Summer's Posts

GameHouse Forums > Top Users

On Mon Feb 08 16:56:14 PST 2010, Summer said:

I read on one of the other game sites that so many people had this same access violation issue that the developer put out a version that was patched for this. It was released December 16th by the date of the developer's comment, so try downloading again and see if GH has bothered to get the newer version yet, or bug the GH admin/techs to get the fixed version available for download- or go somewhere that has the fixed version.
Im not real pleased that I have seen other game sites report updating their downloads with fixes, but Ive never seen Gamehouse refer to keeping their copies of games updated to the newest available from the developers. They might, but I have never seen them say they do.

On Thu Jan 28 08:50:14 PST 2010, Summer said:

You'll probably find they are set off by any game site, but werent caused by them.

I have seen pop ups for those rogue programs (but not on gamehouse) and the only way to avoid being infected (besides using noscript in Firefox) is to NOT try to click out of them- I immediately {ctrl alt del} to taskmanager and close the browser process, which stops them dead.
An interaction with the browser or the pop up window will otherwise trigger it to drop its load.

There is a respected tool for removing rogue programs, I suggest researching it, called smitfraudFix, be careful- there's similar named programs that are rogues. Look up a blog called " S!Ri.URZ " Yes I know it looks lame but thats the real name, google it. They focus on revealing rogue programs & other "scareware"; and link to the real download spot for smitfraudfix.

Note Avira makes a real antivirus program called Avira Antivir, the one that's not by Avira is the rogue. I had forgotten that one.

On Tue Jan 26 08:59:07 PST 2010, Summer said:

thought gamepass was obsolete, holdover from a previous offer & no longer available, which means that less & less people will have it as time goes by, although i cant really remember how it was supposed to work.
Didnt know it appeared for people who buy funtickets.

I saw once someone say they were going to post the tomorrow's game, but never saw any more posts on it. Figured it annoyed GH and they shut that down.
Must be in lounge, I never go there.

Was it just me or did anyone else see the free game of the day change midday the other day? From the vegas wedding one (which crashed for me) to I forget what hidden object one, but it continued through the following day.

On Mon Jan 25 09:43:51 PST 2010, Summer said:

first there should be another forum area thats more of a general gamehouse feedback place, even if there will a lot of rants. People need to vent, although in a mature, respectful way.
Ok the point at hand- please review the policy regarding displaying "Tomorrow's free game" - the only ones who CARE about this info are the ones who are interested in possibly downloading the commercial interrupted games. However for those with the funpass- this information is completely irrelevant! Who wants a game you have to deal with commercial interruptions in, when you can download and play ANY game, totally commercial-free? If you are interested to see if you may possibly want to own the game, you just download and play it free.
So you deny that info to those most interested in knowing what that game will be, and promote it as a "benefit" to those who dont have reason to be interested. Bad marketing move!
Just my 2 cents.

On Mon Jan 25 09:03:15 PST 2010, Summer said:

Its called a false positive. Established sites are not the ones you get nasties from, they take care of that before you ever get access to the files.

Most of the time when people see bad behavior (like the unending pop ups) its the fault of an activated trojan/virus that was ALREADY in place, and was waiting for certain actions to fire off, not the program your currently opening, unless it came from a questionable/unconfirmed source.

Often those activations are part of fake anti-virus "scanners" that want you to think they "found" something and now you must pay them to clean the infection they 'found", when in reality that fake antivirus (known as a "rogue" program) is the infection. (They never do ANYTHING, even if you do fall for it and pay them)

Stick with well established anti-malware products that have confirm-able recommendations by established organizations/companies.

On Mon Jan 25 08:46:56 PST 2010, Summer said:

Antivir is not a Gamehouse product. However i run Antivir task manger, and if this is what youre referring to, from their help page (which you should be able to access from start/programs/AntiVir Task manager they say:

There are few ways to uninstall the product. Choose any of following ways.

1. Open Control Panel, switch to “Add/Remove Programs”. Go to “AnVir Security Suite” and click Remove.
2. In the Start menu open AnVir Security Suite->Uninstall AnVir Security Suite.
3. In Explorer open folder where the product is installed and run “AnVir.exe Uninstall”.
Settings of the program are not deleted during uninstall.

Note: if you disabled some startup items or moved them to delayed startup list, enable them before uninstall, if you want them to run on Windows startup.

On Sat Jan 23 21:29:22 PST 2010, Summer said:

I ran into a bug in mine too- when you get to the last puzzle before the end- the directions made NO sense to me. I clicked on several things but it still made no sense.
So i did what I usually do for that type of problem, logged out of the game, and went to the internet and googled a walk through, and found an explanation for the puzzle- which then made sense. I reloaded the game to finish (I noticed by the walkthrough that once I finished the puzzle, then i would get to see the ending). But when it loaded, it put up the puzzle bugged- nothing was on the totem, so nothing at ALL happened when i clicked any tile! I tried clicking the hints, I read you could skip out of mini games that way- but all it did was highlight one tile, either it meant click it (and nothing happened) or the monkey piece I was trying to find was behind it. There was NO fix. Now if I want to see the end- I have to repeat the ENTIRE game - and I was at 4 hours 42 min- because you cant back up.

On Sat Jan 23 11:51:26 PST 2010, Summer said:

what's funny is that somehow the guy doing the game doesn't see this glow that gives it away.. eh?? A blind shell game guy?

On Sun Jan 17 22:13:36 PST 2010, Summer said:

Im probably going to get a funpass soon(if GH doesnt aggravate me too much!) and I thought Id ask some questions for those who use the funpass (unlimited "rentals")
The commercial that Ive seen hundreds of times for funpass says choose from 350 games- info on the site says (in some places) choose from 900 - which is correct? More to the point, what % of the games on the site are REALLY included in their "includes most of" the games on the site language? Whats left out- newest games?
How is it you can tell which are available with funpass? Is that something you can't see until you log in with the fun pass membership? (Like the "tomorrows game today" box - kind of moot, why would I want to d/l the free game with commercials when i can d/l & play the game commercial-free with the funpass?]
Has anyone run into many crashing issues with the full games as opposed to the with commercial versions? And for bonus points, anyone find themselves actually buying many when you can just "rent"?

On Thu Jan 07 08:59:20 PST 2010, Summer said:

(to avoid character count limits... grrr)
Probably should have started a new thread I guess.
But to (loosely) quote another person who commented on some irritating games- the reason some of us play things like HOGs and untimed puzzle games is because we dont have (good) hand-eye coordination to begin with!
Therefore a test of this "skill" is just plain not fun!
trust me, I do not buy games that "challenge" a skill I already know I dont have.

On Thu Jan 07 08:41:33 PST 2010, Summer said:

Thanks. I have no doubt it works for others which is why its so frustrating. (Although I doubt Im the ONLY one this happens to!) I assure you, several games that I once happily played with no problems just suddenly stop. Hard to diagnose and troubleshoot that sort of odd action.
Its not a defrag issue, Im running my machine all night as extra heat so plenty of time to run defrags often.
The one thing that seems most likely is video card/driver issues, although even that seems odd for something that worked once. There is a new driver, but its a sort of catch-all driver for a number of cards, and it monstrous huge- like 60 or 80 megs- were talking driver here- and it does horrible things to my system. Looks awful, other things that worked dont work, loads a huge control program which I dont need (and one of its screens locks up too).. so no help on that side. Someday Ill get a new machine I suppose and it will all run. Until then the free games continue to frustrate me.

On Tue Jan 05 18:55:04 PST 2010, Summer said:

CookieDL wrote: I love the game Four Elements but on the 63rd level, there doesn't seem to be a way past the barrier! Am I missing something?

I checked my copy for that level, but it doesnt let you jump to specific levels, even after you beat it, and mine happens to be saved at level 44 atm...there is a way I can tell you that, because I have finished, I think twice. Usually, they involve using the right power ups. Try describing the set up of that level (where youre stuck specifically) , meanwhile I'll try getting back to that level again & get back to you.
Its a really good game except for that caveat!

**OK scratch that, googling it was easier- the basic advice is move very fast across the TOP making long chains. Google "Four Elements 63rd level" for another forum with a bunch of suggestions. Possible theres also some in the specific-game forum here as well but I didnt look. It is very hard, but doable.

On Tue Jan 05 18:36:08 PST 2010, Summer said:

Yes actually there is something Id like- the ability to search posts by a specific poster (that ought to come up when you click the poster's name), and the ability to search for or sort by threads that you participated in.
I dont have time to log in every day so its a pain to recall which thread I commented in to see if anyone replied, or to find them even if I remember.

On Sun Jan 03 20:23:20 PST 2010, Summer said:

Just from my experience- not a thing. Even if the game doesnt work that day. They will reply with the standard canned messages, & say they recommend uninstalling & redownloading, but obviously you can't.(Only I HAVE done just that on many free games that went weird same day- no change).
Some of them never work from day 1, some work fine, then after I dont play a week or two, when I load it again, they mysteriously begin erroring out/crashing -as if they have some sort of built in "expiration" which they of course arent supposed to have.

In the end they will say its free so there isnt much they can do.

I just wonder if when you purchase a game with problems, does the tech support actually solve anything or do they rely on the same canned answers that ignore your answers?
Do they even give you any better tech support for nonworking games when you have the monthly pass thing since you technically arent buying the games? Hmmmm.
Questions Im reluctant to find the answers to.

On Sun Jan 03 19:57:26 PST 2010, Summer said:

Its another one of the mysteriously vanishing games for me.
I read the reviews, most negative (some so outrageously positive, Im inclined to believe they are fakes, just to see if anyone falls for it.)
But when I hit start the game just goes away. I uninstalled & redownloaded, all with the firewall disabled to keep it from interfering, & ran the task manager while I tried to launch- I saw "relic hunter.exe" open when the tabbed Gamehouse box came up, but when I hit play, it jumps to 95% cpu use and then just vanishes from the task list (takes about 2 seconds). No error ever comes up, it just plain ends. This happens to about 10% of the games for me, and GH wont help because its a free game. Useless.

On Sat Dec 19 07:25:23 PST 2009, Summer said:

Now that's what I'm talking about! That falls under the description "only the best free games...".
See my review- the only quibble is the broken pieces make it more difficult even frustrating at points, but its worth pushing past that. Its a puzzle-adventure-HOG, because you have to solve the mystery of what to actually DO with what you find. Too bad I already finished it

High class. That's the ticket. Perhaps we can't expect games of that caliber free DAILY, but more often sure would be great, then I might go back to telling people to go check the daily game again- I stopped telling friends when the games got too embarrassing to tell anyone about. (I know this isnt a support issue, but then I dont even read/use the other forums.)

On Thu Dec 17 08:45:46 PST 2009, Summer said:

pepper61 wrote: That would be a nice Christmas gift. Are we maybe in store for a free game at Christmas?

Actually, yes.
There will be one on Christmas Eve, one on Christmas Day, one the day after Christmas, & one the day after that and one......

Oh.. you mean with NO commercials....

On Thu Dec 17 08:26:23 PST 2009, Summer said:

{quote:}
To contact Customer Service, you can click the "need more help?" link at the bottom of each FAQ entry. Fill out the form and submit it. You should receive a response within 24 hours. You can also check out our Support Forum to see if you can get help from the GameHouse.com Community. To access the forum you can click the button at the top of our FAQ page.

Expect an answer to your email within 24 hours. For a faster response you can call us at 1-866-831-5895

Hours of operation for our phone line are:

6am -6pm Pacific Monday through Friday

7:30am - 5PM Pacific on Saturday and Sunday
.........

It took me about oh.. 5 seconds to find. I clicked the top menu choice that said, of all things... "support".

On Wed Dec 16 08:28:58 PST 2009, Summer said:

I actually took a long time to get what it was too.
I think they ought to use the word "rent" in the description, it makes more sense. I thought it was like, the right to buy them or something, it didnt make sense at all.
But when I figured it out I realized its a good deal, I go through games pretty fast and except for the really addictive puzzle games I dont replay so owning is pretty pointless. I play primarily HOG, and once Im done I dont have any interest in replaying them. So when the budget is ready & I know Ill be spending some game time, I plan to get the pass.
If I really want to "buy" a game for replaying I prefer to get it on a disk so i know I have it if I change computers or whatever else happens. You never know with these electronic agreements, anything can change. The ones I did buy were just to be able to finish them.

On Wed Dec 16 08:18:27 PST 2009, Summer said:

Incidentally I look up that site for almost every game I play that requires puzzles/solving. There's always something I blank on lol. I can only think of one game it didnt have I looked up.
Sometimes puzzles can be more aggravating than fun- rather than quit the game, just get a solution then go on and play.
I dont recall exactly but thats probably a series of items tied to a puzzle item, get one and youll open the rest kind of thing.

On Wed Dec 02 11:35:03 PST 2009, Summer said:

ffwfire wrote: I wouldn't wait for a specific game to be repeated, because it probably won't. Once they have been giving really good games then I think there free selection has started going down. Just recently sandlot has started giving a free game a week.

Today's game has been repeated about what, 4 times in like the last month or so.
They once did top games ("only the best" as they claim) but I very much agree, they have started really scraping the barrel with things no one ever heard of, are 4-5+ years old and just lame. Its only one day, and they continue to sell commercials for it, how big a loss can that be?
I also started checking another giveaway site "Giveaway of the day" and "Game Giveaway of the day"" (games are only on weekends) No ads- but havent seen any I wanted yet. (Google the names, they frown on posting outside links)

On Wed Nov 25 09:27:18 PST 2009, Summer said:

No, I use Firefox- but the games use your IE engine to deliver the ads, as they will tell you to do checks/tweaks to IE when you have tech support issues.
I agree in that I like that GH features a daily free game, and I put up with having ads, but so MANY of the games just don't play at all!
Its good to have a free service like that, even ad-supported, but offering something that only "sort of" & "sometimes" works is a big frustration.
Sometimes the games will play along just fine and then one day bam, it just crashes and refuses to EVER work again. (Sometimes after only a few hours)
Its that spotty quality control that is making almost to frustrating, even for free.
Oh well just wanted to vent as its clear nothing can really be done, and Game House isnt going to trybecause it's free.
Still, its like going to McDonalds and they offer a free burger, 1 to a customer, but some people only receive an empty wrapper, while others get a burger- and they say "oh well, it was free."

On Tue Nov 24 17:39:51 PST 2009, Summer said:

Thats true-I didnt mention it, but I do know the games work for some, but if it isnt working for me- Im sure Im not the only one.
I know its ad related, when I have crashes with some of them, its always when an ad is going to load.
Its seems to be how they are integrated with the particular game, or which ad it is.
But the ones that do this, always do it. Ive been the whole 9 yards with what they offer for tech support for free games and it didnt change anything.
In reality its not the game that doesn't work, its their ad delivery system. It just varies per game how it is integrated, and apparently they do a cleaner job with some than others.
But the end result is the same- game dont work.

On Thu Nov 12 11:30:38 PST 2009, Summer said:

sorry *the coding TO run commercials

had to edit to fit in their 1000 character limit and missed that when I rewrote it to make it shorter.
Bitter? No, just frustrated and resigned. There were some really interesting ones I looked forward to playing that never even started. (Reinstalling that day does not help)

On Fri Oct 30 19:28:08 PDT 2009, Summer said:

nevay wrote: I've looked back over the new games put up and there seems to be just one type going up lately...Hidden Object.

"seems to be" is subjective.
I like HOG and have been disappointed there havent been as many... and some they offer are just crappy examples.
Its really a matter of what's being released though and what they have license or right to carry when it comes to new demo/download games.