Big Fat Ostrich

My previous Mafia Wars gaming post was getting way too long, so here are some nicely contained tips for y’all:

*Super Hot Mafia Wars Game Playing Tips*

Like any role playing game, your character gets stronger each time you level up. What should you do with those hard earned skill points?

Defense: I cannot stress this enough. Whether you’re buying armor, weapons or vehicles, think about defense before attack. As well, whenever you level up, use your skill points to increase your defense before anything else. As a rule of thumb, I increase 2 defense for every 1 attack. The rest gets spread over Energy, Stamina and Health.

Attack: Attack is very important as well, but since you should be putting most of your skill points into defense, back up your attack by having good weapons. So buy Chain Guns and Town Cars. You’ll notice that they get used in your fights often because they are among your strongest items, aside from items collected into your loot.

Godfather Points: Godfather points are used to buy extra skill points, mafia members, mystery loot as well as topping up your stamina, health and energy. Since they are hard to come buy, I’d recommend using them to buy skill points and pad your defense and attack. Don’t waste your godfather points on changing your name. If you’re just starting out, choose a name you’ll be happy with. For originality (and privacy), stay away from using your real name as your character name.

Loot: Loot is acquired through Jobs and Fights. The more jobs and fights you do, the more loot you have the chance of getting, which will increase your ability to win more fights in the future and level up faster. So fight often!

Limited Edition Loot: These items are offered by the game on a weekly basis. Usually the item has some significance related to a current event or holiday. For example, a recent one was an Indy Racer as a nod to the 93rd annual Indy 500. It’s a good idea to buy a lot of these whenever they come out since they offer a good attack/defense ratio, but there’s a catch: You can only buy 1 for every 2 friends you have. So you’ll have to go get some more friends if you want to beef up on these special items. Which brings us to…

Getting a bigger mafia: Ok, I said it before. Facebook sucks, but dammit, I have a mafia to run, so let’s add some “friends” who are even lower on the totem pole than John McClendon from my grade 3 second period finger painting class who made me eat glue that one time. There are two ways to do this:

• Spam your real friends: This is the worst way in my opinion. If your real friends haven’t joined your mafia by now, give it a rest. They ain’t joining. And if they do, there’s a good chance that they won’t play the game actively anyway. Leave them be.

• Add friends from the Mafia Wars Forums: If you want to increase your mafia size, this is the way to do it. Go to the Mafia Wars Add Me thread in the Forums, and simply add some friends by clicking on people’s ‘Add as Friend‘ link. As good etiquette, include a note stating “mafia wars” or something so they know how you found them. After they have joined your mafia, you can delete them as Facebook friends if you want. Just know that they will not be able to help you out on a job if they aren’t friends with you.

Fighting other players: If you’re being attacked over and over, don’t sweat it. First, build on your defense. As you get stronger, people will start leaving you alone. If, on the other hand, you attack indiscriminately (attacking the same people over and over again, day after day), you’ll get a bad rep and you’ll end up on the Hitlist. A lot. But even that isn’t such a big deal.

Super tip: When you fight other players, you become more visible. If you attack often, prepare to have to defend yourself.

Properties and getting robbed: We all get greedy sometimes, and buying a lot of Mega Casinos is a good way to generate cash. But be careful: overextending yourself will leave you with damaged property, with little to defend with. Only build what you can afford, and build a lot if you have the defense to back it up. You need to have a strong mafia, good armor and weapons, and nicely padded profile points. If you’re still getting robbed, don’t repair and collect the 30% that you’ll get anyway until you’re at a higher level.

In the end, there’s not a lot you can do to stop attacks since that’s a major part of the game anyway. But, you can choose your fights and know when to walk away from one. What would you do in the real world?

There are also a couple of other nice ways to beef up you character:

• Collections: When doing jobs in each level (or tier), you can randomly get items to complete various collections such as Billiard Balls, Poker Chips, Cigars, etc. Once you’ve completed a collection, you can Vault it. Doing so will give you a bonus for your character. There’s not much to think about here as getting the items are based on luck of the draw. You can always swap items with fellow mafia members.

• Gifting: You can gift items from your loot or your collections to any of your mafia family. My aim here is to try to give my team something that they need. I know, I know, we like holding onto those strong items. but to be fair, I feel bad sending people junk, like the Brass Knuckles. If you’re like me, you have too many to count. I do try to see what a mafia member might be missing, and if I can, I try to give them something useful. If you’re lucky, and they’re nice, they’ll help you out too. They may even help you complete a collection! It happened to me, it really did

• Achievements: Achievements are relatively new to the game and earning them will award you with a pretty small bonus (like 1 skill point for the most part). They range from the easy to the more challenging. Easy being the Giver achievement, which is awarded by giving 10 gifts to your mafia. Some of the more challenging ones include completing 9 collections, or helping out 200 mafia members on jobs. It’s tough, but one day… one day…

Now sit back, grow your mafia and get stronger. Trust me. You’ll get there with patience. I’m not aware of any cheats or bots for easy leveling, but I would strongly advise against installing any extra software on your machine since that’s a quick way to get viruses. Play fair and you’ll have more fun.

Current City Update: A lot of people have been asking me how to defeat Enzo Casazza in Italy. Well he’s VERY hard to beat, but totally doable. You can even beat him without using any consumables, but it takes a very long time. The main thing is to have around 500 Stamina points. Then, go into the fight, stun, attack, shiv or grenade, attack, die, then leave the fight and heal in Moscow or wherever. Repeat this, and you will beat Enzo Casazza and get the Enzo’s Monocle. Trust me, it takes a long time, but be patient. Try doing this job when you’re getting ready to level up. That way you’ll get your stamina refill if you need it.

Brazil Update: Well it looks like you need a lot of cash (Real) in Brazil. Similar to Bangkok, you can sell city items from completed levels. The only difference is that it’s hard to tell what items are needed for each level. In Brazil, I did my best to figure out the number of items required in the following districts:

Rio de Janeiro: Centro
Belem
Manaus
Sao Paolo: Heliopolis
Recife

In the end, it’s really not clear and I think Zynga is doing this on purpose to make it more challenging. But, if you’re on Sao Paolo or Recife, you’re going to need more cash. You can usually sell off the items required for Rio de Janeiro, Belem and Manaus. That should give you enough Real to get through these levels.

Another strategy is to balance your jobs between districts and buy a few required items at a time before banking your cash.

Also, three more districts will be added to Brazil soon.

God I hate this game.

To be fair, I had a great day today. The truth is, Amarok 2 actually ruined an afternoon of mine earlier this week.

As a brief introduction, Amarok is (was?) a wonderful media player with plenty of potential. I know many who absolutely swore by Amarok 1.4 along with its limitations. After all, version 2 held promise that it would be able to do everything that 1.4 could do and more.

The main problem for me right now is with playlists. Creating and playing a playlist is not an obvious thing to do.  It’s just not intuitive, but I get what the Amarok people are trying to accomplish. It’s actually quite simple to do once you figure it out, and in some way I’m blaming myself for overthinking things. I initially wanted to make a playlist of my whole collection, which I would just randomize and let play for hours on end.

When you click on the playlist tab, there are three sections: Dynamic Playlists, My Playlists, and Podcasts.

When you expand My Playlists, you have an Add Folder button, which you’d think would browse to a place on your machine. In fact, clicking on Add Folder just allows you to create a folder name for your playlists. You’ll see what it’s for in a second. There’s actually nothing wrong with that, except “Add Folder” is very misleading.

So, let’s create a playlist in Amarok 2.0:

1. Click on the Collection tab
2. Drag the tracks you want into the right-side column (I selected them all)
3. If you’re satisfied with your playlist, save it by clicking on the diskette icon on the bottom of the playlist column.
4. Behold, on the left side, in the Playlist tab under My Playlists, you can name this new playlist as you wish.
5. Optional: Click on Add Folder to make a folder and drag and drop your new playlist in there (I said there was a purpose for it)

Pretty easy, huh? Yep. But only after poking around for way too long. And, the fatal flaw was that I had Dynamic Playlists ON. Big mistake. Dynamic Playlists will modify your current playlist to include songs based on length, genre, artist, etc. It’s a nice feature, but it fails for one reason: when Dynamic Playlists is on, the On button is indented. When it’s not ON, it’s simply not indented but still says On. It really should say OFF, no?

I know, I know, I could have RTFM first but I’ll argue that no one wants to have to read a manual. You’ll hit Google before you read a manual, and if you’re reading this, then I rest my case

There are a few things that I like about the new Amarok:

Widgets: The whole GUI can be overwhelming at first but it’s actually fully customizable with widgets. If you’re an iGoogle user, then you’re already familiar with widgets. Widgets are little applets that you can add, remove and move around. Amarok has a few that you can use, like Lyrics, Wikipedia, and more detailed Track Info. I think a Guitar Tab widget would be pretty sweet.

iPod Detection: Amarok 1.4 used to detect my 3rd gen iPod when it felt like it. So far, my device has been visible every time I launched Amarok. You can also drag and drop files to your device on the fly.

Well you know what? I atually feel a little better about Amarok now. There’s definitely some work to do, but I have faith that future releases will only get better. Version 2 is a complete re-working of 1.4, and as an open-source product, they tend to listen to their users and the fixes will come quickly. At this writing, Amarok 2.1 Beta 2 has been released.

But you know, who has time to wait for it to get better? If you want to try a great music player right NOW, check out my post on Songbird here.

If you’re looking for Mafia Wars strategy tips, check out my other post here.

I hate Facebook and I swore I’d never join. But once I did join about 18 months ago, the reasons why I didn’t want to join in the first place were confirmed: status updates (which basically all say “pay attention to me!”) and being hounded by people I wasn’t friends with the first time around. I know, I know. I’m not the first one to bitch about it.

So why the hell am I still on Facebook?

Obviously, if you found this post, then you know why. Mafia Wars.

Mafia Wars is another highly addictive online RPG by Zynga, creators of tons of Facebook games like Street Racing, Scramble and too many to mention here. And, thanks to Facebook (sigh) there’s a huge player base with over 10 million people playing. The principle is simple: create a mafia dude and make him better by fighting other mafia dudes, mafias, and doing various jobs to earn cash so you can buy weapons and property.  Like any RPG, each subsequent level gets tougher and you need more experience to advance which means you need more weapons, more property, more money, more everything. It’s an endless cycle really, and in the end, highly predictable in the sense that once you’ve done 1 level, you’ve done them all.

THEN WHY AM I STILL PLAYING??

Because Mafia Wars is really well put together. There’s no real storyline, just you doing the same jobs that everyone else is doing. As you get better, you reach higher tiers and get rewarded with special weapons and loot. You begin as a lowly Street Thug and make your way up the ranks, towards the Boss levels. The game is ever evolving, so you just have to keep playing to see where it goes.

There’s just something pleasing about the game that keeps me coming back for more. It might be the stats. I like stats. Stats make me giddy. You can watch your stats grow as you rise up the ranks in your own mafia. There’s also a global leaderboard, so you can get an idea just how long you’ll be playing this thing (level 1057 anyone?), if the addiction holds. So far I’m a Level 56 Hitman and I still can’t get enough.

A few things that I really appreciate about Mafia Wars:

1. Players are not searchable. This removes a certain level of harassment from the game, so most people can play for fun.

2. Mostly fair fighting and robbing: You can only fight other players who are reasonably close to your level of experience (under normal circumstances). That way a Level 217 can’t attack a Level 3. Unless you’re on the Hitlist.

3. Limited animation. With text and static images, the game play is faster (fine, the revolver lags at times). The images of weaponry and loot are slick and pleasing to the eye. Personally, I think overt animation would detract from the game itself, so kudos to Zynga for keeping it simple.

4. No chat feature. Need i say more?  After all, you’re whacking other players, who will no doubt get pissed when you fight them and win. Better to let the gun do the talking.

With these great features, and others, there are less ways for people to cheat, so most players can just play and enjoy. Plus, you can now play Mafia wars on the iPhone as well. The iPhone version of Mafia wars will import your mafia from the Facebook version, but your gangster will have to start from the beginning since your Facebook mafia stats are not imported.

That’s it. Time to fight some more, punk!

P.S. I still hate you, Facebook!

Hi! I haven’t had much time or motivation for a big professional post on the level of quality with which Dr. Dobson writes. But I’ve been thinking about you my dear reader, oh yes I have. In the past month I made the acquisition of an iPhone and man, it is everything they say it is, AND MORE. It’s embarrassing how many apps I bought so far. There are so many great ideas on the app store, it makes it almost impossible not to find something to download every time you go. Long story short, I got a lot of very cool games to talk about. On the Nintendo DS front things have been a little more quiet lately but I still have a few games I wanna mention.

I’ll start with Aurora Feint II – Arena Daemons. If you enjoyed PuzzleQuest, this one will not disappoint you. It’s yet another Bejeweled based fighting RPG, but the gameplay is much deeper. It’s got PvP a la Mafia Wars, mining, crafting and a sleek chat interface. The artwork is gorgeous and the music is also very rich. Available for $4.99, the pricetag is a little steep for an iPhone game, but the product is worth every cent.

Another expensive iPhone app that’s worth the money is Galaga REMIX ($5.99). If you’re a fan of arcade shooters, there are no other alternatives that I know of. Surprisingly, the touchscreen controls are very smooth and responsive. The game also offers a classic mode that reproduces the original arcade Galaga experience flawlessly.

OK… this next one is even more expensive and maybe not worth the price. I Love Katamari is the iPhone iteration of the Katamari Damacy games. I always was a huge fan of the basic concept. This version is a bit laggy and the controls aren’t top notch but it still delivers (fun physics, item collection, etc). You can get it for $7.99. Ouch, I know.

geoDefense is a tower defense game with minimalist graphics, very Tron-ish. It’s sleek and fast paced. Perfect for a short commute. $3.99.

Another tower defense game that I enjoy a lot is Square Enix’s own Crystal Defenders. Based in the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles universe, it’s a beautiful and fun take on the genre. I like how the mechanics are a bit deeper than what you usually find in such games. It’s another $7.99 game though, I know I know! I’m starting to realize how much cash I spent on those damn games…

Here’s a free one for a change. Trace is as fun as it is ugly. The MS Paint art style doesn’t stop this little platforming puzzle game from being a pure gem. I was surprised how smooth the controls are. And yes, it really is 100% free

SuperMarket Mania is a time management game that reminds me how I felt the first time I played The Sims (super excited and a bit guilty cuz it’s totally a chick game). The synopsis is simple: you gotta re-stock food displays and clean up after the customers as fast as possible or else you lose money. If you have $2.99, spend it on this.

Last game I wanna recommend for the iPhone is Tap Tap Revenge 2. The game is a mini Rock Band/Guitar Hero clone that uses the motion control features of the iPhone and provides new songs to download every week. When you see the price tag on the games I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to believe this one is totally free. The quality is top notch and it’s one of the games I find myself returning to the most. Download it now.

Now for the DS I wanted to mention a few games I’ve been playing, starting with Rhythm Heaven. This collection of rhythm based mini games is fucking awesome. The only complaints I’ve heard about it so far is “The gameboy version was so much better”. Not a valid point in my book.

I’ve also been playing Space Invaders Extreme. Best damn arcade shooter on the DS, period. It’s got many exciting modes, the action is fluid, the boss fights rock, the graphics are like a collage of classic Space Invaders sprites with weird psychedelic artwork in the background. It is a very tight package and I recommend it.

Although it’s been mentioned again and again as the overlooked wonder of 2008, I can’t stress this enough: The World Ends With You is an incredible non-fantasy RPG by Square Enix that everyone should know about. The game mechanics are bold and the artwork is fresh. The story takes place in modern day Japan, in the Shibuya area. Our friend Wikipedia says: “Shibuya is known as one of the fashion centers of Japan, particularly for young people, and as a major nightlife area.” The developers took those characteristics and turned them into gameplay. And they totally pull it off. As well, the combat system is so unlike anything I’ve seen before, and it works so well, the game is worth a look just for that.

Well that’s it my friends. I’ve been working on a full Mint Linux review and it’s going nowhere, but I’ll try to post it anyway. Also, I’m almost done with GTA4 since I’ve got like one mission left. I wanna blog about that as well. And since I might be getting a car soon (my very first car!), I’m gonna be test driving a couple of models in the upcoming weeks. Who knows, maybe I’ll have something fun to write about that experience.

Until then, you take care of yourselves.

- Dan

Hey everyone, Dr. Dobson is back and boy am I pissed!

Now don”t get me wrong. I love the rain. Some days, I just want to walk in it and let it soak me, especially on a warm day. But as a Doctor, I need to keep up appearances too, which is where the umbrella comes in. The problem is, I’m also a cheap bastard and you know, when you’re a cheap fuck like me, that attitude sometimes comes back to bite you on the ass that you’ve been sitting on while you write out prescriptions for sweet sweet Valium and codeine.

It was a few weeks ago when, as winter’s claws were just about to lose their grip, I woke up to one of those days where it rains, then snows, then sleets, then who the hell knew what was next. I had an important meeting and I needed an umbrella to protect “the look”. I couldn’t walk in there looking like one of my patients you know, with last years leaves and acid rain in my coif.

I put off buying an umbrella all winter because, who the hell needs one in the snow? And besides, the one I had was ‘stolen’ by my colleague who was ‘just going out for a smoke’ and then never returned. I mean that. He never returned as in, we never saw him again. Whatever. He was a crackpot and I got his office, which was way better than mine after I had it fumigated.

Anyway, I head over to the local pharmacy and I find a nice classy black one for $9.99. No way in hell am I spending $30 on one with a wood handle. I may be pretentious, but I don’t need to tattoo it on my forehead, you know? God, you’d think you’d get a drug store discount being a doctor and all, but no you don’t. Seems you need ‘integrity’ or some shit.

As it happens, my trusty umbrella is compact, versatile and yes, it keeps me dry. It’s pretty good in fact, and it served me wonderfully for about 1 fucking month! That’s it. Thing self destructed for no reason, no warning, and it happened INDOORS! I would be a little less pissed if it happened in a windstorm, because no umbrella can handle gale force winds no matter how well made they are.

I was out there having  a stroll on a nice spring morning. I had just taken a shower and didn’t want another one, so I brought Snappy along. I was getting a feel for this umbrella and named it as such for the way it would snap right open on a dime. Hitting the trigger felt  like cocking my pistol for instant protection from the disgusting fluid dripping from the sky that day. When I returned home however, I noticed that Snappy the umbrella would not click shut when I folded it.

Once inside, I inspected the main spine, which had dislodged somehow from the center hole. I try, ever so gently to guide it back in when suddenly BANG, the whole thing pops apart and I’m surrounded by the tinny sounds of almost every spoke tinkling to the floor. And there I am left holding what looks to be a dead bat on a leash. Like some jerk.

Sad to say, the rain continued for another two days, so I was forced to shell out another $9.99 for a new one.

Dobson, M.D.

Hello people, and Happy Sunday!

I’m trying to do this as a regular feature where I run a Google News search for the word Ostrich and see if our awesome but freakish bird is making headlines. The last feature turned up this gem, but lemme tell you, I was very happy to find out that a man from Wrexham England ran the London Marathon wearing an Ostrich suit! How great is that?

The original article can be found here, and unfortunately there’s no image accompanying the bit. I’ll do my best to find a clip for y’all.

Now consider this: The guy (identified only as ‘Keith’) ran the full 26.2 miles. WEARING AN OSTRICH SUIT. 26 miles! A real Ostrich probably wouldn’t even break a sweat, but for any human, well, that’s no morning jog. And he did it in 4 hours, 9 minutes. Not too bad at all.

The bystanders were in hysterics as he loped on by, as they should be. I mean, if you see a man running a marathon in full ostrich attire and you don’t soil yourself, well, you’re simply dead ‘in here’ (points to heart).

As it turns out, it’s common to run the London Marathon in a costume. Check out this years records here. In fact Keith didn’t break the record, as he was up against Alistair Martin, a Scot who also ran the marathon dressed as an ostrich. Martin’s time was an incredible 3:42:27. Either way guys, you’re both champions from where we’re sitting.

Believe it or not, in this age of ‘ternetting, I could not find a video or a picture of either of the above mentioned guys wearing their Struthio Camelus costumes. I did however, find one of English Comic Bernie Clifton running with ostrich attire in 1982. Note that the costume makes him appear to be riding an ostrich, and not AS an ostrich. There’s a big difference, but cool all the same.