Anyway, I was quite the sad little robot this morning when I got up to download the new COD4 Variety Map Pack, it wasn't there. I was curious as to why and unfortunately, I find it has been delayed. =(
It seems the new release date is set for April 10th as indicated by the GOTY Edition website. I haven't seen anything about this on dtoid, I guess the change on April 1st went unnoticed by all the Dtoid'ers whom were having have all those 'epic lulz' from the off the wall Foxtoid content on Tuesday.
I'm disappointed, but I'm just curious as to why the delay, anyone else?
Hope all is well and you are having fun with the ‘gamez’. I wanna start out by saying sorry that my Game Development series has been put on hold, I went a while without a PC when my ole faithful finally became not so faithful anymore. However, I’m back in action with a brand new rig, and I am actually working on something pretty epic that a lot of you will enjoy.
On to the point, time to show off my rig:
I know, cable management is needed
Specs:
Antec 900 Gaming Case
Asus Maximus Formula (x38) Motherboard
2x2GB A-Data DDR2 – 800 Ram
Intel Q6600 Quad Core 2.4Ghz
EVGA nVidia 8800GTS (G92) 512mb
SataII 250Gb HD
Now, I’m sure most of you regulars here on D-toid are saying ‘You douche, this contest isn’t for you!!!!11!!11!111!!’. You are correct, it isn’t. The most intensive game I play on the PC is WOW, and I was hoping the 8800 would handle some 3d modeling, unfortunatly it doesn’t do very well. Anyway, chances are, this computer really isn’t for you either. I do have an alternative solution if I were for some reason to be selected however.
Destructoid.com and it’s staff has became very well known over the past few years. I’m a substitute teacher in a small town HighSchool in Kentucky, and I have heard before students mentioning Destructoid.com to their friends (cashwhore and Friday Night Fights specifically. Thank god Ive never ran into a student in a game.. Why not have the Dtoid staff Autograph this rig and Auction it off on Ebay, then donate the proceeds to Child’s Play. I’m sure someone out there somewhere would see a one-of-a-kind Turning Point Gaming PC signed by the Dtoid staff as priceless.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts on it. Having a rig like I do, my selection chance is slim to none. However, if Niero and the gang for some chance get soo drunk they just do an ‘Any, Many, Miny, Moe’ who knows. Hope you all are having an awesome weekend. Looks as if I will be snowed in for the next 24-48 hours, awesome! I will probably spend a lot of time on COD4 or maybe TF2 if I’m not sucked into the World of Warcraft for some (finally) lvl 70 Greatness.
It’s been a busy past few days, but today I finally received the book Head First C# (Brain-Friendly Guides) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback). I had a very time putting this book down after reading the first chapter so I could give you guys an impression on this book.
I will start out by basically showing you the Table of Contents (the first 4 chapters at and 1st lab at least), and discussing how well the first chapter covered the material, and the direction that the book takes after chapter 1 (I’m a cheater, I thumbed ahead).
Chapter 1: Get Productive with C#: Visual Applications, in 10 minutes or less
Chapter 2: It’s All Just Code: Under the hood
Chapter 3: Objects Get Oriented: Making Code Make Sense
Chapter 4: Types and References: It’s 10:00. Do you know where your data is?
C# Lab 1: A Day at the Races
The First Chapter At first glance at Chapter 1, it seems a little overwhelming, because it throws you right into the mix of working with a database. This is what differs this text from all the rest out there in my opinion. Most other introductory and beginner texts out there baby you, and hold your hand, or just completely leave out the basics and throw you out in the pasture to dry up. The great thing about this book, is it cuts out all the BS. It throws you straight into coding working applications in the first chapter, and teaches you (or refreshes you in my case) on all the basic programming terminology, structures, and practices, things such as DataTypes, Proper Syntax, and object properties, along the way, showing, teaching, and allowing you to use them in a practical way. I have dealt with databases in other languages, I know how much of a pain in the ass databases can be from time to time. This was a very refreshing approach for a Introductory Programming book.
It also covers the 2008 Visual Studio Express IDE very well. However, not much can really be said in this if you have ever used a prior VS IDE then it will be pretty straight forward to understand the layout of the IDE. (or if you have just used any IDE period honestly).
In the end, you have created a hypothetical application which will allow your CEO/Boss to go paperless in his Rolodex Contacts. The application will install via the windows installer, which another great concept I have never seen covered from the start. Your boss will also have a 100% paperless Rolodex of all contacts and can access these contact’s on either his Desktop in the office, or Laptop on the Go (application hypothetically installed on both machines).
Note: Much more material was covered in Chapter 1, however, the blog would have been entirely too long had I included it all.
Looking Ahead
Well, I will bluntly tell you, the chapters ahead are much like shiny objects to me. I’m very excited in what I have seen in my thumb through of the text. After completing chapter 4, you have your first of 3 labs. Which is a Mini-Game called ‘A Day at the Races’. I’m very anxious to get to this first lab, because lets face it, Games are why I am doing this in the first place. The code examples and solutions scattered throughout the book look to be very promising as well, however, on initial glance, I did discover a few little syntax errors, but if you are actually reading the material, you will easily catch these errors and be able to avoid them in your code.
Remember those 3 labs I told you about? Well, all 3 labs are the development of a Game, what’s great about this, is that you can take your own creative twist on each one, and push the skills you have learned to the limit, because the solution code for the Labs, is not provided in the book nor in the downloadable content. By the final lab, you will be creating ‘Space Invaders’ which, to me, is nothing more than a little orgasmic nostalgia to say the least.
Final Thoughts
In the end, this book truly has set itself up to be very promising after reading the initial chapter and working through the initial chapter. C# 3.0, VS 2008, and .net 3.5 are all covered very well, and very indepth for the beginner to the language. If you are looking for a book to just teach you what’s new to C# 3.0/2008/3.5, this isn’t the book for you. This book is not made to be a reference, and is made to be a teaching tool. If you want highly advanced concepts of C#, look elsewhere, because this is basically an indepth look with the building blocks to further your C# development. On another note, I am highly shocked to be praising this book as much as I am. I tend to dislike O’Reilly books, in fact, this is the first O’Reilly book I have ever read that I actually enjoyed (at least so far). I tend to stick with Thompson, Course, and MSPress. In the end however, this will make an excellent edition to your Computer related library, and a great foundation in your progress to creating the games of tomorrow.
Verdict: Worth Buying I would recommend this title to anyone for a solid foundation in the C# language.
Notice: I’m not saying this book will make you prepared to write high end video games by the end of next week. This is only the foundation of a multi step learning process. Take your time on your journey and learn as much as possible. Rushing things will make you the next EA Sports developer.
A few weeks ago, I was roaming around the site and ran across an Advertisement for a free game called KartRider. It looked fairly entertaining so I decided to give it a try. Surprisingly, it’s a fairly decent game.
If you have ever played Mario Kart, this is basically a clone, however, it’s online. It also has MMORPG elements, as in you can rank up your driver to new levels by obtaining experience points when winning races. Are there any true benefits of Ranking up your Driver? No. You get some Lucci Loot and can buy a few little things, however, it doesn’t give you any type of real advantage in the game. It just make 1 of the 7 little characters you chose from look even more ridiculous than it already did.
There are basically 2 modes of gameplay, Speed Mode, which I have yet to play, but consists of having the fastest lap times. Then there is Item Mode, which is what I enjoy playing. Item Mode is basically the Mario Kart clone of this game. You drive around one of around 20 tracks and pick up items to impale your opponent with or give yourself a much appreciated speed boost.
Graphically it’s pretty bland, although the colors are nice, and you have a slight Japanese anime impression when playing (probably intentional, if you are like me, you just install and play).
I know this sounds like a rushed review for KartRider, however, it’s really not. The game is as shallow as the kiddie pool at Six Flags. In the end, it’s still fun and worth the free download.
Beginning Game Development: a refreshers approach (pt 1 of 42)
Greetings out there Destructoid Nation!
First I want to say, it is I, your friendly neighborhood tehArtist. I only changed my nick to match my GamerTag, considering that’s what most of you know me by now anyway from FNF.
With my new name, I’m starting a new adventure…
For years I have wanted to get truly in depth with Game Development (it was my focus in CS ya know), however, with lack of time, and my inability to resist shiny objects I have found myself away from the keyboard coding on a regular basis for nearly a year now. Other than playing with some C++ physics libs from time to time, I have let a lot of that basic and common programming knowledge leak out my ears in the many hours I’ve spent shooting you nubs in haloz and modern warfarez over the past few months.
However, it’s a new year, and with a new year, comes new responsibilities and resolutions that nobody ever really keeps. I made a resolution this year, and I plan to stick with it. I’m updating my skills and starting over all the way back at the beginning. It’s time for a brief refresher in all of that good ole fashioned coding and good practices.
After debating for several days which language would be most beneficial for me to restart my journey in I finally came to the conclusion that with tools like XNA out there, and the future hope of being able to share that on XBL and Windows Live C# would be the best way to go. This created a large problem; I don’t know the first damn thing about C#. I’ve played with it a few times in some of my programming courses, but always focused on C++. So I was off to Amazon.com to find a good book on C# 2008.
After hours of searching the many reviews on Amazon and realizing that my absence from programming had led me to miss .net 3.0 almost entirely (we are currently at 3.5) I needed a hardcore refresher. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when choosing a new reference for my library, I’m very picky, and like to spend my money wisely. I tend to bank a lot on the reviews of others, and read their reviews for other books, and possibly books that I have already read. I enjoy a good programming book that cuts out all the bullshit and gets straight to the point. Bullshit is like those shiny objects, very distracting, and it takes away from what’s actually being explained. None the less, I finally found what looks to be a promising start Head First C# (Brain-Friendly Guides) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback). When I receive the book, I’ll write a short little review on the first chapter to give you guys a preview of what the book itself and the example code is like. I just hope this book doesn’t turn out to be shallow.
I have also received a copy of Maya 2008 from a friend that work at the college (yay for mass licenses) I used to attend, I plan to just use my old Maya 7 Unlimited Foundation book to refresh myself in using Maya. As for XNA, I don’t know yet, the documentation and retail text available for XNA is rather limited. There is absolutely nothing on XNA 2.0 yet, at least not until the end of January, so I’m holding off on purchasing an XNA book.
I’m sure you are sitting there thinking, ‘Why the hell do I care you are a lazy noob and have to start all over because you didn’t keep in practice?’. My point in this is, I hope to motivate a few of you to join me on this endeavor; I plan to actually develop a fully functioning game in the end featuring the great people at Destructoid as characters (or at least reference them in the design). I even want to share some of the stuff I pick up and learn along the way with the rest of you. It would be nice to turn this into a weekly or bi-weekly blog. Ok, that’s enough of that, I’m a black screen and Game Over Text away from sounding like a Devry Commercial UGH!
As always Dtoid Nation…
Have a great day,
And Happy Gaming!
P.S…What do you think of the new Cblog Banner?
(Notice: For those of you whom already consider yourselves experts in this matter, I know before you state it, much more knowledge is required, such as the multiple scripting languages, DirextX or OpenGL, ect.. I will discuss those in later blogs. Foundation and Principles are key, so that’s where I am starting.)
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