Gamers World Bangladesh Blog » My-life

Heavy Rain Special Edition Art Inside, European Exclusive Only

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:16:52 +0000

The first artwork of Heavy Rain’s special edition has been revealed. Mind you, this is just an artwork of what the actual product will look like. Unfortunately this special edition is only available in Europe, if you live elsewhere you will have to import it.

The special edition comes in a fancy gatefold cover, treated to make the textured raindrops appear “real”, includes a promo code for the game’s DLC, some cute (and bloody) little origami and a big fold-out covered in notes. [Kotaku]

Unbelievable : An Xbox 360 That Didn’t RROD Even After Being Soaked In Rain Water

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:28:14 +0000

If there is anything certain in life, it’s death, taxes and Red Ring of Deaths (RRODs). The recent rumors of even the Xbox 360 Elite getting the RROD put me at unease. Even my Xbox 360 gave the “early” symptoms of the RROD, including erratic freezing. It’s not like I treat my 360 with special care. It got drenched in water. Yes, it rained so hard that water came pouring down the stairs from the roof and into my home (now that doesn’t happen very often)! And it happened at night, so I didn’t realize it until the next morning. And what a shock I got! My 360 Premium was a goner for sure I thought. It was just soaked! However, a little blowing with a hair dryer fixed everything and the 360 works without a glitch.

I even checked the 360 as baggage in international luggage while traveling to the US. And when I returned home with it, the unit still worked like a charm. I’m also happy to announce that even after 2 years of non-stop gaming, my 360 still hasn’t RROD, considering the torture it went through. This might not be “major” news to you, but it certainly means a lot to me, after all, many 360s are dead on arrival or RROD within the first 6 months or within a year.

Still, I tremble at the thought of seeing the oh-so-familiar three red lights flashing when I turn on the 360. For starters, I had to import this 360 from the US and there’s no Microsoft service center here (although there is a Sony Customer Care Center, sigh). So, to all those who didn’t have the 360 RROD, come over to my house and we’ll play Gears. But, then again, it wouldn’t be much of a party with just the two of you. *

Odd Enough? Vote for it at Digg.

* I mean, seriously, you STILL didn’t have the RROD?

The Best Things In Life Are Free

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:40:59 +0000

I was feeling suicidal. I accidentally deleted 3.49 GB worth of irreplaceable data, hard-earned game saves, priceless pictures and other important files. Considering that I store all my passwords in an Access database file, and since it’s gone AWOL, I was probably locked out from many online accounts for good, including this very blog. I just don’t keep backups – they’re damn useless to me, until this incident happened.

Luckily, Recover Files 2 was out there to save my day. This handy little app retrieved almost all my files virtually intact. And best of all it’s totally free to use! No trials, no limitations and the author doesn’t even ask for a donation. Makes me think why I pay so much for useless softwares that does nothing.

If you just deleted some hard to replace data, Recover Files 2 is your best bet. The interface is clean and easy to use. Plus, it’s one of Computer Shopper’s Top 25 downloads for 2008.

Not only are my passwords database intact, but now I can get back to Crysis without having to play the game all over again. And best of all, I’m back on my blog. Hell yeah.

Is my Xbox 360 near the end of its life?

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:03:23 +0000

I’ve had my Xbox 360 for just over a year but now it’s showing signs of problem. I am lucky that it’s not the dreaded red ring of death. It’s that the console just freezes and requires a restart. This has happened 4-5 times in the last month alone. So, what’s the reason? It could be because the disc I’m playing (PGR4) has gone dirty and has a wee-bit of scratches on the surface. I still haven’t had the problem in single player; only multiplayer ranked matches over Xbox Live has the problem. The screen will freeze permanently while matchmaking me with other players, so, it could be the recent server problems that Microsoft’s facing. Or the lousy internet connection in my home – that’s a possibility.

SINGLEPLAYER TOO

But what worries me is that I’ve faced the same problem (thrice to be exact) with another brand new game – Two Worlds – this time while playing the singleplayer campaign. The disc is squeaky clean, so no, the problem is not due to damaged game discs. Then again, Two Worlds is known to be notoriously buggy. Fortunately, this hasn’t happened with the other games in my library.

TOO MUCH HEAT

So, I did some research online and found that it might be because my console or the power-brick is overheating. Come on, in this cold season? I doubt it. Interestingly, the problem surfaces only when I’m playing the console for a long time.

Whatever the reason might be, I’ll keep you guys updated. And even if my X360 decides to hit the dust, heck, I could just send it to warranty.

HELP FOR YOU

If you are having the same problems, then you could try reading these articles to get you started on your trouble-shooting.

TechBlog: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 ‘freezing problem’
Gamespot Forum

RELATED ARTICLES

Xbox’s Billion Dollar Problem
Xbox 360 can scratch your game disks!
Die hard Oblivion fan – disk error – you’ve just wasted 110 hours!
Intermittent PC Trouble [and how I solved it]

PSSTT…. Liked this article? Then subscribe to the Gamers World Bangladesh Blog Feed/Newsletter to get even more amazing articles delivered straight to you!

Windows Vista Update Annoyances and How to Fix Them

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:02:48 +0000

So, I decided to try Windows Vista when my XP PC crashed. Windows Vista isn’t half bad after you get rid of the annoying UAC prompts. I actually like the simplicity, functions and the cool look of Vista. When I thought I had everything nailed down, I decided to update Vista.

THE ANNOYANCE

It was going great – or so I thought. The progress bar continued but in reality, nothing happened. I wasted like 10 minutes thinking that Vista was updating behind the scenes – when in fact it wasn’t. I rebooted, thinking that it might have hung up, and started the update program again. This time, I was welcomed with an error message, which told me to correct my system time and date. But everything was correct, and I rechecked, but Vista’s Update program still showed the error.

THE FIX

It seems that Windows Sidebar Widget and the system conflicts with the update program. You can get Windows Vista to update if you close the Sidebar Widget and hide the system clock. If that doesn’t work, select the option to disable the Sidebar Widget to launch on startup, and reboot. Run the update program once again and Windows Vista will update itself.

EXTREME ANNOYANCE

Even if that doesn’t work, you could search the Internet for a specific cause (usually with the error code) or you could get the updates manually from www.softwarepatch.com.

IT’S NOT THAT BAD

Apart from this annoyance, I have faced no other trouble while updating Vista. I actually like Vista’s update center far better than XP’s as it gives more information and allows manufacturers to release updates and drivers. Very useful indeed than having to download and install drivers separately.

Give more juice to your PC and get better performance

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:52:21 +0000

One of the most important (and often overlooked) component in a gaming rig is it’s power supply unit (PSU). If you have dual graphics cards set up in SLI or Crossfire or a high-end processor, then a good PSU is a must.

IF YOUR PC IS BEHAVING STRANGE

Often, a slow and unresponsive PC is the sign of a failing power supply. If your PC is sluggish or locks up for no reason, and you’ve done all the virus and diagnostic checks, then a faulty power supply is the most likely cause. Swapping out the old one for a new will resolve the problem and you’ll also notice a boost in your performance.

DASTARDLY PC

One weird problem that I’ve been facing with my PC is that it’s performance dropped dramatically for no good reason. It would lock up often and take a long time to resume what it was doing. And the load on the processor would suddenly jump to 80 or 90 per cent! This is usually the work of a virus, so I ran all sorts of scans but my PC came out clean. I use an up-to-date firewall and antivirus program so an infection was unlikely. I ran memory and hard-disk diagnostics but no errors were found. The culprit? My aging 400 Watt power supply. I quickly switched it for a new Thermaltake 420W and everything returned to normal.

OTHER SYMPTOMS

Tracking down a problem to a power supply can be tricky. So, here are the most likely symptoms:

Any power-on or system startup failures or lockups
Spontaneous rebooting or intermittent lockups during normal operation
Intermittent parity check or other memory-type errors
HDD and fan simultaneously failing to spin (no +12V)
Overheating due to fan failure
Small brownouts that cause the system to restart
Electric shocks that are felt when the case is touched

There are also some obvious clues that should lead you to suspect a faulty power supply. These include:

A system that is completely dead (nothing happens when the system is turned on)
Smoke
Circuit breakers popping when the PC is turned on

Source: Techrepublic

GET THE RIGHT WATTAGE

Often, the main problem is that you’ve exceeded the load of your existing power supply when you added something new. So, check the wattage of your PSU and make sure you don’t exceed it!

BUYING A NEW PSU

If you’re shopping for power supply units, then one place I’d recommend is Newegg.com – it has a wide range of brands and the customer service it unbeatable. I’ve bought mine from there.

RELATED ARTICLES:

How To Get a Faster PC For Free and Do More in Less Time
Get rid of Adwares, Spywares and Viruses Once and For All
How to play online games with a slow internet speed

PSSTT…. Liked this article? Then subscribe to the Gamers World Bangladesh Blog Feed/Newsletter to get even more amazing tech articles delivered straight to you!

Just Signed Up For Payperpost

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:19:00 +0000

Just wanted to let you know that Gamers World Bangladesh Blog finally jumped into the PayPerPost bandwagon. For those of you who do not know what it is (I doubt it) PayPerPost allows you to make a buck while writing about the things you love.

Well, if you own a blog then you can sign up. After you have been approved, you will be able to browse “Opportunities” and take up on offers that you like and is relevant to your blog. After you finished your entry, just send them the link and if they like it, you get paid! As simple as that.

Actually, I was a bit skeptical at first. Since this blog deals with video games and such, I hardly believed that I could get good and worthwhile “opportunities”. I mean I tried other similar sites (Reviewme) and I couldn’t find enough opportunities. Needless to say, it was difficult to make a buck. But then I read in a mag about payperpost. Being what I am, I instantly signed up in their site.

After a simple and quick registration, I was able to take up on offers that were relevant to my site and what I believed, would interest my readers. To put it in short, there are lots of opportunities, whether you blog about games, your life or what not. And hey, who doesn’t love to get paid to blog? I sure do.

I think you will be seeing a couple of sponsored reviews in the future. But don’t worry, they won’t be something as irrelevant as what I had for lunch.

Heck, if you own a blog then just head to payperpsot and sign up. I’m sure you won’t regret it. And while you are at it, take the time to look up the payperpost blog. It’s a great place to get started.

Less Blogging, More Gaming – A Serious Addiction

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:40:00 +0000

I think I have become very much addicted to blogging. I always think about blogs, what I can write for my blog, how to generate more traffic, tweak the template so that it’s more appealing to visitors and so on and so forth. In fact, I dare say that I have become obsessed with blogging, as a test I took proves so ( you can try it too). The test shows that I am 80% addicted to blogging! Now that’s a scary number indeed.

80%

I am so much obsessed with blogs that I cannot remember the last time I’ve played video games. My Xbox 360 lies unwanted, unloved and gathering dust (with a shiny new copy of Gears of War that I am still about to complete). Long time fans of this blog will notice that the gamerscore on my Xbox 360 gamercard has remained the same over a long time. I plan to change that.

This might come as a surprise to many of you because this blog deals with video games in the first place. So how can I write about something that I’ve not been playing for a long time? You see, there is so much going on in the gaming industry, so much news, and so much to write about. And there is only 24 hours in a day. Sigh. And I am still in the middle of my education course.

Just for tomorrow, I think that I will turn to some good old fashioned video gaming goodness – and hopefully not write about it. Let’s just hope that I can refrain from this serious addiction which has taken a dominant part of my life.

My PC Is Giving Me A Headache!

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:17:00 +0000

In my last post Intermittent PC Trouble [and how I solved it] I wrote that my computer would randomly restart. I thought that I had the problem figured out (it was due to my PC overheating). Although that did help to some extent but it seems that now I am facing even more weird problems!

It all started last night while I was doing some research for my blog. And right in the middle of an important article (sigh) the computer restarted again. This time I didn’t bother to reboot into Windows – I was so fed up that I decided to call it a night and went to bed. But today when I turned it back on, I received a message saying, “Some of your system files have been corrupted. Please repair these corrupted files”. Great! Just what I needed! All of my important documents were lost.

As I put in my Windows XP CD to re-install my operating system, I was completely surprised that my computer booted into Windows without a glitch and everything seemed to work fine once again. Luck or no luck, the first thing I did was to backup all my documents, important files, etc. I restarted my computer to make sure that everything was okay (just in case I needed to re-install Windows) and thankfully, everything was.

But when I turned on my PC this afternoon, I seemed to have yet another strange problem. For a start, my computer just refused to boot! Right to the point it gets to displaying Windows logo it just restarts! I’ve tried everything – safemode, last known good configuration – but nothing worked; it would just restart and occasionally display a blue screen of death (and that would only be visible for about a second followed by another restart). After I gave up hope and put in my XP installation CD, my computer, once again, booted without a glitch! How strange and annoying is that?

Still my computer will often restart at random (and this has gotten more frequent) and I will get the infamous blue screen of death. And now it is doing a sort of pretend-to-be-old act, often it will get so slow that the mouse cursor takes ages to move! And at other times it works just fine (like the time I wrote this post). Overheating problems? Nope. Viruses? nope – checked that too. It seems that my computer has taken to a mind of its own and I am really getting a serious headache for it!

[UPDATE]

I don’t know why, but right after I disabled Active desktop (which I used to display my Xbox 360 gamer card on my desktop) the problem has gotten less and now it doesn’t occur at all! But I have been using Active desktop for about two months and it didn’t give me troubles then. Strange isn’t it?

RELATED ARTICLES:

Intermittent PC Trouble [and how I solved it]
My Xbox 360 just took a bath!

Intermittent PC Trouble [And How I Solved It]

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:08:00 +0000

Okay this is driving me crazy! The problem is that my PC hangs up (with an annoying noise from the speakers) and restarts for no good reason! This is not something new – it has been bothering me since the day I bought my new PC back in November 2005. I have learned to live with it but now it is getting more and more frequent and downright annoying.

This happens completely at random so it translates to countless lost documents and having to occasionally tear my hair out after defeating a difficult boss in a videogame. And the strange part is that this problem occurs when I do some CPU intensive (and important) tasks such as playing video games, photo editing, etc. Not while doing light (and unimportant) tasks such as browsing the internet, writing this rant post, etc. The last time that it crashed, I decided that enough was enough. Something had to be done, so the first thing I did was pester the technical support of my retailer.

But it seemed that even they had no idea as to what was going on. They told me to send the PC back to their shop. So I did. At first they determined that something was wrong with the processor. So they changed it. But that didn’t help. Later they thought that the motherboard was damaged and they took that out and changed it too! After two days of wasting my time I finally got a phone call saying that they could not solve the problem! Since my warranty period had expired (maybe I should have dealt with it the first time it occurred instead of trying to live with it instead), so a refund was out of the question. It seems I am stuck with this PC (except with a brand new processor and motherboard).

Frustration led me to search the net. I ran into a couple of topics dealing with overheating issues and the symptom seemed strangely similar to mine. Now, it never occurred to me that any one of my 3.2GHz P4 processor, 120 GB HDD, 1 GB of RAM or the Radeon 256 MB video card could be overheating. I quickly downloaded SpeedFan and checked my motherboard temperatures. And boy was I shocked! My processor often ran past 65 C (hey I think my processor’s hot!) and motherboard temp would spike past 50 C (and then restart) – hmmm so the restarts weren’t completely random after all.

The cause? It seemed that my measly old single cooling fan and cramped case wasn’t enough to save my computer from meltdown. Now that I discovered the root of the problem it was time to remedy it (with no thanks to tech support). A bigger case with at least three 120mm cooling fans (the really big ones) and a side vent was a must. To prevent the CPU from overheating, I replaced the stock cooler with Thermaltake’s Big Typhoon Cooler (it’s whisper-silent and works like a charm).

Settling on which case to buy was a tough decision. As my inner gaming geek told me, the case had to be big for proper air flow as well as showy. I liked Thermaltake’s Tsunami but it lacked support for three cooling fans. The same could be said for Aspire X-Cruiser. There was this absurd looking black case with 5 cooling fans from Antec, the P180, but I passed.

In my hunt I came across Gigabyte’s 3D Aurora 570 case. Now Gigabyte is not know for making cases. But this beauty caught my eye with it’s simple yet elegant design (and, of course, it’s cooling capabilities). It also came with a changeable side-vent and transparent windows to show of those heat-spewing parts of mine. Match that with Gigabyte’s patent pending [Light projector] (which can project any word that you can come up with) and a cool looking brushed matte black paint job, and I knew that this baby was for me. To cut a long story short, I didn’t find any retailers in Bangladesh that had this case so I had to import it from abroad paying double than the normal price (because of tariffs and transport expenses) which would have bought me a top-of-the-line graphics card. But it’s the price I am willing to pay to get rid of those irritating restarts (oh the horror!).

If you guys are facing the same problem, then stay tuned for my upcoming article “HOW TO GET RID OF OVERHEATING PC PROBLEMS”.

RELATED ARTICLES:

My Xbox 360 Just took a Bath!
Die hard Oblivion fan – disk error – you’ve just wasted 110 hours!
CD Compatibility Woes

My Xbox 360 Just Took A Bath!

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 09:41:00 +0000

As hard as it might be to believe, my Xbox 360 really did take a bath, although I was not responsible for it. You see, last Friday there was torrential rain in Dhaka city and all roads and drainage system got waterlogged (don’t ask, it happens every time it rains). This time it rained so hard that water came pouring down the stairs from the roof and into our house (now that doesn’t happen very often)! And it happened at night, so I didn’t realize it until the next morning. And what a shock I got! My imported premium 360 was a goner for sure I thought. It was just soaked! Now how did it happen? Well, you see, my precious 360 lies on the ground in a dusty corner of my room. But luckily, I was able to recover it from it’s bath.

First I unplugged all the power cords and left it to dry for an hour or two. Next I got out a hairdryer and blasted every vent holes with hot air. I would have taken the console apart and dried each part individually, but, I wanted to keep the warranty sticker intact. Luckily for me, I happened to put some old newspapers under the 360 which soaked up most of the water before it could really do much harm to my console.

The next time I turned on the power, I was happily playing Project Gotham Racing 3 on my squeaky-clean X360 without a glitch. Guess it needed the bath, right? And in case if you are wondering, yes, my X360 still lies on the ground in the same exact spot. I think that I still haven’t learned from my experience, that is, until the next flood comes. That’s how careless I am.

Die Hard Oblivion Fan Get Disk error – I’ve Just Wasted 110 Hours!

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:31:00 +0000

Ugh! That’s why I hate consoles – because of their over reliance on the DVD drive and the DVDs itself. If anything goes kaput, then it’s game over. Worse still is the fact that a malfunctioning DVD drive in next-gen consoles is next to impossible to replace by yourself.

Take my point for example. I’m an avid fan of the Elder Scrolls IV : oblivion. I’ve completed every single quest in Oblivion. But my love for Oblivion didn’t stop there. I’ve taken great pains to set up a home network to share my internet connection, so that I could download the near 1 GB expansion pack, Shivering Isles, over my lousy 128 kbps connection (it’s the fastest in Bangladesh). Trust me it wasn’t a happy moment. Not only that, but I’ve had trouble paying for Shivering Isles because I live in Bangladesh ( and goddamned Microsoft won’t accept an international Visa credit card!!). Nasty details aside, and fast forward a couple of days, I was happily exploring the wonderful realm of Sheogorath in Shivering Isles. I’ve spent over 110 hours in total playing Oblivion, I just can’t put it down.

But it seems that I am cursed, because my woes with Oblivion didn’t end there.Recently, I’m getting an unreadavle disk error while playing Shivering Isles. It’s gotten so frequent that I can’t even load the goddamned game. The cause? If you play long enough on the 360, your game disk could get scratched. My warranty period has expired so there’s no option for replacing the disk. I could just buy a new one – yep, that seems the best option. But ther’s just a teeny-weeny problem. I’ve imported my Xbox 360 and all its game from the US. So none of the pirated games available here in the whole of Bangladesh is going to work on my unmodded X360.

Looks like I will just have to travel thousands of miles to the nearest Gamestop retail outlet in the US to grab a new copy of the game. Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll even go to the ends of the earth just to be able to play Oblivion again – heck, it’s the only reason I bought an Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 Can Scratch Your Game Disks!

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:18:00 +0000

I’ve read about this issue a couple of times online, but I didn’t find enough evidence to backup this claim. So, I dismissed it. But it seems that the Xbox 360 CAN scratch your game disks! Yep, its true. As far as you would like to avoid this unpleasant fact, the truth is that if you play your games long enough on an Xbox 360, it might end up getting scratched.

Now here’s the fact. I’m a big fan of Oblivion, with playtime well over 110 hours. Recently the game just freezes up for no good reason and I receive an error message saying that the disk is unreadable. I pop out the disk and upon further inspection, find a couple of scratches on the game disk. Now, I don’t know how it occured. I’ve always stored the game disk back into its protective case and always handled the game carefully. I never lent the game disk to any of my friends. So the most obvious culprit is my 360 and the long hours I’ve spent with it in Oblivion.

It seems that I’m not the only one suffering the same problem. Head online and you are bound to come across some stories similar to mine. Infact, in a recent press release, Microsoft DID say that the Xbox 360 MIGHT scratch your game disks. Not only that, but Microsoft has an offer in their support section to replace scratched Xbox 360 game disks that are published by Microsoft.

So, in the end, remember that prolonged use of a game disk in an Xbox 360 might end up getting scratched. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Too Many Games, Too Little Time

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:22:00 +0000

I’m on a gaming overload. Can’t just find enough time to play all these games due to my exams starting (again).

They never seem to end, do they? I mean about exams. Its just so boring. I have to study and miss out playing all these great games that I recently bought. Some were also lying around for sometime. Hopefully I will get time to pick up and play them all.

1. Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (X360)
2. Project Gotham Racing 3 (X360)
3. Kameo : Elements Of Power (X360)
4. Tomb Raider : Legends (X360)
5. Blazing Angels : Squadron of World War II (X360)
6. Gears of War (X360)
7. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (PC)
8. Fear : Extraction Point (PC)
9. Prince of Persia : The Two Thrones (PC)
10. Age of Empires III: The War Chiefs (PC)
11. Titan Quest : Immortal Throne (PC)
12. Command & Conquer 3 (PC)
13. Titan Quest (PC)
14. Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC)
15. GTA: San Andreas (PC)

15 Games in total!

Well maybe I’ll get time in the coming summer vacation. Yeah baby! Here I come.

CD Comapatibility Woes : Are All CDs In Bangladesh The Same?

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 07:38:00 +0000

This is completely nuts! None of the CDs that I buy can install without a glitch!

Well, I am writing this after the 10th time I wanted to install Fifa 2007. At the end of the installation process, I always get an error saying that CRC checking failed. For the last time, I changed the CD and tried it ONE MORE TIME.
97% complete … 98% complete ……… 99% complete …….. ERROR MESSAGE AGAIN!

I am totally upset. Most of the CDs that I purchase will have some sort of problem, whether be it installation errors, file transfer errors or just plain scratches! Ugh! And the shopkeeper doesn’t want to change the faulty discs! One time he is very friendly and the next time he won’t even recognize you!

This is totally absurd. All the discs that are locally burnt in our country (NPP, AZE, etc,) are downright unprofessional – they just care about making money, not the fact that you could even install the game in the first place! The soluion to this problem? Get Malaysian CDs/DVDs. They might not be original ones or cost as much, but they are the next best thing.

They cost around 250 taka for a single DVD (the local ones cost 100-150 taka), and in my opinion, they are worth the money. All the DVDs are golden discs and I have never encountered an error with them. They also have long shelf life.

So I guess that I am going to buy Malaysian DVDs/CDs afterall. I am just upset with our local ones!

What experience did you have? Share it with our readers by leaving a comment.

My Top 10 Favourite Games of 2006

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 11:37:00 +0000

Note that this list was written a long time ago.

I’ve played a lot of games (trust me, a-l-o-t!). So to compile them into a list of the Top 10 was a hard decision! So after a lot of thinking and tinkering, here it is!

1. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II
2. Warcraft III
3. Half Life 2
4. NFS
5. Dog’s Life (PS2)
6. Jak III (PS2)
7. The Settlers V – Heritage of Kings
8. Star Wars Jedi Knight – Jedi Academy
9. Battlefield 1942
10. Sims

Make sure you leave your Top 10 favourite games list in the comment box!

The Worst Copyright Infringement Ever

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 11:15:00 +0000

Ever since Gamers World Bangladesh started (first as a magazine and then this website) we have a few copycats on our tails. But by far, this is the worst attempt to copy our website ever!

With fame comes headaches. Recently, Gamers World Bangladesh has been a popular target for copycats. A few sites like us have sprung up (even they publish their non-professional magazine) but a recent search at Yahoo groups revealed the worst attempt, ever.

A certain Yahoo group (I am not mentioning their name), has been claiming that they have published the first ever Online Bangladeshi Games Magazine. Okay, like whatever. We all know who was the first one, right? Anyway, they were so amazed with our articles that they are collecting it and putting it up as a magazine at their forum, claiming that we(!) stole it from them! They are also blaming us about a lot of things that even I cannot relate.

Next month they are going to publish a collection of our articles saying that it was stolen from them. Way to go LOSERS!

And so pathetic they are that the whole group is devoid of real members. The owner has made a couple of Yahoo IDs and have added them to his group to boost his groups membership numbers. Even if you post a message, no real reply will come. Only the owner trying to act like a different person – and the similarities are always obvious.

Recently, he has taken matters to the extreme. Now he has turned to hacking other Yahoo accounts in order to add them to his group. He even hacked mine, once or twice. No matter how much they try, good always wins over evil.

So readers, remember. Gamers World Bangladesh is the first ever magazine (online or off) and now we are the first website in Bangladesh dedicated to games only (see Prothom-Alo). That’s a lot of firsts, right?

And we have only one forum at http://forum.gamersworldbd.com/ which redirects you to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gamers-world_bd/ If you see any work(s) and/or article(s) that you think that might have been taken from Gamers World Bangladesh, then please report it immediately. We need the help of the public to battle this ongoing war against copyright infringement.

The Search For A Good ISP

The Gaming Wiz/Mushfiqur Rahman — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 05:35:00 +0000

Fed up with the worst service that I came across, I decided to switch my ISP. When all hope was lost, an unbelievable offer came up – which I couldn’t resist.

Yesterday, I just reached the end of my patience with my current ISP, Dtech Ltd. from whom I took a broadband connection. The speed was unbearably slow. Everything seemed to take ages to load. Trust me, it took forever. Worse still the connection would drop suddenly and I would not be able to go online for days.

After not receiving the connection for three consecutive days, I got fed up. I decided to call in tech support. There didn’t seem to be any good reason for the connection to keep dropping continually. The tech support wasn’t of great help either.

“We’re doing the very best we can, Mr. Rahman. I will at once increase the bandwidth of your connection.”

After receiving a temporary boost of about two hours or so, my connection resumed its previous state. Again. Agh. That was the last straw, I thought. I need to switch my ISP.

A search on Goolge revealed several ISPs near my home. Most of them offered more or less the same packages to home users. a 28.8 kbps shared bandwidth at 1,500 taka (the same service as I had from Dtech Ltd.). Once or twice, I even considered getting a corporate package in my home!

I feared that the end was nigh. There didn’t seem to be any good ISP available in all of Dhaka city. So it was a chance of luck that I landed on www.zipbd.com Now, what they were offering to home users was unbelievable. A 128 kbps (average) shared fibre optic connection at 1,500 taka per month! Moreover, they offered other ancillary services, such as Video over IP, a gaming server (yummy) and 30 or so free videos on demand. It seemed too good to be true. I even contacted customer support to make sure that all the details were accurate!

So fast forward to today, and I have a delicious fibre optic connection pumping at more than 128 kbps. Now everything loads faster and downloads don’t take forever. I do not have to wait overnight for a 1GB game demo to near completion and suffer from little or no lag while I play Battlefield 2 online. Well see you slow-pokes later, I’ve got a date with my Battlefield 2 clan, online.