Random Thoughts

This edition of Random Thoughts is regarding two things.  First is Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut and the Fast Travel feature.  I had made the mistake of fast travelling from Masyaf to Damascus and wondered of a way to fast travel to Acre.  Apparently, if you look at the map, there are icons for "To Kingdom" which when you leave the map through those points, you'll be asked for the option to fast travel.  This only works after Memory 3.

Second is researching on updating the Eken W70 firmware.  The tablet isn't listed in the Eken site anymore and the firmware update files are all bunched up together in the most confusing manner in their FTP site.  As far as I can tell, the W70 and W70+ are similar tablets but the W70+ has a rear facing camera.  I did some research with the Web Archive and this link to identify the proper firmware.  The correct firmware it seems is: W70-1.5.5-1680-NO-WIN8-1.10.zip and the ftp link isn't included as Eken seems to change ftp IPs all the time.

Here are the instructions for Firmware Updating:

1. Download the firmware file
2. Unzip the RAR file to a folder.
3. Open the zipped folder and copy all content in it to an empty SD or Micro SD card.
4. Turn off your device and then insert the SD or Micro SD card into it.
5. The upgrade process will get started automatically when you turn on your device.
6. When the upgrade is finished, remove the SD or Micro SD card from your device.
7. The device will automatically restart again.

That's it!

Assassin's Creed Director's Cut and Wine

I've been pleased that this GOG.com release of Assassin's Creed works out of the box on Wine.  However, a recent update, Wine 1.7.30 on Ubuntu via launchpad, has a regression in that the sunlight in this game is way too bright. It's making the world bleached white. I used POL and downloaded an older version of Wine to fix this issue.  I downloaded Wine 1.7.27 which didn't seem to exhibit this issue.  Word of warning to those using Wine to play.

GOG with Wine

I'll keep this brief.  I tried installing the Witcher Card game beta some time back and had to use the /verysilent parameter to get through.  Had some error messages but the game worked.  It looks like the update facilities do not work on Wine so I may have to re-download the installer and get a new version.

Currently, I'm trying to install Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut.  Ran into some install issues so looking over at WineHQ, I found some list of components to install.

$ winetricks d3dx10 d3dx9_26 d3dx9_28 d3dx9_31 d3dx9_35 d3dx9_36 d3dx9_39 d3dx9_42 d3dx9_43 d3dx9 directx9 physx vcrun2003 vcrun2005 vcrun2008 vcrun2010 vcrun6sp6 vcrun6 wmp10 xact_jun2010 xact xinput

Ran into the same empty message window again, so I'm running the setup with the /verysilent parameter.

Update: I think that the additional packages may have broken x360ce on Wine.  My previously configured ini file seems to work though so I just copied it into the folder.  There seems to be no added benefit to the libraries.  Direct3D 10 doesn't work so you have to run Assassin's Creed using the Direct3D 9 binary.

Also, the Witcher Adventure Multiplayer Beta no longer works, it seems.  It doesn't recognize the account as part of the closed beta.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent on Wine

I got this game off a free promo and for the most part the game installation was extraordinarily smooth! I tried to launch the game from the desktop icon and didn't get much success.  I ran SCDALauncher.exe from the installed path to launch it.  It looked like it was working well until I got to the actual tutorial.

Poor Sam!  I have no idea why this is happening, but I'll keep trying.  So close yet so far!

The Adventures of Tintin Wii Edition

Let's get this out of the way.  I didn't enjoy the movie as much as I would have wanted to.  It was just a kiddie fun fluff movie with way too much action shoehorned into the story.  I didn't care for the much touted CG art either.  In one word: 'meh'.

In picking up the Wii game, I wasn't expecting much out of it.  After all, it was based on a pretty lame movie.  What piqued my interest however was how quickly the game's narrative was deviating from the film.  The main plot is intact, but much of the details have been altered making it Ubisoft's own version of Tintin's search for the Secret of the Unicorn.

Funny thing about Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

I've been playing a lot of Splinter Cell games lately. Something funny came to mind and I thought I'd share it.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on the DS features multiplayer modes Shadownet vs Mercs and Coop. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on the Gamecube features only a Coop multiplayer mode. Splinter Cell 3D (3DS remake of Chaos Theory) has no multiplayer.

What an interesting case of de-evolution!