Author: iandick

The Nanny State

There has been a one sided assault on video games today. The game Manhunt has been given as a likely cause in a fourteen year olds death. The parents of the murdered boy have said that the game was played by the murderer – in fact he was ‘obsessed’ about it. Their logic is that the game should be banned before there are any more deaths.

My main beef is that it’s an 18 certificate game. The victim and murderer were seventeen and fourteen. Why were they even playing the game? Why didn’t the parents take an interest before the tragic events took place? Did they even know what their kids were playing? Current research shows no link between video games and violence. Same for DVD’s and TV. Yet tonights news cast a long shadow over video games and their influence on kids. The issue should be parental responsibility and taking an interest in what their kids do.

More laughable is certain companies response to the situation. Dixon Group and Game have both removed the title from the shelves. Well done. This game has been out on the PS2 since last November and on the Xbox & PC since April. It was an average game, sales were OK’ish but the market for that game had long since died. I’d like to see both companies now take that stance with any future 18 certificate games. Like GTA3:San Andreas. Go on guys, ban that one. Yes – ban the game that is likely to sell the most this year hence make the most money. Not likely, is it?

Holiday…what holiday?

Well, I’m on holiday this week but I’m looking forward to going back to work next Monday for a break. Since Sunday afternoon I’ve painted the garage doors and side door, painted the garage guttering, painted the back garden gates and fence, painted the front garden gate and painted half of the kitchen ceiling. Tomorrow will be the other half of the ceiling and a start on the walls. Also cut the lawns and did some weeding. On previous weeks off what exactly did I do? Ah yes….gamed for the week. If only.

Still enough time to beat some PGR2 times though 🙂

IEBlog

It had to happen. The IE dev team (newly re-created again after thinking they had sewn up the browser market) have a blog. Looking at the list of popular requests, it looks like most folk want Firefix bundled with XP as the default browser if the feature list is anything to go by.

People want people to download Mozilla Firefox

It also looks like the dev team have a sense of humour.

6 Months In

Well, Tuesday 20th July marked 6 months since we moved into the new house. Even though it’s been a bit of a slog, and financially it’s a lot more stretching, it is most defiantly the best thing we’ve done – the last 6 months have been great. Neighbours are very friendly and a total opposite to what we had before which on reflection wouldn’t be difficult. Seeing someone shoot-up on the landing outside the old house was the last straw. And I don’t miss the Friday and Saturday night drunks that used to annoy every week. And goodbye Orange Walks – never again will I have to put up with your bigot driven strolls down Argyle Street while the hangers on piss all over the pavements.

I’m even enjoying the garden 🙂

Picasa

Got lots of photo’s? Want to try and manage them? Don’t want to spend cash (Mr Lawrence jumps to the front of the queue)?. Try Picasa. Google have bought them and the software for the moment is free. It was linked off the front of Google but thats now gone – probably the number of downloads. Free software equals flies round shit.

It works pretty well and is nice on the eye. Abobe Photoshop Album 2 is nicer in my book with slightly better feature set…for the moment but it does cost…allegedly. Free edition of the Adobe product can be found here with slightly reduced features.

The Beast

dell
It’s superb.

The PC arrived on Thursday, although not without a wee mix-up. I got a Glasgow Uni machine and they got mine. But Dell and TNT got the mix-up sorted by mid-afternoon – bravo. I unpacked it and faced another little problem – it wouldn’t start. Boo. All was not lost – the Dell has four lights on the back – the first two were amber. Checked the manual – memory problem. Probably unseated slightly during transit so I opened the case. Wow. The case swings open on a hinge which is really smart – what got me was the size of the heatsink and chimney that the Intel uses. Massive. I removed and replaced the memory – pressed the power button and all was well – I took some photo’s while the case was open which can be found here. While the case was opened I fitted the firewire card from the old machine as the Dell comes with 8 USB2 ports but no firewire which the iPod needs. Clicked the case shut (no screws here thank you very much) and I was away. Got the Windows formalities out the way. Impressions – very fast.

Got the XP security downloads started and I thought I would need to dig out the Nortons disk before I did anything else but the Dell comes with a 90 day trial of McAfee which is a really good idea. No need for a firewall as I’ve got a hardware one on the router. Next was Firefox – don’t trust IE. Loading times were superb. The last test was gaming. Battlefield Vietnam looked amazing and didn’t stutter once. Joy!

Since then I’ve been installing all the hardware I’ve got and also some software – not too much. Trying to avoid the clutter that I had on the old machine but thats really delaying the inevitable. I’m also glad that I stayed away from a Creative Audigy card. The onboard sound is pucker 5.1 and all I need. There’s also a strong chance that it’s less buggy than the Creative drivers.

Overall, I’m very impressed with the Dell. Easy to maintain, fast and a tad less noisy than my old machine – it fair churns out some heat though. Last positive note – no blue screens….yet.

 

Psi-Ops

One of the most refreshing games in a while is Psi-Ops on the Xbox (& PS2 but you want to see it in all it’s glory, don’t you?). I’d heard nothing about this till I seen a review in Edge. A quick download later (overnight) and I was playing. What a game.

In some ways it looks like a derivative 3rd person/1st person shooter with a bit off plot. However the twist is the Psi powers that your character can use. Pick up and throw objects, enemies, see through walls, walls of fire, see objects that aren’t visible to the naked eye and mind control. Add to this a superb graphics engine and you’ve got some nice gameplay moments that haven’t really been seen before. The game uses a modified Havoc 2 engine and has physics to die for – a real taster for Half Life 2 later this year (I hope).

Definitely worth a buy although a couple of reviews say it plays quite short, although that is no bad thing – just not got the time to play games that I used to.

GTA San Andreas

Not confirmed, but the rumour is the following songs will feature in the game…

Salt’n’Pepa – Push it
Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby
Inner Circle – Bad Boys
KLF – 3am Eternal
Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing
Poison – Every Rose Has It’s Thorn
Guns’n’Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
Smashing Pumpkins – Today
NWA – **** Tha Police / 100 Miles And Runnnin’
Snoop Doggy Dogg – Gin N’Juice / Ain’t No Fun
Warren G – Regulate
Fugees – Killing Me Softly
Coolio – Gangsta’s Paradise
Public Enemy – Rebel Without A Pause
The Stone Roses – Fools Gold
Happy Mondays – Step On
The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony
Radiohead – Creep

Ouch – what a line-up. Roll on October.

The Beast…part deux

opt316pic1
I’ve been after a new pc for the last few months. Picking up Battlefield Vietnam and watching it jerk (oo-er) while on it’s lowest settings was just too painful. I didn’t even pick up Far Cry as I knew it would be a pointless experience. I had resigned to getting a base unit only, probably from Evesham and probably costing around £1100 give or take a few pounds and features.

Then I got a tip off from King Arthur. He used the Dell Outlet Site to pick up a bargain pc. I stalked the site for the last week or so and on Friday finally bit the bullet and picked my new pc. 3.0Ghz Pentium, 160Gig Hard disk, I Gig of Ram and a 256 Meg Radeon 9800XT. £800. Class. Oh – Windows XP Professional as well. Hopefully should be here within the next fortnight. Now…what to do with the old one. I’ll probably use it as some sort of media storage/server. It’s a bit noisy so may have to try and quieten it a bit.