Tons of options, yet not the only one...

Pros: FreeRip is a great program, and it just simply works the way it's supposed to. It has tons of options (such as amazing bit-rate control and other such things), looks clean (a little cluttered, but plain and efficient), and does its job in a timely fashion (an average CD takes about five minutes on my extremely slow CD drive).

So, plain and simple, it does what it's supposed to. If you want a good ripper, there's no better place to look.

Cons: If you have any media player on your computer, chances are it already has the ability to rip CD's. Windows Media Player comes with every PC, for example, and it rips fine. So unless you really need control over your output music, there's no real reason to bother with the download, because it doesn't offer anything over the top for the mainstream music lover.

It also has several advertisements along the installation route, not too many, but enough to warrent a comment.

Posted: 28-May-2007 07:37:31 AM

You Know What They Say...

Pros: ...if you got the money, play the UT series. If you don't got the money, play the Nexuiz. If you don't got the computer for Nexuiz, play the Alien Arena.

Alien Arena is a fun game that runs on nearly any machine to some extent (though eventually you'll be playing Quake II wuth alien skins). The game looks nice for how well it runs, and the community is alright (though they will give PCLinuxOS fanboys a run for their money in terms of sheer fandom).

The weapons are balanced and fun. The game looks and sounds nice. It's on Linux and Windows (weeee Ubuntu!). It's fun for a few minutes here and there. So why the three stars?

Cons: The maps suck.

Looking at maps from Nexuiz or Unreal, we see complex designs and details that bring out the best in every asset of the game. In Alien Arena, we see boring hallways. And more hallways. Most of the time the celing is very large. Sometimes there are hallways off the hallways, leading into more hallways. But in the end, AA's maps all deviate from very simple corridors that go into more, leaving very little to the imagination, and making skill a very moot point online.

This would be fine if it didn't make the game so boring. There are some great fan-made maps on some of the third-party sites, but of course no one plays these maps because a good fraction of the fan base isn't technologically saavy enough to put a map file into their directory. This doesn't apply to them all, but goodness me, it would be nice to play a new map now and then...one that doesn't want to be like an office complex.

Some other things that drag it down: the so called "brilliant UI enhancements" that were bragged about in 6.10 were really no more than a main menu ripped right from UT 2004 (the rest of the UI looks exactly like ugly old Quake II). The bots are also pretty stupid compared to other bots from freeware games; you can't even play with them on CTF, they just run back and forth between the bases and shoot at whoever appears.

Regardless, I would say that for those it concerns, Alien Arena 2008 is a fun game that is worth a download. It's free, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Posted: 22-Mar-2008 08:48:51 AM

Windows and I-Pod-less? Fugedduboutit!

Pros: iTunes. Oh, boy. The program those hip little teenagers use once they get their Pods hooked to their computers down at Starbucks. The program's cool, right? It's sleek, fancy, and it's got some nice features for the Pod-lover set. Heck, even the podcast directory is worth downloading this for.

Cons: Except that if you are running Windows, this program will slow down your computer to no end. 1 Ghz, 2 Ghz, no matter what processor speed or how much RAM you have, everything falls to waste against Apple's sloppy Windows coding. To say the program runs badly is an understatement: most Windows programs can't function with iTunes sitting in the back.

Besides, if you don't have an i-Pod, don't bother; the programs' feature set is horrendous, forcing you to browse the only worthwhile item on the list, the music store. Of course, you need an i-Pod for that, so what's the point?

Get Winamp, Mediamonkey, or musikcube. This download is not worth the pain.

Posted: 19-Aug-2007 09:43:54 AM