Tonight on may way through Northampton to pick up my son from daycare I saw a man get hit by a car. It was about 5:00pm, drizzling and generally dark out. I was approaching a crosswalk (on Conz St) when I thought to myself “oh, that guy is crossing, I’m going to need to brake here…” and he was hit by a car coming the other way right in front of me. I immediately stopped, put on my flashers and ran to him. I asked him if he was ok, put my hand on his shoulder through his raindrenched light…
LA Noire PC – Review
Video: It’s a port, a straight port but with an extra tidbit or two of settings and smoothing for the graphics. You have ansiotropic settings, and FXAA (x1, 2, or 3). The textures do appear scaled, as in they look as good at 2560×1600 as I remember them being on PS3 but many of the facial textures appear a bit more blurry. The view distance is still very low – you see the fog and blur on anything further then a block away so you don’t quite get the full immersive city feel as GTA. I like the time period…
Batman: Arkham City – Review
initial impressions – very smooth animation. More then anything else I was amazed at how fluid the animation is – when he’s climbing, soaring, or fighting with handcuffs on… it’s fabulous to watch. The graphics are very nice as well, the lighting is a huge improvement, and ambient occlusion is especially apparent with all the dark shadows around. I’m still not 100% sure on the story, there is a lot going on, and it’s all very compartmentalized into a single building for a single purpose, no more so then Asylum was, but it’s more noticeable due to the open nature…
Video Review: NFS The Run
Here is the intro / first levels of gameplay. It’s interesting because (like many NFS games) it’s nothing like its predecessor. Cars control more realistically. It’s still not a simulation feeling, and you’re restricted to bumper, hood, and behind view. I prefer far behind or windshield view (a la SHIFT) but the hood works well enough. 360 controller worked out of the box. It controlled more like the older games, which is a good thing compared to the latest Hot Pursuit. You can’t go full speed into the corner counting on a powerslide to save you, but it’s still nowhere…
Elder Scrolls Skyrim: Review, Screenshots, Gameplay Video
I wasn’t expecting too much from the latest Elder Scrolls: V Skyrim (Sky-rim) and I was pleasantly surprised. At first I noticed a big degredation in quality… as in half the textures were up to par for the full resolution of 2560×1600 – many were not, most notibly the objects and inner textures. I swear they took some right from oblivion (Elder Scrolls: IV). However, if you put on 8X AA it fixes it. 2X and even 4X was stretching it, and FAXX didn’t seem to do much at all, shadows and transparent textures (fences, brush and greenery) were the…
Gadget Security – Watch your Back
Your passwords could be stolen remotely – think over the shoulder with a digital recording sniper scope… or off reflections. It’s certainly already been available to government agents for years now, but it’s almost more powerful out int he wild. It is only going to get harder and more inconvenient to access your device given the steps that need sto be taken to protect yourself from something like this. You may think it’s a little far fetched but as these devices hold more and more important / personal / financial information about us, getting full access to them is well…
iCEnhancer 3.5 for GTA
I had installed EFLC 1.0.7.0 on the new system trying to eek the most out of the updated configuration. It all looked great, but after playing a lot of BF3 and watching the GTA V trailer it’s looking dated. I wondered why the quality didn’t look quite like I remembered… then I realized I hadn’t installed iCE! There is even an updated version 3.5 that appears quite recent, potentially spurred by the announcement of GTA V. In any case I was ready to give it a go, installed it over my 1.0.7.0 version but it didn’t like it, it crashed…
Comcast Data Usage
So what is the deal with the network data usage meter on customer.comcast.com? Last month I was trying to get the end of month surge to use up the last of my allowed quota. I hopped on like the 29th and it was already to a new month. I checked my billing date and it was the 28th so it appeared it all got reset. However this month I plan for the billing date which starts on the 29th and today I am still racking up data for October! How can I stay under if it’s not predictable. So now…
Video: IGN – Battlefield Tips
I watched this prepared to be all snarky but it had some good info… for people who have never played Battlefield before. It does bring up a good point about not getting in the helis/jets if you don’t know how to fly them. It’s just common courtesy. In any case if you’re wondering why you keep getting kicked, or want to point some noobs in the right direction, check this out: More Battlefield 3 (Limited Edition %2D%2D Physical Warfare Pack) Videos
Battlefield 3 Review
…impressions at this point, I’ll elaborate further but here are some goodies: Gameplay Video: Screenshots: things to note: things breaking (not servers), animation, jump / prone slides, vehicle sounds, directional audio, graphics, comparison to beta things breaking (servers) – c’mon, first day! Performance – Ultra, full, 2560×1600 – +60fps dips below 60 under pressure, but hardly
The History of Battlefield #FUEA
My trepidation with EA only extends to the most recent versions published by EA – they exited before them, much like EVERY OTHER fabulous game that has since been snatched up. I’m so glad Rockstar managed to push them off. Here is a history of Battlefield – 45 minutes, a documentary of game footage, history, and the evolution of graphics and gameplay. Thank you Gamerspawn. (oh yeah, F u EA #FUEA – I hate that you control my favorite games)
EA Trumps a Big One
EA is bordering on a national incident citing “A Korean VPN” as being the reason for opening up Battlefield 3 to Origin players “early”. They have complete control to stop the servers at any time, this is complete and utter manufactured BS. Just say “we want to drive a whole bunch of impatient people to purchase another copy from Origin so they can play now” and don’t be so shady about it. They had games scheduled for 11PM EST in the feeds – “Launch Party” so it’s no secret. This just adds to the ire people have for EA. They’re…
RAGE – First Impressions and Review
First impressions: Setting – Fallout 3 Story – Fallout 3 Jumpsuit – Fallout 3 Enemies – Fallout 3 Hunters – Fallout 3 Mutants – Fallout 3 Textures – Fallout 3 Wasteland – Fallout 3 Vehicles – a plus FPS Mechanics – a plus Control – a plus So just hopping into it briefly I get much the same feeling as I got with Fallout. Everything is a mess, and there are many reused textures. It’s hard to make a post-apocalyptic world. I don’t deny that. However – the mechanics of the shooting was uniquely id. It felt like no other…
New David Guetta – Titanium (ft Sia)
Fabulous track off David Guetta’s new album. Check out David Guetta – Titanium (ft Sia) on Spotify or if you’re mobile you can check it out on YouTube. I’m surprised there’s no official video for it yet, or if there is it’s completely eclipsed by all the covers, acoustic or otherwise.
The Best Drag Race – Quarter Mile with 11 of the top Sports Cars
They turned it up to 11. I was surprised by the results.
Game Review: Off-Road Drive **updated**
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…