Notice the 'frequently'?

Dang, now comes the regret after wasting hours of my life on that game.

Pretty fantastic though. Finally deleted it.

.. a goal that has eluded me for months, maybe even years (counting the time I stopped playing it for a while)..

.. now I can finally say, GOODBYE EVIL ZUMA. You have stolen countless hours away from me..

I now move on. :)

UPDATED

..and by 'moving on', I mean play it again 7 days later, and this time take screen shots of the final level 13. Here's the start..

then somewhere in the middle..

and finally, the final final few marbles, and an exploding one at that for better emphasis!

Notice I have one life left, meaning I died sometime in before this. The last level is actually easy, just noticeably longer.

Aggh oh Zuma! When will I ever be free of you?!

3rd

try here. Encoder job here I come!

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Where can you buy those things now?

Other than the standard upright models, I also remember the table-top designs, where you play with your friend on the other side either on a turn based game or trying to shoot each other from one end of the screen to the other.

I'd love to get at least one for the house. And I'm sure they can't be too expensive since a lot of them probably end up in the junk yard.

Where oh where?

Not necessarily because of Lara (more on her later), but about how the article says how one of the problems of the video game industry is its 'lack of celebrities'.

To wit:

One of the big problems with the games industry is that whilst it has icons, it does not have many celebrities...

After all, as an editor choosing what to put in an entertainment section, do you go with pictures of Robbie and an interview about life on tour?

Or do you go instead for the latest screenshots of a video game, along with some words from the game's developer?

You know, I suppose that makes sense. Sure a celebrity will always help the industry.

Of course, you might also say that people just like looking at hot women in tight shorts, but I suppose that takes away from the gist of the articlesomewhat, and considering the effort it took to get that point across, I should probably leave it at that.

At any rate, for ehem.. research purposes, here's the pic of Karima Adebibe, the newest girl authorized by Eidos to 'speak' as Lara, along with posing as her as well.

On another note, I wonder why this pic makes me think of 'earplugs'. Would it happen to have anything to do with the sound a Heckler & Koch P8 pistol makes, especially when fired beside your face perhaps? Hmm..

Mainly because you're gonna get comparisons to Reggie Miller, a tall order if there ever was one.

Today though, Peja was shipped to Indiana for wild wild Ron Artest, and the first thing I thought of was - the position of Indiana Pacer 'Shooter' will be well taken care of.

In fact, I think the great Larry Legend got it wrong when he was quoted as saying:

"Obviously, we're very happy about getting a player of his caliber," said Bird. "He's one of the best shooters in the league and we definitely feel he can come in and help us right away."

Peja isn't 'one of the best shooters in the league'. Hands down, he's the best. I mean, the man can shoot shoot shoot like no one can. I can't even think of anyone that comes close to what he can do.

Second thing I thought of was how rare that is - a pure shooter. Pure shooters imho are as rare as pure defensive players. They're so rare coaches make concessions just for that one dimension they bring to the team. Can't defend? Can't rebound? Can't handle the ball? That's fine! You can score the moment you cross halfcourt, you're on my team!

Finally, of course I have to think of the dirt. The real reasons for the trade, namely Artest's unbelievably bratty behaviour and the terrific patience, imo, the Pacer organization have extended to him regardless (let's not forget the detroit incident where he figured prominently).

Then there are two other reasons worthy of attention. One, why did the Maloof brothers trade him?

He's the best shooter in the world, so it was a very, very difficult decision, but we thought that we needed to do something different.

Yeah. Hiring a borderline maniac who gets my vote to best portray Rockstar Game's CJ Johnson is certainly different. I can imagine the fans will start buying tickets, just don't forget to make them bring their helmets.

The real reason is of course, Peja is unhappy being a King and has been so since the C Webb (remember him?) days. This is a way out, and the Maloofs got lucky. Or not. Depends really. So far they're calling themselves gamblers. No kidding.

Me, I'm excited to see Peja get it on with the always over-achieving Pacers. His current 16.5ppg average is a joke. He can unload twice as much, and with Rick Carlisle motivating him, the original coach of the then-arising Pistons of a few years back, it'd be great to watch.

Click to watch the Google Video
.

Basically he drove a Acura NSX at Laguna Seca, and ended up with 1 minute 57 seconds, a far cry from the 1.41 he got in the game. Check the video out, I love how they even got the color of the car right.

So anyway, Kobe makes 81 the other day against the hapless Raptors, and I got a-thinking: "What if I join the PBA, and score 81 points on my first try"?

Realizing that this requires exercise and actual skill, I settled for the next best thing: Play Kobe on NBA Live 2005 on my PC, and try to do him over. So here we go:

The idea of course is fairly simple. Give Kobe the ball. Shoot.

So he shoots.

And shoots.

Shoots some more.

And more.

At some point in the 2nd quarter, I made him point guard so he'll get the ball directly after an inbound. Naturally he shot even more.

And offered some defense too.

He'll do that silly NBA Live dance when he's fouled, where he waves his hands and shakes his head.

Then he'll do freethrows.

And dunks.

And threes.

He'll do crossovers.

He'll get fouled.

He'll just get up to dunk again.

Then Dance some more.

He'll even shoot it while getting fouled.

His teammates unfortunately tried to get in the act. Here's Kwame Brown with a (CPU controlled) offensive putback, so I couldn't stop this anomaly from happening.

Smush Parker got fouled and shot a freethrow, one of three points Kobe didn't score. What's wrong with these guys? How hard can it be to GIVE.THE.BALL.TO.KOBE!? Anyway with 45 seconds left I thought I couldn't make it, but the Raptors, just like the real thing, started to cooperate by fouling him so he could make up the difference at the freethrow line.

Finally, read em and weep. 82 big ones.:

Yup, there's the proof. Kobe ain't got nuthin against my Virtual Kobe. Remember, my Virtual Kobe can get it done in 5 minute quarters compared to his regulation time - AND keep his teammates from scoring, which is really important. And as if to bolster that point, check out the Raptor's stats:

Featuring (gasp) balanced double figure scores. I mean - what is it with these guys? Do they think basketball is a team sport or something?

I turned to Google for whatever downloadable game out there, and after scratching Need For Speed (3.5gb., too big), and others, I came across America's Army, available quite conveniently as one big FREE 903mb exe file. After some searching for torrents and several failed attempts to download I managed to miraculously find a working one, here:

There are Mac and Linux versions too, even a server and client one, available here.

Truth is, up to right now I had never heard of it, and initially didn't take seriously the fact that it's a real recruitment tool used by the U.S. Army.

Well, obviously their efforts are laid to waste on non-American me, but to express my gratitude, I will use (and according to favorable reviews) probably enjoy their game regardless.

Thing is it'll take a few hours:

I guess I'll go find something to do until it downloa.. ZZZZzzz(ngork)zz..

No one could touch him. He was jumpshooting, shooting threes, stealing the ball, running all over the place, and on one occasion on an all alone drive, he slammed the ball Jordan style, legs apart with one hand just like the Nike poster. It was astounding, and I decided to remember his name, Manu Ginobili, pronounced by the announcer as "Jeeno-beeli".

Lo and behold, the next year he was a rookie for the 2002 Champion Spurs. He still looked like his frail frame would go flying out the court anytime one of the big forwards bump him. He flew alright, right into the All-rookie 2nd team, and lead all players in steals in the NBA Finals. Although special, he still didn't make too many headlines, just another new non-American face amongst the influx of European players.

Still I kept my eye on him, and as if on cue, he did one of the most spectacular things I had ever seen, something I've been looking for on the net for the longest time. A left handed, reverse dunk. Against the Lakers. In the championships. Over Kobe.

It was so stunning that it instantly put his name in the papers, as it should be really. After that moment, everyone started to treat him like the special name that he is, and not just some frail Argentinian with an apathy towards haircuts. I wish I could find a video or picture of that. Even now as I wrote this I tried Google imaging, but no go. However, this morning as I played NBA Live, I managed to do something almost similar:

So Manu, this is for you. Although this one's right-handed, and over Richard Hamilton instead of Kobe, and you look clean-cut, until I find that vid, it'll do.

At any rate, fifteen minutes into the movie I was transfixed, and not just because the luscious Rosamund Pike was in it, but because it was actually interesting. Of course, any video game to movie adaptation enjoys the "Wow I remember that from the game!" moments - however, that would only be good for the occasional nod of recognition. A movie will still have to be interesting for a whole 1.5+ hours, and Doom managed quite nicely to do this by putting in some actual interesting story and twist in the end.

Which brings me to this point, where I will sadly bewail the other end of the spectrum, the worst video game to movie adaptaion imho, Tomb Raider, which for the most part I wouldn't mind at all, I mean a sucky movie's just a sucky movie, except for one thing - you will probably not find a bigger fan of Lara Croft than me.

I mean, how can you not like Lara Croft. From the first TombRaider, she just blew me away. And unlike how you may think, I'd like to believe it wasn't necessarily because of the short shorts, or those floatation devices on her chest we usually refer to as breasts. In my mind, there is no more obvious sign that game - programmers (or most programmers for that matter), need to get a life than Lara Croft.

The real reason I like her is for the simple fact that Lara Croft, the real version 1.0 Lara Croft of TombRaider the game and not the movie, amongst all the other video game characters I've ever played, is the meanest, toughest, grittiest downright bravest character I've ever played in a game.

Sure I know all your "you're a freak go-get-a-life" alarms are going full blast right now, but there I was years ago, playing her character through hostile jungles, swimming in oceans (Those floatation devices must've helped. Sorry can't help the pun.), battling t-rexes, thinking through complex puzzles in dark ominous underground caves and inside mountains, completely alone with nothing but the warmth of her H&K P8s to keep her company. Throughout playing it, I was thinking what a great role model she'd be for girls. Sure the fact that she raids tombs and collects ancient priceless artifacts for kicks is a little twisted, but hey Hollywood can easily re-write that little factoid to her favor I'm sure.

Anyway, it was a pioneering first person game to begin with, but the characters absolute lack of fear and 'astig' factor just blew me away. As far as the first version Lara is concerned, she had no room for fancy gadgets, relying on deft skill, smarts, and dexterity. As long Lara had her pistols, all was good.

Then came of course, Angelina Jolie with her 'product-placement' TombRaider series. I believe an interview came out saying how disappointed she was herself personally in them, saying that fans "deserved more" something or other.

So back to Doom. You can watch the trailer here, but you'll likely think 'b-movie' just like anyone would with a movie so obviously hyped for teens, and being based on a video game plus starring The Rock doesn't help in that department either. You just have to watch it really. Anyway I caught The Rock getting interviewed by CNN's Jon Stewart and he mentioned he's also doing Duke Nukem!, another great time-waster from my youth. Although there's nothing solid yet, I'll be looking out for that just in case it turns out alright too.

One thing though:

.. the resemblance between Carl and Kerry Kittles is uncanny.