Razer Armadillo Mouse Management

I like my Razer Copperhead mouse. It even made me win a Quake 4 Deathmatch on a public server. Problem is, my super-sexy computer table is a bit too small, so the mouse cable (and every other cable to be accurate) hangs off the edge. This only causes a problem for using the mouse, as sometimes you end up tugging it to accommodate for the weight of the cable, or whatever other shit has managed to tug down on it since you connected it (anyone who's used a PC will know exactly what I mean).

So, Razer have come up with a solution for specifically this problem. Introducing the Razer Armadillo Mouse Management System. A little piece of metal that looks like a thimble, which houses your cable and lifts it off the table (to reduce friction). It is also heavy and is designed not to move around on the table, but can rotate 360 so as not to get in the way of those crucial 180-snaps you gotta do when you're deathmatching.

In other words, they've just created a little weight for the cable to stop it from tugging. Silly idea? total rip-off of people's money? gadget for the geeks? I think so. What's the point in spending £20 (includes VAT and P&P) on little more than a piece of heavy metal that stops your cable from tugging. I might as well just wrap the cable around the monitor base or something.

I'll give you a better review once mine arrives :p

Game Over by PES

Pretty neat eh?
Needs Quicktime
Created by PES

Forever Faithless....

Got back from V last night (around 00:30). We decided to de-camp and drive out as the last few bands were still playing (Razorlight - not my idea of fun). There were so many people there that leaving today (Monday) would've been suicide, cos of the crowds and traffic.

The show was awesome! There were lots of stages and tents but the main bit was on the big V Stage, where all the headline acts were. On Saturday we saw The Magic Numbers live and they were great! We also saw Beck (which was great cos there were puppets on the stage and he even did a dinner party on the stage!), and the headline was a stunning Radiohead set! The stage was amazingly beautiful, with loads of funny-shaped screens around and just great visual techniques.
We also caught a few random acts here and there on the other stages (The Cardigans anyone?)

As we weren't that bothered to be very close, we picked a spot right underneath a tripod speaker. The base of the tripod had a low fence around it so standing just next to it ensures that no one could stand infront of you, and you got to see the whole stage, the screens, and the mad crowd.

Yesterday we got to that spot and stayed there all the day. We saw The Dandy Warhols (who?), The Sugababes, and Paul Weller. Then came the magical 1:10hr set of Faithless!

Man can Faithless put up a show!! There were about 60,000 people watching the stage, as the band came on (missing Maxi Jazz) and the music kicked in with Sweep (from No Roots).. the crowd was already going mad when Maxi Jazz came on and the strings of Insomnia (their most famous track) started.... and you could tell that when the signature beat began the crowd would go mad! Nothing can prepare you for the sight of 60,000 people jumping up and down to Insomnia live. Really really good stuff... Maxi can sure get a crowd going, and they cleverly mixed dance with slow with techno and will all the things that make Faithless the best live act in the world (official award in 98).
They also played other dance favourites, like We Come One and God is a DJ.

And so, for us, Faithless ended a great weekend in an even greater way. Unmissable stuff.

V Festival

I'm leaving soon to Hyland Park in Chemlsford (Somewhere close to Colchester/Ipswich). Me and Kelly have got camping tickets for the Virgin V Festival there. It's 2 days worth of music and hopefully loads of fun!

The main arena bit will have various stages, and loads of big screens to watch the acts from if you can't be bothered to get too close to the stage. We've got a tent and some sleeping bags which we practiced putting up the other day (damn tents are NOT easy to setup!!). We're also taking both our DS's so we can get geeky if we get bored...

Loads of artists are on, but I'm specifically looking forward to Radiohead, Beck, Faithless (Wooot!), The Magic Numbers, and Beautiful South.

You can see the full line up here.

SoB out for this weekend. I would've liked to stay at home and play games all weekend, but sometimes the boss decides what we do.... Good-delicious!

F.E.A.R. Multiplayer for FREE!!

that's right! Monolith have given away the FULL MULTIPLAYER component of F.E.A.R. for free!

I gotta admit, that's a good move from them... so now even though we've all finished the game offline, we can go online with it legit...

Of course, since Wolf owns the mega-rare-mega-expensive-mega-useless- original-collector's-prick's-collecting-dust-on-the-shelf-edition, he won't need this. For the rest of us we can just click here and download the game and get a cd-key sent over to our email addresses.

Be warned though, it's a 1.77g beast.

Quick one

I'm back.

Internet is on, but not as I wanted it. More on that (and the on-going battle between me and the ISP later).

Blog was very slow cos of a change in the feed2js address (the thing that powers the 360 blog in the sidebar). All sorted now

Am in Ipswich - nice hospital but very busy

Downloaded lots of x360 demos from the market place, will try soon

Want to download Darkstar One, not "scened" in English yet.

Got the g6-lite cartridge for DS, so playing lots of games that I wouldn't otherwise play. Mario Basketball is awesome.

Watch Cars. Well worth it. Especially the short before it "One Man Band".

Over and out.

11/08/06

is when I get broadband over here in Ipswich.
Should be 8mbit (damn phone line too long to support 16mbit ADSL2+).

Until then I'm staying signed off from the interweb. Dial up just doesn't crack it anymore.

Later people.

I'll Be Back

Ok, last post for sometime...
Tomorrow my phone line and internet cease to exist. The phone is moving to my new flat in Ipswich, and hopefully soon after, my new broadband supplier will start working.

So, I'll be lost in the ether for a while, hopefully not too long (maybe end of this week if I'm lucky, or next week).

Adios till then.... hopefully when I'm back I'd received my new stuff so I can blog a bit faster :p

Intel Conroe Core 2 Duo

I've just ordered an upgrade. I'm going to sell my amd fx 64 + the abit fatality mobo + 4gig ddr400 ram on ebay (they've held a good price till now and I don't really need them)

I was going to get a geforce 7950 gx2 but I thought that would be silly cos it's the last of the current generation and is NOT a directx 10 card, so what's the point... instead I opted to change back to Intel...

My new stuff should arrive early next week, and are:
Abit AB9-Pro motherboard
Intel Conroe Core 2 Duo e6700
4x1gig Corsair paired DDR2 800 (PC6400) RAM

I'll update Good Delicious when the stuff is here and when I've installed it.

SoB out

PS: I go and watch Superman Returns with Kelly in the imax tomorrow, can't wait!
PS2: I am moving jobs to Ipswich, so I'll be offline from Tuesday cos I've moved my phone line and broadband internet to there, and I'll be reconnected end of next week I hope.

Use the Portal Gun NOW!

Well sort of...
First a clarification, turns out that the trailer I posted a few days ago of the Portal Gun will NOT be used in Half Life 2 or any other Valve FPS as yet, it will actually ship as a stand-alone source powered puzzle game with Episode 2. The puzzle game will use lots of Portal trickery to confuse you even more... and is appropriately called Portal :)

So, my dream of people abusing the Portal Gun in FPS has been shattered :(

But more importantly, Portal was initially concieved by a group of students at the Digipen Institute of Technology, and they programmed a full puzzle game called Nabacular Drop. In full 3D this game replicates exactly what you saw in the trailer a few days ago. Valve saw the game and employed the students to create Portal. Who said games don't make money :)

Luckily, Nabacular Drop is still available for download here.

So go grab it, and as the Prodigy put it... Walk through mind fields and watch your head rock. Cos this one will sure spin your head and world around. Great fun though :)

Me Mudder

When me prayers were poorly said
Who tucked me in me widdle bed
And spanked me till me arse was red,

Me Mudder!

Who took me from me cozy cot
And put me on the ice cold pot
And made me pee when I could not,

Me Mudder!

And when the morning light would come
And in me crib me dribbled some
Who wiped me tiny widdle bum,

Me Mudder!

Who would me hair so neatly part
And hug me gently to her heart
Who sometimes squeezed me till me fart,
Me Mudder!

Who looked at me with eyebrows knit
And nearly have a king size fit
When in me Sunday pants me shit,

Me Mudder!

When at night her bed did squeak
Me raised me head to have a peek
Who yelled at me to go to sleep,

Me Fadder!

Daigo

Ok, this is another video post I'm afraid. Youtube.com is so easy to use and embed in a blog that it would be criminal not to share these classics with all you people :)
Now, back to Daigo. Daigo is the Japanese and World number one street fighter player.
This video is taken from the EVO 2004 Street Fighter III finals, where he's struggling to beat the American Justin Wong. Daido is Ken and Justin is Chun Lee. With just a fraction of health left, Ken is keeping his distance from Chun, when she launches a devastating super attack.
What follows is history.... pure gaming classic :)

Note: I've played Street Fighter 2 very briefly, and was more a Mortal Kombat 2/3 fan. But, I take it what Daigo did was incredibly difficult to do. It's called Parrying (ie blocking) and I think it takes alot of skill to perform, especially the last jump/parry.... just watch for yourselves and if anything this video is worth watching for the crowd reaction alone......

Valve's Portal Gun

Ok this is semi-unique.
Anyone who's played Prey (what?! you haven't?! get it now!) will know all about those funny dimension-shifting portals they introduced.
So, not to be beaten, Valve have released a trailer for what they call a Portal Gun, which might be used in future Half Life 2 Episodes. The gun does exactly what it says on the tin, ie lets you create portals anywhere you want!
The consequences (and physics-related exploitations) are unimaginable.
If people could trick-jump with humble Quake 3, imagine what they could come up with using this one!

Valve have released an interesting trailer of the gun, in a safety-at-work style video. Enjoy.

id Software To Improve Quake 4

id Software's revealed that it's "making great strides in tuning and tweaking the.. multiplayer gaming experience" for Quake 4 in the next point release - 1.3.

Changes are being made in response to fan feedback on the sequel and features requested by the Quake 4 community, with the developer stating that multiplayer alterations introduced in the 1.3 point release "will provide a faster, smoother, and more highly competitive experience". In addition, id says that it hopes the alterations will make the game "even more fun for new players"

It continues: "You can expect increased mobility and control, improved performance with ambient lighting options, and weapon alterations that advance playability and challenge competitive players."

Plus, id has let slip that it's also introducing a new gametype, new weapons and "several professionally made maps" in the 1.3 point release. The update is currently undergoing beta testing and the developer hopes to release it into the public domain "sometime before QuakeCon" - QuakeCon runs from August 3 to August 6.

Story from C&VG

So, are they finally going to create the multiplayer experience they promised us, ie a better Quake 3 Arena. The Q4 servers remain empty most of the time, and it's hard to find a populated server these days. As compared to the Q3A servers that are always full and it's easy to just jump in without having to hunt around for ages.
I think id outshone themselves when they created Q3A, it was the inital shell-shock for the PC fragging community that we still can't get over. A great, fluid, no frills games. Problem with Q4 is that it tried to replicate all of that using the Doom3 engine, which is more geared towards graphical bells and whistles, rather than deathmatch physics.

Anyhow, let's hope they sort it out this time and get those servers full again. Maybe this update will finally convince a certain german friend of mine who still refuses to play anything but Q3A, and just recently discovered that Windows XP was actually released by Microsoft 5 years ago :p

Simpsons Voices

Watch Dan Castellanata and Harry Shearer play the various characters that they do in The Simpsons :o)

"Dr Hebert, I ate all of your tongue depressors!"

Bollocks!

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars has been pushed to 2007!

Read the sad news here.

Well, at least the Wii's coming out this year. That'll keep me busy.

Titan Quest

I don't really remember the last time I was truely addicted to a game. Perhaps the last one was Exit on the PSP... or maybe Half Life 2, or Kameo. Not sure.
What I do know now though is that I am well and truely (and hopelessly ) addicted to Titan Quest, by Iron Lore. A PC action RPG game, built exactly like Diablo, but instead of fantasy dwarves and elves, Titan Quest is based on Greek Mythology.
The game is very easy to play, the interface is well designed and clutter-free, and all you need to do to play is click your mouse to move, or to attack. That's about it. There is a degree of character customisation, but nothing way to complicated like Oblivion, it's just a matter of picking a primary and secondary mastery. Each mastery has set of skills that you can choose to learn.

But all that RPG stuff falls to the side of the main game factor: combat. As anyone who's played Diablo will know, the game is all about finding monsters and killing them. Lots of them. There's loads of loot to pick up and gold to collect.
Also, the game is no where near open-ended or open-formed or whatever they call them. It's extremely linear, so you can't really get lost, and you're never stuck with what to do next. Which is what I love, as you might know by now :)

The graphics are absolutely AWESOME. Even though you're playing from a high up camera view, and it doesn't rotate, but still the care and detail put into the graphics is great. Enemies and environment are gorgeous to look at. Most people criticised the sound, but I think the ambience and music now and then are quite good.

So, if you haven't gotten the point by now - GET TITAN QUEST. It's fun and easy to play, is very long, and looks great. You can play with just one hand on the mouse, or use all the keyboard shortcuts, it's that intuitive and well-designed. Oh and there's a whole chapter in Egypt :)


SoBtarius of Sparta signing out.

PS: I reached this Oracle lady in the game and decided to take a snap cos it looked so cool. That big scary monster on the right is my pet Core Dweller. He kicks ass.

The WONDERFUL Kelly

The 6th of July was my birthday. I'm 29. Sucks.
Now that's out the way :p Kelly came over that day and brought me a million and one things!

First off, was of course a nice card.
Then, she gave me a bag full of goodies!
3 T-Shirts, some converse All Star shoes (you know the ones that basketball players used to wear and emos still wear!), a VERY BIG bottle of martini bianco, but... the shocker came in the little box at the bottom of the bag..


It was something I had mentioned aeons ago, it was something that me and Ziad had looked longingly at but never bought it cos we were too cheap :) I have no clue where she found it and how the hell she even remembered that I wanted a VICTORINOX Cybertool 34!
The Swiss Army Knife for geeks, this one has everything you'd need to dismantle any computer, for your old spectrum to the supercray. The best gift I've had ever!

And what did I get her for her birthday. Erm, a nurses watch that looked like a heart and had a little Eeyore on it. That's it, nothing else. HOW SAD.

Oh, and she took me out for dinner and baked me a cake!

So THANK YOU SO MUCH Kelly. Now I go dismantle my PC just for fun :)

LocoRoco!

Finally! Finally Sony has knocked some senses back into it's strategy with the PSP.
On paper, the PSP is a sexy piece of hardware, lots of great features. What really let's it down is the games. All it turn out to be is exactly what it's name is, a portable PlayStation.
By that I mean 90% of the games on the machine are just smaller versions of their PSX/PS2 big brothers, with graphics between the two. You get the GTAs, the Ridge Racers, the WipeOuts, and the Metal Gears. And because of this I can only really recommend 2 PSP "killer apps", Lumines and Exit. Katamari Damacy is also good but it's a PS2 conversion.

And this is where Nintendo know what they're doing, cos not only do they flog their life-long franchises (mario, zelda, metroid etc), but they also come up with some really new and interesting things, eg Chibi Robo, bit Generations, WarioWare etc etc.

But the other day I bought LocoRoco. A PSP exclusive, the game is exactly what handhelds were made for - simple, innovative fun. The game features basic graphics with primary colours, and has one of the easiest control/gameplay methods you'll find (left/right triggers to roll, and one button!). All you gotta do is roll the very cheerful LocoRocos around the world to collect berries, while navigating the cool world which can include things like swings, gears, wind pipes, traps and even the inside of a big frog!

The gameplay is really easy to get into, and it has a killer soundtrack which you can't help humming to, featuring the Locos themselves singing along (and not always in time with each other!). No screenshot nor rant from me can do the game justice, so I've posted the official trailer too!

And that's what Sony need to do more of, make new fun games to play, not just another Tekken for PSP. At least Lumines 2 and Exit 2 have been announced...

SoB - A not-so-happy-PSP-owner-that's-now-much-happier :o)

South Park SoB

Made using the excellent South Park Studio