Far too small to see, until now

Time Magazine’s website hosted a fascinating photo competition for shots of microscopic phenomena. Most of the photo’s are pretty damn cool, the winner is a bit of a disappointment in my opinion.
Here’s the actual site

Shrimp Eye

 

Frets on Fire

Ever want to play Guitar Hero but don’t have a Ps2?
Want to be the envy of your friends when you can pick up any old computer keyboard and start jamming?
Feel like accelerating that impending carpel tunnel syndrome?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, do I have a little application for you:

Frets on FireAnd the song plugin

Note: It’s no good for people with keyboards that cant be comfortably be pulled away from their desks, or those without external keyboards.

Enjoy, and try not to let your fingers bleed.

 

“One small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind”

First they tell us Pluto isn’t really a planet, and now we find out that they misquoted Armstrong…. I’m very disappointed in you NASA….

An Australian programmer proved that Armstrong did in fact say “a man” using powerful voice recognition software

“One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”

 

Yet another Techno Plug

If you like techno, or even if you don’t, you should give this podcast a try. Every big name DJ that I can think of has done a special for it at some point in time, and the actual .mp4 files are bookmarked into all the individual tracks, which is very convenient. Some of its easy listening, some of its a littler harder, but theres definitely something here for everyone.

 

Assassins Creed just got a little better

It turns out that the Xbox 360 version of Assassin’s Creed will have better AI than the PS3 since the processor handles it better. Also, one of the coolest features of the game, freerunning, apparently uses the rumble as a way to tell you if you have a solid grip or not, which isn’t gonna happen on the PS3’s now non-dualshock controllers.

 

No updates, AGAIN?

Due to a recent onslaught of work to do, there haven’t been many updates as of late, but I intend to rectify the situation by yet again posting my humble opinions.

Videogame news recently has been, how you say it? Turbulent. With the Tokyo Game Show and X06 going on, the amount of game related news has skyrocketed.

And now, what interests me:

Halo wars:
No surprise here considering that Bungie recently demanded that some modders halt a C&C mod that quite faithfully replicated the halo universe. It looks to be quite a fun game, and I’ll most likely get it, but I’m not too thrilled about it being xbox exclusive. I wasn’t too fond of the control scheme in BFMEII, and I hope that microsoft will release something allowing more keyboard use on the 360. Heck once they do that, they might as well release a web browser too… then again… it would have to be Internet Explorer (blegh).

Assassins Creed:
If I didn’t already have a 360, this would be one of my main reasons for getting one. Its like Hitman meets Prince of Persia, then throw some steroids in to the mix. My main problem with Hitman was that the whole game just felt rigid. If your going to be going around killing people as a profession, don’t you think it would be beneficial to your survival to be a little more… sly? Thats where the Prince of Persia comes in, which is no surprise given that it is Ubisoft’s game. The feature that has me most excited though is freerunning, meaning that you can scale almost any architectural detail fluidly. That + having to get the hell away from the scene of the crime = quite a bit enjoyable. Also, it seems that your targets are certain crusaders, which strikes me as a bold move on Ubisoft’s part, considering all the potential Christians that’ll likely get pissed at you.

Gears of War:
Coming along quite shinily, but I haven’t seen anything yet that I haven’t seen before

Lost Odyssey:
(If someone can find the video of this without the bar at the bottom, please do tell)
The part of me that wanted to buy a PS2 for all the RPGs that I could be playing is rather gleeful right now. I know a lot of the 360 RPG hubub is about Blue Dragon, but Lost Odyssey seems much more next gen. Perhaps it will be the boost that the Xbox oh so desperately needs in Japan, but im skeptical about it. Heres the official website.

Banjo Kazooie (or perhaps Threeie):
This is a game that warms my heart. I pine for the days when I actually remember the intricate play control required to be proficient at BanjoKazooies one and two. Every time I go back and play, I realize how truly silly and witty (and poetic) it was.

(Also, I got Doom and I’m finally enjoying the classic for the first time)

 

Sony, Suck My Wiimote

Face it, the fact is computer gaming has an always will outclass anything that you can get on a console.

Sure the graphics may not seem that way in the first few quarters after a system comes out, but give the PC market enough time and they will deliver cheaper and cheaper parts to power even more powerful gaming rigs.

In terms of multitasking, any given computer with a hard drive, a usb port, a monitor, a dvd player and speakers blows any console out of the water.

What extra you may spend on the unit to actually play on gets paid back in the long term by cheaper game prices (~80 bucks for a PS3 game, you have to be kidding me?).

In terms of play control the mouse and keyboard will always be superior. The only feature that I found much better on a controller, force feedback, isn’t a part of the PS3’s controller anymore

Potential for indie devs? Heck yeah, something that the people at mMcrosoft have caught onto with the XNA license. Computers also have the advantage of mods, something that none of the consoles have (not legitimately at least)

Sure we computer gamers may be susceptible to viruses and the BSOD and whatnot, but if… When those things start to become an issue for the world of online enabled consoles, you’ll be hard pressed to download an antivirus program.

The only console that has consistently more to offer than a computer is the Wii, disregarded by many of you as the underpowered underdog. I for one thank Nintendo for not falling victim to the rat race of HD. As long as you can understand whats going on in the game, visual polish is a luxury.

I admit that I own a 360, and I’m proud of it too. Feel free to laugh it up while your playing Nondestinct shiny game #23 on your PS3 marveling in all those pixels that the human eye can’t even process. At least I know that i’ll be having fun playing Gears of War, Lost Odyssey, Red Steel, Twilight Princess, and countless games available only to PCs.

Feel free to belittle yourselves through textual slander only befitting of a child with the attention span of a giant crab, just try not to look too stupid while doing it.

 

*drool*

Lost Odyssey
June 15 07
Finally the turn based RPG will have its justice on the Xbox

 

How to Beat the Convicts in Dead Rising

[Now with Spellcheck!]
Go Here for more information on Dead Rising

The convicts, the bane of every Dead Rising player the first time they go outside, how are you ever supposed to rescue anyone with those vandahools running around like the maniacs that they are? My answer… Exterminate the Bastards!

What I usually use for the Convicts is an SMG/Katana combo with the rest of the inventory full of heals. Once you go outside, bait the jeep into trying to ram you, then once they try to, they’ll be temporarily stunned when they hit a wall or a tree, at that point get out your SMG and unload as much as you can on the guy in back. Once you get him down the rest is a piece of cake. Wait for them to try to ram you again and then go up to the back of the jeep and take the mounted gun off. After that just fire away to your hearts content and try not to get pestered by any zombies or hit by the jeep due to the fact that that’ll knock the gun out of your hands and you’d have to go through the trouble of picking it up again.

Have fun with your newfound firepower, and as always, please comment, I’m a lonely lonely guide writer

 

“Blood? That should be on the inside!”

It’s been ages since I’ve posted, but its been a pretty shitty week for me after all. I very nearly broke my toe and had to limp around all week (and still have to to a degree). Due to some rather poignant procrastination I was unable to enjoy the majority of my weekend. However there are some upsides to all this crap, its out of the way. I’ve forsaken the Wii launch due to a lack of monetary funds and its proximity to Gears of War. I’ll probably pick one up eventually, but until then I can enjoy cutting ugly sub terrestrial creatures in half. The $250 that I WOULD have spent on a launch Wii now get to buy me two 360 games, and a precious precious iPod Shuffle.