Randomness
Oct 29th
Bob’s game is a new game to come out for the Nintendo DS sometime in the next year hopefully. Robert Pellini has spent 15,000 hours on his game, all done on his home computer with C++. He plans to find a publisher and send the game through to stores near you sometime in 2009 if a publisher can be found.
The basic concept behind the game is “Who Is Yuu?” Yuu is your character. You control the sprite and do different puzzles and other interactions around a fairly large city.
Robert explains the game on his site, quoted below:
Hello.
My name is Bob, age 25.This is my game for Nintendo DS, a 20-hour-long retail-size,
retail-quality adventure title by a single human being-
the largest game ever made by one person.“bob’s game” is a simple 2D adventure game, with focus on
story, puzzles, item collection, and communication instead
of repetitive battles with palette-swapped enemies.Many characters (over 200 completely unique characters!)
have deep personalities that evolve, and many things
depend on the in-game time, day and weather.
It’s the game I wanted to play when I was younger,
a vision I’ve been following since then.
Oct 2nd
In a move that represents the Million Dollar Homepage, Arthur Stubbs is giving people the chance for cheap, creative advertising by offering them ad space for only 2 dollars a spot at IntoSpace.org. Arthur tells people his about his passion for the project and what it’s about:
This is my gift to everyone who has ever dreamt of space flights but has always been unable to make it become reality.
This project is about compiling a catalog of photos and logotypes to be sent into outer space aboard a space vehicle. Our catalog will consist of 300 sheets (300 “rockets”), every “rocket” will be able to deliver up to 1000 “astronauts” by occupying the place of 25×40 cm. on a single sheet. You can book your ticket for just $2.
If he ends up selling all the tickets, which he undoubtedly will, he’ll possibly make around 3 million dollars or so, at least before shipping costs to space. This seems like a good opportunity for everyone involved in the project, and major sponsors already show up on the homepage, which should help drive a lot of traffic both ways.
Sep 3rd
I noticed that I this is actually the 9th day of the week that I’m writing the closing post, but I just had to extend the week because there is so much great stuff to talk about in Team Fortress 2. Japanerd and I had a great time writing about the game this week, and I’m pretty sure that the reason I didn’t have a post a night was because I was too “busy” playing the game with the awesome Gib$Ru$ guys instead of writing about it. I only wish I had made it TF2 month or something so I could have written more!
Just in case you somehow missed the past week of awesome articles, here’s the run-down:
- Good Grief, it’s Team Roomba
- How To: Skinning the Team Fortress 2 Characters
- An Interview With the Gib$Ru$ Admin
- Inside the Team Fortress 2 Heavy Update
- Tweak Team Fortress 2 For Max Performance
Thanks to all of you who read and enjoyed the articles, pretty soon I’ll put up a poll for you to vote for your favorite game that you want us to devote a whole week writing about!
Aug 23rd
Sometimes, just stumbling around the internet doesn’t give you your humor for the day. Well, there are some really awesome comics hosted on the web that are updated almost every day that you’ll love if you are a computer or gaming geek. Read below to check out my 6 favorite web comics…
AppleGeeks Lite is a comic featuring a guy and a girl that use an Apple laptop, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with Apple. Making fun of all the latest stuff is one of the classics of the comic, Portal and David Hasselhoff not excluded.
chainsawsuit is not a “normal” comic by any means. Most of their comics feature video games, and some of them are totally random, but most of them will probably get a laugh out of you. A good example of their randomness is TGI Knife Fights, while making fun of games Animal Crossing and Transformers shows off the writers’ gaming side.
When the art style of a first grader and the humor of a grown man combine, you get Explosm. One of the funniest comics ever to grace the internet, explosm is a true “masterpiece.” With comics featuring Bigfoot, God, and Space Invaders, Explosm updates daily, so you can get a good laugh every morning before you head out the door.
theWAREHOUSE comic again falls under the “random but funny” category. With comics featuring a shark, Mii’s, and shooting bears, theWAREHOUSE is a great comic to check perhaps once a week, as they only have a few new comics a week.
Penny Arcade is probably the most popular web comic right now (even more than xkcd), featuring video games 24/7. Some of my personal favorite comics that they’ve made have games like Portal, Army of Two, LEGO Online, Spore, and the list goes on. Every comic comes with a nice blog post explaining the meaning behind the comic and current goings-on in the creators’ lives.
Finally, if you’re reading this and you haven’t heard of xkcd, then you better get to reading the comic, because it is one of the most popular with an fanatical fanbase on the web. With stick figures doing all kinds of geeky stuff that other geeks can relate to, xkcd is a great comic to get into, with classics like rollercoaster chess and lots of others.
Aug 19th
Before I tell you about TF2 week, I’d like to point out that this is THE 100th POST ON THE PXL LAB! I’d like to thank our wonderful guest bloggers Thomas, Japanerd, Genesis, and, new to The Pxl Lab guest list, DJ_Link. All of the writers have brought The Pxl Lab the unique feel that it has.
Now, to celebrate this event, The Pxl Lab is going to bring you Team Fortress 2 all week long next week! We’ll bring you tips, tricks, tutorials, interviews, awesome game sprays, and more! You can subscribe to our RSS Feed to keep up with all the goings-on, and we hope that you are as excited as we are about it!
Jul 12th
HomestarRunner is a wonderful site that caught my eye many years ago. When I first discovered the site, the graphics were on par with Pong. Over the years it has developed into what we it now is today. After a very long break from this site, I returned only to find a million new games, stories, and great new graphics! When I used to regularly visit it, there were a few games, extra videos, and a weekly Strong Bad email. The basis for this site is a group of 11 characters who are the only apparent residents of a town. The original producers Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel created HomestarRunner in 1996, and later in 1999 Mike’s brother Matt joined the crew to assist in the production of the site itself.
The site itself has 6 main sections: Toons, Games, Characters, Downloads, Store, and Email. Toons consists of a collection of random flash videos put together for any reason whatsoever. The videos range from exploits of an R-Rated movie by Strong Bad to the famous Teen Girl Squad episodes. But even more famous than TGS is the weekly Strong Bad Email. This is one of the original features of the website that many remember from years ago. There are also many games like Peasant’s Quest and Trogdor. Most of the games originated from previous Strong Bad Emails. A lot of these games are purposefully horrific looking, to impose an old school feeling to them. They are rather fun to play, however. Peasant’s Quest is perhaps the most famous of the games on HomestarRunner. You are a peasant whos cottage has been burninated by Trogdor. You must walk around and become a hero by acquiring items and typing “look” and “search”, etc, to be allowed up the mountain before your impending doom. The Character’s section just gives a video description of each character presented by themselves. Downloads is where you can get all of you Homestarrunner sounds for your computers and desktop icons and such. You can get into the “secret” section by clicking on the “0.00 dollars” in the “$” area, dragging the credit card into the slot at the top-right, and typing in 5675 as the pin code. The Store is an external link where you can buy t-shirts, hoodies, dvds, posters, and many more things to keep the website going! All of the merchandise also originates from toons on the site. The Email section is where you can email them with questions, or complements, and also for the F.A.Q. of the site.
HomestarRunner is a wonderful site that makes me laugh everytime I visit it. Its definitely worth checking out whether you have an hour or ten minutes. Most of the toons run under 3 minutes if you don’t have much time to watch.
P.S. Firefox users can view the site in full screen with the addon known as “Full Screen Homestar Runner“.
Jun 26th
Today I will be reviewing my favorite way to protect my computer, Zone Alarm Pro. Zone Alarm has been with me for a few years now, and every time I use it I like it more and more. This small firewall has saved me from countless Trojans and malicious files that would have otherwise rendered my computer dead. I underestimated it, and so many people that make that mistake will see the true benefits of this cheap program!
Zone Alarm was created initially by Zone Lab’s but was bought by Check Point in 2003. It has only been compatible with Windows XP until recently in 2008 they updated Zone Alarm to 7.1, allowing the program to be compatible with 32-bit Vista only. Zone Alarm’s main purpose is to provide an effective firewall for your computer, allowing or denying no file without your decision. Whenever you boot up a new file or possibly a malicious file, they stop it momentarily until you allow or deny access using a handy pop-up. This means that there is no possible for a program to receive access and harm your computer or send files to the internet without your permission.Zone Alarm also allows for complete program control, allowing you to choose what level of trust you think is appropriate for each program. 1 being restricted, and 3 being full access to your computer. You can also choose to kill the program, which allows no access whatsoever, preventing any threat that program might bring to your computer.
Jun 19th
Download Day took place on June 17th, 2008. Throughout the 24 hour period there were an average of over 8 MILLION downloads. According to Mozilla those 8 million downloads in a single day is more than the total amount of Firefox downloads in history. Although the number of participants in this event is very outstanding, was the actual 7.14 mb of data worth the download? An inside look of the brand new Firefox 3 shows that everything they previewed in the beta and on the website came through remarkably well. The features are near perfect and a huge upgrade from it’s child Firefox 2. Firefox 3 is a breakthrough in browsers, this time clearly outdoing Internet Explorer and other browsers such as Opera. Firefox is moving up the charts, and the people can thank Mozilla for that.
There are very many helpful and amazing features that, after a few days of testing, have proved to be essential to my Firefox experience. First is the new toolbar, nicknamed the Awesome Bar. Basically, you type in a keyword, and it gives you all possible results in a drop down menu that are relevant to that keyword. It becomes increasingly helpful when you can’t simply remember the website you visited yesterday, but you do of course remember the actual content the website contained. I love this toolbar because it is too confusing to bookmark every single site you go across that you wish to view daily. This tool is a great toolbar (no pun intended) that helps keep your bars clutter free and your day just a bit less hectic! This amazing feature is probably the most helpful, but there are many others that deserve a mention. The second most useful tool added to Firefox 3 is the advanced malware protection. This protection is a huge step up from Firefox 2, letting there be a smart list of possible internet attacks being updated every second! This is another step in the direction of perfect protection. This time around Firefox 3 delivers a killing blow with a full screen message blocking possibly dangerous websites that can infest your computer. The virus defense Firefox 3 offers works with your anti-virus program as well! It lets the program know when your downloading something, and automatically scans the file, making sure there is nothing harmful contained within it! I for one am ecstatic about this improvement to the already wonderful browser. The new security measures Mozilla has taken to ensure our safety is a very important part to our internet lives. A few other minor updates that are worth noting are the One click bookmark (which allows faster bookmarking of sites if you are in a hurry), Integrated parental controls, and Full screen zoom and navigation. These provide for an all around better Firefox experience.
I have used Firefox for many years now, and from many of my friends whose first experience with Firefox is Firefox 3, their opinion of the web browser is void of criticism and critique. Firefox again does not disappoint the public, and held true to their word. I want to thank Mozilla and specifically the creators of Firefox for this wonderful, versatile browser!
Jun 6th
Hello, my name is Genesis (AKA baby_Lord). I represent a new beginning of writing here at The Pxl Lab. I will be writing reviews mainly on books and games. I may occasionally throw in something else, but hey, that’s my choice, I’ll write about whatever I want, unless of course Pxl_Buzzard decides to delete it. I read quite a bit, and my first book reviews are going to be on an author who goes by the name of Ted Dekker. You should give him a look over, he writes suspense filled stories about killers and other such topics. I will also write reviews on Wii games, starting with Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I hope you stay tuned in to keep up to date on all the things that matter here at The Pxl Lab.
Jun 5th
Microsoft just announced that Windows XP can continue to be shipped on low-cost PC’s until 2010. They said earlier in the year that they would discontinue XP in June 2008, but because of all the protests against it, they decided to change their decision. Companies have been pressuring Microsoft to do this too because Vista, a power-hungry OS, while XP runs great on low-end PC’s that are becoming more popular among the non-gaming crowd. When asked about more powerful machines, Microsoft said that even though they are keeping XP on the market for low-end PC’s, they won’t have exact specifications on the computers XP can be used on. One of the PC’s that MS is keeping XP around for is the Eee PC, which is a cheap ($300 or less) laptop that is built for internet browsing and video viewing, coming with a max hard drive of 250 GB and 802.11n Wi-Fi for browsing around the internet.