Archive for February, 2012

VLC — the best media player for Windows (or any computer)

Sunday, February 26th, 2012

Okay, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I stopped using Windows Media Player a loooonnng time ago. I switched over to something called VLC — VideoLAN Player. The C comes from “client”, but since it’s no longer a client it doesn’t really apply…but they kept the name because it was already well known.

VLC is great for playing all sorts of video files. It’s minimalist, it gets the job done, and it doesn’t take up that much space. More important, it’s far more stable than Windows Media Player. And it’s 100% free. So if you’re looking for a video player without frills that *works*, give VLC a try.

The only thing it doesn’t do is stream to, say, a PS3. Conceivably, it could be altered to stream, but it’s not supported. Right now, that’s the only thing I still use WMP for.

You can download VLC from the offical website here:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Enjoy!

 

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Quick Review of Dead Island DLC: Ryder White

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Let me sum this up quickly: Do not buy the Dead Island DLC Ryder White.

Come on, guys, this is not how you do DLC. Ryder White is supposed to show us the events of Dead Island from the viewpoint of Ryder White, the Australian officer whose wife becomes infected with the…whatever the hell it is that’s turning people into zombies.

Here’s the problem. The Dead Island folks have stripped leveling, experience, and the entire skill tree out of this DLC. What you are left with is a soulless first-person shooter. Oh, and it’s linear — no exploring an open environment this time.

About the only good thing you can say about it is that there’s more gunplay; more guns in general. Really, that’s it.

Avoid this thing like the zombie plague. 5.0/10, and it only gets those 5 points because I liked the original Dead Island so much.

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