One of the best portable media players on the market has had another update. I am really impressed with how things are moving along with the Zune. Since I have had mine, I have seen some pretty big updates for both the software and the player. Keep up the great work Zune team!

From Zune Insider:

Zune gets a little update which will bring a handful of free games, a refresh to Zune Social and incremental improvements to the software.

On the games front, we are giving away three new additions, Checkers, Sudoku and Space Battle, plus a new multiplayer mode and single player difficulty levels for Texas Hold’em.

The team also did some great work the Zune Social visual refresh to make it easier to navigate, as well as adding a new feature called “like minded listeners,” which will let you see how compatible your music tastes are with other listeners and friends.

On the more techie side we focused on improving overall stability and performance in the Zune PC software and device firmware, such as improved play count reporting and content synchronization between the Zune software and the Zune device.

To get the new update, use the PC software, just click settings: check for updates.

Also, Microsoft has cut the price of the smaller flash-based Zune models. The 4GB version dropped to $99, the 8GB model dropped by $10 to $139, and the 16GB model now sells for $179, down from $199.

Microsoft also kicked off a new wave of TV ads on Monday that aim to get more people to download the free Zune software, even if they haven’t yet decided to plunk down for a Zune player or Zune Pass subscription.

Security Software

Comodo Firewall Pro
ZoneAlarm is extremely popular, but that doesn’t automatically make it the best free firewall you can find. One formidable contender is Comodo Firewall Pro, which independent testing site Matousec rated as the top firewall. Matousec found that Comodo offered the highest level of antileak protection, one measure of a firewall’s effectiveness. Comodo offers true two-way firewall protection, is highly configurable, and (unlike most other firewalls) provides a great view of your system and your Internet connection.

Avast 4 Home Edition
Tired of dealing with bloated, overpriced security suites that bog down your system and cost an arm and a leg, when all you want is antivirus software? Then get Avast, a superb antivirus program that’s free for home and personal use. Because it’s a lean piece of software, it imposes a relatively light burden on system resources and RAM. Despite this, it kills viruses in their tracks and has plenty of extras, including live scanning to prevent viruses from infecting your PC in the first place. Avast can scan regular and Web-based e-mail for viruses, too, and it protects against instant messaging viruses, peer-to-peer dangers, and more.

Spybot - Search & Destroy
Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove a multitude of adware files and modules from your computer. Spybot also can clean program and Web-usage tracks from your system, which is especially useful if you share your computer. Modules chosen for removal can be sent directly to the included file shredder, ensuring complete elimination from your system. For advanced users, it allows you to fix Registry inconsistencies related to adware and to malicious program installations. The handy online-update feature ensures that Spybot always has the most current and complete listings of adware, dialers, and other uninvited system residents.

McAfee SiteAdvisor
On the Web, unlike in the real world, it can be hard to recognize a bad neighborhood when you’re wandering around in it. There are no boarded-up windows, no empty storefronts, no hard-looking men lounging on corners or in doorways. In fact, the prettiest and most inviting Web site may harbor all kinds of malware. That’s where the McAfee SiteAdvisor comes in. It warns you when a Web site that you’re about to visit–or are already visiting–may be dangerous. You install it as an Internet Explorer toolbar or as a Firefox plug-in. Then when you search with Google or some other search engine, it displays color-coded icons next to each search result, indicating whether the site in question is safe (green), questionable (yellow), or clearly unsafe (red). It checks sites for downloads that may be dangerous, and for evidence that they will send you spam if you give them your e-mail address. The toolbar offers similar reports about the sites you’re currently visiting.

Other Tools

Freeware: OpenOffice.org
Replaces: Microsoft Office Home Edition

If you haven’t yet upgraded to the latest Microsoft Office, don’t do anything without test-driving OpenOffice.org. With a familiar-feeling interface, the Microsoft-replacement application is easy to pick up and matches Office’s major functions application for application. For instance, OpenOffice.org makes and edits text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, and drawings. It also has templates, collaboration tools, and support for macros. It can export content to Google Docs and it is compatible with Microsoft Office documents, so you won’t be stranded when sending and receiving attachments.

Freeware: GIMP
Replaces: Photoshop Elements

Prepare to be impressed with GIMP. GIMP supports layering and has a good-size tool kit for adjusting colors, curves, and balances, and adding blur, zoom, and distortion effects. Unlike some freeware photo editors, it has an effective red eye removal filter, and tools for creating paths and quickly changing perspective. Tutorials and an active user base help you work through stickier editing tasks. The plug-in GIMPshop unites GIMP’s two panes and renames some functionality to match Photoshop’s nomenclature.

Freeware: KompoZer
Replaces: Dreamweaver

If you dislike that achy, bloated feeling that other HTML editors can give your computer, KompoZer may be the freeware cure you’re looking for. An open-source Web development tool built on the NVU architecture, KompoZer aims to improve upon the NVU’s bugginess. It does a fairly admirable job of that, while not being bloatware. Major editing buttons live on the top three-tier toolbar, including a one-click Publishing icon as well as one-clicks for Image insertion and Table and Form creation. Font tweaks like Size and Style live in toolbars just below that, making for easy HTML editing. A Site Manager, including File tree, is anchored on the left, although it can be collapsed, and the WYSIWYG standard means that KompoZer can compete more than adequately with other, better-known editors.

Freeware: 7-Zip
Replaces: WinRAR, WinZip

Small, amazingly effective, and absolutely free, 7-Zip compresses files like a pro and unpacks archive formats including RAR, ISO, and MSI. It can also pack ZIP, TAR, and GZIP files. The latter two are often found on Linux and Unix systems, and are file types that the commercial go-tos can’t muster.

Freeware: IOBit Smart Defrag
Replaces: Diskeeper

There’s no shortage of well-rounded defragmentation applications, but IOBit Smart Defrag runs circles around them. Its built-in tool persistently defragments your most-used files without gumming up your system. Like Diskeeper, you can set it to run during idle moments, and its performance is steady enough to run on older and more resource-scant machines. Smart Defrag’s scheduler also lets you plan late-night defragging, and can shut down the computer when it’s done.

Freeware: BurnAware Free
Replaces: Nero

Unless you’re editing data, audio, video, and burned images a significant portion of your time, a fully-caffeinated application such as Nero is probably overkill. If all you want to do is burns some discs, BurnAware Free offers the same basic functions for CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray, without the extra bulk of Nero’s video editing and slide show software.

Freeware: Audacity
Replaces: Adobe Audition

Audacity is a digital audio editor and mixing platform, complete with a graphical user interface and cross-platform OS support.

Freeware: Foxit Reader
Replaces: Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader is monstrously large, slow to load, and includes many features most users will hardly ever need. Foxit PDF Reader pares down its PDF-reading code and comes up with some neat features, like annotation tools, to give you a PDF reader that’s far more appropriate for the average PDF user.

So I just “finished” playing Crysis a little bit ago. I put finished in quotes because you really don’t finish anything, the game just ends. I remember back when everyone made a big deal about how abruptly Halo 2 ended, but I have to say that the ending for Crysis is way worse. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the worst ending in any game I have played. After beating it, I actually walked into my roommates room and asked him how Crysis ended. I was certain that my game must of glitched and triggered the credits. But no, what happened was the actual real ending.

I am really stunned at this point. Literally nothing in the plot of the game got resolved, and the character’s dialog up until the credits consisted of pretty much “Alright, now we know how to kill these things, lets go and do it”. I seriously feel like I played 50% of a game. What a major disappointment.

Anyway, you can find server information on the front page of our website: noobscss.com

What the hell were they thinking?

Whatever they are working on, its a pretty good bet its some sort of MMO.

It’s always interesting when a big publisher like EA decides to create a new intellectual property. It’s not often that they do it, and it always seems to turn out one of two ways: awful or amazing. The good news is that you can count Dead Space in the amazing category, as everything the game does it does well.

Dead Space is a sci-fi survival horror game that takes place aboard the USG Ishimura, a “planetcracker” mining ship. It appears that in the future, Earth is disparately low on resources. So these city sized ships go around the solar system, and literally tear apart other planets for their resources. Communication with the ship has been lost, however everyone expects a simple communications system failure. Enter Isaac Clarke, part of a 5 person engineering team dispatched to repair the communications system. Clark’s girlfriend is aboard the Ishimura, giving him even more reason to be on this assignment.

Shortly after making visual contact with the Ishimura, a landing mishap damages your ship, and leaves you stranded. Strangely, no one is there to greet you as you exit the docking bay and proceed through the facility. Shortly after, your priorities quickly shift from repairing the ship to saving your own ass as your team is attacked by a few Necromorphs, which are strange creatures that seem to have taken over the ship. As you progress through the game, you will come across numerous audio and text logs that can be used to piece together what happened between the time they lost communications and now. The story isn’t exactly memorable, but it is interesting enough to keep you pressing forward, and there are some pretty cool parts.

Games with plots such as these live and die based on the atmosphere they are able to create, and Dead Space nails it. It appears they took some cues from System Shock 2, and created an extremely eerie atmosphere. The environment and audio design go a long way to creating an overwhelming sense of fear and dread. Plus, the ship feels very believable, with varying decks devoted to things like oxygen and food production or medical needs.

While the presentation is nailed, the level design has some problems. First, the game is almost completely linear. Objectives typically consist of finding objects you need to fix broken ship systems. Once you find the part you need, the door to the next area opens where you repeat the same process. This can get a bit tiring after a while and the game certainly would have benefited from more varied (and interesting) objectives. The game also has a fair amount of backtracking, although you usually end up exploring areas that were previously inaccessible. One aspect of the level design I was impressed with was the zero gravity environments. Some parts of the ship are completely gravity free, allowing you to walk on pretty much any surface. These rooms can be somewhat challenging to navigate, but they are fun nonetheless and add an interesting twist to combat.

The Necromorphs themselves are also pretty interesting. There is a good mix of different types, from small ones that aren’t all that threatening to larger ones that absorb ammo like a tank. Plus, there are some great boss fights thrown in for good measure. Although it is a bit disappointing that you see most of them within the first couple of hours of the game. However, they all behave pretty differently, with each requiring a different strategy to dispatch.

Fighting the Necromorphs is a lot of fun thanks to extremely tight controls. It took a little bit of time to get used to moving and aiming, but once you do the game controls great. You will be taking on groups of enemies, shooting off their limbs with ease. Or at least you better be, since shooting off limbs is the best way to take them down. EA has coined the term “strategic dismemberment” to describe how the combat works. Shooting enemies in the body or the head is generally the least effective way to dispatch them. In fact, shooting them in the head might be the worst thing you can do, as it often results in the enemy quickly charging you, swinging wildly in the air. Instead, you want to focus on removing limbs, such as legs, to slow enemies down and cause a lot of damage. This goes a long way towards giving the combat a fresh feeling.

Since your character is an engineer and you are on a mining ship, you end up using a lot of tools as weapons. The purpose of most of these tools is to rip rocks apart, so using them on flesh can be pretty brutal. The weapons ultimately do fit in to the typical weapon archetypes such as pistols and shotguns, however they are well disguised and are lot of fun to use. In addition to your weapons, your suit has a kinesis module that can be used to pick up and throw items as well as a stasis ability that can be used to temporarily freeze enemies.

Adding one more layer of depth to the game is the upgrade system. Everything from your weapons to your suit can be upgraded using power nodes. These nodes are scattered throughout the ship, so exploring is encouraged. On weapons, nodes can be used for improvements such as increased damage, capacity, or decreased reload time. On your suit, you can use nodes to increase your maximum health or air. They can also be used to enhance your stasis or kinesis abilities. The nodes are rare, so picking what to upgrade will be a big part of your strategy.

Last but not least is the game’s presentation. From a graphics standpoint the game looks great. Good use of lighting and animation bring the world to life very nicely. But what really impressed me was the game’s interface. Every menu in the game shows up as a holographic projection from your suit, so you are never taken out of the world when you go into your inventory, or read a text log. It probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but once you start playing you will realize that it really adds to the immersion.

Overall, Dead Space is a great game. The atmosphere is incredible, the combat is extremely solid, and the presentation is beautiful. The game is only hindered by some overly linear level design and a somewhat mediocre story. But neither of those issues prevented me from enjoying the experience. Anyone who enjoys survival horror games needs to pick up a copy of Dead Space.

If the more recent cloud of negativity surrounding the PS3 has erased your memory of the hype surrounding its launch, let us remind you: Some of these things sold for over $2,000 on eBay in the days after they went on sale. A man was shot trying to secure one. It was the ultimate gaming machine, the console to destroy all consoles, the status symbol of November 2006. And it totally flopped. After most gamers discovered that being able to see individual blood droplets from an alien’s brain or the glistening sweat on a football player’s neck didn’t make the games any more fun, the $600 price of admission just didn’t seem worth it anymore. Nearly two years later, it’s starting to gain some ground, but we’re guessing the guys that originally shelled out thousands of them to impress their friends still feel like tools.

While I don’t agree with his entire list (I personally love my Zune, as does everyone that I know who owns one), I do think he hit the nail on the head when it comes to the Playstation 3.

Well look what we have here, its another Halo music video. While its not anywhere near as good as the other one, its still pretty amusing: