Sad reminder of those who lost the war

 

seriously its just sad

Japan Police try something new??

After a hit and run incident in Kanagawa, Japanese police have put up a wanted sign to try and catch the culprit. Nothing particularly surprising there until you find out that the wanted sign contains a picture of a Mii instead of a artists drawing of the suspected driver. Yes a Nintendo style Mii…

 

This has to be a joke right….

 

 

Source http://www.neowin.net/news/gamers/09/02/01/police-want-to-question-mii-in-relation-to-hit-and-run

Youtube goes widescreen

its about bloody time

 

 

thats all

Microsoft’s new store…

Microsoft have launches a new online store selling their office products in the UK and several other countries. The US version of the store also gets games ad other 360 related media to purchase.

 

But why? Its not like Microsoft are competing with their retail partners on price (all prices are RRP on the new site)and the ’safety’ factor of buying direct from Microsoft isn’t really going to appeal to the web generation , the majority of who are going to avoid this store.

So what is the plan? are Microsoft going to start chain opening stores to rival Apple on the high street? or is this just some weird idea concocted by a Seattle employee trying to make a name for himself.

Game Bonanza

I get the wonderful feeling that we are going back to the summit of gaming wars. The days that brought us the legends of Sonic and Mario when Sega and Nintendo duked it out. The recent array of good/great games on all platforms has been shocking. 360 alone in the past few months has add

1. Force  Unleashed
2. Far Cry 2
3. Fable 2
4. Gears of War 2

And from the arcade

1. Braid
2. Castle Crashers
3. Geo Wars 2

7 games that I will happily buy to play without a second thought- not to mention the recent launch of the annual sports titles or rock band esq games. Hopefully with Sony and Microsoft both trying to get their noses in front it will spur developers to keep banging out these titles!

Even the best…

So news broke this week in the wake of Bill Gates’ final few days of an old internal email chain he started regarding trying to simply get ‘MovieMaker’ working in Windows XP

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/library/2003Jangatesmoviemaker.pdf

Link to email chain.

I found these internal emails so interesting as it highlights the problems of working in a large software team, its hard for one person to take responsibility or be able to seize the reins and change something. I’ve noticed in organisations of any significant size when something goes wrong for the consumer its generally not one persons ‘fault’. Most people are limited in power in a company and unclear as to how to act when a problem arises that is not specifically within their job description.

This scenario seems to be held true in this email chain as the recipients try to organise who is going to fix which part, but it is difficult. Do they cross into someone else’s territory? Do they ask the other person to fix their end? What if that person is of higher rank? , are they going to hold a grudge that could affect your job security.

I admit  I often get annoyed when one thing made by the Windows team does not work with another part flawlessly, “its the same team  I scream hopelessly at my screen”. Even though the reality is that the two teams of developers under the umbrella of ‘Windows’ have probably never even met.

Of course its so amusing in this case as the consumer is actually the boss of the entire company suffering at a system which he believed would be of a higher quality and co-ordination better than it actually is. Many people have many different views of Gates. I personally am going to miss him from having a figurehead role at Microsoft, especially if he is constantly calling out the developers internally like this as I do dream for that one day that everything in my house is beautifully compatible and synched with everything else. Sigh a boy can dream ..

Realism in games

 

Wandering around Weston -Super Mare last week my friends and I stumbled into the nearby arcade on the pie (surprise surprise). After the usual air hockey and shooting galleries  I spotted ‘Police 24/7′ in the corner and my mind raced back to an article  I read years ago of this arcade cabinet being realised in Japan. The special part of this game is that it uses sensors to actual map your movements onscreen. Admittedly this is basically just used to allow you to crouch or move left and right to take cover, but it really brought me into the game. A lot has been made of the Wii’s motion sensing but  I really think this sort of tracking has a lot more potential in it- or at least should be added as a part of other motion sensing concepts.

Unfortunately I only last around 5 minute before I was taken out by some cheating AI..seriously its the only plausible way i got shot…

COD5 – back to the past?

So yesterday I heard the Call of Duty (COD) series would be returning to the  time old WW2 era and  I cringed. Granted this is a random rant (then which of mine aren’t?) but I cannot be the only person who is disappointed with this decision. I’m usually not a big Call of Duty fan, but i did enjoy the 4th instalment mainly due to its modern setting.

While i have always been a history buff i find games based on WW2 simply lacklustre and repetitive. How many times can you make a game where everyone from about the age of  8 knows how the story goes. The Nazi’s were evil, we get it. If you played all the games in the past few years it would probably take you longer than WW2 actually  lasted and this just highlights the lack of creativity in the FPS genre recently. COD4 was a breath of fresh air in the regard, the story was fresh and clever and  I can’t see how moving to ‘the pacific’ battle on COD5 is going to deliver the same effect.

Short of being historically inaccurate (which so far COD has strayed from) the weapons are going to pretty much be the same as the first 3 games and  I can’t see there being much mission variety. Its not even like there has been that much of a hardware leap since the last WW2 version of the COD series, I just can’t see this games unique selling point..

But hey what does it matter its still going to sell tonnes regardless due to the franchise, I just hope the series doesn’t turn into a unimaginative cash grazer.

and the award for most random intro to a movie ever goes to…

Oh yes while i am mentioning Indiana Jones and the crystal skull that intro has got to be the most unexpected thing ever. That was not the impression i had got from Indian Jones films although i must admit I have never watched the others ‘properly’. Oh and what on earth was with the monkey scene? Seriously??

Only payed 3 quid though (love student discount) and it was definitely worth that – even for laughing at how it wasn’t taking itself seriously. Pleasantly surprised…stop talking liam go to bed…

My Prada is Awesome!

As I write this fully aware I will not remember it in the morning, I would just like to commend LG on one hell of a job. Rushing to meet a friend for the new Indiana Jones movie and realising that the cinema I only visited twice last year was actually a lot further away from my new house than I though, i dropped my phone twice, smack front touch screen first onto the pavement.

How twice? well that’s embarrassing as  it feel out of jacket pocket so i moves it to my jeans before forgetting and putting it back in my jacket after checking the time again.

But the POINT of this post is that both times  i slowly picked up my beloved phone expecting the screen to be cracked to complete my hideous day and both times  i was amazed to find not even a single (new) scratch on the phone. If anything the bangs seemed to have made the touch screen more responsive, course I’m not really going to test this theory further….

So well done LG and  the morale is i still love my Prada