Moving!!

Hey everybody! TheStranger here bringing you some interesting news....We are moving! The lack of activity is due to us making preparations to move from Blogger to Wordpress as we now have our own server. The move will hopefully be completed in the next couple of week and to answer your next question, nothing is going to change, the links to us and all those good things we are going to maintain so we effectively lose nothing.

After the move we will be able to establish game servers (hopefully) and will start posting videos to YouTube. So please stay with us as we make Hazardous LAN a much greater presence.
I'm super excited about all of this so stay tuned!!!! :D
TheStranger out :)

Happy birthday!! :D

Hello everybody! Great news! My pc is back and as such so are the posts. First off , this week it was Hazardous LAN's first birthday! We would just like to thank everyone who has been reading and supporting us , it has meant so much to us. Next year at this time we would like to have awhile network developed and that is soon becoming a reality.

On other note we will start getting our full posts out every week hopefully from this week. Next post from me is a "Slender the eight pages" and "Shadow of Slender" review along with a Dishonered review from DeathStrike. Hopefully soon I will be able to get a Crysis 3 review and a LAN tutorial on it. 

That's all ther is from me for now, until next time :)
TheStranger out   

Building a computer?

Hey guys, HighVoltage bringing you a few updates today.

Computer Builds

So you want to build a computer, eh? Well, us here at Hazardous can help you with that, I will mostly be the one heading up this stuff, partly because of what TheStranger did to his PC (I would never let him touch mine :P).. Onto bussiness: what I plan to do with this is pretty obvious, I recommend a build for a pc, depending on things like price range, use, etc. And YOU guys give me feed back on it :). I will also explain why I choose the parts I choose and I will reference where I get my information from. I'll start with this next time it's my turn to post.

Ubuntu and Steam babies

So most of you out there have probably heard of Ubuntu if you like modding your stuff, like me. Well, for those who haven't heard of it, Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distros and has gained major popularity in the I.T crowd. It's even made a mobile version of its OS for Android-based phones. Well, mainly what the aim of Steam on Linux is to bring mainstream gaming to those who are adverse to Microsoft's latest iteration of Windows.

Steam on Linux has a limited number of games that are supported but that list is growing fast. It's basically the same as the Windows version, just less games. :/ Hmm. How is Valve going to rectify that? By making sure that the people who do use Steam on Ubuntu, have the exact same experience as those using Windows!  Not the most easiest thing to do, given the differences between the two OSes, but it's getting there. I only know that Nvidia has dedicated drivers for Ubuntu, but AMD has an open source equivalent. All of this makes Ubuntu a more viable option than Windows as a replacement OS.

Here's the link to the .deb file needed to install Steam. Click me!

Reviews? Where are they?

As of now, Hazardous is a bit preoccupied with life, but we promise we'll bring you some Let's Play's and video replays of the games we game soon! I know we've been promising these for a long time, but we've recently started to make more and more progress with this, so watch this space!

IRC..What?

Hazardous has an IRC channel! Not much has gone there, but I will put up a tutorial detailing how you can contact us on it there. :)

That's all I've got for now! Cheers, and gg.

HighVoltage

TheStranger...Mistakes were made...

Hey everyone its DeathStrike here! (Been a while...) On a side note, this red text is TheStranger's writing, if you were wondering. 

So I know its been a while since I graced your screens and even though today is not officially my day, through a combination of this being a filler day for anyone to post and the fact that there's a massive LoL update out and I can't play i decided to post :D

Right so, I thought I'd let you in on something, yesterday TheStranger posted and mentioned his broken pc, I thought it would only be fair if we here at Hazardous told you how this happened...

So we all remember how the TheStranger was speaking about his AMAZING new pc "Peacemaker"...

We all started noticing the problems, the pc fans were making such a noise that we could hardly communicate at lans, when the pc was in his room, the entire room would grow boiling... overall the signs just weren't good. And then it happened! TheStrangers "Peacemaker" made peace with itself and ceased to operate. So after much fussing, deliberating, checking this connection and that connection and not finding a problem... TheStranger sent his pc in for the "professionals" (I use this word loosely cause if you know South African computer technicians...) to take a look at.

Then came the embarrassing truth... TheStranger, our clan leader, the guy who we respect (kind of) as under-stander for lack of a better adjective, and user (now abuser) of technology had done one really stupid thing... he put a sticker on his CPU... Yes you heard right a sticker, now for those of you who haven't built a pc or don't understand the ramifications of such a thing, let me explain. 

Let me explain this as it really happened:
The "sticker" DeathStrike is referring to is one with the CPU's model number and series on it. I put it on the CPU before I put it into the board to take a photo of it, so that the model number and series could be seen. I ACCIDENTLY forgot that it was still on the CPU as that is the last part to go into the pc. It slipped my mind that it was still on there when I locked the heatsink on. 

 The CPU is one of the hottest running components in your pc, when building a pc you put a blob of thermal paste/glue on your CPU to bind it to your heatsink, so in TheStrangers moment of pure genius he denied the direct connection of his heatsink to his CPU therefore causing the CPU to run hot, the fans attempted to compensate for this by boosting their RPM thus causing the noise and the eventual failure of his motherboard! 
Not true, the motherboard failed because of a power surge, but should I have continued to use the pc the CPU would have EVENTUALLY burnt out. 

So if you ever see TheStranger, please feel free to point and laugh at him :P
Yes it was a dumb mistake and it taught me that you should never build a pc if you aren't ENTIRELY focused on your task,  so please be careful when doing things like this. Its easy to get sidetracked and distracted :P 

Hope you enjoyed this and please put your stickers on the outside of your pc,
DeathStrike and TheStranger

Happenings in 2013!

Hey everybody! TheStranger here bringing you a plan on this years happenings. First and foremost, the reason i've been out so long is cause my pc broke :'( That is also why I have not brought you the Slender review since that is where I have the actually game and information on. I should get it back from the shop within the next couple days and as soon as that happens I will bring you that review.

Now though Hazardous is getting back in action starting this week, the new schedule is as follows:
Mondays: HighVoltage will bring you his side of things ( Dont worry, I think we've worked out his bugs :P)
Tuesdays: Thecoldblade is back! Say yay! His ice cold humour shall chill you on Tuesdays.
Wednesdays: DeathStrike is now on Wednesdays.
Thursdays: These days are left open for either if someone has something interesting to say or if a guest author visits.
Fridays: Titan or Urbandroid will post on these days but at this very moment we are still working out who it will be.  
Saturdays: Twitch(Ghost) will bring you his guides and information.
Sundays: I will be reprising my role and still bring you strange Sundays.

Stuff we will be implementing:
Videos: Finally we have the capacity to upload videos so expect some Let's plays and Machinima soon.

A Server: We have been able to build a server which we will also implement soon. Hopefully we shall be able to host a permanent Minecraft, as well as Mw2: AlterIW and watever else we have the power to implement. 

A Domain: Hazardous Lan will (hopefully) be moving to our own domain soon where we have some more freedom to expand. 

Donations: We are attempting to introduce a donate button so we will be able to fund some of our new products. PS: If we do, please donate! We need all the help we can get to make to make our community stronger.

This is all the news I have for now, stay tuned for an exciting year! :)
TheStranger out.

Happy new year! :D

Hello hello friends! Happy new year! And may you have an awesome, noob pwning 2013! There might be some confusion as in my country it's new years now but in yours it could have already passed :)

This year is going to be a great one for gaming and Hazardous will bring you all you need to know and more.
TheStranger out.

Festive greetings :)

Hello everybody and merry Christmas to all the readers! Hazardous would just like to wish the entire community a very festive time. We hope you have all enjoyed your day and will continue to do so :)

From all of Hazardous Merry Chirstmas and happy holidays.
TheStranger :)

Apocalypse now?! x|

Hello everyone! I hope you all survived the 21st, and IF the apocalypse has started in your country tell me quick so I can grab my ammo and water! Hazardous has been spread thin along the country the last month or so and will continue to be until next year.

Lol well everyone the future plans for now are looking like this: Within the next couple of days I will post the Slender review (finally! :p) and on that same post sign off until next year.
Then next year we will formalize another schedule specifying who posts on what day and maybe introduce some new authors. 
We will also start to introduce a server we have built to host 24/7 servers for Minecraft , among others (MW2 and maybe some file hosting too).

So friends the year is nearly complete and we have big plans for the next one, stay tuned! :)
TheStranger out.

An Offer

Hello everyone! Finally we're done! I know that we've been MIA for the last couple of weeks but that will change! Right now though most of Hazardous is on holiday so our bigger plans will have to wait for awhile. 

So long though I have started my review on Slender which is now known as Slender: the eight pages and you can expect that to come up soon. As an extra I am also including some info on a spin-off called Shadow of Slender but that is for another time.

Right now though I am offering anyone and everyone who has any photo, video editing skills , journalism skills or just a plain interest in reviewing and talking about gaming an opportunity to post here on Hazardous LAN! I know a few people have been interested so if you are, comment or send me an email and I'll get back to you.

That's all for today except we would also like to wish DeathStrike a happy birthday for today and hope he enjoys it, enjoy the last few days before the apocalypse begins ;)

TheStranger out.

Freedom!...almost

Hello everybody! It feels like its been so long! Hmm...well maybe cause it has been a while :p Fear not! We are nearly finished and will be on Friday, then we will provide with all our valuable insight everyday again. First thing I'll start with will be the new Slender (finally right!?) and then an awesome game we recently discovered called DayZ, just I time too as the standalone version of DayZ should be released around then as well. So hold on for just a couple days longer! We are also going to change the theme of the whole site to something a little more festive. 
Just...a few...more...
Until then TheStranger out.

Scamsters!!

Hey everybody, tonight I come to you with a warning...

Yesterday I was phoned by some "concerned worker" from a global call center, letting me know that they have detected that my pc is downloading very dangerous unwanted data (bear in mind that my pc wasn't even connected to the Internet at that stage). He then instructed me to open up my windows logs to show me these "errors" (all they were was programs closing uxpectedly or running out of memory etc really not dangerous). 

He then tried to get me to visit his site by typing the address in run and to download some of his "cleaning software" for free! Which is actually remote access software. Well while he was instructing me to do this, I researched the site and found other complaints about it. That is when I ended the call. 

Now all of you reading this should realize it is a scam,but for those who aren't technically inclined it might have worked, so please be aware and let people know about this. I am trying to find ways to stop this, I'll get back to you on that. The sites name is Fix123.org, DO NOT download anything from them!!! 

I hoped this helped you 
TheStranger out.

Finals :'(

Hello everybody! You all still here I hope? I came to clarify a bit about what has been happening, we are all still alive and haven't been eaten by zombies yet. What really has happened is that we here in South Africa are just about to start our finals. These exams are EXTREMELY important for us as they will determine wether or not we get into tertiary learning institutions :p 

In these next couple of weeks there won't be too many posts but we will try and post as soon as we have the time to with there being at least one post a week. The first post will be the updated Slender review I promise!! I also have plenty more things to review and talk about.

PS: I've had an idea to do reviews on Anime series and movies and would like to know what you guys think about it, please drop me an email at TheStrangerHazardous@gmail.com or comment on this post. I will also put up a poll to make your lives a bit easier.

To all of those writing important examinations and tests, good luck from all of us here at Hazardous :)
TheStranger out.

rAge! (After action report)

Hello there guys! TheStranger here with another captivating post!(I try :p lol) Exactly one week ago Hazardous was at rAge and I must tell you that this has been an incredibly long week...back to the point though, rAge (or more specifically NAG LAN) was an absolutely awesome experience!

The Lan had a bit of a slow start(the network was very unstable for the first few hours), as it turned out it was because of a couple douches had engineered their pc's to steal as much Internet bandwidth as possible from the network but as soon as the organizers found them and kicked them out though, it worked pretty flawlessly.

As soon as we got settled we started meeting those sitting close to us and I can honestly say that gamers are some of the most friendly people on earth.

Then came time to copy as much as we possibly could, there was no shortage of stuff as there was over 380 Tb's of data. I was able to copy only about 1Tb as I left it till quite late :p So at this very moment we have tons of games to review and to Lan so keep your eyes open for those posts.

We have decided that this week we will each post something about rAge just so you see the story from all sides.

Also coming up is a rewrite of our Slender review with the new version as well as a few new maps. Stay tuned! :)

TheStranger

rAge!!! :D

Hey everybody! It is finally the time for the biggest gaming event this side of Earth (Seriously, it's the biggest gaming event in the southern hemisphere and on the African continent). More info can be found here

So tomorrow rAge starts here in Johannesburg, me and the rest of the guys going to rAge (unfortunately there is just five of us from Hazardous because of the ridiculous time of ticket sales, more about that later) have already started testing every piece of our gear just to make sure we don't get caught with our pants down tomorrow.

If you were lucky enough to be one of the gamers to acquire a NAG Lan ticket (like five of us were) you know they might as well be made of gold. Every year the ticket sales beat the previous years record and this year was no different, the tickets sold out in a whopping 40 minutes and trust me it was a close one for us as the ticket procurement company's (Computicket) website could not handle the huge amount of traffic and only released the tickets a half-an-hour later online with some web browsers not being able to see the tickets at all.

This completely explains the feeling :p

So please remember gamers if you need NAG Lan tickets next year rather run down to your nearest Computicket store or face missing this massive event (The rAge expo is still open to everyone who wants to attend, buy tickets at the door.)

This weekend will probably have no posts since we all will be there but as soon as we get back we should have some nice machinima to show everyone. 

TheStranger wishing you a good gaming weekend!!
PS: If you see us at rAge or would like to play against us in anything just give us a shout and we will be there :).
PPS: When we come back the first thing we are doing is writing an updated Slender review so stay tuned! :).

Black Ops Two Gameplay

Hi all I'm back from the UK and I had a wonderful time!

I know today is not my allocated day to post but I have come across some awesome game-footage.

Like the title suggest.....
BLACK OPS 2

The graphics like highly impressive and I'm really looking forward to the weapon add ons! 

Scattered!

Hello hello everyone! TheStranger here. The first thing I would like to do is apologise for the lack of posts, we are all on holiday you see and as such are all scattered to the four corners of South Africa. Urbandroid has gone international and is enjoying his break in the UK (so if anyone see's him in London say hi!). 

I will be filling in for everyone who's missing until about next week sometime, then it should continue as normal. 

I have got a few things planned for this week,  one of them being some information about rAge where most of Hazardous is going  next week (for those of you who do not know , rAge stands for really Awesome gaming expo and is the biggest gaming event in the southern hemisphere). I will be covering the exhibitors and what we anticipate to see this year so stayed tuned for that. 

We will also be releasing our updated Slender review to accommodate some of the things HighVoltage missed in his, just to give you a more...objective view from the rest of Hazardous.

While at rAge , the few of us will start recording some machinima so you can see us in action against all challengers! More info as it comes. Stay tuned! 

TheStranger out.

Review: Prototype 2

Hey everyone DeathStrike here,

So today I’ll be giving you my review on Prototype 2, the sequel to Activisions Prototype.

Story:

The game takes place shortly after Alex Mercer saves New York from devastation, however New York remains crawling with infected and Alex Mercer… You play as a man named James Heller, seeking revenge on Alex Mercer who killed his family, while at the same time trying to stop Blackwatch and Gentek from causing further damage to the city. Alex Mercer then finds you and infects you with the blacklight virus, giving you the abilities of the “Evolved”  (You know the things that transform their bodies into claws, hammers, tendrils, blades etc.).The Story is exceptionally good, however tends to get repetitive.

Story: 7/10

Graphics:

The graphics for Prototype 2 are extremely well done, the  buildings, the streets, the people are all very well done however there is nothing about the graphics that will truly blow you away.

Graphics: 8/10

Gameplay:

This is a 3^rd person game, you can scale buildings, jump from building to building or glide as far as you can. One of my favourite aspects of the game is the open world map, just being able to run around the city scaring innocent civilians as you transform your arm into a gigantic blade and occasionally throwing a car off a skyscraper into an unsuspecting crowd of victims in a park, the game allows for large amounts of freedom.

Gameplay: 9/10

User-Friendliness:

This games menus system is easy to understand and to the point, there is nothing that will leave you feeling stuck and unsure of what to do. The story and side quests are not complicated to understand.

User-Friendliness: 10/10

Verdict:

I think Prototype 2 is a great game, however its downfall is the same as that of the first one, its too repetitive the story line tends to repeat its self over and over just with different targets this gives the game a lack of depth and often leaving the player feeling bored.

I give this game 75%

Thanks guys that's all, don't forget to follow us on twitter @HazardousLan

DeathStrike

Destroyed...recreated

Hey everybody. TheStranger here. So this week I had kinda had a piece of hardware catastrophically fail on me, my power supply (or psu). By catastrophically I mean really, like it actually...well exploded. Because of my psu's sudden detonation I've had to rethink design of my pc (Since it did cause quite a bit of damage).

The first question one needs to ask when building a new pc is which base will it consist of? The power house of machinery AMD or the elegant and effective Intel or a mixture of both. I (up until now) have always had Intel parts and they have definately proven effective, BUT I once upon a time had an AMD gfx card (Radeon X1650) upon installing it I instantly fell in love with its sheer raw power and extremely efficient use of resources. It was from this moment that I became an AMD fan-boy.

Hence I have decided to build a full AMD pc, these are the specs I have decided on:

CPU: AMD 8125 Bulldozer 3.6 GHz octa-core AM3+ socket, 16 Mb.
GFX: Two Radeon HD 6670, GDDR 5 1Gb each, 810MHz/ 4000Mhz in Crossfire
RAM: Kingston DDR1333 8Gb

This is all I have decided on so far and if I think of anything I'll add it :)
Drop a comment to let me know your opinion on AMD, Intel, specs etc.
TheStranger out.

 

League of Legends

Morning gamers, I am going to talk about LoL (League of Legends). I finally downloaded this game 2 months ago, and Hazardous and I are loving it. LoL is a MOBA, mixed with a tower defense type game. It is the better version of DOTA (The game is got the idea from) imo, and most of the worlds. This game has become the most played game in the world, overtaking World of Warcraft.

There is no story to the game because it is a MOBA. You basically have to defend lanes that lead to your base and attack your enemys' lanes which lead to their base. The nice thing about LoL is that everyone gets equal chance, there is balance and the matches remain fun from start to finish. I played DOTA for 3 years, and I will never go back. DOTA 2 beta is active and i have played it, but LoL still holds the title because of how unbalanced the champions are in DOTA 2.

If you have not downloaded this game, I strongly urge you to, and so does the rest of Hazardous. It is free to play and does not take a lot of bandwidth. This game also has one of the best lag handling systems ever. TheStranger who has super slow internet does not get any lag. (True that, I get like 600 ms and it's extremely playable. TS) You can catch me online on EU west name DjinnesHAZ.

Ghost out.

Follow us!

Hey guys its DeathStrike here!

So I've created a twitter page you can follow with updates that are happening on the blog, stuff thats happening with HAZ that we don't post about, so please go check us out @HazardousLan and we also have  a google+ page that you can check out and also we now have a dedicated email address that you can send complaints, compliments and suggestions to, hazardouslan@gmail.com

Thanks guys!