News from around the Net Part 1

Welcome to News from around the Net Part 1. Most of you will probably feel this is a lame excuse for me not writing my own articles. Well it is, but also you might not have the brainpower to point and click to some of the more interesting pieces of news on the web. This is where I come in. After all is there any point me regurgitating articles other people have already written?
1. Microsoft attempts to compete with Google. Microsoft has just released its new rebranded search engine. So far it looks alright, when you search for Nizmox my site is at the top. Try it out anyway and tell me what you think. The domain must have cost them a fortune. Click here
2. World of Warcraft has announced the priest Burning Crusade talents. Not all that exciting but one or two unexpected talents/spells. Click here
3. As you already knew, thanks to my great demo review… Company of Heroes is gonna rock! It scored 9.4/10 according to IGN. The video review is worth a watch too if you cant read like myself. Click here
4. Last but not least if you were confused as to whether to buy HD-DVD or Bluray, well you’ll be pleased to know the choice just got more confusing. Apparantly the movie industry is demanding even higher definition. Despite the fact that you don’t have the TV or the player capable of displaying it. Oh and the best part is it’ll only use 50 mb per frame (YES that is per frame not per second). Who ever said Hollywood were stupid. Click here

Comments Galore!

Well I have changed it so anyone can post comments. For better or worse. If it gets crazy ill disable it, but hopefully can get a few more comments on my posts. A few more being greater than none.

Saints Row vs Grand Theft Auto

As you have probably already read numerous reviews of Saints Row by now I thought I’d lay it out for you. While each game is very similar (except for Saints Row being newer of course) I thought you might be interested to know what’s different.
Saints Row Pro’s:
1. The physics rock! Sadly they are pretty much limited to car explosions and rag doll bodies, but its still cool! Especially derailing a train with an RPG.
2. Non linear game play! While the missions are the same, what you do in between is up to you, play only the parts that are fun!
3. Create your own character! Tonnes of options to customize your character, if you feel like it, you can be a skinny white guy with a green afro. You can pimp your ride too, with more options than GTA. Best of all, when it blows up, you can get it back.
4. The graphics! At least until the next GTA instalment the graphics trounce GTA. By the time San Andreas came out the graphics looked really really dated.
5. Your crew. While GTA had fellow gang members, compared to Saints Row they sucked. In Saints Row its easy to recruit gang members and they actually do what you want them to. There is nothing quite like cruising down the road in your car, with 3 of your crew inside shooting up ‘tha police’.
6. The combat is more visceral. Less blood but better controls, weapon sounds and gang combat make Saints row more fun.
7. It’s easier! Not that I found GTA to be hard, but it was frustrating to have to repeat certain missions multiple times to complete them. In Saints Row I have rarely had to repeat a mission yet they are still fun and the game is still lengthy enough for me.
Grand Theft Auto Series Pro’s:
1. More weapon variety. GTA has a larger selection of weapons than Saints Row.
2. Motorbikes, planes and helicopters oh my! Think its self explanatory, but saints row doesn’t have these.
3. The city is bigger. Well in San Andreas anyway, but Saints Row has a more realistic feel to the way its designed.
4. The frame rates better, not sure I can say this as I only really played GTA on PC, which will obviously run better. Unfortunately Saints Row’s frame rate drops at some points. Not really badly but definitely noticeable. Then again it has better graphics than GTA and its on a console so its not a fair point.
Conclusion:
Still playin’ through the game and so far only 25% through, while you can see not every aspect of Saints Row is better than GTA it is still a damn fine game. It is definitely a better game than San Andreas was. As for Vice City? Well I loved the setting too much to put Saints Row above it, but if you buy the game, you wont be disappointed. That said, I still expect the next installment of GTA to top Saints Row, fortunately the Xbox 360 release and PS3 release will be simultaneous. That does however presume the PS3 is ever actually released.

Dawn of War – Dark Crusade Demo Impressions

Have just finished playing the 2 demo levels for DoW – Dark Crusade.
What I knew before the demo/Demo Impressions
First off, its interesting to note that the Dark Crusade is a standalone expansion pack. Meaning you can buy it and still play the game without buying either the original game or the first expansion (Winter Assault). Obviously though this will limit what you can access. While i’m not entirely sure of the details, I imagine you wont be able to play the campaigns from the full game or winter assault and quite possibly cannot play the 5 other sides in skirmish or multiplayer.
My first impressions are that I don’t feel the expansion changes DoW hugely, but that is by no means a bad thing. The graphics are still the same and the gameplay is still as you remember it. I cannot however, comment on the new campaign mode (as it is not available in the demo). The new campaign looks a lot more fleshed out than previous installments and appears to combine turn based map movement, with skirmishes in between, as well as some sort of persistent armies. The other addition on the gameplay side is wargear (again not available in the demo). This will allow you to customise both your commanders look and abilities, should be a nice feature.
What I can tell you about is the Tau. The Tau are definitely the ‘Firepower’ race and have extraordinarily high damage ranged troops, but the downside is they get chewed in close combat. This is where the kroot come in, Tau’s close combat troops are strange looking alien creatures, built from their own barracks and are able to leap into combat (with an upgrade) and tie up your opponents troops while you shoot them to pieces. I won’t go into a lot of detail but they are great fun to play, sadly a heap of units were unavailable in the demo. However you still get to try Kroot (close combat troops), Fire Warriors (ranged troops), Pathfinders (allow you to mark enemy troops causing your ranged weapons against that target to do more damage) Crisis Battle Suit (dreadnought equivalent but much more ranged focused and have jetpacks), Stealth Team (stealthed scouts that can remain stealthed while shooting and capturing points) and the Skyray (A hover long range hover vehicle). My only concern with the Tau is they are perhaps overpowered, I found the Skyray in particular to be a little whorey, especially its cooldown ability. The missile barrage from this will obliterate almost anything, but I am willing to reserve judgement for the full game. I do realise that Relic are great at acknowledging problems and patching the game long after its released.
Conclusion
Am I excited about the Dark Crusade? Hell yeah! I only do writeups on worthy games afterall and this is definitely one of them. Will it radically change the game? Probably not, but what it will do is add a great deal more depth to an already incredibly deep RTS game. Hopefully the Necrons will be just as cool as the Tau and Relic should have a winner on their hands. 7 sides total, is just insanely good and I’m sure there will be many great multiplayer games to be had!
The demo is available from the Relic Bittorrent Tracker right now, so what are you waiting for! Try it out!

Other Stuff
Well for better or worse I have started playing WoW again, and yet again its destroying my life, but oh well, its an enjoyable way to do so! Pre-expansion I have pretty much decided it’s a big waste of time spending hours doing instances as all the gear will be obsolete once you hit 70 anyway. So I have decided to focus on levelling other characters. From reading the talent review I feel that the Shaman and the Mage look most appealing, but the talents will no doubt change during blizzards testing. So at the moment im working on levelling a lock (currently lvl 30), and if I get time, maybe my Shaman also. Well had best be off, but if you play on Frostmourne give Nizmox or Dethecor a whisper.

The Ten Commandments are Convenient

First off, this is a thought experiment (not an argument against Christianity). It is something I concocted, someone else may have thought of it before me, but I have not read about it if they have.
My belief is that all religious belief began as a primitive science. This was used for the purpose of explaining the unexplainable. Yet again (see my previous philosophy post), we as humans were not willing to accept that questions could not be answered and accepted religion due to lack of any better explanation. Of course the reason so many things were unexplainable was due to the lack of modern science.
Overtime it became apparent that religion was a great form of both control and power.
This then lead to an opportunity for those in command of the religion. The more followers they could obtain, the more powerful the religion would become.
Religions evolved and changed, old religions disappeared and new religions were created. The religions that ‘succeeded’, succeeded because of two things. They used fear to scare those who did not follow their commands/laws, and created rewards for those who followed the religion.
Christianity is one of these religions, you are sent to hell for sins (disobeying the ten commandments) and are sent to heaven for your loyalty (obeying the ten commandments). The key thing to notice is that both the reward and the punishment are not tangible. They are claims made by Christianity that cannot be proven or disproved by anyone. It is for this reason they are such powerful claims, because they cost nothing, are not tangible and cannot be disproved.
So why are the Ten Commandments convenient? I believe they were not designed to better those who believe but to maximise the religions followers. Any benefit from these laws that we receive, was simply a nice bonus and in addition makes these commandments more appealing to the good in us. Let me explain by looking at a few…
“Neither shall you commit adultery.”
Adultery is the breaking of the holy bond between husband and wife, and is thus a sacrilege. This commandment includes not just the act of adultery, but lust as well.
Why does this benefit the religion? Simple, children raised in a family household, where the mother and father are Christian, will likely lead to children who are also Christian. Adultery is outside of marriage and often leads to divorce, breaking the best environment to ‘spawn’ the next generation of Christians. Once married Christianity encourages having children, in fact, having as many children as possible is of benefit to the religion. These commandments also forbid homosexuality, as homosexual couples cannot have children to assist furthering the Christian faith. Thus marriage is an important part of maintaining the religion.
“You shall not murder.” And “Neither shall you steal.”
The reason for this is obvious, if Christian’s murder, they would have been executed ancient times. Worshippers who are dead are of no value to the religion. This then goes beyond murder in modern religion. Suicide is also considered murder and is thus outlawed. This is a highly convenient ‘law’, as lets face it, if we truly believed (belief with 100% certainty) that when we died we went to heaven, where we were eternally happy wouldn’t we all want to get their as fast as possible? But then there would be no more Christian believers, so this cannot be allowed to happen.
But if your still not convinced… I love saving the best for last.
“I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me… ..”
This is the icing on the cake, you may not believe in any other Gods (competing religions). Undoubtedly, for the sole purpose of, being the only religion in your set of beliefs. Pretty blatant anti competitive practice, makes me wonder if the commerce commission is onto them.
Well that’s pretty much the end of the point I am trying to make, as you can see it’s not an argument merely a thought experiment, with the hope of waking you up as to why the Ten Commandments might exist. I understand some of the Ten Commandments are actually very good laws to uphold by. We should not murder, we should not steal, but at the same time to be a good human being we should not need the threat of hell and the reward of heaven to both realise these are good laws and to follow them. As for the others? No sex outside of marriage, for me personally I cannot understand why marriage is a requirement to have sex. After all, it is simply a piece of paper and a few spoken vows, do we really need to sign a legal document to not cheat on our loved one. I really hope not.

On a side note: Modern Christians really get on my nerves where they pick and choose which of the ten commandments to follow, either you go to hell or you don’t, you follow all these laws or you don’t. If you don’t believe/follow all the ten commandments then are you truly Christian?

Well this has wasted a lot of valuable WoW playing time, hope you enjoyed the post.