3DS

There has been big talk of the 3DS in the last three months and sadly there is no review for it. I must say that the 3DS isn't getting a review. Before you start complaining or booing us, it wasn't my fault since I don't have a 3DS. Blame all this on 16-bit, PortalFTW, Fiftybottles, and Chillin416. That is all, you may start booing and hate the following contributors.

Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program, 3DS Price Drop and Dumb GBA Limitations

Good news for the early adopters of the 3DS. Nintndo is allowing you to receive 10 free NES games from the eShop, before they are available to the public, as a reward for buying the 3DS early, if you connect to the eShop before midnight on August 12th (that means you are late, unless you go back in time) you are automatically registered. Now, if you don't have a 3DS,now is the time to get it if you want it, because Nintendo is dropping it's price by 80 dollars to 170$, starting August 12th. The GBA game that were also announced, which are available only to ambassadors, which are most likely coming in early December, have dumb limitations, which include no restore points, no wireless features, such as StreetPass or Spot Pass, and no sleep mode. so, the system pretty much treats itself like an original GBA, but despite these limitations, they are exclusive to you, but you still have to pay for them.

Counter-Strike 1.6 Look-Back

In honour of the recent announcement that a new Counter-Strike game is in development, I thought I'd take the time to do a short look-back on the franchise, starting with the first entry in the series, simply titled Counter-Strike.

Counter-Strike began life as a community made mod for Half-Life in 1999. It quickly became quite popular, to the point that Valve took notice of the mod themselves. They ended up ultimately buying it and improving upon what was already there, releasing the game under the name “Counter-Strike 1.6”. This is the version that many people still play to this day, which is a testament to just how well the game was designed, and ultimately this is what boosted Counter-Strike right up there, what gave the series a name and style all its own.

I have never played the original mod, and I'm not even sure if it's still available anymore. I would imagine not, seeing as how it's really a retail game now that one can buy on Steam, a service run by Valve itself. So, I'm going to spend some time talking about Counter-Strike 1.6 in this look-back.

Counter-Strike 1.6 balances what some might call realism with that whole arcadey, fast-paced, shoot-em-up kind of action. You still run fairly quickly, and the game is very similar to games such as Quake in this regard. Running around and jumping frequently will definitely keep enemy bullets from hitting you, unlike in the newer Call of Duty or Battlefield franchises. However, when a bullet hits you, you'll slow down and you won't be able to jump as high for a sort period of time. It only takes a few bullets to end your life entirely, even if you're wearing body armour, and once you're down, you won't even be able to respawn until the next round. It added a lot of tension to the experience, and it ensured that players would act as a team. Anyone who tried to go it alone without some sort of backup was a goner for sure.

For every kill that you scored, you would be awarded a short amount of money. The same goes for every round you win, in which case around $1500 is given to everyone in your team. This money can be used to purchase various kinds of weaponry, ranging from simple pistols to explosives and booming machine guns such as the AK-47. The weaponry is quite varied, and each weapon has pros and cons attached to it, but if you just stuck with buying the most expensive stuff, you usually got the best weapons available to you. One thing that I never really understood, however, was why you had to buy ammunition for your primary and secondary weapons separately. Granted, it's not a huge issue, but sometimes I would find myself purchasing a massive, one-shot-kill, super-accurate sniper rifle for myself, only to realize I didn't have enough money for ammunition. So, I was stuck running around with 5 bullets for my sniper rifle and a pistol with 25. Luckily, this problem was solved with later iterations into the series.

There are two teams in Counter-Strike; the Counter-Terrorists and the Terrorists. It's the Terrorists' job to, depending on the map you're playing on, either stop the Counter-Terrorists from rescuing the hostages or from defusing a bomb. In some cases, you also had to plant a bomb yourself. However, since you don't respawn until the next round upon dying, the rounds also have a sort of elimination aspect to them. If the CTs wipe out the Terrorists before time runs out, they win, and vice versa. It was tense and satisfying, and is still fun to this day.

Counter-Strike is an awesome game that spawned an epic series, so far with three great instalments. If you haven't already, I recommend you pick it up, and if you do, add me on Steam. My account name is the same as my Blogger name.

This has been a look-back on Counter-Strike 1.6, provided to you by Daniel “Fiftybottles” Brackenbury.

The video version has been cancelled. Counter-Strike hates me...

Minecraft Traps

I have only made the traps for the month of July. I won't make any more daily traps. I might however, make weekly traps or tips on how to handle hostile mobs. Just e mail me if you have any trouble with the creeper, spider, skeleton, of zombie population at bran_19@live.ca.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.