Jan16

PokerRoom.com Makes Unlikely Comeback to Online Poker

by admin on January 16th, 2012 at 6:18 am
Posted In: Uncategorized

PokerRoom.com Makes Unlikely Comeback to Online Poker

While there were several fads that came with the dot com movement, many businesses have managed to survive and thrive for years.  Websites that allow people to play poker online seemed to be one of these survivors.

One of the earliest examples of an online poker website was pokerroom.com.   Started in 1999 by Swedish power player Oskar Hornell and Claes Lidell, PokerRoom was a very basic online power room compared to the modern features available today.  While the features and games that PokerRoom originally offered may seem basic in retrospect, they led PokerRoom to the top of the field.  It eventually became the number one website in the Ongame Network.  This reputation was furthered when the ironically named Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker Main Event inLas Vegasand became widely known.  Moneymaker was an online poker player who beat a field full of professionals.  Consequently, an online poker craze began and PokerRoom.com was a key beneficiary.

In 2006, bwin purchased the entire Ongame network and therefore won the rights PokerRoom.com.  However, after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was implemented, many players left the site from theUSmarket.  Despite some users leaving the website, the website remained quite busy.  When the cyber traffic started to slow down and the virtual tables became less full, bwin decided to transition to a new poker website that aimed to restore the popularity, Bwin Poker.

Recently, Bwin SEO Manager Josef Rantamaki announced that PokerRoom will once again be open for real money poker games.  “Wow! www.pokerroom.com will be re-launched and once again offer real money poker games,” Rantamaki said.

PokerRoom is attempting to make the re-opening as seamless as possible.  For example, if a player has not transferred their PokerRoom account to another online gambling website, his or her funds will still be reserved at his or her old account.  This is an added bonus.  However, any tickers or player points no longer apply to the re-opened website.  In addition, if a user’s account was registered after 2007 as a “just for fun” player with no real money or deposits being made, a new account needs to be created.

Bwin and PokerRoom.com hope to attract a large amount of players back to its re-opened gambling forum.  PokerRoom is still going to offer a wide variety of online poker games.  However, players from theUnited Statesstill cannot play on PokerRoom.  This is because PokerRoom still has to follow the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in theUnited States.

To further promote the grand re-opening of the website, PokerRoom.com is even offering its members a selection of welcome bonuses.  It is truly an exciting time to be a part of the PokerRoom community, especially with so many new opportunities in the online gambling world.

 

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Dec14

A Look Back – Ninja Gaiden 3: The Ancient Ship of Doom

by admin on December 14th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

I noticed that I got quite a spike in visitors when I posted the first two reviews to Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2, so today I’ll be bringing you the third and final review in the Ninja Gaiden NES trilogy. This one surprisingly will not be full of hate as the others have been since I actually enjoyed this game. I know talk about crazy since this game is usually known as the black sheep when talking about the original trilogy, but for some reason all my issues from the first two games were no longer apparent and I felt happy playing this. So here you go, my review of Ninja Gaiden 3: The Ancient Ship of Doom (Wow, that’s quite a name).

So once again you’re put into the role of Ryu Hayabusa, the ninja who’s had more bad luck in the past few games than most people have in their entire lives. He’s lost his Dad, had evil demons battle him over a sword, and now in this installment his girlfriend is killed. This guy can’t catch a break can he? You’ll start out with a few scenes that make it seem as if Ryu was the one who killed his own girl but you’ll soon find out that it’s a double, so you now have the job of unfolding this grand mystery.

This game plays just as the first two, but now you have the ability to hang onto free ledges with the option of jumping on top of them or shimmying across them. Along with this added feature came a few new power up’s, butdoing away with the shadow clones which ticked off a lot of people. With the removal of the clones many fans felt it was a step backwards but I didn’t mind them missing much since now you could pick up Sword Power Up’s. I noticed that I played so much better when I didn’t have to be pixel to pixel with an enemy to kill them. The Sword Power Up’s extend your sword’s slash and make the game that much easier. Another change that was made was the inclusion of a recoil reduction when you got hit by an enemy. If you recall back in the first Ninja Gaiden if you got hit by an enemy you’d be launched backwards, this was fixed a bit in the second game, but it’s finally been perfected in this third game, so you don’t have to consider yourself dead when you get hit by the smallest of enemies.

Besides the gameplay the overall environments are a LOT different than those of the first two. This time around rather than fighting strange demons you’ll be going up against mostly aliens and robots. The stages will also look a lot more mechanical than before and the music reminds me a lot of Mega Man – this could be another reason why I love this game so much. Although the enemies look different they’ll attack in the same pattern as the old enemies did in the other games, so there’s not much difference there. The levels will be twice the size as they used to be so be prepared to do them all over again from the beginning if you die. Also be warned that the TIMER will become a factor in the game now because of some of the sizes of the stages.

In the other games I complained about enemies respawning even if you’ve just killed them and took a step forward, this problem isalmost non-existent in this installment. When I first started the game I already had a noose made up on the ceiling of my room just in case I couldn’t handle this problem, but with this respawning issue resolved I could finally enjoy a Ninja Gaiden game.

I’ve been good at every Mega Man game out there and so when the smalls problems I had with the first two Ninja Gaiden games were resolved I flew by this game in about an hour’s time. Sure I died a few times, but who seriously thinks they’re gonna not lose one life while playing a Ninja Gaiden game. The final boss is almost a replica of the ones from the first two games and he wasn’t nearly as hard as some of the others. In the end you find out Irene never died and as always Ryu turns into mister poetry and starts talking about the world and how evil some people are and blah blah blah – It reminds me of the narration of X’s thoughts at the end of Mega Man X. Anyway, I actually recommend this game to anyone and I had quite a fun time playing it.

So THERE, stop bashing me Ninja Gaiden fanboys – I actually had fun with this one.

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Oct25

Don’t Fret… Reviews on the Way

by admin on October 25th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

First I’d like to apologize for the lack of updates on the blog as of recently. We don’t get many visitors here but for those who actually do read the stories and reviews we’d like to tell you that we’re sorry. We’ve been very busy as of late and so we haven’t been able to post a lot. PokeLass Allie has been busy with school and I myself have been busy with just having too many games to play. Fortunately for those who come to our site we will soon have a ton of reviews up.

Here are a couple on the way:

F.E.A.R. (Xbox 360)
MegaMan Zx Advent (DS)
Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)
TimeShift (Xbox 360)
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (WIii)

and last but not least will be our first ever video review. This will be on the title Folklore on the PS3.

I am hard at work to complete many of these games so we can have some extra content on here. Thanks for being patient and sticking through.
POSTED BY GLOMPWORTHYGAMER AT 10:08 PM 0 COMMENTS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2007

The newcomers just keep on coming don’t they? Even with the huge announcement about Sonic being in the game Smash Bros. Dojo just continue to pummel us with new characters oh so ready to be played. Today’s new player character is King DeDeDe, Kirby’s nemesis as well as self proclaimed king of Dreamland. Here’s your description of the heavy weight from Dojo itself,

“The self-proclaimed king of Dream Land formally joins the brawl! Mechanizing his wooden mallet, he delivers a mighty, earth-shaking blow! He joins as a member of the heavyweight class alongside Bowser and Donkey Kong. Can he defeat Kirby?!”

More pics and info at SmashBrosDojo.com

POSTED BY GLOMPWORTHYGAMER AT 10:24 AM 0 COMMENTS

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2007

Okami WILL be on Wii

This is actually old news, about a week old to be precise, but I’ve been away on vacation so I’m going to put this up now. Back when Okami was first released on the PS2 many felt that the game should’ve just been developed for the Wii because of the ability to create brush strokes to solve puzzles as well as attack. Well, all prayers have been answered and we will indeed be using that Wiimote the way it was intended to when Okami gets ported over to the Nintendo Wii in spring of 2008.

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Sep21

Character Profile – Proto Man

by admin on September 21st, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Proto Man is the Blue Bomber’s older, cooler brother otherwise known as “Blues” in the japanese version. In fact his original name in Mega Man 3 was Break Man since he would destroy the objects in your way to help you progress further into a level. Whenever this ambiguous character would make his appearance a distinct whistle would always be heard before he entered the room. The whistle was without doubt supposed to be a blues/ jazzy sounding tune to go with character’s original japanese name.

When Proto Man first showed up in Mega Man 3 he wasn’t known to be anyone significant, just another robot who seemed to have a good side. However once the player reached the end of the game a startling revelation would be told you. Dr. Light revealed to Mega Man that Proto Man was in truth your older brother. The American cartoon that began playing in the early 90′s also had a explanation and a backstory to Proto Man’s creation. As the cartoon tells it Dr. Wily and Dr. Light were two scientists who has teamed up to create the world’s first robot. As time went on the two eventually built Proto Man, but Dr. Wily’s intentions became corrupted and so he stole Proto Man and began to create his own brand of robots to conquer the world. With what designs Dr. Light still had he created Mega Man to stop Dr. Wily’s insane plot, now bringing into full circle why Mega Man was altered to fight. There are some plot holes in the cartoon so it shouldn’t be taken as canon, but it’s interesting view into the story.

Proto Man eventually became a villian in Mega Man 5, but later was discovered to be framed by another robot. At the end of the classic series there were two arcade style fighting games released in Japan named “Mega Man: The Power Battle” and “Mega Man: The Power Fighters”. These games were actually pretty fun but also very simple. You could choose to play Mega Man, Proto Man, or Bass and each character would have their own individual ending. The ending to Proto Man’s story revealed that he was suffering from a fatal defect in his system and his life span was being cut short because of it. At the end Proto Man simply vanishes rather than have Dr. Light try to fix him, saying he’d rather find his own way. Nothing else is much known about Proto Man after his disappearance.

Some say that Proto Man was eventually created into Zero from the Mega Man X series, but this is also explained in Mega Man: The Power Fighters. If you choose to play as Bass his ending reveals Dr. Wily working on a new robot to battle Mega Man, since he feels Bass is no longer strong enough. The player is shown a silhouette of whom is undoubtedly Zero, at which Bass calls it a “Girly” looking robot. Wily scoffs saying that this is the most advanced and strongest robot known to man and won’t be ready for some time. This explained Zero’s beginnings but still didn’t reveal much about Proto Man’s future. Players wouldn’t find him in the X series, Zero series, or even ZX series – His existence ended in the classic series but he made a grand return in the Battle Network games and Anime series as well (where he looked a lot like Zero).

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Aug23

Nitendon’t

by admin on August 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

“Genesis does what Nitendon’t,” does anyone remember those commercials? Yeah, those were the days when Sega was a firm believer in humiliating those who went the Nintendo route. But even with what many would see as fighting words people still didn’t seem to take notice of the company. Many people don’t remember the Master System here in the states and whenever they think of Sega they think of the Genesis, otherwise known every else as the Mega Drive.

Now I have sweet memories of getting a Genesis and how much fun I had with it, but the one reason I remember I got the Genesis for was because of Sonic the Hedgehog. If you don’t know who this guy is then you have either been in a coma for the past 2 decades or you simply don’t care. Sonic was made as a direct rival to Mario when the SNES came out and was designed to make the Italian plumber look “uncool”. While Mario was pudgy and slow Sonic was sleek and fast (also with pointy spikes as hair which is awesome.) Not many people know this but Sega did have another mascot before Sonic and HIS name was Alex Kidd. I myself didn’t know much about this because I was born toward the end of the NES era and I didn’t have a Master System so up until recently I had no idea who this Alex Kidd fellow was, but now I see why they decided to use Sonic as their ace in the hole when the Genesis came out.

Sonic would later become the tent pole for Sega with 3 direct sequels to the original game in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, 3, and Sonic and Knuckles. Eventually Sega caught up to Nintendo and at one point even took the majority of the market, similar to what Sony had done recently with the Playstation. However, this success was short lived as Nintendo would soon release hits such as Donkey Kong and Super Metroid causing Sega’s market dominance to go way down. This would remain the story until years later when Sega came up with a new console called the Dreamcast. This system would mark the return of Sonic the Hedgehog in a new title known as Sonic Adventure. The game and console was an instant success capturing the love that the Genesis once had years ago. A sequel to Sonic Adventure eventually was made and also grabbed fan’s attention but all that would soon slip away.

When Sony decided to release their newest console, the PS2, Sega was found themselves in a bind, a problem in which not even Sonic could save. People were now turning to Sony rather than Sega when deciding not to go the Nintendo route this time. This all came down to the Dreamcast being released too early and this mistake would cost Sega their hardware future. Once they became a 3rd party company they now had to decide which system they would make their games for and a one time enemy was now looking rather friendly.

After years of business rivalry and countless arguments between fanboys whether which company was best Nintendo and Sega were now partners. Various Sonic games were released on the Gameboy Advance, as well as the Gamecube, but fans were hit with a big surprise when Nintendo and Sega teamed up to make the upcoming Mario and Sonic Olympics title soon to hit this holiday season. The surprise wasn’t so much the partnership but the odd choice to put them in an Olympic style game. The question in everyone’s head when they were shown the trailer was “How the heck can Mario keep up with Sonic in a foot race?” This seemed strange, but Hey! Mario and Sonic were in a game at last and fans didn’t want to complain.

This chain of events soon had many in an uproar hoping that Sonic would find his way onto the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl game on the Wii. When the title was first shown at E3 in ’06 it had revealed Solid Snake from the Metal Gear series as a character, announcing that more than just Nintendo characters would be allowed to come into the fray this time around. The game is set to come out in only a few months and there still hasn’t been word if Sonic would make a grand appearance in his rival’s game….until….today.

During Nintendo’s Fall Conference they have made fans across the world embrace each other with happiness. The rivalry has ended with a respectful handshake. The two mascots who battled long ago in yester-year have settled their differences and have decided to beat the living crap out of each other in one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises. The commercials that were shown in the earlier 90′s, the Dreamcast’s failure, and even all those crappy Sonic games were forgotten because Sega finally has made a great decision. Sega and Nintendo friends forever.

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