png
dinosaur23 – http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4641/dino23.png
dinosaur24 – http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/1385/dino24.png
dinosaur25 – http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4139/dino25.png
dinosaur26 – http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3913/dino26.png

So, that’s pretty awesome, Valve didn’t put in random noise it’s actually images. And someone far smarter then me figured it out. Even better, some of the images had numbers and letters on them. Combined, they formed an MD5 hash, which normally you shouldn’t be able to decode (that’s the point), but somehow someone figured it out (Googling the hash is a good start for common passwords). Turns out it’s a phone number, specifically a number to a computer running BBS that you can Telnet to. The number is (425) 822-5251 which (apparently someone looked this up, too) is located in Kirkland, Washington. Don’t call it from a standard phone, it won’t do anything, and you’ll just clog up the machine for people trying to figure out the login. No one is sure yet what the login / password is.

I more amazed that people figured all of that out in less than 24 hours.

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PS3 Error 8001050F Fixed

March 2nd, 2010 by Mike

Playstation 3’s every where stopped working starting Sunday when a mysterious “Error: 8001050F” started occurring. The error prevented users from going online, as well as playing certain games offline. It affected all PS3 models except the newer slim PS3. From Sony:

As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:
* The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
* When the user tries to sign-in to the PlayStation Network, the following message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.
* When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game.”
* When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
* Users are not able to playback certain rental video downloaded from the PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

As mentioned above, Please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For the latest status on this situation please check either the PlayStation blog (blog.us.playstation.com) or PlayStation.com.

Embarrassing. Well, apparently the problem was the older model PS3’s thought 2010 was a leap year. Big mistake, computers can’t handle that kind of stuff.

We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29 to March 1 (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally.

If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, users are able to adjust time settings manually or via the internet. If we have new information, we will update you through the PlayStation.Blog or PlayStation.com.

Good news for all PS3 owners out there.

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Mega Man 10 Out For Wii, Coming Soon For PS3, Xbox

March 2nd, 2010 by Mike

Capcom’s latest retro Mega Man is out today for the WiiWare today and will be out March 11th on the PSN and March 31st on XBLA. Why three different days? I have no idea, maybe it’s more fun that way.

Full press release, below…

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Firewalker Pack DLC Coming to Mass Effect 2 Late March

February 28th, 2010 by Mike

Bioware will be releasing more DLC for Mass Effect 2, featuring the Hammerhead, a vehicle that hovers over the battlefield and shoots stuff. The Firewalker pack features five new missions and all original owners of Mass Effect 2 (or, all those with access to the Cerberus Network) will be able to download the content at no charge.

Download the Firewalker pack and gain access to 5 new missions featuring the Hammerhead. The Hammerhead is a heavy assault vehicle that hovers over the battlefield at up to 120 kilometers per hour and features a guided missile system ensuring accuracy even during aggressive maneuvering. Coming late March, free to all Cerberus Network members!

[ Bioware ]

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Sequel to The Dishwasher, Vampire Smile Revealed

February 26th, 2010 by Mike

Ska Studios announced a sequel to their XBLA hit The Dishwasher, title The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. It looks totally awesome. No release date has been announced yet.

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