Has anyone else noticed that the face staring out the StarCraft II box looks a lot like Michael Keaton?
No, is seem not.
Searching Google only found one other mention of this.
Maybe everyone else is just too interested in playing the game to look at the box?
I’d just like to thank my movie fanatic sister for pointing this out.
Recently read on a tweet that Blizzard are looking for people to Beta test StarCraft 2.
Seems nice. You have to login to Battle.Net, and tick an ‘opt me into beta testing’ box. But I can’t seem to remember what my Battle.Net password is, and it says my credentials for getting it reset are not valid.
After some chasing details. Searching how to install StarCraft on Intel Macs. I discovered that I wasn’t actually registered on Battle.Net, just the Battle.Net you access via the game (which expires after not using it for 3 months anyway).
Along the way I found this nice guide for installing StarCraft and Diablo II on Intel Macs. And I got to play a game I haven’t for a while.
To put yourself down as a potential beta tester you need:
After registering I found that you can download CD images of StarCraft and Brood War from the Battle.Net site. Quite nice if you still have your CD key, but lost or damage your game CDs. You need a bit of spare bandwidth though, about 1.4 GB for StarCraft and wasn’t Diablo II in 5 CDs?.
It is also nice to see for a change that Australian games get to have a go before everyone else. Reading the StarCraft II FAQ I noticed that Australia will be in the first batch of countries offer beta testing.
When does the StarCraft II beta test start?
We don’t have an exact start date to share at this time, but note that when it does begin, we will be adding additional regions to the beta test in phases. North America, Australia, and New Zealand will be the first regions to begin beta testing, and other regions will follow afterward in phases. We will have more information to share about all of these phases in the future.
Are people starting to see the worth of Australia as a good English speaking test bed with its fast uptake of technology? Or is it just that being such a small region it was easier to set us up first?
The introduction of an R18+ rating for computer games has been delayed indefinitely after South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson withdrew his support for a discussion paper and public consultation process. Mr Atkinson has refused to allow the release of the paper on “pros and cons” of introducing an adults-only rating for games.
A fantasy plague that accidentally ran amok in the internet’s most popular game world, populated by nine million flesh-and-blood players, may help scientists predict the impact of genuine epidemics, according to a study released Tuesday. World of Warcraft is being used as a model to test the effects of epidemics like bird flu. (SMH, 21 Aug 2007)
Having just finished all my Uni assignments I have a lot more free time now, and a need to de-stress. So what do I do that doesn’t require too much brain power and is not important?
Someone pointed me in the direction of Newgrounds. Go watch some silly movies or play web games.
Xeno Tactic
So I found Xeno Tactic. A defence game where you have to stop all the aliens from walking from one side of the screen to the other. On the first level they just walk from left to right, and on subsequent levels from top to bottom as well.
Turrets
You start with 80 gold and buy weapon turrets to wipe out the aliens. The cheapest is the basic Vulcan Turret at 5 gold. More expensive turrets include plasma, freeze rays and missiles. These have a greater range and/or rate of fire. You can also upgrade existing turrets, increasing their damage/range/rate of fire.
Each alien you kill earns you gold. The harder aliens earn you more of it. You can build new turrets or upgrade existing ones as you have the money. But building and upgrading takes time, and turrets won’t fire while upgrading.
Tactics
So you put down turrets, they shoot the aliens, should be easy. Well not quite so easy. Some aliens are quite tough and need to be shot quite a bit.
Since the aliens just take the quickest route across the screen and don’t attack the turrets, I found the best way to deal with this is to create a maze so the aliens walk back and forth next to the same turrets a number of times. Which also increases the turrets cost to effectiveness ratio. Only problem is the waves of flying aliens.
Overall
Over all an ok game, but very addictive if the you are into that sort of thing. I have spent a bit too much time trying to finish some levels. 
Xeno Tactic
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/382321
(Started a month a go when I initially found the game, and only just finished now)
Having a bit of a read/edit of wikipedia today and found N.
More than just a letter, ‘N’ is a Load Runner esk game written in Flash. With 3 keys you control a ninja, running, jumping and climbing your way around each level.
Ninjas have a “god-like speed, dexterity, jumping power, and reflexes“, unfortunately due this being being the result of a ultra fast metabolism the ninjas life spans are much shorter. 90 seconds to be exact.
In these 90 seconds your ninja must dodge mines, turrets, lasers and drones; flick switches, open doors and the exit; and collect gold. Through the 5 levels of an episode. Due to the “sickeningly materialistic attitude” of the ninja, each piece of gold collected adds 2 seconds to their life.
An interesting game. Looks simple, but it is quite hard.
References:
Or should that be Virtual Virtual Lemmings? Finished my Uni assignment and thought I would read through other peoples posts about the asignment on the Uni web board. Seems some people were in need of displacement activities and found a web site with Lemmings.
This version of Lemmings has been written in JavaScript. And for a program written in an interpreted language it runs quite smoothly.
DHTML Lemmings™ by crisp
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