Halloween :)

ANYONE reading this blog will relate to this! (click to enlarge)

Photoshoot

Last weekend I bought a new camera. My old Konica Minolta Dimage 200 wasn't cutting it any more. It's a great camera, I've taken loads of great snaps with it. BUT, it was just an advanced point and click.
Sure it had aperture and shutter controls, but it remained point and click.

So, I took the DSLR plunge and bought a Canon EOS 40D, along with a Tamron 18-250 lens and a Manfrotto 190XB Tripod. Playing around with the camera a bit I noticed a HUGE difference between DSLR and everything else. The main difference is that what you see with your eye is exactly what you see in the camera. This may sound weird, but try using a DSLR and you'll understand.

Anyhow, so today me and Kelly went out on our first "Photoshoot". We went to a nearby local park and took some pictures of the trees, wildlife, etc etc.
The results ranged from crap to OK, but nothing spectacular. Of course I wasn't too disheartened, it was my first go at a DSLR shoot.

But there's one picture that I really liked. Kelly spotted a bird on a tree and we zoomed in to find that it might be a Kestrel, some bird that is rarely seen. Anyway, tons of snaps later and with a little bit of cropping (thanks for the tips PyroMax, or is it Jinx, or is it Anmar M?) and the result is below. Hope you like it :)

SINGLE BLACK FEMALE...

(Posted in an Atlanta Paper's Dating and Personal Section):

.... seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I’m a very good looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips,cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I’ll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Call (404) 875-6420 and ask for Daisy, I’ll be waiting…


Allegedly, 15,000 men found themselves talking to The Atlanta Humane Society about an eight week old BLACK LABRADOR!

Clever eh?

Jail Breaked

Today I managed to "Jail Break" my iPhone.

I hadn't heard about jail breaking before, but today I was told all about it by Zzz, and after some research and a relatively complicated procedure, I managed to do it.

Jailbreaking is the underground term for letting the iPhone install and run third-party applications. Apple have been very crappy with third-party developers, and essentially not much can be ran on the iPhone unless it's via Apple.

My iPhone was at version 1.1.2, that had to be downgraded to 1.1.1, then jailbreaked, then patched, then upgraded again. After all this the phone ends up with an installer app, which checks loads of sites for apps and installs them with a, erm not click, erm press (?) or touch (!) of a finger!

I've installed loads of things now: an arabic SMS app (the iPhone doesn't read arabic yet), some games (the usual suspects), and some tweaks to the system.

The best thing about it is something called "Summerboard", which lets you customise the whole UI. It also downloads themes for you, and I've fallen in love with something called "Smooth", a picture of which is below (taken by a screenshot app I downloaded also, so the picture below is actually from my iPhone!)

Apple have said that they're happy with the progress these apps are doing, and it may well all become official one day. Provided we don't all use the anysim.app that is so easily downloadable with one "touch".....

I like this

The Pills Won't Help You Now

Was the name of The Chemical Brothers' set last night.

And oh what a night!!

We drove up to London yesterday afternoon and got to Mum's at about 16:00. Me and Kelly had loads of Arabic food (Dolma, which I hate but Kelly likes, and some other thingies) and then we headed off to Brixton at about 18:30.

See, I had looked at the Brixton Academy's webpage and it said that the Chemical Brothers will be on stage from 21:30 to 23:30, and the gig starts at 20:00 (DJ and Special Guests first).

We got to Brixton on the underground, and a few minutes away from the station was The Brixton Academy. This place was a posh cinema a long time ago, but has now became an internationally acclaimed venue for all things live. What makes it very unique is that the standing floor is sloped, meaning that the people in front of you don't obstruct your view, hence giving everyone a great view!

Anyhow, we got to the doors and found the place closed! On the door was a notice with the schedule on it: Doors Open 20:00, DJ till 21:30, Simian Mobile Disco (guests) till 22:15, DJ again till 23:00, then finally The Chemical Brothers set from 23:00 till 01:00!!!

So we were there at about 18:45, more than four hours before The Chems were live! We sat in a bar called Backstage and had a drink, until it was 20:00 and the doors opened.

After a boring DJ and a semi-OK SMD set, The Chemical Brothers finally came live! There were loads of people standing and also in the seats upstairs, but it wasn't too cramped or hot, and we we were in a good central location seeing the whole stage.

The set was AMAZING! Other than the fact that there were tons of electronic devices and keyboards and things that flashed in the dark and HUGE speakers, the brothers played some of their all-time favourites, all with a bit of remixing, and all very very loud! There were times when they were transitioning between songs with some weird noises and sounds which were a bit uncomfortable, but that's a small niggle.

They kick started it all with Galvanise, and went on from there to things like Do It Again, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Under The Influence, Star Guitar, and the excellent Block Rockin' Beats!

Best of all though, they played a favourite favourite track of mine, Surface to Air (see here), and also 2 great tracks from their latest album (We Are The Night), the brilliant Saturate and the even better Das Spiegel. I was jumping up and down with delight when that last one came on!

There were loads more songs, all of which were blended in amazingly and were great to watch live. They ended it all with The Sunshine Underground, their epic (and one of their best) long track from Surrender. It is a great song, with complex layers and very anthemic, but live it wasn't as good as I had hoped, mainly because the loud bass masked the subtle and intricate details of the rest of the track. Still, it was a treat to end with.

Being a fan for so long and seeing them live was a great experience, they really can put up a great show!

Finally, the best thing about the whole set was the screen. Behind all the instruments was a kind of see through screen. When it wasn't displaying anything it looked like horizontal bars, behind which you can see lights and things. But it also was a screen, capable of at least 256 colour images, including full sized movies! It was used to awesome effect, and the fact that you could see through it made some scenes look beautifully deep and layered. They used the screen for every single song, and it added to an already electric atmosphere!

We left when the set was done at about 01:00. There was an official merchandise stall from which I bought the above T-shirt. We took a cab back to my mum's flat where the car was parked, and drove back all the way to Ipswich, getting back to a very welcoming bed at 03:30.

A great show. One side effect though is that I can't hear stereo any more, my left ear has gone on strike. Brilliant!

The Chemical Brothers Live!!!!

YES! YES!

The postman just came, I signed for the letter, and inside are the 2 tickets to see The Chemical Brothers live at The Carling Brixton Academy, London, Saturday 15/12!!!!!

I won these tickets on eBay a while ago, but didn't want to talk about it until I actually physically received them!

I can't wait for this, it is going to be AWESOME! It's a late night show, starting 20:00 and finishing 02:00!! I've seen their live sets on TV (Glastonbury was amazing) so actually seeing them live is gonna be great.

The Chemical Brothers have been one of my most favourite acts since I heard their 2nd album, Dig Your Own Hole (Their first album, Exit Planet Dust, was done when they were called The Dust Brothers). Since then I've owned all their albums and followed their scene.

Can't wait to listen to stuff like Block Rockin' Beats, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Push The Button and Do It Again live!

More impressions on Sunday after the gig.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

I have Blue Blood to thank for this one. One late-night-chatathon-gameathon-thingie, he gave me a link to a video. I clicked, and saw this guy running around in a jungle blowing things up. I didn't really like it, but I remembered the name, Uncharted.

Then a demo was released on PSN, which I downloaded. I played a little bit, and didn't like that either. The next day, I played it again and thought it was actually quite good.

Then the reviews came in and everyone is waxing lyrical about how great Uncharted is, so I preordered it from play.com. And it arrived a day early yesterday. And by God how awesome it is!!!

It's kinda like a mix between Tomb Raider and Gears of War, but instead of big boobs and/or big American soldiers, it's just an ordinary guy in an extraordinary predicament. Lots of guns, traps, and platforms to play around with. Kinda like a modern day Indiana Jones.
There's nothing new that hasn't been done before here, but it's just all done with so much emphasis on fun and story, that it's just a really good game.

But, for the first time in my recent memory, I'm actually enjoying a game because of how good it looks. Something I've never took in to account before (Graphics don't mean much to me). But this game is just AMAZING. There are scenes in it that you just want to stop playing and take tons of pictures of. I remember when the first cutscene finished and the game started, the graphics were so good that I thought I was still looking at a prerendered scene. It was only until I moved the joystick around did I realise this was the in-game engine in all it's glory.

And glorius it is. I think the PS3's real potential and power is starting to be unlocked now that developers are getting used to the system. I still haven't even put Ratchet and Clank in the machine, but from what I hear it's another great gameplay and graphics tour-de-force.

Both great endings to one of the best years gaming has ever seen. Thank God I'm a gamer.

Psychonauts and new Gamertag!

First, I've changed my Xbox Live! Gamertag. It was DrSbaitso, which, for those in the know, is a tribute to D.R.S.B.A.I.T.S.O, the Creative Labs Soundblaster programme that pretended to be a psychologist. There are two problems with this tag:

A\ 80% of people on Xbox Live! probably weren't born when Dr Sbaitso came out. As such, they can't even pronounce the word, let alone understand what it stands for.

B\ Being a real-life doctor, and having a tag with "Dr" in it made you sound like a prick. A prick that wants to tell everyone that he's a doctor. Not what I want to do. When people got to know me on Live! and asked me what I did for a living, answering "doctor" made them either go quiet or snigger silently (though loud enough to be heard). Essentially, a shit idea.

Problem is of course is that this gamer tag is from the original Xbox Live! and at the time I hadn't thought of Sobtanian. SoB in itself was already taken, so I had to think of another tag.

Anyhow, this is now all changed (for about £8, bloody microsoft!!!) and I'm now called Sobtanian. The Gamertag to your right shows that, but I wonder if the 360 blog will keep up...

Next, the 360 received a "fall update", in other words a firmware/os update. The interface has changed considerably, but what's more important is that original Xbox titles can now be downloaded over Xbox Live!, and played on the machine (it emulates them).

What's more important than that is that Tim Schafer's excellent excellent Psychonauts is on there!!!! For about £10, you can play this classic game with some upsampled loving. But, I hear you asking why play it again Ali? I played it and loved it last year, so why again. And that's cos I'm feeling guilty. I actually downloaded the original and didn't pay for it. Sorry Tim. And this is my way of saying sorry, by paying for it and sampling it's delights again.
Especially seeing that the original sold about 30,000 copies only and didn't do well in retail, so I've got to do my part :)

The 5.2 gb download or so had finished while I was at work, so I'll give it a twirl later this evening after Heroes. Which is the next best thing on TV besides The Simpsons and Ugly Betty. Which is for girls but I don't care, I watch it with Kelly.

Oxygene 30th Anniversary 3D DVD!

Jarre is releasing a re-recording of his classic Oxygene. Not a remaster, but he's actually sat there and re-recorded the music all over again, but of course with much better technology!
Oxygene of course is one of his most famous albums, containing the iconic Oxygene 4.

What's also cool is that there is a "3D DVD" included with the Limited Edition box. To watch it you need those retro blue and red glasses to make everything pop out of the TV! Gimmicky, yes, but because it's Jarre it gets my money.

The album is out next Monday, and I've pre-ordered from play.com. More impressions then.

Latte

I made this today with our Nescafe Dulce Gusto machine. The blend of colours was too irresistable not to take a snap of...

Gods?

Games Radar UK has got a list. A list that you really don't want to look at if you consider yourself a "gamer".
They list 10 videos, of 10 gamers playing something REALLY REALLY well. So well, in fact, that it'll make you feel stupidly inadequate, and inferior.

Our friend Daigo (mentioned on Good-Delicious before) shows up with his super-duper Street Fighter moves, and so do some amazing DDR dancers, a really fast Tetris player, and a guy that can do a Portal level so mind numbingly fast it makes me want to eat cake.

My favourite though is the Super Human that is playing through the final level of Ikaruga as 2 Player but all by himself, controlling a ship with each hand! Now I've played Ikaruga on the Gamecube, and I played it 2 Player with a friend. The game is INSANELY difficult, cos it's not just a usual SHMUP, it's one were strategy has to come in to play. It took us ages to finish the game, and this MoFo just does it all by himself. Grrrrrrr!

Enjoy, and when finished, sell all your consoles/gaming crap. You really aren't going to get that good.

blue blood is looking good!

the bastard....

iPhone!!

I have one!! Finally!! Today, at 6:02, the O2 network (get it?) launched the much anticipated iPhone!! I have been waiting for the damn thing for AGES.

And it is AWESOME! REALLY REALLY AWESOME! I will post an entry from it soon :)

And, since I'm typing this from the hospital WiFi and after all it is a Friday night, I have to quickly say that I've been offline for a while at home, but will be getting new broadband (via SKY) on the 14th, if everything goes smoothly... here's hoping SKY is better than the shitty bulldog I have been with for the last year.

See you from iPhone :)

Hani's Bell....

This doesn't even need any comment...

Guess what....

...back on nights in 50 minute's time. 3 in a row. The usual bla bla bla.

And to top it all, I'm on call Monday as well :(

Sucks.

Have fireworks to look forward to on Saturday (Guy Fawke's Day), but nothing on Sunday.
Perhaps someone could set us up for a game?

The Power of Game

It has been said many times that games have moved on. That they're no longer about finishing an objective and getting the highest score (though there's nothing wrong with that). The medium is so powerful these days that designers can practically direct a game like a film.

Back when things were all innocent and 2D, we might have felt a little bit for the R-Type craft as it fought through The Evil Bydo Empire, and we would have chuckled at Guybrush Threepwood's attempts at becoming a real pirate, but that was about it. A good game back then was about innovation, about squeezing the most out of what little hardware there was. The original Prince of Persia (no not Sands of Times kiddies, the one way before that) was a small game with a simple premise: get out of the dungeon alive in 60 minutes. But we felt for the Prince, because of the way he squeezed the technology. His movements were so realistic that if you had a heart you'd feel every slice, every drop, and every impossible jump.

But now we have hardware that can do anything. Seeing really nice graphics is exciting for a few seconds, but then you start wondering what else this game has to offer. Nintendo has had this philosophy for a while now, choosing to remove themselves from the "my console can draw more polygons than yours" race and focus on making new ways to interact with a game. And with their DS and Wii systems, they have not only done that but have done it with so much success that they are now right on top of the console market, the spot they lost more than 10 years ago when Sony introduced the PSX.
If anything, this proves that people are willing to move beyond the "simple" game and experiment outside of the box.

Still, every now and then you get a game that on the surface looks like another worn-out genre. To the uninitiated eye the game will look no more than the ones before it. But the creators have set out with a vision, with a way to actually make their game stand out, and it is this that makes playing games such a joy. When a game chucks something at you more than realistic looking water, when it actually envolves your mind and emotions and heart, that's when you know you're playing something special.

I am writing this because yesterday I experience just that. But before telling you about that I want to mention Team Ico, the Japanese game designers are experts at making games that are nothing more than simple clones of others, but can hook you emotionally and never let go. I've mentioned Shadow of The Colossus here before. Their first game, Ico, puts you in the role of a 12 year old boy and a girl who don't understand each other. Both are trying to escape a grim fate, and without each other can't survive. Telling you more would be to ruin it, but if you do get a chance to play it, then don't miss out.

Yesterday I finished Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Delayed for nearly over a year, Episode 2 continues the story of Gordan Freeman and the resistance against The Combine forces in City 17. Anyone who's worth their salt in gaming should by now have played at least Half-Life 2. It remains one of the finest examples of FPS gaming ever made.

Episode 2 does a lot of things right: the game play is tightly executed, the graphics have been updated tremendously, and the story advances in a good, controlled pace. But it's the ending that was executed with so much style, and by ending I mean the last level. Defending a base against a very heavy attack (I won't ruin it for those yet to get there), when you finally get it done you suddenly realise that your heart had been racing, you're palms are sweaty, and your breathing was laboured. A huge sigh of relief came out of me when I finished. You genuinely feel sorry for anything destroyed during the attack.

Then just as you relax to watch the ending sequence, something happens. Something that you can do nothing about but just watch (taking control away from the player is a very effective way of suddenly turning the cards around in a game - one moment you're nearly indestructable, the other you're nothing more than a viewer) as the events unfold and the game ends. Leaving you emotionally drawn-out and anticipating Episode 3 rabidly!!

Excellent game design is what Valve are all about. Anyone who's played Portal to the end will know exactly how good they are at creating game endings, and of course Team Fortress 2 should be taught in universities as an example of the best balanced design ever created. To that, I salute you Valve and every other game designer that has the balls to drag us from the balls and not let go.

Crysis SP Demo!

The Crysis SP demo, that wasn't meant to come out till tomorrow, is out!

Well, kind of. EA has let those that pre-ordered the game download it early. The download server is not secure in anyway, so those friendly people on the internets have told us the link.

This is probably the most hyped-up game since the original Halo was stolen by Xbox. Requiring DX10 and hailed as the first true next-gen PC game, Crysis is no light-weight.

I downloaded the 1.7gb beast and installed it. At first, it elected to run everything for me at high, with the max resolution of 1920x1200. What a disaster! I was running at about 10 frames per second. Reminded me of when FEAR first came out years ago :)

So, I then installed the nvidia Crysis beta drivers, and ran the game at the same resolution, but with everything set at medium. Now that was better! The gfx are still amazing, but more importantly the frame rate is around 40-50 (I checked with FRAPS). I was even seeing tearing due to vsync being off, which is a good thing! Next time I play it I'll definitely be vsync-ing. I hate tearing!!

Go here for a direct link to the file (a word of warning though: this game requires DX10, therefore needs a new VGA and Vista), and here's a picture to whet your appetite while you're waiting for the big fat .exe to slide down your pipe:

Alisha is famous!!!

I found her book on Amazon this morning!!

Stardust

We saw Stardust yesterday, the new fairy tale/fantasy movie co-written by Jonathan Ross's wife.

I have to admit I didn't like the trailers at all. I thought it was going to be one of those British humour films that don't work. Kelly, on the other hand, thought it was going to be awesome.

And how wrong was I!

The movie follows the the story of a young English man called Tristan, and his transformation from boy to man. BUT, this involves crossing to fantasy worlds where things like flying ships, two-faced dogs, and Babylon Candles exist. And when a star falls from the sky, a 3 way chase begins to reach the poor girl first!

A great fantasy film for fans of the genre, it reminds me a bit of Shrek in that it's a children's film on the surface, but it's full of adult undertones and innuendos that would make anyone chuckle!

The two most stand-out things about Stardust are the excellent excellent character that Robert De Niro plays, a tough, sky pirate that collects lightening to sell on the black market, his performance is just pure fun to watch, De Niro proves that he doesn't have to play a mafioso to be amazing. The man is a legendary actor.

The second thing is a certain sword fight that plays near the end of the film. As unconventional, unique, and original as a sword fight can be, I've never seen such a cool idea before and it really is choreographed well! It reminded me of the iconic chase scene in the mall from Minority Report, when the PreCog gets Tom Cruise through a mall full of police chasing them, but not by running! I won't ruin it for you if you haven't seen that film, which I urge you to do!

Great film.

And finally, after 4 LONG LONG night shifts, I'm free for a week!! Yesterday I went to sleep around midnight, having had 2 hours sleep in the previous 30 hours (of which 12 were at work!). I think I had the deepest sleep in the world, just waking up when Kelly left for work (Muahahahahaaaaa!). I'm soooo happy to just be at home with nothing to do! Gonna hit them games I'm meant to play.

Enjoy work, robots. I might be thinking of you, or maybe not :p

This Week in the Arena: Nights edition

PROJECT CANCELLED FOR VARIOUS REASONS

Nights again

I'm on nights again, starting 22:00 tonight.

YABOO.

4 nights, then the week off, then 3. Week off is at a good time, I have a job till August 2008 now (and in 2 specialities I want to work in!), and so I'll be playing tons of shit this week off.

Heavenly Sword
Paper Mario
Folklore
Metroid Prime 3
Episode 2

And God knows what else.

Salam.

PS: I am changing ISPs. I hate Bulldog. I should be with SKY (hopefully at 16mb) sometime, but I don't know when the phone will suddenly switch companies, and I'll be off the grid for a while.

Tim Schafer's Brutal Legend

Tim Schafer is a legend in himself. Don't know him? OH YES YOU DO. Especially if you've played any classic Lucas Art Adventure.
The man is the co-designer and brains behind most of the wit in The Monkey Island games, Grim Fandango, and the awesomeness that is D.O.T.T.

He also created one of the freshest, funniest, and cleverest games of last generation: Psychonauts. I loved that game to bits on the Xbox.

Anyhow, the man is making Brutal Legend. God knows what it is, or how it will play. What we do know is that the teaser looks fantastic, features lots of Rock and Roll, and it's got Jack Black in it. A Heavy Metal Golden Axe perhaps? With lots of humour? Excellent!

Excited? You should be!

EDIT: Head over to doublefine.com (his game company's site) where you'll find Tim's blog which is really fun to read, full of great humour. You can tell the man is just really funny.

My favourite quote from his blog:

"German airports have the most pleasant-sounding metal detectors in the world. As the wand passes over your body the sound rises and falls, as if it were whistling appreciatively at your form. It's like being seduced by R2D2.

Amazing."

Team Fortress 2

I have been playing a lot of TF2 recently. It all started when I was reading a forum I frequent. Someone had posted a thread about the TF2 beta (The game comes as part of Valve's Orange Box, and if you preordered it on Steam, you got access to the TF2 beta), and how much fun it all was.

All I knew about it is that it was a very cool looking game, that struck a resemblance to Pixar's The Incredibles. What I also knew about it is that it was a kind of game that I hated: class multiplayer.
Now I'm all for online gaming and MP, but when it becomes classes I get confused. Who's the soldier? and how can I tell him from the medic? or the sniper? or the engineer. Too confusing.

But, still, I preordered The Orange Box. I figured that I really wanted to play Portal and Half Life 2: Episode 2, so might as well get TF2 with it.
And that's when the addiction started. Put simply, Team Fortress 2 is THE MOST FUN ONLINE PC GAME YOU WILL EVER PLAY.
Bold claims indeed, let me digress.

TF2 gameplay is essential First Person Shooting. There are only 6 maps (but that's more than enough, as to play the game well you have to know your maps), and all but one of them revolve around teams fighting for control points; with the RED team defending and the BLU team attacking. When all control points are won/lost, the match is over.
Each map has got a series of choke points: areas that the attacking team have to pass through to get to a control point. And it is at these chokes that frantic fights and battles wage. Still though, all this stuff is nothing new, nor exciting.

Where the game really shines is in it's characters. There are a total of 9 classes to play as, each with their own uses, own strengths and weaknesses, and most importantly, their own personality and style. When you play TF2, you don't struggle to work out who just walked passed you, because you can tell a Soldier from a Heavy from a Spy just by looking at them, watching them fight, and also listening to them. As you play along, your character will call things out now and then, like thanking the medic for a heal, or jeering the opponent.
Have a look at the picture above which shows the whole TF2 family, and you'll understand what I mean.

Of course, the visual style of the game is nothing short of amazing, and, I think, is one of the boldest, bravest, and best choice valve has ever done. Essentially feeling like a cartoon, with thick edges, amazing phong-shaded graphics, and cartoony characters. It makes for a lovely, colourful and very much needed refreshing change to the dull grays and browns of today's Gears of Wars and Unreal Tournaments. A Soldiers rocket for example has a huge trail of thick comicky smoke pouring out of it, while the soldier himself looks almost comical.

The audio is great also. With great sound effects, and loads of lines that the characters can utter. Also, there's a sexy female announcer (that sounds like someone out of a 60s Bond film) that announces important stuff, like time remaining, and whether a control point is being attacked. Best of all though, is that her tone and pitch change with whether she's announcing something good (sexy, smooth voice) or something bad (distressed, almost hysterical voice. Sometimes repeats herself!).

And before I quickly talk about the classes, the game has an excellent killcam system: once killed, the game zooms in to a freeze frame of the person that killed you, about 1 second after he did. This gives them time to taunt you (taunting lasts about 3 seconds and through which the player is motionless. Therefore taunting in itself is a risk), but also they can be killed straight after killing you, so the camera will zoom in on to the body of your killer! This makes for some awesome relationships between rival players.

Also, if you kill someone 4 times in a row you dominate them. This is announced on screen with some very dramatic music. If the person you're dominating kills you, then they have gotten revenge on you and this, again, is announced with some dramatic music. Clever thing is that everyone that's playing gets told who's dominating who. So if you ever get dominated, you make it your personal vendetta to get the MoFo, just to restore a bit of pride in the server.

Now for some brief class descriptions:

Scout: A fast moving player, looks like a little boy. This bad man can run very fast, and double jump. He counts as 2 people when gaining control over a base. Not the easiest to play with due to his speed. Armed with a shotgun.

Soldier: A clumsy man, with a big helmet almost covering his eyes. He's the most traditional of all the classes, as his weapons include the good ol' Rocket Launcher. Which he can use to Rocket-Jump with.

Pyro: The most lovable of them all. This guy carries a flame thrower and is dressed in a shiny flame retardant suit, and a big gas mask. His mask makes his speech very muffled (like Kenny from South Park), and his jaunts and calls for medic are nothing more than mumbles. He is excellent at torching enemy congregations. If he can get to them that is ;) Also great at finding spies.

Demoman: A black Scotsman. This guy has a grenade launcher. Very fun to play with.

Heavy Weapons Guy: A huge Russian piece of meat. Carries a machine gun he likes to call Sasha. this guy is huge, has tons of health, and is very slow. He is great for pushing the enemy back and killing them off. A Heavy+Medic combo is nearly indestructable.

Sniper: Says it all really. Australian guy. His bullets do more damage the longer he's zoomed in.

Spy: The most difficult class to play, but if played well is very rewarding. A team with good spies is unstoppable. This guy can go invisible for 10 seconds, and can camouflage as any member of the enemy team. He carries a knife to back-stab people with, and a "sapper" to put on turrets, which disables them. Any hostile action and his disguise is lost, hence a spy has to be very careful and choose the right time to attack.

Engineer: These guys can build dispensaries and turrets that are lethal killing machines. They then spend their time upgrading them and keeping them healthy. Again, a good engineer can make or break the match. Very fun to play with.

Medic: My class of choice. These Germans have a Ghost Busters like gun that heals other team mates. Heal enough people and the Ubercharge is ready: A boost that makes the medic and his patient invulnerable for 10 seconds. All players have a button they press which calls the medic, letting him know that they need healing. A team with good medics can be very difficult to beat. The medic is easy to grasp, but very difficult to master. It is also regarding the most boring job in a team, hence not many people play it. I love it :)

So, as you can see, there are loads of things to do in the game. Bored of being a Soldier? Just respawn as something else. Stuck defending a point? Change to engineer and build a network of sentries and dispensaries. The possibilities are huge. But, like most of us, you'll have a class you'll love and play the most, and a couple more for when you get tired.

I hope you all get this game, and I hope we get to play it together soon. Trust me, you will be wondering how you were living without TF2.

I leave you with this Killcam shot that I took today: I was a BLU Soldier, trying to get to the RED's last control point. A Turret belonging to a "uk.ace" spotted me and killed me instantaneously. When the Killcam zoomed in to the turret, I saw that our BLU spy, dressed up as an enemy engineer (look at his face, he's wearing a mask with an engineer face on it. To them, he looks just like a real engineer, but to us he looks like a spy with a mask on :p) was just about to sap the turret and hence disable it!
So my killcam shot was great, cos my team were taking revenge on the turret that killed me!
Great great stuff. See you in Dustbowl guys!!

La la la la la!!

It happened. It finally happened. As much as we all thought this day would never come, it actually did.

What?

Well a certain guy called Wolf (and his friend/brother in law NBA) actually showed up online, and played Q3A with us. YES. Would you believe it?!

Saturday night 21:00 UK time and we all started getting it together. Fast forward to about 22:30 and finally most of the usual shit had been ironed out (microphones not working, serial numbers invalid, people not connecting, voice servers not responding, the usual).

There was 6 of us in total: SoB, Haniboy, Nureactor, Fuji, Wolf, and NBA.
We started it all off with a classic: CTF1 with me, Hani, and Nu on one team. We had our arses handed over to us (20-9) that match cos we didn't stick to our one-defends-two-attack plan. And they were cheating! (not really :p)

Next up was an even more classic: Doom 2 Level 7 (Dead Simple) made for Q3A. Pure madness in Deathmatch this one, frag limit 100 (I won cos I'm the king!).

Then we went to another CTF1 match, with a capture limit of 11 (took us about 10 minutes to decide on that!). This time, we stuck to our plan, I defended the flag while the others went out to get it. We won 11-3.

Last, we revisited level 7 and this time did it Team Deathmatch, with a time limit of 15 minutes. Great fun!

Best of all though, was that we had a Teamspeak server running, so we were talking and swearing at each other a lot throughout the whole ordeal!

It's great that Wolf and NBA have shown up on the scene at last. For some reason they just haven't played with us at all, even though me and Nile have been doing this since 2000. Here's hoping they'll come back again and again.

Sorely missing from today's match were Nile Warp and Blue Blood. The former had "A room full of women" in his flat (_!_), and the latter was in Aqaba celebrating the Eid with his wife and kids (yes, we're old). Next time we should have a full house, and then it'll be 4v4 mayhem. I hope.

We should also try out some F.E.A.R. combat and of course when people get the excellent Team Fortress 2, I think it will be our poison of choice. Especially if we voice while playing it as a team, with everyone doing their job correctly. The position of medic is already taken (by moi). If I were to guess, I'd say Wolf would be a soldier or demoman, NBA would be a sniper or heavy, and Fuji either an engineer or a spy.
If the Gods are listening and Blue Blood and Nile get it, then we'd have a kick-ass 6 player clan to be reckoned with! Blue Blood can be our scout, and Nile can be another engineer or the coolest of them all, a pyro.

I live in hope..............

Rocket Fuel

It was Friday night. I had been up since 7am that day, had driven just under 100 miles to Norwich and back (more on that later this week I hope). BUT, it was the weekend, and I wasn't working.

On the way back from Norwich, I thought I'd stop by Asda to grab some magazines and stuff. While in there, I remembered my old house officer Grant. He had mentioned that he had had this coffee called Rocket Fuel, and it was great. But he hadn't seen it in the shops for ages.

I had a quick look and there it was, in instant coffee format. So I grabbed a jar and left.

Later that evening, I had a mug of the thing. As a coffee it tastes OK-ish, more like a cheap Kenco than a Gold Nescafé (My favourite instant). I had it with some milk and no sugar (As I like coffee), but it left a funny after taste in my mouth, needing some sugar to make it better.

Not thinking too much of the coffee, we went out to see Ratatouille (great film) and have some dinner at ASK.

And then it kicked in.

At about 00:30 that night, I was WIDE AWAKE. Not just wide awake, but wide awake and wanting to DO SOMETHING. ANYTHING. And that's when I went on the PC and saw Fuji on xfire, and ended up playing/talking with him till 04:00! And even then, after he'd gotten sleepy (after all, it was 23:00 at his) I had to force myself in to bed. Great stuff!!!

Saturday night I stayed up till 03:00 playing mainly Team Fortress 2 (More about that later. Best. MP. Game. EVER). This morning I woke up at 10:30 feeling light-headed and tired. A quick cup of Rocket Fuel soon sorted that out :)

So, what is it exactly? It's just a simple mix of Coffee and Guarana. A Guarana bean has 3 times more caffeine than a coffee bean. Put them together, and you have a kick that's unbelievable.

VERY useful for anyone with a remote interest in games. Staying up till the sun comes out shooting the crap out of each other online is a great experience. I should now do that X3 all-nighter I promised my self ages ago :)

Oh and we're gonna do some CTF 2v2 (3v3 if we're lucky) tonight. If you're reading this and coming to play, see ya then. For the rest of you all, have a Good-Delicious rest of weekend!

360=DEAD!

No, not mine. Hani's :(

His 360 died yesterday, JUST as we were about to start a PES6 match.

Funnily, it's pre-death circumstances are exactly the same as mine: It suddenly froze with little boxes flashing on the screen. From then on, it's a rapid downhill slide towards the dreaded red rings.

Not sure what happens next. It's a UK box, but it broke in UAE. Whether there's a world-wide warranty I don't know. Perhaps just buying a new core is best.

We wait and see.

The Test is

Two days ago a part of me started to hurt. Only a little twinge mind you, but it was hurting and I could feel it. I thought nothing of it, and just carried on as normal, lazy, doing nothing, Sunday.

One day ago a part of me started to hurt more. Only a big twinge mind you, but it was hurting and I could feel it. I thought nothing of it, and just carried on as normal, energetic, doing ward rounds, Monday.

Today a part of me started to hurt a lot. Only a lot of pain mind you, and it was hurting so much I had to stop every now and then for a break. This time, I thought a lot of it!
So, around 12, I picked up the phone and bleeped a certain registrar.

"Hello, ***logy registrar"
"Erm, oh hi. I'm Ali, a medical SHO. Are you free to talk?"
"Why of course. How can I help you?"
"Erm yes, well, I've got a bit of a problem"
"Yes, tell me who the patient is..."
"Oh that. It's me. A certain part of me really hurts now, and I'm getting a bit worried"
"Oh dear. Well listen I'm in clinic and I've got a gap now, come down and see me"
"Ah. OK, well yes I'll do that now. Thanks"

So I wandered over to "Clinic D" and found where said registrar was. He was a big, friendly person. After a brief history, he asked me to lie down and "get ready".
After "getting ready", he went ahead to examine me. Without gloves. WITHOUT GLOVES.

"Oh I see. Right, well I think it's ************. Everything feels fine"
"Great. Really hurts though"
"Yes it does. So you need some antibiotics"
"Ah thanks. Perfect"
"Yes. But we need to make sure it's not something else"
"...."
"So, I'll quickly pop by to the ultrasound room next door. You see, we run a ****** ultrasound service today. Let's see if they can do yours"
"...."
5 minutes later
"Yes, they can. It's the next room on the left"

So I wandered down to the next room on the left. A Pleasant woman with a big ultrasound machine told me to lie down on the bed and "get ready". Which I did.
She then went on to put this really cold gel all over my ****** and scan them, all the time while feeling obliged that she should talk out loud the scan results.
After about five minutes, I was told that it's all normal, and that I should report back to the big man.

So I did. He reassured me that that was great, and gave me a prescription for some antibiotics.
I thanked him profusely (why? don't know, after all he had examined me WITHOUT GLOVES), and wandered off to find the pharmacy.

I feel better now, whether by effect of the antibiotic, or by effect of food. After all it is Ramadhan and I was hungry. Perhaps my ****** was hungry too....

Who would have guessed

I've been stumbling a lot recently (ever since I installed Firefox on the Mac). Hence the sudden surge in crappy posts recently; and here's another one :p

Pictured below is an IBM mainframe hard drive, dated from the late 80s/early 90s. It is a HUGE 1 Gigabyte in size. Of course, back then, 1g WAS huge. Very huge actually. My XT computer around 93/4 had a huge 10 MEGABYTE hard drive in it. About 1/76 of the memory my VGA has on it nowadays.
This drive was used in the mainframes of the time, and you literally had to be an engineer to install and run the damn thing.
Obviously, the SD card pictured next to it is exactly the same size, 1 gigabyte. A lot smaller, faster, and way lighter than it's great great great grand daddy.

So who would have thought it back then, if someone had told you that one day you could hold a little card that stores 1 gigabyte, would you have believed them? Would you have believed that a small card as big as a stamp can carry 748,899 High Density Floppy Discs?
Of course, if some one had told you that a card EVEN smaller than that (Micro SD) can carry the same, then you would have classed them insane and called the mental police.

And in another 10 years time, when we'll have whole computers as big as a stamp we'll be wondering if we would have believed it today. I certainly do....

Cowboy? (click to read easily)

Human Beatbox

This guy is possible one of the most talented people you'll ever see!
Seems to be on some French talent show. Just watch him perform Billie Jean!!

Pacman Versus

Question: What do you get when you mix legendary game god, Shigeru Miyamoto, and legendary gaming icon/person/pizza/thing, Pacman?

Answer: An ingenious new Pacman idea. That's what.

Pacman Versus was released for the Gamecube a few years ago. To play it properly, you needed at least one more friend (ideally 3), and a Gameboy to Gamecube link cable. For that reason I never played it back then.

Fast forward to today and Namco have re-released the game, this time as part of their Namco Museum collection, for the Nintendo DS. You can play Pacman Vs using the DS's WiFi mode, against 3 other players (unfortunately not online, that would have been awesome).

So what's the big deal? Pacman Vs. effectively substitutes the ghosts with human players. It's as simple as that. What's ingenious about it is the way that it's done. At the start of each game, a score limit is set for the winner to reach. A player is chosen at random to play Pacman, and the others become ghosts.

Pacman plays the game exactly like it's single player: he sees the whole maze, has to try and eat all the pellets, and can use the power pellets to chase and gobble up ghosts. He can also eat some fruit now and then for a bonus.

The ghosts however play a bit differently: they still have to catch pacman, but instead of seeing the whole maze, all they see is a very limited 3D overhead view of the maze. The clever bit is that pacman leaves a short shining trail behind him as he runs along, which gives the ghosts a good hint as to where he's been but not where he's gone. If a ghost eats the fruit instead of pacman, their camera zooms out a bit giving them an advantage towards hunting the yellow pizza down.

Even more clever is the scoring system: Pacman automatically gets 1600 points as a bonus, and every ghost he eats gives him 200 points which are taken away from that player's score. Whoever catches Pacman then gets to play him the next round, and the 1600 points is taken off the old Pacman, and given to the new one.
This makes the game a relentless chase and one that forces the ghosts to try and co-op, but also to be selfish and try to get Pacman themselves. Extremely clever stuff.

The game works really well on the NDS, using both screen to great effect. Me and Kelly have been playing it recently and it really is fast-paced fun. Shame it doesn't have online WiFi against strangers, like the excellent Tetris DS. That would have been the most addictive thing since, well, Tetris DS :)

Belgium

Hello.

I was in Brussels, Belgium.

We went on Wednesday, back on Sunday. Went on the Eurostar, lovely thing! Takes 2 hours to take you from Central London to Central Brussels. Via France. Amazing.

Brussels was cool. A lot of what to do is based on food, drink, and chocolate. Belgian chocolate being very famous. Oh and their favourite dish is "Moules et Frites" - Mussels and Chips! Really good thati s.

Best thing is that the country speaks French and German. So everything is double - road signs, menus, announcements, train stations. Everything.

The city itself is a curious mix of West and East. It's as if Western Europe and Eastern Europe had a child. It's like Paris mixed in with Prague. Prague being the coolest of course ;)

Finally, it's also the home of comics. Smurfs, TinTin etc. All Belgian. Which is why they have things in the street like the one in the picture :o)

Halo 3 Merchandise

:D

BioShock

I've just finished BioShock, seeing one of the possible two endings.
Forget it's a great FPS, forget the graphics and audio are just SUPERB, forget all of that.

What it REALLY is, is a GREAT GREAT GREAT story. Crash-landing in the middle of the sea, you find Rapture, an underwater utopia, created by someone called Andrew Ryan. You also find that it's gone to hell. A guy called Atlas guides you around Rapture while you uncover its secrets.

No, there are no cut-scenes. No fancy CGI or rendered video (bar the beginning and end), nothing. The game tells its story via the environment: the posters around the city, the advertisements over the public broadcast system, the tape recordings you find, and the things you stumble upon, be it a flat full of corpses or a room full of women hanging from their necks, it's all very atmospheric. And creepy.

But, best of all, is the twists and turns in the story. To mention one little thing would be to ruin the whole experience. BioShock is game that has some brilliant twists, not only in story telling, but in gameplay also. By the last level you'll just be wondering how anything (or anybody) will ever surpass this level of excellency in any video game. But of course, we said that about Half Life 2 years ago, and now BioShock is beyond that.

Great to play, great to see, great to listen to, and a great story. This is videogaming at its very best.
The new best FPS ever created? I think so.

If you really count yourself a gamer, then you have to play BioShock. Its not a game-its a benchmark. A piece of history that we're lucky to witness.

Spotted in the wild...

...in front of Stealh, Thorpe Park....

Off to London

I'm off to London today, to meet up with Zzz (Ziad).
He's here from Dubai again, for a week or so to attend something called PLASA.

Will be in London till Thursday.

SoB out.

PS: BioShock is one of the best games ever created. Really is. It's like a great movie, book, and game wrapped up in one astounding package. If you can, play it. It would be criminal not to.

The New iPod Touch

The rumours, ages and ages ago, have come true!

Apple today announced the new iPod Touch. Essentially an iPhone WITHOUT the phone. Yes you can listen to music, watch videos, AND browse the net via Wi-Fi (yes! a Wi-Fi iPod!). And yes the screen is multitouch and you can tilt it to see things in widescreen.

Good idea? I'm sure it is - not everyone wants a contract iPhone, but I'm sure this christmas EVERYONE wants the new, sexy, touchy iPod.

Go here for the official hoola boola.

No Comment!

Command and Conquer Gold: FREE

To celebrate the 12th anniversary of the original Command and Conquer release (31/08/95. Was it REALLY 12 years ago!!!) EA (Westwood) have put up for download the original game for free on the C&C website.

The version is "Gold", which is Windows XP compatible (not sure if it's vista) and includes 2 iso files, one for the GDI and one for The Brotherhood of NOD.

In case you haven't played them, haven't already pirated them, or you're just bored on a Saturday morning, grab them from here.

Cutest. Picture. Ever.

That guy on the left looks like he can't believe what console can do these days! Awesome!

It's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MORE LATER. THE AWESOME BIG DADDY FIGURINE KICKS ASS!!

Bullshot

Bullshot: A screenshot that's been edited, usually Photoshopped.

Photoshop: Am not gonna bother explaining what this is. If you don't know, you're on the wrong blog :p

Now, some game publishers have been known to send out Bullshots every now and then. Just a few "little" changes, to make the game look a bit better, or shinier, etc etc.

EA recently sent out this "screenshot" of their upcoming NBA 08 title. But, it most definitely is a Bullshot. Why? Have a good look at it (click to enlarge) and tell me if you've spotted it.

If you can't see it, I've put the answer in the comments ;)

(Taken from Joystiq)

Oh.My.God.

I have just finished playing the Bioshock demo. Out on Xbox Live this am, the servers were so hammered that it took me 13 hours to download the 1.35gig demo, something that normally takes about 40 minutes.

And man was it worth it! Bioshock is a shooter, a FPS to be exact. Bringing nothing new to the table whatsoever: Guns, Magic (or genetics as it calls it), even hacking devices and turrets is old territory. What it does have though is AMAZING atmosphere! It recreates a 60's utopia like nothing before it, really giving the underwater city a feeling that it was once a great place. Now turned in to hell. Everything has character, every single detail in the game has been meticulously crafted. And nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has been overlooked. I spent ages reading the posters and adverts from when people lived in Rapture.

Add to that the great graphics (Unreal Engine 3), and really good sound (period music, freaky sounds, conversations overheard, people muttering to themselves, and of course the "little sisters" babbling or singing nursery rhymes while they suck the blood out of a corpse-all VERY unsettling!) and this is a game that has the potential of being the best shooter, setting a landmark for all future games.

Half Life 2 move over. Your time as best FPS is over. Bioshock is here to stay.

Full game out 24/08/07 (PC/360). Get it. You owe it to yourselves.

YouGamers

I was doing my usual web trawl just now, and someone on a forum had posted about YouGamers. A site owned by Futuremark, YouGamers looks like a clumsy run-of-the-mill gaming site, with the usual news/previews etc etc.

What makes it very unique (and useful) is that it focuses on PC gaming, and contains something called the Game-O-Meter. A Futuremark ActiveX plugin that measures your system and compares it to a game's minimum specs, and recommended specs.

Very useful stuff, all you gotta do is find a game, and then check your system. If you're doing it for the first time you'll have to let Explorer install the ActiveX plugin, otherwise after under a minute you'll get a metre showing you how your system compares to the game. Clever.

Vista hotfixes now available!

Leaked from MS, 2 hotfixes are now available for Vista. Mind you, you can't get them through Windows Update, but you'll have to download them yourselves from MS.

The first is a "performance fix", which does lots of nonsecurity related bug squashes, one of which apparantly resolves a video-game crashing thingie.
The other is a "reliability fix", whatever that means.

Most importantly though, the damn bug that let Vista take ages copying a file from one volume to another while it was "Calculating time remaining" has been fixed! To copy a small file to a USB pen for example would stall while it was calculating, now this has FINALLY been sorted. And yes, I've tried it and it's all fine now!!

Go get your knickers in a twist over here.

Now, who's for some frag-khana?

Q3A Celebration!

Somehow yesterday we managed to set a world breaking FIVE (!!) players all together in Quake 3.

Yes, that's right, me, Haniboy, Nile Warp, Blue Blood, and Fuji all got together for a fragfest.

To celebrate that we all managed to get connected first time around (miracle?!) we did a little totem-pole. Fuji at the base, SoB in the middle, and Nile in the COOLEST pose you'll ever see in a Quake game.

Rock on more games!!

The NGC

The Internet Has Crashed!!!!!

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Ali Simpson

In anticipation of going to watch The Simpsons Movie tomorrow (Cant' wait!!! Got my Simpsons T-shirt and socks ready!), I was checking out www.simpsonsmovie.com and found an avater creator there.

And so, presenting, Ali "Simpson" Alsawaf:

360 Update

I am missing my 360 terribly. There's something wrong with it not being there. I think the community surrounding it is amazing, and nothing else has replaced it.

Hence I miss live, and I miss playing football with Hani :)

Anyhow. I bought a motherboard from the states that was treated so that the red light thing doesn't happen. Good price too. I forgot to ask what region it was though! I got the dreaded reply yesterday: it's American. So all my PAL games are useless. FUCK.

I was going to stick with it and just "obtain" the American versions of the games I play most, but that means one problem: I can't play PES6 with hani. Kind of defeats the purpose.

So, I've ordered YET ANOTHER motherboard. This one is PAL and brand new.

To try and minimise the stupid Red Light problem, I also bought some replacement fans for the crappy internal fans from Divineo. The Talismoon Whisper Fans are meant to be 58% better, and 7% quieter.

All this stuff is arriving Wednesday. I should be back on live then.

The American motherboard is going straight back on eBay.

Finally, if this new setup Red lights I will just ditch it all and buy a brand new 360 and leave it CLOSED. It's not worth openning them up and losing the warranty, especially now that it's 3 years.

Engaged!

Much longer story later this week, am in a hurry now.

YES.

We Are The Night

is the new album by those clever folk at The Chemical Brothers.

It's been out for some time now, and I've listened to it to death. It's one of those few albums were I don't skip too many tracks (one to be precise, the awful "The Salmon Song").

We Are The Night is the 5th album by The Chems, sixth if you count Exit Planet Dust (They were called The Dust Brothers then). Proving to be much more of an integrated experience than their last 2 albums (Come With Us was awful, Push The Button had a few great tracks).

With this album, the Chems take you on a dance music journey, from their own nearly-patented big beat style (sometimes called chemical beat), to 80s electronica, then over to a bit of trance/techno, back to some indie, with a little bit of Daft Punk, Death in Vegas, and Lemonjelly all thrown in for good measure.

It all sounds too wrong to work, but it does. They somehow manage to make every song feel like a Chemical song, either by throwing in a huge sequence here or there, or adding some psychedelic beeps and noises, you never lose the feeling that this is The Chemical Brothers. At their best.

The famous last epic track that all their albums have had is still there. This time it's called "The Pills Won't Help You" and it features someone called midlake on vocals. Admittedly, it's a lot more mellowed than their previous epics, and to me is no where near the stellar hights of "Surface to Air", nor even "The Sunshine Underground" or "The Private Psychedelic Reel" from their previous albums.

But that doesn't stop this album from being my favourite Chems album. Nothing could surpass the excellent Surrender, but this has. It's more complete, more modern, and amazing to listen to. Whether it will age as well as it's big brother, only time will tell. But for now, it's great.

Finally, some tracks worth mentioning:

Saturate: I'm sure to make this they got some child with a keyboard to press some keys. Repeat over and over but keep on adding layers. Very catchy beat.

Do It Again: by now EVERYONE should have heard this, or seen it's video, particularly arabs as the video is arabic again (like push the button). Stupid song at first, that then becomes your favourite cos it's so damn genius. In fact, video embedded at the end :)

Das Spiegel: The funkiest, happiest, greatest track they have ever made. A bit of lemonjelly, a bit of chemical, and lots of funky beats and sequences make this the funnest thing you'll hear this year.

Burst Generator: Pure chemical techno.

A Modern Midnight Conversation: ah, cowbells, lovely lady vocals, big beats. I could imagine them remembering their favourite bits from Electronic 80s and coming up with this track.

As you see, I like it. And so should you if you're reading this blog :)