Mortal Combat Three Fatalities

Every Mortal Combat Three Fatality

Microsoft's iPod Boxart

Turns out that the parody video of Microsoft making the iPod Boxart was Made By Microsoft.

Good Times For Nintendo & Microsoft

So Sony announced that they will be delaying the the PS3 until a November release date because of standard issues with the copy protection for the blue-ray drive (and people criticised Microsoft going with DVD). November is possibly just the Japan release so expect 2007 for the US and Easter 2007 for the UK and Europe.

The thing about this is that in most generations of consoles most users only buy two of the home theatre consoles. Portable is a little different, but if Nintendo can release before the PS3 then they stand a very good chance at being everybody's seconds choice.

For Microsoft this means that they will have free time to do whatever they want for much longer and have more time to create a presence in Japan. This announcement will probably mean that it will be longer until Microsoft drops the price of the 360, but expect a global price drop just before Christmas. By November there will likely be about 72 titles for the 360 as Microsoft has been releasing six new titles a month.

Sony will probably still be able to show something playable at E3 because this is just and issue with the copy protection (supposedly anyway). There is now way that this can be positive for Sony as many people that where weighting for the PS3 will now buy 360s while they wait.

UPDATE: Turns out that the launch will be in all territories this November.

Large Shipment Of Xbox360s

Microsoft did say that they where shipping consoles on a weekly basis to retail partners, but EBgames.com has a notice that says:

Limit 1 per customer. Due to high demand orders may not ship until March 24, 2006.

So that suggests a big shipment at the end of this month.

In the UK it is possible to get a Core system, but not a hard drive. Where in America it is possible to get a hard drive, but not even a core system. So not sure if this is a global push or regional.

Just been listening to IGN's first Insider Podcast about their predictions for next months E3 and the consensus seems to be that Microsoft will be showing off some sweet games and unless Nintendo and Sony actually show some gaming then they could be letting Microsoft get away with murder.

Lost Planet

There is also a HD trailer for Dead Rising on This Page, but please take a look at Lost Planet because that looks great too.

First Signs of A Xbox360 Redesign

Apparently Microsoft has replaced the DVD drive from release with a quieter model. Pics are included on the page to see whitch you have.

Looks Bad for Sony in the News

Sometimes things all come at once and after watching the presenters on Channel 5's The Gadget Show say Sony's TV in their HD comparison was horrible I checked the news to find these:

Appeal Denied
Sony Has Lost it's appeal against Immersion's intellectual property suit forcing Sony to stop selling "Dualshock controllers and a few dozen games, including Vice City, Final Fantasy X, and Metal Gear Solid 2".

Better Design
A Design Blog compare Sony's PS3 design to one some designer did in his spare time. The writer does highlight a few issues with the PS3 like Sony's abandonment of it's iconic PS2 logo for some Spiderman text.

Following The Pack
It is known in product development that whenever your products start imitating your competitor's designs then it is time to spend some money in R&D because you will racing to keep up (see Red Queen Effect). Well there are Rumors that Sony will be following Microsoft and possibly Nintendo in the digital distribution race.

Unnamed sources claim that Sony has been discussing the technical requirements needed to provide this service, and in turn, investigating the possibility of remastering select PS2 games so that latter parts of a game can be streamed over a network while earlier segments are being played.

That is what Valve tried with STEAM Beta 1, but it resulted in very long load times and an unstable service so they switched to full game downloads (load times now significantly better).

Good News
And finally some good news IGN has Reviewed Syphon Filter Dark Mirror for the PSP and given it a 9.3 rating and looking at the videos it does look great. However this title is probably too late to boost interest in the PSP.

Still at least the PS3 is going to be released this spring and pawn the competition, right!?

It's DONE!

Just finished my compilers assignment. Yes it's too early to be up and no it isn't in tomorrow, but that's how committed I am to making sure my studies don't get in the way of Oblivion.

Just got to write the report saying how wonderful it is now. No set length either.

Oblivion Soundtrack and Final Year Project

I got the Oblivion soundtrack from DirectSong to tide me over until the game is released. And listening to this, I realise what my final year project could sound like if I had enough time. I haven't said on here what my final year project is because it is an idea I am developing. Needless to say my project involves a lot of audio, but the quality of that audio is at the moment is horrible (because of time and complexity). If I had more time to get it to the level of the Oblivion soundtrack then I really think it could change peoples perception of gamming and storytelling. A place we have been, but abandoned over flashy graphics.

Maybe I will develop my system further once I have graduated to try and get it to a higher standard, but with that and a job it would be a very slow process.

Still working on my compilers assignment (finishing touches). Turns out the three algorithms that I implemented that I thought where a was of time, weren't because after I implemented Table Compression I created another algorithm that used one line of code from one of my first three techniques to reduce the final datasize by about 20%. Not sure what my lecturer will make of it because the enhancement is so obvious, but it isn't in any example of Table Compression that I can find so this might be something new.

Potential Xbox 360 Production Issue

Some German modding guys bought a 360 and modded it out with some lights and stuff, but then two to three weeks later the box stopped working, so they opened it up to see what they could find.

What they found on the bottom of the GPU heatsink is a protective foil (no word on wither it is plastic backed or not) covering the thermal pad. The whole story can be found in English with a link to the german video Here.

Certainly it is a film covering the GPU, but it could just be conductive foil.

UPDATE:Apparently it is supposed to be there.

Oblivion Screens

Yesterday Bethesda posted This beauty, but that left me questioning wither Oblivion could do proper woodland. Well today they posted This which looks even better and answers my question.

Am very looking forward to getting my 360.

Feeling Down

Spent five days working very hard on my Compilers assignment, haven't done anything today, but my hands still hurt because of all the typing I have been doing. I was feeling very positive about the whole assignment and things where going great, then I realised that everything I had done was wrong and I had completely wasted my time.

It's not like I don't know now what to do to rectify the problem, it's not like I don't have ample time to do it in as I started early, or that I can't use what I have done to show something that doesn't work and say why, but that good feeling I had is gone and it's left me on a bit of a down. A few weeks ago I tried to verify my work before I started implementing to try and avoid this very situation, but I couldn't find any supporting material so I went off from what I thought was correct and now I can see clearly that I was wrong. Will take half a days worth of typing to sort it out, but my hands still hurt and I have so very much work to do.

Xbox360 on Order

So I ordered a Premium Xbox360 with the loverly guys over at Gameplay. I would like the console to arrive before Oblivion then I could have a play around with some of the arcade titles.

I have Heared a Rumour that Microsoft has fixed whatever production problems they where having in the second version of the 360. Which would make sense, I just hope that it's true.

Most consoles go through several versions without consumers being aware and the only time I have ever heard anybody being aware of the different versions was with some generation one XBox owners who couldn't run Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. And if you want to get your console modded then you will have to be aware of the different versions because each new iteration brings better copy protection, but most people never notice as the motivation for doing a new iteration is to reduce production costs. If there was any advantage in having a newer version then it is marketed as such like Nintendo does with each new generation of GameBoy.

Dull Little Boxes

Apple has redone their Intel advert. The Origenal Advert uses the phrase "dull little boxes", but there is a rumour that this upset Dell who is one of Intel's biggest customers. And Apple just released a New Advert simply referring to the Intel chip "spending years inside PCs".

This got me thinking because before the PC Vs Mac (for which the Mac is a PC) when they where doing Dull Little Box Vs Mac, as a gamer a Mac is the Dull Little Box. As a gamer I can't justify a Mac because it is overpriced and has VERY few games for it. Looking at the Apple Store they only have 81 games and that might sound a lot, but this includes a lot of classic legacy titles. So from a gamers perspective the Mac is a dull white box as even it's new titles are still last year's PC titles.

It's funny that Halo was going to change all that, but Bungie got bought by Microsoft because they needed a killer-app for the XBox. And Apple's best selling title Age of Empires II (lol, ye two not three) is published by Microsoft. The two the newest title for the Mac are Myst V: End of Ages and Doom 3.

Gosh Darn It

Been looking at the online shops for 360's and everybody has core systems and no premium. Simply Games (never used them before) says on their page that they have a two month waiting list.

I think this now requires a little investigation into wither the retail stores that are selling bundles actually have any premiums in stock or wither it just appears that they do.

If I was to buy a Core system, a Hard Drive and a wireless controller for which I want a Premium for, then I will be wasting £32.98, but nobody seems to have any Hard Drives in stock either so logical course of action would be to simply place a reorder for a premium and wait, but the normal place I do that Amazon isn't actually taking any orders themselves. So that means I would have to preorder from somebody where I can't track the order status online and to findout what is happening would require the use of the phone and maybe some social hacking.

Still in other news assignments are going well to very well and if I don't get a good mark on all of them then I will be annoyed. Everything I have produced so far this year has been way above my normal standard. Bob my current and third final year project supervisor thinks I can get a 2-1 Degree, but I don't care about that, I just want Oblivion, the assignment work helps keep my mind off it.

Random Fact

The word 'Naff' used in the 1970's BBC comedy Porridge as a replacement for the word Fuck. 'Naff off' the guards in the prison would be told, but naff is a Polari word. Polari being a language used by gay subculture in Britain mainly between the 1950's and 1960's. And before 1967 when homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain, naff meant in polari, Not Avalible For Fucking, used to indicate a straight or heterosexual individual.

The antonym of naff is tbh (pronounced t b h) which means To Be Had.

Another interesting fact about word usage in the 1960's is that when homosexuality was decriminalised 'Fag' and 'Dyke' was largely replaced with 'Gay', originally meaning 'promoting a feeling of cheer'. This is interesting because up until the decriminalisation, homosexuals where seen to be very sad and lonely individuals.

Pre-Ordered

So I just preordered Oblivion and I think I can definitely balance that and my final year project because by the time Oblivion is released my final year project is all I will have left to work on.

The 360 Core is easy enough to find, but procuring a Premium looks it is going to be a challenge. All the online retailers are out of stock or charging ridiculous prices (£350+). And all the retail shops require me to purchase a bundle.

Going to wait and see if the situation changes in a few days, but that isn't by choice. If the situation doesn't get better (which Peter Moore said it would) than I will endup with a game I can't play.

SHIT

Oblivion is out the end of this month (20th in the US, so expect an EU date very close to that). So my final year project is going to suffer bad. I have already doubled my effort on everything and set clear goals for when something is defined as finished. I am making great progress and should have two more assignments done by Monday (one week early for one, two weeks early for the other), but with this news it isn't going to be enough.

I even skipped a lecture and a tutorial today to spend more time on my Compilers easement, but it simply isn't going to be enough.

The Oblivion Problem

This is going to be one of those posts that I regret in the morning.

I am very much looking forwards to Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion. And when it is released I am going to buy it and a XBox360 to play it on. Reason one, the game will turn my PC into a toaster if I don't buy it for the 360, and two it has been years since I last played a game of this nature (non-linear singleplayer RPG, is my favourite game type) or had a current gen console so I can easily justify the expense in my head (and maybe even a £600 HD TV, but that's a different story). The problem however is that if it is out before the end of April, then it is going to have a big detrimental impact on my final year project.

I am going to buy it, I am going to play it and I am already a month behind in my final year project. So the signs are not good. My only hope is to be ultra efficient about my work and hope that Oblivion isn't released until the end of April (final year project is due the 1st of May)

I keep trying to picture myself waiting until after I have handed in my project before buying it, but I can't see it. The distraction from having it setup and not playing it is unbearable. For the past few years I have staved off this craving for gameage by grinding through games in a matter of hours and quickly dismissing other games as crap, but I don't think either of those things are going to happen with Oblivion.

Things aren't any easier with GameSpy printing Previews putting the game's only negatives as

"After it's released, will there be any time left to spend with our loved ones?"

I need help!! I need Oblivion to be delayed until the end of April!!!

Sorry if this sounds selfish, but I am just feeling a little bit vulnerable right now.

Reasonable Doubt

Just finished watching Loose Change 2nd Edition (not sure what the 2nd ED means) which is a documentary about how the terrorist bombings on the world trade centre in New York and the Pentagon where staged. And it presents a well constructed argument, but wither this is because the attacks where executed by the US government or Terrorists we will never know and that is because the proper procedures for accident investigation and disclosure haven't been followed.

The thing for me about this whole thing is that it seems odd to blame Osama bin Laden because there is as much evidance for that as Weapons of Mass Destruction being in Iraq. And the fact that Osama denies anything to do with the attacks says to me he didn't do it. Terrorists always admit to their attacks. The very nature of being a terrorist is that you persuade people through terrible acts to acknowledge your cause. By not admitting to your attack you undermine the whole foundation as to what a terrorist is. And nobody has ever implicated Osama other than Bush. So the whole thing smells funny, plus we already know that Bush lied about the Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Microsoft's IPod Package Parody

Somebody has put together A Great Parody of Microsoft designing the iPod packaging.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Hands-on @ VE

"You can do anything you want except walk through the burning ring of fire."

And that is what all the journalists have been told when playtesting Oblivion because the developers wanted to leave something undocumented for players to find.

Anyway Voodoo Extreme has a great Preview of Oblivion with some desktop sized (1280x720) pictures on page three.

There are a few things in the preview which I liked, quest objective locations being marked on your map now and:

"Your grab hand indicates red if the item you're about to take will get you in trouble with its owner."

Something finally that tells you wither what you are about to take will piss an NPC off or not. RPGs have needed this for years, but never had.

I am very much looking forwards to Oblivion. A supposed twenty hours of gameplay just to complete the main quest is my idea of a game, instead of these afternoon jaunts which I have been playing for the past few years. Still haven't properly played a game in years because I have always been doing assignments and so been grinding games instead of playing them (needed to get them done so they don't impact on my work). Still I have been in a kind of gaming rut for years and it has been a combination of titles bing too short, having crap stories and unrefined gameplay (star wars Empire At War being the most recent offender). So it is my hope that Oblivion is the game that makes it worth me buying a 360 after I finish my final year project (last console I bought was an N64 and that was just for F-Zero).

Massiverly Multiplayer Pong

It requires flash 8 to play and is a little odd because when you join you are assigned a side (it tells you at the bottom which side you are on) and then averages out all the requests for where the bat should be against all the other players, but ye This is a lot of fun, in a strange geeky kind of way.

Smackdown vs. Raw 2006 on the Sony PSP (Load Times)

The PSP's launch titles suffered from some bad load times because developers assumed that the UMDs would have roughly the same transfer rate as DVD. So there is no excuse for This.

And yes it is possible to count in game videos as part of the load times because a lot of games stream content in a separate thread into memory during these sequences so the player don't have to look at the load screen for so long.

Microsoft's Project Origami

Microsoft has just launched a new marketing campaign site for Project Origami which is a Small Tablet Computer. Kind of a mix between a PDA and Tablet PC.

At the mo the rumour is out this year, Vista enabled and about $500, but if you wanted to spin the story it could be suggested that this is the rumoured XboxPortable and will have some special 360 connectivity.

Warbears

Warbears is the most polished flash game I have ever played. Not sure how long it took me to complete it, but it must have been at least an hour (I ended up using the walkthrough on the comments page).

15

Today I watched the Singapore film Fifteen directed by Royston Tan. It is Royston's first feature film as he spends most of his time doing music videos, shorts for film festivals and advertisements for mobile phones. The only other film that I know of that has a director with a Music video background is Casshern which has an unbelievable level of visual styling. Until I seen that I through The Matrix was visually ahead of it's time, but now I realise that cinema has progressed much further since then and that The Matrix was long overdue when it arrived. Anyway with a music video director as the director, 15 is certainly a good looking film, but more than that Royston allowed Singapore and the gang / drug culture he was delving into to influence the film.

On first viewing I thought it was a visually nice film about some young kids who where on the wrong side of the tracks and that the film explored the more sensitive sides of their nature to show that they where still hoping for a better future, but there is a scene that caught my attention with one of the guys cutting himself with a knife. It looked very real and with that and a few other scenes I wondered how Royston got such realistic performances out of his young actors. So I watched it again with the commentary on and normally commentary is like "This is how we did the camera for this scene, isn't it so nice how the light shines off that curtain", but the commentary here is honest and that is when the film blew my mind. Turns out that the knife wasn't a fake knife and the guy wasn't acting.

See Royston did a short called 15 in 2002 and it is that which he turned into a feature length version by the same name in 2005. The short featured a script preformed by real gang members and that went well, but Royston had a problem with them playing upto the camera and getting them to follow direction. So for the feature length version he chose new actors and allowed them to be themselves by filming them for a few months before making the film and then filming the actual shooing in a more documentary style of filming while still following a script. To make sure none of them ran off he let them all live at his flat during filming and incase any of them actually ranoff he had several scrips written so he didn't loose any vital characters. At onepoint in the film a character called Armanie is sitting crying on a couch on his birthday and the narrator says "and that was the last time I seen Armanie". On first viewing I though this was the voice of his friend reminiscing, but turns out it's Royston, because Armanie was actually crying about something, then got arrested for stabbing a guy outside McDonald's and that was the lastime he ever seen Armanie.

The film is classed as a Drama, but really it is a Biographical piece about these kid's lives. The script is written based on all the actors personal experiences and a lot of observations by Royston. The through of these kids so young having to deal with so much shit is humbling for me.

I have read a few comments about the film and it has very fast dialogue subtitles because the audio dialogue is in Mandarin, possibly the worlds fastest language. And the film doesn't have a nice big western plot twist or love story or tragedy or anything else you would expect from a western film. So a lot of the comments that have been made about 15 haven't been kind or even accurate because it is perceived as a drama. My perception of film making changed a little today and that is all down to 15.

5/5

Information Security Management Assignment

Just finished my report on promoting security awareness in an organisation. Took longer than I though (what doesn't), but I am very pleased with it and it will be handed in a whole day \(*o*)/ before the deadline!

PC Based Geometry Wars 2 Clones

For looks Grid Wars is the most Geometry Wars like, but it has control issues. Where as HGEWars doesn't look as good, but with the 360 Controller ini File that enables full Common Controller input. The game just feels right and is a lot of fun.

16.6 Million Points on Geometry Wars

The Video is 20 minuets long if you are interested.

Snowboarding Tricks Guide

The Half-Pipe event in this years Olympics might be over, but the BBC website is still hosting a great Snowboarding Tricks Guide narrated by the GB Coach.

Competitive Gaming Tips

There are times as a gamer where you will find yourself in a multiplayer match against the person who owns the game that you don't and in those cases you are not expected to win as you don't own the game yourself, but here are a few tips that just might give you an edge.

General
If you are playing split screen looking at your opponents view can sometimes give you an advantage by letting you know where they are, what weapons or powerups they have and possibly what their intentions are (i.e a cover battle in Perfect Dark Zero).

FPS
Use sound to your advantage. If you hear footsteps from your right speaker then it is likely there is somebody off to your right. Being able to locate people in a level by sound alone is an excellent radar substitute.

When running around corners make sure you are looking towards the apex of the corner. This will allow you to see anybody who is waiting for you just inside.

If you have a weapon that is slow reloading make sure you have auto-reload turned off in the options. That way when it is empty instead of dodging fire while it reloads, switch weapon. This also had the added advantage by putting intermediate opponents offguard as they will think you are reloading and unable to fire.

Mouse sensitivity should be set on a game per game basis depending on they types of weapons used. A high sensitivity will help with twitch action and following fast moving targets where as low sensitivity will give much better accuracy when firing and both moving and stationary targets, so is essential when sniping.

Strategy
Most strategy games have a fundamental flaw in that the amount of technology, buildings and units is dictated by how much resources the player has. Has soon as the match starts make sure you secure most of the resources on the level. If you are playing against newbs get the resources in the middle of the level first and then the ones closes to your base. Otherwise you will have a small firefight to get the resources in the middle of the level with more experienced players.

Don't spend all your time on defence and technologies. These are generally a wast of time. Your objective should be to win as fast as possible because most players will sitback and build until they are ready to attack.

2D beat-em-ups
Button mash, nothing can help you here.

3D beat-em-ups
Choose a fast character, these are generally balanced so that their weaker attacks aren't much weaker than their powerful attacks, which you aren't going to use because you don't know them. Plus having a faster character will make it easier to dodge attacks.

Learn your opponents moves to know when to block and when to sidestep. Your objective should be to reduce the amount of health you loose, over the priority of dealing damage to them.

Racing
Go slow into corners and fast out. This will take advantage of the simulated weight distribution of the car by having the weight on your front tires when you are breaking and the car's weight on your back tires when accelerating. And yes most racing games simulate this. The only game which probably doesn't is Mario Kart.

Front wheel drive cars are always easier to steer and wipeout less.

Mechbattles
Concentrate fire on a specific part of your opponent and make good use of splashdamage. The unfortunate thing here is that experience is really everything.

Games with powerups
In some of these games grabbing the powerups is good, in others it is not worth the effort. Know witch of these types of games you are playing.

Governing a Company

The United States of America is not a Democracy. It is a Federal Republic which is a type of government that shares power with many smaller governments called States.
A Republic in effect a Monarchy, but instead of having a King or Queen as a central figure, it is an elected official called a President.

The United Kingdom is also not a Democracy. It is a Unitary State (also known as a Non-federal Government). In this system a central government that distributes power to lower regional local Councils, Mayors and Assemblies, but the central government always maintains central control.
In the UK's case it is also a Constitutional Monarchy where power is shared on a constitutional level between the Monarchy and the Government.

A Democracy is a type of government where the majority opinion of 'the people' choose how they all should live.

I have been looking at this because I realised today that most companies have either Monarchy or Communist styles of management. Companies are far smaller than Countries so this is why bad forms of management doesn't have such a noticeable effect on the company as it would a country. Plus people are happy to work for bad management while they are being paid and while they can't find anything better.

Knowing this I question how companies are run and wonder if there is a new management model that could be created from looking at how countries are run.

Legal Lunacy

Google is trying to index every book they can get their hands on and offer it up for search. Lawrence Lessig has put together an excellent presentation on the legal problems that Google is facing and how IP legislation is stifling innovation.

Classified Online Courses

Just been doing some research for my Information Security Management report and I found an online course that is Classified SECRET, but yet has it's Cource Overview online!

Funny Animal Crossing Blog

It's nice that people are starting blogging so young now. Neo_Kitty has had her Animal Crossing Blog for a few months now and she is only 12.

This thing is pure comedy gold.

Doesn't Work

So I finally got around to testing my prototype and there is something wrong when it trys to setup the voice options. I don't know what is wrong. There is something wrong because it doesn't work (maybe something to do with the event handler). Fixed an interface bug with the save button, but I need to work on other stuff right now.

I need to make a game with my prototype that shows off it's capabilities and at the mo the best I can comeup with is a derelict ship that needs to be fixed by completing puzzles etc. It's been done before, but I need something a little more scalable and rich than the standard Interactive Fiction cave exploration games.

"You are standing in a cave at the foot of an infinite staircase, there is a lamp at your feet."

More On The PS3

Kikizo has A Hands On Writeup on the PS3, written from what they have seen and learned from inside a few development houses. It's an OK read, but most of the developers sound like they are still trying to get their games up and running. Still after reading that article yesterday that excessed concerns over the PS3's loading times I was surprised to read this:

we're programming the game as if it will be written for a 10-speed DVD drive. Anything less would affect load time.

I though Sony would have learned a valuable lesson after the PSP where developers thought the UMD disks would have the same access times as DVD and didn't.

News Catchup

Thought that I had better catchup on some news and there has been some interesting stuff come-up recently.

• There are some Achievements Microsoft doesn't want people to have
  
  
• Portable Planet has released some Screens for a PSP Nintendogs Clone, but without the touchscreen and microphone it is more like a Dogz clone.
  
  
• There is an article Here that suggests the PS3 will do very badly and the article's key point is:

  Until now, it's been widely assumed that the Blu-ray drive that will make it's way into the PS3 will be single-speed. If true, this choice could be disastrous. Blue-ray single speed transfers data at a constant rate of 36Mbps (Megabits per second) or 4.5 MBps (Megabytes per second). Sound impressive? Think again. DVD single speed is rated at a little over 1.32MBps max. A 12X DVD, such as the one in the Xbox 360, transfers data at rates between 8.2 and 16.5 MBps for an average of around 13MBps. This article from Gamespot provides all the details on transfer speeds, but simple math should show that there are some serious concerns looming with a single speed Blu-Ray drive. So, all things being equal, a 20 second load-time on the Xbox 360 would equate to just under 60 seconds on the PS3!

  So if the PS3 has a x1 speed Blue-Ray drive the load times will be very bad indeed. And that might explain why all the current PS3 game screens have had terrible textures (no I am not counting MGS4).

Work Frustrations

I just had one of those moments where I knew that staying up working any longer would be a mistake when I tried to create a stick guy that looks like he is climbing up stairs:



The downstairs guy looks fine, but this one is a pain. As much as I have learned to like POVRay I still get frustrated with only being able to work with X,Y and Z cordinates.

Update

Still not tried my Prototype, got in today for my weekly meeting and my supervisor is off ill (a few of the lecturers have been doing the vomiting thing recently). So having spent the rest of my time trying to get a package delivery company simulation running I just want to go bed now. The package company needs fixing as they are loosing 60% of their business to their rivals through taking too long to confirm packages.

Lots of work to do, no sorry GODLIKE amount of work to do. I could work solid for weeks and still not get everything done. If I am not doing assignments, I am making revision notes or reading case studies and catching up on lectures.

I'am a little bit concerned with my final year project as it is weeks behind, but looking great. I think that means I should reassess my expectations, but I have so much other work on I am finding it difficult to get concerned about because after everything else is in I will still have time to work on that.

It's Done! (I think)

I think I have finished the prototype for my final year project, I don't know because I don't want to wake my Dad up testing it. And since I have an early start the first time this will probably work will be infront of my supervisor. I have checked the code and i don't see any problems, but it could crash or behave wrongly of-course.

The problem now is that after next week I have an assignment deadline each week for three weeks. So time on my project is going to be limited. I have started on all those assignments, but they are all about half way done and need attention before they are ready to be handed in. Not that I am looking for high marks or anything, but they need finishing.

The CD Key Search

Places I have found the CDKey
Back of the CD case
Front of the CD case
Inside cover
Inside the inside cover
Back of the manual
Front of the manual
Just inside the manual
On a special CDKey card
Underneath the CD on a sticker

Places I have not found the CDKey
On the CD itself
On the spine of the CD case
On the registry card
On any promotional material
On the outside of the box

I have only had one occasion where I had to phone tech support and ask. Turned out that I probably wasn't given one so the guy gave me one over the phone.

Danish Embassy in Beirut Torched

The Danish Embassy in Beirut has been burned. Nobody was hurt in the building because the embassy staff moved out a few days ago and all the other companies in the same building did so too yesterday, but this is a senseless attack.

So some paper prints a satirical cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb shaped hat. It was a stab at the view that all Muslims are extremists and turn to violence to solve their problems.

When the cartoon was published what should have happened was that the Muslim community boycott the paper in protest and send in angry letters asking for an apology. This would ave gotten results and if they didn't feel this was enough they could have gone further and organised a march or petitioned the government. As it is however there are thousands of angry Muslims torching buildings in Beirut that haven't seen the cartoon for themselves and are simply enforcing the satirical view taken by the cartoon. These people are demonizing themselves in the eyes of the world and don't even seem to realise.

Game Sells XBox360 Games For 99p

Apparently Game will sell you a brand new XBox360 game for 99p if you trade in two XBox360s games in good condition.

A Very Cold Day

It was a very cold day today, but on the way to uni as I turned down a road leading there I seen a guy lying by the side of the pavement and parked up next to him on the road was a yellow council truck (one of those ones that goes around trimming hedges, collecting litter from parks etc). On this particular road I have seen strange things before like an old guy wearing a hospital gown, slippers and jacket walking in a dazed state in the direction coming from the hospital. He even had a hospital wristband on, but I didn't know wither to ask him if he was ok or not because he might have just been going for a walk, but today I didn't expect to see anybody lying on the pavement with it being such a cold day.

I wondered why he was lying there and if he was alright. A few people walked past him, not even taking any interest just keeping to themselves. As I walked to wards him I wondered if I should see if he was alright. When I got closer I could see he was a homeless guy, no socks, lying on his left side in a slightly huddled position facing away from the road, but lying very still. I asked the driver of the council truck parked next to him if the guy was alright and he just looked at me and nodded slowly. Looking back at the guy I realised that the he was lying very still. Some scratches on him so he might have been in a fight, but it was a very cold day indeed today.

Is The PS3 Easy To Programme For?

The question of the PS3's ease of development has come into question in the past few weeks and why should we care?! I mean it's not us gamers that will be making these games, but after comparing the quality of the graphics between the XBox and PS2 in the last generation it is easy to see that the PS2 was more of a PlayStation1.5 than anything that could match the XBox, but games like Black (that aren't out yet) do match what is available on the XBox. And the reason for this is that the XBox is an easier console to make games for, where as developers have had to work long and hard for many years to get anything out of the PS2. So yes gamers do care because if a developer has a hard time making games for a console then the games will suffer.

In the past week a few people have said that the PS3 isn't as hard to develop for as others first thought. What has been said is that it is very much like developing for the PS2 (not good) and that games have to be very thread intensive to make sure that all seven PPEs are working inside the Cell Chip. Now this might sound ok, but multi-threading in C++ is horrible and in traditional software development (for the XBox360 for example) threading is only used when it is of benefit (physics, AI, control input etc). So creating more threads, just for the sake of it is simply going to complicate things. I could go into what threading is and why it is good, but the bad side of it is that it creates non-deterministic bugs. These are errors which are extremely difficult to track. I mean ultra difficult and that is with using great debugging tools like Visual Studio. So any thread creating where it hasn't been architected properly will have a detrimental effect on development and mean that released games will crash or stutter badly (as it recovers from a near crash) occasionally.

Looking at Screenshots from games in development for the PS3 I don't think they look much better than what the XBox can do. Sure there is a lot of stuff on screen, but a lot of what is in the screens all has very simple textures and low polly counts. I might even go as far to say that those pictures aren't any better than These new screens from the latest PS2 games. So I do feel that developers are struggling badly.

Still all that being said even if Sony ships empty boxes with PS3 logos on the side they will sell loads.

America Being Dragged One Step Closer To The Modern Century

After eight years of debate, protests on both sides, the guys for it saying it is their civil right to be treated just the same as everybody else and the guys against saying the other guys are filthy perverts. Washington state has made it Illegal to Discriminate Somebody Based on their Sexuality.

If all the states in America where to have this and bring their minimum wage upto a livable level, I might just have to call America a civilised country.

Amazing French Tshirt Folding System

I didn't think anything could top the Amasing Chinese Tshirt Folding Technique, but This French Folding System is stunning.

Free Game - Trackmania Nations

I have been following the Trackmania series by downloading the Demos and the series has been getting continually better with each new release. The general premise is a racing game with Scalextric stunt like tracks. All of the games come with a built in track editor making it ultra easy to create custom tracks.

The latest incarnation of the series is as a free game sponsored by Nvidia for this year's Electronic Sports World Cup.

You can download the game from the Game's Website, 3D Gamers or Fileplanet.

The IT Crowd

New comedy on Channel4 starts on the 6th next month, but you can watch the first episode right now over at Channel4's Website.

With the the tagline:

CTRL+ALT+DELETE your TV and watch the first episode of the IT Crowd online!

I think you will automatically realise that this is office monkey stereo typing of IT. A few of the things around their basement is internet folklore related like The Flying Spaghetti Monster, but the jokes avoid any deep IT related stuff and just stick to the standard helpdesk Mistaking the CD-Tray for a Coffee Cup Holder stuff.

Working Priorities

Since Christmas I have done quite well to keep on track with all my assignments and things have been going ok. I have avoided playing any new games because that would distract me and put me in a mode where I have to complete the game before I can do any work.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on reasoning) I have gotten distracted with one of my assignments. It is probably the last one that will be handed in, but I have been almost exclusively working on my Compilers assignment for over a week now. The task being to create an application that demonstrates table compression. It's not finished, but the challenge of finding ways to maximise compression while still retaining the benefit of being able to read data inside the compressed class directly is actually fun.

Anyway I think I can easily get the compression ratio higher than the standard 40% and that might just be me being overconfident because I haven't actually measured the results of my implementation yet, but the whole thing is soaking up time. I should have the prototype of my final year project up and running Thursday or at least very near complete and that is still very possible, but my mind is on my compression algorithm.

Old Game Revisited Tetris & Dr Mario

Many years have passed since I last played Dr Mario so I thought I might gain some new appreciation for the game if I played it again. I remember not liking it and it's only appeal being Mario. And indeed this is it's only appeal because as a puzzle game it doesn't have the cognitive depth to keep the player interested. The audio is bland and the puzzle element itself leaves much to be desired as later in the game you have very little room to move Pisces no-matter how good you are. Plus the player is forced to dump blocks in the hope that the next one they need will come soon. This dumping element makes most of the levels feel like a last ditch attempt at beating it as there is no way to avoid the dumping (or maybe that's just me).
0/5

I have played many games of Tetris and many Tertis like clones, but I have never liked any of those clones. Not on mobile phones, CD Players, Flash, Java or calculator version can compare to the original.

A limited number of four block shapes that fit into satisfying places in the puzzle environment. To get a piece in the right place is nice, but then to have the line flash, disappear, the blocks above fall down, have a nice ding sound play and have bonus points added is a satisfying event.

The Russian music is very methodic putting the player into a relaxed state. All other sounds in the game are posative pitched bell like sounds. Research has shown that these pitched bell reward sounds are satisfying to the human brain and even moving a falling shape from left to right in Tetris results in this sound.

Levels are conveyed by changing colour scheme and the difficulty is controlled by the game speed. Wither a player has been playing the game for two seconds or five hours the gameplay, rules and cognitive decisions made on the players part are the same.

The reason why people play Tetris is because every action results in a reward sound making Tetris a very satisfying and relaxing game to play. Also within it's simple gameplay there is required planning for future moves so a player's mind is always busy.

Even if you loose in Tetris there is a sense that you could have done better if you had just planned your moves better. In reality the game moves to a speed that is just slightly faster than you can operate at, so you make just enough clumsy mistakes to loose.
5/5

Star Wars Empire at War Demo

I thought Star Wars Empire at War was going to be a linear mission to mission strategy game like WarCraft, but it isn't. It is actually an attempt at a remake of Star Wars Rebellion (Called Star Wars Supremacy in the UK) which was very difficult.

I don't know if the full game will get boring, repetative or very hard once you are being attacks on multiple fronts, but the demo is funish (space battle good, ground battle bad).

Defcon Interview

Eurogamer has an Interview with Chris about Defcon.

The best line of the interview has to be:

It's worth mentioning that alliances and betrayals are all options that can be disabled when the game is starting up, if you fancy a slightly more friendly game of global nuclear war.

Best Blond Joke Ever

Normally I hate blond jokes, but This Is The Funniest Blonde Joke Ever.

Favourite Artist oF The Moment

I go through fazes of loving some artist's work and for a few months now I have been stuck on Banksy. Visually his work has impact, but he puts thought behind his work, it makes people look at it a few seconds longer and elevates it above graffiti.

Firefly why the cancellation!?

So I have finally gotten around to watching the first two DVDs of Firefly and this series is stunning. It has a tight set of characters in a persistent, but changing environment (the ship Serenity and the different worlds she visits) which is a winning combination in any fiction, but the characters are so varied. In most TV and film series the audience is introduced to one character that they are expected to identify with, then others come together and the audience sees the relationships form. The Matrix, Star Trek Voyager, Star Wars and Romeo & Juliet all have this same formula, but with Firefly we witness an established crew put in difficult situations. I mention this because Joss Whedon uses this so intently for the benefit of the series. For example there is a scene between Wash (the pilot) and Zoe his wife (also the ships second in command) in bed just after having amazing sex. Zoe starts to fall asleep and Wash says:

you know what happens when the acting captain falls asleep?
Jane slits my throat and steals the ship

Jane being another crew member who isn't a bad person, but give an inch and he will take a mile.

I also like the fact that Joss's writing isn't prolific with the dialogue. There is an incident where Kaylee (the engineer) is asked about a problem she was fixing. Her lines never contain anything negative. She is a very positive person. If anybody says anything bad she remains quiet and gives them a hurt look. Yet when asked if she has finished fixing it yet she simply says 'no'. Joss purposefully missed an opportunity to add comic relief or reinforce her character. Instead preferring to keep the pace of the story going which is excellent because too many writers will keep their characters chuntering for too long and most American TV series and comedy films will pack the dialogue with as much rubbish as the writer can think of.

Anyway the writing is simply amazing and in 'Our Mr and Mrs Reinalds' the crew help a small village by killing some highwaymen, unusually for an American fiction the audience is left to assume who or what these men are, (this is a trait more commonly found in Asian cinema) but after the celebrations are over Mal (the captain) is found to have Married a girl (there was much drinking and nobody can remember the brief ceremony). The dialogue between her in his cabin is brilliant, simply brilliant. She is standing naked infront of him and he asks why she did this:

I lived my life in the maiden house waiting to be married off for trade
I seen my sister paired off with ugly men, vicious or blubberous
Men with appetites too unseemly to speak on
and I have cried for those girls,
but not half so hard as the night they gave me to you.

>Why?
>Is there blubber?

I cried for I'd not dreamed to have a man so sweet, So kind and beautiful.
Had I the dare to choose, I'd choose you for all the men on all the planets the sky could show me.
If I am wed then I am a woman, and I will take your leave to be bold.
I want this.
I swell to think of you in me,
And I see that you do too.
>Well, that’s just...
Leave me at the nearest port, never look upon me again.
I'll make my way with the strength that you taught me.
Only let me have my wedding night...

I have seen films with such dialogue, but never TV series and the quotable content is astonishing like "Don't you stand for that, if anybody tries to kill you, just kill them right back". And there is swearing too, only the swearing is done in Chinese and Gaelic so not to offend, which actually adds to the imaginative depth of the fiction because there is no explanation as to how these characters know such varied languages.

The set design is also brilliant as well as the attention to detail. Serenity is an old Firefly class ship and there is evidence of past owners like faded flower paintings on the wall of the galley, the dinning table is wooden and the chairs are of all different styles so obviously scavenged from different places.

I could go on about the use of body language and the CGI work, but this series is stunning and it was cancelled WTF!!!

PGR3 Looks Better Than You Think

Here is a forum post comparing pictures of Japan to Japan from PGR3 on the 360.

Nintendo Misses A Trick

Nintendo history of missing generation vital features:

N64
No CD support. Fans so wanted the same kind of demo disk distribution that PlayStation had.

Game Cube
No DVD Support. Fans in Japan bought PS2 consoles as cheap DVD players. And this decision left a lot of gamers around the world drooling over the Panasonic version that could actually play DVDs.

Revolution
No HD support. That might not sound like much now, but give it three years when everybody is enjoying HD TV channels, HD Movies and HD games on other consoles. The picture quality on the Revolution will look horrible unclear and uncrisp, unlike everything else on HD displays.

Massive Eve Online Ships

A few news ships have been added in the new expansion and they are Massive.

Additional: There is a picture of the Eiffel Tower down the bottom left corner for size comparison.

The HP ScanJet 3c/4c Music

This is the most astounding things I have seen this year.

So I was reading Slashdot and I don't normally link to anything on there because it is all just reconstituted news, but they have This Bit on how ScanJet scanners have variable speed motors and how somebody made one play music (Ludwig Van Beethoven's Fur Elise to be exact). The site is down because of the Slashdot effect, but you can still get it from Mirror Dot.

Video Game Journalism Sucks

This Article Titled The Pointlessness of Current Videogame Journalism has been making the rounds and he has a point.

Previews are a wast of time because a lot of the previews are written without the writer actually playing the game. The previews where the writer does play the game (called Hands On Previews) are always very lukewarm in opinion because the game isn't finished and they can't say the weapon selection is crap if all the weapons haven't been added yet etc.

I believe most journalists see reviews as an entertainment medium in themselves instead of an academic review of the game in question. For example no Mario has ever gotten a bad review. Readers who are upset by what a reviewer says will obviously take their readership elseware, so reviewers don't want to upset anybody by giving a bad review to a popular franchise. I have read many reviews where the reviewer hasn't played through the game at all and bases their opinion on just the first fifteen minuets of the game as they don't even hint at any of the problems latter on in the experience (Black & White is a prime example of this). And there are many times where it is painfully obvious that the reviewer isn't an experienced gamer at all. Reviewers are hired on their writing experience an not on their gaming credentials so obviously there is going to be a lack of authority in their opinions, this in itself renders their opinions uninformed and thus the review pointless.

The whole VG industry has to make reviewers happy otherwise they will write something bad as revenge and effect sales. Yet there is no need for anything to change. I was going to link here to that eWeek article by that guy saying Xbox Live sucks and the way Sony is allowing publishers to control their own service is better, but I can't seem to find it.

ID Chip Placement

So I was watching This Video on BBC news about a few students in America trialling ID chips by using them in their hands to login to their computers and I think they have them in completely the wrong part of their bodies.

See in their hands they wait for the login screen to appear then they put their hand on a pad. The chip is read and they are logged on, but if they had the chip implanted in their ass instead then the system would work much better. Then they would just have to sitdown infront of the computer and when the login screen appeared, the pad in the seat of the chair would read the chip in their ass, removing the need for all that hand waving rubbish. Plus the system could automatically lock itself when the user stands up, thus greatly improving security too.

Fast If Empty

The fastest way to check to see if a string is empty is to check it's length. Any other method like comparing it to an empty string (or "") is about three times slower and generates another memory address to do the comparison with.

If i.Length = 0 Then

Dates For Your Diary

Here is a shortlist of some of the industry dates for this year:

20th to 24th March
Independent Games Festival and the Game Developers Conference, San Jose, California.

10th to 12th May
E3 2006, Los Angeles, California.

12th to 13th July
Develop, Brighton, England.

23rd to 27th August
Leipzig Game Convention, Germany.

8th to 12th September
IBC, Amsterdam.

Post 1000!!!

This is my thousandth post. Weren't sure if I would be running this blog that long, but it looks like I have. Not had much to post as of late because I have been working on my final year project still, which I am not sure how much I should or can say about. I would post code from it, but then when I hand it in for marking it might get flagged for code existing on the internet. Still looking at my time plan it looks as if I am on schedule after spending the everyday last week working on it.

Anyway I was trying to think earlier if I should do something every one thousandth posts to kind of mark the occasion, maybe impart somekind of knowledge or show a picture of a cake. I still think the idea might be a bit tacky as my normal style would be to just keep it short and say what I had been doing, but I will give it a go just to see how I feel about it.

Ok so first bit of imparted knowledge is that, having spent seventeen years of my life in education and six years of that in higher education I have never liked any of the courses I have ever been on.

Let me explain. With every course I have started it with high hopes of what I might learn and in every case I have been disappointed with the content. It is normally a four stage thing:
1) YAY [insert course or module title], Hack the world!
2) We aren't going to hack the world!? Just say Hello to it!
3) This is a wast of my time, just give me a pass so I can leave!
4) Thank god that was over (throws certificate in folder)

Then months or even years later I see something or get asked something that relates to what I was taught in that class and I go "wow I did learn something". So the moral of that story is, all courses are crap and never what you expect them to be, but stick with it because you might get a certificate and years later might find you leared something and be happy you got that certificate, doctorin or whatever.

I think the problem is that I take courses where I don't know anything about the subject, so then I get annoyed when I don't learn or cover what I expected. This is probably the primary reason why people leave courses before they finish.

uuhhh... Don't know how I feel about posting that, big text little content.
beh, submit anyway, it's either this or that cake idea.

CES 2006 Keynote

Microsoft had the floor in the keynote address. You can watch the video Here.

Few key things shown, but the Fight Night multiplayer match between Bill and Steve at the end was certainly the best.

Need For Speed Most Wanted (Not Completed)

The game becomes very repetitive towards the end. And the game doesn't change any. Ok you might get a faster car as you play and the opponents get better, but you are still riving around the same places and the routine of challenging your next blacklist guy is the same. And then there are the odd bits like the BMWs not having run flat tires which they put on all their cars.

I liked the game a lot when I started playing, but it doesn't change any. It has a good experience, but it requires you to play through that same experience too many times. The only thing that changes is the difficulty.
2/5

Gamercard as Image

GamerCard.Net is a site that will generate an image of your gamercard and allow you to direct link to it from their server.

Now there is no excuse for not using your gcard in your signature on forums.

Happy New Year!!!

See title. And what am I doing right now you might wonder, well I am writing some of the report that goes with my final year project. YAY!

Grand Turismo 4 Vs Jeremy Clarkson

In this weeks Top Gear (last of series, repeated BBC2 7pm on news years day) Jeremy Clarkson played Grand Turismo 4, driving a Honda NSX on the Laguna Seca track in north America (the one wit the steep corner) he set a laptime of 1:41. It is then his challenge to do the same laptime, in the same car, on the same track, but for real.

You can watch his attempt online Here and if you want to know his final laptime read the comments.

define: Game

I have been looking at a lot of definitions for the word Game and it strikes me that none of them have any inclination on the concept of Fun. Games can be indeed not fun or not entertaining, but to leave this from any definition seems tragic as any-game which isn't fun or entertaining isn't going to be considered much of a game from any perspective players viewpoint.

So anyway here is my definition of Recreational Games that I will not be including in my final year report because there is no president to define games as being fun.

A game is any interactive activity that is fun or entertaining, which follows a set of predefined rules and requires cognitive interpretation on the part of one or more participant/s to reach a set predetermined goal/s.

All the definitions of Game that I have read always include something about quantifiable outcome or goals and the interesting thing here is that Will Wright's games don't have these. So in many respects Sim City and The Sims aren't Video Games at all, but more accurately described as Video Toys.

Dirt Cheap Xbox Games

GAME has a Sale Running and on the Xbox front is selling Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory for £4.98 and XIII for £0.98.

Stuff to Look Forward to in 2006

Voodoo Extreme has an article about games coming in 2006. Spore and Supreme Commander should be much higher in that list, but it is a good list.

Next year also brings CliffyB's much anticipated Gears Of War and surprisingly Duke Nukem Forever in March (I will believe it when I see it).

On the Anime front I am looking forward to Black Lagoon which is an Anime adaptation of a Manga series (name one that isn't) about a small group of Mercenaries that smuggle arms etc. The girl of the unit Levi, is nicknamed Two Hands because of the amount of people she has killed with her duel .45s. And it sounds like a lot of fun.

On the film front there is Pixar's new film Cars, Aeon Flux, X-Men , Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Plus Steven Spielberg is releasing Jurassic Park IV and a remake of the 1951 SciFi film When Worlds Collide where a giant asteroid is found to be heading towards earth and there is no question of it not destroying the planet so a ark is built to send survivors out into space in the hope of the continuation of humanity.

And if all of that wasn't enough there is Series 28 of Doctor Who which looks fantastic.

The Cell Processor

NOTE: This is mostly guess work on my part as explained why at the end.

I have been doing some reading on the Cell Processor to try and understand why Sony is staking so much on it and after reading a couple of articles it is very evident that nobody writing these articles are seeing the full picture. From what I gather the Cell Processor was designed to solve a problem of CPU process management space taking up too much room on the CPU and it getting more and more complicated to sort the L1, L2 cache out and find what instruction should be processed next. At the mo applications get time-slices and processes can be cutoff mid process for something more important even if it isn't the efficient thing to do, but all this requires a huge amount of management by the CPU.

The Cell Processor's Architecture moves all this management from processing-time to compiler-time. So when an application's source code is compiled into an executable the compiler will mark out parts of the code that can be completed quickly by the cell architecture. This from the sounds of it is repetitive tasks that access memory sequentially like an algorithm that does something with an Array maybe.

When this specially compiled code is run on the Cell Processor each marked out part of the code is run and if there is a break that tells the Cell to switch process because the next bit is going to require a delay in fetching something from memory then the Cell will switch process until it comes across another switch.

This is all opposed to the CPU having to choose for itself when to switch between process which can happen at (sometimes) the most inefficient of times.

I have no idea if this is right because all the articles are very vague and just jabber on about haw instructions are divided at a very low level between it's eight SPEs instead of explaining how the high level management stuff is accomplished which is what the Cell architecture is supposed to revolutionise and these articles still manage to call themselves technical reviews.

This little instruction went to RAM.
This little instruction stayed at home.
This little instruction had to run again.
This little instruction did not.
This little instruction cried “Wee! Wee! Wee!” and ran all the way home.

And they get away without explaining the how or why of it all!

The Christmas Invasion

Just finished watching the Doctor Who Christmas spacial which is the first episode with David Tennant (Dr #10) and he was great, plays the Dr with a lot of energy and with a huge Tom Baker (Dr #4) influence. And that is great because Tom Baker was a breakthrough in the character after, the old one, the grumpy one and Jon Pertwee.

The Doctor #4: Would you like a jelly baby?
Leela: It's true then. They say the Evil One eats babies.
The Doctor #4: You mustn't believe all they say.

Merry Christmas Everybody

See title.

Need For Speed Most Wanted

Been playing EA's Need For Speed Most Wanted, and I like it. I mean it was ok using the keyboard, but when I found-out how to turn the gamepad option on, the analogue controls on the 360's pad just made the game a whole nother beast because now I have analogue control over acceleration, breaking and turning which makes cornering just so much more fun instead of doing that old woodpecker cornering trick to get my speed just right.

Creating ISO Images

If you use Microsoft Virtual PC and are still trying to find an easy way of making ISO images to put files onto your virtual drives then I have a treat. If you want to use some free burning tools instead of the standard retail bloatware that is CD Creator or Nero then I have a treat for you also.

DeepBurner offers a free version of their software and it is very good. Very lean, burning side works well, allows you to create custom autorun menus, bootable disks and creates ISO images. The pro version has a couple of extra buts, but the meat of it all is in the free version. Been using it for a couple of weeks and I am loving this because it is so basic.

A Friendly Game Of Thermo Nuclear War

After Introversion made a success of Uplink they (Chris) started work on a new project and then as a side thing started worked on Darwinia. Well Darwinia was ok and now the project they where (Chris) where working on has been announced and it is called Defcon.

Don't know if it will be distributed over STEAM or Arcade, but it is essentially the strategic game of Thermo Nuclear War played in the film Wargames (I see a tend here with their games) where you and your opponent has to kill each other with Nuclear weapons. Apparently the game happens in realtime so expect multiplayer matches to last eight hours or more, but this sounds good.

War Of The Worlds eComic

I have been following This War Of The Worlds eComic (click on the big image on the right) by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli for months now and it has finally furnished, so the time is right to point it out to you (saves you from waiting six months for it to finish like I have).

Give it a read because it is the best comic interpretation of H.G Wells's War Of The Worlds yet. I think the eComic has been designed to promote Ian Edginton and D'Israeli's other work called Scarlet Traces which follows a few years after War of The Worlds where the British Empire has taken over most of the world by researching the Martian Heat Ray Technology.

Then next year in May they have Scarlet Traces The Great Game #1 coming out which seems to follow on from Scarlet Traces where British Empire is struggling to win a war at home and on Mars.

Game of The Year Surprise

I have been looking through a few game of the years and there is no surprise that Civilisation IV is PC game of the year because this year has been lackluster for PC releases (same as last year) and CIV4 is fun even if it is a bug ridden game.

What did surprise me however is that Call of Duty 2 of the Xbox360 seems to have surpassed it's PC incarnation and picked up Best Original Score, Best Graphics Technology, Best FPS and 360 Game Of The Year all over at IGN alone. And I wouldn't have even considered it a purchase if I had of bought a 360 at launch simply because it is a multiconsole title. Well Activation has showed me one.

Random Fact

Microsoft has sold 3.9 games per Xbox360 sold.

Quake 4

I have just been playing through Quake 4 and I did wonder why a lot of the reviews had been negative because I was playing through a brilliant game, but then that character mutation thing happened and the game went down hill fast. Q4 goes from intelligent fictional representation of what is happening in the story and gameplay to a mindless Serious Sam like slugfest as soon as your character becomes mutated.

Half-Real

I got Half-Real another game theory book through today and this thing starts out excellent. Been busy today Christmas shopping so haven't even gotten past the first chapter yet, but seems a very good book and so far I only disagree with him on one point, and that is I think the fictional element in games like the setting or the characters can help gameplay where as Jesper doesn't see a connection.

Xbox360 Extreme Edition

Some guy has modded a 360 and put it Up For Auction On eBay.

The thing I like most is the glowing controlpad buttons, but the whole thing is so cool.

Dead or Alive and Halo Crossover

As if being able to play as Link in Soulcalibur 2 wasn't a cool crossover already Bungie has just Announced that they have been working with Team Ninja to incorporate a Master Chief looking character named Nicole into the game.

Cultural Differences

I think the slow takeup of the 360 might have something to do with the culteral differances that eastern and western people take to work and gamming.

In the west we will do anything to get out of work, or get rich by doing as little as possible, but in the east there is a strong workethic that says you should always do the best you can and through hard work you will be rewarded.

Where as westerners probably like having the world evaluate their gamming efforts publicaly and have their score directly evaluated besides their friends, this might be something hard for easterners because this opens them up for chritasism from their gameplaying efforts. So if I was not playing as much Kameo has my friend was then they would probably critasise me for slacking, being lazy or just being crap.

Really this is just me guessing, but there has to be some cultural reason why the 360 is flopping in Japan. And this is the best I can comeup with. It also might suggest why Nintendo and Sony have not considered online as worth while.

69,865 Consoles (32%) Less!

In Japan the Xbox360 has sold 62,135 consoles in the first two days of sale.
Originally in Japan the Xbox sold 123,000 consoles in the first three days of sale. Meaning that at the moment the 360 is an even bigger flop in Japan than the Xbox was.

I have no idea why the 360 has sold less, but I don't think this can be all down to DOA4 not being a launch title. DOA3 was an Xbox launch title, but common! LESS! Nobody was sure of the Xbox before it was launched, the console was the size of a house, the controller was big and horrible, Live wasn't working and nobody was sure about having a hard drive in their console or what Microsoft wanted to do with it. In retrospect we can look back and see that Microsoft changed everybody's perception of what a console can be, leaving Nintendo and Sony playing technological catchup, but the Japanese haven't honoured that.

I really have no idea on this one. I see flying to Japan, kidnapping a few gamers there and interrogating them as the only option in this matter.

I did think it was safe to say that the PS3 will outsell the 360 in Japan even if the PS3 is a pile of shit, but I also thing everybody was expecting the 360 to at least be able to compete against the PS3 competitively. Sales will probably pickup and it is longterm sales that Microsoft will be looking at, but still, LESS!!!

F.E.A.R. (Completed)

FEAR reminded me a lot of Doom3. Nice graphics, scary atmosphere and research project gone wrong. Doom3 was a game that a lot of critics didn't like because it's flashlight switching scary combat was too tireing, but they liked FEAR. I on the other hand liked Doom3, but did not get on with FEAR at all.

To start with the story is about a physic general that gives orders to his troops by thinking about it. This is supposed to allow him to know what is happening on the battleground, but the game shows no evidence of this because the guards show no idea where you are at any stage of the game and expend a considerable amount of resources trying to find you.

FEAR has some of the most boring level design I have seen for years (since Halo). Most of the game happens in an office block (goes on for ages), then there is a short warehouse bit and a slightly longer research facility bit.

The developers (just like in Doom3) have tried to keep the player on edge and breakup the action by doing a flashing light thing. In Doom3 this signals demons teleporting in or a vision of something horrific, but in FEAR it signals a ghost sighting for which I soon realised has no threat to the player's life at all. You might hear a little girl laughing or see something, but it is certainly nothing to fear.

Weapons are good, plenty of ammo after the start of the game (not sure why there is an ammo scarcity at the start, probably to make you feel on edge more).

Bad guy AI is good, nothing spectacular as all encounters are scripted.

Story is poor and very predictable. The hinting actually gets annoying as the backstory to your character is so obvious (ripped straight from Metalgear Solid).

More variety in level design like a shorter office section at the start/middle/after, more variety in enemies and a richer story would have gone a long way making the game a more interesting.
2/5

The Greatest Car Ever Made

I just finished watching Top Gear on BBC1 and OMG! The Bugatti Veyron is the greatest car ever made.

Clarkson's Excellent Review in The Times puts it quite nicly.

I also cannot tell you how good this car is. I just don’t have the vocabulary. I just end up stammering and dribbling and talking wide-eyed nonsense. And everyone thinks I’m on drugs.

Model Bugatti Veyron 16.4
Engine 7993cc, 16 cylinders in a W
Power 1001bhp @ 6000rpm
Torque 922 lb ft @ 2200rpm
Transmission 7-speed DSG, manual and auto
Fuel 11.7mpg (combined)
CO2 574g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 2.5sec
Top speed 253mph (370ft a second)
Price £810,345
Rating Five stars
Verdict Deserves 12 stars. Simply as good — and as fast — as it gets

It is faster than an F1 car, from topspeed it has the stopping distance of a third of a mile and if you where to fillup it's one hundred letter fuel tank and drive it at top speed, you would runout of fuel in twelve minuets (or fifty miles).

It is one of the nicest looking cars evermade. Just checkout Google Images. And if you can imagine this Picture with a streaking red light on the front of the car, it would easily beat KIT in coolfactor.

Dating a Developer

I thought This Account by Emily of her experience with dating a software developer was interesting. A lot of women struggle to understand why their hubbie spends so many hours looking at a screen instead of them, but Email has some lighthearted advise.

Prince of Persia The Sands of Time (Completed)

Good game, the story is good, music isn't emphasised probably enough. The controls are nice and intuitive (with the 360 controller it was anyway), but the game has some camera issues and the combat isn't great. I didn't think the combat system is bad, just that sometimes the combat goes on for far too long. It is just placed to breakup the levels, but I restarted the battle between between the prince and his undead-farther several times because I thought I was doing something wrong, but no, the battle is supposed to be long and tiering.
4/5

Dynamic Motion Synthesis

Animation in CGI is traditional achieved by an artist sitting infront of a computer animating or motion capture. These both work well, but take time and a lot more time to makes alterations.

Endorphin tries to solve this time consuming aspect of animation by using a combination of physics and character intentions (called behaviours) that can be applied to a character to generate realistic movement. So for example if a character falls down some stairs the model can be told to protect a part of their body like his head, try to stop the fall with his hands or just spread his arms around as if he where unconscious.

The Demo Page has some great examples of characters interacting with objects dynamically. Demo seven for example shows how a character can be told to catch a ball simply by selecting the behaviour, the ball and the character's hands because everything in between is generated by Endorphin.

At the mo this isn't applyable for realtime use in games, but as a productivity tool for animators this looks great.

Prince of Persia The Sands of Time

I bought Prince of Persia The Sands of Time earlier this week and just started playing it today. I haven't bothered with POPSOT before because I found the very first fighting bit in The Demo to be too difficult on the keyboard (I died multiple times), but I wanted to play a game that really needed a controlpad.

The 360 controller is easy to setup from the game's option menu and I am thoroughly enjoying it (just brought the city defences online).

Phase Test Result

Just as a followup to my Phase Test Post. I got 78% from the test, and that is 7.8% of my total module grade (I need to get 40% to pass).

Xinput

I have been looking into a way of getting more out of my 360 controller by writing somekind of app and it turns out that in the October release of the DirectX SDK there was an addition called Xinput that allows added functionality specifically for common controllers (at the mo that means the 360 controller).

Xinput allows a programmer to receive input from the controller and to output to the two rumble devices inside the controller. With this Microsoft is giving a big helping hand to developers. It even has events in for when the controller is unplugged or not detects. Plus it can address upto four controllers. This is exactly what I was looking for.

And I found this in the FAQ:

How do I disable ALT+TAB and other task switching?
You don't!

So there you have it, Alt-TAB should always be supported. Can't think of any games that disable it at the mo, but they do exist.

UPDATE: The documentation isn't detailed, all the samples are in C++, nothing will compile and I don't seem to be able to find the correct DLL to write an application. So not exactly the best of starts.

Random Fact

For ever 12 to 14 people you know, at least one of them is gay. This number would be higher if it wasn't so easy for women to deny their sexuality.

Microsoft's Xbox360 Controller For Windows

The 360 is out today and I am not getting one yet because I need the money and my final year project would be better completed without the distraction, but I have bought a Windows 360 Controller because I have always wanted a good gamepad for games like Beyond Good And Evil which are better played with a gamepad.

The controller itself is the most comfortable gamepad I have ever held. The buttons are all well placed and the build quality is excellent. The guide button in the middle has a metallic paint with a graining effect on it that makes it look like it was machined out of metal. The 'B' button is at a slight angle to better follow the edge of the controller and the 'L' and 'R' buttons press in and to the left or right depending on which side of the controller they are on instead of directly inwards to make pressing them more comfortable.

This controller is supposed to be a common gamepad for Windows to fix the problem of Windows having too many generic controllers for games developers to support one configuration. I phoned the support number that was given (0800 5871102 which is the UK 360 support line) and they had no idea if any games specifically supporting the controller, but I am sure with time some might.

I have tried gamepads for my PC in the past, but they have always been impossible to configure adequately and windows never quite recognised all the pad's buttons. Windows does recognise all the buttons with the 360 controller and all the analogue sticks because of the drivers that come with the controller, but unfortunately game support is shaky at best and as of yet I have only managed to get one setup correctly and that was F.E.A.R. which requires a little more precision than the controller can give because F.E.A.R. doesn't support analogue control on the 3D sticks, but they do work. The worst offending game is Half Life and Half Life 2 which doesn't have any gamepad support at all.

Right now I am looking at DirectInput tutorials in the hope I can write an application that will translate input from the controller to game input that looks like it came from a mouse or keyboard. That way I can use it with games like Half Life.

If you have a 360 wired controller and want to use it with your PC then you can get the necessary divers Here.