Return

Sorry I've been away folks. Leaving Uni,, Making sure I wasn't excluded and trying to get a job have lead me a bit astray from blogging, but I'm back, and hopefully I can keep up the stream of posts this time round!

Roller Coaster Released

MINECRAFT Modern Roller Coaster has been released!

YAY!

Exams

I hate them.

Hooray for forward thinking!!!

So my brother asks me if I have any adventure maps for Minecraft he hasn't played yet. I open my saves (map) folder to see what I have, and what do I find? An old backup for the rollercoaster map that I thought I had lost! Thanks Dave!

Projects

So I've basically got 3 projects rolling at the moment.

My first project is my Minecraft Roller Coaster

My second is the 178th Fleet SoaSE fictional story

and my third is Project Juggernaus which will be kept hush-hush until I can get you guys some more solid details and a better idea of What It Is All About.

Project Juggernaus

Site update

Added some pages to the blog, not very happy about pages that can't have multiple posts, but it seems that this is rather standard. Oh wells.

The 178th Minor Fleet

A Garda Flak Frigate

What follows is the fictional account of a fleet of ships from Sins of a Solar Empire. The ships in question are all Garda Flak Frigates, an anti-fighter ship meant to protect fleets against fighter strike-craft.

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    James could tell that they were coming close to exiting phase jump because he could feel the main engines were cycling up. James was one of the unlucky few who got nauseously sick whenever the ship made a phase jump. The sound of the main engines purring and rumbling back into life as the ship reached its destination always meant 2 things to James. One of these things was that he didn't have to worry about his stomach any more, the other was combat.

    The Tanthas, the ship that James served on, was one of the 16 Garda class frigates that made up the 178th Minor Fleet. 178th was different than most fleets in that it was solely made up of Garda class frigates. Command had decided to attempt a different strategy against the Karak Trading Empire. The captain had told them that Naval Intelligence had scouted the planet they were jumping to several times and that the latest intel showed that the planet had several hangar bays in orbit. The job of the 178th was to draw the fire of the planets fighters long enough for the 5th Mobile Fleet to jump in and take out the planet's orbital defences.

    The com speaker in James' gunnery chair crackled to life and the captain's voice came over the comm system, "We'll be exiting our jump in thirty seconds, all crew prepare for jump deceleration, all gunners, forward positions when we exit, Captain out".

    There was a small lurch as the ship came out of the jump, fortunately for James he didn't feel most of it because he was strapped down into the gunnery chair. In other parts of the ship however there would have been a mad dash to grab a hold of whatever was lying around unsecured so that it didn't break or go flying into a vital area of the ship, like the engines. James brought the main stern portside gun to bear directly ahead to the aft of the ship.

    "Incoming Fighters, 3 o'clock, 2 high" The comm officer announced, relaying information from the ships sensor arrays to the gunners.

    James sighted his gun in that direction, even as the comm officer started relaying additional locations of other fighter squadrons. James had always set his sights along the first enemy position, this philosophy had made him one of the best Flak Cannon fighters in the Bephmora Trading Consortium. With his grip on the controls turning his knuckles white, James waited until he could see the bright glow of the exhaust from the fighters before he squeezed the trigger and started firing.

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The Great SOUPBAX Competition

BAM, SOUPBAX!

now, quickly write down what you thought of when you read SOUPBAX and draw it. If you can't or don't want to draw you can leave what you thought of in a comment.

Deadline is Tonight at Midnight

I'll post the most inventive or interesting interpretations, as well as the History of where SOUPBAX came from in a later post.

Blog Posts

Who hasn't done a post about their definition of Blog posts?

Blog posts can be about anything, from the weather recently (and how crap it is and why) to Politics (again, about how crap it is and why), or just about anything.

They can even be structured however the author feels, in one great big paragraph, or in small point form notes.

But the thing that I find that makes a blog post a blog post is the Length of the post. A blog post of less then 15 words is, in my opinion, not a blog post. something that short is more suited to Facebook or Twitter.
Yeah, that's all I can think of for now, although I suppose a Blog post over 1000 words is more an essay than a blog post.

Thanks for reading and see you next post~!

A Prayer for Japan

Dear Lord, Please help Japan.

Please guide the leaders of Japan to make wise and safe decisions for their citizens.

Please help the local aid workers as they rescue the stranded, treat the wounded and comfort those who are grieving.

Please be with the wounded and give them a fast and healthy recovery.

Please be with the families of Japan who are grieving over lost friends and families.

Please guide the hands of the Nuclear Response teams as they try and bring the Nuclear Power Stations under control.

Please be with the International Aid workers who are bringing much needed supplies and support.

Lord please be with Japan and those who are supporting the country in this difficult time.

Amen

Boom Boom Satellites

I recently started watching, and finished Xam'd or 亡念のザムド if you are Japanese. What really got my attention was the music in the opening. the song is called Shut up and Explode by the BOOM BOOM SATELLITES, and it's really quite a good song. I like it so much that I went and found all their other songs and I've been listening to them ever since. I'm really enjoying listening to them, because not only are they a rock band but they also incorporate Electonic and Dance styles into their songs, like On The Painted Desert.

I can't wait for their next album to come out, it should be very interesting!

Thanks for reading and see you next post~!

The Very First Review

So on February 23rd, The University of Sydney held the First day of it's 3 day O-week. For the students who came to the SUTEKH stall and registered or renewed their membership, they were given a show bag which contained, among other things including candy and pamphlets from our sponsers, our Newsletter, the Zweihander.

This particular issue of Zweihander included my first game review Under the title of Gamepad Game Reviews. Included here is that very short review.

THIS ISSUE’S REVIEW: DEAD SPACE 2

Review by: Greg ‘2Dog’ Lancaster

From the beginning to the end, Dead Space 2 is, if nothing else, Scary. From the moment you gain control of Isaac Clarke to the end of the game, the game is tense and the surviving is hard, even on Casual.

Oh dude, gross! All you had to do was ask for a hankie!

Hi everyone, my name is 2Dog, and I’ll give you all the info that you’ll need to survive in the world of Dead Space 2, as well as what they’ve upgraded from the original Dead Space.

Dead Space 2 and Dead Space are two very different games. The first game set about setting up the tone, the story, the characters and the experience. The second continues the story characters and tone, but the experience is so much more. The game starts with Isaac coming to in the psych ward of The Sprawl, the remains of Titan, one of Jupiter’s moons. It immediately becomes apparent that another Necromorph outbreak has occurred and you spend the first half hour running for your life inside the station’s hospital.

The game quickly brings back old enemies and introduces new ones, both human and Necromorph. The game still features the same dismemberment tactics as well as presenting new weapons to try this with, including my favourite weapon: The Scout Rifle. All Dead Space weapons have to modes of firing, whether it is the 90 degree turn of the iconic Plasma Cutter or the grenade launcher in the Pulse Rifle. The Scout Rifle’s secondary

fire zooms in, and increases the damage of each shot fired. This alone makes this gun a necessity, and when it is fully upgraded, it becomes a weapon that can decimate any enemy in as few as one shot.                



    Wait a second, I have a son?!?

Now, I did mention upgrades to the game play didn’t I? If you played the first game then you will remember how clunky and awkward some of the mechanics were. Well it’s safe to say that when they made Dead Space 2, they listened. Do you remember the Kinesis tool? It now fires faster and has a standard range. What about the Stasis module you ask? Well, when I first played Dead Space I didn’t actually use it except on doors and machinery that didn’t function properly. However, now it recharges and the “shot” you fire is more focused and defined.

I won’t spoil all of the upgrades, but I will say this, say goodbye to the map, it’s gone. It’s understandable I suppose, Isaac hasn’t exactly had a chance to download the information, and it does add to the atmosphere.

Oh yes, did I mention that Dead Space 2 has Multiplayer? It does, and it’s an interesting experience in its own way. You play as either the Humans or the Necromorphs. The Humans have to complete objectives to either escape from the Necromorph outbreak or to help stop it.



Oh man, what a night! All I can remember is that first drink!

The Necromorphs have to kill the humans. It’s a simple as that, although I didn’t get to play much of the multiplayer because my computer kept having problems with it.

Dead Space 2 is as good as sequels come and carries the Dead Space franchise forward, answering some questions and making more. Where Dead Space 3 will take us, one can only hope that Isaac will be there to dish out some dismemberment.

Rating out of 5
Game Play:	*
Plot:	*
Enjoyment:	*
Total:	*

So as you can tell some things are missing, because the review was made using MS WORD, and it appears that Blogger doesn't really like WORD, especially if you used pictures in said word document. However I have provided links in the blue comedy text that was in the review to the original picture files.

This will be the first post of many like it under my Gamepad Game Review brand.

Thanks for reading and see you next post~!