In keeping with our recently new slogan of "Connecting Trinidad and Tobago's Gamers", we have decided to place more focus on this aspect of connectivity which has been disparate. Thousands of local gamers play online on various servers. However, only a few hundred are active and connected to each other. Gaming with other locals is a really fun experience.
We need everyone to do their part and post their tags for the various online gaming services. Please let me know if I missed any. Please add your tags to the lists for Steam, Battle.NET 2.0, Xbox 360 LIVE!, PS3, Wii and Garena.
Trinigamers is the premier gaming organization in Trinidad and Tobago. Our purpose is relatively simple, to promote electronic sports while at the same time maintaining the fun and easy going environment associated with cyber-gaming. Our organization has done this via the hosting of tournaments, both offline and online which cover the various genres and platforms that are popular internationally and locally.
While a non-profit organization, we have dedicated ourselves to educating and informing our members on the latest happenings in the competitive arena. We provide an avenue for members to grow and mature into seasoned competitors capable of competing with the world's best cyberathletes.
TriniGamers is run by a dedicated group of volunteer staff, who hail from all avenues of society; business, law, medicine and of course the IT field.
Join up, post on the forums, start playing on one of our local severs or sweat in the game Arcade.
If you have any questions, please use the Contact page.
Two years ago Valve hired the talented team behind the popular top down co-op mod Alien Swarm. Since then they have been busy working on the Left 4 Dead Series, and now Portal 2. However, we never forgot about Alien Swarm and the team has spent a lot of time bringing the game to Source in between their contributions to the other Valve projects.
On Monday, July 19th Alien Swarm is going to be released for FREE via Steam.
In addition to the game, Valve will also release the complete code base for Alien Swarm. This includes updates to the Source engine SDK and full Steamworks integration. If you’ve ever thought about developing a mod on the Source engine with Steamworks, this release provides more insight and examples for using Steamworks in game production.
As an 360 owner who likes playing fighters, I've been faced with several issues when it comes to getting a stick that works to my liking across platforms, because of this I found myself owning 3 different sticks for 3 different systems -
PS2 - Hori Limited Edition Tekken 5
PS3 - Hori Real Arcade Pro 3
360 - Hori Dead or Alive 4 Stick
It's not an easy thing having to move around with multiple sticks for different systems and then having to work on consistent execution on each one so I've been searching for a all in one solution for quite a while.
The options I considered were -
1. Joyton PS2 to 360 converter
I initially considered this very early on, but it became apparent that this would not work out too well with my T5 stick. I had become very accustomed to the T5 stick over the years and was hoping to find a solution that would enable me to keep using it on both PS3 and 360.
This proved to be difficult as the pcb in the stick lags with converters, but worked with dual shocks. Given the amount of dual shocks I have I also considered swapping pcbs when I found this converter.
However, there was 1 major problem, using this would require that I have a 360 wired controller to bypass Microsoft's security protection. Since I didn't have a wired controller I ended up getting a DOA4 Stick in the interim which was and still is pretty crappy. Sometime later I got an almost new HRAP3 at a steal of a deal ($400) which made me consider the next option.
2. Dual Modding
Dual modding has become very popular abroad, it entails having 2 or more controller pcbs wired to a single stick. This is generally easier if using a 360 stick and dual modding to work with PS3 than the other way around. I was gonna use a madcats pad along with my HRAP 3 and an imp chip to be able to use both pcbs over 1 usb cord. Minus labor costs I was looking at about 30USD for the controller and 20USD for the imp.
I was very very close to taking this route until I found this converter
With no noticable brand name I was a bit skeptical about how good this converter was as it appeared to be a no name clone of another converter, the Blaze Pro PS2/PS3 to 360. After a few weeks, reports on SRK Tech Talk forums were coming in and this seemed like the real deal, so I took the plunge and ordered one on ebay.
When it arrived I began the testing almost immediately.
Console - Xbox 360
Controllers used - PS2 Dual Shock 2, PS3 Dual Shock 3, Hori Real Arcade Pro 3, random logitech PC controller
Games - Super Street Fighter 4, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Tekken 6, SSF2T HD Remix, GTA Episodes From Liberty City.
Results
- no need for wired xbox controller to bypass MS security for PS2 or PS3 controller.
- all buttons and analog sticks worked just fine with no hiccups
- no noticable input lag on Dual Shock 2/3 or HRAP3
- does not work with pc controllers and reportedly some other 3rd party pcbs
The only place to find this is on ebay where the prices vary between 20-30USD+10USD shipping. I bought from the seller joycezeng0610
I am satisfied with this purchase and have no problems recommending this converter to 360 owners who have a great dislike for the 360 controller or PS3 owners who wanna sweat on a 360 with friends.
Controllers/Sticks that work
Dual Shock 2 (PS2)
Madcatz Controller (PS2)
Huskee PS2 Controller (PS2)
Nubytech Street Fighter Anniversary Pad (PS2)
Hori Tekken 5 Anniversary Stick
Dual Shock 3 (PS3)
Hori Real Arcade Pro 3 Stick (PS3)
Controllers/Sticks that do not work
Madcatz Standard Edition Fight Stick
Madcatz Tournament Edition Stick
Sometime during your 18th bout with Soda Popinski you might vaguely recall Mom mumbling whatnots about how "It'll rot your brain" and "You'll go blind."
Good thing researchers called Mom's bluff: Six-year-old Ben Michaels, who was almost blind in one eye, can see again after a specialist prescribed daily gaming sessions on a Nintendo DS.
Ken Nischal, a consultant of a Children's Hospital in London, believes playing with the hand-held console for only two hours a day can help thousands of children with weak eyesight. Research had shown benefits in adult cases of doing repetitive visual tasks. "A game console is something children can relate to. It allows us to deliver treatment quicker."
Researchers believe repetitive eye movement trains the eye to focus correctly. Ben's mother, Maxine, said that his vision "improved 250 percent" in the first week.
The treatment is especially effective for "lazy eye syndrome," the condition Ben was diagnosed with at the age of 4.
But even if your kids have perfect eyesight, at least Mario will keep them from knocking over liquor stores.
Short version: OMFG!!! Sweet frigging game! This forum needs a "TWO THUMBS AND A BIG TOE WAY UP" smiley it's that good!
Not short version:
I'll start with a disclaimer, I started this game not too long ago, basically when I started seriously considering hunting down the guys who made
and beating them over the head with steampunk inspired lead pipes for filling my nightmares with ticking clocks and pipes that hissed evil blue yellow and red steam. So I've not tried all aspects of Tropico 3, but I've played my way through to a point where I believe I have a grasp of what I don't yet have a grasp of, if that makes sense.
Gameplay and Story: Very similar to the SimCity games, especially perhaps Societies. In fact I had a few moments when the radio popped up news of llamas when I sat there squinting at the monitor wondering what sort of strange stuff was going on and if my splines needed reticulating again.
Basically you are the decision maker for a country made up of an island somewhere in the Caribbean where most people have bad Spanish accents. You decide what goes where and how much of it. Housing, industry, agriculture, government, infrastructure and tourism in all their varied glory. Each building having it's own benefits and pitfalls. The reason you have to decide and build these things is the population. They have needs, wants and the power to kick you out of office if you suck at governing..... a lesson some local politicians have had the displeasure of learning first hand.
Of course you have limited funds with which to do this, and depending on the island, very limited resources to extract for the purpose of earning more.
Sadly on a side note, the economy does NOT appear to have the potential for self-sustainability, with the exception of tourism based economies. In this aspect, art has chosen to mimic life perhaps a little too well. In quite a few scenarios, I found myself saved by the timeline ending the scenario while spiralling into debt with the total collapse of the economy an inevitable outcome. This is one of my deepest fears for our future in T&T- oil money done, all them yankee dollars gone and is all our asses to catch.
You can choose to be a kind and benevolent ruler, a tyrannical despot, you can side with the two warring Superpowers, or maintain your individuality. At the start of each scenario, you're given the option of selecting personality traits for your character with some very recognisable names given as quick options. These grant various perks to players attempting to meet the level objectives.
Keeping the various factions happy while trying to expand the economy and balance the needs of the many and the few can be very taxing. One of the things that I keep (re)learning is that I try to do too much to please everyone and going broke. You just can't please all of the people all of the time.... so sometimes it's best just to arrange for them to have an “accident”. (Yes you can actually choose to do this.)
Different game modes, including online play and sandbox modes will give you even more hours of megalomaniacal fun and the built in achievements will encourage you to try several different styles of play lending to replayability
Visuals: Very nice, polished game. You can choose to zoom in and look at things from a very close POV, able to distingush individual citizens walking around or take an eagle's eye view of a huge swath of the island in order to plan out what will go where. Buildings all have their individual styles to aid in quickly identifying what you need, but often there's some minor variation of styles just to avoid monotony.
Sound: Like I've said before I'm not really one for sound in games. I started playing this game the same way, my mind just tuning... [Read More]
Just Like Darwinia I picked this up when it was on sale as a potential time waster. I figured that at $13 TT cogs was a safe investment.
Gameplay: Remember those sliding tile puzzles you played with as a child?
click to show
Like this:
Right. That's what this game is. At first I figured it wouldn't like it, because to be totally honest, those blasted puzzles used to suck. Most of the time my solution was: Try to solve puzzle. Get frustrated. Get screwdriver. Put pieces back together.
Sadly Cogs doesnt come with an electronic version of a screwdriver. But maybe I've learned a little more patience as I aged because I found myself enjoying some of the puzzles quite a bit. Others... not so much.
Visuals: Steampunkish, lots of wheels turning, or pipes with steam coming out of them. A lot of the puzzles have multiple dimensions requiring that you rotate to view/complete all angles. The whole interactive tiles aspect with things interlocking and turning when put in place does make for a much more entertaining time than the old sliding tiles that just sat there, mocking you for being too stupid to figure out a child's puzzle.
Sound: The simple music fits the theme well with the other sound effects matching in nicely. The whole effect is calming and mildly upbeat, probably to keep players from bashing the bloody screen when they can't figure out how to get that last wheel into place without disrupting the whole rest of the pattern.
Story: Uh.. no story. Just wheels and pipes. Most of the levels have a particular shape or design that gives a little animation as a reward when you get the solution. Like balloons filling with gas and lifting the thing into the air. Or a crank turning to pop out a mildly disturbing jack-in-the-box.
There are different modes for you to play: Inventor; timed and move limited. Inventor mode starts you with simple puzzles and works it's way up to what I can only imagine are entrance tests for Mensa. The other two don't need any explanation.
Overall: Cool game. I understand that it's also an app for the iPhone which might be even cooler, but I dont have an iPhone and that's probably a good thing because I might end up pelting the blasted thing into a wall or something. It was more than worth the money I spent on it.
TriniGamers : Connecting Trinidad and Tobago's Gamers
7!BWk~$(KGrHqIH-D4Es9Fzc5yCBLZWm)F3Hg~~_12.JPG)
(Yes you can actually choose to do this.)
Try to solve puzzle. 
Get frustrated. 
Get screwdriver. 
