Donkey Kong Land Review

Ahhh! Back to the real classics of my childhood.

Donkey Kong Land is a platformer in which you take control of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Storyline is pretty much non-existant but the gameplay makes up for the lack of it very well.

The first thing that’s going to blow your mind is the yellow game pack. That’s right! You can even see it advertised on the box: “Banana Yellow Game Pak included!”… WOW ahah. I still think it’s pretty cool!

Look how cool it is:

The game has 4 different worlds to play in, much like the newer mario games on the NES and SNES. You go around the map and at the end of each world there’s a mini boss. The only boss I found semi-challenging was the last. Let’s just say that the bosses aren’t really the hardest part of the game.

The hardest part of the game is trying NOT to throw the banana yellow cartridge into the sea (I played it on the beach on my holidays) out of sheer frustration and anger. The game gives you 5 lives (hearts) and pretty much like Mario you can be “touched” by enemies twice before you die. This is if you collect the Donkey Kong barrel in the level. When you do collect it, if you die, Donkey Kong gets replaced by Diddy Kong and you can carry on playing without losing a heart.

Even if you do lose all your hearts, you will continue from the last level you were on. The game pretty much gives you infinite lives.

Donkey Kong Land has a good, but rather annoying, way of saving. On each level there are 4 letters to find: K O N and G. If you find all of them, the game will let you save your state. Most of the letters are easy to find, but sometimes you won’t find a certain letter for a few levels just to add to your frustration.

The graphics are really impressive considering it’s a gameboy game but they can be a little glitchy (maybe it was just my cart), meaning it will sometimes flicker enemies or Donkey Kong. Sometimes I think they tried to overdo it and put too much stuff on the screen making it hard to understand what’s going on.

That coin gives you a heart..Can you see donkey Kong between the clutter?:

Ah the enemies!!! You will find jumping crocodiles, huge rats, stone-spitting hawks, snakes flowing down poles, snakes crawling on the floor, and barrels. Wait WHAT? Barrels… wasn’t that the trademark weapon for Donkey Kong in his first appearance? WHY OH WHY would they hurt you in this game then??? God knows… Let’s just say I found out they could kill you the hard way. I then laughed…and after that I cried. Anyway you can kill enemies just like in Mario by jumping on them or by making a cartwheel by pressing B. Judging the distance of the cartwheel was pretty bad for me so I never used it. Jumping on enemies will be your most useful attack.

Did I mention how frustrating the game is? The game requires you to make precision jumps, predict that an enemy will appear after that jump, and then jump again over a barrel, then a rat appears and a crocodile jumps in your face. Not to mention the underwater levels where anything you touch rapes your face.

The game is very trial and error and dying is going to become the only thing you’re good at in Donkey Kong Land.

Underwater tentacle rape:

There are bonus levels which are reachable via cannon-like barrels. They shoot you to another area where you can ride a Rhino (kills anything in its path) and also an Ostrich sometimes (it can double-jump and glide), to gain more bananas (Donkey Kong’s version of Mario coins). Every 100 bananas you get a heart (not that you need it).

Nonetheless, this game was very enjoyable and entertaining. The gameplay is good and it wants to keep you stuck on your gameboy until you finish it. The lack of story is a bit of a deal breaker but maybe it’s just me craving for some Donkey Kong backstory.

All I can say is…that I’ll be waiting a while for my next adventure on Donkey Kong Land 2… Let my frustration cool off before.

Riqz’s score: 8/10

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Policenauts Review

Being a big Hideo Kojima fan (Creator of the Metal Gear series) I was reading his wiki page when I found out about a couple of games he made when he was much younger. I say “made” but mostly he wrote the story and directed it. They were called Snatcher and Policenauts. We will talk about Snatcher for the Sega CD soon enough (it’s on my to do list) but the one that really intrigued me was Policenauts. While Snatcher was released in the US in English for the Sega CD (Mega CD in Europe), Policenauts was only released in Japan firstly for the PC-9821 then ported to the 3DO, the Playstation and the Sega Saturn. It was never officially released in Europe nor in the US.

So I learned Japanese! No just joking around. I wish I knew Japanese but it’s not easy. Anyway, some fans actually decided to translate the entire game for us English speakers and patched the game with their fan-made English translation.

I played my version of Policenauts on my PSP (emulating the psx) and my first impression was great. The feeling I get from playing a game that only a few people were fortunate enough to own just gets me all excited!

Policenauts is a game that’s heavy on the story telling, but that’s why we love Kojima isn’t it? The game is mostly a point and click adventure with some action sequences in a Time Crisis style. The original game came bundled with a Light Gun for the PSX. It obviously can be played without the light gun resulting in a laser dot on screen that you can move around with your d-pad. Not having a gun had no real impact on difficulty so don’t worry about that.

The game starts off explaining how you (Jonathan Ingram) were once a policenaut sent to “Beyond”, the new human space colony built inside a huge rotating cylinder (Encounter with Rama anyone?), to become one the 5 founding members of the new law and order. A cutscene shows someone sabotaging your space suit and whilst on a routine space EVA something goes wrong and you are thrown into deep space by your “faulty” propulsion system on your suit.

The five members of the Policenauts:

You find yourself luckily rescued 25 years later thanks to the space suit’s cryogenic system that managed to keep you hibernated for all those years without having aged a single bit! The game now switches to the present and shows that you have become a private detective on Earth.

A lady appears at your door and you soon realize who she is. Lorraine was your wife back when you were a policenaut. She married another man (Hojo) after you were thought to be dead. Hojo has now disappeared and she’s asking your help to find him. As you decide whether or not you want to take the case, Lorraine is killed by an unknown person just outside your building.

This is where the story kicks off. I won’t go much into it because I’d have to write an 800 page novel if I had to. The gameplay is the usual gameplay you see in point and click adventures but I noticed something special with Policenauts. Everything you click, and you can click practically anything you see, has a detailed explanation and you never get bored of exploring all the rooms you’re in because of how well written the descriptions are. It really is impressive even for today. Descriptions range from random people to books, photographs, a clock on the wall, a “history” lesson in a museum, food you find around, panels, computers…GORBI (lol), really anything you see can be clicked on to see what your character thinks about it. Oh and yes, you are a Japanese pervert and you DO touch the boobs of every woman you encounter with funny bouncy effects (both visual and auditory ahah).

Pervert time:

What to say about this game then, well some people might argue that it’s like watching a movie, but we all know that’s Kojima’s style. Nonetheless it never gets boring and it always wants to make you carry on playing to see how the story evolves. You can expect crazy revelations, incredible twists and intense boob action, yes intense boob action. The story is told fluidly with excellent voice acting (in Japanese), subtitled in English in this version. The spoken parts (quite a lot of them) are used for main story telling. Most of the other parts are just written with text. Music is great throughout the game and the same can be told about the sound effects.

Yes that’s Meryl:

Longevity was great too. It took me about 12 hours to finish the game and considering that I clicked pretty much everything I saw I think the game can be finished in a lot less.

The Policenauts cast:

 

Concluding, if you are a Kojima/Metal Gear fan then this game is a must have and I’m absolutely sure you’ll enjoy it. The mix between exploring/viewing and action sequences makes for a compelling experience in general. This is a title not to be missed!

One thing…just one thing that pissed me off big-time was that when you die, the characters say stuff like “oh I’ll get him this time” or “Don’t worry we only died once!”. It’s like they know they’re in a videogame and that just ruins the mood and involvement you built up until then. I personally don’t like dieing and think it’s a big deal in games like this so why do they have to make the actual characters say it’s no big deal? Reminds me of the “Funny Games” film remake where the main character rewinds the scene…

Anyway it’s a really small negative point but mostly why I didn’t give it 10/10

Riqz’ Score: 9.5/10

Do I just review good games?!? Mostly yes! Or maybe I’m just too kind.

Drill Dozer

This undiscovered little Gameboy Advance Gem created by Game Freak is an incredible action/platformer game that probably went under everyone’s radar. The game was awarded best game of the year for the gba by nintendo power but the poor sales never brought about a sequel which is such a shame.

The game starts off telling you how your father (Doug) and boss of the “Red Dozers” is beaten the shit up by the Skullkers, the rival dozer gang. They stole a red diamond from you.
The gameplay kicks off by sending you (Jill, Doug’s daughter) to find such diamond on your wonderful crazy dozer machine!

The idea of having a platformer where you control a dozer that can drill through stuff is so fresh that it just begs you to play it.

Gamefreak doesn’t stop surprising you throughout the whole game with new additions to the dozer and new ways to use it.

For example, in each level you start off with a crappy dozer with 1 gear. You use your R button to drill clockwise and L button to drill anticlockwise. When you pres L or R there’s a little gauge that appears and charges up. In first gear you only get it to reach the end of the gauge once and then it comes back down giving you only a few seconds of drilling power.

Once you find second gear in the stage, you can pres R or L again once the gauge is full to enter 2nd gear mode making your drill stronger and last longer.

In third gear things get serious and you will have a very powerfull drill that can help you navigate more easily through levels and last as long as you want.

If you think drilling stuff around levels is easy and boring you’re wrong. The gameplay is actually really good. There are good puzzle-like situations where you have to use your drill on certain “jelly” blocks that push you to higher platforms. It’s very hard to explain and can only be experienced once you try out the game.
This for example was one of the puzzles: Find 3 different activators around the level and insert the right combination to open the big safe:

Every level brings something new to do, a new block that involves new abilities, tunnels that propel you around depending on clockwise or anticlockwise drill direction, underwater levels with a propeller-drill, air levels with helicopter-drill, it’s really pretty amazing.

The end level bosses are incredibly satisfying. Not too hard but not too easy, i mean I rarely died (i bought some life enhancements at the shop) but it still was a challenge trying to find out boss softspots and learning how to kill them.
The last boss is quite the challenge too and very very satisfying to beat (one of the coolest moments in the game!!)

Speaking of difficulty, it really isn’t too much of a challenge. I found myself dead only a few times, especially at bosses, when trying to learn how to beat them but not much other than that. If you do lose all your life, it’s game over and it asks you for 50 ingame currency to continue. I always had enough currency to continue and I found it a great way to manage death and continues.

I have to mention that the cartridge even has a rumble feature if you buy the original!

All in all this was an incredible experience for a very underrated videogame that deserved so much more than it got. It reminded me of the first time I played Sonic on the game gear. A new experience with new characters and abilities, a fresh change!!
I wish there was a sequel and seriously hope they’re working on one!

Anyway: Final Riqz score 9/10

Enjoy it if you can cos it’s definetly worth it!

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

I have recently stopped playing modern games. I don’t really know why. Maybe I’m tired of increasingly boring sequels and the “hollywoodisation” of 90% of the titles out there. Maybe these new games just aren’t cutting it for me.

This is why I’ve decided to go retro. I whipped out my old consoles and started seeing what games I hadn’t finished completely. I found a website that can help me with my goal of finishing all my games. It’s called www.backloggery.com and it lets you make a custom list of your game titles and you can say what you’re playing (it can choose what you play next randomly) and what you’ve finished. It also makes very interesting statistics.

Anyway back on topic. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Gameboy.

I actually had finished this title when I was little several times. We’re talking of a 17-18 year old title here…. I WANTED to play this through again. So many childhood memories came flooding back.

This game is just magnificent. Nintendo managed to make a completely new platformer with new abilities/strategies but with the same feeling of Super Mario somehow. Some of the things you find throughout this game are so well planned and thought out that it just makes playing it a wonderful experience.

What did Nintendo introduce that was so revolutionary then? First of all they created an Anti-Hero and made him lovable and that’s no small feat. You really end up rooting for this big version of a Mario gone bad. I believe he is the poor version of Mario. I imagine Wario sitting on the couch smelling like a sweaty road worker, with a stained white tank-top, with a full grown beard with food bits stuck in it, eating pizza and mumbling to himself trying to think up some master plan to beat Mario in any way possible.
From playing the game all you gather really is that Wario is a greedy bastard. All he wants is to get coins and end up building his own castle! I guess that’s what we all want in the end!

The game is beautifully structured with a classic Mario “world” where you run around the map into different zones which are all then divided in classic mario style levels. There are 40 levels in total with 5 secret levels.:

 

Wario plays very differently to the classic Mario saga, he doesn’t only have run and jump abilities, he also has a tackle ability that can send enemies flying in the air. Makes me think that Wario was a pretty good American Football running-back. This is coupled with “hats”. Wario can wear different hats to gain some useful abilities that will get him through the perilous stages he has to face.

The Bull-hat puts horns on Wario! This increases the distance of his dash and he can butt-stomp enemies to death. He can also break stones with one dash/headbutt instead of 2. He can also stick to ceilings with the horns (very underutilized ability).

 

The Dragon-hat makes wario breath fire out of it! This is especially usefull underwater as it can break stones, kill enemies and unlock nice bonuses from the bonus blocks.

 

The Jet-hat makes Wario fly! This hat lets you fly for a limited amount of time letting you breeze through some levels and access previously inaccessible areas. It also makes you walk faster!

 

This screenshot brings me to another beautiful point. I mentioned that Wario was greedy earlier and this influences the player, making you become greedy as well. The game lets you gain money by collecting coins in levels, but there’s also a cool feature. You remember checkpoints in Super Mario World for the snes? You just passed through a ribbon and you were saved half way through the level. In wario it doesn’t come as easy as that… You actually have to give up 10 coins in order to save with the checkpoint. You press up and B and hey presto a 10 Wario-Dollar coin appears in Wario’s hands. You then throw it inside the slot to save your state. This has to be done to open the end-level door! It really makes you greedy in that sense. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t need to waste 10 Wario-Dollars to save because I wanted to risk trying the whole level. Just to save 10 coins ahah. Real Wario-style.

Another good addition to the game is the treasures. All throughout the world there are a few levels in which you will find a special key. This key opens a special door in the same level which will give you a treasure. These treasures will add up to your “wealth” at the end of the game. They are nice puzzles, some hidden, some not so much, scattered through the Wario World.

All in all this is a very good game that withstands the test of time. I played it after nearly 2 decades and it’s still so fun to play you’ll be amazed.
If you’ve never played it or never finished it this is a must for any gameboy owner or for any gamer that deserves being called a gamer after all.

A negative point has to be given for the shitty mini-games after the stages. When you finish a stage you’re brought to choose between two doors. One has the money mini-game and the other has a heart-minigame (100 hearts=a life). The heart mini-game is pretty useless as you won’t be needing many lives if you’re a decent gamer, and the money mini-game makes you lose more money than you gain. So stay away from it.

P.s. MARIO YOU OWE ME A GOLD STATUE!

Final Score:

9/10

You Know What Grinds My Gears?

It’s been a while and I feel like I need to vent some of my repressed anger issues. I have a lot of little things that really annoy me. This will be a mega-rant post.

1) I hate Football, I hate football players and I hate football maniac-fans. The sport used to be good, the players used to love kicking the ball around. Now all I see is overpaid pseudo-legends that throw themselves on the ground without even being touched, holding their knees just to get a penalty. They actually think it’s a tactic. If I was their coach I’d sell them to some other team. I remember when I was small and I used to play football in a team. I was taught to always try my best to stay on my feet. You never know… you might miss a goal opportunity if you fall down.

2) I hate my allergies. I have had allergies for about 5 years now. Some kind of grass pollen. It makes my eyes water, my nose stuffy, and gives me light asthma. I stupidly mowed my lawn 2 weeks ago and I had one of the worst asthma attacks I’ve ever had since I was 10 years old. Stayed home a whole week and took heavy doses of Cortisone. I’m fine now but I guess I won’t be mowing the lawn anytime soon. Let the grass be freeee!

3) I hate when trains aren’t on time. I went to see my girlfriend in Trieste this weekend and on Sunday I had to take the 17.44 train. We ran to make it on time, only to be told the train doors weren’t working. This meant it took 30 minutes to change train and get on our way. I had to take a replacement bus to get home. I hate replacement buses too.

4) I hate LOST. With all my heart. I have watched it for 6 years every fecking week. I saw the latest episode a few weeks back and quarter of the way through I just had my jaw wide open…I just said “WHAT THE FUCK” to myself and turned it off. I tried finishing that episode but ended up turning the tv off again because it’s just not enjoyable at all anymore. Even the actors hate the show. You can see it in their faces. Jack just wishes he never started acting in this show, Kate has become ugly, there are 2 alternate realities, Locke is not Locke bah fuck it. They don’t deserve to be watched anymore. I don’t want to hear anything about lost for another…BILLION years. I doubt I’ll watch the finale. Here’s Jack thinking what I’m thinking:

5) I hate organizing holidays. I’ve been trying to organize my summer holidays (a week in the south of Italy), but I just can’t bring myself to sit down and find a decent bed and breakfast, call them, book a double room etc.

6) I hate going to the toilet at work, opening the booth, and smelling someone else’s shit at 8.30 in the morning. Who shits so early at work anyway? Word of warning… If you use public toilets often, always choose the booth with the most open door. People who take a shit are usually subconsciously ashamed and always close the door on their way out. That was a free tip, on the house.

7) I hate a messy dinner table. Sounds weird I know but after a few weeks my dinner table becomes home to a million pieces of paper, letters, crumbles of food, bags, receipts etc. I try not to make it happen but it always does. I cleaned it up yesterday and now my house looks less like a den and more like a house.

8 ) I hate my neighbor. I live in an apartment and the woman underneath mine is the most annoying person in the whole world. She’s probably a whore from what I gather. She has a Spanish accent, maybe Cuban but I’m not sure. She has a “smoking” kind of voice if you know what I mean and really high pitched. The Spanish accent doesn’t make it any better. I’ve heard her shout and fight with different male voices (hence the whore) and she has a very stupid small dog. On weekends and occasionally on Thursdays she plays (AND SINGS) raggaeton music. The ONLY fucking music genre I loathe. She also rambles on about how I throw shit in her garden when it’s obviously not true. Sometimes I have my window open and I can smell her smoking weed. Woman… you’re too old to be smoking that kind of shit. Stop it bitch.

9) I hate trying to lose a few Kilos. I’m trying to lose a few Kg because I had stopped training for 3-4 months. This involves a decent diet. No carbs at dinner. I hate no carbs at dinner. It means I can’t eat potatoes, I can’t eat pasta, no rice, no mashed potatoes, no polenta, no pizza… All I eat at dinner is Meat, vegetables and vegetable soup. No parmesan on that crap either. And I’m not losing any fucking weight.

10) I hate my watch repairman. I gave him 3 watches to repair last September 2009. He still hasn’t done them.

11) I hate having to go to sleep. It’s like fast-forwarding 5-6 hours of lifetime just to get to work.

12) I hate Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2. This image sums up multiplayer pretty well.

13) I hate smoking. I used to smoke. I’ve stopped since January 2009. I don’t know why this hate came upon me so hard but it’s crazy. I can’t stand the smell of people smoking close to me, I can’t stand how my clothes smell after I’ve spent time with a smoker, I hate how people say they’re addicted to the nicotine… we all really know they’re just addicted to the actual gesture of smoking. I hate cigarettes, I hate ashtrays, I feel like my lungs are being raped by other people’s smoke. Cigarettes should be erased from the face of the earth.

14) I hate people that just do stuff to get noticed.

15) Which brings me to how I hate Facebook. It’s unbearable. All I see is people that cry out “look at me”, “ask me why I wrote this”, “look at what I’m a fan of”, “look at what I just liked”, “look at my cleavage on this shot”, “look how clever I am by making this witty remark”, “look at how farmville is ruining my life”. I can’t stand it. Showing off is one of the things I hate the most.

16) I hate hating.

17) I hate not having a job in the videogaming industry. It was always a dream of mine. I still hope to fulfill it one day.

18) I hate the fact that if I do leave this job, I would leave all the benefits that come with it.

19) I hate that my Boss still hasn’t given me my yearly evaluation. Does it mean he’s scared to tell me how shit he thinks I am?

20) I hate travelling. I’ve travelled around the world most of my early life. Maybe that’s why I hate travelling so much. It’s not that I don’t like going to new places… it’s just that I hate what it takes to get there. Train rides, car journeys, airplanes, airports. Waste of time. Still hoping for instant teleportation soon.

21) I hate how new technology is already old when it is released. For example Iphone 2g,3g,3gs. Mostly why I don’t think I’m going to buy an Ipad.

22) I hate the Italian Government. All of it. They should’ve been on that plane that crashed in Poland with all their politicians instead.

23) I hate going to the toilet and seeing people playing Quake 3 Arena on their workstations…fucking IT department.

24) I hate waking up early in the morning to go to work. I also hate waking up late on weekends and miss the whole day.

Good god.. I think that’s enough.

0/

Riqz’s Avatar Review

Riqz’s Avatar Rant Review

Yep it's Jake Sully on his Wheelchair

Spoiler ahoy:

Jake Sully, a crippled marine gets a new job on the planet Pandora. His brother got killed by nobody knows who, because he got robbed. Jake is the only one with the same genes as his brother (because they were twins) so that’s why he got this job. This new job involves getting into a machine and possessing this empty meatbag clone of one of the Navi’s (An alien spieces indigenous to Pandora but they know fuck all about the Navi’s but they can make exact clones of them).

The humans are on Pandora (the Navi planet that uses trees for internet) because they need to mine some kind of shitty mineral mentioned ONCE in the whole film and nobody knows why the fuck they’re mining it. There’s some kind of special force involved to protect the company mining from the angry Navi. They look like U.S. Marines but are really mercenaries with no emotions left in them except for XENOPHOBIA.

Jake Sully is skeptical about this whole avatar project but once he realizes he can walk again (he was crippled in action remember?), he starts liking it.

He goes on an expedition with 2 other meaningless actors/characters/avatars who we can forget about now because they mean nothing at all, in the middle of the forest.

Jake is a bit curious (of course! He’s got legs now!), so he wanders off and gets attacked by an alien CGI monster. He gets separated from the group and ends up nearly dying until a Navi girl (which he falls in love with pretty much as soon as we see her) saves him.

At a certain point some pollen gets stuck all over Jake and Navi girl is amazed and he goes to their main treehouse. He is given a chance by the “mother superior” (again you can forget about her now as she is meaningless) to learn the “navi way”.

He gets a mount, he shoots an arrow, he rides a donkey (all this by sticking his IEEE 1394 port hair into any animal he can see), the navi girl falls in love with him.

Jake doesn’t want to live in the human world anymore and when he comes out they tell him they want to mine underneath the Navi treehouse because there’s a HUUUUUGE amount of that shitty ore they’re mining. AND THERE’S NO OTHER PLACE but there. THEY WANT TO DESTROY THAT TREEHOUSE like as if it was Bin Laden’s hideout.

Jake tries to tell the Navi but they don’t believe him and tie him up to a cross.

This is when the humans go fucking insane. Maybe they all took some crack cocaine together and they all want to fucking RAPE NAVI FACES. The angry colonel doesn’t give a shit about Navi’s and wishes they were exterminated Hitler style. Nobody knows why he is so angry or why so racist or why he’s so “I don’t give a shit about anything”. He just is.

Here's the Colonel not giving a shit about anything

The humans throw about 2million% more bombs than were needed against the treehouse and a lot of Navis die.

Jake cries.

Jake manages to jump (WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE) onto the biggest pterodactyl on Pandora (the most mean beast that ever lived and that only 3 men have ever ridden him, the rest got eaten by him) and becomes THE ONE.

Jake gathers like 50 different Navi tribes (apparently Pandora is huge with soooo many Navis which begs the question…Shit maybe they have other treehouses or there may be other mining sites or what the fuck is this film going on about).

The humans are heading towards another bigger sacred tree (the Navi Internet Service Provider where navis stick their hair ports into to listen to voices of dead Navis) with a “bomb” (a box full of really small c4 charges rigged together to explode on impact….DIDNT THEY HAVE A FUCKING BOMB???NO! They had to stick 400 small c4 charges together and make a poor man’s bomb). They have to push the box out of the plane… how ridiculous.

Jake (the new appointed navi leader of PANDORA, although he is human and Navis HATE humans) fights with his new army of troglodites against year 2513 technology with spears and arrows and IEEE1394 ports (by the way the huge fucking spears, cos navi’s are 10feet tall, have poison on them. Because being a huge fucking arrow wasn’t enough).

So yeah they fight airplanes and helicopters  (that have machine gunners and missiles) with spears and flying donkeys and donkeys. And after a few minutes of dieing, they somehow manage to win and the huge c4 collage doesn’t get dropped on the tree.

Jake fights the evil colonel or general or Hitler (who is on a mech…WOLFENSTEIN anyone?) and nearly loses because he nearly gets ripped out of his “avatar box” (where he connects to his navi avatar) and is nearly dying to Pandora’s toxic air. He is saved by his Navi bitch at the last second.

Colonel......Wait....WHAT?

Jake is turned into a navi at the ISP tree.
END OF THE MOVIE

I felt pain just remembering the film.

A quote i liked from Encyclopaedia Dramatica:

“A nagging thought throughout the film when it comes to Jake, is that how come human technology can be so advanced as to have accomplished interstellar flight and generate giant fighting ‘Mechs, but no one seems to have given a shit about upgrading the basic design of wheelchairs?”

Come scaricare con Usenet

Scrivo questo “tutorial” su Usenet perchè sinceramente molti mi chiedono dove trovo tutti i film, videogiochi, musica eccetera in cosi poco tempo.

Bene… ora sono pronto a svelarvi questo segreto…Il “segreto” di come Riqz scarica da internet.

Voi direte: “beh si usa il mulo no?” oppure “ma si sarà uno di quelli che scarica da rapidshare che pacco”. Invece no. Qui si parla di usenet.

Cos’è Usenet? Beh agli albori di internet esistavano dei newsgroup. In questi newsgroup si parlava di tutto, praticamente gli antecessori dei forum di oggi. Ci si “abbonava” ad un news service provider (NSP d’ora in poi) che ti metteva a disposizione i loro server per poter leggere e anche scrivere su vari newsgroups che variavano da musica, film, fino a cose più specifiche come fotografia, medicina, e qualunque hobby immaginabile.

Arriviamo al punto… Questi NSP dopo un pò di anni hanno anche dato la possibilità di aggiungere file ai propri post. Immagini file di testo ecc. Questo si è poi evoluto in veri e propri newsgroup Binary, cioè newsgroup dove si potevano trovare file di vario tipo.

Questa evoluzione ci porta al giorno d’oggi dove si utilizza Usenet per scaricare qualunque cosa ci serva.

Premetto subito che non è un servizio gratis come i Torrent (anche se esistono private trackers a pagamento) o come emule. Quale vantaggio ha allora vi chiedete voi?

Beh il primo e più importante vantaggio è che pagate un servizio e quindi scaricherete alla velocità massima che avete a disposizione. Per esempio se avete una linea 3Mbit scaricherete a circa 393 kb/secondo. Se invece avete una linea da 13Mbit come me scaricherete a 1,7Mb/secondo (si avete capito bene, uno virgola sette MEGABYTE al secondo).

Questo ormai mi ha anche un pò viziato siccome i film non li guardo neanche più in standard definition (di solito 700mb di dimensioni) ma solamente in HD (variano dai 4-6Giga per un file 720p e fino a 15Giga per un 1080 p).

Come si fa mi chiederete?

Beh ora ve lo spiego:

1) Vi serve un abbonamento ad un NSP. Io vi consiglio vivamente UsenetServer che vi da anche 14 giorni di trial. Costa 10 dollari al mese (una scemenza e QUI potete trovare il link all’offerta). Se invece volete fare un periodo di prova in Gigabyte allora c’è Newshosting che per qualunque piano scelto vi offre un trial fino a 30GB di download. Altro NSP valido è Easynews che offre sempre un trial di 14 giorni e/o 10GB di download. Uno recente invece che costa €4.43 al mese(prezzo incredibile) è XLNED (per 10mbit al secondo). Una volta iscritti, vi verrà mandata una mail con username e password da voi scelti. Scriveteveli su un foglio di carta che poi vi serviranno. Vi daranno anche un’indirizzo del server che per UsenetServer sarà “secure.usenetserver.com” (cryptato SSL per più sicurezza).

2) Ora vi serve un programma per poter scaricare i file estrapolati dai file .nzb (pensateli come file .torrent). Io consiglio vivamente Alt.Binz e userò questo programma in questo tutorial. Scaricatelo ed installatelo. Scaricate anche Winrar se non lo avete già (serve per scompattare file zippati) e anche QuickPar (questo serve per riparare i file .rar se vengono scaricati male). Installate il tutto. Una volta finito proseguite al punto 3.

3)Aprite il programma Alt.Binz e cliccate su Setup. Su “Download” scegliere dove volete salvare i file scaricati.

Su NZB togliete il flag da tutte le opzioni “Import as Paused”.

Sull’opzione Servers sotto “Name” scrivete il nome che volete dare al Server (io metto UsenetServer SSL). Nell’ “Address” mettete secure.usenetserver.com. Flaggate “Server requires authentication” e scrivete il vostro username e password che vi siete scritti sul foglietto. Mettete “number of Connections” 20 e “Port” 563 e a questo punto cliccati su add as primary.

4) Ora che avete aggiunto il vostro server proseguiamo ad aggiornare delle opzioni. Su “Par2” delle opzioni flaggate tutto a parte “recheck all PAR2 sets on start”.

Su “Unrar” flaggate AutoUnrar e Delete archives after successful unraring. Su Miscellaneous flaggate sotto “Start” Autopush Connect Button.

5) Il programma è ora pronto per scaricare. Chiudete pure il programma. Ora bisogna trovare qualcosa da scaricare. Vi consiglio un “Search Engine” grezzo che si chiama Binsearch. Su binsearch si può cercare qualsiasi cosa esista su Usenet (quasi tutta ma non entro nel dettaglio ora). Solamente che non sarà ben organizzata come ci aveva insegnato NZBMatrix. Qui su Binsearch gli .NZB dobbiamo crearceli da soli scegliendo tutti i file che ne fanno parte. NzbIndex invece cerca di organizzare un pò meglio quanto si trova su Binsearch.Facciamo che voglio scaricare un episodio di How I met Your Mother. Eccolo qui. Clicchiamo sull’episodio che ci interessa e mettiamo un baffo sulla casella a fianco del file. Cliccate il bottone “download” e poi . Questo vi scaricherà il file .NZB che aprirà automaticamente Alt.Binz che comincerà a scaricare il file. Purtroppo su binsearch cercando il nome della serie tv o film raramente si trova il file completo. Questo perchè gli NSP cancellano dai loro server i file. Per evitare che i file vengano rimossi gli uploader non mettono più i nomi del film o delle serie tv nel nome del file uploadato. Qui entrano in gioco i nuovi siti di NZBIndexing tra cui il mio preferito NZBGRABIT che verrà descritto sotto, dove gli utenti caricano l’NZB con il nome del file “criptato” dicendo a tutti i membri di cosa si tratta (per esempio il file 111123131.rar potrebbe in realtà essere How I met your mother S03E01).

Purtroppo (o anche no), visto che nessuno in italia usa Usenet non ci sono molti film in italiano, ma vi consiglio comunque di vedervi i film in lingua originale, al massimo scaricate i sottotitoli. Ci sono anche serie TV a gogo (1 ora max dopo l’uscita in america), videogiochi ecc ecc.

Spero che questa guida sia da aiuto ai nuovi arrivati nel mondo di usenet e so che una volta provata non tornerete più sui torrent o su emule.

Se volete delle precisazione su come fare a connettersi, retention, problemi, troubleshoot ecc non esitate a postare un commento e risponderò appena possibile.

Inoltre vi ricordo che scaricare materiale da internet che non è già in vostro possesso è illegale.

La diffusione di materiale coperto da diritto d’autore su qualsivoglia sistema di filesharing è vietata. L’utente che utilizza i programmi e le tecniche descritte in questo articolo è tenuto a verificare la libera e legale distribuzione (espressamente autorizzata o materiale di pubblico dominio) dei files che intende scaricare.

Saluti!!

Se questa guida vi è stata d’aiuto e volete vederne ancora di questo genere potete darmi una piccola mano donando al sito per mantenerlo aggiornato. Mi fareste un grandissimo piacere. Cliccate sul bottone sottostante per donare qualunque cifra con paypal e grazie!

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