They've done it!

In what seems to be record time, those lovely Chinese people have managed to hack the Wii!
In about 2 days, not one mod have been announced, but 3 different mods are already in production!

One mod (the CycloWiz) has even been installed and reviewed by maxconsole, and they give it great marks!

The beauty of the mods is that they're stealth (ie they send absolutely NO DATA to the cpu, hence being undetectable), and can be installed without any wire soldering. One problem is that non of them allow for region free gaming (original or backup), cos allegedly to do that the chip has to send some data to the cpu, hence not being stealth.

Personally, I think this is great news, as I definitely would install one cos I'm not that fussed about owning originals for the Wii (unlike the 360, which I want to keep live enabled).

The WiiKey is the mod I'm gonna hold on for, cos allegedly it allows different regions and is also upgradeable via software.

As always, the games have been ripped ages ago, which is the norm when it comes to the scene, ie games get ripped and distributed before you can play them as "backups"....

It's here!

......More Later......

Teo and Tea

(pronounced Te-Oh and Te-Ah), just in case :p

Teo and Tea is the unusually stupid name from Jean-Michel Jarre's new studio album, due to be released in March (France). According to the man himself, the album is totally new (ie no more oxygenes, rendez-vous, or equinoxes!). A promo single is due out next month.

But, thanks to the wonders of the interweb, I've managed to download a CD rip of the radio promo of the single (also called Teo and Tea), also including two teaser videos!
I've been listening to the song on repeat for the last 15 minutes or so, and I can tell you it sure is different! Very techno-y, reminds me of early 90's euro dance/trash. Nothing really Jarre-y in it, if you listen to it without knowing who did it you'd never guess it was the Big JMJ.

Anyhow, for all you G-D readers/Jarre lovers, I've uploaded both promo videos on youtube but I've embeded the "Tea" video here. If you wanna see "Teo" just search youtube.

Enjoy. PS: The single sounds just like the video music.

Let's see what the full album is like come the 26th of March.

Please STOP visiting

First of all, apologies to any regular visitors to Good Delicious. This post does not concern you. Please don't bother reading it, and if you do, please don't be offended by it's content as it's directed towards certain individuals that I don't really know or care who they are.

I came to know recently that some people visiting this blog have been complaining about me being a show-off. And certain friends of mine have had to "defend" me when these people have complained to them about it all.

I'd like to clarify a few things:

1\ I haven't heard from anyone directly that this blog is bothering them. If you are one of the people that find something here annoying/offensive etc, please tell me directly. Hell, just post a reply to the post that's bothering you.

2\ This blog was started as a replacement to emailing people things that they might not want to read. Before good delicious, I used to email loads of people periodically about things I mention here, movies, games, jobs, exams, life in general etc etc. When I created this, I stopped emailing and just once emailed everyone the address of the blog.
It is up to people to visit here if they want to. I'm not forcing anyone. So, if you think that I'm showing off on the blog

PLEASE STOP VISITING

3\ I won't be stopping good delicious, nor will I be changing my posts. After all, it is my blog.

I would like to extend a thank you to the regular readers of it all, and to those true friends that can talk to my face, not my arse.

Pan's Labyrinth

I watched Pan's Labyrinth with Kelly yesterday, the low-key movie from Guillermo del Toro.

Telling the story of Ofelia, a young girl in 1940's Spain, just after the civil war, a period where the government was ruthlessly finding and killing any remaining pockets of resistance. Ofelia goes with her heavily-pregnant mother to visit her step-dad, a strict, violent, and sadistic army officer at his base in the forest. While there, Ofelia discovers Pan's Labyrinth, a magical, mystical place where things like fauns and fairies and giant frogs exist.

The film (which is in Spanish) then does an excellent job at telling 3 stories all at once: the violence of man towards man, the dynamics of a family, and the fantasy of a young girl in the middle of all this. Excellently contrasting between a war (with LOTS of bloody, graphic violence, which makes the film rated 15 or R), and between Pan's fantasy world, you'll follow the story of Ofelia as she struggles to understand about family, war, life, and the Labyrinth and it's wonderful inhabitants.

What's great about the film is that it lacks in a lot of today's En Vogue cinema tricks, namely the funny, nearly amateur camera-work, and the obligatory plot-twist that most films these days rely on cos you just gotta have a twist. Nope, Pan's Labyrinth is straight forward, easy to follow, and has a very predictable ending (hell, you're told the ending when it first starts!). But it's a story that's beautiful, fascinating, magical, violent, and very moving. A fairy tale for adults if you wish. I challenge any adult watching it not to relate Pan or Ofelia to their childhood fantasies.

So, got my message yet? WATCH PAN'S LABYRINTH.

I leave you with a snap from one of the coolest Labyrinth creatures: The Pale Man, who has eyes in his palms..... now tell me you don't want to watch the movie.

SoB out

On Why Gears Of War Sucks.....

cos it's just a way too good damn fine game!

Yesterday I loaded Lost Planet, the new Capcom IP that I had played the demo for ages ago on Xbox Live!, heck I'd even played the online multiplayer demo which I thought was good fun.
Problem is, as I was playing the first level I couldn't help trying to HOLD "A" to run to cover, or trying to time my reloads so that I get an "active reload" that makes me temporarily stronger. Of course, all these things are Gears of Wars...

GoW is so stupidly easy to control and great to play that I couldn't help but compare poor old Lost Planet to it. Now don't get me wrong, LP is a great game... proper Capcom action (in the vein of a cold and icy Resident Evil 4, which anyone will tell you is one of the greatest games and surely GameCube's finest moment) with lots of nice graphics, good gameplay and, if we're honest, it controls rather well. Just GoW does it all better :)

Oh and don't start me on GoW multiplayer, which has finally taken over Halo 2 as the most played game on live. The matches are not your typical FPS deathmatches (thank God for that, they would've sucked as the game isn't really built like that), what you get is 2 teams of 4 trying to outwit each other in cleverly designed maps with lots of cover and things to hide behind... once you're dead you have to wait for the round to finish... thing is though, the living can't speak to the dead and vice versa, so if you do get popped early you'll be sat there watching a hopeless team member about to be sawn in half (ah!! the chainsaw attached to the machine gun is another GoW innovation, totally awesome!) and you'll be shouting unheard warnings down the mic, until the poor sod joins you in the "dead lobby"...

Pair that with the awesome graphics and sound, and it's a killer solo and online app.... I'm currently in the middle of a disabling GoW online addiction, I played it till 4am on Sunday morning, and each day I play 1-2 hours after Kelly goes to sleep (she likes to watch but together we're playing Wii Zelda and Wario Ware, which are both worth a post later!)...

So, Get an Xbox 360 and GoW if you can..... if not you'll be missing out on one of the best games of the last 20 years. Seriously.

And Lost Planet is a great game too, but being Capcom you can trust them to make it rock hard, the first boss took me a good 15 minutes to beat, and I was in a BIG ASS mech at the time... I just hope they don't pull a cheap "repeat of all the bosses you just beat" level like the one I'm still stuck in in Viewtiful Joe..

SoB - off to work

Apple iPhone

I am WAY TOO EXCITED about this...

Apple have finally put together 3 things that have been rumoured for years: A touch screen iPod, a PDA of sorts, and a Phone. ALL IN ONE DEVICE.
Introducing the iPhone. Now it's not just any old phone with iTunes in it (*cough* motorola rokr) , nope this baby has only got one button and is totally wide-screen-touch-screen driven...

I can't remember being so excited about something since Nintendo revealed the Wii :)
Now, I've always thought I'd never get a PDA till Apple make 'em, and this baby will be hitting the streets in June (states) and end Q4 (europe). As I'm due a phone upgrade soon am gonna wait till I find out which network has this baby, and for how much. Am definitely gonna be an early adopter.

Enough excitement, head over to the Apple homepage for the specs, pics, and the video of the MacWorld keynote by Steve Jobs where he demos and introduces the beast.

Engadget have a nice semi-live blog of it also, here. SoB - TOO EXCITED.

Games Clocked 2006

I know I know, don't moan at me but here is another famous SoB list of Games Clocked :p

Lot's of gaming last year, which might explain why I never pass exams :) Seriously though, the release of the 360 and some great DS and PSP games have kept me busy. Gamecube is dying though....

On that note, I've added 2 new things to the sidebar (on your right), first is a continously updated list of games finished throught 2007, and the 2nd is the same for movies watched. I realised that I've seen some great movies in 2005/2006 and I should keep a list. The Prestige was one of the best movies of last year imho.

Anyhow, enough chat, here's the list:

Nintendo DS

Mario and Luigi - Partners in Time
Feel The Magic XX XY
Sonic Rush (with kelly)
New Super Mario Bros
Yoshi's Island 2 (with kelly)

PSP

Exit (all damn 100 puzzles!)
Me And My Katamari
LocoRoco (one of the best games of all time)
Every Extend Extra

GameCube

Chibi Robo

XBOX

Kong
Psychonauts (great, funny, unmissable game)
Prince Of Persia The Two Thrones (with kelly)

X360

Kameo - Elements Of Power
Mutant Storm Reloaded
Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter
Tomb Raider Legend
Condemned - Criminal Origins
Splinter Cell - Double Agent
Call of Duty 3
Gears of War (OMG!!!!!!!!)

Wii

Rayman Raving Rabids (with kelly)

PC

Titan Quest
Prey
Lego Star Wars 2 (with kelly)
Half Life 2 Episode One

Deal Or No Deal

Happy new year is what I mean to say here.

Deal Or No Deal is what's on TV as I type.

So what's gonna happen in 2007? God knows. Now that Saddam is dead, I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing. More violence in Iraq or a bit of calm. I'm not asking for a lot, just a little bit of calmness. For the sake of everyone there.

Me? I'm gonna be in Ipswich till August, might go visit NY in March/April, and will still be playing games. Perhaps 2007 will be the year that all my "gamer" friends will actually PLAY games, instead of claim to do that. YES - that's you Nile, Hani, Wolf and everyone else :p So get your fingers out of your arses and find out the wonders of the internet, it lets people play together believe it or not.

2007 is also the Year of The Vista. It's out the end of this month so let's hope the Hype surrounding VISTA and DX10 cards is more than just money in William Gates' pocket. I tried the leaked AIO a while ago and I quite liked it.

Finally, anyone saw the fireworks this year in London? They were designed by some French dude and they were absolutely amazing. I wonder if he works for Jarre.......

Mortal KomBat

Now you were either a MK boy or a SF boy. You couldn't possibly like both. That's just wrong.
Those of you in the SoB club (ie MK fans) would remember the seminal (and greatest) MK3, and especially it's rumoured fatalities, babalities, animalities, and friendships.

Codes and tips on how to do fatalities and all that would circulate in magazines, rumours of long and elaborate rules to get one thing done were usual. Of course, it was great fun once you found a code that actually worked. I personally used to know Kung Lao's shredding fatality: FORWARD, FORWARD, BACK, DOWN, HIGH PUNCH.

Anyhow, some one on the ever entertaining youtube has posted a video with ALL possible MK3 fatalities, babalities, animalities, and friendships. Enjoy this 8 minute medley of gory, shocking, and now crap animations. Still a great game though :)

India, you might like this - what with all your old SNES magazines you used to bring with loads of codes in them.

R.I.P. Anas

This really is sad news... had a phone call from a friend earlier to say hi, and he was telling me about the death of a friend of mine that was younger than me by a year.
His name was Anas, I'd known him from primary school, we went to the same one, same high school, and same medical school. His dad was a university teacher.

He was kidnapped from outside Al-Kadhimiya hospital and a ransom was given to his dad. His dad went to deliver the money and the kidnappers killed them both. Their bodies were found shot dead on 22/12/06.

It really makes me sad and angry. Poor Anas, was such a nice and calm guy, never hurt anyone or anything. What have they gained from killing a father and son, both pillars of the community and academics? A doctor and a teacher now dead in a torn FUCKED UP land. FUCK THEM ALL.

R.I.P. Anas and father. I sincerely hope your family get the patience they so desperately need.

FUCK THEM ALL.

Merry Christmas!

All you lucky SOBS out there (note the big O in that, SoB is me, SOB is all you mofo's!). Am working for the 3rd christmas in a row, but I had the senses to bring the macbook with me, cos they've recently installed a wireless network in our mess.

So, am sat here watching Grease on the TV while typing this. It's 14:45 and I finish at 22:00... poor me :( here you go - a snap of me sat here to cheer you all up (or hopefully depress you so am not the only one).

On How Christmas Came Early

For the 3rd year in a row I am working Christmas Day!
2 years ago I was doing nights, last year I was doing a day shift, and this year I'm doing a long day shift (0900-2200)! Sigh.

So, I'm going to Kelly's parents' house on Boxing Day (like last year), but me and Kelly decided to open our presents together today, and what a surprise I was in for!
I got her a book (cookery! heh), a DVD (Jim Henson's Story Teller), a Casio Exilim Z70 camera, and a LG Chocolate mobile phone (and I'm really jealous of that last one, it's awesome!).
I got her parents a Nintendo DS with Sudoku and Dr Kawashima's Brain Training. Why? cos they're both Sudoko geeks and her dad plays video games, so I thought it's a good idea. For my mum, I sent money (typical Arabic shit eh?)

Kelly, as usual, got me tons of stuff (like my last birthday, remember?):

1\ A Nescafé Dolce Gusto Coffee Maker: YES! YES! I can now finally do like they do in those coffee shops, make a coffee and go "tap tap" while cleaning the filter on the sink! heh. Seriously though, the thing makes excellent coffee, and it really gives professional results.

2\ Two tickets to see the awesome Blue Man Group in The New London Theatre: Sorry Zzz, I know you really wanted to see them when you were here, but I'll let you know how good the show is :p

3\ A Gorilla-pod: Now this is one thing that I saw ages ago and nearly bought but thought it was just a gimmick. How wrong! It's a mini-tripod that has bendable legs, you use it to fix your camera on to any surface you like. You can also use it to stabilise the camera to reduce that shake that's impossible to control when taking night shots. I have to say, the thing is brilliant and is very well built. One really good thing about it is that it comes with a little detachable base that you screw on to your camera and it stays there, that way you can just slot your camera in and out of the pod with ease. Highly recommended.

4\ A blue jumper from Debenhams

5\ Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze: The follow-up book to last year's "Does Anything Eat Wasps", a book full of trivial questions and their scientific (and not-so-scientific) answers. The cool thing about the book is that it's a compilation of reader questions and reader answers submitted to "The Last Word" column of New Scientist. Makes for really cool trivial reading, recommended to those people that want to have an answer to most things, and those that want to have something funny/cool to talk about in parties (or pubs).

6\ But best of all, something that I really was amazed about, I recently found out that Kelly studied art at school. She learnt how to draw things and she's shown me stuff she's drawn (from her little sister to tigers!). This year, she took 3 days to draw me DONKEY KONG! awesome stuff! the picture is going up in my computer room (read: den, geek room!) and is a really nice personal touch.

So there you have it, Xmas came early for me and it's been a cracker. Hope it's the same for everyone out there, particularly those in Iraq. Be safe.

Finally, as I type this I can smell the roast turkey, mmmm Christmas lunch here I come!

Videogames Live

I should have blogged about this earlier :)

One Saturday morning (25th of November) I was in London when I saw a news article about a once only concert in The Hammersmith Apollo, called Videogames Live. The show was about celeberating the music that's come out of our favourite addiction.
It was very popular in America, and that day was their only UK show before going back to the states.

I called a geek friend who I knew couldn't say no (Wisam) and he booked the tickets for us both for the show at 19:00. I took mum to some big shopping centre she wanted to go to (Blue Water), and then met Wissam in Hammersmith.

The place was full of stereotypical gamers, ie sweaty, over weight-ish men with glasses and T-shirts that say things like "I Zelda You" and the like. Anyhow, we the concert started and we were in for a great treat! They played live orchestral music from loads of games, like Warcraft, Halo, Beyond Good and Evil, and tons more. The show started with a 10 minute Medley of all the classic games, starting from Pong and ending with Tetris!
There were also some nice on-stage effects, like a real-life Solid Snake + guard and loads of lights/lasers etc. A big screen was also showing clips of the games which the music was coming from.

As a nice surprise, some guests came on, like Michael Ancel (Rayman, Beyond Good and Evil), and that awesome Japanese dude who can play 10 Final Fantasy tracks on piano blind folded!
They also had on-stage live competitions like Frogger and Space Invaders. One lucky mofo even won an Acer "ferrari" laptop!
At the end we were all given a free promo CD which had studio recordings of the most famous Ubisoft games tracks.

It was good fun. The tour is now back in America but will be touring other places next year. If you do have the chance to watch a great show with great music, don't miss it!

Wii have games

Wii are gameless

Quick post: for those of you wondering what's happening with the Wii and why I haven't ranted on and on about it, well that's cos I HAVE NO GAMES FOR THE DAMN THING!

Sure it's got Wii Sports in the package, but that's more like a tech demo than anything, and really needs 2 players to be fun. I only have one controller.
So, why no games? well my original amazon order had a Wii + Rayman, Red Steel, Zelda, Super Monkey Ball (wooohooo!), and Wii Play (which includes a free remote). Due to Wii Play being extremely short of supply, the package was only sent out by courier yesterday.

I was meant to receive it today. I had the day off (bliss, been playing EVE most of it, and GoW), but the stupid courier somehow couldn't ring the bell, cos their website now says (Delivery failed, recepient not home). RECIPIENT NOT BLOODY HOME?!!! I haven't seen the sun since yesterday!

So, the depot is open tomorrow (saturday) between 8am to 12.30pm. Am gonna ring them to see if I can pick the damn thing up, otherwise I'll have to wait till Monday as they will attempt redelivery!

As you can see, if I don't get the package tomorrow I'm gonna be one VERY UNHAPPY bunny, ravingly rabid perhaps :p

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

This is a very quick post: YES I did get the Wii on launch day (Friday 08/12/06), but what I didn't get with it is lots of new games (damn Amazon! The games order is separate and still hasn't shipped!). It does, however, come with Wii Sports, which is great to sort of ease you in to this new controller method.

Anyhoot, a more detailed post later once I've got my hands on Red Steel, Zelda, and Super Monkey Ball... oh and the component video cable :)

In the mean time, here's the Wii next to it's big brother

PS: got some new wireless headphones too that I HAVE TO tell you all about - they are absolutely awesome.

Later

Remember That Police Academy Guy...

... the one who made amazing noises with his mouth? black dude?
Michael Winslow was his name, and we all wanted to grow up and be just like him, making funny noises with our mouths and pretending to play video games :)

Anyhow, he does stand up now, and here's a great clip of him in action... gotta love that rave party sketch!

Tomorrow

we get Wii!

Funnily, I'm getting 2 (by mistake). I pre-ordered from Argos and Amazon, and both are gonna deliver! Am gonna refuse the Argos one and get my money back - am not THAT greedy.

Only worrying thing is that I think Amazon are gonna deliver the games and component cable the next day, so might just end up playing Wii Sports all day tomorrow.... that's if I can pull myself away from EVE :D

Updates and impressions later. SoB out

Animator vs. Animation II

Click here to see one of the coolest flash animations you have ever seen in a while.
Remember Icon's Story? well, this one takes the concept way beyond that.

Watch what happens when our Animator decides to call his stick man "The Chosen One".

Pure genius