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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Minecraft Traps

Materials: redstone wire,
blocks,
8 dispensers,
1 pressure plate
and lot of arrows

First, place a pressure plate somewhere. Place dispensers, 2 blocks away from the pressure plate surrounding the pressure plate. Put a block one block up and one block left or right of all the dispensers. Now, put a dispenser on top of the other dispenser. Do this for all of the dispensers. You should have 8 dispensers facing the pressure plate. Wire all of the dispensers to the pressure plate. There are many ways to do this so I'll leave this to you. Load all of the dispensers with arrows. Whenever someone or something 2 block high steps on the pressure plate, BOOM. Face full of arrows. This works best on a hole; 1, the people can't escape the pressure plate. 2 it's not obvious.

I didn't put it in a hole because I didn't have enough time.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Minecraft Traps

Materials: 1 diamond block,
2 sand,
and a secure room.

First, make the room or find a room for the trap. It should be small to avoid people from escaping. In the ceiling, place a block of diamond. Go outside onto the roof and place sand on top of the block of diamond. Make sure the room is well lit and people can clearly see the diamond block. The trap is when someone goes in to get the diamond block, sand will fall on the player and kill them.

The inside of the room with the diamond block on the ceiling
Outside the house and the sand on top.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Minecraft Traps

Materials: blocks,
and water

First build a tower 5 by 5. The inside should hold 3 by 3 blocks. Now raise the tower to whatever height and make something stick out by one block. In the little outcrop place water inside. Now, in front of the entrance, inside the tower, dig a hole. This stops water from flowing out. Now, make a door. Any foolish player or mob will swim up the tower and drown.

The little outcrop for the water. On the inside of the tower
Outside view of the tower.
Entrance to tower.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Minecraft Traps

Materials: lava,
ladder,
redstone wire,
switch,
and a piston.

First, dig a hole, one block by one block. Dig as deep as you want. Dig into the side near the top of the hole. Put a piston there facing up. Next to the piston dig a hole to put the lava. Wire the piston to a lever preferably and turn it on. Go up to the piston and place a ladder so lava can't enter the switch area. In the hole next to the piston, place lava. In a flick of a switch, the piston will release the lava onto whoever is in the hole.


Minecraft Traps

Materials: 11 sand,
6 torches,
a hallway,
lava,
and one iron door

First make the hall way as long as you want, one block wide and eight blocks high. Place the iron door somewhere, then put sand on top of the door. Put torches on the side of the sand that is in the same direction as the hall. Put sand on top of the torches. Put torches on the outside part of that sand (the side pointing from the door). Put sand on that torch and a torch on the sand. On top of the torch, place three blocks of sand. Do the same on the other side of the door so you have a giant triangle pointing at the door. Pour lava into the triangle, and now your done. A player will break the iron door, dropping the sand, suffocating them. If they escape, lava will kill them. They can't escape because of the extra sand on the side.

Side view of the trap.
The torches can hold up sand.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Minecraft traps

Materials: 1 netherrack,
a fire source,
and some soul sand

Dig a hole and put netherrack in it. Now, surround the netherrack with soul sand.The amount surrounding the netherrack is any. The trap is that, once a mob is on fire, they will slow down by the soul sand and you can easily get the loot. It works better if you use cobweb instead of soul sand.

Minecraft traps

Materials: 1-2 cobweb,
and water

First, dig a hole 1 by 1. The depth should be three. Fill the bottom with cobweb. Fill the top of the hole with water. A mob will fall in the hole and be stuck on the cobwebs. You can then torture them in the hole.

This is my trap but I removed one of the sides and replaced it with glass so you can see. I also used one cobweb instead of two. Thye mob will more likely drown if you use one cobweb. One cobweb is not recommended because the mob has to go pretty deep in the water to reach it.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Minecraft traps

Materials: blocks,
glass,
and water.

First, make something nine by four. The inside should be two by eight. Leave one end open, on the other end place water. The water shouldn't go over the blocks. Now, dig five blocks and two blocks wide down at the end of the water area. Close off the end with glass but don't put glass in the hole. Now put water in the little hole but it shouldn't hit the glass but be right under it. After that's done, make a hole for the loot to go through. Lastly, close off all ways of escaping except the entrance.

This is a picture of the water.

This is where things are drowned. The water goes under the glass. The water is also one block under the other water.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Half Life 2 livestream

I reschedule to 8:00pm tomorrow. But, I will do a little bit today.

Minecraft traps

Materials: redstone wire,
redstone torch,
pistons,
1 sticky piston,
sand,
and blocks.

First, make a hall way. On the ceiling of the entrance and exit, or the on top of the switch (not recommended) place a piston or two. Now, in the middle put a pressure plate and wire it to a sticky piston. The sticky piston should have a block at the end. After that's over, wire the other pistons to a redstone torch. The wire connecting to the torch should be up a block so, when the sticky piston extends it should cancel out the circuit. The other pistons will then retract. On top of the piston opening part, put sand so when the pistons open, sand will fall on the person, or seal off the entrance or exit.

Bird's eye view of the trap. I did a double piston at the end of my hall. The sand also fell.

Side view of the trap's wiring so you can so the different heights every thing is at.
This is the view of the hallway.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Minecraft traps

Materials: 3 netherrack,
4 cacti,
4 sand,
and a fire source

Dig a trench of seven blocks. The width and depth is one block. In the trench put sand at each end. Then after the sand put netherrack. Then sand and in the very middle put netherrack. Place cacti on the sand blocks and light the netherrack. A mob will jump in the fire and bounce out into the cacti and die but protect the loot.


Minecraft traps

Materials: 1 netherrack,
and a fire source.

This is a simple pitfall trap. Just dig down. The depth is any. Make ladders all the way down if you want. But make a way out of the hole in case you fall in. Now at the bottom, place netherrack at the bottom and light it. An mob will fall in and die from the fire.

Minecraft traps

This is a multiplayer trap. It is best used as a security door to a stronghold or a base.

Materials: obsidian,
2 lever,
redstone wire,
piston,
sand,
2 iron doors,
pressure plate,
1 or more friends,
and glass.

First, make a hallway with only one block in width. Place a pressure plate at some point on the ground. Place one of the iron doors in front of it. So, if someone stepped on the pressure plate, the iron door will open. One block away, place another iron door. Before you do this, have a friend be on the other side. Place a lever beside the door on the side your not on. You should be in a block gap. Both doors should be operable from the other side. Now, remove the roof of the one block section, between the two iron doors. Remove more one block from the hole in the roof. Place a piston in the new gap. Wire it up to a place near the iron door and place a lever at the end. Now, pick a side of the iron door and remove two blocks from it. Now fill it up with glass. You should now be able to see the person in the one block place between two iron doors. Close the piston and fill the space above it with sand. Stand in the other iron door with the two levers. When something comes through you can pull the lever to open the door or drop sand on them. Have someone in the area with two levers at all times to guard your base.

This is the side with two levers/ the safe side.Me looking through the window at the one block space.
Me in the one block space looking up at the piston with sand on top. There at iron doors on both sides of me. I opened one of them.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Half life 2 live stream

Because of some things I can't do the live stream today and will probably did it on this Friday at around 7:00pm. I hope you will be there to watch it at http://www.justin.tv/portalftw416. I will resume where I left off at my last live stream. I will also try to raise the frame rate and add sound.

Minecraft Traps

Materials: 1 sand,
1 cactus,
grassy biome,
24 fences,
and 4 torches.

First, find some flat grassy area. If you can't, make the land flat. Fence an area of 25 blocks or just make a square of fence 7 by 7. When you have that, dig a hole in the center of the fenced area. Put sand there and put cactus on top. In each corner of the fenced area place a torch. Since you have light on a grassy area. The animals will spawn in the fenced area and walk towards the cactus and die. They can't escape because of the fence.

I didn't have enough time so I just did that. I has two blocks in one corner because I need a way to exit the fence area. It can also be used to enter and collect the loot.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Minecraft Traps

I don't have access to Minecraft at the moment but the show must go on.

Materials: steel and flint,
netherrack.

First, dig a 1 block hole in a grassy area. Put the netherrack in the hole. Light the netherrack. Now, since animals mobs spawn in light near grass. They will walk into the fire and die. This also works with the other kinds of mobs except for squids because they live in water.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Livestreams

I will be live streaming on Tuesday. It will be Half-life 2. I'll pick up where I left off last time I live streamed.

Minecraft Traps

Materials: sand,
chest,
torches,
and water

First, find a room to be the trap room. Place a chest near or at the center. Place sand on top of it so it's impossible to open. Climb onto the roof of the room and find where the chest is. Place water on top of the sand on top of the chest. Now, surround the room with torches. On top of the torches, put sand on top. The sand shouldn't fall because of the torch. Once again climb onto the roof and put water on top of the sand blocks. The player will break the sand to get to the chest. The sand will release the water and knock out the torches. The sand on top of the torches will fall and release more water and drown the player.

The sand doesn't fall.

I didn't spend too much time on the torches.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Minecraft Traps

Materials: 3 cactus
and 3 sand

First dig a hole five by two by any depth. Now, crave out the sides so that there's room at the sides but not higher than two blocks. At the bottom of the hole, dig holes in a zigzag pattern and put sand in it. On top of the sand, plant cacti. Because of the carved out sides, the cacti should be plant able. A mob should fall in and die from the cactus.


This is a cactus and the carve so it should stay put.

This is dark but you should be able to see the pattern of the cactus.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Minecraft Traps

This trap is a lava trap.

Materials: lava,
water,
2 ladder,
and dirt.

The first thing is to make a platform that is five by four, the height is two. On one side make an opening that is two blocks wide. Don't fill the platform with blocks keep it open. On the bottom of the platform, place blocks to fill up the bottom layer of the platform. The first block nearest to the opening you should keep empty. Place ladders there. In front of the opening, build something eight by four by two. Once again keep it empty. Now, on the side farthest from the ladders, put water on the first block. At the side with water, destroy the two blocks so mobs can jump into the water. Now, on the side of the other platform farthest from the water, place the lava. The water should reach the ladders and not touch the lava. The mobs will walk into the water and flow into the lava because they float.

This is where you put the ladders. I used some other blocks because I ran out of dirt. I used soul sand because spiders can't climb this.
The correct placement of the fluids. The depths are different.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Minecraft Traps

This is a cactus trap. Target is mostly mobs.

Materials: any kind of blocks,
4 sand,
4 cacti,
water,
and ladders.

First, build a frame about 7 blocks long, 3 blocks wide and 3 blocks tall. Keep both ends open. One end is where the mobs go in so build that side one block up so water doesn't spill out. Now at the other end place sand blocks and cactus on top. 3 pieces in a triangle like pattern. The other piece in front of the middle piece of sand but 2 blocks away. Now, in front of middle piece that I referred to before, dig down how much you want. But keep in mind you will need ladders to get out. Now, a block away from the middle piece of sand, outside of the trap, dig down the same amount of blocks as you did before and dig two blocks forwards. You should hit the other hole. Add the ladders so you can go back up, add a torch in the hole if you want so creepers don't surprise you when you go down there. Once up, add the water at the starting end. Any mob inside will be dragged by the water and hit the cacti and the water will bring the loot to the tunnel.

This is my tunnel to where I collect my loot.
This is a birds eye view of the trap. Left is my floating castle's garden. Right is my kennel. Top is another trap.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Vacation: Banoi

I know we don't review island resorts but I find it appropriate for my vacation to be important on this blog. Once I fly there or get a ticket to Banoi I'll review the island. This resort seems to die for or at least adventurous.

Minecraft Traps

This is a TNT trap.

Materials: pressure plate,
(sand/gravel optional)
tnt
water

Dig a hole, so only one block can fit in it. Make it three blocks down. Four if you use sand/gravel but not recommended. Fill the bottom two blocks with water so the explosion isn't as big. On the next block up, place TNT. Put sand/gravel on top of the TNT. If you don't use sand or gravel, just place the pressure plate on the TNT. Someone steps on the pressure plate and boom. End up with a hole like this. The other TNT won't explode because of the water. Sand and gravel aren't recommended because it causes a crater. REAL obvious where the trap is.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Regarding Minecraft traps

To file any complaints or for future traps. Feel free to e mail me at bran_19@live.ca . If I get enough e mails I might make tutorials and videos for the traps.

Minecraft Traps

This is also a suffocation trap.

Materials: A whole lot of booster rails,
a switch,
a mine cart,
redstone torch,
and lots of dirt.

Place the rails in a straight line. The length is really up to you. Place dirt at each end of the rails. Put the switch next to the booster rails. When you activate the switch all of the booster rails should light up. If not, replace those with normal rails. At the very end, place three booster rails or more and put a redstone torch next to them. Now, build a tunnel with a one block hole near the middle section of the rails. The cart should move through the hole. Now you're done. Activate the booster rails if a mob is on the rails. The cart will pick up the mob and the low roof should suffocate them. The booster rails will keep bouncing them around. In the picture, you can see a zombie in the trap. I got lazy and didn't make all of the rails booster. The glowstone was because it was dark and I needed a roof.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Minecraft Traps

This trap is also a suffocation trap.

Materials: 2 pistons
dirt (if the biome isn't desert) if the biome is desert use sand.
redstone
2 pressure plates
slimeballs
Optional2
(Obsidian)

First, dig a hole one block wide and two blocks long. The depth is any. Once done, look at the side that is two blocks wide. Go to your crafting screen and create sticky pistons. Extend that wall by one block wide, two blocks tall and two blocks long. At head level, dig something two blocks long but one block wide.Insert pistons there. Place pressure plates where the sun come in or, at the bottom of the hole. Wire up the pistons and the pressure plates accordingly. The left plate goes to the left piston and etc with the right. Now, make a way to escape the trap yourself because if you follow correctly, the pistons should be one block away from you when you step on the pressure plate. When you have that done, make no way to escape the trap except for the one I said before. Don't make it too obvious. Now that you have that, attach a block to the piston. If someone steps on your pressure plate the block should suffocate them. Make the block obsidian if you want to make it nearly impossible to escape. With the dirt (or sand) try to cover up the existence of the trap, except for the opening. if you use sand for this, place a sandstone block under where you want sand and fill it with sand.I removed the blocks so that it wouldn't hide the pistons. I use a mod to make me fly so I didn't trigger the pressure plate.

pressure plates and redstone. Note that I put sandstone to stop the sand from showing my redstone.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Minecraft Traps

As I said I am making these daily. To save time I'm only going to post one picture. It will be of the finished project. This trap is a piston suffocation trap.

Materials: 2 pistons
sand (any amount)
redstone
pressure plate (optional)

First, dig a hole. It should be 2 blocks long and 1 block wide. Dig however you want. At the bottom, place the pressure plates. Next to the hole, place the pistons. They should face the hole but when they extend, they shouldn't pass the hole. Wire the pressure plates to the pistons. In front of the pistons, place the sand. So, when someone walks onto the pressure plate, sand falls on them and the suffocate.

Zelda: A Link to the Past Review

Okay, as you can see by the post title, and the picture, I am doing a review on the SNES Game Zelda: A Link to the Past, which was released in 1992 (as you can see by the screenshot) for the SNES, and later re-released on the GBA. I was GOING to review OoT3D, but fiftybottles did, I'm just going to review this game instead. This is a good game, it's only major drawback is that is rare, unless you use emulators like me. The game is fairly easy to control, despite the control scramble-up from the emulators, being that it is a top-down game, so the controls are pretty much identical to the controls for Pokemon, except Link (or whatever you named him) runs automatically. This game is in my opinion the best Zelda game, because of the main reason that I can actually have a fighting chance of beating the game, as for OoT3D? I suck. This is a game that would be simply amazing if Nintendo remade for the 3DS or Wii, however the would probably do the same stupid mirror thing like they did in Twilight Princess for Wii, (which pisses me off, because I am one of the only people they didn't consider making that game, because I use my left hand for the Wii remote, and my right. for the nunchuck.) But, back to the game. With simple controls, and simply great overall, I give A Link to the Past 99/100 rupees (which fills the child's wallet in OoT3D)

16 Bit

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Minecraft

I will make traps and ways to kill NPCs or players a daily post on Null. Here I go, my first trap for players or NPCs.

Materials: pressure plate/ button
lava
piston
redstone

Place the piston pushing side ways like in the picture in the ceiling.
Put the lava above the piston. Make sure you have walls around your lava. You don't want it flowing around.

Next, add the switch. Connect the switch with the piston. I got the pressure plate because NPCs or players can walk onto it and die.

As you see in the picture, a wooden or TNT room just makes disasters. Plus, the lava almost killed me.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D Review

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (which I will, from now on, be abbreviating as "OoT3D") has been out for a couple of weeks now, so I thought that it deserved a review from yours truly! If you just want a quick summary of what I thought, skip down to the final paragraph. If not, read your brains out below!

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is widely considered to be the best game ever made. Period. So when it was announced that this very same game was coming to the 3DS with bonus modes, enhanced graphics, an orchestrated bonus musical track, and 3D support, it's pretty safe to say that, across about half of the world, roughly 8 million peoples' heads exploded. And that's not counting the ones who only got seriously injured. Well people, the wait was long, but it was worth it, and I'm here to tell you why.

OoT3D is the same OoT that you all know and love. It still has all the same temples, all the same charm, all the same interesting characters, and the very same Navi. Yes, that's right, Nintendo decided to leave Navi's annoying tendencies in the game for "nostalgic purposes". I'm not saying for Nintendo to just outright pull Navi out of the game. That would be a ridiculous notion. Just... give us some more varied sounds, please? "Hey, Listen!" can get quite annoying after hearing it the thousandth time (trust me, I'm not exaggerating). Aside from that however, there are quite a few notable changes. First of all, colours seem to be more vibrant and... well... colourful. The character models have a much higher polygon count (which really isn't surprising in the least), the frame rate has been significantly improved, textures are light years ahead of what was offered on the N64, and animations are much smoother and really just much more realistic. There is a nice anti-aliasing effect that was put into the game, and it makes things seem smoother and more realistic, however this effect is turned off when 3D is switched on, which really isn't actually that big of a loss. In fact, I barely ever noticed it. Speaking of 3D, it's a quite noteworthy addition to the game, and makes everything come to life even more. If you buy this game, then playing it in 3D is a must, because it really does a much better job of immersing you in the world. It almost feels as if some of the cutscenes were originally designed to make use of this technology... without Nintendo even realizing it!

The controls in the game are, like every other Zelda game, awesome. I know that many people complained about the controls not being preferable to the N64 controls, however I had absolutely no problems with them, and considering the fact that the two controls are completely different, I think that Nintendo did quite an admirable job at making them work. There's now a button dedicated to your Ocarina, so you don't have to keep swapping it in and out of your inventory anymore, and now you can equip four items. All of this makes for a much better inventory system overall. My only problem is that you have to really use your thumbs for the touch screen button (seeing as how the 3DS' stylus was positioned on the top left hand of the system). Reaching for the stylus is impossible when trying to act fast like you always are in a game like this, and when using my thumbs, sometimes the buttons wouldn't read input properly. However, this is a drawback of the 3DS system design, not the actual game itself. When Nintendo inevitably releases their second version of the 3DS, I'm sure there will be some notable design improvements, and that most people won't have this problem anymore. For the time being, however, you have been warned.

There are a few bonus modes in the game, most notably the "Master Quest". This is basically the same game, except the game is a mirror image of itself, enemies take off twice as much damage, and all of the dungeons have now been remixed. It may not sound like much, but these things all make the quest infinitely more difficult, especially if you've already beaten the game, like I had. I found myself going left to get to Kakariko Village instead of the right that is required in the new mirrored world when I was exiting the castle, simply because my mind was trained to do that. Suffice to say, the new quest will make you think a wee bit harder than before. There's also a boss rush mode that is unlocked about halfway through the game. It's interesting, but it's not really going to keep your attention for too long.

The sound and music are amazing in this game. True, none of the music has actually been changed, and there's only one bonus track that's been fully orchestrated (you'll have to figure that one out on your own, guys... sorry!), but that doesn't really matter, because it's all so amazing! From the Lost Woods to the famous Windmill Hut (which Nintendo ingeniously decided to call "?" because of its sheer weirdness), all of the music here is absolutely mind-blowing. The music makes Hyrule Field as epic as ever and the Forest Temple as creepy as ever, and its definitely not something you want to miss out on. Leave that sound slider "up", children. When it comes to sound effects, I noticed that a few things were changed. Link's classic screams and cries are still here (Yah! Hah! Hyah!), and as mentioned eariler Navi is as present as ever, but most of the footstep noises in the game were changed, some enemy cries (as well as friendly cries), were changed, perhaps most notably the Goron sound.

The graphics have, as mentioned above, also been drastically changed. You already know what I like about the graphics, and how much they've been improved (a lot!), but there are some things that I think weren't quite touched up enough. All of the staircases are still flat, which is mostly forgivable I think. It's not really all too noticeable, although a fully rendered 3D staircase would have been nice. The things that stuck out the most to me were the environments themselves. I noticed that not much was done to floors, ceilings, walls, mountains, rivers, or fences when it comes to polygons. In fact, most, if not all, of the environments look almost exactly the same polygon-wise (because obviously the textures have been improved, as well as the particle effects and various other things). Things are still jaggy and rugged, and things don't look too smooth. It's pretty much the same environments that were featured in the N64 version, albeit with better textures, which is a slight disappointment. It is forgivable however, and the game still looks quite nice. It's just not pushing any boundaries when it comes to the 3DS hardware.

Ocarina of Time 3D is an absolute must-own for anyone with a 3DS. Yes, that's right, even if you have the original. The graphics have been drastically improved, and even if they're not pushing the hardware to new heights, it still looks pretty damn great. Its music is mind-blowing, and its scale is epic. The Master Quest gives it some added replayability, and its the kind of game that you'll want to play a few times. Some of the glitches are interesting to check out as well, and according to the developers, a lot were left in for nostalgic purposes. Awesome? Long story short, this is an epic game that everyone should own.

I give The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D 98/100 Master Swords.