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This is going to sound like lofty statement, but BioShock may be the best First Person Shooter (FPS) I have ever played, and I’ve played most FPS games that have ever been released. Something about BioShock stands out, sets it apart from all the other games. But even though BioShock excels above most games, it must be held to the same standards: one is graphics. If the game is not visually exciting or interesting, it will not be as enjoyable as it can be. Another aspect that is important to any game is sound. Most games now support surround sound, so the inclusion of that feature is not of much consequence anymore, but whether or not a game sounds realistic or believable can have a major effect on the experience. Lastly, the game must be fun. Although this sounds like a simple or shallow categorization, it encompasses many factors: story, length of the game, whether or not there are bugs in the software, and what unique elements the game adds to the genre. It is on these factors that I will grade BioShock.

The visuals in BioShock are nothing short of spectacular. The game begins with a short cinematic sequence of the character’s plane crashing into the ocean. When the character surfaces in the water, the player is immediately hit with some of the nicest looking graphics shown to date. The opening playable shot of the burning wreckage of the plane on top of the water blows the player’s mind. When I first saw it, I couldn’t help but utter a few words of amazement at what I was seeing. The way the fire reflects off of the rippling water shows the true technological power of the Unreal Engine (the framework on which BioShock is run). Luckily, the visual beauty and elegance does not end with the opening shot. As you travel through the Art Deco world of Rapture, a city built under the water, the surrounding world is detailed and visually stunning. In fact, the attention to minute details is what makes BioShock so great. From a visual standpoint, it is very evident that the level and item designers paid extremely close attention to details. The wood is grained uniquely, so that it gives the feeling that it is real, not a lined texture that is repeated over and over. Metal handles, doorknobs, and shell casings shimmer and shine in the dynamic lights around them. The water reflects objects and scenery around it, and ripples or splashes as characters and items move through or on top of it. The lighting is also very realistic. Objects cast realistic shadows, and fire flickers, making shadows move and shift as the fire does. Similarly, the flash of guns and the plasmid attacks (more on these later) also affect the surroundings. BioShock has really captured all the advantages and strengths of dynamic lighting, and the attention to detail has created a truly immersive and exciting visual experience.

This immersive experience created by the attention to detail and sheer excitement of the visuals is only perpetuated and accentuated by the developers’ choices for the sounds in the game. Being a gamer who uses a surround sound system while playing, it is very important to me that a game sound good. Audiophiles who hold games to a higher standard of sound will not be disappointed by BioShock’s immersive audio experience. The radios, speeches, gunshots, explosions, and all other sounds move fluidly throughout plane of sound available, and therefore sound very realistic. Sounds echo differently in a room made of wood than they do in a room made of metal, and the thud of the wrench (a pivotal weapon in the game) is different depending on the material it is hitting, whether it is metal, glass, or human flesh.

The individual sounds chosen for the game are also very conducive to an enjoyable experience. Again, the developers’ attention to detail shines through. The player must believe, not just accept as fact, that the events of the game are taking place in 1960. This is accomplished much by the Art Deco interior of levels and clothing of the characters, but there are subtle audible implications throughout the game that further convince the player. For instance, as you travel through destroyed and nearly abandoned apartments, the radio on the table plays “The Moon Belongs to Everyone” or “Danny Boy.” Regardless of your musical taste, there is no denying that the choice to add period-specific music made to sound as if it is being transmitted from an AM radio station makes you believe that you have traveled back in time.

It is true that the visuals and sound in BioShock are exceptional and stunning, and that they make the game immersive, exciting, and fun, but the true beauty of the game comes from its playability and unique gameplay elements. Without these elements, the game would not be much more than a playable technology demo used to show everyone “what computers can do these days.”

The first of these elements is the story. Unlike many before it, the story of BioShock thrusts the player into a new and exciting, yet thought-provoking and terrifying utopia. (I must warn you as a side note, the following will spoil the story. If that bothers you, I would recommend that you skip it.) The main character, Jack, travels on a plane that crashes in the middle of the ocean. When he swims ashore, he discovers that you are on a small island. On this island is a large building, inside of which is a bathysphere. Given only one choice, he travels down into the ocean in the bathysphere, where he is introduced to the world of Rapture, a utopia created by a man named Andrew Ryan, who sought to free humanity from the bonds of modern civilizations who, according to him, only wanted to take the money earned by workers. Moreover, Ryan introduced genetic enhancements to the citizens of Rapture that give them special abilities or powers. These enhancements, called plasmids, allow people to acquire certain abilities, such as the ability to ignite fires with one’s hands, or the ability to enrage someone around you, among others. At some point, however, things went somewhat wrong in Rapture. Ryan acquired an enemy, Frank Fontaine, who sought to bring down Ryan’s empire. The player is tricked into helping Fontaine kill Ryan, but Jack becomes angry at being used and manipulated by Fontaine, which causes him to seek out Fontaine and kill him.

In Rapture, small girls were taken and transformed in “Little Sisters.” These Little Sisters harvest Adam, the genetic material used to power plasmids, from the dead. They are followed by Big Daddies, who protect them. The player is given the choice to either rescue the Little Sisters or harvest the Adam they carry (there are advantages to both choices), but he must first defeat their Big Daddy in order to do so. The player’s choice to either harvest or rescue the Little Sisters affects the ending of the game.

What makes the story of BioShock so interesting, however, is neither its interesting elements nor its excitability. Rather, it is the fact that the story never seems to end. At many points the player is led to believe that he has finally succeeded and can leave Rapture, but a twist in the story appears that lengthens the game. The story is similar in this respect to a mystery novel, except that the end cannot be seen or determined. Though this element may sound frustrating, it is in fact positive and exciting, as it makes the game one of the longest First Person Shooters ever released (which, when you are paying fifty dollars for the game, is a relief).

Apart from the story, there are several in-game devices that are used to make BioShock as good a game as it is. First is the plasmid system. You acquire as you travel through Rapture more and more plasmids, which give you new and exciting ways to defeat your enemies. The idea of a powers system is rare to First Person Shooters, but is effectively used in BioShock. Just as you find new weapons, you find new powers. These powers are also integrated well into the environment. For instance, if an enemy is standing in a puddle of water, shocking the water with electricity will electrocute the enemy, possibly killing him. Ice melts when flame touches it, and oil spills ignite. The plasmids offer a cool way to defeat enemies that is unlike most others.

Another device that BioShock utilizes is the hacking system. Throughout the world there are turrets, security bots, health stations, and safes that can be hacked in order to be useful to you. Hacked turrets and security bots will attack enemies instead of you, hacked health stations will hurt enemies when they attempt to heal, and safes will open to give you the items they hold inside. In order to hack something, you must complete a level of the popular game “Pipe Dream”.

Lastly, there is the technical side of BioShock. BioShock is not light on computers; it requires very high end hardware to truly experience the full breadth of what it has to offer. This is a minor limitation, as most serious gamers have systems powerful enough to run the software efficiently. Nevertheless, it is important to make sure your computer meets the required specifications. If it does not, BioShock is also available for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console. BioShock has been, for the most part, bug-free, except for one problem of crashing that was quickly solved.

BioShock is a game with many positive qualities and few flaws. The attention put into detail by the developers and designers creates an experience unlike many others. I enjoyed playing BioShock more than I have enjoyed playing any other game this year, and would not be surprised if BioShock is remembered as the greatest game of 2007. I would recommend BioShock to anyone who is interested in playing a fun, challenging, and all-around great game, whether you are a gamer or not. If you are not a gamer, and are considering getting into video games, BioShock is a good game to pick up, but be warned: there will be few games as good to play when you finish.

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Dear Mr. Tarantino,

Let me start off by saying that I love your work. I’ve seen all your movies and loved them. I think that what you did with Reservoir Dogs was innovative and original. Likewise, I thought that you really developed your style and let it shine through in the Kill Bill movies. I appreciate your work and always look forward to seeing your name on a film, because it means that I am going to be in for a good ride, and will enjoy what I am going to see.

Which brings me to why I am writing you. A couple of years ago, I saw posters for a movie called Hostel, presented by Quentin Tarantino. “Cool,” I thought, “this will definitely be a good thing to go see! Tarantino is helping some young director make a name for himself, that’s honorable. And I bet that the movie’s pretty good, too, since he put his name to it!” So, I saw the movie, and no offense to Mr. Roth, but it was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The whole thing was just a lame rip-off of the Saw movies, except without any suspense or aspects of a thriller. I left the movie, Mr. Tarantino, wondering why you would associate with such a film.

And imagine my surprise, when a couple years later, you’re doing the same thing. What is it that you see in these movies? Have you watched them? Now, I haven’t seen Hostel Part II yet, so forgive me if it is actually good, and I might go see it if reviews are good enough, but I have a feeling that it’s more of the same. Mr. Tarantino, why do you do this to your reputation? Perhaps you don’t care about your reputation, which would be honorable and totally awesome. But I really wonder what it is that you see in these films.

Please, Mr. Tarantino, go back to directing and acting. Crappy, mindless horror movies will do just fine on their own.

Your Fan,
Madison Parks

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OK, I’ve had with you people. You know who you are. Yeah, you’re the people hu tipe like dis. You’re the people hU tInK ItS cOoL 2 tIpE lIkE tHiS aLl ThE tImE!!!!!!!
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Just because we’re on the internet does not mean that you can forget everything you know about grammar, spelling, language, or just plain old FUCKING LOGIC AND COMMON SENSE. Seriously, folks, is this really necessary? It actually takes longer to write in alternating caps, and you look like a fucking retard when you intentionally misspell everything. Now, I’m not talking about using internet slang. Sure, it’s a lot easier to write “lol” than “man, that was hilarious”. And that’s fine. It’s also easier to write “g2g” instead of “I have to go, see you later”. But those are mostly used in Instant Messaging. My problem is with the bloggers, with the livejournalers. My problem is with the Facebook and Myspace users who think that it’s cool and hip to write like a fucking six year old. Well, I have news for you people:
iTs NoT kEwL!!!!! K RITE?????!?!?!?!
So, here’s my plea to you all. Write in whatever language you speak, and write properly, because chances are you’re intelligent enough to. But that may be pushing it.

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Geek Squad, change your name, because your making a bad name for geeks. Between stories of you failing at diagnosing and fixing a problem, and now a lawsuit saying that a Geek Squad employee planted a camera to videotape a client in the shower, you simply don’t deserve to be called geeks. You rip people off, don’t even fix problems correctly, and apparently hire sexual predators.
Geek Squad, you need to change your name. Here are a few suggestions:

• Bullshit Squad
• The Rip-off Center at Best Buy (ironic, isn’t it?)
• “Specialists”

Geek Squad, Go Away.

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So, today I went to visit Phillip Torrone (writer for MAKE Magazine). He runs a laser etching business out of New York. Having gotten a new phone, I couldn’t resist having my logo etched on it. The whole process is very well done, and Phillip does excellent work. Also around was Limor (owner of Adafruit Industries). You can see my phone on their Flickr feed. Also check out other stuff they’ve done, and visit their website if you want to set up an appointment for yourself. Thanks to Phillip and Limor! Hope to see you guys again soon (maybe I’ll bring something else by).

In other news, go check out this nifty little light I built over the weekend.

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There’s no doubt, the Logitech G15 is a great keyboard. But after a year of use, there is no doubt it’s going to be dirty. Here’s how to clean it

Before we begin, the disclaimer. I will not be held responsible for any damage done to you G15 (or anything belonging to you). And now, on to the article.

The G15 isn’t so different from most keyboards, so this guide could be used to clean any keyboard, really.

First, what you’ll need for this. You’ll need a Swiss Army Knife (or a flathead screwdriver, or anything flat, really), some paper towels, a Dust Buster (or a vacuum), and a container for all the keys. I like to put use one of those plastic organizers with multiple compartments, but anything will work.

First, UNPLUG YOUR KEYBOARD. Seriously, do it. Then remove the wrist rest (if you use it). Just turn the keyboard over and push the little plastic tabs in and rotate the wrist off. Next, using your screwdriver pop off all the keys. This is the fun part, believe me. Really, think about how fun this is going to be. Stick your flat tool under a key and flip it off. Make sure they don’t go flying across the room. Here’s a visual aid:

Put all the keys into your container. I sorted them by row in the container like this:

Once all the keys are off, grab you Dust Buster / Vacuum (the crevice tool works very well) and suck all the crap off of the keyboard like this:

Now that’s that all clean, grab your paper towels. Get one slightly damp. And I mean SLIGHTLY DAMP, like, HARDLY WET AT ALL. You really don’t need much water at all. Wipe off the black part with the wet towel, and before it dries, wipe it off with the dry towel.

Next, put all the keys back on. Then plug the keyboard back in, and enjoy!

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Anyone who’s used Internet Explorer 7 may enjoy the feature of being able to have multiple home pages open in tabs. Well, you can do this in Firefox too. Go to Tools | Options. In the Main Tab, you should see the box where you type your home page. Simply write each URL you want to open in a tab and separate each with a |

For instance, if you wanted your home tabs to be TheOneGreatX.com, Digg, and Google (very fine choices, I must say) your Home Page Box would read:

http://www.theonegreatx.com|http://www.digg.com|http://www.google.com

So there you have it, one fewer reason not to use IE7.

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Apples aren’t my favorite computer in the world. And Apple isn’t my favorite company in the world. Granted, the new Macbooks are very nice computers, and the operating system is more manageable than it used to be, but I still don’t really like them.
So, why did I go to the Apple Store? Why not? I’d never been, I was bored, and I wanted to see if inverting the colors on a mac really worked. For those of you who don’t know, if you press Control, Command, Option, and 8 at the same time, the colors on the screen.
First off, it was pretty damn hard to find a computer I could use to actually invert the colors. Every single computer was being used. And the second one opened up, someone rushed up to use it. Some lady nearly tackled me rushing to get to one of the new MacBook Pros. I finally got to a computer and tried it. It worked. So I walked over to another one that happened to be free and did the next best thing, directed Safari to TheOneGreatX.com. After about 5 minutes, I walked past the inverted computer. Some lady was there fuddling around in System Preferences trying to fix the colors. After another 5 minutes, the screen was back to normal.
Another highlight of my trip was that some employee asked me to move out of the way because he needed to polish the wall. Nice, Apple, nice.

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Greetings everyone! I know it’s been a long time since my last article, but here I am, back with a new one. Today, I’m here to talk about Facebook, Youtube, Podcasts, and more. So, let’s start

For those of you who don’t know, Facebook recently implemented a new service, the News Feed and Mini-Feed service. What this service does is this: it displays on your home page everything your friends have been up to, if they posted new photos, commented someone’s page, commented someone’s photos, changed their profile, joined a group, left a group, added a friend, broke up with someone, or got together with someone. It tells you everything except when people logged in. Great, right? I think this video says it best. This service was implemented Tuesday. In just 3 days, several thousand people joined groups against the new Facebook. On Friday, Facebook admitted it; they fucked up. In his blog post, Mark Zuckerberg says this, “We really messed this one up.” Yes, Mark, yes you did. Though I must hand it to Facebook, they handled the situation quite well. You can now choose what you want displayed on the feed, and what you don’t. But still, I can’t help but think, what were they doing? It’s almost like they wanted to be the next Myspace. Seriously. People complain about Myspace all the time because it’s too easy to track what people do, and now here comes Facebook, ready to be Stalker Central. Think, man, Think!

Speaking of people who post too much information on the internet, let’s head over to Youtube. They’ve had quite a busy week as well. There is (or maybe, was) a user on Youtube, lonelygirl15, who posted videos about herself and her life. Supposedly, they confessed deep stuff. I haven’t really watched them, because to me it was just another Youtube whore with a web cam and too much time. But Oh, was I wrong. It turns out to be something much more. The “creators” of lonelygirl15 gave themselves up this week. The whole thing was a filmmaker’s project. Oh, here’s what they said about who she is: “Right now, the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is “who is she?” We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us. Regardless, there are deeper mysteries buried within the plot, dialogue, and background of the Lonelygirl15 videos, and many of our tireless and dedicated fans have unearthed some of these. There are many more to come.” In other words, lonelygirl15 is your own Tyler Durden. Let me just say, I think this is one of the funniest and most awesome things to happen recently. Especially because of the Youtube community’s response. Check out these videos. First, user bravesgirl5’s LONELYGIRL15 IS OUT! NOT KIDDING Y’ALL. Go watch that and come back. I’ll wait. Watched that? Here’s another. Renetto, who has done a few funny movies, I must say, released his own SEVEN AND A HALF MINUTE response to the situation. Let me say that again, SEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES. Seriously! I can make and eat a sandwich in 7.5 minutes. I don’t expect you to watch all of that movie, but do watch some of it, and you’ll fall asleep laughing your ass off. The Youtube community needs to chill out and understand something. People don’t really care about every little thing you do with your life. I know I don’t. So please, stop posting 5 videos a day!

But there’s more to Youtube this week than just lonelygirl15. Gary Brolsma (whom you may remember from the Numa Numa Dance) is back, trying to regain fame and possibly some fortune. Here’s his new video. It’s OK. And just OK. Also of interest on Youtube, Pee-Wee Hermans’ Crack Cocaine Ad, and a spoof on eHarmony ads. Go check those out, they’re very good.

One more thing, If you haven’t seen it, go watch Hope Is Emo . It’s very funny, very well done. Oh, and in case you Youtube whores didn’t know, it’s fake. But feel free to make a video about it anyway, because, hey, what’s a day without 6 postings? All Right, that’s all I got for you today. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get supplies for my Blinking LEDs.

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So, you just got your new shiny iPod Video. On top of that, you just loaded onto it your favorite TV Shows and Music Videos from the iTunes Music Store. But there’s a problem: No matter how sharp the iPod screen is, it’s still just too small. You could go out and buy Apple’s iPod AV Cable for $19.00. But there’s a better way to do this. What you’ll need is a standard 1/8th inch to RCA cable (the folks over at Electron Jon’s have one for $3.02. They also run about 5-6 dollars on eBay. Also, if you own a camcorder, you probably already have one of these, so check to see before you buy one.

Once you have the cable, go into your iPod’s Video Settings (under Videos), and change TV Out to either “On” or “Ask.”

Now comes the part where Apple thinks they were sooooo tricky. They switched a few wires. Don’t worry, we don’t need to change anything around on the cable. Here’s what you do: plug the 1/8th inch plug into your iPod. Now, plug the cable’s Yellow RCA plug into your TV’s White RCA plug. Then plug the cable’s Red RCA plug into your TV’s Yellow plug. And finally, the cable’s White plug goes into the TV’s Red Plug.

It’s as simple as that. Start playing your video, sit back, and relax.

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