GFWL: Tinker

If you're an achievement hunter like me, you're always on the look out for your quarry. This is how I found out about Tinker which has Live achievements, specifically of the Windows flavor. While I am not a fan of the Games for Windows Live client, the game is free. To give an idea about its lineage, the game apparently came out initially in 23 Sept 2008 as part of the Windows Vista Ultimate Extras pack and wasn't made available to GFWL until 15 Dec 2009 . You may recall that Vista was once the unfortunate barrier to another source of achievements, but I digress.

Tinker is a fun little puzzle game that is essentially a Sokoban game, and features 8 sets of 20 levels each for 160 levels total. So far, I've only run through the tutorial set and some of the first set, but if the difficulty increases quite a bit, I could see the game easily providing 10-ish hours of playtime.

Achievements

In general, achievements are broken down into three categories based on how they are awarded, and I will attempt to describe them below.

1. Normal types of completion

These are usually earned incidentally like performing an action a number of times below the bare minimum to beat the game and/or completing levels on easy-to-normal-ish difficulties. A player can expect to get most if not all of these from a single play through.

2. Elite types of completion

These are usually earned by completing levels on the harder or hardest difficulties and/or completing these objectives in much more difficult ways including no-death-runs or the restriction of easier methods or abilities. These tend to be both difficult and frustrating, the latter due to restarting because of the former.

3. Bizarre kinds of behavior

These are usually earned by performing actions you would not ordinarily perform during the game and are generally the more wacky achievements. A game's more memorable achievements tends to fall under this category.

4. Grindy/Collection

Ah, the bane of many a 100% completionist are the grindy and collection type achievements. Grindy achievements generally require an large investment of time in the form of simply clocking in a large amount of play time or earning a large amount of kills or wins. Collection type achievements require a player to collect every single map, flag, post, gold piece, body part, whatever. These are generally more frustrating than difficult, especially if the game in question doesn't have a built-in checklist.

In case you're wondering, Tinker only has achievements of only the first three categories.

One little peculiarity about Tinker is that it has 200 points spread out over 15 achievements. XBLA games typically have their 200 point allotment spread out over 12 achievements, but then again Tinker isn't technically an Arcade game.

Here are some closing statements about the game:

[10/9/2011 23:12:00] Me: It's not that bad.
[10/9/2011 23:12:08] Me: It's like a more complicated Sokoban type game.
[10/9/2011 23:16:43] Ozan D: which tinker game?
[10/9/2011 23:16:55] Me: That's the name of the game.
[10/9/2011 23:17:09] Peter C: It's sortof like Sokoban, but more complicated
[10/9/2011 23:17:25] Me: Heh.

Someone made a mistake.

Anyone ever try to sort a protected Excel worksheet?

More specifically, I want to be able to retain the sorting feature available via AutoFilter. As it turns out, this is not easy to do and is something that has eluded me for the last day or so. Allow me to explain my problem. I have a spreadsheet that contains a lot of easily sortable data that is accessable by a lot of people. I don't want anyone to be able to change the values, but they still need to be able to sort. However, sorting counts as changing values within cells, so that just isn't available. I'm not going to get into the details of my trials and, in fact, I don't even care if it works anymore. I'm just going to vent.



Here's my sample worksheet.



Say I go to protect this worksheet but still want to enable some features for the users that aren't forbidden.



Okay, so duh, right? I should be able to sort and use the AutoFilter.



Denied!

u doof, how old r u

Me: Oh, I found an online Pictionary-like game called iSketch.
Me: The problem with it is that I was banned for drawing a penis.


Figure 1. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to screen shot my actual work of art. Note: My word was oyster, which mots people correctly answered.


Figure 2. After being warned about not drawing penises, I was kicked from my room and warned again. Then I was banned from the game. Talk about heavy-handed.

Me: ...
Steph: u doof
Steph:how old r u
Me: 24, sadly.

I said I was sorry!

This is all in response to Peter C's status of "Trouble with a capital T and that ryhmes with P which stands for Plumbers. Stupid, messed-up, rotting pipes in my place. :(" Additionally, Peter had perviously complained about not having Internet at his residence.

Me: Did the pipes that bring you the Internet also break?
Peter C: Haha
Peter C: No, those were just shut off.
Peter C: Although having internet pouring down through my ceiling would be quite a sight.
Me: Well, yeah.
Me: It'd be mostly spam, porn, and Justin Beiber.
Peter C: When you put it that way, it definitely makes the gray water from my upstairs neighbor's shower sound much more appealing.
Peter C: Of the two options, that is.
Me: Well, I didn't specify what the composition was.
Me: In fact, it could be one homogenous mixture.
Me: Justin Beiber spam porn.
Peter C: shivers
Me: For all of those weird tweeners (aged 10 to 40+) in Hawaii.
Peter C: Rule 34, man. Now that stuff exists
Me: I apologize to the Cosmos.

Help me pick a Twitter account name for my cat!

Now, most of you who read this blog have met the family cat. His name is Linux (I didn't name him, The Sister did). The Girlfriend suggested that I make a Twitter account for The Cat to chronicle his (mis)adventures; this is a concept that other families have explored. The most obvious choice for the account name would be LinuxTheCat, however, this is already taken.

So, here's some history about Linux. He used to be quite overweight because of an ill-fated open feeding policy that has long since been abolished. As a result, he is on a diet and somewhat diabetic now, but has lost a lot of weight. He is also a jerk, as cats are want to do, frequently going places and bothering people he shouldn't. Lastly, he is somewhat dog-like in that he is quite eager for attention and not quite as coy as some other cats I've seen.

Here are some suggestions I've seen:

LinuxTheMeow
LinuxTheDogCat
LinuxTheNotDog
LinuxTheJerk
FatCatLinux

Please vote or make suggestions!

How do you say SNES?

That's for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. So, how do you say SNES?

Growing up, I only heard one pronunciation and that was to enunciate each letter in the initialism, or something like "ess-en-e-ess." Recently, I heard someone say it as one word, with the opening sound like the "snuh" in sneeze, or "sness". I thought that was weird, but others in the "room" echoed similar usage, claiming that my pronunciation was weird. These are, like pronunciation is, probably the result of some local effect (on a side note, I hate saying that, because I'm not sure if I'm ever using that term correctly, or at least rigorously). I have also heard the SNES referred to as "Super Nintendo" or "Super NES," but those people use these as optional to their preferred pronunciation of the above.

Interestingly, the same Wikipedia article has a footnote regarding this.

But I can look the part.

[4/13/2010 23:56:34] Me says: Speaking of casual warfare...
[4/13/2010 23:56:40] Ozan D says: sup andy.
[4/13/2010 23:56:46] Ozan D says: casual warfare?
[4/13/2010 23:56:50] Me says: I've got an interview tomorrow, so I was trying on some clothes that I haven't worn in awhile.
[4/13/2010 23:56:51] Ozan D says: is that anything like casual sex?
[4/13/2010 23:57:04] Me says: I put on my suit and discovered that it fits me better than it did before.
[4/13/2010 23:57:14] Me says: I also discovered that it's remarkably comfortable even with a carbine on.
[4/13/2010 23:57:18] Peter C says: I have trouble even imagining you in a suit.
[4/13/2010 23:57:29] Me says: I'm not an executive bodyguard, but I can look like one.
[4/13/2010 23:57:33] Ozan D says: though adding the carbine does make it easier to imagine.
[4/13/2010 23:57:36] Me says: Haha.
[4/13/2010 23:57:37] Peter C says: I have less trouble when youre carrying a carbine.
[4/13/2010 23:57:51] Peter C says: damn, ozan beat me to it.
[4/13/2010 23:58:02] Peter C says: I spent too much time laughing.
[4/13/2010 23:58:13] Ozan D says: it's okay. same joke. same approximate time. same person. it's all good.
[4/13/2010 23:58:50] Ethan K says: I was late in reading it but I must concur the image works much better with the addition of a carbine

The state of the world.

2152 me: We should finish the Lost Platoon level some time.
2153 Kevin M: yea
me: Oooh!
2154 Kevin M: im so down for that
me: We should try MW2.
Spec Ops mode.
Kevin M: oh yea
dewey has that
is there 3player for that
2156 me: I don't think so...

2157 Kevin M: multilplayer is not as simple as goldeneye back in the day
its sad
something is wrong
with this world

2158 me: Haha.
That's very profound.

The Great Human-Robot Skirmish of December 30th

Yeah, so it's been awhile since I've posted. Anyway, I'll warm back up to it so this post is kind of a cop out.

My current away message reads: I've gotten more "Happy Birthday" notifications from robots than from real people. Human race, this isn't looking good...

Vivek 2:35 PM: ok, so i won't wish you happy b-day then =P
any plans tonite?
Me 2:37 PM: Personally, I welcome our new robot masters.
You should see their public dental plan.
It's amazing.
Vivek 2:38 PM: you mean the one where they put your brain in a jar so you don't need to worry about teeth?
I'm consdering it
Me: ...I think you're talking about the Mi-go.
Vivek: mi-go, robots
they'll all enslave us in the end

A Litmus Test for All Things I Dislike

I think I've come up with a litmus test for "All Things I Dislike." It's basically a WWJD kind of thing, except:
1. Replace the "J" with a particular person that I don't like but who will Remain Unnamed.
2. Based on whatever "J" would do, I would generally do the opposite or form the opposite preference.

For historical reasons, I will call it the "Eeeps Test." This test isn't exactly portable (that is, not everyone can use this test) and isn't exactly objective, but it sure can be fun!

How it Works, an Example:
1. Let's say I'm considering calling BlackBerries by their moniker "CrackBerries" because it's kind of clever AND Robin Wiliams made a funny joke about that.
2. I run the "Eeeps Test" -- would the Unnamed Person also find this funny AND/OR use this phrase commonly?

If "Yes," then I can't use the phrase. If "No," then I will at least consider using that phrase. As it turns out (this isn't exactly a "hypothetical scenario"), I can easily imagine the Unnamed Person saying "CrackBerries" with glee, so I will not use that phrase.

So, what would YOU do for a Klondike Bar?

That little ditty/concept captured my imagination somewhat after I saw the parody on Family Guy. Basically, my question to you has nothing really to do with Klondike Bars but is more about what you (the two or so readers of this blog) find annoying. What do you find annoying? This is a sort of extension of the "Things that Annoy Andy, Part ?? of an Infinite Series."

Well, I take that back. If you want a Klondike Bar, I'll get you one. They're not bad. Better than an IT'S-IT.

Update, from Hau.

So, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus...

I could just write a more conventional review of the movie, but instead I'll just write a checklist of things that are in the movie. Perhaps this will sway your decision to watch it:

1. An explanation as to why why the shark gets to be mega and not the octopus
2. Tons of scientific sounding jargon
3. Lots of food color chemistry
4. The Golden Gate bridge gets destroyed
5. Bad clip footage (see 8)
6. A retired/washed-up stripper as the female lead (Vivek: Doesn't she look like a retired stripper? Me: ...no, Vivek, I don't know what you mean
7. Snarky/sarcastic male lead (who reminds me of the main antagonist in Kindergarten Cop) complete with an inappropriate (for his station) suit, ponytail, and sideburns
8. Amazing use of clip footage (see 5)
9. A transforming fighter plane (goes from an F-15 to an F/A-18 to an F-22)
10. A tender love scene between a Mega Shark and a Giant Octopus
11. Amazing one-liners
12. An Asian male romantic lead hooking up with a Caucausian female lead... in a broom closet
13. Silver ties
14. Some bad spelling
15. Snakes + Plane << Giant Shark + Plane
16. Bad CGI
17. Weird and bizarrely awkward sexual tension scenes
18. Massive advertisement for the incredibly exciting and adventurous lives of oceanographers. See more below.

This is a list on "Why you should be an oceanographer;" they get to:
1. Use skills from a range of disciplines, including: philosophy, physics, chemistry, and biology (with a focus on marine biology)
2. Pilot submarines
3. Act in some capacity as G-Men
4. Effectively outrank a ship's captain (or in this case, boat); at least in the Japanese submarine fleet (which is super-secret)
5. Wear silver ties as a badge of office
6. Hook up with "hot" (depending on your preference) women

Seriously, if this movie is a realistic depiction of what they do (and according to the "Making Of" special feature, realism was a strong focus), I'd want to be an oceanographer.

I wonder what tropes are in this movie...

So, I just did a clean install on my old laptop...

One of the first things I installed was AVG Free 8.5. I noticed this:


What's up with all the animal imagery in software?

New Mechwarrior Game!

Figure 1. Another day at the office...

I just learned that there's a new Mechwarrior game coming out (from Piranha Games along with Smith & Tinker). It's supposed to be a "reboot" of the series kind of like the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. I certainly hope so; Battletech certainly has some campy elements and it could use a harder edge overall. I, obviously, have a hard sci-fi/military bias -- there just isn't a lot of it out there, alas.

But now, I'm going to write about what I noticed in this video. Immediately, the viewer is informed that this little vignette takes place on the planet Deshler in 3015. Deshler is on the Federated Suns' (Coreward?) border with the Draconis Combine in the Draconis March. I also happen to like Level 1/Late Succession War (3rd/4th) stuff AND the House Davion-House Kurita conflict so this video had me immediately excited.

As an aside (and I'm struggling not to make an entire post of asides), there's a sort of standard for all Mechwarrior game intros, at least starting from Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat and going on to at least Mechwarrior 3. Having watched this video, I can say that there isn't the same sense of... desperation and heart-pounding action, but it's still pretty good. Also, all the videos tend to follow the same progression, but I'll not get into that. Now, on to the nit-picky and 'mech identification...

The protagonist of sorts is piloting a Warhammer. I don't think I've ever seen a Warhammer in a Mechwarrior computer game. It's not quite the Unseen version, but I rather prefer that. Based on the observed weapons fire, I assume that it is the common (of the time) WHM-6R model.


Figure 2. I rather like the newer stylings of this non-Unseen Warhammer.

He encounters a Jenner. Based on the HUD readout and the era, I assume that it is a JR7-D; so maybe it's the DCMS as the enemy?


Figure 3. That's one of the stranger looking Jenners I've seen.

A Warhammer vs. a Jenner? It should be pretty obvious where this is going. A third 'mech makes an appearance:


Figure 4. I'm not sure what an Atlas C is, but I do know that you don't want to be right in front of one.

While the HUD read-out says something about a "C" model, it can't be an AS7-C as that model shouldn't exist for awhile later. I can only assume that it is an AS7-D, as that's really the only variant that was running around at the time. Anyway, the majority of the fight is between these two beasts and this is where one of my questions is answered:


Figure 5. Now that's a PPC blast!

All of the Mechwarrior 2 type games had this kind of bizarre kind of ball-lightning version of the PPC that seemed sort of at odds with the fluff in the fiction. This was fixed in Mechwarrior 3; the above PPC blast seems more consistent with that and what I've read.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the most recent comment (at the time of viewing) was one of the dumber comments I've seen. That is, dumb under the veneer of intelligence:


Figure 6. A moron.

I suppose that's really neither here nor there.

Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism...

Jim Carrey supposedly said that to David Letterman regarding the movie Dumb and Dumberer. By chance, I noticed some other bizarre little bits of... "inspiration" while checking some game sites.

For those of you who don't know, I really like Team Fortress 2. It's a pretty awesome game. SK imedia (is it Imedia, imedia, or iMedia? I just can't tell...) also seems to agree with this sentiment.


Figure 1. World's best, huh? Creative, huh?

To be fair, I haven't actually played this game. It could very well be appreciably different from TF2. The trailer just looks (and even sounds) so... eerily similar (as aptly documented in the Kotaku article). Maybe it really is flattery. I also hope I'm wrong because I'd hate to be one of those guys that basically just re-Tweets something potentially inflammatory that turns out to be false. To that end, I hope to (when I have some more time) look into this issue more.

The funny thing is, I only found this because I was looking up a game called Sudden Death. If you go there and check out that trailer, you may be thinking "Man, that's some pretty awesome music." Yeah, I think so too. To be fair, I also have not played this game; I was actually kind of curious but that one little bit in the trailer left a really bad taste in my mouth. It's just unprofessional and probably illegal.

Watch out!

They'll make a heathen out of you otherwise!

Updates (as in my previous post, edited below):

Call of Duty: World at War: Just need to finish the Map Pack 2 achievements. I suppose I could do this myself (find link later), but that will probably be much harder.

Gears of War: Still need to complete on Insane, though I've made it to about the beginning of Act 5 as Dom (with Alex Mobasher). I also found the last fucking COG tag I was looking for.

Gears of War 2: I suspect after I do all the single player stuff in Gears of War with Mobasher, we'll finish off the equivalent achievements in Gears of War 2. Oh, I suppose I should tack on the Horde modes.

Super Puzzle Fighter 2 HD Remix: I believe Hau has two other friends who have the game. That means I can finally get that stupid 7 GS achievement and RETURN MY TOTAL SCORE TO A MULTIPLE OF 5.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand: Yes, I admit it. I bought the game. I'll probably get the bulk of these with Vivek.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway: A fairly easy game, but I will need to log in on 100 days (doesn't have to be consecutive, I think/I hope) to get the "Obsessive" achievement. I'll also need to log in on 17 September.

Prince of Persia: Also a fairly easy game. It does, unfortunately, have a set of collection-type achievements, which may take awhile.

Dead Rising: This is going to be a bitch to clear all of the achievements. Unlike the previous two games, this game is actually hard. I would say, however, that it is not quite of the Nintendo Hard variety... just some really bad Survivor pathfinding.

ALSO. Thanks a lot Hau for getting me to download Ikaruga. That's gonna be a bitch to do a 100% completion... but some fuckers make it look easy.

What world is it that we live in?

So, in my Twitter app (TweetDeck), I have a group where I follow the fictional characters of Gilmore Girls. About two weeks ago, Hannah Montana found her way into that group. This leads me to believe that someone in that group just changed their name.

Also.

WHY IS HANNAH MONTANA INVADING MY GILMORE GIRLS HAPPY ZONE?!?!?


Pretty much says it all.

Ringtones I want...

...though am not sure about whom they would be assigned:

1. "Green Bird" from Cowboy Bebop (Yoko Kanno)
2. The title song from Max Payne 2 (or is it 1?)
3. Ron Perlman saying "War. War never changes."
4. The creepy music from whenever you're near a Witch in L4D
5. Some of Francis's "I hate ," also from L4D
6. Something (lots of things) from TF2

[2:33:56 PM] Peter A. Combs: Hmm... I think I may make "Who touched sasha?!" your ringtone now.

Updates on the Second Crusade

So, I've finished off Castle Crashers (finally!); Glork and Arena Master were not easy in terms of time invested. I picked up Vigilante 8 which had an online Achievement that was much easier to finish. In terms of games that I cannot easily finish by myself (because they require at least a second person), I present the following list:

Aegis Wing: Have to finish on Insane mode (not that bad) and complete a 4 ship formation (I could, actually, do this myself).

Alien Hominid HD: Need to play through at least once. Maybe it's easier to do with more people; haven't looked into it that much.

Battlestar Galactica: The online achievements are near impossible because NO ONE PLAYS THIS GAME ANYMORE.

Call of Duty: World at War: Need someone for the Map Pack 2 achievements; as well as the original online achievements (Edit: got all the non-DLC ones. Now to kill Nazi/Tojo Zombies). Shouldn't be so bad.

Gears of War: Need to complete on Insane, finish the game as Dom (can do both split-screen and at the same time), and collect the rest of the tags (can do myself).

Gears of War 2: Need to complete on Insane, play with a friend (see above).

Streets of Rage 2: Similar to BSG, I simply need someone to do matches against.

Super Puzzle Fighter 2 HD Remix: I simply need to invite everyone to a 4 player game. I can do the 7 chain achievement myself.

Worms: Simply need to be in a four player Xbox Live game. (Edit: got 'em all).

I'm a little disgusted with myself because I bought the Avatar game at Best Buy yesterday. It was only 6.50 USD in the check-out line; how could I say no? I'm also thinking about getting 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, simply (and somewhat ironically) because of this comic.