Afterfall Insanity Boss guide

image credit: wikipedia

I just finished Afterfall Insanity and there are few guides out there. So I decided to write a mini guide for the Boss fights. There are only 3 bosses.

I am basing this guide on the PC steam version of the game.

Some general pointers.

All boss fights have one or two ammo dispensers with unlimited ammo. Because of this and the scarcity of melee weapons in those areas, you wont be using melee for the most part. A few guns are strewn around the area.

The crosshairs remain colored white if you are not aiming at a valid target or not aiming at a vulnerable part of the Boss's body. So only shoot when it turns red.

Health regeneration is pretty fast so you can just duck behind cover or run away and wait till your health regenerates. There is no health bar but the screen turns reddish to indicate low health.

The first 2 boss fights are divided into parts with no checkpoint in between. The last boss fight also has 2 parts but has a sequence before the 2 parts with a checkpoint, for a total of 3 parts.






The first Boss fight happens when you are clubbed from behind by one of the surface dwellers and you are thrown into a gladiator arena like area.

The boss is a fat giant. He's armed with 2 weapons. First weapon is a metal flail that has a short range. The flail will automatically make you knocked down. Just stay away from him and you wont be hit by the flail. If you do get hit, use RUN and DODGE to get some distance.

The second weapon is a shield that is thrown captain america style. It might be dodgable but I have not been able to dodge it. A hit will cause you to be knocked down.

The strategy for the first part of the fight is to stay away to avoid the flail. Then stop and get a piece of cover between you and the boss. The boss will throw the shield. It will then get lodged on the piece of cover. When that happens for a few second the BOSS's tummy is exposed. Start shooting the tummy (the HUD crosshairs will be red). Rinse and repeat. I like to use the submachine gun.

For part 2, the boss gets a big hammer. Its more important to stay away because one hit from the hammer will make you fall down. Once you fall down its very difficult to get away before the next hammer blow. Also, a few scavengers join the fight.

My strategy is to run away - shoot the scavengers who are running towards you - reload and get a few shots at the boss's tummy - run away. Rinse and repeat


Boss #2 is an animated pile of scrap metal that you find on the surface. Avoid areas with sunlight since that spawns ghosts. Ghosts are annoying but they deal low damage.

In part 1 its attacks are primarily cars. It picks up cars and throws them at you. Just keep running and dodging and keep your distance. I think it can use melee attacks but I'm not sure. I prefer the assault rifle.


So the first vulnerable spot seems to be the right arm (or was it  the right leg?) Shoot it and scrap metal will fall off.

Later on use the crosshairs to hunt for more vulnerable spots. The torso may be vulnerable but it usually covers it with its left arm so you need to wait for it to do something like throw a car to expose it. Rinse and repeat





In part 2, the boss switches to an attack that creates a line of spikes from the ground that travels in a straight line. The strategy is still the same. RUN or DODGE its attacks and hunt for a vulnrable spot then shoot it. Rinse and Repeat.

94% off Amazon digital sale

Here is a great pack composed of square enix games on Amazon.

1. Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Augmented Edition [Download]
2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link DLC [Download]
3. Hitman: Blood Money [Online Game Code]
4. Just Cause 2 [Download]
5. Just Cause [Online Game Code]
6. Quantum Conundrum [Download]
7. Supreme Commander 2 [Download]
8. The Last Remnant [Online Game Code] 

Total price would normally be $131.52 but the sale price is $9.99. A Steal!

Notes:
* sometimes the error "This item is currently unavailable" is seen. If you see this, wait say half an hour and try again
* These games are digital downloads and/or online game codes. So no DVD's
* As usual, amazon will not let you buy a digital download unless you use a US address.

link



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Alpha Protocol review: interface and performance

Alpha Protocol NON-Review

I'll be concentrating on the user interface and the performance. I know that this is slightly unfair and biased since I concentrate on only one aspect, BUT other people/websites have reviewed this game before so go to them if you want a balanced and thorough review. So be warned, this is not a real review. Its more of a rant about the performance and interface flaws. The graphics and story and gameplay are OK though.

Okay. I have a decent system, 4 gigs ram, geforce 560ti, core 2 duo e8200, maybe a little light on the CPU but its ok.  I tried all the video options on and also tried the game with them all off. As with most console ports, the video options are a bit limited. I'm using the version I bought on Steam.

I see that this game suffers from consolitis and lacks polish. The loading times are too long, even for something as simple as loading a checkpoint then dying then reloading the last checkpoint. Loading time is also too long for such simple stuff as opening the map or opening one of the menus such as weapons or gadgets. When loading a save or loading a new level at least there's a spinning AP logo on the screen but  otherwise, the game looks like its frozen.

Then there are lots of pauses. Example, you are running forwards then make a 90 degree turn to your left to a stair or ramp, after turning a few degrees there is a split second pause then you find yourself turned 270 degrees so you have the stairs behind you and you're face into the wall or sometimes its 180 degrees and you're going back the way you came. The scrolling is horrible in menus. The mouse wheel works but if you have say 2 windows like in the email window, scrolling the mouse wheel only scrolls the list of emails on the left while the message on the right window cannot be controlled by the mouse wheel. You can always click on the scroll up and down buttons but they are soo small. Plus there are pauses scrolling to an email or a weapon that's on the next page of a list.

The menus like the PDA and the weapon menus don't recognize the ESC key. So for example if you are in the map to go back to the game you have to mouse click on the "back" button then press TAB. For the weapon/skill/gadgets menu you can only jump from say the weapon to the skill menu only by mouse clicking on a small left-right arrow. You can't use the keyboard shortcut keys. And for exiting those menus going back to the game you can't press ESC, you gotta press the key assigned to it. Clunky and difficult if you're stressed out fighting in game.

Very Very poor interface design. A shame since the RPG system, the story and the combat is OK. Like mass effect your choices and actions determine how the story branches. I blame this on consolitis.

Oh and there are checkpoints, I hate checkpoints. I want save slots.

Overall I would  give this game 5/10. For the gameplay, maybe 7/10. For the interface and performance 2/10 each.

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Anomaly: Warzone earth cheat

orcs must die cheat

orcs must die cheatengine

orcs must die cheat engine

orcs must die cheat codes

orcs must die trainer

orcs must die steam cheat

orcs must die steam cheatengine

orcs must die steam cheat engine

orcs must die steam cheat codes

orcs must die steam trainer

Anomaly warzone earth is a reverse tower defense game. I bought it on STEAM.

I have not found any cheats or trainers so I'll teach you how to use a program called cheatengine to cheat. Cheat engine is a game utility that can search for values in ram that are used by the game. These values typically are used by the game to denote player attributes like money or health. Once you find it you can change the value. 

First you have to go to my previous Orcs must Die cheat page. The procedure for cheating is more or less the same so study the procedure there. But there is one added step. In the cheatengine program, look for the thing called "value type". The default setting here is "4 bytes". Change it to "Float".


And that's it.

orcs must die cheat

orcs must die cheat

orcs must die cheatengine

orcs must die cheat engine

orcs must die cheat codes

orcs must die trainer

orcs must die steam cheat

orcs must die steam cheatengine

orcs must die steam cheat engine

orcs must die steam cheat codes

orcs must die steam trainer

I finished playing the game Orcs must die, steam version. And I know that my gaming skillz aren't what they used to be. So I needed a little help. I was looking for orcs must die cheats or orcs must die traniers or orcs must die cheat codes in google but the only trainers I could found only worked with old versions, and as you know, steam can autopatch games.


So I decided to use a program called cheatengine. Cheat engine is a game utility that can search for values in ram that are used by the game. These values typically are used by the game to denote player attributes like money or health. Once you find it you can change the value. I'll teach you how to use cheatengine in Orcs must die steam.

1. Run orcs must die and cheat engine (in any order)
2. Start a level in orcs must die
3. Get the numerical value of the thing you wish to change. In this case its "money".
4. ALT-TAB out to cheat engine and click the button in the upper left corner, labeled #1 in the pic above
5. Select the running process which corresponds to the game. Its name will have the words orcs, must and die. And it will be an EXE file
6. Type the value in #2. Leave the Hex check box unchecked
7. Press button #30. The cheat engine will now look at the entire RAM used by the selected process and look for the value typed in #2
8. You will see lots of stuff listed in the space labeled #4
9. Go back to orcs must die and spend something. 
10. Remember the new amount of money that you have.
11. ALT-TAB back to cheat engine
12. Type in the new value in #2
13. press button labeled #5. Cheat engine will now look at all the stuff in window #4 and discard everything except those that have changed their values to tne new amount
14. The list in #4 will be pared down to three entires
15. double click on the 3rd entry
16. It will go to the space labeled #6
17. Change the value of #6. Shortcut is to select it and press ENTER
18. When you go back to orcs must die, your money will change
19. Optional, ALT-TAB out and close cheat engine if you don't need it anymore

Unfortunately, you have to do this again every time you restart a level or you start a new level

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steam christmas 2011 sale

 

Today is day 1 of the steam christmas 2011 sale!

.

Sawoid - free game

 

Sawoid is a breakout clone style game. Its free for today

Update: there seems to be a problem with the HTML code I got from the site. You just see a blank. But you can still click on it.

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Mass effect 2 PC review, the flaws

Hi. This is my review of mass effect 2 for the PC. First of all, I want to say that this is quite a good game. However its not perfect. There are traces of consolitis (it has a console heritage), a few bugs and other design choices that did not sit well with me. So I'll concentrate on the flaws mostly. Lots of other reviews have praised this game (which it deserves) so to be different and avoid repetition, lets concentrate on the flaws.
Update: I should have also mentioned that I'm concentrating on  the technical side so I wont cover the story, character development, etc.

I bought mass effect 2 (digital deluxe edition) from gamersgate at a good discount. I downloaded this game in bits and pieces over several months. A lot of the gamefiles are RAR files. This is actually a good choice since I can easily manipulate and peek into the install files. When I tried to install the game, the installation proceeded then unexpectedly stopped. I googled the error and found no help except to redownload the install files. I tried again and this time I watched the installer. There is a small status bar which shows which file is being processed. I found the file where it stopped. It was one of the RAR files. A big one, 2 gigs. I opened it in winrar and tested it and found an error. OK, no choice I need to re-download. Most likely before when I was downloading, the PC either hung, the net connection dropped or the power went out or something.

OK, I deleted the file and started the gamersgate download. I was dismayed when the progress bar of the download went all the way back to 20%. Thats ludicrous. The 2 gig file only comprises around 16% of the 12 gig download size. It should only go back to 84%. In the first case, it looks like gamersgate's download manager has no option to verify or test file integrity like most torrent clients and Steam and does not have the capability to download only one file. If one file is missing, a group of files are downloaded. OK, I re downloaded. Again there was a problem. This time I tested all the RAR files and found 2 files with errors, both greater than 1 gig, which failed testing. This time I did something different. I observed the subdirectory where the files are being downloaded and I noticed that the file I deleted first becomes a zero sized file then becomes larger and larger as the download progresses. After it is finished, the download manager then deletes another file and repeats the process. I now had a plan.

OK, this is how I avoided a lengthy re-download. First, I deleted the 2 files with errors then I copied the rest of the perfectly good files. I then started the download. The progress bar goes back to 20% and I wait till the 2 files are finished downloading. After the 2 files are finished, the download manager then deletes a third perfectly good file and starts downloading. I stop the download at this time. I copy over the backup of the third file. OK, now I have all the necessary files. I start the install process and it works.

Whew, thats a lot of work. OK to the game itself. Let me list down some of the flaws.   alot of them are related to consolitis.

If you import an old mass effect 1 save, the choices you made carry over. If you do not have an old ME1 save, the game makes some default choices for you which is a bit annoying for me since the default choice is not a 100% paragon choice and I prefer paragon.  But its an understandable compromise. There is a DLC, mass effect 2 genesis which allows you to make these choices, but its not free.

The intro movies cannot be skipped. This also applies to some FMV cutscenes specially the ones at the start of the game. The movies are BIK or Bink movies so you can get a BIK movie viewer and watch them and decide which you dont want then rename the files. Or you can google "mass effect 2 no intro" and download a mod which does it automatically

Loading takes too many steps. First you have to double click on the icon on the desktop, which brings up the menu.

Then after the intro movies, you get a "press any key to continue page". At least it isnt "press start" to continue which would have been insulting to PC users.

 Next yo get to the main menu. But there's a little annoyance. Look at the pic below.

Initially the screen on the Left is blank, then 1-2 seconds later, the menu items Resume, new game, load game, extras and exit game appear. But if you try to click on them nothing happens. A few seconds later the new content available menu option appears and a few secodns later on the DVD like device on the right, a connect to cerebrus network button appears. Its kinda annoying that you have to wait for all of these to finish before any of the menu options work.



In the graphical options, the choices are pretty limited, also the fault of consolitis.

Saving a game is pretty fast but level loads and loading a game are slow. This is most pronouced when riding the elevator on the normandy. Fortunately, the normandy elevator bug is mostly fixed with the 1.02 patch but loads still take a fair amount of time.

A really big bug is that the spoken dialog and sound is sometimes delayed in some cutscenes. I've googled about this bug and it seems there is no fix out yet. I did try updating my pc's audio drivers but it did nothing.

Finally, I have an issue with the heavy weapons.  Most other weapons come in different versions which are well balanced and different advantages and disadvantages like balancing rate of fire with accuracy and damage per shot. But for heavy weapons, the mechanics of some of the weapons suck. Firing should be simple, click left button and boom. With some of them, click the left button and nothing happens. You got to HOLD the left button, wait for it to charge up and then release. Good luck if you get hit by enemy fire while waiting for the weapon to charge up.

Ammo for heavy weapons is also scarce. This can translate to only 1 or 2 shots for the nuke.

Level design is slightly linear for missions. Although outside of missions you can go pretty much anywhere.

The run and take cover button is the same, the space bar. Guess what happens if you are standing with cover in fornt of you and an enemy firing at your back. You press space bar and try to run but instead you crouch in front of the barrier, still taking fire.

Ok thats it. Let me repeat, this is a great game but it isnt perfect. I'm just focusing on the flaws.

The end


update: OK a couple of people in the comments were asking (not politely) why I needed to describe my troubles downloading the game. Well, the problems showed up a flaw in gamersgate's download manager, the inability to download only one file. I'm sure I won't be the only person in the world who would experience problems like this. I'm merely sharing my workaround which avoided wasting bandwidth re downloading several gigs worth of perfectly good files. Don't you think thats knowledge worth sharing? Not everybody has a fast net connection and some people have download caps.

update: some people have suggested that this is not a review. That suggestion has merit. Maybe I should call it a "list of bugs" or something. Anyway, in the end, its possible that someone may learn from the mistakes and bugs I've pointed out here.

crysis2 demo benchmarks

Here are some crysis2 demo benchmarks. Note that this is only DX9. When you use DX 11 expect your framerates to be 20%-40% slower.

source

update: the specs of the pc used was

CPU Processor	Intel Core i5 760@2.8GHz
Motherboard Motherboard	Asus P55
RAM Memory	Chaintech DDR3-2000 4GB (2GB × 2)
Hard drive HDD	Seagate Barracuda (Seagate Barracuda) 7200.12 1TB

source

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The disadvantages of the steam client

STEAMWORKS is a digital distribution game service. This is their website. To download and run a steam game, you have to run the steam client or software. Everytime you run it it accesses the internet to validate your login and password. It can store your login and password for convenience. If it detects that there is no internet connection, it will offer to run in offline mode.

Steam has its own disadvantages. the steam client and some steam games can take many seconds to connect to the steam servers if something is wrong with your internet connection or router. Again it depends on your ISP if it is reliable or not. Sometimes I sometimes "hack" games to bypass the steam verification to be able to load up faster. Morally I believe that its OK since I paid for the game and I do not give or sell the game to other people, only I play it. Although the steam client has an offline mode, there is no way to force it to go to offline mode every time. The closest is to run it in offline mode then exit. The next time you run it it will ask you if you want offline or online mode. The steam client takes many seconds to shut down, and if its active when you shut down windows, it will add those many seconds to your windows shutdown time.

Special danger. In some cases, a combination of internet and/or router problems can fool steam into thinking that 1. there is an internet connection, therefore there is no reason to suggest going into offline mode and 2. steam cannot connect. I have not been able to replicate the conditions reliably but it has happened to me several times. If that happens, steam will delete the current password stored (even if you set steam to remember your password), assume that the current password is wrong  and pop up an error message, asking you to input a new password and it will refuse to go into offline mode.  Lets say your internet had say scheduled maintenance for say 1 week and it cut off in the middle of steam's logon sequence. If the timing is right, steam will, as explained above, delete your password and ask for a correct password. When that happens, since your net is down, you can't logon for 1 week. If you can't log on, you can't play your games until you log on. Workaround is a secondary internet connection like a 3g usb stick or a "hack", as mentioned above.

2010 Steam Christmas sale

The 2010 christmas Steam sale is on! Every day there are specials

Check out the STEAM website

Steam Dawn of war sale

All 4 dawn of war 1 and both of the dawn of war 2 games are on sale

LINK

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metro 2033 sale

It's steamwork's THQ sale, day 3. Metro 2033 for $13.60

steam

.

Left 4 dead sale, again

Left 4 Dead 2 = $9.99

Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 = $14.99

STEAM

titan quest gold sale

THQ sale, tuesday day 2, titan quest gold for $4.49

link to steam

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Gamersgate Halloween sale

Gamersgate has a lot of Horror themed games on sale


halloweenweek
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Red faction series sale

Steam is having a sale this week. For today, monday oct 26 2010, the sale is for the three red faction games. 1, 2, and rebellion. Sale ends today.

Red faction = $2.49
Red Faction 2 = $2.49
Red Faction Guerilla = $4.99


steam
THE END

Left 4 dead 1 and 2 STEAM sale

Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are on sale on steam

$6.79 each or $10.19 USD for both.

LINK.


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Elder scrolls iv: oblivion sale

 

 

 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition includes Knights of the Nine and the Shivering Isles expansions.

$6.79 USD

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition Deluxe

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition Deluxe includes Knights of the Nine and the Shivering Isles expansions plus Fighter's Stronghold Expansion, Spell Tome Treasures, Vile Lair, Mehrune's Razor and much more.
$8.49 USD

Today's sale on gamersgate

XIII for $5
link

ArmA Gold is pack of ArmA Armed Assault and an expansion pack Queen's Gambit. $10

link

 dark sector for $4
link

 frontlines fuel of war for $3
link