Google Fail

hehe, fail!! (click the image to see it large)

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Jumping Into "Lost"

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Rvlink's Top Ten Games

10. Grand Theft Auto 4 (2008)
9. Okami (2006)
8. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)
7. Guitar Hero (2005)
6. Resident Evil 4 (2005)
5. GoldenEye 007 (1997)
4. Metroid Prime (2002)
3. Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
2. Super Mario World (1991)
1. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)

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Resident Evil 5 (Demo)

On Monday(Jan 26th) the playable demo of Resident Evil 5 hit the Xbox Live Marketplace, and I thought I would check it out. The demo includes 2 levels, playable in single player, and co-op (both offline and online). So far I have no tried out the co-operative play, but I have done both levels in single player. The visuals were spectacular, even for a demo! They gameplay was fun, but it felt a little bit clunky, which hopefully they will improve upon. I had loads of fun blasting away zombies with the pistol and shotgun in the first level, but i couldn't help but notice that almost all of the zombies flew back the exact same way when I hit them with the shotgun. (Hopefully they will improve that too, but bear with it, it's only a demo :] ) For once, the AI wasn't incompetent (not naming any names... *ahem Ashley * She actually supplied me with ammo, saved me a couple times, and even killed a couple zombies for me. Anyways, the demo seemed amazing, so if you haven't checked it out, I definitely reccommend downloading it. Oh, but only if you're old enough.
In other news, just random, but Capcom announced special boxart for the 360 version, woot! I look forward to seeing Chris and Sheva on March 13 when it hits store shelves

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Album Releases: Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

Tonight: Franz Ferdinand is Franz Ferdinand's third album. It was released through Domino Records yesterday. First thoughts and more about this new album after the jump!

Franz Ferdinand began working on their third studio album in early 2007. The band planned to write and record the album in Glasgow. Although having written about eight songs while on tour in 2005, Alex Kapranos decided to write new tunes because he wanted the album to be "...quite new, to be quite different sounding from everything we've ever done before." Despite having recorded their sophomore album in a blitz, Kapranos stressed that the band wanted to take their time. He voices, "This time we wanted to spend more time developing, and also, I suppose, allowing songs and sounds to evolve more before we ended up writing an album, and absorbing more music and ideas and, I suppose, life itself. And when I say life, I mean life off the road, because I wouldn't classify life on the road as real life."

The album has reportedly been inspired by the "heavy dub sound of Jamaican reggae stars." Alex Kapranos also stated the album has a "streak of electronica" but is still a mix of influences. He also commented it has "..the heavy bass and space echo you would find on a dub mix." In a Rolling Stone interview, Kapranos stated the album is more of a dance than a rock record. In an interview with Billboard.com, Kapranos said "It's the opposite of punk/pop, which took something that was wonderful and removed all the dirt." The album also has somewhat of an African influence according to an XFM article in which Alex reeled, "We're one of these bands that are always gonna sound the same no matter what we do, but there are other influences there. I guess the drums are a little different, Paul has been listening to a lot of African stuff so that's gonna come through."

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NANM - Not Another New Member - ZombieC

Seriously, we promise no more after this. We added another author to the blog. His name is ZombieC, and he is a good friend of all of us. He is into all of the same sort of stuff as all of us, and we all welcome him in as an author. He also tends to be funny in a random way, which fits us fine. Now with six people working on writing, we can keep this blog going strong.

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The World of Free and Open Source Games

Free and open source software has really been catching on lately. With the advances of Ubuntu, Firefox and many other free software packages it is becoming more of a viable choice for customers. The software is getting user friendly enough that normal computer users can use it. This is great and all, but what if you are into games? A look into this after the jump.

The state of free and open source games is just in its beginnings. Most of the games you see are 2d games, mainly puzzle games and arcade side scrollers. Are these the games that hardcore gamers want? No. These are more for the casual gamers. But what about full on 3d shooters, and action/adventure games?

Well right now there aren't many. I wonder though why? The graphics api that is used on the ps3 and wii is readily available for all platforms, and is ready for open source development. If you are into xbox games, and windows games, microsoft's directx is available, along with their xna development software. Many physics engines are available such as ODE, Bullet and Newton to be used in these projects.

I think that the main problem is, is that not enough teams of people have worked together to create these games like the larger open source software projects like ubuntu, openoffice, firefox. For a project like this, a good community is the key. Games need bug testers, programmers, project managers, and a good plan for development, just like any other application. More people need to get involved in this area of programming.

The problem is that a lot of people want to create games, they all want to know how to make the next Halo or World of Warcraft right from the start. They try for something to large to begin with, and then get scared away from creating games, because it is too hard. Most times people start off these large projects by themselves. The truth is is that a lot of these people just worked together, they could get something done by splitting everything up.

A good example of this is a game called the Monkey Game Project. It started out on the blenderartists form with a bunch of self-professed noobs. It was basically a community game project. Each individual person may not know much about everything you need to make a full game, but together they had enough knowledge to create a game. Now this game may not be the best game ever, or have good graphics or anything, but it proves with a good community spirit can give you results.

This idea has recently been used to create another game called Yo Frankie!. This time it was a bit different. These developers were not noobs of any sort. A group of the best developers and artists from the Blender3D and CrystalSpace3D projects came together to create this game. With all of that combined talent, they managed to create a very good looking game, with good gameplay. Everything was thought out well, and they did finish the whole project. Everything was done with free software. This game is also not perfect, especially performance wise (due to inefficient code in blender's game engine), but the two goals were accomplished. It was shown that it is possible create a high quality game with free software, and it also helped both software projects with new features, and better performance.

The point is, if more groups of talented people (or even not so talented) got together, used a optimized graphics and physics engine, the quality of games will increase. I just hope that one day, one of these games will be competing with the likes of Halo, Call of Duty, MSG and others, just like Linux and Windows, OpenOffice and Microsoft Word and Firefox and Internet Explorer. It will be good all around, as the commercial companies will have more competition, and the quality of open source projects will increase. We already have some good examples sprouting like Frets on Fire, and some other MMORPGs, and hopefully more come into the scene. Well thats it for my insight into free and open source games. If you have something to say, please comment, or check out our Facebook groups discussion board.

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Forest of Illusions is Revitalized

I would officially like to welcome both blendermf and oldmanknoops to the Forest of Illusions team. Hopefully with five members we can keep the blog updated and new content will be constantly added to the site. Blendermf has done a great job on updating the site's look as well. Also we have added a discussion board, hosted on our Forest of Illusions group on Facebook, with the link on the side of the page, a Twitter acount has also been set up. So overall expect more blogs, more reviews (album and movie reviews now, along with game reviews), random top tens, and more from the Forest of Illusions team!

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New member...

Hey everyone, some of you may have never seen me here, i'm new. My names Matt(aka blendermf or on xbl, blendermfskate). I am also a friend of everyone here, and joined to work on the design of the blog, and post when I feel like it.

Anyways I may post review sometime soon, probably of Skate 2. (yes Rikzor it counts as a real game), but first I have to get my stupid xbox back from microsoft, that they sent to someone in mississauga with my name. Now I have to wait for them to finish investigating and its taking forever.

Maybe I should say a bit about my interests in gaming. First of all I like to program and work on games. I keep fairly up to date in the game development scene, and like creating my own games. I am also really into free and open source things, including games. I am not in to fps games as much as everyone else here, but enjoy rythm games, some sports games, racing games, action games, and the occasional shooter (but mainly on the PC(I like the mouse better(maybe I should stop nesting brackets(okay i'll stop now))). With that in mind that will be what I mainly post about, and general gaming of course. Look out for more blogging from the crew soon.

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Rvlink's Top Ten Artists

10. Foo Fighters
9. Pearl Jam
8. Oasis
7. Guns N' Roses
6. Kings of Leon
5. Matthew Good
4. Weezer
3. Nirvana
2. The Doors
1. Led Zeppelin

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