Free Programming Software from Microsoft!

Good news to all college students who are wanting to get into computer-related fields.  (like me)  Microsoft is giving you free stuff!!!  Microsoft DreamSpark wants to help aspiring computer pro’s a head start by providing them with free software such as: Visual Studio 2008 (professional edition), Server 2008 (standard), XNA Game Studio 3.1 (which lets you make games for windows and x-box), and much much more.

To get the free software, you must sign up and verify you are a student (not sure how yet, but I think you give your university email address), and download away!

https://www.dreamspark.com/default.aspx

Oh, and thanks for the tip Mr. Brewer

Marathon Free and for Windows

Most people have not heard of Bungie’s prequel to Halo.  In 1994, marathon was released for macintosh computers.  The next year, they released the sequel Marathon 2: Durandal, and the following year, Marathon Infinity.  Marathon is a great FPS, it still holds up fairly well today, even 15 years after its release.  The best part it, its free now.  You can download Marathon from bungie along with a program that makes it run with windows.

Marathon Trilogy Download on Bungie.org

Aleph One, the program that makes it run on windows

Marathon on windows for beginners – A great article explinging how to set up marathon on windows, also includes the manuals to these games.

I hope you enjoy the game, expect a full review when I beat it!

Tech Entropy

Babcom recently told me of his plans to start a tech blog full of tutorials, tips, and other great tech info.  A little while later, he invited me to be an editor.  (at least, I think I am an editor…what exaclty is my title again?)  Anyways, the site is now up and it currently contains 2 articles  (as of 8/10/09):

Creating and Installing New Ringtones on the iPhone (By babcom)

Computers made simple: What does defragment mean and is it important? (By me!)

…and there is plenty more on the way, so be sure to check out the site regualrly for all kinds of great tech tips.

http://techentropy.wordpress.com/

Some Portal MapPacks

Portal is great, but too short.  Luckily there are plenty of maps and mappacks availible to tide us over until portal2 shows up.  I would like to point out two very good mappacks.

Portal: The Flash Version MapPack
Ok, we all remember Portal: The Flash Game, a surprisingly fun 2d flash version of portal.  (if you don’t know about it, click here)  Well, it has made the jump from 2d to 3d and now it can be played as a portal mod.

According to the Mod’s site

This mappack includes ALL 40 levels from WCS’s Flash version, additional bonus levels and features. All together, we’ve got here over three and a half hours of amazing gameplay.

http://portalmaps.wecreatestuff.com/ (40MB)

Portal: The Prelude
I have not gotten to try this out yet, as I am still downloading it.  However, I have heard a lot of great things about it.  This unoficial prequel to portal comes with”8 chapters, 19 test chambers, 48 challenges, 6 advanced maps, and a brand new storyline“

http://www.portalprelude.com/ (793MB…yeah, I know)

CubeToons

If you can’t read the comic, click on it to make it bigger.

 

This is a funny comic on IGN called cubetoons.  Basicly, the comic is about games, usually featuring the IGN editors and their crazy antics.  They have their own site but it is broken at the moment, but you can find most of their comics at IGN.

Cubetoons on IGN

cubetoons.com (May be broken)

Aperture Science Website

I recently decided to check out the Aperture Science website.  It gives you a black screen where you can type commands in a DOS prompt style.  I know this is old but I have never played with it before.

I figured out that you can type “login” and you will be prompted for a name and password.  Then I figured out that you can login to a limited account using anything for the username and “portal” for the password. 

In the limited account, you can only run one program “apply”.  I wanted more, so I googled it.  Somebody found the admin login (it is supposed to be hidden in the game somewhere)

username: cjohnson
password: tier3

Once there you can press dir or list to see the list of programs: Apply (allows you to apply for being a test subject) and Notes (the history of Aperture Science)

You can also type help for a list of other commands (typing play poral takes you to a removed youtube page)

according to IGN, there are some other commands.

• interogate (not sure what it does it asks for a employyes name)
• thecakeisalie (takes you to a vid of something)
• play portal (takes you to a youtube page, but the guy on ign says the vid is gone)

 Well, I am gonna go play with it some more.  I’ll let you know if I discover anything cool.  Bye.

Homestar Runner and Stong Bad

 

 I recently got my hands on Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People – Episode 4: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective for the computer.  Man, this is a funny game.  Quite possible the best point and click adventure game I have played since Monkey Island.  (A full review is coming when I beat the game) 

Anyways, I also found out that Strong Bad is part of homestarrunner.com.  So, I immeditly went to check it out.  This web site is awesome.  The videos are halarious, especially the Strongbad emails.  I am now officially a homestar runner fan.

http://homestarrunner.com

Veni-Vidi-Vici is a genius!

I just recenly read a great article on gamespot by a guy named Veni-Vidi-Vici.  It is entitled “Gravity Won’t Get You High: Why the Trend to VR needs a Creativity Boost“.    It is about how games are leaning more and more toward realizm and how there needs to be more creativity.  This is a fantastic article, I would reccomend that any gamer read it.

Mirror’s Edge 2d (Beta)

Remember Portal: The Flash Game?  It was awesome was’nt?  Well now we nerds have been graced with another 2d flash based version of a 1st person game.  Mirror’s Edge 2D is a collaberation between Bourne games (maker of Fancy Pants Adventures) to try to convert the awesomness of Mirror’s Edge to 2D.  The project is not finished yet, but a one level beta is avalible.  I have tried it, and it is fun.  I just hope the 1st person version is this good!

You can play the beta here: http://www.bornegames.com/mirrors-edge-beta/

Star Wars – Holonet News

I recently found out about a neat project that the Starwars.com people did a while back.  It is called Holonet news.  Basicly, it was a website that looked like a newspaper, set in the Star Wars galaxy.  You could read up on who was winning the latest pod races, the pollitics of the republic, or the rumors circiling the galaxy.  They even had funny SW ads on the side of the pages.  They discontinued it, but I have found the archives:

http://www.holonetnews.com/56/archives/

Recently, they have brought it back, but as a podcast.  It follows along with the new series.  This one is more like listining to the news on the radio…in the SW universe.  I also have the link for it:

http://starwars.com/theclonewars/hnn/001.html

Both of these are very funny.  If you are a SW nerd like me, you need to check them out.