Amazon Wii preorders sell out in under 10 minutes!

OK, first the happy news: I have theoretically secured a Wii (+games) for launch day (08/12/06), yippeeeee!

So how did I do that? Well, Amazon were one of the last (if not the last) retailer to announce their preorder plans. But, eventually they sent customers an email saying that pre-orders will open on Tuesday 21/11/06 (ie today) at 9am GMT, and they will only take as many orders as they have stock, hence theoretically guaranteeing everyone who manages to pre-order a console on launch day.

This morning at 8:45 I started a "page camp". I loaded amazon in 2 browsers (IE and FireFox), signed in to amazon and loaded the Wii page. I then started pressing F5 every few seconds! Imagine the number of people doing that, it's amazing the servers didn't crash!
Eventually, at about 9:30, the page updated to say "click here to pre-order this item", I quickly clicked and it said "there's been an error - we can't supply this item". FUCK. I thought I had lost out on it so quickly! I didn't lose faith though, so I kept refreshing the orignal page and re-ordering, until finally the item was SAFE in my basket. I quickly checked out, and received a confirmation email!
I then went on to order some games and an extra controller, and combined all the orders together in to one big ball of Nintendo happiness!

And how long did it take for the Wii to sell out? JUST UNDER 10 MINUTES! At nearly 9:40am, Amazon stopped their preorders and annouced that the item was out of stock, madness!

So, come 08/12/06, I should hopefully have a Wii delivered to me. Is it going to be worth it? you bet your ass! Who's going to win this round of console madness? SoB says the Wii60 (people with a Wii and a 360 together, collectively CHEAPER than a PS3). Only time will tell.

A Whole Week With Wii

There's too many W's in that title :p

Anyway, some appropriately named mad guy called yoshimadness has decided to play Wii live online for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He will be broadcasting live and blogging at the same time on his site.

His rules are:
1. I will only be sleeping 4hrs. a day (usually 2:00am-6:00am)
2. I will be updating my blog every 4 hrs. (This should take me about 15 mins. to do)
3. I'll only be leaving my room to (a) use the bathroom (if its a duece than it might take 15min). (b) if my dad needs something (parents and relatives might be over for Thanksgiving).

So, go here if you wanna feel sorry for this poor man, or feel jealous that he's playing Zelda already :)

Faithless - Bombs

Faithless are releasing a new album end of this month, titled "To All New Arrivals".
They have also released a single from the album, called "Bombs". The song is about the war in Iraq, and features some of the best lyrics from Maxi Jazz I've ever heard. The track is excellent and has some female vocals I don't recognise... but part of Jazz's lyrics I wanted to mention here:

Key in the door, the moment I've been longing for,
before my bag hit the floor,
my adorable children rush up and screaming for a kiss
and a story, they're a gift to this world, my only claim to glory,
I surely never knew sweeter days,
blows my mind like 'munition, I'm amazed

After the chorus, Jazz continues the story of the father and his children:

One bomb, the whole block gone,
Can't find my children and dust covers the sun,
Everywhere is noise, panic, and confusion,
but to some another fun day in Babylon
I'm gonna bury my wife and dig up my gun,
my life is done, so now I've gotta kill someone

Really provoking lyrics, especially when heard in the context of the whole song and it's chorus.
Of course, Jazz is no stranger to all this, in the 1998 song "Bring My Family Back", Jazz tells the story of a torn apart family from 3 perspectives, The 3 year old child, The 43 year old father, and the number 53 house where they all lived in. The house's perspective is the most haunting:

I'm on Lonely Street, number fifty three.
Boarded up property,
I'll probably get pulled down.
Litter all around inside there's
no sound and no light.
But yo it gets busy at night, People creeping.
Derelicts sneaking to fix. Speaking.
On the way my timbers creaking,
Roof leaking. And bricks coming loose,
knee high in refuse.
But even though I'm a slum,
I'm still of some use.
There was a time when my walls where decorated.
And under my roof children were educated.
But now paint's faded, windows are all smashed,
a crash in the economy robbed me of my family.
And no strategy, combats negative equity,
so that's it. Like violence it's drastic.
I'm freaking, and seeking to be
more than just a house for crack.
Somebody bring my family back.

So there you have it. Faithless aren't all just about dancing and jumping up and down, they are great at political lyrics, and not that bad at dance music to boot :)

The Coolest Hotel In The World

The Arte Luise Kunsthotel in Berlin offers it's guests rooms that are separately designed by different artists.

Of course, some are purely crap, with funny lines going round the room and so on. One cool one looks like a birds nest, with eggs all over the place and a giant beak sticking through the wall.

But, the coolest (and geekiest, nerdiest) of them all is a cell-shaded room called comic. The picture below is actually of the real room itself, and not CGI

Best thing is, the rates aren't too bad... so if anyone finds themself going to Berlin for one thing or another, you can pay Nile Warp a visit and stay in this hotel at the same time :)

Hello people. I got the XFX today, installed it, then ran a few tests. This is a copy of my post in the DW forums, copy-pasted for your viewing pleasure :)

hi all,
received the XFX g8800 gtx today.
Installation was smooth, had to get a longer IDE cable though (stupid
abit mobo has the worst ide placement in the world!)

forceware drivers are 97.02 (latest)

did a few quick tests on my system - specs are

Intel Core 2 Duo e6700
XFX GeForce 8800GTX
4gig (4x1gig) Corsair DDR800 Dual Channel RAM
Creative X-FI Fatal1ty SoundBlaster
Abit AB9PRO mobo
WD Raptor 36 gig for windows, 2x76 gig in RAID-0 for games
ViewSonic VP201s LCD, native 1600x1200x60hz

Everything is at stock speeds, I don't over clock

3DMark Score 10340 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 4704 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 4844 Marks
CPU Score 2354 Marks

This is using the free version, so res is 1280x1024.

I tried the same test before uninstalling my old card (XFX 7800GTX), scored 4205 3D Marks

Unfortunately, 3D Mark won't let me publish the results, as they have yet to certify the forceware drivers

I then tested FEAR, I set everything to maximum, including Computer and Graphics. I then set the res to 1600x1200

Results
0% under 25 FPS
21% between 25 and 40 FPS
79% above 40 FPS

again, I tested this on 7800gtx, and it showed that 51% were under 25, and 49% between 25 and 40. A massive improvement.

Finally, I tried the Hardware OC Prey benchmark, with the following settings and results:


Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HWzone_co_il.demo
Shader Detail: Highest
Aspect Ratio: [4:3]
Antialiasing: 4×
Anisotropic filtering: 16×
Graphics BOOST: enabled
Score = 80.1 FPS

With graphics boost disabled (I think this is like ULTRA mode for the doom3 engine), the score was 102.3 FPS

Please note that will all the above tests, VSYNC and Tripple Buffer were forced on via the nvidia control panel.
I have a reason for that, as I can't stand tearing... and even if it lowers the FPS for the game I'm playing, as long as it's
not teared I'm happy.

Thanks for reading this boring post

If anyone wants me to test something else, please let me know.

XFX Geforce 8800GTX

Yes you read right, I've just ordered one of these mean babies!
The 8800 was released this week, and just like the Geforce7 series before it, nVIDIA have actually got enough cards to put on the market from day one...

Now, my system has got the Intel Core 2 Duo, 4gigs of ddr2-800 RAM, and this beast. All I need is DX10 and VISTA.... and perhaps one of those sexy Dell 3007 monitors :p

For a massive 27 page review of the new Geforce, click here

I might just take the day off on Friday, when my delivery is due from scan.co.uk.

Good Delicious will be updated with the early performance reports :)

FUCK play.com

Dear Customer,

Due to a European shortage of the Nintendo Wii Consoles, we regret to inform you
that Play.com will be unable to supply your pre-ordered Nintendo Wii at launch.
As an Official distributor of Nintendo products we are guaranteed more stock
before Christmas, but Nintendo have informed us, along with all other official
Nintendo retailers, that the console will not be freely available until next
year.

All pre-orders will be fulfilled on a first come, first served basis and we will
fulfil your order as soon as we can.

If you no longer wish to keep your pre-order with Play.com please login to your
account and remove the item from your Outstanding Orders.

Kind Regards

PLAY.COM

Let The Games Begin!

Winter is upon us, and next month Christmas rears it's drunken head...

So what does this mean to Mr A. Gamer? well, first of all days are much shorter and colder, giving you more of an excuse to stay at home all evening in front of the fire (read: computer or console).
Second of all, it also signals the end of the notorious "summer drought" in the games industry. Publishers, for some odd reason, have decided that we don't like to play games in the summer, and as such keep all their big releases for the winter.

Of course, this year isn't an exception. But why do I blog about it this time? well, mainly cos this winter is going to be one hell of a beltzer for gamers. Especially those with Xbox360's. Here's a few of the gems I can think of

Splinter Cell Double Agent is out already, and I've finished it. Great game, very similar to first 3 though.
Call Of Duty 3 is a CONSOLE EXCLUSIVE believe it or not! The videos and reviews look amazing, so have just ordered it for 360
Gears Of War: no comment on this one. Go to GameSpot and see for yourselves. Comes out 17/11.
Yoshi's Island 2 for Nintendo DS. Again, a classic reborn.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic on PC is out already also. Mixed reviews on this one, but I played the demo and quite liked it. Kind of like Hexen:Source if they were ever to make that.
Fear Extraction Point PC

And last, but definitely NOT LEAST, the Wii is out on 08/12 (in Europe, earlier JAP/USA) and that in itself is enough to make me wet my pants. With it comes what is said to be the best Zelda ever made (Twilight Princess), a new Super Monkey Ball (woohoo!), and Red Steel from Ubisoft.

Someone freeze-dry me till then. At least I've got my Eve Online addiction to feed (more about that later).

SoB - A very happy gamer that owns an xbox360 - out.

The Official Windows Vista Packages

Quote:
Designed to be user-friendly, the new packaging is a small, hard, plastic container that's designed to protect the software inside for life-long use. It provides a convenient and attractive place for you to permanently store both discs and documentation. The new design will provide the strength, dimensional stability and impact resistance required when packaging software today. Our plan is to extend this packaging style to other Microsoft products after the launch of Windows Vista and 2007 Office system.
(Gizmodo)

New Wii promotion video

There have been lots of videos (by Nintendo and others) showing you the Wii, how to play, and the games. This is the only one that's worth blogging about.

I challenge anyone who watches is not to want to find more about the machine..... :)

Nvidia DX10 (G80) Details

At last! some solid information about the up-coming new graphics cards for next-generation PC gaming.

Story copy-pasted from DailyTech

DirectX 10 compliant GeForce 8800GTX and 8800GTS headed your way

DailyTech's hands-on with the GeForce 8800 series continues with more information about the GPU and the retail boards. The new NVIDIA graphics architecture will be fully compatible with Microsoft’s upcoming DirectX 10 API with support for shader model 4.0, and represents the company's 8th generation GPU in the GeForce family.

NVIDIA has code-named G80 based products as the GeForce 8800 series. While the 7900 and 7800 series launched with GT and GTX suffixes, G80 will do away with the GT suffix. Instead, NVIDIA has revived the GTS suffix for its second fastest graphics product—a suffix that hasn’t been used since the GeForce 2 days.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800GTX will be the flagship product. The core clock will be factory clocked at 575 MHz. All GeForce 8800GTX cards will be equipped with 768MB of GDDR3 memory, to be clocked at 900 MHz. The GeForce 8800GTX will also have a 384-bit memory interface and deliver 86GB/second of memory bandwidth. GeForce 8800GTX graphics cards are equipped with 128 unified shaders clocked at 1350 MHz. The theoretical texture fill-rate is around 38.4 billion pixels per second.

Slotted right below the GeForce 8800GTX is the slightly cut-down GeForce 8800GTS. These graphics cards will have a G80 GPU clocked at a slower 500 MHz. The memory configuration for GeForce 8800GTS cards slightly differ from the GeForce 8800GTX. GeForce 8800GTS cards will be equipped with 640MB of GDDR3 graphics memory clocked at 900 MHz. The memory interface is reduced to 320-bit and overall memory bandwidth is 64GB/second. There will be fewer unified shaders with GeForce 8800GTS graphics cards. 96 unified shaders clocked at 1200 MHz are available on GeForce 8800GTS graphics cards.

Additionally GeForce 8800GTX and 8800GTS products are HDCP compliant with support for dual dual-link DVI, VIVO and HDTV outputs. All cards will have dual-slot coolers too. Expect GeForce 8800GTX and 8800GTS products to launch the second week of November 2006. This will be a hard launch as most manufacturers should have boards ready now.

Happy Eid

Hello fellow muslims,

Happy Eid. God bless you all. Especially those in Iraq, keep safe please.

SoB.

Hoodwinked

Yesterday me and Kelly watched Hoodwinked, the real story of Little Red Riding Hood.
The movie is CGI which would have looked good 5 years ago (hell, even Shrek looks way better than this), but don't let that put you off!

The movie is very clever, telling you the well-known story of Red and her Grandma and The Wolf, but from each character's perspective, and of course each one has a different story to tell! It's funny, not too long (1:15), and has one of the coolest CGI characters I have ever seen, the goat below who's cursed to sing all the time, and always "comes prepared".

Now for those that do watch it, I'm not saying this is Shrek 2 or Finding Nemo material, it's just a small, independent CGI about what really happened when Red visited Grandma. Download it (DVD rips are around, the movie's been out in the states since last year), and spend one hour of a lazy afternoon watching this. Be warned though, you might end up repeating the scene with The Singing Goat more than once. At least I did :)

SoB out

PS: PACES exam on Friday. No more from me. I want to pass badly.

When Smoking Gets Too Expensive

Kudos to Ali B., who always sends me stupid emails that I ignore. This one is actually funny.

Electric Sheep

is a wonderful screensaver. This description is shamefully copy-pasted from the website, www.electricsheep.org:

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience. You can also design your own sheep and submit them to the gene pool.

I've been using this for a few days and it really is fun. Be warned though that you'll need broadband (or a 100kbit down, 100kbit up) connection to download and upload the Sheep. Otherwise, it's a great screensaver that looks very geeky. Exactly what we geeks like.

SlowMo Team Deathmatch

Remember a while back I told everyone about FEAR COMBAT? The free multiplayer component of FEAR?
I initially didn't really like it. Deathmatches were too quick (a bit like Counter Strike, one or two shots and you're dead), and team deathmatches were just uninspired.

Yesterday though, for some reason (boredom!) I started the game and joined a server that was running SlowMo Team Deathmatch. For those that haven't played the SP game, SlowMo does exactly what it says on the tin - slows everyone down except for you (bullet time if you like) and gives you time to kick some Alma-arse.
The genius of Team SlowMo is that no one has SlowMo to start off with, but there is a SlowMo booster that's in the level. The team who find it must keep on carrying it so that it charges. Once fully charged the carrier can activate it and give the whole team the SlowMo advantage. This causes the other team to move at snail pace, and hence have their arses handed over to them.

Problem is, the carrier of the booster shows on the screen of the rival team as a big red circle, so they can trace him down easily. This, of course, makes the game purely genius.

Instead of just blindly killing each other (ala Q3A, which is much better in that sense), the match turns in to a tense game of cat and mouse as each team tries to gain (and keep) control of the SlowMo booster. There's nothing more satisfying than killing the bastard carrier just as he was about to activate it. Add with this the great FEAR engine that gives you awesome graphics, effects, and sounds; and you're on to a very addictive game that gives a good fresh break from the fast paced and mindless deathmatches we've been playing for years.

So please people, especially those that come to SoB's Kitchen regularly, download the free FEAR multiplayer, install it, and let's have some fun on the public servers.

On How Live is

First of all, 2 things:
1\ The title for this post is a (clever) spin on Macy Gray's album "On How Life Is"
2\ The original Xbox Live! sucked big time.

There. Got that off my chest.

The original Xbox Live! was a total waste of time. You paid a yearly subscription so that you can play a few games online, that were mostly laggy and just generally crap.Come the Xbox 360, and the most important and best feature of it is Live! Let me explain.The 360 Live! is a totally different beast from the original one. While the first Live! was just about finding multiplayer servers, this new one has loads more features.When you first turn your console on, your default profile loads up, and signs you in automatically to the Live! network. Any friends you have on your list that are online at the same time will have a little notification that you're online. You'll also get a little message telling you who's online. Checking your friend's list not only shows you who's there, but also what they're doing at the moment! From watching a dvd, to playing a game (sometimes including their score and status and what level they're on!), or even if they're playing a multiplayer game and whether it's joinable or not.Choose a friend, and you can page them, message them, voice chat with them privately, or invite them to your multiplayer game. You can even join their game if it's joinable.It's a very easy and intuitive system that does exactly what MS promised, put the player in the centre of the experience.

Then there's the Live! Marketplace. Here's where it really shines. The marketplace is a collection of downloads for your machine. Most are free, but some cost points (you buy these for real money). These range from themes for your dashboard, to music videos, film trailers, game trailers, and game demos (most of the game related stuff are free!). Best thing is, the trailers are in HD and come straight from the source. Game demos rock too (right now I'm downloading the demo for the new Sonic - can't wait!).Best thing is, Microsoft is making a HUGE effort at "bringing it home", in other words they're making sure Live! subscribers get the latest trailers/demos from the major gameshows quickly. In May when E3 was going on, there were daily updates for tons of things that you'd normally see on the net from a dodgy hand-held cam perspective. This year, we saw them in HD thanks to Live! Currently, TGS (Tokyo Game Show) is running and again, new demos and trailers straight from Japan to your living room. Great stuff.

And finally, there's Xbox Live! Arcade. Initially dreamed up by Microsoft as the place where the dad's will spend some time on their children's console, the Arcade is a collection of small, old and new games that are spruced up to be released on the Xbox. These games include old classics like Street Fighter 2, Frogger, Scramble, and some new "indie" games like Zuma, Geometry Wars, Uno and so on. There's a good range of coin-op classics, and most genres are catered for. These small games hammer the point that retro gaming is alive and kicking (the Arcade has sold loads since the 360's release), and shows no sign of stopping.Best thing is, yesterday in X06 Barcelona, Microsoft announced that they will be releasing the classic DOOM on Live! Arcade, including 5.1 surround and 4-player online co-op. The game was released world-wide soon after the announcement. And coming soon? the classic Sensible Soccer with original and up to date graphics. I hope it has online play - that would just be a killer.

So there you have it. I love Live! And I think anyone that has a 360 and can hook it up to the web has to try this great service. Online matches, demos, trailers, videos, movies, and loads more. Well worth the £40 a year price.

WWW.ALI-SOB.COM

Yes Ladies (are there any?) and Gentlemen, I am very proud to introduce to you:

www.ali-sob.com!

I registered this domain name very late last night in a sleepless state of mind! Mind you, it was cheap (only £20 for 2 years). Currently, visiting www.ali-sob.com just redirects you to here.
I don't intend (at least not yet) to make a brand-new website from scratch, and will continue to use Good-Delicious as my madness outlet. ali-sob.com will carry on redirecting to here.

So what's the point you say? well, a very important one: alot of my friends keep telling me "oh, we used to read your blog but we lost the address and can't remember it, it's too long" etc, etc. Now, there's nothing easier than remembering ali-sob :)

Spread the word people, and if you want update your bookmarks.

Ali "SoB" :)

Geekiest wedding cake EVER!

Yes, all of it is edible except for the Mario and Peach figuirines on top. How AWESOME? Some guy and his wife are both Nintendo fans, so they got this cake custom made for their wedding. I'm SO jealous :)

Wii European Release Date

Finally Nintendo has confirmed the solid release details and facts for their next-gen offering, The Wii.
In an exclusive press event in London, The Big N announced that the Wii will be launching in Europe on the 8th of December 2006 (14 days later than USA/JAP), and will cost £179.
The package will include the console, a remote + nunchuck attachment, and a copy of Wii Sports.
Included among the launch games will be the new Zelda (Twilight Princess), Red Steel, and Super Monkey Ball among others.

So, it's not too bad for .eu this time :) Even though it's two weeks later than the rest of the world, at least it's not 5 months (*cough* PS3 *cough*). Oh, and it's 30% the price of a PS3 :)

There have also been loads of new trailers/images/etc on the net, as is typical with the hysteria that hits the web when such things are announced. The official website is now open too.

I for one have pre-ordered my Wii from play.com, but will be checking our local game store. If they're doing a midnight launch I'll definitely pre-order from there and go queue at midnight like the geek I am :)

Oh and for those that are gonna slag the Wii off just cos it can't render 1,000,000,000,000 polygons at 1,000,000x2,000,000 resolution, I pity you. You really don't know what you're missing out on, and with such a cheap price, I think everyone should have a Wii :p

Will it do as good as the DS? maybe, maybe not. It has my full support all the way to the end, just like my trusty (and now dusty) GameCube.

Salam