US vs Japan gaming

Gametrailers.com in their Bonus Round segment look at differences of two largest gaming markets in the world at the moment - US and Japan. It is very interesting to see how Japan tends to reject western games for their lack of good and compelling story and FPS games in general. Yet western world takes so much from the Japanese gaming market and so many top tier games today are Japanese. Follow the link here to take a look and let me know what you think, but I believe that many games today really should do better on the storyline...

The Crossing

The Crossing is a game that expects to merge multiplayer skirmishes with single player missions...
What I have understood the idea is called CrossPlay and it features single player which is connected to many multplayer skirmish games. so when user ventures in one of those maps he is no longer playing against AI but real players...
I must say that this sound very interesting and I really hope they can deliver. Although I hope that multiplayer as such will also be very engaging, this will make the game to be a fresh new thing... This should eliminate 'there is a enemy around the corner' and many other stupid AI things...

more here and here

Pointing the flash..

one of the best sim games ever - Operation Flashpoint is expecting a sequel some time in 2008.
Here is a small preview of the game.

must say that it looks amazing and even better is that it is set in today, rather in past of future. Also looking forward to trying out the driving part as it will feature engine developed for DiRT racing game...

Extreme Graphics

Nvidia is planing to introduce 3-way SLI configuration later this year. This configuration will only be available on high end cards, which brings me to wonder about why? I could see this beeing needed for designers or something but there are no games out there that are not maxed out already by Ultra in SLI... so why there is a need for a third one?
So here comes one of the possible reasons.. Ultra hi-res gaming and multiple monitor arrays. Not many people have these perks.. but for those select few these seems to be good news... as long as they do not get the same fate as quad SLI which is not supported in Vista!!
One would also would want to say that this high spec setup will also last longer but i realy doubt that. for a simple reason that tech is advancing too fast and also for a fact that in 5 years when dx 11 or even 12 comes... this will be out of date specs and will not support the games....

Intel's rebranding scheme

Some time ago Intel announced that starting next year they will rebrand all their processors. This is due to many different names that apparently can be confusing to the customer. They intended just to settle for Core / Core 2... and so on.
Now aparently do to many complaints particulary form OEM's they have abandoned that idea. In my opinion that is a good idea, otherwise how will I know if it dual or quad core? Even though Core branding will remain the same they have redisigned the Centrino stickers to have unified design and Viiv brand to be under Core branding with little Viiv under the Core logo...
Good for them IMO!! :P

Source

News...

Must say that news are not the best show on the TV... Of course they supply us with the information but it would be much more engaging if all people on TV looked like this:

http://view.break.com/371824 - Watch more free videos

Unplugged street...

If you ever wonder why there are no street lights on... late at night that is....
This might be the reason:

Gold Orange Box

Shacknews report that long awaited Orange box from Valve has gone gold.
This is great news and I am looking forward to trying out the Portal game... I must admit that I thought it looked a bit childish and simple but now it seems like very compelling game... As for new Team Fortress 2.. I really dig the cartoony look... think they have done an amazing work on that.. :D
And of course HL2:EP2... no comments there...

Kane & Lynch

As it starts off...:
From creators of Hitman... which I find to be brilliant game comes this:

As the story goes... if you owe someone lot of money... you better have no family and a damn good place to hide... So obviously this guy didn't and now he and his 'stalker' are on a mission to pay back money...
So it brings the question.. Why this senseless violence? Is that the only way they can make games nowadays? And please do not think that I have an issue with fps as such. It just that is seems like most of the big name games are about run and gun all that moves theme. What gets me is that it seems that it is not much different from so many games out there already... take away many things such as cars and it is like GTA and for that matter... how much different it is form reservoir dogs game? Take STALKER for example. It has a nice theme where you are looking for yourself and you become to understand different factions and their reasons for fight to control the area. That game has a meaning... but what this one has ???
As you can see in the trailer, which I am sure is for console.. gameplay does not seems so brilliant either... you seem to be only one to know how to aim.. and physics are shit as well.. look at the point where car crashes through the door...
I do not know... it probabbly is very nice and engaging game but it seems that it will not be the one that will impress me to bather trying out...

Silence Kills....

Assassins Creed is one of the games I am intensely looking forward to. As most of the new games I expect stunning visuals but most of all I look forward to the gameplay.

As can be seen in this trailer it will incorporate lot of nice gameplay feature... nice action, sneeking and stalking... using the environment to the fullest... what else one could want!!

Branded World

I have written before about the computer market becoming more about the looks rather then performance for majority user here. This time I wanted to take a broader look about how we live in very branded world. Because of the recent announcement by Samsung and Giorgio Armani of their collaboration to release phones and TVs in future. This goes hand in hand with what Lg did some time ago by teaming up with Prada and also Motorola D&G branded V3. All these high design brands are considered to be luxury merchandise, but here is where the problem comes in. They might cost some more but they are not that great and only thing making these pfones bearable is the branding. Of course there are lot of people out there that will carry any weight just have the branded life but I never expected to have such a low standards form such brands. I really hope Armani one will have something more to stand out from crow than just the name.
Going off from tech perspective I really see that D&G as a brand is selling out big time. I might be living in the past or something but when did luxury merchandise needed extra advertising by putting big self logos on all merchandise?? Not only that but also that you see people wearing it on every corner... I suppose people are maybe earning more... but i find it hard to grasp that they would rather go sell to gen pop than keep up the image and stay in lux...
Either way... Life Is Worth Living Only By Brand

spy with chewing gum

A new micro camcorder has come out see some sunlight and it is dubbed the smallest camcorder around. It is small enough to fit nicely into an empty pack of chewing gum. Only problem is that it costs almost 300 USD and it not a cheap price by far... but on the other hand you can get quite nice quality videos and best of all tape them well.. very discreetly.. ;)
On the technical side it is stated that the 1GB memory will be sufficient for 33 hours of video only with a slight problem of only 2 hour battery life. Uses 3gp encoding and can be played on phones as well as PC. Uses of course USB interface for file transfers and charging.
All this gadget reminds me a lot of one I read about earlier - 0.3 Mpixel camera hidden in lighter (link).
I hope they make good on this and to be hones I would love one as well... as long as the video quality is not too disappointing.
More info and purchase info can be found here.

Shoot 'em up cameras....

DARPA apparently have developed a some cool kind of cameras which can withstand high velocity impact on deployment effectively meaning that they can be shot from a gun.. well shotgun to accommodate the size I would imagine. Also planned to be shout out from an aicraft if not possible to get in shotgun range.
These cameras are expected to be used to create as hoc networks for surveying an area for an attack and or better coordination. I would also expect these to be good way to gather information for surveillance. Unfortunately there is no word on how long the battery holds up on this little gizmo. For some reason I would imagine it is not too long but it still seems very neat if it can be adjust to be easy to use in combat conditions.
[Source]

Hyperdistribution

So many can argue that current model of advertising on TV as well as the current distribution model is well out of date and this guy has some nice ideas how to turn all the downloaded content in to advertising money!

rest of the lecture can be found here - Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6, Part7.
I really hope this makes some headways and becomes a reality... would be happy to get my content sooner and ... well legally for that matter..

Anti - Piracy

Posted some time ago about the IT Crowd's take on anti piracy warnings on legal DVDs...
just came across this video promoting piracy:

I even like the title of this - "Sharing is caring". I think I can agree on so many levels that sharing and copying to the some level has been source of lot of great things... There are numerous companies out there that are only successful now because they managed to copy someones work and improve it over time... but I suppose that is actually not the issue here... We all know how Hollywood like to copy other successful movies... sometimes directly and sometimes not so... And it is good that one can take ideas and develop them further... so of course sharing is caring and inspirational for the growth and common good...
One small thing though... how does this promote downloading of movies in a good way?? I am a bit puzzled about that.. but well it is a good effort nonetheless....

American Porn

We all more or less know American Pie series... and the first few movies were ... well ... nice.. but then it sorta went down the hill from there... and 'The Naked Mile' as well as 'Band Camp' I believe never really featured any of the original cast... Ok except Jim's dad... but he never really was the focus of the story or anything... although he was in all 5 movies so far and he has always been a funny kinda fella... :D
And not to be forgotten that the mentioned last two installments had not only different cast but also different crew and and they were straight to DVD ... no silver screen!!! So where are we left?
American Summer!!!
As it says from creators of American Pie... I hope it will bring something good this time... yet after seeing the whole trailer I am left wondering... is American Pie going into porno business??? And a quick check shows that apparently only the director was working as assistant on first American Pie.. so is it really reasonable to put a label from creators of American Pie??
Either way... I will probably watch this movie just for the titties... but would not expect it to be anything worthwhile....

Russians know how to drink... sometimes...

So here is a video of seemingly Russian dude drinkin an entire bottle of vodka in one go.... that man is SICK!!! and I am suprised he is still alive... well I hope he is cause this should inflict some serious alcohol poisining... !!

http://view.break.com/209752 - Watch more free videos
Nevertheless... I must say that it is pretty wicked and that it is some good vodka... had some good times.. :D

iPhone and clone mess....

Recently Meizu have unveiled the screenshots of its upcoming M8's GUI. They can be found on Meizu forums and a fair comparison can be found on Engadget. Here is what it comes down to... Since the iPhone has such a hype around it... every touch screen phone will pretty much be compared to it. I mean off course there are and will be knockoffs...
The phone making some headways is Meizu M8 and it looks very similar to the the iPhone... both from design and GUI perspective... As it was stated before somewhere (sorry don't remeber where) that all the touch screen phones will be very similar to the iPhone as it was arguably the first in class. by first in class I mean that all other touch screen phones have at least few buttons and most have also stylos for input, which I find useful if you want to cram more info on the screen. And here on a random off thought I can see another reason why I don't seems so fond of iPhone... Although it has big screen it is not efficient... well maybe for pensioners it is....
Anyhow... I wanted to take a look how come M8 user interface so much resemble iPhone... I mean they have had enough time to make it better or do they really believe that iPhone is such an awesome device that it can not be improved??
If you look at the post on Engadget you can see that there are big resemblances to the iPhone but at the same time I there is the question ... are there that many different choices for GUI at this kind of phone? If you think about it .. the are icons and as they need to be easy to understand they will look similar across different products if not for all else then for at least consistency... and then there are the message list in which you also can't be much different.... And what is up with the keyboard layout with M8?? where is the consistency... should have been qwerty or something?? I really hope they change that for the Western market...
And where does that leave us? Chat screen... they do look awfully similar and it might be just me but i still would prefer the Skype type of chat screen rather than it being on the sides.. and I must say that for some strange reason I find that to be only real similarity with the phones... But who am I to stop dull iPhone admirer from seeing the obvious...

Reality check...

So here comes another Crysis video preview...
As I have said before I am looking forward to this game... and the promised graphical goodies... so just keep up with our expectations Crytek have released another preview and it seems that it is one from multilayer again...

As you can see it looks pretty promising as always...
But there are things to work on for the next release...
As the video starts of with scene in beach.... I can't help but think - Ok on right there is a sandy beach.. on the left it is clear it is nice looking water... but what it lack terribly is that very shallow bit... in which you can clearly see where is the water and where is the sand.... it all sort blends in there in the game... but does it really do that in real life? I mean maybe I haven't traveled to tropicals but every place I have been so far... you can tell where the water starts by looking at it rather then drowning first!!! Don't get me wrong... it can be seen and the effect looks good from distance... but I think it is something that can be worked on.... and while we are at it.. later in the video the boats... well they make waves!!
And what about the physics sorta things here....????
When that dude get frozen and falls down.. what happens to half of his body? I mean once he shatters there should be a bit more ice... and maybe some red one... just to say that he was human... just maybe.... was expecting a bit more from that!!! and what is up with the sand bags?? you can see near the end of the video a dude being killed and he falls on the sand bags which just fly way like they were some fucking pillows... what is up with that... those fucking things are heavy and would not be moved that easily by dead body... enough said

All that is left to say is that this seems to be some nice team play experience ....

Pretty things...

Looks are starting to become more and more important for everything that we use. At this time I want to look at different computer hardware and see how much does it really matter... well in my opinion at least!

Most visible part of any system is the case .. it goes for desktops and laptops... and it seems that HP is going all in.. releasing new - great looking cases for both markets.. And I bet this will benefit them a lot as for sales go, because many people out there that are not that tech savvy will go for the better looking one and this is where early models will win big. If we look at Dell... it can offer good quality, great performance at a good price, but this is what it lacks... the image of being cool... good looking.. and that one extra thing - tangibility before purchase. I know few people that have bought their laptops on how they look rather then what is inside them...
Although ascetics are important I somehow feel that people are just being blindsided here... look at my similar article about marketing bluff.. If for laptops I can see a relative need good looks, especially if one travels a lot, then for power houses and desktops I hardly see the need for it... I might be terribly wrong here but I believe that majority of us that have desktops keep them under the table and therefore they are not visible... so what is the point of having a groovy looking one if no one will really see it... and well of those of us who keep it actually on the desk or whatever... I suppose it will bring some fun once in a while... maybe sometimes you can even show it off to your friend or two.. :D
So at some point it is nice to have a good looking case, but what about the insides of it?
laptops are not meant to be opened so there is not much good looks there... but when it comes to graphics cards for desktops... well that is whole different story... most of us will never open the case and if you are a moder... well my guess is that you will keep the case closed most of the time and let the cooling system work its magic... so why do we need shiny looking gfx cards? I mean, hell, if you end up shelling out 600+ bucks for one of the top end cards.... you are clearly into how it performs rather that what is on it... and the vendors could save some money on it..
But I suppose it is also the first impression that counts and when you get a great looking shiny new card out of the box... u might not care any more how it performs - U are sold on the looks... maybe


Just on a footnote - HP seems to be the one diving in this most heavily with different models and all but it is not the only vendor doing so as Sony cases look pretty good as well as LG's.I believe others will follow soon and Apple will no longer be the only kool kid on bloc!!!

USB 3.0 comming

This is going to be so good..
They are planing to have speeds 10x those of today where you would bet 4.8GBit/s which sound to be just awesome...
I mean 2.0 is not that bad, but at the same time when I found out that my external HD have to be reformatted in ntfs ... backing that bitch up was a pain... 250 GB ... backed up on my friends external... well lets just say that we had enough time to go watch a movie and it still wasn't done... I mean there is default Windows function to go from fat32 to ntfs without loosing data... but just in case backup took so bloody long so i really hope that this new 3.0 come soon... before i get my new laptop... it was stated that it will be finalized by mid 2008 and devices in '09 but i hope the devices start appear earlier.. I do not want to wait that long.. :D
Here is just another problem right here... so it is said that speed is 480MBit/s on current one... but a 700MB movie more then 40 sec to copy so there is some discrepancies in the speeds and I am concerned that it might be due to read/write speeds on both ends of the storage... so this brings me to the ultimate question - what is the point? I can see it being used in some type of arrays but at the end of the day how will this benefit regular user in near future??

gotta love cats

cats can be so damn cute and funny.. just check out the video:

Back to TV

Finally the prime time season of all the good tv shows has returned!!
got my copy of prison break and gonna watch it in coming days as well as starting to enjoy some of the new shows such as Californication.....
nevertheless really looking forward to see the new season of hearos to begin.. :D

My bungee trip

this weekend I went on a bungee jumping trip...
the jump was from a big cave in Pyrenees and it looked amazing...
I wanted to take a video as I am falling down but anfortunately due to my cameras terrible design i do not have such video... and none of the other people took a video of me jumping so I only have pics of the Cave and the setup...
Vids of people jumps might also come later.. :D

gotta love NHL

Just one of the reasons why ice hockey is one of the best games out there...

perverted drawings...

This guy has some insane drawing skills..
check it out and see how he draws something pornographic into awesome drawing...

love to have his skill...

Gotta love Japan

Just came across one of the Japanese TV shows called human tetris!!!
It is so wickedly cool... I wonder how come we never get anything like this in western world??

And at the end of the day this is not the only brilliant funny TV show out of Japan... for those who remember Takeshi Castle!! and there have been many more but how come most never make it western world?? I even heard that they wanted to Takeshi castle remake in UK or maybe it was US and it was forbidden because it neglected safety issues!!! I must say it might not be the safest of the shows... but it is not like all the landing places are with spikes and errors carry death penalty or mutilation... I mean common... why not let have sensible adults have some fun?? No wonder that people are getting fat as it seems that all the physical activities have become unsafe unless u are a professional.. and so all people can do is be couch potatoes and eat and get fat.... dammit!!!

Happy 10th birthday!!

So it seems that most popular internet search engine - Google has turned 10 years old today!!
All I can say is all the best to them and at least 10 more years of such success...!!!

Rambo Rrr....

John Rambo.. some badass combatant... :D
Saw the trailer for the movie... the R rated trailer...:

Rambo Is Back And Still Pissed Off - Watch more free videos
I mean it looks pretty good!!!
For some reason all that slushing and blowing things up makes me think about some kind of gore flick with lot of action...
Nevertheless I am very much looking forward to this movie... and you should as well!!!

Robin Williams

OMG... This guy is absolutely brilliant.. !!!

I have always thought of him as this lovely family oriented guy... I mean if you look at his movie career - Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Flubber, Bicentennial Man - he seems such a nice guy and all... of course those are not the all of his movies, but few of the best known...

But surprise surprise... he is actually bad ass.....
and to my surprise he also does stand up comedy!! Check these out:

Boiling Point 2...

Boiling point - or those of you out there that are familiar with this game and have played it on patched up version know how awesome it is!!!
Of course it had some issues and letdowns but the game generally rocked with the nice micro climate and and relation building with different factions... Totally non linear game play although it had only one possible ending, but the the whole experience was just great...!!!

Anyhow... everyone will be pleased to know that sequel will be released in not so distant future. Deep Shadows (Official Site) is planing a release date for late 2007/early 2008... I will be patiently waiting for that!!!

They have decided to give the game a different name - White Gold: War in Paradise (Official Site, Wikipedia) I really hope they will have polished this one out much better than the original and that gameplay will be just improved.... One of the worries is that it will also be released on xbox 360 ... so let us hope that it is not turned into console game and lacks the complexity and appeal of PC game!!
I still remember Deus Ex... and how much did the sequel sucked... It just shows how easy it is to go from brilliant to rubbish!!
And here is a trailer for those who are interested:

Where is the sense... ?

Just watched this video of Crysis multiplayer:

And don't get me wrong.. it is great game and all.... just wanted to bring ur attention to some annoying things here...

I mean yes it beta and all that, but there are few things I hope they will sorta make sense of before releasing...
when you get about 2.40 into the video the guy there shoots the tires of a car, which.. you know - why not, but then they simply explode!! wtf!! I could see it being a case in moving car, but if it is standing still? oh common.... and it does not end there either.... He goes on to shoot up some non flying chickens... or whatever they are supposed to be... uses same gun... but when shot they just lay down!! i mean common.. it ain't a tranquilizer... the blast should blow them away or like the tires blow up.. but no. They just like fall asleep and that is all... at least there are some feathers at the end.. :D
and just out of random... why would you go on rampage to kill chickens? are they really that annoying??

Marketing bluff...

gotta love the marketing people...
making up products and then convincing us that we need them... and just putting all that bogus information into peoples heads...
All this just stirs me up... and because came out because of my friend..
the focus here is on the computer industry at the particular... as he was boasting about his new processor with these for cores and how he as speeds of 9.6 GHz processor and all... and I was like ... where the fuck did u get that number... they don't really make processors above 3 GHz any more...
so it turns out that all the hype about all these new multi core processors seems that people seem to think that you can just multiply cores and the frequency to get the total one... I mean so lame...
And all this hype about direct X 10 cards and all... all I have seen with dx10 mid-level cards says avoid them unless u go and get high end one... i mean the performance is like way below the expected... but hey... i guess people that care about that will know it and get what they want while the majority of users will just perish in land of uselessness...

Sports crazyness

End of the summer has come along with some major sports events, such as World Rugby Championship and European Basketball Championship. So it is all good... but on the other hand they are at the SAME time... so it is hard to be able to catch all the games I would like to on the telly or whatever...
so the point is why the fuck are they on the same time?? I mean they could have differentiated the time a bit... for fucks sake...
Here in France where I am it is all about the rugby... no basketball at all and for me to be honest... don't give shit about rugby... more into basketball
I mean it is not like France has a bad team in basketball... and seems like nobody even knows it is going on.
It is so frustrating... hearing all about rugby and nothing else... especially if you don't care about the sport...

say what???

So here we are... totally blank mind... and someone says that how he loves the public transport....
I mean I can dig that... I have to take it every day as well to get to work, but hell it could be so much better... I mean what is up with the fact that when I take bus in the morning it will have air con on even if there is no need for it, but in the afternoon when it is packed and sun is hot... they of course keep it off... I mean WTF... I don't want to be boiled... chilled... why not, but boiled in no way...

Piracy

ahh.. the sweet piracy... don't we all love it??

video

this just takes the piss.... of the apparently new anti-piracy ads in US... video

so lets look at which one makes more sense... the original one is very annoying... the sound track is not the best one... it is like for the some suspense bit in the movie, but nothing... no action... just some bullshit..
I would not say that one should not educate people.... but you do make people watch it all over and over again just for the kicks.. It is like we don't know that....
but at the end of the day.. DVD costs like what... 10, 15, 20 bucks.. somewhere around that area.. but than you can go and get pirated one for what? like 5er i believe.. correct me if I am wrong... but anyway it is half the price or less.. and let us not fool ourselves here.... they make profit, otherwise why the fuck would they do it?
so we come to the question why such difference in the price?
and of course it is safe to assume that pirates have almost no overhead... no expenses other than price of a blank DVD... and it is true... in a way... but at the same time aren't all big DVD pressing/burning places where they burn all the movies supposed to be so productive as to beat the pirate in per disc cost? isn't that the point of having such?
otherwise why not have many people popping DVD in the drive and burn them that way?

So the production is not the issue... according to common sense...
Of course reason to release a DVD is to make money and offset the cost of making the movie... but that much of price difference? doesn't seem fair... but on a second look it is all clear... they need to make money to pay for licenses to use copy protection, for someone to fight on their behalf to protect them and make such stupid and silly ads like this...
so what to do they gained? higher prices, consumer aware of alternative - piracy. and increased use of piracy.


but than there is the parody one... it is silly and enjoyable, so you can have a laugh when watching and still the point travels across very clearly as well... don't pirate...

so anyway.. hope this made some sense and choose the option that you like the best.... limited usage legal copy or free of bullshit pirated one... or just use more internet.. :D

VMA show...

and here it was again.. the Great and Brilliant MTV awards show... and I missed it... :D
and for what?

.... shit know... wasn't even aware it was on... :D

so anyway... What DID i miss... seems that there were some bad performances, some fights and all round fun... :)

Saw the Britney's 'performance' in youtube... man that looked shit.. I mean wtf is she thinking??
baby hit me in the head again... 'big comeback' and such a shit performance... I was surprised to hear that people actually applauded to that...

and than we go to the big white-on-white fight... Kid Rock punched Tommy Lee... OMG this is the end of the world... in the video flowting on the net it seemed like too schoolgirls kissing rather than two man fighting... where is the blood... and fists... I mean common...
Oh yeah.. and we can't forget that police even started investigation... like what is wrong with the world today? can't two man have a fight and see whats what without someone going to jail for that??

And to finish of on somewhat happier note was the Sarah Silvermans performance... or whatever it was... she had some nice jokes about Britney... some pretty funny actually, but to think bout it they were all very rude and insulting... not like I give a shit and I think they were well deserved for most part... but i thought VMA was supposed to be family kinda thingy... well relatively... when did we forgot about our kids???

the video links:
fight
Britney
Sarah