Don’t get me wrong, I love driving games. I love offroad, I loved Dirt and all its successors, they finally made Rally racing fun for me. Off-Road Drive on the other hand is the most frustrating “racing” game I’ve ever played. I got stuck in the mud repeatedly, and not like “oh, just spin your wheels and get out…”. No, it’s a “simulation” so I’m going to simulate getting my truck stuck in the mud. Thereby, I need to make sure I’m in low gear and I have the right combination of differential and slip on which tires and… It…
Going back in time…
I once had a whole archive of everything I had ever typed to my blog. I lost it in an unfortunate disk accident with my hosting provider. I never did get it back since much of it was never pulled into Blogger’s servers. Once they converted to the new template everything pulled and I was able to import that here, but that still only brought me back to 2008. I had set up Synthetic-X.com in 2001 – October, probably about now. There was a lot going on in my head after 9/11 – but I wanted to wait long enough…
Battlefield 3 PC Beta
Here is some great information about the new engine (Frostbite 2) that powers Battlefield 3. Battlefield 3 Blog: Frostbite 2 Engine Presentation It is very impressive in demos. The Beta does not quite realize the quality of the demos, but there is some clipping and collision that needs to be worked out. You can still lay prone halfway into a wall, for one. There is a small list of fixes already slated but overall it’s very true to the original. I have it running at 2560×1600 max and I’m not seeing anywhere near the quality of the demo videos, though.…
Remix: Foo Fighters – White Limo by Prodigy with Instrumental
This was posted by Prodigy, apparently Dave Grohl wanted him to do one. There’s no download, but you can find it elsewhere or figure something out if you try hard enough. Foo Fighters – White Limo [The Prodigy remix] by theprodigy
Dead Island – Not Just Another Zombie Game – PC
Dead Island immediately draws you in, from the opening cinematic you’re the guy (or girl). It’s all first person, boozing and abusing, falling down drunk and groping… finally passing out in your room… amongst some odd attacks and blood splattering around you. When you finally wake you’re in your room, but everything outside is in shambles. At first I thought there was a little too much collecting – suitcases all over have a couple bucks here and there, alchohol, med packs, and random bits of seemingly useful objects (rubber hosing, glue) are scattered all around. It’s fairly easy to collect,…
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
My initial impression: Looks ok. It seems like another Duke Nukem where the idea and gameplay were ported from their 90s originals, but their roots are showing in these sequels. There is lots of details (papers, coffee mugs, detailed computer screens, interaction with faucets, etc) so far in the first level but I notice a different level of textures between objects, people, and the surroundings which breaks the otherwise immersiveness of the story and camera work. The “cover” is awful so far, but I think that’s primarily due to defaults conflicting with my mouse configuration but I never seem to…
Videos: Lady Sovereign
Been a while since I heard this chick – saw it while scrolling through itunes so looked up the videos: Lady sovereign-love me or hate me (SVCD) by CaMGuY Lady Sovereign – I Got You Dancing (Official… by wonderful-life1989
SplitSecond PC – It’s Almost Too Exciting
My initial impression of the game was that it was way too arcade for my tastes. I saw things blowing up, and a bunch of sliding around the “racetrack”. My first impressions weren’t too far from that. It’s an arcade racer, there’s no denying that. You can’t really focus very well on driving well when stuff is blowing up all around you. You end up veering left and right and taking your chances with spinning out to avoid the explosions of which will get you… if you’re close enough, so you just try and stay far enough away even if…
The Witcher 2
Some screenshots to start. Things I want to get into – graphical glitches (patch 1.3) – control / camera – why can’t I jump on this stump? There are two pictures of the puddle. I’m not really seeing it in the screenshots but his foot went through a 2D puddle and I could see his foot clearly underneath the puddle on the ground… not a big deal, but make sure all the ground around something is higher then the plane of the puddle. To be fair it’s at the start of the game, so hopefully they got better with the…
iCE for Grand Theft Auto IV and Episodes from Liberty City – Up Your Realism
I am a big fan of Grand Theft Auto. I’ve had every one since the original top view on PC. It’s not that I like stomping on babies… I just love crashing cars. I like demolition derby games too, so the added story and other tasks just make it all the better and with GTA III onward, I love the real word feel to it. You can just as easily drive along with traffic as weave through it trading paint with all the cars along the way. It’s always the best test of new hardware, and when a new one…
La Casita Azteka Menu – Easthampton MA – #WesternMA
We love La Casita Azteka in Easthampton MA – it’s great food, but we didn’t really feel like going out with our son, it was already late and we had entertainment plans for company. We decided to do takeout but don’t know enough about mexican food to know what we wanted without looking at a menu. I took to the internet but there was none to be found. I took it upon myself to make it available to my fellow Western MA ers. So behold: straight from my 8mp cell, even with the glare they should be high enough quality…
How Amazon’s App Store Gives Away A Free App Everyday
If you run android as a mobile platform, you undoubtedly are aware of the Amazon App store. They burst on the scene offering Angry Birds Rio and the promise of a free paid app every day. They delivered on that promise, but at what cost to developers? [read more at shiftjelly.wordpress.com]
Pandora RSS Feeds
I’m going to be adding my Pandora stuff to the Music page. I need to set up a separate template for it so it uses a different set of widgets: Now Playing: http://feeds.pandora.com/feeds/people/josh2159/nowplaying.xml My Stations http://feeds.pandora.com/feeds/people/josh2159/stations.xml?max=10 My Bookmarked Artists: http://feeds.pandora.com/feeds/people/josh2159/favoriteartists.xml?max=100
Dirt 3
If you’re a fan of racing games I highly recommend Dirt 3. I had a ton of fun with Dirt 2 – and it gets better (for the most part) with 3. Plus: + Graphics + Level Design + Better AI then Dirt 2 + Better Reward / XP System then Dirt 2 + Integrated YouTube to upload replays Minus: – The control feels a little looser then Dirt 2 – More arcade feeling IE: If you lose a tire, you should not be able to go another 3 laps and finish 3rd Overall I’d recommend it, but don’t pay…
Crysis 2 DX11 Pack Now Available
Crysis 2 DX11 “Ultra Upgrade” Pack Now Available! From NVidia’s GeForce.com When Crysis 2 hit stores on March 22nd it became Crytek’s first multi-platform game to be developed solely by their studios throughout the world. Because of the level of work required to ensure that all three versions of the game were equally as good, Crytek ultimately ran out of development time, preventing them from implementing planned DirectX 11 features before launch. Post release, the studio’s developers were free to focus only on the PC version of the game, and so for the past few months they have been beavering…
Get Yourself An N-Control Avenger
Check out the N-Control-Avenger On Facebook, like them to win one this weekend! http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-N-Control-Avenger/162468090457709 It’s an amazing controller add on for your 360, also works when using a 360 on Windows since it’s actual hardware appurtenant. They’re giving away 2 controllers for Facebook fans if they make 2500 likes by midnight on Sunday! If they get 500 followers on Twitter they’ll be giving away 2 to their twitter followers as well. Sign up on both for a chance to win twice! Also they’re running a Black Ops Annihilation DLC contest. Best voted video of the Avenger being used in game!…
Video: Receipt Racer
For when you absolutely, positively want to analogally digitally waste paper! Maybe you could cut them into a notebook after? receipt racer from d_effekt on Vimeo.
Beginnings
My first foray into being on camera, we’ll see how this goes… **Update** Ok, that was truly a case of nerves. I wasn’t all that nervous until I saw the woman in front of me do it. I was planning on a basic how do you do and maybe some pictures but I jumped right into taping some Q&A for the promos. The next time I’ll have a little more preparation and should be able to roll with it a bit more, was hoping to be a bit more natural about it.