Posted by John Witt in Gaming Tuesday, 23 June 2009 03:35 13 Comments
I detest the ‘Party Chatting’ system in Xbox Live with a fervor! I could never understand why we really need party chat to begin with, life was fine before it. I guess I could see it if it were being used for watching the same movie via Netflix streaming with your friends. What it has turned out to be though, is the best way for you and your friends to cheat. Why do I say this is primarily used for cheating? Let me give you an example: You and your friends are playing ‘Call of Duty: World At War’ you have dead silence and camouflage on, you sneak up and knife somebody on the opposing team. All of a sudden 10 seconds later a grenade comes bouncing in at your feet, it goes off and your dead. Now you didn’t give away your position nor did your opponent notify his teammates where he was before he died. What happened was that the entire opposing team is in party chat and the guy you just killed told his teammates exactly where you are from his grave. Now how fair is that and there is no way to prevent that from happening.
Now here is another example of why this sucks so much, your team has eliminated everyone on the other team except one or two players. Again you are using camouflage and dead silence, so you can’t be seen on radar nor heard. You find one of your opponents and you sneak up on him then all of a sudden he does a 180 and starts firing before the turn is even finished and your laying dead on the floor. How did he know you were behind him? Because one of his dead teammates is watching his back in essence giving him eyes in the back of his head. This is so rampant that players now jump into the lobby of a game and ask if anyone is in private chat. If no one answers guess what you back out.
Here is another annoying scenario, you and a couple of buddies jump on to play together but you don’t have enough to form a full squad. No problem you get teamed up with another couple of players randomly here is where it really sucks. They are in private chat with themselves. So you can’t talk to them, warn them or discuss any strategy. They are in their own little world and could care less about anything except themselves.
Why can’t Microsoft just disable ‘Party Chat’ for any online matchmaking games i.e. Call of Duty, Halo or any other FPS? These games have built in systems for team communications and nothing else is needed. So why do they let this run rampant? All it does is ruin the experience for those that would like to play and have a good time with their friends. Come on Microsoft get with the program you can’t be that dense or can you?
*Photo by: Matt Brett
Posted by John Witt in Gaming Thursday, 18 June 2009 17:59 No Comments
As many of you know I am an avid gamer. I have been trying to purchase a pair of Mad Catz Street Fighter IV Tournament Sticks ever since they were announced. I have the game but to play the game with stock controllers is not that fun and difficult. The controllers go for $149 but have not been in stock anywhere since they were released. If you look on eBay and some Amazon vendors everyone is marking these controllers up an additional $50. Well it would seem that now Mad Catz wants to make a little extra money as well. Now that Mad Catz has some controllers in stock they decided to get in on the action and fleece customers as well. They are forcing everyone that wants one of these controllers to buy a bundle. The bundle includes the game and a face plate. Well guess what I already have the game and I don’t want a faceplate. Keep in mind I need two of these one for myself and one for my wife or guest. Do I really need two games and two faceplates? NO! It’s a shame when even the manufacturer gets involved in this shady practice. Just thought I would let you know what they were doing.
UPDATE: My mistake the reaming is even worse. The bundle does not contain a game at all these are the items in the bundle:
Official Street Fighter™ IV Xbox 360 Tournament Edition FightStick™
Official Street Fighter™ IV Faceplate and Console Skinz
Official Street Fighter™ IV Vinyl Wall Scroll
Xbox 360 Controller Extension Cable
Posted by John Witt in Etcetera Monday, 20 April 2009 23:26 No Comments
My wife and I had an incredible evening out on the town only to have it blown by an #^$%&!@ of a taxi driver. We got in a taxi after the opera at Lincoln Center. When we got in we noticed that there was a clip of Jimmy Fallon’s show playing so we turned it up to hear it. Well that’s when the evening went bad and fast. The driver decided to turn up his “SPANISH” radio station and complained he could hear the screen in the back. Needless to say his radio used every damn speaker in the van. I informed him the reason the screen in the back of the van was for the passengers and that I did not want to hear his radio. I turned off our screen and told him to do the same. He then informed me “this is America and this is what happening right now and I should learn spanish”. This is America and I should learn spanish? I had to scream at him that I was the passenger and I wanted the radio off now. After complying he decided to race his cab down Park Avenue at 50 miles an hour while it was pouring ran. Luckily enough we got to Grand Central safe and sound. I am getting in touch with the Taxi & Limousine Commission to complain about my cab ride from hell….
Posted by John Witt in Technology, Tutorials Friday, 10 April 2009 01:40 No Comments
I just finished putting together a quick video tutorial on how to create ringtones using GarageBand on a Mac. This is my second tutorial I have done so far. The first tutorial was on building an embedded firewall. I hope to put together various tutorials over the coming months at the pace of once a week if I can find the spare time. Well below is a link to the video, enjoy. I would welcome any input on the video as it will help me going forward. Thanks
Posted by John Witt in Etcetera Sunday, 1 February 2009 23:09 No Comments
I went out tonight to an Irish Pub in Yonkers called ‘Rory Dolan’s’. I went with Lara to meet up with people that went to Cardinal Spellman High School. As we were sitting there reminiscing about the gold old times, several emails started popping up on my Blackberry. It was from a friend of mine who has been fortunate enough to attend the last couple of Superbowls. He just sent these photos in to me, they are of Bruce Springstein practicing for the half time show. Some people just have all the luck or in other words just really suck (depends on how you look at it). LOL
Posted by John Witt in Etcetera Thursday, 29 January 2009 19:02 No Comments
I just love the feeling of being taken advantage of. The store in question is ‘Grande Harvest Wines’ situated within Grand Central Terminal in New York City. I was in a rush to get home and stopped into the liquor store in question to pick up a couple of items and save some time driving around when I got home. I picked up a bottle of ‘Balvenie Double Wood Scotch’ and a bottle of ‘Bushmills 16yr Single Malt Irish Whiskey’. When I was rung up I thought the price was really off and inquired about the pricing on the individual bottles. The bottle of Balvenie was $66.95 which I thought was really off since I buy this regularly elsewhere. I chalked it up to my mind playing tricks with me and I figured it was only a couple of dollars off. The price kept nagging at me all the way home, so I stopped at a local liquor store anyway. To my amazement the Balvenie bottle was priced at $49.95, thats a 30% markup. I then looked up the pricing online and found stores in close proximity to ‘Grande Harvest Wines’ with the same lower pricing and the bottle of ‘Bushmills’ going for 68.94. So it looks like they charge a 30% markup across the board compared to other local retailers. I could have walked 2 blocks from Grand Central and saved nearly $40.00. Is that worth the convenience, hell no. I guess they are relying on people in a rush or not know their pricing, so they can get over on them. This was enough to warrant a call to the manager to ask for explanation. When I informed the individual who answered about the huge discrepancy in pricing to his nearby competition. I was basically told that’s our price and we won’t do anything about it. I then politely told him it would be the last time I would ever shop there. The next time you happen to be in Grand Central and need to purchase a bottle of liquor, wine or champagne, I would avoid ‘Grande Harvest Wines’ unless you like giving money away. If that is the case just give it to me. 
