Mar 7 2010

Xbox 360 – Bioshock 2 Tips and Tricks (part 1) – Plasmids Guide

Bioshock 2 Tips and Tricks (part 1) – Plasmid Guide

In Bioshock 2 the system of plasmids has been brought back roughly the same as it was in Bioshock one. However, there are many plasmids to choose from and while they all have their own particular uses, you only have a small amount of adam which to buy the plasmids with. This guide’s intention is to help guide you in your decisions in buying plasmids to avoid wasting adam on unnecessary plasmids.

First off, I strongly recommend doing every little sister collection you can, in order to maximize the amount of adam you collect. Also I suggest rescuing the little sisters, for two reasons, first because the animation for harvesting adam from the sisters is quite disturbing (particularly because the little sisters constantly comment and the game really tries to make you feel guilty for hurting them). Secondly, while you get about a third more adam overall from harvesting, saving the little sisters will get you tonics and other useful items that you couldn’t otherwise get. Some of these are necessary for completing a few of the achievements.

Now, as for choice of plasmids, the key to choosing plasmids is ultimately determined by your game play style. Which, is a wonderful thing about Bioshock 2, the game is designed to easily handle a wide variety of styles. However, there are four key plasmids which, no matter the game play style, will be useful. These plasmids are Electro Bolt, Incinerate, Winter Blast, and Security Command. The first two are plasmids you get throughout the course of the events of the story as well as Security Command. As for the utilization of these plasmids, the general strategy for using the plasmids is to firstly stop enemies and secondly to injure them. To utilize these plasmids properly you need to upgrade Winter Blast and Electro Bolt to the third level as soon as possible. When Winter Blast is at the third level it freezes enemies into a solid block of ice with a tap instead of having to charge, similarly with Electro Bolt the chain lightening function is available at the third level with a tap instead of having to charge the move to achieve the same attack. It is important to upgrade these two plasmids because they prevent enemies from moving which is essential to wining the big battles against the tougher enemies. Next, Security Command is a rather useless plasmid until it is upgraded at least once because the first level it only redirects security bots and cameras to attack a single foe which isn’t necessary as the game gives you plenty of opportunity to hack the security systems which allows them to permanently work for you. At the second level however, the Security Command summons security bots that will fight for you. Lastly, the Incinerate plasmid is going to be your general attack plasmid. It causes continual damage as long as the enemies are on fire. Enemies that are on fire also have the opportunity to set other enemies on fire if they run into them. In addition, Incinerate causes the most damage, so you should upgrade it when you can, but it is not essential as it is already really powerful. The level upgrade of the Incinerate plasmid follow the same path as Winter Blast and Electro Bolt, with the third level being the second level charged attack as a tap and the charge as a continuous stream of the plasmid’s power.

Bioshock 2: Electro Bolt Plasmid:
What it does: Electro Bolt shoots electrical bolts to stun enemies. (it will also electrify water)
At third upgrade level: When Electro Bolt is at its third upgrade level the chain lightening effect (where the bolts jump from one enemy to the next) will occur with a tap of the button rather than having to charge it first.

Bioshock 2: Incinerate Plasmid:
What it does: Incinerate sets your foes ablaze. Enemies that are on fire can set other enemies on fire by running into them.
At third upgrade level: Incinerate increases in damage when it is upgraded.

Bioshock 2: Winter Blast Plasmid:
What it does: Freezes enemies, slowing their movement and attack.
At third upgrade level: When Winter Blast is at the third level it will freeze enemies into a solid block with a tap of the button rather than having to charge it first.

Bioshock 2: Security Command Plasmid:
What it does: Security Command redirect security bots to attack enemies instead of you.
At third upgrade level: Security Command level 3 upgrades the two security bots you can summon from the level two upgrade to their maximum.


Feb 24 2010

Facebook: FarmVille Tips and Tricks (Part 5) : Easy FarmVille XP Tip

FarmVille: Tips and Tricks – Easy FarmVille XP Tip – Level Up FarmVille Faster

If you’ve been playing FarmVille anywhere near as long as I have, odds are you have a surplus of coins. That is, if you have resisted the urge to buy the FarmVille Villa. Also, if you are at all like me, you have been wondering what you could spend all of those FarmVille coins on. Well.. what better to spend them on than XP. Now, I know what you might be thinking, that I’m going to tell you to go out and buy some buildings or decorations. But I’m not. To be honest, that is a horrible idea. If you’re familiar with FarmVille XP tips, then you might be thinking that I’m going to pitch you the FarmVille XP Hay bale trick. Nope. In fact, the FarmVille XP trick I’m going to explain gets you almost twice the FarmVille XP for your coins.

If you are not familiar with the FarmVille XP Hay bale trick, scroll down a bit and look for the section where I explain it.

I look at FarmVille in the same manner as I look at all other facebook games. If you want to get the most out of the game, the most bang for your buck (or coin), you need to do a little math. So, lets examine the FarmVille XP Hay bale trick more closely. Hay bale’s cost 100 coins and earn you 5 XP. Once you buy the hay bale, you can sell it and earn back 5 coins. This adjusts the cost of the hay bales to be 95 coins.

95 / 5 = 19

This means it costs you 19 coins to earn 1 point of FarmVille XP using the FarmVille XP Hay bale trick.

Now, lets look at the next method.

FarmVille XP Plow / Plant / Delete Trick

Do you like the nice long name for this trick? Thank you, I came up with it all by myself. It may be ugly, but it is 100% spot on for what this trick involves. So, here is what you do. First, you plow a plot of land. The cost to do this is 15 coins and it earns you 1 FarmVille XP. Next, you plant the cheapest and highest XP giving seeds = FarmVille Soybeans. They cost 15 coins, and give 2 FarmVille XP. So let’s break it all down.

Plow: 15 coins + 1 XP
Plant Soybeans: 15 coins + 2 XP
Total: 30 coins + 3 XP

30 / 3 = 10

This means that for every 10 coins we spend, we will earn 1 FarmVille XP. This is way better than the 19 : 1 ratio we were getting out of the FarmVille haybales trick.

Now that we have confirmed how much more beneficial the FarmVille XP Plow / Plant / Delete trick is over the FarmVille XP Hay bale trick, I’ll walk you through what you do.

Pick a section of your FarmVille farm. Instead of doing one plot at a time, try doing 9 at a time. Plow each plot of land if they haven’t been already. Now, click on the FarmVille market button and select the Soybeans. Plant the FarmVille Soybeans in each of the 9 plots. Once that is done, you will have spent 270 FarmVille coins and earned 27 FarmVille XP. Now, select the delete tool and delete each of the plots of land. Soybeans are not the best crop to plant, and waiting for them to be ready to harvest would mean that you wont be able to repeat the trick. Once they have all been deleted, re-plow the 9 plots and repeat the process. Each time you do this you will spend the 270 FarmVille coins and earn 27 FarmVille XP. It’s that simple.

For the sake of argument, if you were to spend roughly the same amount of coins on the FarmVille XP hay bales trick, you would end up spending 285 FarmVille coins and have earned on 15 FarmVille XP. It’s a no brainer. The FarmVille XP Plow / Plant / Delete trick is superior.

The FarmVille XP Hay bale Trick Explained

The FarmVille XP Hay bale trick is quite simple. All you do is buy the cheapest haybale (100 coins), and then sell it (if you can) and get 5 coins back. So, it costs you 95 coins to earn 5 FarmVille XP. This is probably the most popular FarmVille XP trick or tip around. That being said, however, it is inferior to the FarmVille Plow / Plant / Delete trick.

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Jan 28 2010

How to: Make Firefox 3.6 open new Tabs to the far right – Firefox Tips and Tricks

How to: Make Firefox open new Tabs to the far right – Firefox Tips and Tricks

If you’re like me, you’re awesome. And, although being awesome is… awesome, it can come with some drawbacks. I’ll outline those now in the form of a pros vs. cons list. If you have reached this page accidentally, and, in fact, are not awesome, scroll to the bottom of this post and read the Short Version.

The Pros and Cons of being Awesome.

Pros Cons
we’re awesome the non-awesome begrudge us our awesomeness
people like us people want to be us
we make our own decisions and think for ourselves we make the decision to stay up all night drinking at a party when we know we have to work a 7am the next day
we use Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox 3.6 changed the new tab creation order

As you may have noticed, that last con I listed is pretty horrible. You may be thinking, “I know, now I have to find another Firefox add-on to fix the new tab creation location.” Well, my awesome friend, think again…

Changing the configuration of Firefox 3.6

So that new tabs open all the way at the end of open tabs instead of immediately to the right of the current tab.

In the release of Firefox 3.6 the default manner in which new tabs are opened in the browser has been changed. New tabs used to be created at the end of the list of other open tabs, on the far right. Now, with Firefox 3.6 default, tabs are created immediately to the right of the tab in which the link was clicked. To change the functionality Firefox 3.6 configuration so that new tabs will once again be opened to the far right, read along or skip to the bottom for the short version.

Listen closely, dear reader. On your computer there is a program (Firefox 3.6). Within this program there are configuration settings (about:config). Locate these configuration settings and you will find that of which you seek… a solution to your problem.

Step 1:

Firstly, we must calculate the average cruising airspeed velocity of an unladen European Swallow. Fortunately there are many Monty Python fans who have performed this step admirably. (http://www.style.org/unladenswallow/)

24 miles an hour = Average cruising airspeed velocity of an unladen European Swallow

Step 2:

Now that we know the average cruising airspeed velocity of an unladen European Swallow, we have one more thing to add to the Pros side of our list. This makes us all just that much more awesome. Move on to step 3.

Step 3:

In your address bar, type about:config.

Type into your Firefox address bar.

Type into your Firefox address bar.

Step 4:

Read the humorous, yet serious, yet strangely laughable warning provided by the good people at Mozilla, and click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.

Step 5:

Type browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent into the filter box.

Type browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent into the filter box.

Type browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent into the filter box.

Step 6:

Double Click the listing so that the Value field changes to false.

Double click the listing so that the value is changed to false.

Double click the listing so that the value is changed to false.

All done – we just fixed your Firefox

Now you can see that new tabs open all the way at the end of open tabs instead of immediately to the right of the current tab. To change Firefox 3.6 so that new tabs open immediately to the right of the current tab, set the value for browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent to true.

Short Version:

In your address bar, type about:config.

Read the warning provided by the good people at Mozilla, and click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.

Type browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent into the filter box.

Double Click the listing so that the Value field changes to false.

Spread the word

Only one thing left to do now that you’ve gotten the answer to your question, tell others. You can digg this post, or click the I like it! button on your Stumble! toolbar. Or, as always, just share a link to this post with your friends.