Infrequently Asked Questions

There are many questions which are not asked very often, however they deserve to be answered for one simple reason - the answers exist. So here are a few infrequently asked questions, with answers...

How does a turbocharger work?

Turbochargers work by pressurising air entering an engine and adding more fuel to combust it, so that you can get more torque from fewer cylinders. Superchargers are probably different, but as Jeremy Clarkson puts it: "with a supercharger, air goes in, witchcraft happens and you go faster". In reality, superchargers are less sophisticated versions of turbochargers where the pump to increase pressure is mechanically driven, thus taking horsepower from the engine. Some very large superchargers can use more than a hundred horsepower from the engine to keep them running. Superchargers therefore aid top speed, while turbochargers aid acceleration. Turbochargers are more efficient because they utilise exhaust gases, rather than power from the engine.

What colour were the dinosaurs?

The fact is, we don't know. There are a few isolated cases where scientists have managed to work out exactly what colour dinosaurs were but for monsters like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, they can only guess. It would probably be a shade of green or brown to provide camouflage, which may sound stupid because Tyrannosauruses were so big they couldn't hide but it did make a difference while hunting, albeit a very small one.

 What was the biggest battle ever?

The biggest recorded battle in English history was the Battle of Towton where one tenth of the English population participated. That is a massive amount of people, however you look at it. It took place in 1461 during the Wars of the Roses and resulted in about 7,000 casualties. The biggest battle ever was probably the Battle of Kursk between the Nazi Germans in World War II and the Russians. It involved about two million soldiers. It took place in Kursk, Russia, in the summer of 1943.

How fast is the speed of light?

In a vacuum, the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, but it can change. In a prism, light can almost be stopped, while outside of a vacuum, light does not travel as fast, slowed down by numerous particles in the air. Sound, however, travels faster where there are more particles, as that is a wave that relies on particles to move, while light is a wave that does not.

What is the difference between dynamite and TNT?

TNT is not the chemical name for dynamite, nor has dynamite got anything to do with TNT at all. Dynamite is stabilised nitroglycerine wrapped in a cylinder, developed by Alfred Nobel, who later created the fund for the Nobel Prize after feeling guilty about having developed an explosive which was later used in warfare. TNT is an abbreviation of trinitrotoluene, another explosive which is less powerful yet safer to work with than dynamite. However, it has proved to be toxic, causing yellow colouration of skin. This is what caused the female workers in munitions factories to have yellow skin, leading to the nickname 'Canary Girls'. It can also cause organ damage and increased risk of cancer.

What is radar?

Radar, standing for radio detection and ranging, is a device that allows users to detect objects by bouncing radio waves off objects. Its most famous usage was during World War II, when the government spread the rumour that ace pilots were aided in seeing in the dark by carrots, to distract the Germans from the possibility of radar. This mistruth has persisted to this day, although it is true that carrots contain a vitamin necessary for quickly switching between normal vision and night vision, but there is a difference between a lack of something causing damage and an excess of something causing good.


What is the lowest point in Microsoft Excel?


1048576.

Introduction

It would be perfectly reasonable to ask 'Why did you call this whole thing Creeperville anyway?' and although no one has actually asked me this, I thought it might be worth answering...

Firstly, the name 'Creeperville' does not mean anything, it just refers to a place on JLB's Minecraft server that I built. Creeperville was originally going to be a YouTube series although it is currently in 'Development Hell'. Despite this there is a Channel accessible via this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/Cr33perville?feature=mhee but don't expect any videos for another few months.

Back to that Creeperville place. I built it at first solely as a 'set' for the video series, but now it's more of a large building project, and we might make it into an adventure map when the video series starts.

-PWN-

God Save the Bean

A while ago I wrote a new version of our rather dull national anthem. Here it is...

God Save the Bean

God save our coffee bean

Loaded with caffeine

God save the bean

Send even more to us

We love their addictiveness

They made England glorious

God save the bean

Oh coffee plant arise

Scatter them from the trees

Then drink them all

They are the perfect mix

Whether you drink just one or six

All who don't are just hicks

Answer our call

They are the best gifts in store

The coffee we are pleased to pour

We wish it would rain

Coffee because

It keeps away snores

There is so much choice

God gave the bean

Not in this land alone

But be its taste known

We need more and more

Lord make the boring sea

Into brilliant coffee

And give it to all to me

From France to Dover

More coffee seeds we sow

So that all may know

About the great bean

Coffee we shall send

To every friend

From Guildford to Southend

God save the bean

Lord grant that more is made

For we have already paid

For more to bring

May it not be mush

Because we like the stuff

And to the shops we rush

To get that thing

-PWN-

The Why of Warcraft

We analyse the main contenders for the frozen throne that World of Warcraft occupies in the twisted world of MMORPGs...

Rift is a MMORPG that is directly facing off against WoW, and that is its main problem. It is just too similar. That's all there is to say about Rift, really.


Runescape, while admittedly graphically... different, has improved dramatically in recent times. It is still a game controlled entirely with the mouse, with the keyboard only used to move the camera, but the world is massive, and you get a sizeable amount of content free. It was never intended to be a WoW killer, it came along five years before World of Warcraft entered the field, and is played in-browser. A subscription also costs half as much as WoW, so it could be considered a 'cheap option'. It is, however, the best free MMORPG there is, with about 200 million accounts registered. That's twenty times as many as Minecraft.


LEGO Universe is based on LEGO and contains a few good ideas, but lacks content, making purchase of the game a waste of money. The building aspect is also not great, although the game as a whole is certainly more original than a lot of other games.

-PWN-

Minecraft Bible Stories

I decided that it would be neat to adapt some Bible stories to a Minecraftian context so that they might be easier for a modern audience to relate to, or something like that (please note that this will make no sense if you are not already familiar with Minecraft)...

The Story of the Sinful Griefer


Notch came to a server in Mount of Olives, where the Yogscast took him to a griefer that they had found destroying his neighbor's house. They said unto him, 'Notch, this Minecrafter was caught in the very act of taking apart his neighbor's house.'
But Notch, as if he had not heard them, placed a sign and wrote upon that sign. Then he said unto the gathered peoples, 'Let he who has never taken wood from his neighbor's house cast the first vote to kick.' And then they left him. He then said to the griefer, 'Who are your accusers?' The griefer replied, 'No one.' And thus Notch said, 'Then go forth, but never grief again.'


The Parable of the Sower

Notch said, 'Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, did yield fruit that sprang up and increased.

'I am the sower, and you are the seeds which I sow whenever you download Minecraft. Those who fall by the way side are those who listen to the word of Israphel, and become griefers. Those who fall on the stony ground are those who at first listen and play Minecraft often, but then lose interest when an update takes a while to come out and leave Minecraftia forever. Those that are smothered by thorns are those that try to balance Minecraft and another game, but eventually give up Minecraft for this other game and their accounts wither away. Those that grow on good land find good servers are productive in them, building many things and spreading the Word of Notch.'


Love the Creeper


Notch sssaid to the assembled Yognaughts, 'Love the Creeper, for where it explodes fresh grass may grow.'
But the Yogscast said unto Him, 'Why should we love the Creeper, for the Creeper has destroyed many buildings and is a servant of Israphael.'
Notch then said unto them, 'The Creeper is enslaved by the Evil One, and it is thus your duty to spread the Word of Notch and free the Creepers.'*


*I got the idea to write this from one of Boris Johnson's less successful campaigns, Hug a Creeper.

-PWN-

Starcraft 2 Review

Starcraft II is an RTS by Blizzard, creators of brilliantly amazing games like World of Warcraft and the Diablo series.

Presentation: 4.5

Starcraft is a beautifully presented games, with astonishingly shiny graphics and pretty effects. A particular favourite part of mine is the way in which the title menu of the campaign is presented to look as the inside of a starship. As far as I am concerned, in terms of graphics Starcraft II has the best graphics that it could possibly need. The audio experience for SC2 consists, as would be expected, largely of sounds of dying creatures/humans which on the whole has been handled well, however, one of the things that I dislike about the sound in games like Starcraft is the repetitiveness of audio. And I still feel strongly that while there are a few new sounds I find myself getting bored of the music and the sound effects.

Gameplay: 5.0

There Is a good reason why the Starcraft series has one of the largest e-sport followings in existence, and this is because it's a truly epic game! Blizzard has worked hard to achieve an almost perfect balance between races that is extremely rare to see in gaming, while also making each race feel perfectly unique. Gameplay is fluid and easy enough to learn with the beginner friendly tutorials, and once you get better at the game there is always multiplayer. Starcraft has always really been about playing against other people. Starcraft II has an easy, sensible laddering system, first offering some practise games before diving into the real multiplayer experience. There are several leagues ranging from bronze leagues to the ultimate Grand master league containing only a few hundred players in total. While not the central focus of Starcraft II the campaign is a great experience. It is not entirely linear which is a good thing to see in this sort of game, the player can chose which battles to fight and when. The missions themselves are enthralling and exciting. The storyline was also good but possibly a bit similar to other RTS games. But many are alike anyway.

Overall: 4.5

Overall SC2 is a great game in almost every way, with almost infinite playing time due to its unending multiplayer system. It is undoubtedly one if the best games I have played in the last year, and definitely worth playing.

-JIC-

Halo Reach Review

Another of JLB's reviews of relatively old games with deflated prices and inflated scores...

Presentation, Graphics and Additional Features: 5

Let me start off by saying that Halo Reach is amazing. The game is presented awesomely and gives a truly epic feel to Bungie's last work in the Halo series - you can feel the love poured in by the game designers, composers and all the staff at Bungie studios.

 The graphics are never the strong point of a Halo game and this is no exception - the graphics, although they are better than average, don't live up to the expectations of most people - but, on the other hand, the graphics go very well with the gameplay and while they aren't the most High-Tech, they are supremely executed, adding to the vast quantities of epic to this - well, epic.

 One thing that has been a strong point of the Halo series is the music, and while Reach breaks from the traditional, orchestral style of earlier Halo games, the music is brilliant. You could listen to hours upon hours of this music and still not get bored or tired of it - it's a great campaign companion, evoking emotions parallel to the great storm of musical emotion that was Lost Odyssey, another of my top five games.

Gameplay: 5

The gameplay of Reach is one of the best yet in the Halo series, keeping to the tried, tested and true gameplay of previous games, while adding new elements such as armour abilities etc. The Golden Triangle still applies, with the balance of melee, grenades and weapons checked even better than in Halo 3. Assassinations add a new challenge to the game, with more incentives for stealth and melee, as watching your Spartan or Elite take down the enemy in one of the glorious 3rd person cutscenes is honestly better than economic security and family.

The multiplayer in Reach is endless fun, with very well balanced weapons, incredibly varied and fun game modes and both community and professional made maps available to play on. I find it hard to believe you could get less than 100 hours play and get bored( I'm looking at you, PWN), especially with the rankings and credits system, where you progress through multiple ranks to unlock new sets of armour and armour variants.

The campaign is also great- varied enemies, compelling and emotional story and a great set of characters and objective to go with it, creating an in depth and enjoyable campaign- and with multiple difficulties, achievements and commendations, you will be wanting to play this many time over, often with friends.

Overall

Let these guys take your money. If you don't buy this game you have no soul or taste. Go on. Yes, you, the one in the t-shirt. Go off to best-buy or something and buy this game. Now. Seriously.

-JLB-

Terraria Review

Terraria is often accused of being a 2D clone of Minecraft, but JTB thinks differently...

Presentation: 4.0

Terraria, advertised as a 2D Minecraft, uses a cartoony art style with the same block system as Minecraft. The animations are flawless, and the sprites look good enough for them not to irritate you during gameplay. The lighting system is good, although there is a small animation for the mud falling through the dark sections of your vision, simply for effect, while adding a needed bit of tension, this animation can get annoying after playing for long periods of time. The menu’s are slick, and easy to use, which smoothes the experience. Generally, the visuals are good, but nothing special.

Gameplay: 4.5

Starting off as a less exciting version of Minecraft, I began with a heavy heart, the same series of collecting wood and metal I had done countless times on the opposing game. However, once you reach the mid and end games, the result is vastly different. It becomes more about armour collecting and item finding (there are far, far more items than in Minecraft) and taking down the numerous types of enemies you can find. Exploration is great, but there are, like Minecraft, only a few biomes to explore, but the first time you find each it’s a brilliant experience, especially in co-op as you both nervously edge forward into the dark underground jungles of Terraria.

Lasting Appeal: 3.0

If you’re buying this for the building side of things, to be frank, don’t, buy Minecraft. The 2D aspect, simply does not allow enough room to build interesting structures. It is a long uphill struggle, to the best set of armour, but once achieved, there is really very little to come back for, so enjoy your first playthrough, because it may well be the last.

Overall: 4.0

I would like to specify, before concluding, that this is not Minecraft, and it does not try to be, do not disregard this as a Minecraft clone. Sure, it takes ideas from it, but it is a totally different game, with bosses, dungeons, magical abilities, it plays more like an RPG than a sandbox. The experience is infinitely better if you have a friend to play with, the multiplayer systems are clever, incorporating PVP and parties into the mix. In conclusion, this is a fun game, but unless it seems like the kind of thing you would love, I would think twice. You will have a great time in Terraria, but I wouldn’t say it was worth the price-tag*.

*It is worth noting at this point that Terraria costs £5.99 on Steam.

-JTB-

Interesting Statistics Volume Two - World of Warcraft

WoW turns-over £100 million every month from subscriptions alone.

There are about 10,000 quests in the entire game.

The most popular playable race is human, with about 600,000 human players.

The most popular class is Paladin, followed closely by Hunter and Druid.

The busiest time on WoW is 9:00pm.

The ratio of Alliance to Horde is 11 : 9.

All the subscribers to WoW would fit into 120 Wembley Stadiums.

Estimates suggest that 40% of all WoW players are addicted to the game.

-PWN-

Interesting Statistics Volume One - Minecraft

There are 4658 active users on Minecraft Wiki, but only 1016 articles.

The average amount of money Minecraft has made per day since the release of Classic is £60,000. Today it made £230,000.

If every registered user had purchased Minecraft then it would have earned a total of £200,000.

A copy of Minecraft is sold every three seconds.

More people have heard of Minecraft than Jesus*.

*Okay, I made that one up.

-PWN-

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2 Review

It may be rather old but JLB insisted on reviewing it. He was far too kind. So enjoy (if you must)...

Presentation, Graphics and Additional Features: 4.0

DoW2 has a really nice feel to it, with simple menus and solid design. The gritty graphics tie it together into a nice little package, with the updated weather effects and supremely gleeful gore that is to be found while playing the game. If graphics are a key point in your purchase then this is a good choice, with amazing animation quality and good themed visuals, though if you zoom in to a very high level (to where a normal Space marine covers the screen) then you can see the character texture work is slightly lacklustre. The Army Painter is a good tool as it allows customization of your army, allowing them to look just how you want them to, giving a personal touch to the slaughter you bring. The music fits into the game like a glove, and although it is not too spectacular or original, it provides a nice ambience for your adventures in the Aurelia sector.

Gameplay: 4.5

The gameplay of DoW2 is a well executed gore fest, with a base on a fairly generic cover based strategy game.   This is almost exactly the same as the original DoW, though with the change from large armies from a variety of different buildings to  more of a heavily upgraded squad game, with all units being produced from a central base. The gameplay is fun. The unit and upgrade variety is huge, with each upgrade and unit carrying a whole new strategic challenge. It can be confusing at times to remember each of the squads purposes and abilities (even though each unit/upgrade has a tooltip) especially when in urgent need of countering the enemy- though once you have played the game for a while you can pretty much do it by reflex- you know that the Eldar Avatar has immense health and melee damage, so you can figure out that a hit and run ranged attack could eventually bring it down through the use of practice and the heavenly blessed tooltips of the Emperor (who sits in his broken throne smiling with joy at the great godly work he has wrought). At the higher levels of play it becomes  more of a resource management game- try to make the most out of your units and capture more requisition points - but until you really get into the multiplayer you will be blissfully ignorant of it. Overall the gameplay is fun, bloody and strategic, although lacking in originality and simplicity.

Overall *

 Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2 is a good game overall, BUT IT USES GAMES FOR WINDOWS LIVE AND THEREFORE MUST BE PURGED IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR!

*JLB is insistent that overall scores are the job of the reader to decide. PWN disagrees.

-JLB-

Minecraft 1.8 Review

Minecraft 1.8 has been eagerly anticipated for several weeks by Minecraft fans and now that it has been released, we decided to review it (all scores apart from the total are out of five)...

Presentation: 4.0
This has always been one of Minecraft's (many) strong points, simple presentation with no extra menus to search through. If anything, 1.8 has improved presentation, with a new start menu, new options for gameplay and a server list (something which really should have been in the game from the beginning). However, you still need to be reasonably technically gifted to download any mods, and even texture packs can be a hassle.

Gameplay: 4.5
1.8 has made some changes to gameplay that initially seem radical and inconsistent with Minecraft's policy of simplicity, but they are easy to get used to and make perfect sense within a few minutes of playing 1.8. The inclusion of a hunger bar initially seemed to me to be a ridiculous change, sacrificing playablity for realism, but now I understand it I can see that it is undoubtedly an improvement. However, for players new to the game there is still a distinct lack of any tutorial, and you will definitely find yourself consulting the wiki at http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_Wiki . Endermen are a nice inclusion, but they are not quite scary enough, even on 'Hard' difficulty and their ability to pick up blocks is not fully explored.

Lasting Appeal: 5.0
Some may find this shocking, but I think that  Minecraft 1.8's lasting appeal goes way beyond that of any other game. I mean, I'll use Halo Reach as an example of how. The campaign takes about ten hours to complete. You may want to do the campaign again, making the total about twenty hours. Extras such as firefight and the Forge feature may add another ten hours onto that (more if extremely dedicated), with multiplayer adding between five and twenty more hours. This totals fifty hours, and a  time of about three months at the very most. I've been playing Minecraft for twice as long as that, and I'm not bored yet. And all this at slightly more than ten pounds.

Overall: 5.0
I'd like to point out now that I lost interest in singleplayer at around update 1.5 and have focused entirely on multiplayer for the past few months. Since 1.8 have not logged on to a single multiplayer server, and that is not just because most of them are down while they update. 1.8 has really brought back the true spirit of Minecraft  that was lost in previous, slightly dull updates. Singleplayer building and exploration is rewarding again. So give up your misgivings and press the 'update now' button. I promise you won't regret it*.

*Promise not legally binding.

-PWN-