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Tetris For the Iphone/Itouch
Tetris has been released for the Iphone and is published by Electronic Arts. I saw this in the app store for $4.99 (50 % off holiday sale) and I thought to myself, “You need to pick this up!” As soon as I clicked the purchase button I felt some sort of nostalgia come over me. I instantly flashed back to 1992, walking out of a store (the name I can’t remember at this moment) with my grandmother who had just bought my Nintendo GameBoy with Tetris and Blades of Steel – At least this time I didn’t have my parents screaming at me for this purchase of Tetris.
Nothing new on the game play front, with the exception of the ability to listen to your Itunes music collection while you play Tetris. It does feature 4 original soundtrack songs. The game features 2 modes called Marathon and Magic, and 15 Levels. Marathon mode features level 1 through 15, can you beat all levels? I couldn’t get pass level 9. The difficulty in this game sky rockets from levels 9-15. Magic Mode offers special tools that take advantage of the Iphones capabilities. Magic mode gives you 5 powers that you earn throughout the levels to manipulate the pieces to your advantage so you can clear all the lines. The powers are Bubble Wrap, Magic Crayon, Wrecking Ball, Minimizer and Smashdown .Like most other Iphone games you touch the screen and drag ,rotate drop the pieces where you want them to go, just tab the piece on screen and the block will flip positions allowing you to place it just perfectly. Like most other Iphone games you touch the screen and drag the pieces where you would like them to go, simply tap the piece on screen and the block will flip positions allowing you to place it just perfectly. The controls are just perfect. The touch screen suits Tetris. There have been a lot of complaints that Tetris will crash your Iphone/Itouch.
If you are a Tetris fan and have an Iphone or Itouch and are looking for a game to play, I recommend you pick up Tetris before it goes back to regular price.
read moreGears of War 2:Title Update #2
This Morning I received an email around 6am EST letting me know the Gears of War 2 title update #2 has been delployed. Here is the offical word from the Epic Boards posted by Rod.
I’m happy to announce that Title Update 2 for Gears of War 2 is now available. It went live this morning at 2 AM PST (5 AM EST) and as you can see from the detailed release notes below, it’s a significant update. It addresses a large number of multiplayer exploits and issues as well as makes some balancing tweaks, includes a couple of new features and even adds 7 new DLC-based achievements. Four of the new achievements require the Flashback Map Pack that came free with your new copy of the game, so don’t forget to redeem your code inside the box!
Once again, I want to thank our community for their patience while we finished this title update and I want to thank everyone for their ongoing support of the game. Gears 2 sales topped over 4 million copies sold in just two months and when we released the Combustible Map Pack in December, it became the number one piece of premium downloadable content for that month.
We’re continuing to work hard supporting the game and you, the community, and we look forward to seeing you online.
Gears of War 2 Title Update 2 Detailed Release Notes
The following fixes and improvements are included in Title Update 2.
Exploit Fixes
Title Update 2 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances:
- A player could melee or grenade tag through certain walls.
- A player could equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously.
- A player could make their shield invisible.
- A player could become invisible.
- A player could do a “super” mantle or “kung fu flip,” flying high into the air.
- A player could gain unlimited ammo with the Lancer Assault Rifle.
- A player could fire while roadie running (also known as “crabwalking”).
- A player could pick up a weapon while sliding into cover.
- A player could walk forward while firing a deployed mortar.
- A player could force an opponent to be stuck in the down but not out (DBNO) position.
- A player could prevent other players from picking up a heavy weapon.
- A player could pick up a dropped meatflag without having to knock him down.
- A ragdolled player could be killed without ever going DBNO.
- A player could roadie run while firing the Scorcher Flamethrower.
- A player could get stuck while evading, though they could continue shooting in any direction.
- A player could concuss themselves under the stairs on the River map.
General Fixes
Title Update 2 fixes these other issues as well:
- An issue with client-side hit detection of the Gnasher Shotgun. The fix makes the shotgun more reliable in high-latency situations.
- An issue where players could have shotgun or Boomshot rounds fire into the ground when shooting from the hip.
- A split-screen issue where one player transitioning to the death battle camera disrupted input from the other player.
- An issue that could cause players’ Look sensitivity to be changed to their Zoom sensitivity while zooming in, zooming out, and firing.
- An issue that could cause players to get stuck if they tried to pick up a heavy weapon while firing the shotgun at the same time.
- An issue where players could become stuck if they kicked over a shield while ragdolled from a smoke grenade.
- An issue where bots were unable to kick over a shield that was planted backward.
- An issue where players who quit during voting didn’t show up in the end game stats, which meant other players couldn’t easily provide negative feedback on them.
- An issue where players couldn’t chainsaw enemy meatshields if the meatshields were already damaged.
- An issue where some players would not see the animation of a meatshield being chainsawed.
- An issue where players could not chainsaw an opposing team meatshield in a game type that doesn’t allow respawns (for example, Warzone and Execution).
- An issue where a player partway through the act of raising or lowering the chainsaw did not transition into a duel when attacked from the front with a chainsaw.
- An issue where occasionally a player waiting to respawn could not respawn when repeatedly hitting the left trigger to switch cameras.
- An issue where some teammates couldn’t communicate between rounds in games type that don’t allow respawns, because dead team members were left in the dead radio channel until the next round started.
- An issue where a DBNO player could be seen as standing if knocked DBNO while reloading the mortar.
- An issue where a player joining a Private Xbox LIVE game in progress from another specific type of game could potentially lose HUD functionality.
- An issue on the Flood map where a player’s dying from Imulsion did not trigger a death message or penalize the player as other environmental deaths did.
- An issue with Guardian games where if the leader is the last player killed on a team, the round may not end, due to the respawn timer.
- A campaign issue where the gamer picture would not be awarded when the game is completed on Insane.
- An issue where a player would continue to fire the flamethrower and damage other players if that player was knocked DBNO while firing it.
- An issue that could cause a player to get stuck while moving and quickly attempting to aim the mortar at the same time.
- An issue with Horde games where clients didn’t receive the “waiting for host” message after they failed a wave.
- A Horde split-screen issue that could cause a team to get -2 billion in score, which when posted to the leaderboards looked like +2 billion.
- An issue where dead players may not show up in the metadata for multiplayer photos.
- A system link issue where if a multiplayer match and a co-op game were hosted at the same time on the same LAN, neither could be joined.
- Additional miscellaneous bug fixes.
Balancing
Title Update 2 makes these balancing changes:
- Made planted proximity grenade mines much easier to shoot off the surface they’re planted on, by giving them 50 percent less health.
- Set grenades to respawn less frequently. When a player picks up grenades from a spawned location, a new set of grenades does not respawn until the previous grenades have been used.
- Increased the penalty to rank for players who quit Public Xbox LIVE matches early.
- Buffed the flamethrower to have stopping power (to slow a charging enemy) and to cause a chainsaw interrupt (to force the opponent to lower a revved chainsaw).
- Removed the ability to instantly shoot coming out of a roadie run.
- Added additional spawn protection to prevent proximity grenade mines and chainsaws from killing a player within 5 seconds after spawning.
- Balanced grenade spawn cycling on the Hail map so that both teams have equal access to both types of grenades.
We continue to test internally and monitor online gameplay to determine what else may need adjusting.
Improvements
Title Update 2 makes these new improvements:
- Changed Annex games to use execution rules, to prevent players from leaving DBNO opponents on the ground to bleed out.
- Made Horde waves count toward the “Party Like It’s 1999″ achievement. Each wave is counted as one round.
- Added the ability, during Submission games, to see the flag’s final destination by using Tac/Com.
- Increased the frequency of most of the toasts for in-game achievement progression.
- Added achievement progression numbers to the War Journal.
- Added 7 new DLC-based achievements worth 175 points (progress toward them starts after Title Update 2 is applied):
- “Skeletons in Your Closet” (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Flashback Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).
- “Trial by, and on, Fire” (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Combustible Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).
- “More Mystery, Less History” (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the 5 Flashback Map Pack maps (any mode except Wingman).
- “The Roof! The Roof! The Roof…” (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the 3 Combustible Map Pack maps (any mode except Wingman).
- “Bound by a Shared Past” (15 points): Win a Wingman match on each of the 5 Flashback Map Pack maps.
- “Forged in the Fire” (15 points): Win a Wingman match on each of the 3 Combustible Map Pack maps.
- “Annex: Now with Execution Rules” (75 points): Win an Annex match on each of the Flashback and Combustible Map Pack maps (Public only).
More can be found here
read moreGears of War 2 Community Night – What a Success!!!!!
Wow! I can’t believe the overwhelming response from the Gears of War 2 community for the Tehflakes.ca’s community event. My friends list filled up quickly. I couldn’t accept any more friend requests! DarthAlbert III experienced similar success. Hopefully Microsoft will fix the 100 friends list limit and increase it in the future. If I was unable to accept your friend request or play with you I apologize as there were so many people that wanted to play. We had many laughs and many kills and most importantly a great time. Thanks to everyone who showed up and played with DarthAlbert III and I, tehflakes. Winners will be notified by Xbox Live Message.
The winners of the golden Hammerburst codes are:
MIGHTYFINNDAWG
REALIZED
The winners of the T-Shirts are:
Will be posted shortly.
read moreGears of War 2 Combustible Map Pack Review
On December 15th 2008 at the Spike Videogame Awards Cole Train made a special appearance where he announced the Combustible map pack for GoW2 that would be released that night at 12am PST and cost 800 MS points (10 Dollars)
Here is the launch trailer courtesy of 1up.com/Gamevideos
I know I am bit behind on posting about the map pack but I wanted to have sometime with the 3 new maps before posting about them.
Flood:
Flood is a smaller map that has Imulsion throughout the level, watch your step you don’t want to catch fire and die. I was a bit skeptical of this map at first because it is a smaller map but after playing with it extensively I find that I love the intense fire fights that this map offers.
An abandoned fuel station why not blow up the tanks and scare the enemy or head up the second level of station and control the map. There are only 2 ways upstairs plant those grenades on the stairs and then get ready to shotgun any enemy that decides to come up the evaluator. The team that usually controls the second level wins the game. This map is a fun map it really is but is not suited for all game modes and is probably the weakest map of the map pack.
Gold Rush:
Is a two level map that has a sniper on the second level and a mortar on the first level. Decisions, Decisions where do you go? Do you take the mortar and try and destroy the enemy on the second level or do you go after the sniper and blow off the enemy’s head on the lower level.
Conclusion
There was not hints dropped by Epic Games that DLC maps were coming and they came quick after launching the game. GoW2 was still suffering from matchmaking issues and adding more maps to the fold may have not been the best thing for it. The marketing campaign to have Cole come up on screen at the Spike Video game awards and announce the Conbustible Map Pack and that it
read moreTehflakes.ca Gears of War 2 Community Night
Tehflakes.ca Gears of War 2 Community Night
Tehflakes.ca is hosting a Gears of War 2 Community night! More information will be available at http://gearsofwar.xbox.com/Templates/CMBlog.aspx?id=1326
Here is the important info about this community night:
This Saturday, January 17, you can test your skills against DarthAlbert III and Tehflakes
Date: Saturday, January17, 2009
Time: 9pm – 12pm EST
Come out and test your skills against Tehflakes.ca (and maybe win some cool Gears stuff), add the gamertags below to your friends list, and join them for a game this weekend!
Tehflakes
DarthAlbert III
I hope to see and play with as many of you as possible. So send us some friend’s requests, leave a message in this thread or send us an Xbox live message.
To be entered into the giveaways come out and play some GoW2 with us and you will automatically be entered to win some very cool prizes. Once the night is over we will collect all names and put them in a random draw for the prizes. We have 2 t-shirts and 2 golden weapon codes.Winners will be notified by Xbox Live message that they have won.
read moreBeejive IM for the Iphone/Itouch
The Beejive Company has released version 2.0 of the widely popular IM client on the Iphone. It may come with a steep price tag of $15.99(!!!) but it is worth every penny and much much more. It supports a wide variety of IM clients and is probably one the most intuitive applications available.
As soon as I downloaded the application and synced up my Iphone 3g on the Rogers network, I doubled clicked the application, added my MSN account, Google talk account and logged into both at the same time with zero problems. The tabs of the application are Buddy list, favourites, chats, accounts and more. As soon as I logged into MSN I was surprised to see my groups were imported as is, does it ever make communicating a lot easier when you have your contacts sorted into groups. Once you closed the application it doesn’t log you out, it simply will email you a notification of a chat if you have push email service enabled. You can also send and receive files with this application. I guess the single biggest feature it is it doesn’t kill your battery. That’s right it’s very gentle on your battery life!
Overall this is by the single best IM application in the Itunes Application store. I can’t wait to see what future updates this application holds.
