Category: Blog

GT4 Offline

Bit of a shock – GT4 has been an online game for PS2 since it was first announced. Now comes the news that to meet a release of this Christmas the online component has been dropped with an online GT released next year…some time. This is a good move – online gaming on the PS2 is pretty lame compared to the Xbox and PC. The GT4 prologue I played at Graham’s earlier this year promised lots – I just hope there’s a bit less emphasise on improving and tuning your car. For me this makes the game unrealistic and ultimately dull.

Europe Win the Ryder Cup

Colin Montgomerie has just holed the putt thats clinched the Ryder Cup for Europe. For the first time I’ve listened to golf on the radio (5 Live) and it’s…..difficult. It’s time’s like this that Sky is tempting. £99 for Sky+ and a monthly subscription to Sky Sports for £33 is making my mouth water but I hope the feeling will pass over the next few days.

Back to the golf – a fantastic win for Europe although the Americans looked out of sorts not helped by some odd pairings on Friday. It looks like a late night for me as I catch the highlights on BBC2.

Spread Firefox

Looks like the browser wars are back. Spread Firefox has been launched to promote the Firefox 1.0 preview release. Even the previous owner of the domain firefox.com has handed it over. Using Firefox is a joy compared to Internet Explorer, but I can’t see them overhauling IE. It really is only the geeks and the tech-savvy that are using Firefox at the moment – it will be a while before the average user downloads Firefox and understands the difference.

Magnificent Seven

What a player Larsson is. Great to see him back in Scottish football playing better than ever. In all honesty the better team won – if the game was judged on the first 20 minutes of the second half then Celtic could feel aggrieved but over the 90 minutes they were outclassed. At least there still in the Champions league!

One year on and what a difference a year makes. I’ve said elsewhere that McLeish would be out by November – I now think he’s one dodgy result away from being shown the door. The real poser is this – who could replace him and do any better?

Burnout for Real

Been playing Burnout over the weekend and apart from connection issues it’s a class game. This video from America though looks like Burnout in real life. The police try 3 times to take him out and each time he managed to regain control. The scary part is that the police tried to take him out in fairly heavy traffic – what would have happened if he hadn’t regained control?

Scottish Pairlament

So. First reaction to above is that I’ve spelt it wrong. Nope – it’s taken directly from the Scottish Parliament website. Clicking on ‘Scots’ to the left of the site takes you to a Scots welcome page.

We hae producit a publication cried “Makkin Yer Voice Heard in the Scottish Pairlamentâ€? that tells ye aboot the different weys that you can let the Pairlament and the Memmers o the Scottish Pairlament (MSPs) ken whit ye think.

Bloody hell. I think it’s bad enough we have to put up with Gaelic versions of sites and the Gaelic TV that we have to suffer but this is taking the piss. Also added are some spiffy new video’s for each of the MSP’s. All filmed in the new parliament building and lasting just over 4 minutes for each MSP, Tommy Sheridans is worth a watch just for the line on how he prefers a Tory as although he dislikes them at least he knows what they stand for unlike the Labour party. Class. If he wasn’t a buffoon and the policies he stood for added up economically I would consider voting for him. Would never carry it out though. Not with that suntan.

I never actually realised that there was a Holyrood.tv website where you could watch most of the parliament debates live. The server is fast and quality is good. Watching first ministers questions from last week shows just how much the SNP had Jack McConnell on the run.

Star Wars DVD

I’ve finally given in (to the force) and ordered the Star Wars trilogy. Amazon will deliver on the day of release (20th Sep) but the chances of it coming that day are slim. Digital Bits has a review of the box set and also screens of some of the changes that are in this release.

It’s a pity the DVD release didn’t take advantage of branching to allow the original and these updated editions to exist on one disk. The tampering Lucas has employed with the originals does not, in my book, make the films any more watch able. Indeed some shots just look wrong when mixed in with the new effects. More fool me for buying them. But I’m looking forward to seeing them – it’s years since I’ve watched them in full and I’ve a week off at the end of September. Perfect.

Burnout 3

Burnout 3 is out this Friday and it looks like an essential purchase. I’ve been playing it since yesterday (from the usual sources) and although I haven’t sampled the online modes, single player is superb – the best Burnout yet.

Now that EA have taken over publishing it’s easy to see their influence. EA Trax supplies the music and there’s some good variety including Ash and Franz Ferdinand. The structure of the game is also similar to other EA Sports games with lots to unlock and a real polish to the front end and general presentation.

In game graphics are great and the sound is used to good affect. You can easily tell from which side your being attacked from. What surprised me is how aggressive the AI is – the computer controlled cars really try and take you out – much more so than previous games. It’s also quite challenging even on early rounds which is good.

What I can’t wait to try (and why I need to buy it this Friday) is the Live racing. It promises much and it’s the first game online where you can’t complain when your rammed of the road as that’s the name of the game. Fun with a capital F (cheese!) and hopefully no lag.