Silent Hill Retrospect

Silent Hill

Dark atmosphere, religious icons and symbolism, subtle references to the horror masters of various ages, Konami first entry into the survival horror genre proved to offer something different from the standards set by Resident Evil. Instead of jump out scares, Silent Hill relied on psychological terrors. Team Silent realized from the start that the more effective weapon to evoke a person’s worst fears is their own imagination. Monsters don’t have to be seen or actually show up as long as the game makes you think they’re there and could show up at any moment. Not to say that you spend the entire game not seeing a single monster, they definitely make their presence realized by assaulting you from the land and air.

I would try to describe these creatures but, there’s nothing really comparative about them. There are enemies that look like pterodactyls (spelled that correctly on the first try!), some that look and move like gorillas, enemies that look and move like dogs and some that resemble little kids (more on these later). All have a skin-like appearance, very red or peach. Some enemies in the later stages are almost completely invisible.

The levels deserve a special mention because they are well-chosen. Middle school, hospital, sewers, abandoned amusement park; these are all examples of settings we are familiar with as human beings, but not when they’re presented deserted and transformed. This is a clear example of taking the familiar and making it strange, which is a common tactic in the horror genre, but is always effective.

The middle school is one of the first levels and has an enemy population that is made up of tiny enemies that resemble middle school students with butcher knives. That’s really unnerving to think about, running around a middle school trying to keep these things from killing you. They lumber around, making little squeaking noise and lunge at you.

Something that has been tradition in the series is a hospital level. The nurses in these levels have probably become the second most famous enemy from this series (pyramid head being the first) mostly from their Silent Hill 2 counterparts being overly sexualized. Not so here. You’ll find a mixture of nurses and doctors in this hospital as they all are hunched over with what looks like a tumor growth on their back. A nice touch which was probably lost in the American demographic is the inclusion of a fourth floor. In Japan, there is a superstition surround the fourth floor in hospitals (so much so that I think they intentionally always stop at 3 floors) since the word ‘fourth’ in Japan is pronounce the same way as ‘death’. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a fourth floor in the hospital in Silent Hill. It doesn’t show up right away, you have to select the other floors and see that there’s no way to progress through the game before the fourth floor elevator button shows up. It’s a nice, subtle touch.

Speaking of subtly, this game plays host to a lot of horror movie references. Everything from Rosemary’s Baby to the Little Shop of Horrors has at least one instance of being honored by this game: whether it be the street names or little Easter Eggs. The only famous horror movie I didn’t find a reference for was the Exorcist. Or maybe the idea of a possessed little girl was the reference, but even then, I think that’s more akin to Rosemary’s Baby since it was a cult that drove the evil into the girl, not the evil itself.

Harry Mason, your main character, controls like rhino on roller skates. Many times I’ve resorted to yelling profanely at my television screen in some vain attempt to maneuver him away from smacking into a wall and get the heck away from all the enemies. Mixing in all those enemies, controlling Harry, dark areas and some nice lag can make you forget all about being scared and confront being overly annoyed.

The plot will definitely take you a few times through to comprehend, mostly because nothing is spelled out for you, but in a good way. Having elements being explained how removes any sense of uncertainty and mystery. Once you put logic or reason to something, it ceases to be scary or interesting. So I consider it a good choice for Konami to leave players in the dark (pun definitely intended). Depending on your actions during the game, you can achieve one of five different endings, most of which just determine what final boss you meet and the final scene, but there’s not a lot of contrast, except for one of the endings, which was probably intended as a joke, but makes just as much sense as the rest of them. All you need to know is this town is more than your average tourist getaway.

Silent Hill 2

This game is what story-telling is all about. The characters, the story, the atmosphere, all are excellent. James Sunderland receives a letter from his deceased wife from a town they spent a lot of their time in, Silent Hill. But this isn’t the same Silent Hill that Harry Mason ran around in. No, this is a more subtle Silent Hill. The whole town is coated in a thick layer of fog. This creates the atmosphere of uncertainty. Every noise you hear is not immediately accompanied by a source. It leaves you wondering what’s out there and let’s your imagination create the terrors. That’s not to say the game is one big tease, you see monsters. But these monsters aren’t zombies or dinosaurs or some genetically mutated abomination, these monsters are the most well-designed monsters in gaming. Every single one of them is symbolic to your character’s troubled mind.

I’ll start off with the executioner himself (or rather themselves since there’s two), Pyramid Head. Not all of his appearances are out to antagonize you. He’s meant to symbolize oppression and judgment. In the past, the executioners put to death those who were convicted as witches. There are some heavy, sexual overtones in the game which mostly make you feel really uncomfortable. Some encounters he’s chasing you around with the biggest meat clever in the world, it grinding slowly against the ground as he pursues you, some encounters he’s violating one of the other enemies in the game. Even the other enemies don’t feel completely natural. They’re more like mannequins. And of course there are the sexy nurses with the cleavage. I’ll make a note to point out this is the ONLY instance in the Silent Hill series where they’ve been appropriate.

You start to get the feeling that James is creating all these terrors himself during his plight to find his dead wife. Along the way you run into 4 different characters. All of which see either slightly off or are not exactly experiencing the same town you are. You have the little girl, Laura who acts like the town is just simply deserted, Eddie, who is first met throwing up in a bathroom next to a room where someone has been murdered, Angela is always tensed up and submissive, almost childlike and Maria could be your dead wife’s twin as far as looks go. Maria deserves special mention because of how she plays opposite James, even having to be escorted for a short time. James is clearly attracted to her, but still has the strong desire to find his wife. Maria seems to enjoy teasing him around and really wants him to abandon his quest and just stay with her. And thank god, this is one love interest that doesn’t feel shoe-horned into the plot for the sake of padding. There’s a reason Maria is in this story, and it’s a dang-good one.

The graphics are splendid. Sure there might be some long stretches where nothing happens, and the game chugs a bit during the foggier areas, but it’s all about atmosphere. It’s all about the isolation. You feel alone. There’s no security or means to confine within in this town (unless you count Maria’s supple… support). All of which is perfectly accented by Akira Yamaoka mastery of the effects of sound and ambient noise. Everything just fits so well into making you believe this story is really happening, and you’re a part of it.

The combat is clunky, but this is another good example of your character being an average person and not Rambo. Although a normal person should still be able to swing around a nail-board without smacking themselves in the face, which James might have trouble with.

Silent Hill 3

I’m a little confused by Silent Hill 3. Instead of having a person wander into Silent Hill searching for someone, the town actually comes to the character first. Heather is your normal teenage girl who is stereotypically found in a mall. Suddenly the world changes from the casual atmosphere of shoppers to the degraded, rustic look of Silent Hill’s nightmare world. This raises a few questions. How far is the town willing to go to get to someone? Can the town actually stretch its influence beyond its own borders and infect the rest of the world? None of these issues are addressed, which is good, but I wish they could’ve expanded on this a little more.

Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1, which leaves Silent Hill 2 to take place in its own little dimension. It’s interesting though, because when Heather finally makes it to Silent Hill, it’s the town found in Silent Hill 2. This is probably because the town itself is rather huge, and Silent Hill 1 merely took place in one part, whereas Silent Hill 2 was located in an adjacent location. As far as story goes, this game doesn’t do much to expand upon the legend of the town, but more of some of the characters and events that happened within it. It throws characters related to people from the first game as well as all new psychos like Leonard. All of which helps layer on the fact that this town brings out the evil nature in peoples’ souls.

There are some neat scare-tactics in this game, a haunted house, a room designed specifically to get yourself locked in, some of the same areas from the 2^nd game that have transformed. All of which are rendered beautifully. Silent Hill 2’s graphics were something to behold, and Silent Hill 3 somehow improved on them.

Combat was refined a little more. You got more of a weapon selection, like a submachine gun and a light saber which only provides more awkwardness in a game that’s already unsettling enough.

There is one event near the end of the game that’s really disturbing. It happens between Claudia and Heather but I care not to describe it. I’ve never seen it in any form of media, movie or book alike, and it shocked me.

The levels in this game, abandoned amusement parks, your standard hospital level, sewers… basically all the levels you’ve seen in the other games are gone over with a few being completely original areas, mostly found in the last part of the game. Ultimately, the game serves to give some closure to Silent Hill 1, as if to point out which ending event was the true one. It’s almost an unnecessary game, but they improved on the formula enough to justify the release.

Silent Hill 4: The Room

The Room’s biggest accomplishment is making the player suffer one of the worst inventory systems ever conceived. You have a limited number of items you can carry around, but you also need to lug around a lot of items for puzzle solving. Did any designer think that one all the way through? Another layer of stupidity is slathered on when the game introduces limited stacking ammo. Sounds dumb? That’s because it is. Mix that in with the inventory system and you have the most horrifying part of the game. So yeah, some idiot game designer decided that ammo will only stack up to a certain number, let’s say… 12 bullets per stack. So now you’re lugging around all those stacks of ammo, your collection of puzzle trinkets and a whole lot of contempt for this game.

One of the strangest things about this game (and that’s saying a lot) is that you never actually go to Silent Hill. You go through 4 levels with your apartment room acting as a hub for them all. The game sucker punches you in the face by making you go through each level twice, once when its ‘normal’ and again when it’s in ‘nightmare’ mode (as if this game wasn’t already in nightmare mode). And to make sure the nightmare levels are extra nightmare-ish, you have to escort around a female character, and not let her die. Basically it’s this part of the game that determines what ending you get. It wouldn’t be so bad to drag her around if the unbeatable phantoms wouldn’t show up. They cannot be killed, but they can be restrained with some special items, but they are annoying.

Combat received another upgrade with the addition of a charged attack, which is what you get when you hold down the attack button and release. It’s actually worth it to use sometimes, especially when trying to defeat the final boss. And I do have to mention the final boss because, for once, it’s not some spirit or demon that you fight, it’s a human being. I find this to be a more believable and more effective which makes for a more meaningful encounter.

The subtle of this game is The Room because you’re main character, Henry Townshend, cannot leave his apartment due to it being mysteriously chained and bound at the door. He can yell and scream all he wants, but there is no way to get out except by travelling through the hole in your bathroom to get to the game’s levels. Over the course of the game, your room will slowly be possessed by ghosts, which you have to ward off with various items, like candles. It’s a nice touch considering the first half the game lets you believe that this is a haven for you.

The game does a good job with atmosphere and characters once again, but the gameplay is just not there. It’s still worth looking at, considering I managed to buy it for $10 new when it was close to being first released, so I’d imagine it’s even cheaper now. One thing that people might notice is a lack of boss battles. It didn’t strike me until I fought the first one, which is near the end of the game, but I never imagined a game without boss battles. It’s weird to think about considering they’ve been such an integrated part of gaming for the last 25 years. It just shows the creators had enough sense to not force anything into the game that wasn’t necessary; they just made some bad decisions along the way.

Silent Hill Origins

This was the only Climax Studios Silent Hill game I played, since then they’ve release Silent Hill 5: Homecoming and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Basically Team Silent (the Japanese dev team) decided Silent Hill had gone on long enough, but Konami decided a western developer should get a crack at it, which usually spells trouble for any series. And like Americans tend to do, they messed it up. Gone are the great characters and great story lines and what’s left is merely an imitation of what the series formally was. In Origins you play a truck driver who had no business being in the town in the first place, but soon realizes he too has a troubled past which he needs to work out. The problem is: the game / the town / the enemies / the story weren’t really built around this. There are hints here and there with the levels and some notes you find, but the enemy designed don’t reflect what I would consider a personalized hell for him. It’s actually brought up really late in the game what events took place that were so bad, but it was never a part of the over-arching story. In Silent Hill 2, you were constantly looking for clues where or how your wife wrote you a letter. In this game, you’re just kind of wandering around like an idiot instead of running out of the town and never coming back. Nothing is really solved by him coming to the town.

The combat takes a turn for the worse by including weapon degradation, but you can pick up a new weapon at almost every turn. The idea is, instead of a few weapons that can be used many times, you get a bunch of weapons that can only be used once or twice. I’m not really sure what they were thinking with this. Maybe frantically throwing stuff at enemies is supposed to make combat more of a desperate struggle, but I just kept thinking of how your main character could hold all those items.

As far as levels go, there’s nothing special. I think I liked the theater the best because it seemed creative how you managed to get to the boss area by way of the stage. Other than that, there’s nothing special. You go to a mental hospital which has a connection to you, yadda yadda yadda. Move on already.

My biggest complaint is the developers never took the time to understand what made the series great. They figured they could copy success by copying the game, but there’s more to it than that. Silent Hill from 1 through 4 were all smart games (well maybe not 1 and 3 with the amount of doofus cult-driven characters that run around) that all did one thing very well. Whether it is the story, the atmosphere or always the soundtrack, it was something that kept you playing. Silent Hill Origins does nothing well enough to warrant its existence. Being a prequel game almost means nothing. You see some characters from the first game, but they’re completely useless and only stay around as far as the opening.

Despite the newer games, this is my favorite survival horror series. There’s just so much to chew on with these games (1 through 4). They really put some effort into making them consistent yet different.

Parasite Eve, Dino Crisis, Fatal Frame

Parasite Eve

Woo, Parasite Eve. Square Soft’s cinematic RPG. Guess we know what inspired Final Fantasy 13. This game came out long before games like Uncharted Heavy Rain starting taking on the genre name. Although, I’m not exactly sure what cinematic RPG was supposed to mean, it doesn’t really play any different from other RPGs. You level and fight randomly encountered baddies while using an ATB bar. You use magic, except they don’t call it magic, and you use items. Maybe because sometimes the pre-rendered backgrounds moved this deserved to be called cinematic, I don’t know. Or perhaps you can beat this game in the same time it takes to watch a long movie.

The story of Parasite Eve is essentially taken from the Japanese novel under the same name. Aya Brea, a New York City cop, is the only person who can stand up against a biological threat that targets a person’s mitochondria (mitochondria is the power center of your cells). When activated by Eve, a person pretty much turns to people-jelly and merges with more people-jelly to create a monster similar in size to the Staypuff marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. That’s pretty much all you need to know about the game to understand what’s going on. They do mention a connect to Aya, Eve and Aya’s sister Maya (real original naming scheme there) and introduce a few minor characters, but none of it gets too complex.

What I loved in this game was the ability to fully customize your weapon by merger stats and adding different abilities to it. There rarely is a more rewarding feeling than creating your own hand cannon from scratch. That kind of goodness makes a man forgive a lot of flaws. And the game does a good job of throwing different types of weapons at you, much like Resident Evil 2. Hand guns, shot guns, grenade launchers, batons, rocket launchers, etc. all make an appearance at some point in the game and have their own balance. Rocket launchers are the most powerful, handguns are the quickest, and batons are terrible.

What really blows in this game are the character graphics. The backgrounds get their pre-rendered on like a normal survival horror game (or just general Playstation game period) but the characters look like a mess. Ben, who’s supposed to look like a little boy, looks more like a grown man whose 3ft tall. Even from far away the models look pixilated and choppy. If anyone’s played Xenogears, you probably know what I’m talking about. Also, for a cop, Aya sure does run like she’s got a load of bricks in her pants. Isn’t she supposed to be a trained police officer? Why does she always run around like she’s got rubber bands tied around her knees? It makes sense in the beginning when you control her and she’s wearing a dress, but later she changes into jeans, but runs the exact same way!

If you play through the game again, you unlock the Chrysler Building which you can climb up and get the secret, real ending. But good luck with that. All the halls and rooms look exactly the same. They just copy and pasted about 6 different types of areas and repeated that for about 80 floors. And most of the floors are randomly generated. So let’s sum this up: copy and pasted floors, 80 floors and randomly generated. Now try navigating all that. Be prepared for some major déjà vu. I got myself lost a lot of the time and spent some floors just trying to figure out where I was. The game offers no map, and you really can’t chart your progress. Only the boss floors are scripted. After you beat a boss, you get the key to travel all the way up to that floor. I’m not sure what building has a key for certain elevator floors, but ok. Bosses happen every 10 floors so if you die / go back down, you’ll have to climb those 10 floors all over again. What a horrible bonus area. And it’s not like you can even level up while you’re there. The enemies are pathetic, and only the last 3 bosses are really challenging.

I would’ve been content with the series ending here but…

Parasite Eve 2

Parasite Eve II is the direct sequel to Parasite Eve I (this is the kind of thing I’m paid to research) and instead of just New York, now the outbreak has spread all over the United States. Or at least that’s what I think since you spend all your time in the desert out in… let’s say New Mexico. Honestly, it’s all sand. Your only land marker is a seemingly deserted motel / gas station. Eventually you’ll uncover an underground research facility because really what evil biological company ever builds one on the surface?

Parasite Eve II makes an interesting alteration to the fully-customizing your gun with your own preferences in an intuitive upgrading method by completely removing it and gives you static weapons which never change. Thanks Squaresoft, for a second there I was enjoying the series. In fact, there’s really no leveling system either. I mean, you can upgrade your psy-energy or whatever they called it, but only about 3 of them are ever useful. They did this to make it seem like you were playing an arcade game rather than sitting at home playing a console game. Even though you play arcade games in an arcade surrounded by noisy 5-year-olds begging mommy for another quarter so they can play house of the dead 4 and need to leave me the heck alone while I play Cliffs of Dover on expert with a 20lbs controller in the shape of a guitar. Arcade style must be code for shallow because that’s what this game felt like. Just diving head-first into a game you thought would have some depth, at least in the weaponry department, and instead cracking your head open on the pool-floor that is disappointment.

The story takes a turn for the weird, and that’s saying a lot, by having the new batch of crazies wanting to build an ark for all the mitochondria creatures. Something about genetic superiority maybe, I have no idea. I would love to know how anyone gets the resources to actually build one underground and one that can support an entire ecosystem. The wallets of convenient plot-holes runs pretty deep I guess. Just ask the Umbrella Corporation.

At least the character models don’t look like someone threw up a bunch of pixels this time. In fact, the graphics are great for the PS1 (and so does the hotel shower scene). And they better, it was released in 2000. Everything looks and animates beautifully. There are some really smooth effects in the final boss fight. Of course if you stand around and admire them, you’ll probably burst into flames. Final boss is one that took me quite some time to beat, mostly because it didn’t dawn on me until death number thirty that the grenade launcher is king. In retrospect, the explosive death cannon should’ve been an obvious choice, but I still can’t get over the fact there’s virtually no stat progress in this game at all.

Who knows, maybe Parasite Eve 3^rd Birthday will return the series to its roots. And maybe Square Enix isn’t entirely staffed by monkeys smashing their faces against keyboards and will actually RELEASE AN INTERNATIONAL VERSION OF A GAME, YOU KNOW, INTERNATIONALLY.

Dino Crisis

While we’re in the era of the Playstation 1 game, I’d like to pad out this retrospect with one more game from 2 generations ago, another entry into the genre by Capcom, Dino Crisis. I know what you’re thinking. It’s a survival horror by Capcom, but instead of zombies they used dinosaurs. Well yeah, I mean where do you go after zombies, ninjas? Actually that would’ve been awesome. But dinosaurs are good too.

One thing Dino Crisis does better than Resident Evil is make you weigh actually fighting off the dinosaurs with just running away. Ammo runs low in this game and some dinosaurs respawn indefinitely, so you have to make choices whether battling is really worth it, which is how a survival horror should be. I can’t be properly scared if I’m packing enough heat to defend myself against a stadium of undead. It’d be entertaining as all heck, but not scary.

So you’re probably wondering how they decided upon dinosaurs; I mean, one cannot just let the fact that they’ve been extinct for millions of years just walk by. Of course, the story has to start out with some bonkers-scientist playing God and meddling with nature. Soon enough, Jeff Goldblum comes along and makes some jokes with Sam Neil and… no wait, I’m thinking of a much better story. Actually the dinosaurs came through a time portal. I’m not sure which part of that is more ridiculous: time portals or dinosaurs.

One thing that’s always bothered me is: you see the portal in which all the dinosaurs come through to this time period. But it only fills up the height and width of a normal hallway. So how does that explain the T-Rex? How did that thing make it through and get outside? There are no doors big enough to house that thing. And it’s not like he tore through the facility, all the buildings are still intact and usually in perfect working order.

The graphics are pretty good for the PS1, and the voice acting is… well Capcom-quality.

Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly

Playing Fatal Frame II isn’t like playing a normal survival horror game. You’re sent to an abandoned, possibly ancient Japanese village full of ghosts, you play as a young, Japanese girl and you have your sister wandering off every now and then due to her own ADD. Everything is completely foreign to the average US gamer, sans the ADD part. And that’s what makes it unique, nothing is familiar. You’re thrown into a strange place with strange characters using very strange methods of combat. Enter the camera obscura.

It may sound really, really dumb on paper, but works surprisingly well since the game took extra care to build combat around it. Normally you walk around in 3^rd person perspective until you use your camera. Suddenly you’re in 1^st person trying to fend off the deceased. This throws all the action right at you. And it’s no simple point-and-shoot camera. The camera is your only means of fending off your attackers, and the fatal frame refers to a moment during combat when the ghost is a mere split second before hitting you, thus, the most frightening parts of combat are encourage by letting the ghosts get as close to you as possible. Quite brilliant. You can upgrade your camera in various ways as well as collect different types of film to increase your damage.

The latter half the game has you being constantly chased around by a phantasm that’s indestructible and can kill you with one hit. Though it doesn’t come in without warning; all the color in the town fades into black and white while a retro film grain runs through the screen. This is a great example of suspense, a feature most survival horror games never seem to understand is necessary to properly terrify someone. The anticipation of knowing something might happen is more deeply disturbing and perturbing than seeing something jump out at you. You let the anticipation fester inside your head, trying to predict what will happen. Your imagination does all the work of terrifying you, and all the game has to do is foster that.

This means of terror is also prominent in Japanese horror movies and something western horror movies attempt but never quite pull off. For whatever reason, western horror movies would rather scare you with horrible acting, horrible plot, inserted two horror icons into the same movie and have them battle or torturing someone. None of which are really that scary, except the horrible acting.

Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented

I’m almost convinced the subtitle of this game was talking about the people who played it. I loved Fatal Frame 2, so I was ready to jump into this game to get my j-horror on, but Tecmo had other ideas.

Everything in Fatal Frame 3 just becomes so routine and mundane, not exactly terrifying when you’re used to everything. Some person dies, you investigate, suddenly you’re going to this town in your dreams and waking up in the exact same manner every day with a tattoo spreading across your body. It wouldn’t be so bad waking up this way every single time if they didn’t use the EXACT SAME cut-scene to do it with. You run around the same area again and again, switch between 3 characters, a little girl, your main heroine and the blandest guy in the world. It’s nice that certain areas can be accessed by certain characters, but really, you’re just staying in the same building the entire game. Eventually you’ll have to back track at some point and way too often.

The tense moments of running around the ghost-filled complex by having you interact around your own house / apartment. Every now and then a ghost figure will appear for a few seconds. This provides a nice contrast between was should be feeling comfortable and safe into being paranoid; one of the few good things about this game.

The highlight of Fatal Frame 3 comes with a boss battle somewhere passed the halfway point of the game. The setting is such: you’re forced to get on your belly and crawl underneath the floor boards of a Japanese room. You have about a foot of space between the dirt and the boards that make up the floor. Already, you’re dealing with dark areas and claustrophobia, a prime example of making the player uncomfortable without annoying the crap out of them. Suddenly, a hostile ghost appears and decides to take advantage of your vulnerable state. This is great gaming. This is the only vivid memory I have of this game, and for good reason. The game set up and executed this intense battle perfectly.

I suppose I could end this by pointing out the U.S. has still not gotten Fatal Frame 4 for the Wii. Nintendo of America decided that it wasn’t worth bringing over. But thanks a crap-load for the Crystal Bearers, Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Samurai Warriors 3 and a mountain-pile of shovel-ware. Glad to see quality control is doing their part in ruining my life. How about you work on making a console that can actually work with current generation technology? I’ll tear into the Wii another time, for now, I have one more installment. But I saved my favorite series for last.

“I still don’t believe it. The dead can’t send letters, yet I came here to see my Mary. Our special place – what does that mean? This place is too full of memories. The only way to get to the center of the town is through this tunnel, but there must have been an accident or something because the entrance is blocked. But wait… The map shows a single road through the forest that leads to the town. Looks like the only way to get to the town is to take this road on foot. I can’t see anyone in this thick fog, or should I say I don’t feel anyone. I see a run-down building nearby. There’s no one inside. I am alone in the mirror’s reflection. I look at the man in the mirror and mutter a question. ‘Mary, could you really be in this town?’”

Web Designer Tools

I've found a few resources on the web that have made designing a little easier.

Gridulator

First of which is a grid generating website. http://gridulator.com/. Here you can control the width, gutter width, number of columns, etc. It's a great, flexible tool to get you started on comps or wire-frames. You can preview your configuration and export a png file that has the gridded layout so you can just drop that into Photoshop.

That link again: http://gridulator.com/



CSS3 Styles

I know CSS3 has shown up and everyone is excited, but I don't have a lot of the code memorized yet. So to help me out, I use http://westciv.com/. Hit "Tools" either in the navigation or those large buttons in the body of the page and select what specific kind of style you want to create with CSS3 from the CSS3 Sandbox. Once you pick one, you can easily navigation between the rest. The website allows you to control styles through check boxes and sliders, while giving you a preview of what's going on. It'll generate the code for you in web kit and firefox, so there's no compatibility problem unless you're using IE6 or IE7 (in which case, you have bigger issues at hand). Use this to get more familiar with CSS3 and realize what awesome potential it's bringing to web design.

That link again: http://westciv.com/



MeasureIt!

MeasureIt! is a tool exclusive to Google Chrome (as far as I know) which will allow you to measure (in pixels) distances on the web. It stations itself in the top-right side of the browser, icon looks like a ruler. You can see the blue box I've created on this web page just by clicking and dragging. The tiny red box next to the blue one displays the height and width in pixels. It's a neat tool I've used once or twice.




Eye Dropper

A tool that does exactly what you think it does. This is another Chrome-exclusive that situates itself near the top-right browser window. Basically it samples whatever color is on the screen instead of opening Photoshop to check. It's a good time-saving tool. As you can see from the image above, it'll give you the hex values as well as let you surf around a color picker that's exactly like the one Photoshop uses.




The Ball Pool

No, this probably isn't useful. But it sure is fun. http://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/ball_pool/. Click to add more balls, double click to reset the pool. Dragging the balls around, moving the browser window around, just being balls-deep in some browser entertainment, it's all fair game. Just try not to spend too much time with it; maybe just when you're short on ideas and need a break.

That link again: http://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/ball_pool/

Resident Evil Retrospect

Every year when fall rolls around, I can't help but this about the great games that came with it in the past. The scent of autumn's breeze really evokes strong memories of games like Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Solid 2; just a few examples of the great games that came out in during Sept.-Nov. stretch. Since October is all about Halloween, I wanted to cover a few games in the survival horror genre, many of which had falls releases (RE1: Director's Cut, RE2: Dual Shock, Silent Hill, Fatal Frame 2, Parasite Eve, etc.). But instead of picking out individual games in a series, I'll just talk about the series instead. First of which is my first introduction into the genre:

Resident Evil

Back when games were starting to transition from cartridges to CD's due to the help of the Sony Playstation (and less help from the Philips CDi), one of the first games was Resident Evil. It even came in one of those old school PS1 cases that were more like the size of a VHS tape. Other than the Clock Tower series, survival horror wasn't really an established genre; probably because 2D sprites were never that menacing. But with new consoles came more bits; and with the Playstation, polygons (stuff just got geometrical, y'all).

Of course you wouldn't be able to judge the graphical power of this game from the opening sequence, probably because it's shot in live action. They actually got some poor actors and bad special effects to shoot the opening sequence of this game. Every other scene is rendered in the game's engine except for this one. I feel that it really sets the tone for the rest of the game; cheap thrills and a very B-movie feel, which I think is great. B-movies have a very strong fan base, and most all of them are horror movies. So this game fits right into that crowd. I almost want to think that it was an intentional decision by the creators to design a game that captured the same feel as those old, 50's films; too bad the designers have on more than one occasion proved that they’re really just idiots flinging poo around, and seeing what stinks less.

Probably the strongest evidence for this is the story. Resident Evil's story is just dumb. So many plot holes, so many dumb moments, this is a B-movie plot. Scientists playing god with a virus that turns normal humans into the living dead and some key characters into boss monsters; it’s all so campy. Umbrella is the fictional company that houses these loony villains as they mishandle the virus and it ‘accidentally’ leaks out into the public, which eventually causes international issues while being masterminded by one of the coolest video game villains, Albert Wesker. Starting out as a member of the S.T.A.R.S. team and ending up as rejected Matrix character, Wesker is just a bad guy that won't go away. He's really just one step short of having a twirly mustache and top hat, constantly tying girls to train tracks.

Every other character in the series either becomes a reoccurring character or dies. One even had the honor of dying and coming back as a zombie.

One of the more lasting impressions Resident Evil 1 left on the gaming world was some fantastically awful voice acting. I'm not kidding when the voice over work in this game is terrible with a capital 'T'. Every single piece of dialog has lines that are just pure, putrid gold. There is not one redeemable voice actor or moment in the entire game. But when you have a stupid story, why not just go ahead and compliment it with just wretched dialog and voice acting. At least you’re entertaining people through comedy.

There really wasn't much else to this game. You got to play as either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine through the mansion, underground areas, some scientific looking areas, solved some block puzzles and eventually got the heck out of there. Everything that wasn't a pre-rendered background looked like it was made out of Legos. Most areas were very brightly lit and the standard zombie enemy never really moved that fast; it wasn't really a gripping, terrifying experience.

Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil as a series didn't hit its stride until the phenomenal Resident Evil 2. Not only was it a step up from every angle, it featured more game play. About 4x more game play. Resident Evil 1 let you play as Chris Redfield and Jill 'The Master of Unlocking' Valentine. Resident Evil 2 gave us Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield; who not only had their own scenarios, they had their own alternate scenarios (and costumes) as well. The idea was you play through the game in an A scenario with either main character, and then played through a B scenario with the other with minor elements that were effected by how you played through the A scenario. Basically scenario A and B happen in the same time frame, but involved different sides of the story. And the fun didn't end there. There were also scenarios following two other characters: Hunk and Tofu. That's quite the game for only two discs.

The story featured more doofus characters this time around, more doofier than the original game: including melodramatic scientists, secret agents, a fat guy in a gun shop, one black guy who dies (surprise, surprise, surprise, and wouldn’t ya know it, it was his last day on the force too) and David Bowie (or maybe that was Wesker again). There’s a section of the game you control a defenseless little girl (no, not Rebecca from the first game, although you did play as her when your main character caught a zombie STD).

The areas were more complex, the enemies were more varied, the voice acting was... still kind of campy, but in a good way, I have very little complaints with this game other than controlling either party felt like Austin Powers trying to drive a golf cart in a very narrow hallway. Thus my review of this game isn’t very funny.

Let’s move on!

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

After the massive success of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3 had the terrible task of following up. Even though it wasn't a bad game, there's not really much different about it. Game play was changed up a bit with a mixing feature which allowed you to mix and create your own ammo. Not a bad idea, it allowed you to focus on your preference of fire power instead of finding a bunch of ammo for a gun you'll probably never use (though mixing the right kind of grenade ammo took some trial and error, mostly error). It was a nice balancing feature, not that powerful ammo was ever plentiful in any of these games. Stuff tends to be less scary when you’re packing heat like Schwarzenegger in Predator.

But the biggest change (pun intended) was the inclusion of the brick house known as Nemesis. A creature so menacing, he's in the title: Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. I don't know any other survival horror creature to get title respect from a game: although I would love to play Silent Hill 8: Pyramid Head (actually that sounds really dumb). Nemesis managed to live up to the title by being about 7 feet tall, ugly as sin, strong and oh... Capcom gave him a rocket launcher. Yeah, that was a great idea. As if a 7-foot terror like Nemesis wasn't frightening enough, he now has long range, explosive capabilities. That’s just what that creature needed. Why not give him lasers mounted on his forehead, or a great katana that also fire out shurikens and lightning, and why not put him in a Lady Gaga outfit and sing show tunes (wait, what was I talking about?). What sadistic game designer thought that one up? And Nemesis makes it his mission to track you down throughout the entire game. So on top of the hordes of zombies, rabid dogs, lickers and spiders, you have the undead Hulk Hogan wanting smash you like Gallagher would a watermelon, and his fists were the mallet, fantastic.

I know there was that other creature in Resident Evil 2 in the B scenario that also chased you around, but I like talking about Nemesis better. He just had more… personality. Yeah, let’s go with that.

Another noteworthy change, every now and then, you'll come across a scenario in which you have a choice between fighting Nemesis and running away. Running away being the choice anyone would make as long as they had two functioning feet and a brain that wasn’t the size of a pencil eraser. Or you could stand your ground and fight which would allow you to try and temporarily stop the behemoth and you'd be rewarded with a valuable item like a health spray carrier or an attachable part to a firearm, or you defeated and punished with all the damages of standing in front of a moving bullet train. Having the choice presented to you like this detracts from the sheer terror that Nemesis should fill you with, but, luckily, this doesn't encompass every encounter you have with him. One of the last scenes in the game actually let's you choose between finishing off Nemesis and just walking away. After about 5 hours of being chased around by that maniac, I couldn't hit that kill button fast enough. Honestly, what person would just pass up the opportunity to exact vengeance on this biological nightmare? Nemesis dies no matter what ending you pick, so why not just kill it? Afraid of staining your hands with the blood of the non-living, because I think that ship sailed in the first five minutes of the game. The game ends with a very dramatic scene of Raccoon City being destroyed by a bomb, probably atomic, erasing all of Umbrella's blemishes, plot holes and whatever survivors there might have been. It's all accented with one of the most beautiful scores in Resident Evil history; one that I've actually learned how to play on the piano.

Resident Evil: Code Veronica X

Code Veronica was the only game to start out on the Dreamcast before making its way to the Playstation 2, and is the only game where you can play both Redfields. It's also the first game to not take place in Raccoon City since it kind of... blew up. Now we have an international mission to investigate the Ashford family and their absurdity, because Umbrella decided to leave the picture. The Ashfords have to be one of the world's most dysfunctional families (topped only by the Osbourne family): with a brother who is deeply obsessed with his sister (creepy), the dad who helped start Umbrella (stupid by default) and Alexia who is a godless killing machine (not unlike the North American Grizzly).

I believe this is also the first Resident Evil game to not rely on pre-rendered backgrounds. There wasn't much else that changed. You ran around, solved various puzzles while being stalked by a mosh-pit’s worth of zombies and other strange creatures. You even get to go to base in Antarctica, because… that’s the first place I think of when building a facility.

The game also brought us the infamous Steve character, whom of which I despise greatly. He's the kind of character you wish would just get bit by a zombie so he'd turn into one and you'd have to give him a double-barrel blast of boom stick. Sadly, the game never granted you this pleasure, but the whiny little peon does die. At least that was something I could enjoy. Ever since Steve, I've actually rated a character's whininess level on what I call the Steve-meter. Characters like Tidus from Final Fantasy X, Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 and Hope from Final Fantasy XIII all scored pretty high on this meter.

And just in case you didn't like Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, there was also the demo for Devil May Cry which, I honestly, played more than Resident Evil. Going from driving around human tanks to using Dante and slaying demons in all his twitch-based glory, it was like watching the Adventures of Sonic with chilly dog jokes, and then watching the Adventures of Sonic that didn't have chilly dog jokes; just so much better (the latter also never had stupid PSA’s at the end of each episode).

Resident Evil 1 Remake

Never before has a Resident Evil been exclusive to a Nintendo console until this game. Remaking the first Resident Evil had to be one of the easiest things to do. There really wasn't much room to make that game worse than it already was. Basically Capcom took the layout of the first game, characters, setting, story, and gave the game the treatment that could never have been achieved on the Playstation. The atmosphere was darker, new areas, new defensive weapons, more aggressive enemies; this game was an improvement in just about every single way (except for the dialog, but why would you want to change that?).

One thing I always think of in this series is the save room music, especially in this particular entry. It's probably the second best ambient music in gaming history; first being Aquatic Ambiance from Donkey Kong Country. It creates such a contrast between the tensions that you feel running around hallways, not knowing what might jump out at you, to finally hearing this soothing music in a room that becomes a haven (full of ink ribbons). Third place would be the track from the underground water tank level with Neptune, the shark also from this game.

Speaking of which, many of the areas from the original game receive massive over hauls in terms of layout and feel. Instead of the brightly lit hallways and rooms of the original, the remake threw down some shadows and actual atmosphere through some beautifully rendered backgrounds of the pre- variety. Some completely new areas and aspects of the story were also added (though didn’t really matter that much), like the cabin with that girl who transformed into some kind of hunchback monster that would show up every now and then and beat the crap out of you (kinda like Activision but with better business practices).

Enemies were no longer the dumb, slow zombies that we grew up with. I remember my first encounter with one that could actually open up doors between rooms. It was horrifying as a gamer to have an enemy that pursued you in such a way that wasn't Nemesis. For the remake, you also had to dispose of the bodies by either head-shotting them or burning the corpse or the real fun began. Normal zombies would go from their lumbering selves to redheads which did more damage and sprinted after you (like a fat kid after an ice cream truck). One encounter was reason enough to torch every last one of those things.

With the mature audience thoroughly behind the release, Capcom and Nintendo didn’t stop here!

Resident Evil 0

Zero appeal, Zero reason to play

Resident Evil 0's story takes place before the mansion incident in Resident Evil 1 and follows the adventures of Rebecca Chambers and Billy 'Never Gonna Appear in the Series Again' Insert-Last-Name-Here. This game is a good example of story that is all kinds of stupid but not in that campy way that comes off as funny. The antagonist was dumb (I can't even remember who he was or what he wanted to do with his army of leeches), Rebecca wasn't interesting in the first game, and isn't in this one either with her tom-boy haircut. Billy is just kind of there because Becky is too weak to move anything heavier than a T.V. remote (and someone had to handle all the manly artillery).

Capcom also tries taking advantage of two protagonists by having some non-two-player co-op game play (which sounds just as dumb as it plays). You can switch between Billy and Becky with a press of a button. So if one character is in a dire situation, it's up to the other to bail them out. Oh, and if one of them dies, game over (wheeeee….). In retrospect, Capcom was probably testing the waters for a game like Resident Evil 5 (which was also annoying with an AI-controlled character, so whatever).

Resident Evil 0 does manage to commit one of the worst sins in gaming by having one of the most horrifying inventory systems. When that's the scariest thing about your game, something has seriously gone wrong. Basically, instead of the magic inventory casket from the other games, now you simply drop and pick up items as you go. Unfortunately, some of the areas you visit aren't accessible after certain points. So if you've left your valuable grenade launcher in one of those areas, it's gone for good. I actually had this misfortune of this happening near the end of the game. Luckily I had an old save file where I still had it. Otherwise, I'd have had to reset the game due to a particularly durable boss encounter that basically requires the grenade launcher as well as some other choice weapons to take it down. This is not good game design! I guess they thought this was okay since the game is only about 5 hours long, 2 if you know what you're doing. Or you could just be smart and never play it. Not like it matters if you care about the (cough, cough) story.

Usually when an item was no longer useful, the game just asked you if you wanted to discard it. But now, you have no idea which items will continue being useful or just act as dead weight for the rest of the game your first time through. And who the heck played through this game more than once, or once to begin with?

Resident Evil 4

Holy crap, where did this game come from? Never before has the series been so rejuvenated since Resident Evil 2. Boasting a completely revamped, over-the-shoulder game play style and a host of new ideas, Resident Evil 4 is one of my most favorite games of all time. And it came out on the Gamecube! Actually, that wasn't as much of a surprise considering the Gamecube held host to the remake of Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil 0 and ports of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3. Since its release, Resident Evil 4 made its way to the Playstation 2 with added features and to the Nintendo Wii with motion control compatibility.

You play as Leon Kennedy once again, who finds himself in Spain, investigating the kidnapping of the President's daughter Ashley. It doesn't take long before Leon is under hostile company as, for once; you're not clearly fighting enemies of a zombie variety. The Spanish population is effected by a new strain of a virus which leaves its victims in a more mobile state than the T-virus, or G-virus, or whatever Umbrella was wasting their time with. The player may actually hesitate before shooting because the enemies still act like humans, just really pissed off humans, who spoke Spanish. Aye, dios mio! (It was too easy, and I'm just that stupid).

It becomes clear around the halfway point of this 20+ hour game that the story doesn't take itself seriously. And you know what, that's a good thing, because neither does anyone else. One of the bad guys is a (somehow) smaller version of napoleon with a giant mechanized version of him that chases you in one scene. He's more comical than anything but the game doesn't seem to care.

Resident Evil 4 also has one of the more tolerable escort missions in gaming where you have to drag Ashley's loud mouth (and subsequently the rest of her) around a few levels. After a few minutes of her screaming and talking, I almost wanted to just hand her over to the hordes. Heck, I'd feel bad for them. But she's also a character that has the decency to realize that she is utterly useless in combat, and has the good sense to go hide somewhere. Whether you come back to get her is completely up to you. Unlike other games, Resident Evil 4 tries a few different game play variations with Ashley: from having you defend her via sniping missions or directly controlling her to navigate some infested hallways. One this is for sure, this game has a lot of variation, and yet stays so unified.

One of the more intuitive aspects of the game is the inventory system. Instead of feature 4-6 slots of inventory, for the first time, you get the capacity of an entire case with a grid layout. Instead of all items just arbitrarily taking up one space, bigger items occupy more space. Going from Resident Evil 0's horrid inventory system to this, it was a dream, though short-lived.

Resident Evil 5

Yeah, the latest installment decided that it need to come back more than 1 character doing stuff, and thus you control Sheva Alomar (ice powers not included) and Chris Redfield (who’s been hitting the steroids more than my head hitting the wall while playing Tomb Raider). I think what people remember most about this game is the pre-launch racism claims surrounding it, which I’ve always found dumb. No one really had a problem when Leon gunned down half the Spanish population, but suddenly master of the white race, Chris Redfield decides to extinguish every African within eye-shot, now we’re calling racism? What kind of double-standard is that? Whites killing whites (Spanish) is fine but whites (and Sheva, who the game says is black) killing blacks is suddenly frowned upon? What happened to equality? I believe I’m within my full right to enjoy the massive genocide of any race on the face of the earth in a video game given that I have a proper motivation (no matter how poorly developed). Besides, you’ll only spend half as long mowing down Africans as you did Spaniards since Resident Evil 5 doesn’t stay around long enough to get the call from Jesse Jackson; there’s also bigger problems to complain about.

One of which is the freaking inventory system. Due to the inability of the game to stop the action and give you a proper inventory screen, we have to do everything on the fly, hence our 3 x 3 grid which is all you get. All items are split between you and whoever is playing with you (or god-help-you the AI). Thus we have a clumsy trading function and you’re not allowed to stock pile up enough grenades to re-enact Pearl Harbor on the faces of the inhabitants of whatever-this-black-village-is-ville. I’m not saying multiplayer isn’t worth the sacrifice, I’m just… yeah, I’m saying it wasn’t worth it. Really, the best time you’ll get is playing with another person, but the game also has the option for you to play against other people. All strategies boil down to stopping, shooting, moving and stopping to take aim again. Did I mention it wasn’t worth it? And what is up with carrying around your body armor in the inventory screen even when it’s equipped? How is that possible? Am I wearing armor in the pocket of other armor? It makes no sense!

Rez Ev 5 also tries to bring some kind of conclusion to the over-arching story with Wesker but who really stayed around for that? At least Ashley didn’t stop by to awkwardly hit on the male protagonist after a daring escape on a jet ski. But there’s still room for that since Resident Evil 6 is in the works. Maybe we’ll get to kill some Canadians this time (fingers crossed).

So that’s most of the series in a nutshell. I never played the Outbreak series or watched the movies while sober, but the main series has always been a major part of gaming and brought joy to survival horror fans (though I doubt anyone seriously followed the plot). Hopefully Capcom will see that Resident Evil is best when it’s embracing its campy nature instead of trying to convince us we’re supposed to be taking it seriously.

Browser Rundown

Many people are happy with surfing the internet on any-old browser, not knowing the differences between Firefox and Internet Explorer, etc. But there might be some important information that you're denying yourself, which could potentially put your computer at risk. Picking the right browser and updating it on a regular basis isn't just something for computer geeks, it should be done by everyone.

IE. Strangely similar to the sound I make when using it. IEEEEEEEEEE!

Internet Explorer

I think it's fair to say that most people reading this will be doing so through either Internet Explorer 6 or Internet Explorer 7; Internet Explorer is the most widely used browser in the US after all. But just because most everyone is using it, doesn't make it the best. In fact, these are arguably the worst browser versions to have right now.

IE6 (Internet  Explorer 6) was created back in 2001 along with Windows XP. Nine years is a long time in the internet age; and with viruses evolving just as fast as fixes, no one will be addressing them when IE6 is involved. The browser is so old now, no one wants to support it; there simply isn't a reason anymore to care about fixing the problems this browser has caused. Google, Youtube, Facebook, are all planning to drop support. IE6 is also the browser that makes web designers cringe the most, by far. IE6 does not fully support CCS version 2, which is the coding language that controls how web pages look. Certain transparencies will not register without the hassle of a work-around hack, and certain codes can actually crash the browser. Of course, this wouldn't be so bad, but it's been estimated that 20% of people are still using it. Because of this, there are many campaigns on the internet that were created solely to get rid of it entirely.

My recommendation: get IE8 and get it now. It might not be the best according to everyone (or anyone), but it's a serious upgrade from IE6 and IE7. Doing this will help with internet security and make web browsing a much more pleasurable experience. It's supported on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 as of right now. And best of all, you can upgrade for FREE. Some draw backs are: it's still one of the slowest browsers around, and is still behind much of the competition in terms of security. But IE8 has allowed Internet Explorer to stop being the punchline of the internet community.


Current version is IE8.

Setting a fox on fire is really an irresponsible thing to do.

Firefox

Firefox is probably one casual users of the internet have no idea about, but it's usually the tech-savvy browser of choice. Originally dubbed "Phoenix" back in 2002, Mozilla Firefox has included features that are considered standard nowadays. Tabbed browser windows, spell checking, live book marking, a download manager and support for some awesome plug-ins, this browser ensures your surfing is secure and enjoyable. It's also the second most used browser in the US. I believe it's also the only open-source browser out there right now.

One feature that makes it so great is "No Script". This is a simple plug-in that anyone can download and install to their Firefox browser for enhanced security, and one that I would highly recommend. IE8, surprisingly supports this plug-in as well, leaving very little excuses to not have it. You can control which pages you want scripts to run on and which you want blocked. Once installed, you can right click on any webpage and see the No Script windows which let you customize your levels of security.

On the less-practical-for-the-casual-surfer side of plug-ins, there's "Screen Grab". This one lets you take a screen shot of whatever is being displayed in your Firefox browser window.


Current version is Mozilla Firefox 3.6.

I just know those lights are gonna flash in some pattern that I'm gonna to have to memorize...

Google Chrome

The newest browser to come to the internet is Google Chrome, which has seen a great deal of popularity, being the third most used browser in the US. Keeping with a nice, clean look, and some of the fastest internet surfing around, Chrome features similar developer tools to that of Firefox's "Firebug" which is mostly used by web designers. There's also "FireBug Lite" which is the Chrome version of the Firefox add-on. A unique mode that Chrome features is Incognito which prevents the browser from storing any history information or cookies from websites visited. But this is only for the local side of things, your IP address and such can still be tracked.

Chrome also features an impressive collection of extensions like Google Mail Checker which hooks up to your gmail account to check to see if you have new mail right on your browser window. There's also a host of tools that aid web designers: screen shot tools, page resolution tools, color tools, pixel dimension tools, SEO tools, and much more. I'd say Chrome is serious about giving Firefox a run for its money. Some of the extensions are for Windows only though.

Current version is Chrome 6.0, which is the latest stable release.

No matter what direction I point my browser, it always says NE, or is that SW?...

Safari

If you're on a Mac, you should be familiar with this one. It's also supported by Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, and is the fourth most widely used browser in the US. This is another acceptable means of getting around the web, and even better if you own a Mac. Featuring unique PDF viewing, iPhoto integration, Mail integration and pop-up ad blocking, Apple has made it their policy to include this browser in with the rest of the operating system features.

Safari probably has the most flair out of all the browser. What I mean by that is, there's a lot of innovation being done with Safari, but not all of it is useful. One of the better ones is the Top Sites feature which allows you to seamlessly flip through up to 24 pages with just one click. You can do the same thing with your page history and bookmarks, flipping through pages like you would your iTunes library. Safari also uses the WebKit technology which is the power behind most every mobile internet device, iPad, Android, iPhone, Nokia Series 60, etc and is being used for Chrome. For mobile browsing, there really isn't anything better.

Current version is Safari 4.


So just when you thought your internet browser was only good for surfing the internet, recently, there's been a massive undertaking to make internet browsers a more integrated apart of computers and web technology. There of course are other browsers out there that have a dedicated fan based, like Opera, but these are the 4 biggest. And no matter what you're using, the number one rule is the make sure it's up-to-date.

Logos and company names are all registered trademarks of their respective companies. All information came from research done via the web, blame any inaccuracies on the interwebz and not me.