I'm getting excited about this. Afro Samurai is a Namco game, based on the anime of the same name.
This is sad news - it's old and I've just stumbled upon it, as part of research for an X58 (Nehalam) mobo.
World of Goo is something I've been looking forward to for a while now. I'm a sucker for everything it comprises: cute game, simple gameplay, progressive difficulty, puzzles, and it's 2D!
Back in December 2002, me and some friends decided to make a film to send back home to our friends and family in Baghad. We went out in London, and filmed everything we saw and did.
Tuesday the 14th of October, 2008 - Apple is due to reveal it's updates to the Macbook range of notebooks (as it likes to call them).
So I woke up way too early today (nights, remember?) to find that lots of information from the first day of the Tokyo Game Show has hit the web.
In a move to try and make us "core" gamers feel better, following the train-wreck that was E3, Nintendo have announced some new things for their systems in a recent summit.
I got a beta code yesterday!! Downloaded it, and LOVE IT!
So this month, my most anticipated game of the year, and I think Sony's first real killer-app comes out: Little Big Planet.
Nintendo's new 2D platformer, Wario Land: Shake It hits the Wii this week.
So IGN have gone and listed the most anticipated games on the 360 for this autumn. I've took out the games that don't interest me, and here's what I'm left with:
3 days ago I ordered some stuff off of the Valve Store. Yesterday I got an email to say the box has been dispatched (from the states).This morning at 10:40 am or so the FedEx dude rang the bell with the box in his hand. I find that just amazing.. within less than 24 hours (our time at least) the box has been through all the channels and traveled half the world to get here.Anyhow, here's the inner-geek shining through:A Black Mesa parking permit :)
This came with 2 bumper stickers:
(What Would Gordon Freeman Do?)A Portal T-shirt. Front:
And, naturally, back:
Aperture Science mug:
Yes I'm a double agent! I work for Black Mesa, but drink out of Aperture mugs! Take that GLaDOS!Finally, my most prized piece - all ready for when we're gonna play the game:
As you can see, the cap is in "distressed" style, ie all tattered, just like a survivor :)
But this one's awesome! Watch as a PAX player throws a molotive cocktail at everyone (including a team mate!), gets vomited on (OMG!) and gets attacked by a tank.
Today is Apple event day (I can't remember what it's called).
is locked at 30FPS. How stupid is that?
There's a demo out on Xbox Live for Pure, the disney racer that we're all not looking forward to, cos all of us don't really know about it.
Chrome is Google's foray in to browsers, which according to them:
Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.
It's only just (22 minutes!) been released (Beta, windows only. Mac to follow), and you can grab it here.
Let's see what it adds to the already dominated scene.
Let me get this off my chest: I hate, despise, loathe, just cannot tolerate levels based under water, or on ice!
I just hate them.
Under water levels make me feel motion-sick. The degree of freedom in an under water level reminds me of what Descent did to me when I first saw it, and the slow movement under water makes that sick feeling even worse. Urgh.
Ice levels? Damn you ice levels!! I think they are just a cheap cheap way to make a boring level just a bit more difficult, and for me, really frustrating! Again, the whole trying to negotiate a surface that's slippery and in which neither starting nor stopping movement happens when you actually want it to happen, it's just enough to make me stop playing a game all together.
My rant comes on the basis that yesterday and today I've finished 2 galaxies that are based on water/ice in Super Mario Galaxy. As great as that game is, as inspired and original and imaginative that it is, and as perfect a platform game that it is, those 2 galaxies were just boring, frustrating and dull.
So you can imagine that if the great Nintendo can't make a proper water/ice level, who can? The answer? NO ONE CAN.
Don't get me wrong - I love platform games. In fact, I think they are my most favourite genre of games (followed closely by FPS), and I love good old fashioned pixel-perfect jumping and timing. But ice and water just annoy me - you can't time anything on ice, and you move so slow in water (usually coupled with a crappy control mechanic to speed you up, like repeatedly pressing A or something just as stupid) that both of them just make me want to -to quote a good delicious regular- athib min rasee (throw up).
Which is why God Of War I and II come in mind as excellent games: their underwater levels are a delight (because Kratos can move EXACTLY as he can on the surface, and there's no dodgy camera to work with), and any level with snow/ice in it is just for the atmosphere. There's no slipping and sliding, God Of War doesn't need any of that to make a level challenging.
To Kratos, I salute you.
To Mario, you're still number one. BUT I wish you wouldn't get yourself in so much shit (read: water).
Microsoft has teased us all with the below image, which is linked to an announcement on the 9th of September:
You might have noticed (especially those of you that go to www.ali-sob.com), but I've finally managed to set blogger to publish directly to the domain, meaning that there is no more good-delicious.blogspot.com! (and :( also)...
So now visitors that go to www.ali-sob.com will see the blog directly, rather than be redirected to good-delicious.blogspot.com. Anyone who still uses that address will be sent to ali-sob.com automatically :)
It took my domain registrar 6 months to answer a ticket I opened, but they finally did! I might as well change them seeing that my registration ends next month.
Good Delicious!
Spotted on the way to Bury St Edmunds :D
No wonder I keep hearing shouts of "medic, meeeeeedddiiiiiiiiic!!" at night....
A few days ago I finished Reading World War Z, which is an oral history of the Zombie World War, or Z War One.
Written very cleverly in mock-documentary style, Max Brook's draws a vivid picture of how a Zombie epidemic nearly wiped us from the face of this Earth. From the very first outbreaks (presumed in China), to the mass-hysterics and profiteering, the book tells a terrifying story of how the world as we know it may not have existed.
What's great about the book is that it's very easy to read. Each chapter is an interview with someone, telling their part of the story. There are lots and lots of characters, BUT you don't need to remember any, nor get confused by who's who. The genius of the book is that it's the overall story arc that matters. You don't need to follow a certain character as it's the Zombies and their War that are the centre piece here.
The chapters are small and easy to read through, and some characters really are notable for the brief period you know them for.
I'm not a fan of Zombies nor horror books in general, but this book I can whole-heartedly recommend to any fan of fiction. Read it, before the movie ruins it all in 2010 ;)
EDIT: forgot to mention, a DRM-free .mobi ebook of WWZ is on the kitchen ;) I actually bought it from ebooks.com (with DRM) so it's proofed and 100% official. You'll need the mobipocket.com reader to view. Enjoy.
You'll find:
The_Prodigy-Live_at_V_Festival-x264-2008-mV4U
and
VA - Video Games Live Volume 1
First is video, second is mp3 ;)
Me and Haniboy on The Robocoaster, a thrill ride at Mall Of The Emirates, Dubai!
Amazing filming by the one and only, Salahtron!
PS: Most of the screaming is him, not me :p
Had a great time. Just landed, waiting for my luggage in airport, then
the long drive back home.
More later :)
I'm off to Amman/Dubai tomorrow!
Part celebration of the end of 4 years of SHO-dom, and the start of 5 years of Registrar-dom, and part to meet up with family and friends, most of which I haven't seen for 8 years!
I'll be going alone, Mrs SoB has work to do. Back to .uk on 19/08/08
So, for those that I'll be seeing there - see you soon!
And for those that I won't see - see you when I'm back!
FAT Princess is a PSN-only game that was revealed at E3 this year. Essentially a 2D (great), cartoony (even more great), TF2-like (GASP!) capture the flag game, but the flag being the titular FAT Princess.
32 players battle it against each other to barge to the enemies castle and take the princess back to theirs. When players spawn they can wear hats (aka select a class) and go out and do damage. There are 5 classes, one of which is a Priest, akin to TF2's Medic.
The clever bit is, the FAT Princess needs feeding. Stop feeding her and she gets thin, light-weight, and hence a lot easier to carry. A team that just goes out fighting will leave her to starve, and hence when the other team reach their castle they'll find that carrying the Princess back is a lot easier :)
BUT, focus on feeding the Princess (albeit with magical vanilla cake that grows outside :p) and she'll get FAT, and heavy, and difficult to carry. A very clever twist to the age-old CTF formula, and one I think not only will be a success but also be copied in more traditional FPS titles.
The game is meant to debut later this year on PSN. PS3 Fanboy have more on the title here.
Heh I just had to post this :D
Saw this picture of a friend on facebook, part of his "trip around newfoundland" album:
It's E3 people this week. Though not the same flair as years begone, it's still the most important event on the gaming calendar!
There's been lots of info about loads of stuff (new 360 dashboard, addons to the Wii, Wii Music (finally!) and more) and loads of new trailers. A great place for trailers would be gametrailers.com or rock paper shotgun's e3 page.
And of course there's new L4D info! Confirming the November 4th date (at last) but also revealing the real cast (new characters) and info about the procedural generation of the Director AI, which is panning out to be an awesome awesome thing!
Here's the video (cam) of the EA press conference (yes, EA, they're publishing it) including Director information and gameplay videos. Exciting stuff, and November couldn't come early enough!!
Some random park in Kendal. The weather has been kind, and we're
eating lots of lunch on the grass. An impromptu picnic.
I've been on holiday since Monday, a nice, long 3 week holiday! Unfortunately I have a weekend on-call at the end of the 2nd week, and then I'm on nights at the end of the 3rd. But the weekend on-call was something I swapped in to, in order to give me an uninterrupted 4th week off between my nights :)
Anyhow, yesterday was a bit of an eventful day: I had an interview for a 5 year training job in Geriatric Medicine in The East of England region. This was literally my last hope in securing a job this time round, otherwise it would have been locums for the next year!
The interview was at 10:30am in Newmarket, a town about an hour away from Ipswich. After that, we drove up all the way to Manchester where we had dinner with Omar and his family, and then we went back to our old favourite, the Swan Hotel at Newby Bridge!
We're gonna spend 5 nights here till Monday, then come back to Ipswich. This morning I was expecting a phone call from the East of England Deanery to tell me the outcome of the interviews. There were 11 candidates for 2 jobs, so almost 6:1 odds. At about 11:30 I was too stressed and worried so I rang a friend who was interviewed yesterday for Endocrinology and Diabetes, and she told me she got the job and had found out by email! My heart started racing so I ran up to our room (luckily I had the laptop with me AND the hotel has free WiFi) and I checked my emails, only to find an offer email from them!!!
So I have now secured a five year training post, which at the end of I become a consultant in Geriatric Medicine, a speciality I've decided I wanted to do for a while now. The sense of relief is immense, and it couldn't have come at a better time than on our holidays!!
Sunday is my birthday also and we're going to the great great Blackpool Pleasure Beach!
So, it's all worked out fine, finally :) No more hunting for a job for a long time now!
Flipping Pyro fixed!!!!
• Fixed backburner's flame critical hits not being recalculated after collision. This meant that it would check if the target was looking away once and after that the flame could score a critical hit again even if the orientation changed.
• Added back some damage falloff to the Pyro's flamethrower. Not nearly as extreme as it was before the Pyro class pack.
And...
And...
