The Titans marketing beta!

January 24th, 2012 1 comment

Wooh! I just acquired another original beta version! This time it’s the Titans Expansion, the add-on for Age of Mythology. There are 2 original/official marketing beta versions of this particular expansion out there, and if I’m not mistaken this is the earlier one of those two. I’m not sure since I haven’t had the chance to try it out yet (only just received it!), but the CD cover seems to somewhat confirm this. Maybe it includes the beta Norse titan? Perhaps, anything could be possible, I just don’t know yet. 

Here’s a photo taken with my mobile:
 
TT Marketing Beta 1
My non-mobile camera is currently being borrowed, sorry for the low quality. We have a scan of the CD cover here
I am going try the beta out the coming days to see how it differs from the retail/final build of The Titans, and will post the results/some screenshots very soon on AoE Beta.

Categories: Age series, Gaming Tags: ,

Megaupload no more

January 20th, 2012 No comments

One of the biggest filesharing sites in the world has been taken down by the FBI. The American congres is currently taking care of a law that allows blocking of similar (foreign) sites. A hacker group attacked the websites of several music sharing and federal websites in response.

Censorship in the making? If this continues we are going to end up like China.

Categories: Uncategorized Tags:

Blue monday

January 16th, 2012 No comments

Whoever tought of that should be shot. I mean really. Just like friday the 13th etc etc. Screw those dumbasses!

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The Hobbit Trailer!

January 15th, 2012 No comments

Holy shit! Just seen the official trailer of The Hobbit! Download it in superb quality below, nao:

the hobbit

Download Trailer from WB

I can’t wait to see An Unexpected Journey this coming december… I have read the whole book a few years before the Lord of the Rings trilogy was made (more than a decade ago!). I’m anxious to see how the movies live up to the story. Smaug won’t be killed untill december 2013, in the second part called There and Back again.

Categories: Fantasy, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Movie Tags:

New theme

January 11th, 2012 No comments

Made a new theme for the website you are currently visiting, http://phatfish.nl. It consists of a plain black background and is fluid in width (except the sidebar, which remains at a set width), meaning the layout stretches to each resolution.

The sidebar features my logo, which is three-dimentional, and is “laying” down on it’s back. If you’re wondering how I made it, I used several programs. First of all, Adobe Illustrator, to create the “outlines” of my logo. This is needed to export it to 3D Studio Max (I’m using an older version, 6, which I’m used to, not too fond of the newer ones). Here, you can “3Dfy” the outlines by extracting them. Then I rotated the logo to the position it is now, added a simple lighting effect and rendered the render.

From there on, it’s just Photoshop that’s required for the final touches. I added shades to the “body” parts, which makes it look more “soft” if you will. Added bit of a glow effect around it, as shades don’t work on a black background. Using the Clone Stamp tool I got rid of any unwanted edges. The final result is something I’m really pleased with.

So, why choose a simplistic theme like this? I’ve always been a fan of these and they work exceptionally well in most cases. Even IE liked it, only required one minor quirk for the main news posts to display correctly.

I always make a mockup using MS paint first (it’s quicker than Photoshop on some occassions lol). Cutting and pasting resulted in what you are seeing right now. I’m most likely to keep it this theme for a while since it’s just plain nice.

Categories: PhatFish, Programs, Theme Tags:

Mini Jukebox

January 8th, 2012 1 comment

I went to visit my ante and uncle today. They had a small jukebox standing in their bus (which my has been converted to a camper), which immidiatly caught my attention. After a lovely day together I mentioned I was going to search for such a jukebox on the web – this thing looks so awesome and cool. My uncle then offered me to sell theirs to me for a mere 10 euros, which I gladly accepted! Needless to say I was filled with joy and really thankful for this very nice and attractive looking, music-producing piece of hardware.

mini jukebox

It looks pretty similar to the above one, though it is slightly different. It has a build in AM/FM radio and a tape/cassette player (good for playing those good old nostalgic tracks), and a light switch which makes the box look fabulous in the glooming dark.

Currently listening to a hard-rock/metal channel, somewhere between 108 and 106 FM. I can recommend this mini jukebox to any fanatic of these kind of things – there are newer versions which play CD’s too, or even iPod compatible ones. I did a quick search on the web, so I should tell you that these are quite costly (going up to $150 or so). Very cool stuff!

Categories: Gadgets, Music Tags: , , , , , ,

Hans Teeuwen vanavond op TV!

January 7th, 2012 No comments

This post is in Dutch. Use Google Translate to translate the page.

Na een aantal jaren gestopt te hebben is cabaretier Hans Teeuwen weer op tv met een spiksplinternieuwe show… Spiksplinter! Het afgelopen jaar heeft hij opgetreden in verschillende theaters door heel het land. Vanavond zijn eindelijk dan ook de TV opnames te zien.

Vergeet dus niet te kijken – RTL 4, 21:00 uur.

Categories: Cabaret, TV Tags:

Sega MD Review: Power Rangers The Movie

January 6th, 2012 1 comment

For quite a while I’ve been thinking of doing some small reviews of games I play or have played on the most wonderful game system called the Megadrive, by Sega. This lovely 16 bit cutie has always been my favorite console.

Sega and addon systems

I have a pretty large library of Sega games, close to 300 games (including the leech systems: Master System, Sega CD and 32x) – a full closet filled with them. Nearly all of them are boxed and complete!

Here’s a pic of my retro collection:

PhatFish's retro game collection

Pic isn’t great quality because I used my phone. Not every part of it can be seen. Also includes SNES, Gameboy/GBA and Playstation games – Sega dwarves that though. Proud of this stuff – this has been my childhood and I still like to play these games very often. Prefer this over Xbox/PS3/Wii whatever newer consoles anytime – or pixels over polygons. Not saying the newer consoles are bad – just not really in my league, with an exception here and there.

They don’t make games/consoles like this anymore sadly, or only on very rare ocassions. Anyways, lets get started with my first review!

Review: Power Rangers: The Movie

box cover

Go go Power rangers! I’ve never been a fan of the goofy looking Daft Punk like heroes, although I do watched the series sometimes. No I did not see the movie. So what does the Megadrive game have in store for you? It’s quite a decent game, but doesn’t stand out. It’s a beat ‘em up, which got me pretty excited at first as this is one of my favorite genres (seriously, who doesn’t like Double Dragon, Streets of Rage or Final Fight?).

powa

I always play any game on normal difficulty setting at first so I can truly appreciate what the game has to offer. I want something that’s challenging but balanced. Power Rangers is close to that, but as a veteran Sega gamer I found it still too easy. There’s only little variety in enemies, and bosses are used again right after you beat one, which is pretty lame. Now, I don’t have anything against bosses being used again (similar games do this), but Power Rangers just takes it to the next level (sarcasm).

goldar

What I do like is being able to choose your favorite Ranger at the start of each stage, although they are pretty much the same with only little variety in moves. There are a total of 6 stages to complete. The graphics are quite appealing and the music isn’t too bad either.

bossf

Verdict:
A decent beat ‘em up, which you’ll play a few times and then put it to rest for a while. It doesn’t have a huge amount of replay value but it is quite fun to play once a while. Worth to pick up.

Rating:
***
(3 out of 5 stars).

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more reviews. As you’ve probably seen and read I have a lot of games and I intend to review quite a bunch of them, this may also include any SNES, Playstation or Gameboy games.

Snickers

January 5th, 2012 No comments

I usually don’t eat a lot of candy but sometimes I have these periods where I eat loads of the stuff. This time I’m reallllly enjoying snickers. Lately buying a lot of them, theyre just so damn tasty. Better than mars – which is basically the same but without the peanuts.

A candybar with balls err nuts.

Categories: Uncategorized Tags:

Changed theme

January 5th, 2012 No comments

It has a little more width and looks a bit better and is easier to read than the previous one, pyrmont. Of course, IE doesn’t display the BG images correctly (it ALWAYS changes them, makes them lighter or something), resulting in the side BG not matching up with the general BG. I hate IE and I always will. Clear your browser cache if it doesnt work for you.

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