Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I Won the Worthplaying.com Contest!!! Free trip to Red Faction Guerrilla Multiplayer event in San Francisco.

I WON! See http://www.worthplaying.com/redfaction_contest.php. So I got the awesome opportunity that every gamer dreams of. WorthPlaying.com flew me to San Francisco and got me access to the Multiplayer Red Faction Guerrilla event. Needless to say, it was awesome. Upon arriving to SF a personal sedan picked me up and took me to the Taj Hotel. Not only did I get to go to an awesome event, I got to stay at an extremely plush hotel. After I got settled in I wanted to do some recon on the event. I walked out the hotel and found the Vassel Club right a small alley street. I knew this was the place, not only because it looked cool, and had the right name, but because it had a generator trailer right out side with a huge bundle of cables leading the way into the dark depths of the club. I scouted a little more then went to grab some food.

Back to the cool part. I return to the event as people are arriving. I walked down the stairs, and it was dimly lit room with a big screen with Red Faction Guerrilla chilling on it. there were consoles everywhere each with their own flat screen high res displays. Like a dream RFG shimmering off each one. A couple consoles had bigger screens, but we will get to that later.I was amazed seemed everyone in the know was there.. A few game reviewers, and other assorted people. The first two people that I started talking to turn out to be Volition DEVS! I am terrible with names, however I was loving it. I later got to interview Luke Schneider on the record, with the two other contest winners. you can read the interview here. Right about now I probably should let you know for those of you who don't know me on a more personal level, I am adopted, and on my birth certificate my first name was Florentino. However people called me Tony. So, when I got adopted, Anthony was the first name used. Online most of you only know me as D4RK_4NG3L. That being said Here is the interview http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=62567

Luke Schneider, introduced the game, and announced that there would be a multiplayer release heading to consoles soon. Then we got to pick out our consoles sin down and the destruction began. As with any new it takes a second to get into the swing of things. It probably took me more time to acclimate to the console being a computer gamer. However I started to get into the groove of things, and it was on. After getting p0wned a bit with the sledge hammer I took it into my own hands and started really causing destruction. The hammer is one of the few weapons that I don't feel really has a counter, I would love to see a block using your weapon to stop the hammer. Other than that most weapons in the game are balanced by one another. I can't possibly talk about every weapon, you have to try it to really enjoy them. The amount of destruction is absolutely amazing. It seems that everything is destructible. This is something you should keep in mind if you want to stay alive long. Between huge towers that people, can snipe off of, to big buildings, that people try to hide in. The only difference is instead in RFG the only thing that offers you safety, is your teammates and your weapons. That is all. If there is someone hiding in a building? You can blow through a wall, or take your hammer to the wall. Then burst through your improvised doorway spraying them with your weapon. Of course if you have a "Rhino Pack" you don't need the hammer or explosives, you can just activate your pack and run through the wall. (works on people too) Full body check style.

Somehow the Volition team was able to make the destruction in this game very smooth and playable no matter what. Using their Geo mod 2.0 etc to push the very limits of the current generation hardware. I also played a little bit of the single player, and the variety in vehicles and tasks is refreshing. I had the pleasure of talking with Rick White a Producer at Volition. The amazing thing about the whole event, with all the amazing talent and people from all over, they were all down to earth and easy to talk to. I will post another time about my chat with Rick White. I will be releasing some video when I have a chance to edit and cut it together nicely.

Again I would like to thank Wothplaying.com for selecting me as a winner. To see more of my thoughts on the game check out the statement I made that they posted up on their site!

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=62644


Sunday, May 10, 2009

Xfire white sidebar fix Windows 7

Because I have had many people ask me for the white sidebar fix, I have decided to write up a Batch File and guide on how to fix it.

Basically the white sidebar problem arises from Xfire not knowing what Win7 is, so it misplaces a few files.

You can try "Typeing in a chat window (any xfire chat window) this command:
/forceupdate"
If that doesn't work read on.

By default Xfire is installed to
C:\Program Files (x86)\Xfire (if you are running a 32-bit version of Windows there will be no "(x86)")


I have created a batch file to fix this problem download and run by right clicking and choosing "run as administrator"
This batch was written with Default installations in mind, and will not work with custom install paths.

Link to the file.
WhiteSidePanelXfireFIX+v2BAT



If you don't trust my batch file, or just want to do it manually, here are the steps to fix Xfire manually:

  1. Close Xfire if its running
  2. Make sure you can get to the ProgramData folder. This folder is hidden by default. If you can't see it don't worry just follow these steps.
  3. Open the Windows Start menu
  4. Choose "Run..." from the right column
  5. Type in %programdata% and press OK (see image below).
  6. The ProgramData folder should now open. If there is no folder named "Xfire" there, create it.
  7. Then open the Xfire folder. By default C:\Program Files (x86)\Xfire (Remember if you are running a 32-bit version of Windows there will be no "(x86)")


Open up two windows and move one window as far left as you can and it will automatically resize to fill in the left half of your screen, then move the other window as right as possible and it will fill that part of screen.

Now you want to move the files and folders listed here to the
%programdata%\Xfire folder :
  • Folders
    • channels
    • downloads
    • Icons
    • screenshots
    • skins
    • sounds
    • templates
    • videos
  • Files
    • Quicktime.qtp
    • Xfire.ini
    • xfire_games.ini
If there are any other fixes I will try to keep this updated.

I hope this help you can always leave comments, here or give suggestions to the Xfire team.