Best of 2007 – February

Continuing with our Best of 2007 series, we take a look back at February. This month was the official start of the blog so from here on out we’ll have some fairly long lists of our top posts.

Best of 2007:
January – February – March – April – May

February

The Divine PR Exposition
The Divine is a PC game that a group of friends and I were working on. At 1am we launched a PR campaign with tons of screenshots, a trailer, wallpapers and random other stuff. That was an exciting and fun day. All day long we rushed to complete everything as the countdown clock ran on the website. To bad we missed our own deadline by an hour.

The Divine

 

StuffWeLike.com Video Cast #10
This makes it onto the list because this video cast episode was the last time Spencer Beebe was a host. We’ll miss you Spencer!

Welcome to 7.0
StuffWeLike officially launches version 7.0 of the website. This version includes the blog, although back then it looked totally different!

Fantastic Four 2 – Better than the FF1?
At the time it seemed as if Fantastic Four 2 could really kick ass compared to the first one. With the death defying Silver Surfer the movie looked solid. To bad trailers lie.

The Pipeline Has Bad Music
When we first started The Pipeline we had it automatically load and blast some music. Apparently people don’t like coming onto a website where music automatically begins to play. Who da figure?

News in The Pipeline
The Pipeline was the reason why I jumped on and changed the focus on StuffWeLike in 3 days. It was a very drastic move, but I just feel in love with the capabilities of the player. One of the first things that I tried was posting text press releases in the player itself rather than the blog. I thought it was cool, but later I found out that no one cared. Yay for me.

Video Game Music Channel created
Still experimenting with the boundaries of The Pipeline, I created one of my favorite shows on it the Video Game Music Channel. Ever since I started StuffWeLike, I’ve always wanted to do a internet radio show. While I did have a brief experience in that realm with version 2 of the website, this was the first time that I had full control over every aspect. Thankfully no lawyers have come knocking at my door yet!

Add The Pipeline – Video Games to your page

StuffWeLike Conquers Digg, Digg Kicks StuffWeLike in the Crotch

StuffWeLike.com VS Digg.com

If you’ve been trying to access StuffWeLike.com for the past several hours, the site has been offline. Yesterday I submitted Ted Stokes’ interview with Valve’s Marketing Director Doug Lambardi to the popular Digg.com website. Seeing that the article was getting a few diggs in a couple of hours, I was content and went to bed.When I woke up the next morning around 9am Garbled Zombie and I were talking about how the post reached around 38 diggs, the highest digg count for any of our previously submitted articles. Out of no where the article reached 50 diggs and within minutes hit 100!

We were both ecstatic, but then StuffWeLike shut down. Yes we hit our CPU Quota. The traffic didn’t stop pouring in. I frantically decided to upgrade our servers. A little over 7 hours and almost 2000 diggs later the website came back online.

Yes, StuffWeLike got the crap kicked out of it also known as the ‘Digg Effect’, but we’re back with a vengeance!

Now that you know the story, also know that we’re trying our best to stay online and will continue to update the blog.

Thanks for your patience.

Journey music ROCKS

Add The Pipeline – Music to your page

There’s something about Journey that captures my ears and makes me rock all over my room. We whole heartedly welcome this fantastic band to The Pipeline.Don’t Stop Believin’ is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. The build up and then the rush is one of the best in any songs out there!

Half Life 3

[Update #2]

We would like to mention here that “Half-Life 3” is speculation, as we only have confirmation that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will not be the last Half-Life game. It has been confirmed previously that Episode 3 will end the current Half-Life story arc, but not the franchise, nor the episodic medium.

There is perfect chance that there will be a series of episodic Half-Life games after Episode 3 (but unconnected to the current story arc). Then again, we cannot deny the possibility of a full-fledged title like Half-Life 3. Hell, for all we know, it might even be a prequel!

[Update]

We have had a number of comments wanting a confirmation of our sources. While this should not be required, the writing credits of the StuffWeLike.com staff can be confirmed. The writer of this piece Ted Stokes is the main game reviewer for Ireland’s main PC magazine PC Live! In the magazine’s current issue he has an interview with Assassin’s Creed Producer Jade Raymond.

The Founder and Editor of StuffWeLike.com, David Rodriguez, is known for his contributions to the independent video game community with his indie game publisher Packom Interactive. He has distributed several titles such as Ethereal Darkness Interactive‘s Morning’s Wrath and Wadjet Eye Games‘ The Blackwell Legacy.

StuffWeLike.com was created back in 2002 as a website that dissects and entertains the internet generation.

——————

[Original Post]

In an exclusive interview we at StuffWeLike.com have had official confirmation that there will be a Half Life 3.We are not talking about Half Life 2: Episode 3 but a Half Life title after that one.

Our confirmation comes after taking with Doug Lombardi the guy responsible for all those PR pieces you have seen and read recently about Half Life 2: Episode 2. While discussing the game mechanics that run the Orange Box Portal game the topics of future games came up. These interview pieces are below and we do have permission from Valve to release it to you guys. Even though its not much in terms of details even getting a confirmation that there will be another game is a first!

Doug Lombardi

TS-SWL: With the ending of Episode 2 going directly to help the feeling of “must play Episode 3 now” could you give the current estimated date for Episode 3’s release?

DL: We haven’t announced a date for Ep Three just yet.

TS-SWL: Are there any current plans after Episode 3 to have a Half Life 3?

DL: We haven’t announced anything specific, but Half-Life won’t end at Episode Three – hang on to your crowbars!

TS-SWL: For Portal, can you explain in layman’s terms how the engine allows the mechanics to make it so you can go from one point to another? Does it duplicate the room after a portal location is selected or is it something else?

DL: A portal is two planar rectangles in 3D space. When both portals are placed we build a mathematical formula that converts position and angle values from one portal to the other. Rendering the portal is done in a separate pass where we use that formula to covert the player’s view position and angles to the view they see through the portal.

We also generate special collision data to represent the portal hole by grabbing collision data near each portal, combining them, and carving a rectangular whole through the center. When the player is near the portal they use this collision data instead of the standard data, allowing them to pass through the wall. We then use the conversion formula to teleport the player to the proper position after they’ve gone more than halfway through the portal.

It’s of course a lot more complex than that, but that’s the basic idea.

[Extra Reading]

That Mitchell & Webb Look – Season 1 (Region 2 DVD) Review

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It’s never easy to describe comedy but its easy to say that Mitchell & Webb are a British comedy double act and that the Mitchell and Webb look is a comedy sketch show. While their comedy hasn’t transferred to the States yet you could describe them as the UK’s answer to Andy Dick. Popularity wise.

The show involves a few really good frequently used sketches such as The surprising adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar a homeless guy dressed as Sherlock Holmes with his parter a Watson wannabe in tow. The comedy can be described as semi lowbrow. There is one frequently used sketch that’s just plain annoying called Numberwang. In short is a game show where people call out random numbers. It’s supposed to be funny but thankfully once you know its coming the ever faithful fast forward button comes to the rescue. Mitchell & Webb is a very hit and miss show with a few classic sketches and a large number that take only a single viewing.

There are a number of extras including outtakes, unseen sketches (20 minutes) and a making-of (32 mins). In short it’s better as a rent than as a purchase for the actual comedy sketches but as a documentary piece on making comedy the making of is a really well done thing. Its one of those cases where the extras outshine the material.

Verdict: +