Sights and Sounds of Multimedia
By George Harding
Still Life …
This game is not for the kids, or even teenagers! It’s rated M for Mature, with descriptors of Blood and Fore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes and Strong Language!
It’s a story of two criminal investigators, one in the present and one in the past. Victoria is an FBI agent investigating a serial murder case in Chicago. It’s a difficult case, with no leads so far, but lots of circumstantial evidence. As she reviews an old case, she realizes that there are many similarities.
Gus McPherson is a relative from the past and the story flashes back to his investigation as a private investigator in Prague. The story proceeds with Gus for a while, then switches back to Victoria, then back to Prague, and so forth.
The game is sort of like CSI, with computers and sophisticated lab tests. Clever puzzles are inserted in the game at strategic points. Several of the puzzles are very difficult to solve. Patience is a virtue! Fortunately you can save as many time as you want, so it’s wise to save after each significant block of action or puzzle completion.
As always with The Adventure Company games, the graphics are extraordinary and the sound is quite good. Today’s graphics hardware do not yet allow for realistic human movements, but it is getting better. The characters in Still Life move fairly realistically, but sometimes kind of glide instead of walking. The mouth movements aren’t well coordinated with voice, but these faults don’t detract from the game.
Puzzles are incorporated throughout the game. Most are not all that difficult, but as the game progresses, so does the difficulty of the puzzles. In fact, I was unable to finish the game because of the final puzzle! I kept trying, but was unable to keep from getting zapped by the lasers!
The game starts off with the crime scene, where a forensic investigator is working with the body. Victoria has several things to do to help out, but then must go to the office for a few things. The office has the usual assortment of desks, computers and so on, but also has a garage for vehicles and a morgue. You have to do a few puzzles to gain access to these areas.
Transportation from one site to another is done with maps. The sites are spotted on the map and you have only to click on the spot you want to go to and you are taken there immediately. You have to know where you want to go, though.
Now you switch to Prague and Gus’s persona. You must talk with several people and solve a rather tricky puzzle to proceed. Eventually you get to the junkyard. Here is another tricky puzzle to unlock the crane, which you must use to arrange boxes in a particular pattern. When this series is complete, you are back in Chicago as Victoria.
This process continues, switching back and forth between Gus and Victoria, picking up information and clues, solving puzzles along the way. One of the most difficult puzzles is picking a lock. You are given a diagram of the interior of the lock and have to picks with which to do the job. It’s not as easy as it appears on TV!
This is a fun and challenging game. You would enjoy it!
Still Life by The Adventure Company adventurecompanygames.com Price about $30
Available for PC and Xbox
Requires: WIN 98 or better, PIII 750MHz (1.2 GHz recommended), 128 MB RAM, 32 MB video card (64 MB recommended), 1.2 GB hard drive space
ESRB Rating Mature (17+), descriptors blood and gore, violence, sexual themes, language
No Limit Texas Hold’em Poker …
I suppose everyone with a cable TV service has seen or knows about the hysteria for Texas Hold’em poker! There are numerous varieties of the game shown on several cable channels: Tournament, with very high jackpots, Celebrity, Expert and Learning. I can’t remember this game being even talked about, let alone shown on TV before a couple of years ago, so it’s a true phenomenon!
The game is simple! Each player gets two cards and bets are made. If a player doesn’t want to bet, the hand can be discarded (fold) and play continues with the remaining players. Then three cards are dealt face up (the flop) and betting continues. A fourth card is dealt face up and another round of betting occurs. A fifth and final face up card is dealt and a final round of betting occurs. The object is to either have a winning poker hand with your two cards and three of the face up cards or convince the other players that you do (bluff), so that they all fold and you claim the betting pot.
Here’s a product that lets you try out the game with no risk. Saitek has developed a handheld model which emulates the actual game very closely. There are four players, you and three others. The others are computer-controlled. One of your opponents is aggressive and will try to force you to fold by making large bets. One of them is statistical in nature, which means that he/she will only bet when the odds favor the hand. The third player will be conservative, which means that they won’t take a chance on weak hands. You don’t know which of the three players is which, but you can get some clues to their style of play.
The Saitek unit runs on three AAA batteries, which are not included. The screen is LCD, which I found to be hard to read. The unit keeps track of all the bets, the size of the pot after each bet, how much money you have and evaluates the hands to determine winners.
The inside cover has a list of the ranking of poker hands, for those who may not be familiar with them. There really isn’t much time to refer to the table, though, since the game proceeds without much delay.
There is an instruction booklet which is quite complete. All the aspects of the operation of the unit are clearly explained, including what can happen at each stage of the game. It’s helpful to know what actions can be taken after the flop, for example, and what it means to go all in.
The speed of the game can be controlled to a certain degree. The normal delay per person is 4 seconds, but this can be increased to 6 seconds. There are sounds that occur when certain events occur; a beep occurs when you make a mistake (an invalid choice).
The unit has several modes: Normal, Custom, Head to Head, Easy and Demo. It’s best to start with Demo, then graduate to Easy, then to Normal. There is a hint button, which will suggest one of Fold, Check or Raise.
The instruction booklet also has a Strategy section, with tips on how to play successfully. The instructions are in English, Spanish and French. English was hard enough for me!
This can be an entertaining game, if you enjoy poker, especially the Texas Hold’em variety.
No Limit Texas Hold’em Poker by Saitek saitekusa.com
Price about $50 direct from Saitek
CounterSpy …
These days you have to pay serious attention to protection, especially if you have a broadband connection for Internet access.
One of the latest threats to your computer safety is adware and spyware. This gets in when you download an application. The license agreement may or may not mention the extra thing you get, but most of us don’t read license agreements.
The adware or spyware resides in your computer and watches what you do. Some of these are fairly benign, but others are definitely dangerous to your financial health. The benign types simply cause popups to come up under some circumstances, or to cause a cookie to be placed on your computer. The dangerous ones collect and transmit your info to an outside website for use by criminals. They all can slow your computer down intolerably.
To protect yourself, you should have two things: a firewall which warns you when an unknown application tries to send info out to a website, and an application such as CounterSpy.
CounterSpy scans your computer to find adware and spyware, lets you know about each one of these it finds and advises you of whether it’s dangerous or merely annoying. It gives you the option of allowing the adware or spyware to remain, to delete it or quarantine it.
CounterSpy not only detects and eliminates spyware and adware, but also protects you from acquiring more. The product watches for ceratin changes to your computer and blocks installation of new spyware and adware.
It would be easy for a product such as CounterSpy to be confusing by the use of computerspeak, but it doesn’t. It’s information is quite understandable and the possible actions are clear.
There are several products similar to CounterSpy available today. Some are more effective than others. Some are just plain ineffective, but the quality of this class of products is improving. CounterSpy has been tested recently against other similar product and found to be among the best. None of the product is perfect, but CounterSpy’s 95% effectiveness is impressive.
This product may be downloaded and tried for free. If you like it, the price for a year’s service is $20. The service includes updating of the definitions which identify adware and spyware. Updating can, and should, be set to automatic, since new forms of adware and spyware are constantly being introduced.
I found this software easy to use and very low key. You set it up to do a daily scan at a set time each day, probably at a time when you won’t be using the computer. After the scan, CounterSpy gives you a report of its results, from which you can take action for each of the offending apps found. One thing nice about CounterSpy is that if you choose to delete an offender, all the locations are deleted, including the Registry.
I liked this product and recommend it to your use. For a nominal price you can have the best protection against adware and spyware available today.
CounterSpy by Sunbelt Software sunbelt-software.com Price about $20
Requires WIN 98SE or better, IE 5 or higher, 300 MHz processor with 64 MB RAM, 2 MB hard disk space
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