It was inevitable that this post would come. The most popular MMORPG in the world, home to over 11 million subscribers and an estimated 62% of the subscription based MMORPG market. Known for its addictive nature that keeps geeks glued to their computer screens for days on end, this game is both extremely fun and painfully boring at the same time. You start out at level 1 just like everyother MMORPG out there, and you make your way to the ever increasing level cap which at the time or writing is 80. You are the hero of Azeroth, a fictional world with many, many problems, you can quest, visit “dungeons” with friends or just stand around and chat. When you create your character you have a choice between two factions, th Allience or the Horde. Within these factions are races, in the Allience you have Humans, Night Elfs, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Draenei and the up and coming Worgen. In the Horde you have Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Undead , Blood Elves, and the coming Goblins. As your character develops you gain access to more skills and abilities to make you more powerful in combat or when fighting your enemy faction.

Review:

9/10 Stars

What did you expect? It’s the biggest MMORPG in the world. While quests maybe get boring from time-to-time, and you might be stuck with nothing to do everyonce in a while you can always come back to the game  expecting to have fun. The one problem I have to point out is that the whole game is basically just killing things, or finding things. Each class has something unique about it so you will never get bored. And with constant updates with new things, the game always has something new to offer.

-Riley M

Club Penguin is a casual MMO about penguin life. You get to have your own igloo, fish, play checkers, sled race, and become a secret agent. You get the option to have a free acvount or a member account. Memberships are relatively cheap, and can get you a lot more money. The only stat in the game is money, so “leveling” isn’t an option. The age group for most players range from 6-12 years, and is commonly used as a “facebook” for younger children. The game was first published on Miniclip.com in about 2005, and since flourished. Disney bought it in 2007 and made it their first paid 2D casual MMO. Thousands of players log in each day, but the numbers are trending lower.

Review:

3/10 Stars

Club Penguin, although cute, isn’t very engaging. Just like Harvest Moon, there is very little point to playing besides being with a friend. There aren’t many things which can be bought for your igloo, which can make earning money pointless. Puffles, the pets, are cheap to get and require annoying care. Tons of bugs exist in the MMO such as the “snowball throwing bug”, “the robot glitch”, and the “hack into the secret agent office glitch”. Secret agents are the player moderators of Club Penguin who are tricked into thinking that by them being “sneaky” that it is “good” for them, when infact they are saving Disney a few bucks by monitering the game for them. I hate when games manipulate players because it ruins the fun. Overall, I expected more.

-Brady W

There are few 3D MMOs which are actually good that earn the title of being completely, or extremely close to, free. In Regnum, you pick your nation, species, and appearance. There are currently 3 nations, one which is snow, one which is sand, and one which is grass. Each nation has their own animals and monsters. Archers get to practice long range, dwarves short range, and the magical race get magic. The game is PvC until you reach level 25, where you are encouraged to venture to the battlegrounds. The battlegrounds are mainly TvT (team vs team), but has some animals. Forts, castles, and towns are inside the battlegrounds for each team to capture. The sand nation usually beats the others, resulting in the area being owned by sand people. Sand people are the “dark ones”, while the snow and grass teams usually team up to try to stop the sands. Regnum is like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars combined. The Regnum developers make money by selling horses ingame.

Review:

7/10 Stars

Regnum takes forever to download, but is mostly worth it. It takes about 4-5 hours to download, and 2 hours to actually start playing. It lags because it has really good graphics, music, and sound effects. Consitering that it’s free, it is incredible. There have been a few glitches, one distinct one has annoyed me to no end. The bug was that when you entered the Snow Castle, you instantly died, and gave the snow people an unfair advantage. If you aren’t level 25, you can’t really play the game, which is another bad factor for me. If Regnum wants to do good, I suggest they try to even out the teams, and that they make it better for the newbs.

-Brady W

Harvest Moon is a farming RPG native to Nintendo’s gaming systems. In the game, you take on the role of a farmer. You can buy cattle, crops, flowers, and toys for your son. Also, you can get married, have children, investigate the locals, and follow a rich storyline. The game is focused on freedom, giving you the choice to pick your own destiny. The freedom can be expanded on by buying other games which you can link to the previous ones, giving you never ending land.

Review

8/10 Stars

Harvest Moon is simple, almost to a fault. After a while, I felt like the game was never ending, and as a result, quite pointless. A game needs a goal, and Harvest Moon doesn’t have one. This is a fault many RPGs have run into. Harvest Moon has a lot of features though, and many which have never been used before (such as keeping your animals “happy”). The storyline is great,  but doesn’t keep you very engaged.

Netbooks are the new laptops. They are smaller, more compact, and connect to wireless internet (WiFi) with ease. Windows and Mac have engaged in the Netbook battle. Most netbooks feature built in webcams, audio recorders, and a unique mousepad. The mousepad has right and left buttons, not on the bottom, but on the sides (to see a pic of this, scroll down). Netbooks are best for business and social networkers (Facebook addicts, bloggers, etc). Skype, OOVOO, AIM, and MSN Messenger all work great on the device.

Review:

8/10 Stars

The Netbook is better than a laptop, but more unstable. If you frequently have a ton of windows open at once, your experience with a Netbook will be hell. Other than that, and the confusing hand positions, they are awesome. Internet is easy to connect to, and you can blog on the go. They prove easier to use than Blackberry’s and are more accessable than laptops. The webcams are a great deal, since the quality is great. Netbooks go for around $200, making then insanely cheap (for a computer). The webcam probably would cost you more than the computer if it wasn’t built in. Audio recording is a bit odd, but it’s a wonder that it could even fit in the computer.

The WordPress App is the new way to start blogging everywhere. You can blog in Iceland, Texas, and mabye Antartica… Anyways many people agree that WordPress is the best blog hosting site out there. They allow complex stats and easy ways to post new articles. They have even beat Google in the blog industry. Well, the iPhone app has many of the features that the site has. You can post new articles, see comments, and look at your blogs. There aren’t many features besides that, but simplicity is key in the mobile app market. One thing I personally don’t understand is why WordPress itself can’t have a mobile site, but thats another review.

Review:

6/10 Stars

The app does allow for easy posting, but it misses key features. You cannot look at your stats, make subscriptions, review tags, comment, review comments, or even change around your settings. I admit that I didn’t exactly like the app, but it just makes the cut for being “good”. I do like how you can post your articles, create tags for your article, select catagories, and look at comments. If you really want to do anything else on the app, you can either visit wordpress.com on Safari (see the Safari review) or use your computer.

Blackra1n, a software used to jailbreak your iphone, is the quickest way to jailbreak your iPhone. Since it’s so simple, I’ll let Wikipedia explain:

“blackra1n is a utility that jailbreaks version 3.1.2 of the iPhone OS. It achieves this by patching the firmware of the device “on the fly” – meaning it edits the firmware located on the device whilst in DFU (recovery) mode. It allows users to install either Cydia, Icy (Cancelled in RC3), Rock, or all three. This allows the user access to tweaks, homebrew applications, and the root directory and file system. Blackra1n can also tether jailbreak the iPod Touch 3G and the iPhone 3GS with the updated bootrom.”

Review:

9/10

Nothing is better than blackra1n. It is fast, easy to use, and effective. You simply follow these directions:

1) Go to www.blackra1n.com
2) Click your OS
3) Install
4) Hook up your iphone to your computer and open iTunes
5) Run Blackra1n and follow the directions!

Because of it’s high preformance, we give it 9 stars. 1 was taken away because once you install it, you can only download Rock and Cydia. Other stores cannot be accessed via blackra1n.

iTunes, which can be accessed on Windows, Mac, iPhone OS… Basically anything, is the most popular music download program. You can buy music, music videos, movies, podcasts, apps, games, and radio stations. You can also import your previous songs, which you have on your computer, to playlists. Right now, mp3s are the only music files accepted. Radio stations can be listened to by clicking on them (and all of them are free). The App Store (iPhone) is located inside iTunes, along with iPod games, such as DJ Sims, Tetris, and a couple more. If you want to upload your songs, apps, videos, or podcasts to iTunes, you can via Apple’s website. Limewire, iTune’s ‘destroyer’, has been causing Apple and music companies millions of dollars. Nothing can be done to stop the illegal downloading, but Apple has taken legal action by requesting the stop of all music imports in the iTunes Terms of Service. More info about Apple can be found here: http://apple.com

Review:

10/10

Nothing is better than iTunes. I have tried various alternatives, but much to my dismay. iTune’s navagation is easily the best, since you only have to click the song you want. Since so many various types of media can be purchased, I was extremely impressed. Instead of focusing more on money, Apple (for once) created a store for the user’s pleasure. Help is very easy to get, even though you hardly ever need it. I don’t see myself giving out many more 10 star reviews, but congrats to Apple for finally making something worth my time. The App Store, however, is a completely different story.

Disney (owned by ABC) is easily the most known entertainment brand. Since computer games became popular, Disney was fast to move in on the kill. They first produced games which were made for shows. The games had simple objectives, as most games had back then, and little reward. Most players at that point (about 2000) were around 8. Soon, Disney made an infornmative browser game, which informed players on the dangers of the internet. Since that game, Disney flourished. They released their first casual MMO in 2004, named VMK (Virtual Magic Kingdom), and made real life shops in Disney World which sold ingame supplies. Soon after, they released Toontown, which is still popukar today. Toontown is a casual MMO where you walk around as a ‘toon’. You get your own house, battle cogs (the monsters), and manage your pets. Toontown was all that, except for one price flaw. It cost over $120 a year on the CHEAPEST plan! Apparently, that didn’t stop it’s enormous popularity. Pirates Online came out and was a hit. Slighly less casual than the pervious games, it features sword fights and sea battles. While all those games were booming, Disney bought another casual MMO, named Club Penguin. In CP, you take the life of a penguin in a town. You can be a secret agent, sled rider, or whatever you want. Club Penguin was extremely cheap compared to Disney’s other games. Sadly, VMK, the only free MMO Disney owned, was taken down in 2007.

Review:

3/10 Stars

This may be an outrage for most of you loyal Disney fans, but it’s true. The prices are rediculous, the support annoying, and the games limited. The only good game Disney ever owned was VMK, and since they took it down, I dispise them. Who wants to play an overly priced, stripped down, computer game? Apparently 10 year olds. Another annoying fact was that they don’t separate older people (13+) from little children (around 8). I got banned from Toontown because I told somebody to grow up. Disney, being pathetically ‘loving’ to customers, bans me for being involved in a ‘verbal dispute’. The only game which seperates the age groups is Club Penguin. The only good feature I can think of is Disney’s system. The system allows you to sign up on Club Penguin, and also sign up on Pirates at the same time. Otherwise, don’t bother with Disney unless a) you are younger than 12 and b) have a ton of money.

Jagex has owns the title of owning the most popular free MMORPG ever. Runescape isn’t popular because of computer ‘geeks’ who sit on their computer all day doing nothing. It is simply popular because people who play it aren’t ‘geeks’. Most people who play it are usually younger children (around 8-12) who have nothing else to do. That hasn’t stopped adults from playing either. Runescape, a fantasy MMORPG, is unique from other games in the same catagory. It has 3D graphics, a player economy, membership program, and great players. The point of the game is to build your stats (in various subjects, from defense to wood cutting) by fighting enemies, chopping trees, stealing, using magic, interacting with other players, and planting (just to name a few). Runescape is mainly PvNPC, but has a remote area, called the Wilderness, which is designed mainly for exploration and PvP combat.

Review:

7/10

Runescape one of the best free MMOs out there, easily. It has a few flaws, but Jagex is busily working on them. Bots continue to reak havok on the community (bots are automated players who walk around and gain points automatically), but players readily report them (-1). Also, Runescape has no storyline! It could easily have a great one, but they haven’t made one, for reasons unknown (-2). Other than those 2 flaws, Runscape is player friendly, with many other player to run around, fight, or interact with. The graphics are being improved (only 3 years ago they were horrific), but are still low quality (although I admit, they are pretty good for a web game). Runescape will probably continue to grow until it meets competition, but right now, they have, basically, none.