ToniWestbrook.com | The Joy of Computer Science and Engineering

Apology! News, and a New Code Viewer

February 21, 2010 Toni No comments

First off, I want to apologize about the long hiatus away from the blog (looks like since August). The job took over a bit, plus I’ve been in the thick of developing a new commercial Blackberry game, doing some other projects, developing a raging Friday-night Oblivion addiction (such a good game), etc. I’ve been mentally keeping track of al the articles I want to write, so they’ll be coming soon.

Also, speaking of the new game – its coming along pretty nicely! More on that later.

I’ve also installed a better code viewer on the blog, and have converted (I believe) all the code segments over to use this. It’s a little easier to read, shows line numbers, and also has buttons for viewing the code in a popup window (plain text, easy for reading/copying), and printing. I think it will work out a lot better than the old one – I wasn’t a fan.

Additionally, I’ve created a “Blackberry” category, since there are multiple articles related to programming the Blackberry now available on the site.

Lastly, I hope to see all you North East gamers at this year’s Digital Overload LAN party. If you haven’t signed up, registration is still open for 12 more days. I’ve been going for a few years, and it’s always a ton of fun!

IAS Shared Secrets Aren’t So Secret

August 16, 2009 Toni 5 Comments

Though by night I practice in the dark arts of computer science and engineering, during the day I play the part of a mild mannered network administrator. Recently I was taking stock of our backups, and as I was looking through some items that needed to be included in the nightly routine, I checked out our IAS server. We run IAS as we have a number of RADIUS clients, such as switches and other devices, that we like to have authenticate against our Active Directory. RADIUS connected to AD via IAS is super sweet, as there are quite a number of devices out there that support RADIUS, and you can get pretty detailed with the authentication rules of what is and isn’t granted access.

In IAS, to establish trust between the server and the RADIUS client, an administrator sets up a shared secret – basically a password that both ends agree to use to prove they are who they say they are during communication. Normally, you would expect such a password to at least be encrypted, or at least obfuscated in some manner to add a level of protection to snooping eyes. Microsoft has however, to my surprise, decided not take this route.

Viewing Shared Secrets

IAS stores its settings in two files under C:\windows\system32\ias – ias.mdb and dnary.mdb. If you’re a database user, you’ll notice mdb being the file extension used by Jet/Access databases. For the heck of it, being a tinkerer, I decided to link to these files with MS Access and see what I could see. They are indeed standard Jet databases – which is pretty neat from an integration perspective – with a simple ODBC connection you can read/write your IAS settings. There is a table called “Objects” that contains an entry for each one of your RADIUS clients. What was a little surprising, however, is there is a field labeled “Shared Secret” that contains, in very clear text, the shared secret password for each RADIUS client.

Now while users shouldn’t have access to this file normally, having a big, easy to use database full of passwords always makes me a bit nervous. Understandably hashing might not have been an option due to the need to deduce the original cleartext – but where authentication is involved, a little encryption would be nice, to at least dissuade the average script kiddie.

Not the security hole of the century, but certainly something to be aware of.

A Quick Kudos to Blender

August 06, 2009 Toni 3 Comments

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m currently developing another Blackberry game, one I hope that turns out fun enough that people will want to play. As with most games, it requires graphics – which has actually always been somewhat of a road block for me. I don’t have many acquaintances that are able / have time / are interested in doing the artwork for a game, especially one that isn’t going to make much, if any, money. I myself love art, but I’m not very good at it. That leaves the options of buying stock art for obscene amounts of money (due to rights to use it commercially – I try to always play by the book), or finding royalty free art – which is usually difficult and I can never find exactly what I’m looking for.

3D packages are a good middle ground for me. Granted – it takes a boatload of talent and experience to get professional looking results, but you can get respectable art with a little practice. Most 3D packages are fairly expensive, which can again be a roadblock – but this is where Blender comes in. Blender is an open source 3D rendering application available for pretty much all platforms. I’ve heard the learning curve is a little steeper with Blender than with other packages like 3DS (I’ve only used 3DS once so I don’t quite remember), but after you use it for a week or so, you get into the rhythm and it’s not bad at all – and then from there you start learning cool tricks for lighting and textures, and things look better and better.

Below are a few objects that may appear in the game in one form or another. They’re not great by any means, especially compared to what Blender pros have put out (Check out the cream of the crop from the Blender site), but it’s not bad for a day or twos work, and after getting shrunk down for a mobile platform, is acceptable.

And, Blender is just fun to play around with – especially when you start getting into animations. So if you get a chance, definitely check it out, for fun – or for your next project.

Blender Website

Using Excel to Create Your Game’s Binary Data Files

July 31, 2009 Toni 2 Comments

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here yet, but I’m currently in the middle of developing a new Blackberry game that I hope to have on App World when I’m complete (as I get closer to completion I’ll put some screen shots up). I’ve always wanted to put an application or game up on one of the mobile stores, not so much to make any significant amount of money (which I won’t), but just to get the program into more people’s hands easily. We’ll see how it goes – but until then, onto the point of this article.

One of the things I ran into on this game (and others) is the need to generate binary files – specifically in this case, level data that dictates where and when objects are in the game, their effects, behaviors, etc. While there is always the option to create a text file to hold this data, this can be problematic in many ways. First, the data you need to store may actually be binary data that doesn’t lend itself to text conversion – also, more handling to read the file (encoding, line feeds, parsing), larger files (which is a concern on devices with little storage like older Blackberrys), and no obfuscation to the end user (which kind of takes the fun out of the game if they can open up this file easily and read where everything is). Binary files are definitely the way to go. And while sometimes it makes sense to make a level editor that will generate the binary files, in some instances you may not have the time or resources to accomplish this. It would be nice to have a tool to generate these files so you don’t have to go hexediting for hours to make a 1K file.

Excel at Creating These Files!

I find Microsoft Excel to be an extremely useful tool in so many situations, especially those where I need to bang out results quickly. Past the normal math, accounting, and analysis capabilities, Excel is awesome for generating files that depend on working with lots of imported data, such as script files and, in our case, binary data files.

In my example, each object had 7 values associated with it. And with some of these values being 2 bytes in size, this came out to 12 or so bytes I would have to enter hex code in with an editor, per object. If I wanted 500 objects, thats 6K of writing hex values. No thanks. It would be much easier to write these values into Excel cells (even auto-generating many of them using Fill-Down with an equation). Then, using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) that’s built into Excel, dump the contents of the cells out into the binary format I want them in. So let’s see how to do that.

Settings Up Your Sheet

This is the simple part. For this example, I have created a fictional game called “Just Desserts” in which each level consists of a screen filled with desserts and vegetables, and you must eat the various cakes, pies, and puddings but avoid carrots and celery. Our data file that describes each level has 4 values per entry.

Value 1: What level this food is on
Value 2: The ID of this food (E.g. 1=cake, 2=pie, 3=pudding, 4=celery, 5=carrot)
Value 3: X coordinate on screen of this food
Value 4: Y coordinate on the screen of this food

Here’s what an example spreadsheet would look like:

So each row is an object, and each column is one of the values. In our example above, we see on level one we should create a cake at coords (25,70), a pie at (50,20) and another at (10,10), and a celery at (400, 400). On level 2, we should create a cake at coords (250, 30), a pudding at (20,160), and a celery at (70,90). You can manually enter your data in, or use the power of excel and generate the data using a formula – it’s up to you. Once your data is in your spreadsheet, then comes time to turn it into a binary file that can be used by your game.

Macro Time

The power of Excel is increased 10-fold by the ability to include programs in your spreadsheets. Excel uses Visual Basic to accomplish this. By creating a new macro, you can attach a Visual Basic function to it that gets called whenever your macro is. In Excel 2007, Macros are under the View tab. After you create a new one, you are presented with a code editor where you can write your VB function.

Below is the example VB function that would work with the above data and pump it out into a file. Please note – one thing you may run into depending on what language you’re working with, and what architecture, is a little/big endian conflict. VBA pumps out little-endian, but since I was creating a BB game in Java, it expects big endian. I included how to do this inline below, though you could make a function out of it as well.

Sub GenDatFile()

   Dim TempByte as Byte ' Holds 1 byte
   Dim TempInt as Integer ' Holds 2 bytes

   ' Specify the path and filename of the binary file.  You could turn this into an input to specify it at runtime as well.  
   Open "C:\temp\objects.dat" For Binary Access Write As #1 ' Open it for binary writing with the handle #1

   CurrentRow = 1

   ' Keep reading the spreadsheet until we come to a blank row, then we're done
   Do While Not IsEmpty(Worksheets(1).Cells(CurrentRow, 1))
      'Level of object
      TempByte = Worksheets(1).Cells(CurrentRow, 1) ' Get the value from the first cell in the current row
      Put 1, , TempByte ' Write that byte to the data file (handle #1)

      'ID of object
      TempByte = Worksheets(1).Cells(CurrentRow, 2) ' Get the value from the second cell in the current row
      Put 1, , TempByte ' Write that byte to the data file (handle #1)

      'X Coordinate of object - this is a 2 byte value since it can be greater than 255, we need to swap endian
      TempInt = Worksheets(1).Cells(CurrentRow, 3) ' Get the value from the third cell in the current row
      TempByte = TempInt \ 256 ' Integer divide by 256, aka shift right 8 bits and put that into TempByte
      Put 1, , TempByte ' Write that byte to the data file (handle #1)
      TempByte = TempInt AND 255 ' Mask the data to grab the first byte and put that into TempByte
      Put 1, , TempByte ' Write that byte to the data file (handle #1)

      'Y Coordinate of object - this is a 2 byte value since it can be greater than 255, we need to swap endian
      TempInt = Worksheets(1).Cells(CurrentRow, 4) ' Get the value from the fourth cell in the current row
      TempByte = TempInt \ 256 ' Integer divide by 256, aka shift right 8 bits and put that into TempByte
      Put 1, , TempByte ' Write that byte to the data file (handle #1)
      TempByte = TempInt AND 255 ' Mask the data to grab the first byte and put that into TempByte
      Put 1, , TempByte ' Write that byte to the data file (handle #1)

      CurrentRow = CurrentRow + 1 ' Move to the next row in the spreadsheet
   Loop

   Close 1 ' Close the file (handle #1)

End Sub

And we’re done! A very simple program, with only a tiny bit of magic to flip the bytes when we need to make little endian into big endian. But a simple program which saves us hours of tedious hex encoding, plus the power of Excel gives us data storage and manipulation that we didn’t have to take time to manually program ourselves.

Next time you’re faced with a problem that deals with working with a lot of data, keep Excel (or it’s open source brethren) in mind – it can definitely save you a lot of time and headaches.

Blackberry Tour Owners – What Do You Think?

July 22, 2009 Toni No comments

I have quite a lot of RIM and Blackberry topics swirling around in my head – but those can wait for another day and blog post. I got my Tour a few days ago, and I have to say: I absolutely LOVE it. And though I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a die-hard Crackberry fan, through and through, the device does have some issues (AHEM WI-FI – also, the back is kind of hard to open, I think). However, I really think it’s some much needed love for the CDMA networks, and combines together some great aspects of the Storm, the 8900, and the Bold. It’s definitely an improvement over my 8830, which had seen much better days. It’s nice to have a camera finally, and the speed if phenomenal. I couldn’t have more than a handful of MP3s on my 8830 because the media player was just too slow to categorize. I bought a 16gig micro SD card and loaded that bad-boy up with about 1000 MP3s, and the 9630 didn’t even blink. So sweet.

Any other Tour owners out there, or people hoping to buy the Tour soon? What do you think? Likes, dislikes? What do you think of the keyboard and more recessed trackball?

ALSO, if you haven’t yet, get the beta release of the Blackberry Messenger 5.0 – it’s AWESOME. Avatars, barcode friend adding, proximity to friends, etc. Check out the full details on CrackBerry.com

How Appropriate. You Fight Like a Cow: A Review of Tales of Monkey Island

July 19, 2009 Toni No comments

A lengthy title, but one of the most memorable lines from one of the greatest computer games ever created. I speak, of course, of “The Secret of Monkey Island”, a point-and-click adventure released by LucasArts (then Lucasfilm Games) in 1990. For the uninitiated, The Secret of Monkey Island and its 3 subsequent sequels chronicle the adventures of Guybrush Threepwood, a slightly bumbling but well-intentioned swashbuckling neophyte in his quest to become a pirate. Along the way he fights the undead pirate LeChuck and marries the beautiful Elaine Marley, governor of Melee Island. If you haven’t played these games, do yourself a major favor and purchase them right away – they are some of the most enjoyable and funny games ever made, thanks for the genius of the game’s original creator, Ron Gilbert.

A New Chapter

Until recently, the last game to come out of the Monkey Island franchise, slightly before LucasArts had decided that adventure games were no longer profitable, was “Escape From Monkey Island” in 2000. Nearly a decade later, many fans had lost hope of there ever being a continuation in the series. There were a few home brew attempts at games, and lots of artwork, fiction, and messages back and forth, but never an official title… Until now.

Telltale Games (My favvvorrite developer), in cooperation with LucasArts, has released the first in a series of 5 episodic games, continuing the Monkey Island saga. I recently completed the first chapter, “Launch of the Screaming Narwhal”, and as a long-time, die-hard fan who has been with the series since the beginning, I can honestly say that this is a gaming dream come true.

A True Return to Monkey Island

Telltale continues to take classic IP and do the job right. We see the full cast of characters return for the new game, with much of the original voice cast, including Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood. The locations and storylines are right on, with LeChuck again causing mayhem upon the seas deep in the Caribbean. Telltale makes use of their “Telltale Tool” and game engine, and I have to say, it looks fantastic. One of the issues I had had with the fourth in the Monkey Island series was a jump to 3D graphics when 3D wasn’t visually there yet. When comparing the beautiful cartoon illustrations of the third game to the blocky, polygons of the fourth, it just seemed ugly. But no longer is this the case – Telltale did another bang-up job and beautifully rendering both the environment and characters.

Guybrush Admires Flotsam Island

Look Behind You! A Three-Headed Monkey!

The true test of any adventure game is the puzzles, and in Monkey Island’s case, the laugh factor. Launch of the Screaming Narwhal does a great job at both, though the puzzles are probably easier than the those found in the rest of the series, due to the length of episodic games. I only found myself majorly stuck once, and after taking a night’s break and coming back, I figured it out fairly quickly. I did find myself smiling and laughing quite a bit though, and definitely felt like I was experiencing a true MI game. The jokes were very “Guybrush”, true to his nature.

Issues

One thing a lot of people had moaned and groaned about on the forums was the control scheme. Telltale has chosen to control Guybrush using the Wallace and Gromit scheme, which means use of the keyboard as opposed to clicking for his destination. Many have gone so far as to declare such a control scheme would ruin the game. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I found this kind of silly, especially since using the keyboard is not that bad, and probably works better considering all the camera movement there is in the game (well done movement). I did notice Telltale added in a secondary control scheme using the mouse to point in the direction you want your character to go, but honestly I preferred the keyboard.

Really, I had no qualms with the game at all, except the ongoing issue of voice volume – for whatever reason, Telltale continually sets their music much too high to make out what is being said during scenes with a musical score. But after a quick re-adjustment to the music volume, all is good again.

Like all TTG productions, I highly suggest you check it out (on PC or Wii), even if you’re new to the series. Need more convincing? Check out the trailer!

Visit Telltale Games!

A Favorite CS Quote of Mine

July 11, 2009 Toni No comments

This past week I’ve been in Chicago (and Indiana for a couple days) having a blast and enjoying a little vacation time – I really enjoy this city. Back to rainy New Hampshire tomorrow – a little sad to leave, but it will be good to be home. In the mean time, I thought I’d share a favorite Computer Science quote of mine by Edsger Dijkstra:

“Computer Science is no more about computers than Astronomy is about telescopes.”

I like this because it’s very true. I often feel that the term “Computer Science” is a very poor term for the field of study, since it’s more the study of mathematics, algorithms, logic, symbols, information processing, etc. If anything, I think the average person probably thinks Computer Science means the study of troubleshooting and fixing computers. Which isn’t necessarily a huge deal, people can think what they want, but a more accurate title for the field might be in order.

Network Any Vintage Computer! (Kind Of)

July 03, 2009 Toni No comments

The idea of computers communicating with each other has fascinated me from the very beginning. When I was little, the world of networking was a “mysterious” one, as I didn’t own a modem until I was 12 and had only experienced the idea of computers talking to each other from TV and movies (read: War Games). When I finally did get my first 2400bps, I got huge into BBSes and ran my own (Pig Pen Forever!), learned everything I could about serial communication and modems. Then when I was older and had access to equipment, I got into Ethernet, TCP/IP, and the wonderful world of modern day networking. But it always goes back to that magic of seeing something pop-up on your screen that didn’t originate from the local machine – it came from somewhere else, either another computer in the room, or half way across the world.

Because of this, a favorite activity of mine is connecting my vintage machines up in one way or another so they can share data and download programs from the rest of my network. These connections range from a sophisticated TCP/IP stack over Ethernet on my Amiga 4000, to a simpler TCP/IP over PPP over serial on my Apple IIGS, to a very simple Kermit over serial on my Osborne-1.

The Problem With This

With the exception of the Amiga which actually makes use of Ethernet, there are a few issues with this setup – all of which originate from these links being RS-232 serial.

RS-232 is physically point to point, each end needs a dedicated serial port for that connection.
RS-232 is also logically point to point, a device can only directly communicate with the device on the other end of the serial link.
Assuming the computers are DTE devices, a crossover adapter (null modem) needs to be used on the serial connection to flip the send/receive pins.
Serial cables tend to be bulky and expensive, especially when you add in gender changers and null modems. Add a few of them and you have cables everywhere.

A Neat Solution

While the best way to tackle this situation is obtain a native Ethernet network card/adapter for the machine in question, this can be difficult, expensive, or impossible in many cases since for many of the lesser known vintage machines, network cards were simply never made, and there isn’t enough of a community to build one. Luckily though, most vintage machines tend to have serial port – wouldn’t it be great if we could convert that serial port into an Ethernet port? Or even better, include a range of network oriented services integrated into that network port?

Enter the Digi PortServer

For the record, I’ll say that I have no affiliation with Digi, I just think they have a really cool product and wanted to share it. Digi produces a line of hardware devices known as the “PortServer” which basically converts a serial port into a network port. What’s better, it can combine multiple serial ports onto a single network connection, so 8 machines can be plugged in over a serial link, which connect to the network via the PortServer only using a single network cable. More importantly, the PortServer supports the following to make networking vintage machines a reality:

Virtual COM/TTY ports – Digi provides drivers that create a virtual COM port on your Windows box (or TTY on your Linux box) which transparently connects over a network to a PortServer serial port. So you can be two countries away, but as far as Windows, your software, and the software sitting on your vintage machine is concerned, you are connected over a hard serial link. This is great for applications made for serial communication that need a com port.
Outgoing TCP connections – The PortServer can be set to automatically connect to an IP and port when serial traffic originates on the vintage computer – e.g. when I open my terminal up on my Apple IIGS, the port server will automatically connect the serial port to a telnet session on my Linux box, or on my favorite BBS.
Incoming TCP connections – The PortServer can listen for connections made on a specific port, and then connect that traffic to the vintage computer – e.g. I can telnet to port 2002 on my PortServer from my Linux box, and it will connect me to the serial port of my Osborne 1. Now you can access your vintage machine from at work!
Modem Emulation – The Port Server can emulate a Hayes compatible modem, while passing traffic via TCP – which means you can run your favorite old BBS like new over telnet without fear of strange compatibility issues or rewriting any code.
PPP – The PortServer supports the PPP protocol, which means if you have a machine capable of speaking PPP (such as an Apple IIGS running Marinetti), your PortServer can take care of handling the PPP traffic. There are configuration options for IP address assignment and negotiation attributes in the PortServer setup.
Chat Mode – The PortServer can also combine multiple sessions together at once, so more than one computer can be connected to your vintage machine at the same time. This can be a good way to monitor traffic or create a shared environment for 2+ person communication.
Lots more – The PortServer also has options for serial printers, industrial applications, power over serial, remote waking, wireless, users and security – the list goes on and on.

I had known that serial IP extenders existed, but when I finally picked up one of the Digi boxes, I was truly amazed by how many options the firmware provides – it’s really impressive.

A 4 port wireless Digi PortServer

It’s Not All Roses

There are a few issues though:

Latency – since the data is being converted from a hardwired RS-232 to packet based back to RS-232, there is definitely an increase in latency, and issues with the network can mean lost or slow data, which isn’t a problem for a direct, hardwired link.
RJ-45 Ports – The PortServers don’t have DB-9 ports, rather RJ-45 ports akin to Cisco or other networking equipment console ports. They understandably do this so any range of converter cables can be used with a wide variety of ends, but in most cases you’ll just want a DB-9. I ordered a two port PortServer and it came with a single RJ-45->DB-9 cable, so I’ll need to get/build another if I want to use the other serial port on the box simultaneously.
Price – They can get a bit expensive. A two porter can go anywhere from $250-$340 depending on the options it’s equipped with. Also available are 4 port, 8 port, and 16 serial port models, the latter which gets close to $1200. However, depending on how many machines you actively would like “networked”, 2-4 would probably suit most peoples’ needs – I know I’ll be fine with 2.

The Sky’s the Limit

I’ve only had mine hooked up for the last few hours, and already I’m thinking about a dozen uses for this thing. And while it isn’t a miracle product for anything modern that features a network jack – it is an amazing buddy for vintage computers in need of network communication.

Well, I’m off to surf some BBSes on my Osborne-1!

Digi Official Website

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

June 30, 2009 Toni No comments

Before going any further, I’ll preface this by saying I am a insanely huge Ghostbusters fan. It’s been my favorite movie since I first saw it when I was little, and all subsequent 5 billion viewings. I’m surprised my C64 Ghostbusters disk still works from the number of times I played the game, and I have a large portion of the action figures – moreso than anyone should have. I even dressed up as Egon for Halloween when I was 10, and had a Staypuft plush toy. Without mentioning how I own the entire series of The Real Ghostbusters on DVD (oops), I think it’s safe to say I’m a fanatic.

That being said, I’m going to try my best to give a non-biased review of the game. And there were some issues I noticed along the way, so I feel that I’m doing a just critique.

Basic Info

Ghostbusters: The Video Game was developed by Terminal Reality and Threewave Software (for PC/XBox/PS3 versions), and published by Atari and Sony. Its publishing history is a bit bizarre and probably warrants its own post – suffice it to say, it changed hands through mergers until it ended up with Activision, who made the choice not to publish it (Please note, I’ll keep this post professional and make no mention of Activision’s market research team apparently inhaling a large number of drugs that day, or the fact that Activision in general is slightly higher than amoebic dysentery on my list of favorite things). Atari grabbed it up.

It was/will be released for PC, PS3, XBox 360, Wii, PS2, and PSP.

I purchased and played the PC version via Steam.

The Good

First off, the best part is: it’s GHOSTBUSTERS. Seriously, that just scores a lot of points right there. But without going too fanboy – it features all the original voice cast (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Annie Pots, William Atherton), and features other well known actors (Brian Doyle-Murray, Alyssa Milano). The script was written in part by Aykroyd and Ramis (the former who stated “this is essentially the third movie.” [game informer]).

The story is fun and interesting and visits a lot of locations, characters, and mythologies from the original two films. Some of it is a bit contrived, but overall it flows pretty well. The music is mostly all from the original movie, which is great – I enjoyed it quite a bit. Some people have said it gets repetitive, but I’ve heard that music so much in my life regardless that it doesn’t wear on me.

Most importantly, the game play is A LOT of fun. A serious amount – the physics engine developed for the game, the “Infernal Engine”, is the absolute BEST I have ever seen in any game. Virtually any item can be broken/burned/moved/etc, and movement is incredibly realistic. They did a really nice job with it – I hope it gets used in more games to come. It must also be fairly efficient, as it didn’t tax my processors as much as Left 4 Dead or other recent games do. Big score on that. And the mechanics of actually catching and trapping the ghosts is just a crapload of fun – from the little guys to (semi spoiler) the Staypuft Marshmallow man. It made me feel like I was actually a Real Ghostbuster (LOLZ).

The Bad

Okay – the big one that has set the forums aflame: There is no multiplayer in the PC version. This was a big shock to everyone, as it was pretty much advertised during the pre-order weeks as having multiplayer. A lot of people, including myself, were pretty ticked off about it, and Atari has done virtually no damage control. Hopefully there will be a patch – this would be a great game for LAN parties.

A lot of people have reported some major issues with saving/restoring games (I experienced a bit of this), slowdowns/lockups, and issues installing it. Also, for those purchasing the PS3 version, they’ll notice it looks quite a bit fuzzier and lower-res than its PC or XBox counterpart.

Lastly, and this one especially bugged me, the code used to process mouse acceleration is the same as what’s used to process joystick acceleration. Because of this, moving the mouse slowly doesn’t fine-control your character, it simply doesn’t have any effect at all. You need to budge the mouse quite a bit to get your character to move normally, which is not great for an action game.

I appreciate the extra time being taken to bump up the gameplay and creepiness, they did an AWESOME job, but there have been enough reports of issues to know that QA was not quite where it should have been on this one.

The Ugly

Really, the lack of PC multiplayer was the only thing that was a major bummer. Overall, I really enjoyed this game – and I want to keep enjoying it, which is why I hope they patch it for multiplayer – the physics and gameplay are awesome, and would be fun for a LAN party or online play.

So Who You Gonna Call?

If you are a Ghostbusters fan, or just want to try a new game, I highly suggest this one – it’s great to see new light brought to old characters with a continued storyline, and the gameplay is just a blast. Overall, if you’re shooting for the best balance of multiplayer and good graphics, pick up the XBox version. If you’re shooting for the best possible graphics and have a bumpin’ gaming rig, pick up the PC version and jack up the settings – and hope they’ll release a patch one day. But regardless of what system you go for, GET THIS GAME NOW!

And an important safety tip while playing: Don’t cross the streams – it would be bad.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Official Site

5 Reasons for Putting Your Personal Code Into Subversion

June 27, 2009 Toni 2 Comments

If you’ve ever programmed for an organization with multiple developers, you’ve most likely used some kind of system to synchronize, combine, and version code. Without a such a tool, changes to the same files amongst two or more people can get very confusing and hard to manage very quickly. However, even if you’re just dealing with your own, personal projects, a code repository is still a must.

1 – Versioning

One of the most powerful aspects of subversion is the ability to track changes to your code. I can’t count the number of times in the past where I’d make a change to my source and totally botch the program up. And often times, I wouldn’t realize the screw up until later on, when it was too late to remember exactly when it had started acting up. With your code versioned (using copious comments), it is easy to look through the history of changes, revert back to a version or just grab the specific lines of code you need.

2 – Multiple Backups

Though it is, of course, possible to manually back up your code, the nice thing about working with a repository is the ease in maintaining backups. First off, if you’re actively working on a project, you’ll have two copies already – your working copy, and the copy in the repository. And when you backup the repository, you’ll be grabbing all your versions and comments at the same time. Combined with having all your repositories in one location that can be easily be grabbed, this makes for an easy to manage solution.

3 – Synchronize Code Between Multiple Computers

Like many people, I have both a desktop and a laptop (well, a netbook), and when at home, I of course prefer the large screen of the desktop. But I also am a fan of enjoying a cup of tea and a little programming at the cafe around the corner from me. Because of that, having code on my netbook is a necessity. Subversion allows me to quickly and easily synchronize my code between both machines, no problem.

4 – Secure Method of Remotely Accessing Code

Related to #3, since SVN can integrate with SSH, it provides a method of securely accessing your code from anywhere in the world. Though I’ll normally sync my code to my netbook at home, if I get in a jam and ever need to grab my code from another machine, or if I forget to update my code at home, I have the ability to do so. And since it uses SSH, I simply need to map 1 port on my firewall, no crazy set up required.

5 – Integration With Popular IDEs

With Subversion being so popular, many IDEs and other tools have plugins to integrate the use of a svn repository directly into the program. Visual Studio, Eclipse, Anjuta, and Emacs all have subversion plugins/support. Additionally, Windows, OS X and Linux all have utilities to integrate SVN into the file managers/explorers (E.g. TortoiseSVN for Windows). With all these plugins, it makes using subversion a snap.

So if you haven’t already, take a day some weekend and move your source over into Subversion – it’ll take a little time depending on how much code you have, but you’ll be happy you did in the long run – it’s a fantastic tool, whether dealing with 50 developers or just yourself.