Make your bed and sleep in it, and scaevolus McRegion? Minecraft is updated to 1.3 in beta

Posted on February 22, 2011 8:19 pm by lartens

Loaded up my original map on minecraft to be greeted with the mesage “Converting World to Scaevolus McRegion” and an extra option in the err options menu for lighting.

##update##
There seems to be a fair amount of traffic to this site with keywords scaevolus mcregion. And somebody had a corrupt update, there are some possible things to try in the comments ALWAYS BACK FILES UP FIRST, but basically, scaevolus originally wrote a converter for the chunks to the new region formats http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=120160. but minecraft uses a different extension for them. By changing the .mcr region file to .data files the converter can convert back to the original chunk type, hopefully this can fix some problems when minecraft reconverts them, or enable you to use some of the tools people made for the old type, though majong have some code for tool makers to add apparently to use the new chunk format.

Now let’s play minecraft woo hoo, unfortunately the destructoid server is still on the old build 🙁 so i fire up my own server and connect to that instead, so far none of that dropping nonsense with the time thing blah blah blah. Now what new treats and goodies has notch left us?

Apart from the new splash screen and some serverside whitelisting, there should be a make your own bed and skip the night if all of us are sleeping, hurrah, no more scarey creepers sneaking up outside my door.
Right, whats gonna be the logical way to make a bed, i’m thinking some sticks wood and some wool, who’s with me?

‘Kay, well it wasn’t quite that but it’s still pretty intuitive, however the first 2 times i tried to sleep i got woken up by a skeleton and a zombie, but third times a charm and hey presto it’s morning again. This time i made a little glass enclosure for my safety 🙂

There are also 3 half size blocks and a new redstone Delay/Repeater for the circuit builders out there. I personally just dig my hole, or make my glass bridge, i know i’m lame, but there’s nothing better than the thrill of finding legitimate diamond. As the advertisment showed. you know the one i mean, with the kid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Ci09GwAmg.

Posted in Games, General, lartens | 2 Comments

Gears Of War 3 Packshot Revealed

Posted on February 22, 2011 11:56 am by bedgell

Packshot ahoy!

News on Gears Of War 3 has been trickling out for over a year now – but aside from the Ashes to Ashes trailer and the avatar items on XBL (remember when you could vote for Clayton Carmine to die by buying a t-shirt?!), there’s been little tangible proof that the game was indeed headed to our shores in time for it’s mooted April 8th release date.

But fret no more COG-fans!

Because GRiG ORiG is proud to show you this lovely picture of pack! Admittedly, this looks almost identical to the last two games so it’s not much to cream your crackers over – but with news that Gears 3 will be the final chapter of the 12-million selling über-franchise, featuring four-player co-op and even a voiceover from Grammy-nominated hip-hopster Drake, it’s clear that Epic are pulling out all the stops for an massive send-off. And with COD, Halo, and Killzone all making huge strides since Gears enjoyed its first moment in the FPS spotlight, this is gonna have to be big just to compete.

Here’s hoping…

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Kinect SDK confirmed by Microsoft for this spring

Posted on February 22, 2011 12:36 am by lartens

The kinect is this very cool peripheral for the xbox 360 that most can’t use in their tiny bedrooms/livingrooms thanks to the US user testing, not that it matters becaue there hasn’t been a great buzz for official usage for it anyway, or not that i’ve heard, whereas the hacker developer scene has made some pretty nifty pc apps already.
microsoft Kinect peripheral

Hot on the heals of the kinects release adafruit.com set up a competition to get devs to develop drivers for this microsoft wonder, sure enough it was up and running within days and the hacker community started creating, we’ve seen block representations of people and their cats in minecraft, street fighter moves with the classic hadouken and shoryuken movements and many fun ways to control a pc. But now…

There’s been rumors of an official microsoft sdk for a while now, and there’s also been talk of an unofficial sdk by some German developers. But Microsoft have officially announced that a non commercial use sdk for windows is coming very soon, wether or not they eventually put this into the xna framework too is yet to be seen, but if the simplicity of xna for windows and the kinect sdk can be used easily by lesser skilled coders such as myself, this could mean lots of fun to be had, a very good reason to be ebaying a kinect methinks ^_^.

The reason for sdks and frameworks is for simple api and method calls hiding the complex algorithms, and integration with operating systems. The sdk will compile the code a developer creates and boom, an installer is made for the world to play with your creation, it’s wicked fun stuff.

resources include (and many thanks to):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12531127
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/38701/microsoft-kinect-sdk-officially-confirmed
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-20034534-235.html

Posted in Games, General, lartens, Tech | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Minecraft “Dead Island spoof trailer”, i loves minecraft

Posted on February 21, 2011 9:20 pm by lartens

So complementing bedgells Shawn of the Dead Island post below, this little parody/spoof whatever you call it trailer involves the much loved minecraft game. You may have noticed i like posting about minecraft, though sadly i never have time to play it. But heres a vid by Dennis Vareide from Norway using vegas pro 9 and adobe after effects, enjoy.

Posted in Games, General, lartens | 2 Comments

Batman’s Arkham – Autumn Release and New Comic

Posted on February 21, 2011 9:22 am by bedgell

Comic Cover

Like Rihanna and her outfit from the latest Kanye West video, two excellent and beautiful things are about to come together. Batman is going back to comics, and he’s taking the Arkham video game franchise with him in a six-part series due to launch in May.

The release will bridge the storyboard gap between Batman: Arkham City, set for Autumn release on XBox and PS3, and 2009’s brilliant Arkham Asylum – one of that year’s best releases, and one that managed to garner the Guinness World Record for “Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever” (not that hard as the remainder are fairly lame, but still…)

Harley Quinn

Written by Batman: The Animated Series writer Paul Dini (who also penned both Arkham games) and drawn by Arkham City’s concept artist Carlos D’anda, Batman: Arkham City picks up one year after the original game, where former Arkham Warden turned newly elected Mayor of Gotham City Quincy Sharp has decided to close down the infamous institution. In its stead, he establishes “Arkham City,” the new maximum security “home” for all of Gotham City’s thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, inmates can roam free and do whatever they want as long as they don’t try to escape. To run this urban prison, Sharp has appointed Dr. Hugo Strange, a man who knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman.

Each issue of the mini-series will be available day-and-date digitally worldwide for $2.99 each (no news yet on UK release / pricing). But in the meantime, check out these awesome new pics from the game and comic – enjoy!

Posted in bedgell, Comic, consoles, Games | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dead Island Meets Shaun – Hurrah!

Posted on February 21, 2011 7:18 am by bedgell

Fan fiction works ever faster on t’interweb with this superb Shaun Of The Dead mash-up already hitting YouTube and edgarwright.com.

Unbelievably, it’s just a week since the ace Dead Island trailer was lobbed like a hunk of undead rock into the sleepy games trailer millpond, but already the ripples have spread to calls for movie versions, huge hype for (what is, remember, an unplayed) Xbox / ps3 title and, now, a nod from that archetype of the zombie flick: Shaun of the Dead, and its beloved co-creator, Edgar Wright.

It’s a mighty fine effort, but does contain spoilers meaning, if you’re wise enough to have seen the movie then press on in satisfied glee – but if not, self-apply a reproachful slap, go watch it, and we’ll see you here in 99 minutes…

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Love Death? Boong-Ga, Boong-Ga…

Posted on February 19, 2011 2:17 am by bedgell

Top Ten lists are normally utter drivel. They’re filler for Sunday night telly, where D-list muppets fill E4’s downtime by pretending to remember their favourite hairstyle from 1984 (there was the mullet and the perm! We don’t need a whole freakin’ programme about it!). But there’s one type of list that’s always high quality – and that’s the type that lists crazy buh from Japan.

So have a gander at Top Tenz.net’s current feature on exactly that – there’s some suitably crazy shizzle going on. But nothing tops Love Death, and its completely amoral abuse of scantily clad teens. (Of which we most certainly do not approve.)

Well, we approve enough to post a video of it at the top. But that’s free speech people – blame George Washington.

Posted in bedgell, Quirks | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Green Screen, after effects and a nice camera, yeah that’s what i want

Posted on February 18, 2011 11:39 pm by lartens

So the people who did the minecraft video in a live action cg thing, have a few other video’s up, some of which show how they do things, they kinda speed through the after effects process to show how they do things on a simplified level, and i found this really interesting. So there could be some summertime homevideo making but with effects if you up for that grigs?

Dibbs ahoy likes to edit his iphone movies so maybe by the summer we can take his skills and ideas and make them with a green screen and i can play around in after effects, which i’m hoping to get at a student discount before then end of my course, hopefully an updated version will be out before i need to purchase.

Anway here’s a link to corridorDigitals youtube page with the green screen vid that’s also embeded below

Posted in General, lartens, Tech | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Alcohol Arcade Lacks "In-Pants" Option

Posted on February 18, 2011 3:07 pm by bedgell

Behold The Gamerator! The custom-built arcade beaut that could finally persuade the girlfriend to have games in the kitchen… Because this sucker not only packs an in-built arcade, pre-loaded with classic titles from Street Fighter 2 (hurrah!) to Castlevania (huzzah!), but also boasts a full sized fridge that’s big enough for a keg of beer (hzzzrrrhghugh!)

Hand crafted by American lunatics The Custom Bar Guys, the machine’s gaming assets include a 26″ HD telly, two sets of arcade joysticks and trackballs, 85 pre-loaded arcade beauts (not all as tasty as the above titles, but still a pretty good selection), and a Windows PC so you can download, well, pretty much anything else. And round the back, the cheeky fridge has the space and plumbing for a full sized beer keg – all linking to a tap out front for easy, in-game pouring. (Oh, and there’s cup holders.) And how much for this little gem? Why, only $3,499!

But wait. Even though the price is clearly tiny, we can’t overlook Gamerator’s flaws. For one, the fridge door is stuck round the back – fine if there’s just a beer keg stuck inside, but rubbish if you want to nip in and out for your sarnies and a Muller Crunch Corner. And a stand-up cabinet? Listen gents, if I’m at home, I’m sitting down. Crashing in your keckers is the best feature of home gaming – so why would you take that away from me? Why?! And all that kind of blows it because, if we’re saying the fridge is useless, and we’d be too lazy ever to play the arcade, then, um… $3,499 is a little bit pricey.

Still, nice idea boys. And at least there’s cupholders.

Posted in Arcade, bedgell, Quirks, Tech | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Minecraft meets the outside world

Posted on February 17, 2011 11:34 pm by lartens

This was just posted on notch’s blog
. Notch is the developer of minecraft. Any this video posted on youtube has taken the players, enemies and tools of minecraft, added some final cut, after effects 3ds max mastery, and is some quality 2 and a half minutes treat for those familiar with the minecraft world. minecraft minecraft mincraft. Yeah!

Like it Yo
Posted in Games, General, lartens | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment