March 13 - The Day the First Jet Engines Roared to Life in War Rock Philippines

New: A-10 Bomber and Chinook





Enough said.

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Starcraft II's Tyranids

Rearing their ugly heads: Zerg!!!


No posts for the last few days; came down with flu and now I'm smelling like an untapped Vespene fault.

Anyway, videogames nowadays are so ridden with space bugs that I think that's the reason THQ has not released the Tyranids yet for their wildly successful Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War series. The company who so popularized space critters in games, however, have recently disgorged a trailer featuring the implacable Zerg.

Here's a video entitled "StarCraft II Zerg Gameplay from "THIS IS GAME"" that was uploaded by someone named "Mr0919" in YouTube:



Warhammer 40,000 started in the 80's while Blizzard's Starcraft was released in the 90's. I still consider W40K to be the original "Starcraft;" there's just too much parallelism between the two. Anyway, I'm ranting. That's for another post. Good day all!


UPDATE: Forget the above video. Do you want to see Blizzard's official trailer? Do you want to hear Kerrigan's voice? Do you want an article about a hands-on experience with the swarm? Go to Gamespot, register (it's free the last time I checked), and download the video!

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The Doctor is in

SCALPEL!!


Lineart scanned. Will be operating on it the next few days. It'll be slow --- about 30 minutes per day --- as work has been hell the past month.



It's pretty much devoid right now but I plan to make it more compact. I will also dirty up the background with textures, something I have never done before.


UPDATE: Gaaah. Work hectic. Videocard fried. Slooooow. Tsk. Progress report:



Made the crowd a bit bigger, resized the whole thing, (too much empty space in the first one) and pasted Winter's recommended text.

Of course, the text will be behind all the elements and some parts of it won't be seen. I'm quite excited about this and will be making faster progress now that the boring part is over. If budget allows, I may have to purchase a scanner, what with Netrix now closed. :(

Update:

Got a cleaner, more updated version here at home but in response to my wife's query about the color discord, I told her the background elements would be awashed in red with only the virus and the Taman face showing through:


Take note that there's no shading and light sources yet and as I said, this was just meant to illustrate what I'm gonna do with the background elements.

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Resources: In-depth History of Warcraft, Blizzard's Trend-setting RTS

"For Nazjatar!!!" --- Battle cry of the Naga Sea Witch


Now I know what Nazjatar means. For those who are not so familiar with the background story of the world of Warcraft, Nazjatar is an underwater city made by the Naga --- former Highborne night elves who were "cursed and transformed" when the first Well of Eternity exploded following Azshara's failed attempt at letting the dark Titan Sargeras loose upon the world.

(Lest people who personally know me raise their eyebrows, no, I have not flipped. I still am not going to play MMOs.

There are only three MMOs that so far have attracted my attention and I am listing them here along with the reasons why I do not play them:

• RYL - This is the only game where I witnessed a lot of running and pulse-pounding moments from my friends screaming (not unlike lost schoolgirls lol!) "Don't kiiiiil meeee!" when a group of enemy players staged an ambush. CON: I've heard that races now can co-mingle? Boring. Also, I can't seem to find the official website. They folded?
• Guild Wars - I saw this in action way back in the Open Beta of the first one. Magnificent. Plays like an offline game with quests and varied terrains. CON: Can't find a supplier here and I'm not going to pirate.
• World of Warcraft - I read Gamespot's review and wow, this one takes the cake. It doesn't penalize players for not playing everyday, which is a major bonus. CON: Hefty subscription fee. FOR ME I hate the idea of continually paying for something as trivial as a game. I am a gamer but when my hobby starts to intrude on my RL priorities, it makes me pause and oftentimes quit. (Our CEO provided the same reason so I'm not crazy. Or maybe we both are haha! Peace Gus!)

Universal reason why I don't play MMOs: This is for another article. )

Last night, for the first time in about three years, I was at a loss on what to play. With my videocard fried, all my games won't run. But then I spotted some CDs in one corner of my room and remembered that one of my cousins gave me his (old) Warcraft games.

I played Warcraft I, cheated, and blazed through the orc campaign in less than an hour. I was only interested in the story as the game is now considered very unwieldy. (No drag-select and control groups anyone?) I then started the human campaign and encountered the name "Lothar," which rang a million bells.

I searched the net and hit paydirt:

• Wikipedia entry: Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
  
• WoWWiki.com: Warcraft: Orcs and Humans entry - contains various resources including "Chronicles of the War of Azeroth," "Destiny of the Orcish Hordes," and descriptions of the two races and the creatures of the land.
• Chronicles of the War in Azeroth
• WoW entry: History of Warcraft - Contains the entire history of the world of Warcraft. The entire first chapter is also in the Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos manual but has been revised here and there.
  

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Spyware Blaster 4.0

I.C.E.

Spyware Blaster version 4.0 is now out. I first learned of this program from the helpful people of SpeedGuide.net, whose TCP optimizer had been the subject of one of my articles.

According to its website, this free software:

• "Prevents the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted software.
• Blocks spyware/tracking cookies in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
• Restricts the actions of potentially unwanted sites in Internet Explorer."

The program doesn't run in the background, which conserves system resources.

I could not find a change log of any kind (rushing; office work begins in an hour and thirty) but the interface has undergone a major change (I call it Vista Aero-ish lol!):

Glassssehy!

This software, along with a list of other anti-malware tools I have used, has kept my PC virus-free for over two years or so now. (Only the Filipino-made Imgkulot had managed to break into the collective barrier of those. Tsk. I don't want another Love Bug in the world kabayan! Use your ingenuity for something else bai.)

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