Year of Video Games - 2010

Just like last year, a list of games I finished in 2010.

This is the year of Assassin's Creed and Zelda, since there are six of them on the list and what I sunk most of my time into.

A buddy at work who lent me Assassin's Creed II, which got it's hooks into immediately since it took place in Renaissance Italy and had this great virtual reality conspiracy thing going for it. I quickly finished AC II and immediately picked up AC I, which while a bit duller than the second was still a joy to play with all the historical references and it fleshed out the story better knowing the beginnings. When AC: Brotherhood came out I was excited enough to get the collectors edition box set.

Zelda was another big player this year as I was ramping up to finish them all before my 30th birthday in April. While I had completed Ocarina of Time right at the end of 2009 I didn't start Majora's Mask until the Spring. The mechanics of the game were similar to Ocarina, but I just couldn't get into the whole three day time thing until well into the end of the summer. Finally after picking it up and 3-4 hours intervals I finally got the hang of things and was able to power through it in August. Overall I enjoyed the game at the end, collecting every mask was actually fun and the reward of the Fierce Deity Mask made the end boss ridiculously easy. Shortly after completing it the Haunted Majora's Mask story "You Shouldn't Have Done That" appeared and playing it all the way through made it even more creepy. I even went so far as finding an original N64 cartridge at a local game shop and it's sitting on my desk along with an original N64 copy of Golden Eye.

After finishing Majora's Mask I dove right into Twilight Princess. While I had twice tried to start it in the past, I started all the way over with a new game and finished it up. I don't know if it was anxiety that kept me from playing Twilight Princess knowing that it would be the last game in the series until Skyward Sword comes out or what, but I was a bit apprehensive about finishing it. The game itself is beautiful, with many of the locations and dungeons building off of the original formula and fleshing it out in 3D nicely. Some of the ancient landmarks and ruins (Bridge of Eldin) seemed like they were pulled from my seven year old selfs imagination while flipping through the original Zelda instruction manual and map. From some of the boss fights I was fully expecting the Ganon fights at the end to have more challenge. While a sword fight for the final encounter was cool, it was a bit too easy. I was hoping to use some of the more powerful items (magic armor and fairy tears) as a boost if I ran out of fairies and potions, but I made it through with only losing a few hearts. Still, it was a good way to end and overall the game was satisfying.

Another surprise this year was Alan Wake, which was the first Xbox 360 game to go onto a list. This is mainly because my buddy Bren let me borrow is 360 which gave me the opportunity to play it. While I haven't finished the second DLC package it opened me up to watching Twin Peaks and reading more Stephen King novels.

Since Zelda is out of the way and I own a majority of the Metroid games already, I'm going to set a new goal of completing all the Metroid games before I turn 40. It's a good chunk of time, but you never know what's going to come up.

Finished Games for 2010

Gameboy
Metroid II: Return of Samus

PS3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Heavy Rain
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed II
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Xbox 360
Alan Wake

DS
Chrono Trigger (this is actually from 2009 but forgot it last year)
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Wii
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Virtual Console
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

iPhone
Beneath a Steel Sky
Civilization Revolution

Android
Angry Birds

Goals for 2011
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Metroid: Other M
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Metroid Prime Trilogy
inFamous
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
No More Heroes
StarCraft II
GoldenEye 007 (Wii)

Why My Laptop Fails To Recognize Built-in Microphone

Q: Why Does My Laptop Fail To Recognize the Built-in Microphone?

A: My laptop is an ASUS model with i5 CPU core. It's got a built in microphone as the spec says. However when I use Skype for some reason it does not recognize the built-in microphone. If I use an external microphone then it works.

After some tweaking and searching I finally found that the microphone setting in Control Panel -> Sound -> Microphone is "not enabled". After I set it to "enabled" it works!

If not let me know!

Why The Projector Fails To Recognize My Computer

I tried to connect my laptop to the projector but it keeps failing to recognize it. Why? My colleague's laptop is the same model and it works.

Answer: If your computer does not automatically recognize the projector when they are connected, make sure you set your PC's resolution correctly. In other words you need to set your PC's resolution to one that's supported by the projector. If you don't know what resolutions your projector supports simply try several resolutions until it works.

Solution #1: Set your PC's resolution to one that's supported by the projector.

Another possibility is that your computer has a setting that prevents it from recognizing external device automatically. In that case you need to manually switch to the projector view which is usually done via some hot keys.

Solution #2: Manually switch to the projector view which is usually done via some hot keys!

If none of the above works let me know!

Q: What should I drink when I have a stomach ache?

I almost never had a stomach ache, but last week when I was on the airplane bound for China I had a serious stomach ache. I started wondering what I could eat to relieve the pain. I thought to myself "Just tell me what I should eat and I'll eat it!" The feeling that nobody could give me an authoritative answer is outright frustrating.

The flight attendant began to serve in flight meals which is pork rice which looked delicious. Too bad the pain was too big for me to eat anything. I began drinking lots of water but it didn't help at all. When the flight attendant was serving coffee I thought I should give it a try, and I drank a cup of black coffee with no sugar and no cream, and GUESS WHAT? The pain was totally gone within 5 minutes!

Answer: Drink a cup of black coffee with no cream and no sugar and nothing in it!