getting the steam backup to actually work

I've been a big fan of steam for a long time now. I saw potential in it when I first got it with half-life 2 and still see the joys with it when playing my games from different locations. It is so simple to access and easy to buy games (sometimes too easy) That all being said, it is not without it's issues. One of the big ones I came across was the backup/ restore feature.

Since not all of use have 2 Tbs of storage readily accessible on our computers. It is good to backup our games every once in a while. While this does not back up our save files (wish that was an option) but it does keep us from wasting gigs of our download limits from our internet connections. When many of the good games are 10+ gigs, this becomes important.

They try their best. They give you options to back up the files to sizes that will fit a DVD or CD so you can back them up the old fashioned way, so most people do that. I did as well.

Actually what I did was download a game I owned from my parent's place on their crappy computer and back it up so I could restore it on my good computer when I got home. They use maybe 2 gigs a month so I figure taking 20gigs would not be an issue. It wasn't.

10 DVDs later I was on my way home. I got home and stuck in the first DVD. It asked me which games I would like to restore. I selected them all of course. Went through allocating space, then started the restore. It asked for me to "insert  disc 2" which I did, then hit enter... a few seconds later... "insert disc 2" again... hmmm....

I checked the internet, they all said, you are screwed and you should install from steam downloads. I don't like that answer. So I did what I figured would work and it did.

I created a directory in the /steam/backups/ directory and created sub directories "Disk_1", "Disk_2", etc... moved all the DVDs to their respective folders and started again. would not start at all... went to steam, noticed all the games were "download paused" so I cleared them all. clicked on the backup again and this time it worked like a charm. Ran everything to be sure and it all works fine.

For those people who hate to read;
1) create a folder in your /steam/backups/ directory to move your backups to.(eg /backups/gta4)
2) create "Disk_1", ""Disk_2", "Disk_3", etc for all the disks you have in that sub folder and move the files to those folders
3) make sure that you don't have any "download paused" in your steam library. If you do, cancel them or the restore will not work.
4) open the first disk, restore what you want and you are good to go!

Duke Nukem forever stats are sad

Was looking at my long list of Steam games that I have never played but bought on sale. I came across that historic game that people waited literally over a decade for, Duke Nukem Forever. I actually played a bit of it but did not really enjoy it as the gameplay was just flawed beyond frustration. Having guys able to teleport behind you but not have a way to easily spin around... just wrong.

So I looked at the global steam acheivements for this farce of a blockbuster game and saw something kind of sad;

People that beat the first bad guy in the game... 90%
People that beat the game on easy... 28%
People that beat the game on normal... 20% (normal being the way it was intended to be played)
People that beat the game on anything above normal... 3%
People that beat the game DLC on any difficulty... 0%!!!
People who watched all the credits... 13%

That is pretty darn sad if you ask me. I'll let you make your own conclusions from this information.

Yakuza 4 Review

  A long time ago I played the first Yakuza game on my playstation. It was pretty good. The graphics were average for the time and had a lot of things to do. In fact it had too many things to do but that is what appealed to me at the time. I didn't actually get around do DOING most of them but just knowing that they were there made me feel good.

Fast forward to Yakuza 3 which was also a good game but I felt the graphics were very dated. I liked the story, felt it was a bit like "all my children" meet "the departed". Lots of moral speeches with random plot twists. Since I live in North America, I was robbed of the more naughty portions of the game but still thought, hey, this is a good game to beat in a few days.

Real men can kick high

Now we are up to Yakuza 4 with all the naughty bits left in. Only the naughty is somehow not really naughty, it is like what a 10 year old would think of as naughty. Still a tad risque but not exactly keeping the parents from yelling at them if they got "caught". Tons of plot twists to go around and excessive talking but still a fair bit of fun. The graphics are still dated and the girls looks sometimes good, sometimes like zombies. They do know how to move like girls at least. I just wish I could push them over like the guys so I could get that darn PSN trophy faster!

They're zombies I tell you!

Getting down to the nitty gritty; The controls are very decent. The fighting system is very well implemented. The menu system could be improved as it is a minor nuisance at times. The load times are a not too bad. The sub-stories can get a tad confusing especially with the lack of a map target but you can get around that by downloading an app that can help on your iPhone. It would help if you had played at least one of the earlier games but not all that necessary. Overall, a pretty darn good game.

Get 5 massages from her and you get a trophy

I just wish that, in a game where you can see teeth fly when you punch bad guys, you can do a little bit more than see hearts floating around when hanging out with girls. Especially since many of the stories involve hookers, sex slaves, hostess dates, massages with happy endings, and women using boyfriends to make their own crime syndicate. Choose what level you want to be on. I guess it is more normal for Japan (which is what this was created for) as this is the same country that will have adult movies about tentacle rape of schoolgirls but make sure to blur out any naughty bits!

A few more main characters and they can have their own baseball team

In conclusion, this is a good game that can take some time beating and still keeping you wanting more. There are a lot of sub-quests (62 officially) and treasures along the way. I have been told that this is a relatively accurate look into real Japanese sub culture minus the excessive fighting. So you could almost use this game as a travel guide! All in all, if you like fighting and story driven games with a little RPG put in for good measure, this game is a must have for you.