The Best PS One Games You Can Get

I was looking to buy a PS3 soon and wanted find what were the best games I could download on to it since I don't have a lot of space for physical storage of games. While there are plenty of great games to come out this generation there are also some great PS One games to get. Since I proudly had an N64 during that generation (still have it now) I had no idea what were the best games for the original Playstation. Luckily IGN and Gamespy have each made lists of what they consider the top 25 games for the system. After looking over the lists and checking there availability PSN Store I have made this chart below that compares the lists and shows whether you can go download it now. Some interesting notes I found:

• Both lists have "Metal Gear Solid" at 1 and "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" at 2. A testament to how great they must be.
• Both lists have a "Gran Turismo", "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" and "Ridge Racer" but they disagree over which in each series is the best
• The Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro franchises seemed to get so much hype during that generation yet Lara Croft and Crash only had one entry on the two lists. Spyro had nothing.

The chart is ordered by Gamespy's rankings since they did the whole annoying one item per page thing and I'm saving people the trouble of clicking through it just to get the order. IGN on the other hand put all 25 on one page so I'll just give the link rather then relist them all.

• IGN's List
• Gamespy's List

The bold games are the ones on both lists. If you know of any other respectable PS One lists leave a link in the comments and I'll incorporate it.

Gamespy Rank	IGN Rank	Game	On PSN Store as of October 13, 2010
1	1	Metal Gear Solid	Yes
2	2	Castlevania: Symphony of the Night	Yes
3	11	Tekken 3	No
4	-	Gran Turismo	No
5	-	Klonoa: Door to Phantomile	No
6	-	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2	No
7	-	Ridge Racer	No
8	6	Vagrant Story	No
9	13	Wipeout XL	No
10	18	Final Fantasy VII	Yes
11	16	PaRappa the Rapper	No
12	24	Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo	No
13	14	Resident Evil 2	Yes
14	8	Ape Escape	No
15	14	Silent Hill	Yes
16	-	Soul Blade	No
17	-	Tomb Raider	Yes
18	9	Street Fighter Alpha 3	No
19	-	Um Jammer Lammy	No
20	-	WarHawk	Yes
21	23	Final Fantasy Tactics	Yes
22	-	Twisted Metal 2	Yes
23	-	Intelligent Qube	No
24	-	Tomba	No
25	-	Point Blank	No
-	17	Grandia	Yes
-	19	Syphon Filter	Yes

Video Game Download Stores For PC & Mac

Unlike consoles, even the largest games for PC and Mac can be download from the Internet. The hardest part is finding out where to make the purchase, especially for Mac and Linux games. To change that I have rounded up the most reputable download game stores on the net, so you can load up your machine with all the games you can buy.

Windows only
Steam
Probably the most well known video game download store on the net. This is owned by the developer Valve, creator of games like Half-Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead.
http://store.steampowered.com/

Good Old Games
This is the store you probably wanna check first to download a game. Everything you'll find here is 100% DRM free. Unfortunately most of the games developers and publishers will let them sell like this are a few years old, hence the name.
http://www.gog.com/

Impulse
Software developer Stardock's online game store.
http://www.impulsedriven.com/

Games for Windows
Microsoft's own game store, selling it's own games and others for it's operating system.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/index.aspx

Mac only
Mac Game Store
A subsidiary of Inside Mac Games, a Mac gaming news website. It claims to be the largest online Macintosh gaming store on the planet. With such a conspicuous name it's easy to believe.
http://www.macgamestore.com/

GameTree Online
TransGaming's store, a company that make tech for porting Windows games to Mac. The tittles it has ported over are sold through this store.
http://www.gametreeonline.com/

Both
Direct2Drive
Run by IGN, in addition to selling Windows and Mac games this also sells episodes of anime shows.
http://www.direct2drive.com/

Greenhouse
Created by the makers of the Penny Arcade webcomic and the developers of the game based on that, this is the only store on the list that not only sell games for Windows and Mac but also Linux.
http://www.playgreenhouse.com/

GamersGate
A service operated by the game developer Paradox Interactive.
http://www.gamersgate.com/

Another option is just go to a developer's or publisher's site where they may sell their own games directly.

Safari 4 for Windows has a feature the Mac Version Doesn't

The question is why did this happen?

It seems Nintendo does care about gamers

The Racial Realities of President Obama

As you have probably have been hearing all over the news Barack Obama is now the United States first African American President. While it is great that this has happened their are things about Obama that make this accomplishment not as great as it seems. The first is that he is only half black, he also half white. So if he is the first black president he also the forty-forth white president. That means the chain of white presidents has not been broken but it is damaged. One has to wonder if he was fully black would he still have been elected, just like it must be considered if Hilary Clinton would have made it so far in the primaries if she was not married to a former president.
Another race issue for Obama is that his father was an immigrant from Kenya meaning that unlike the large majority of African Americans he has no slave ancestors. Part of the reason that the idea of a black president is looked at so fondly is that a group of people once seen as nothing more than property has one of their kinfolk rise to the highest office in the land. Instead we get a gene line that never had to go through many of the harsh things that have happened to blacks in America.
Obama should not be ashamed of the fact that he only half black or does not have slave lineage but people should stop acting like those facts are not there. Many people like myself believed that it was not a question of if but when their would be black president. While we most of us imagined it would be a fully black person with slave ancestors, Obama's winning is a monumental achievement that proves that people of any ethnicity can become president too.

Geeky Gifts you can't go Wrong With

With the holidays coming up one of the hardest parts of the season is choosing the right gift for someone. Have no worries, with this set of gifts it will be hard to disappoint those you care about. At the bottom of this posting you'll find pictures and links to all my recommendations on Amazon.com.

KingMax 8GB Super Stick - Is a flash drive meant to survive one of the classic errors people make with small gadgets, leaving it in a clothing pocket that then goes through the laundry. Great for saving the forget from losing important files.

Xbox 360 Wired Controller - This is one of the best conventional controllers available and the wired version has two advantages over its wireless counter part. It doesn't need to recharged so lack of power doesn't stop the fun and you can use it on on computer without the need for a dongle thanks to its USB connector.

World of Goo - This is a simple puzzle game that involves making structures in order to accomplish a task. People of all ages will find this enjoyable and challenging as it is one of the best puzzle games to come out this year. It is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and the Nintendo Wii. If you want to try it for yourself you can download a free demo for your computer here.

Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 - As many photographers know you never the opportunity for a great shot can come anytime and anywhere and you'll regret if you miss the chance to get it. Sure you could carry your camera with you at all times but that can be cumbersome. The other alternative is to use your cell phone's camera but most take crappy photos with none of the options found on regular cameras. The exception to this is the Motozine ZN5. A joint development between Motorola and Koday, this is part phone part camera, not a phone with some camera added on. It has the quality and many of the features features you would find on a point and shoot. It has some nice phone features as well. While it is not as versatile as the iPhone it is advanced enough to feel state of the art. You can buy it unlocked for the price below, allowing you to chose a compatible carrier or you can get it much cheaper with a T-Mobile contract.

Joby Gorillapod - This basically a miniature tripod. What makes it useful are its three legs can bend in any direction allowing you to wrap them around other objects. So if you want a take a picture or film from a tree branch a railing or some other place you can't rest your camera the Gorillapod lets you attach it. Just make sure you get the right type for the camera its going to be used with.

Eye-Fi - Is a 2 GB SD memory card with wi-fi. With this the card can take your photos and sync them to your computer, upload them to photo sites like Flickr and even geotag them. All of this is done wirelessly and without taking the card out. How many of the features a card has depends on what model you get.

Archos 5 - This media player features a larger screen and larger capacities than the iPod Touch. Plus its built in browser can do flash. With a cradle accessory you can turn it into a DVR that can hook up to your TV so you can watch your favorite show on the road or at home without having to buy episodes or download them illegally.

Logitech Squeezebox Boom - This is the ultimate home music player. The Boom plays internet radio or your computer music collection through your wi-fi or Ethernet network. Services like Pandora, Last.fm and slacker all work with it so as long as your can connect to the internet you can play some great music to your taste. The boom has a very customisible alarm clock and other features like the the ability pull the local temperature from the internet.

MacBook Pro 17 in. - As my own computer I can recommend this to anyone look for a powerful laptop. While the 17 in. model didn't receive a recent redesign lie the 15 in., this may be a good thing for some. The 17 has a conventional keyboard and track pad which some will prefer. The biggest draw may be that you can get one with a matte screen so reflections won't be issue for those who want to create media on their computer.

Adobe Creative Suite CS4 - While very few people will have use for all the apps in the Master Collection many will value the smaller specialized collections or just one of the programs included like Photoshop, Illustrator or Flash. What is especially good about CS4 versions is that this time Adobe could focus on refining and adding feature to its programs unlike the CS3 versions where had worry about making them compatible with Intel Mac and Vista and integrating the apps from its Macromedia acquisition.

Amazon.com Gift Card - For a gift that's good for anyone that can use the internet, go with this. Amazon sells such huge variety of items so whoever you give it too is bound find something they really want. Just be sure to make it for $30 dollars or more so they can qualify for free shipping on their order, therefore spending all of the card on the actual item(s) they want.

8 Great Dashboard Widgets

Dashboard Widgets were the popular small apps that Apple Community talked about before the iPhone showed up. They still great for grabbing information quickly and these widgets will save you from a lot of navigatioting of your mac. Here are eight I found very useful.


iStat Pro - This widget is great for geeks who want to keep tabs on what going on with their computer easily. This lets you track things like your CPU temp, hard drive space and net connection speed. Additionally this widget let you customize the color and notifies you when their is an update for it.


Delivery Status - With this you'll be able to track your online orders and other packages going through the mail.

TV Forecast - Always know when a new episode of your favorite shows will be on with this. This widget will give you the day and time of the next 5-20 new episodes of your shows.


Sports Fan - The ESPN widgets that come with OS X would be great for getting scores if only they constantly updated and gave more than then the actual score and period. For the true sports fan their is Sports fan which not only has constantly updated scores with more in depth info but also standings. This widget cover Baseball, Basketball, Football and Hockey at all different levels.


Scoreboard - For the baseball fans that wants a widget that gives more info, this has what bases have runners and the ball, strike and out counts in a game in addition to the score.


This Day in History - History buffs should enjoy this widget that tells you both major and minor events that happened on the current date in years past.

Widget Update - Most widgets don't tell you when an update for it is available. This will check all your widgets to see if they are up to date and give you links to download the newest version for old ones.

Application Update - If you want to keep the non-Apple programs on your Mac up to date then use this which works just like Widget Update.

Got your own great widgets you would like to share, leave the name in the comments.