Game Reviews: Halo 3 ODST

I have to say when I first started the game with a couple of players I found it kinda crap. For those of you that are sitting down for the first time to play this game with a couple of friends, be prepared to be dropped into the deep end. The hints that the game drops such as "find a medical kiosk" can be rather unhelpful as it gives no lead to where the kiosk might be. But this is fair enough because if it handed that on a plate to you and everything else in the game there would be no challenge.

The graphics are no different from Halo 3 so consider this as a massive expansion pack which, by the way, isn't really worth it. Halo 3: ODST is set just after you see the massive ship jump within the vicinity of the city in the original "Halo 3" game.

The aim of the game is to regroup with your squad using the various clues that you find along the way, which put together the storyline piece by piece. Going into the "Fire Fight" mode that has been so badly over rated, there's a definite let down in programming and internet connections. What I mean by this is that in Halo 3 if anyone in the game disappears, the game carries on and a new player is nominated host. In ODST, this isn't the case. If a player drops out, the game ends completely, losing any points you may have gained. Going into the Multi player mode, there's no real difference, other than the fact that Bungie are so kind to give you every single Halo 3 multi player map, even the ones from the mythic map pack, on a single disc...So for those of you who went out and spent your money on Halo 3: ODST, Bungie AND Microsoft have pretty much just laughed at you.

Final Thought Byte : Final thoughts huh...? My final thoughts on Halo 3: ODST are that it is a good idea, it gives you a better insight into ANOTHER life inside the halo story...Ultimately, those of you that don't like ODST, or NOW don't like ODST (lol), do not trade in the game as the "Halo Reach Beta" is due, and we all know that NO ONE wants to miss that. Hopefully Halo Reach will NOT, repeat NOT, be anything like the previous games.

Tags : Game, Halo 3, ODST, Review

Google Wave - Preview

We finally got our Preview invites to Google Wave, and to be honest, we aren't that impressed... yet.

We said before that we really liked the concept of Google Wave and that it had the possibility of becoming huge. The idea is that people communicate through one medium, which is highly customisable and flexes to your every needs. Waves are essentially strings of communication in the google sphere, where two people can add and remove people to any particular wave. This wave can be used for any purpose and can be augmented with a plethora of extensions and gadgets.

In this pure form, Google Wave sounds awesome. In practice though, Google have gone a bit too far with the Wave ideology. The interface is nice, but for some reasons you manage your invites, settings and profile through waves themselves. There is no "core" to Google Wave, nothing which you can differentiate as your preferences. This feels really alien and most people won't get it. Contact management also feels clunky. The current invite system lets you invite 20 people to Google Wave, but once they get invited the flawed integration with Google Contacts means that your contacts list will often screw up...simply put.

The use of www.appstore.com as the centre for google extensions feels a bit...odd. You would think that Google would integrate it directly, maybe make a special extensions page within Google Wave itself. The ideas of robots are cool too, they are effectively pieces of code that you can add to a wave for a certain function, such as translation. Unfortunately, you have to add these robots directly to your contacts list, instead of a separate list for robots and extensions.

A lack of email integration at the moment means that people can't use it full time. Once it becomes "backwards compatible" with e-mail, people and companies can start using Google Wave as a new communication tool. A lot of problems have to be sorted out before Google can say it's finished and some ways I feel that they have opened up the Preview way too early. I can understand that they want us to give feedback and build the future of Google Wave with us, but the hype was so high that people were expecting something close to being polished. People were expecting to help make tweaks, as opposed to suggesting massive changes to the whole system.

Final Thought Byte : In essence, Google Wave is a nice idea, but it's badly implemented so far. There is a complete lack of manageability. I can understand that Google is trying to explore and exploit the Wave ideology, but there is a limit to how far you go. We will keep a very close eye on Google Wave and keep everyone updated.

Tags : Google, Wave, E-mail

Medal of Honor Airborne

First things first, it's a Medal of Honor game. It's spelt wrong, it's probably historically incorrect and the Nazi's only ever have one thing say ; "Ich Habe!". That pretty much sums up the whole series, and Airborne is no exception. Graphically, it's not too bad. It's built on the UT3 engine, unsurprisingly, which gives it that sort of...shiny-but-in-the-wrong-place look. For some reason anything that has highlights will look completely wrong.

Putting that aside, however, Airborne did surprise me a little. The first mission is pretty straight forward. You land in a small Italian town and you kill a load of Nazi's until you win. There is only ever two types of objective, the first is where you blow stuff up, and the second is where you kill Nazi's and then blow stuff up. All in all, pretty simple gameplay. The storyline is your usual Medal of Honor thing. You follow a 'historic' campaign where you blow things up in the hope that you start feeling all patriotic and anti-German again. I swear the US government just forced EA to keep making these games so that they can convert those filthy "Nazi-Lovin' Bastards!" into outstanding citizens. Or maybe people just think its fun to kill Nazi's...

By far the best part of the whole game, after running through a little Italian town, Nijmegen and reliving Operation Varsity , is right at the end where you single handedly blown up the 'Flak Tower'. At each level a new opposing Nazi AI is offered to you as sacrifice, each with his own gun and one liner. Instead of having a mix in each level, EA has opted for a clone army to descend upon you. At the end it just gets silly when you're trampled on by a shit load of elite Nazi's with massive machine guns that chop you to bits. I must admit though, hiding around the corner and killing the lot of them got my heart pumping for a little bit.

There are other perks to game that make it different to most WWII games. Firstly, of course, is the whole jumping out of a plane thing. In a couple of the missions it will go through a whole rigmarole of killing off a few of your buddies and in the last mission the whole plane just explodes. Secondly, whenever you die, you get the jump out of a plane again. This means that you can start the mission in any place that you want. It makes things a little bit more interesting, and according to EA, more difficult for the AI. I just think that's their excuse for coding it in badly. As far as I can see, the AI for MoH Airborne is just as shit as the original.

That said, the game doesn't exactly have a lot of longevity as a single player game. Gone are the days when games like Halo or Fable were released, where you could play for hours everyday and still not get any closer to the absolutely epic ending. Considering that games cost millions to make, you would expect more than a couple of hours of interesting and original game play. So when you buy this from your local shop, don't expect a game that will keep you interested for more than a week.

Final Thought Byte : It's not a bad game, per se, just a bit unoriginal. If you like shooting Nazi's, then you might as well buy it. It wont make you go 'ZOMG WOW!', but it will fill your Nazi killing desires.

Tags : EA, Medal of Honor : Airborne, Nazi's

GRID Revisited

With the arrival of FUEL, Codemasters new racing game, and a possible patch for GRID on the horizon, we offer our thoughts on GRID a year after our first review.

Essentially, the game is the same. Since our last review, however, I have upgraded my rig and can actually play GRID on max settings. Last July I tried my best to emphasize how graphically stunning the game was. Now playing at full resolution and having all the options turned to max, the graphics are still jaw dropping a year on. We shall see how FUEL fairs up to the standard that GRID has set.

In terms of gaming advancement, GRID does not really pull anything new out of the magical top hat. Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2 was the first driving game to look truly realistic, something which GRID has done but something it hasn't really improved on. Don't get me wrong, it looks amazing, but it isn't the first time that we've been amazed at how cool a game looks. When GRID was released, the idea and implimentation of PhysX , artificial real time physics calculated by the GPU, was still fiddly at best. You will still see bits flying off cars, but they might not land correctly or just get stuck in the road pointing straight up. These physics glitches are common, but not something to be worried about when you're driving into things at 200mph.

The gameplay hasn't changed in the last year, obviously because there haven't been any patches. It's a very very simple racing game. You get in your car, you drive, get money and buy new cars. There's no tuning, no tweaking, just simple driving. Which, for most of us, is a recipe for 'kick ass'. For most gamers, GRID will be about relaxing, not having to think and just flowing with the road, choosing the right racing line... and trying not to crash.

The online gameplay, however, has changed quite a bit. A year on, the original people that played the game have gone elsewhere. Suprisingly though, you will still find a dozen games to join. The majority of sessions seem to be the Bridgestone Championship, but sometimes you will find a GT1 race or even a couple Japan Drifts. Unfortunately, I can guarantee that you'll be shouting "Fucking crashers!" at your monitor within 30 seconds. A huge majority of players on GRID these days tend to be from a country you've never heard of and speak a language you can't even begin to understand. That's not so much of a problem, because during races you can't type and there is no voice support, however they do tend to crash into you for fun. Everynow and again, you may find a group of good drivers which will give you a good race, and these can generally be found in smaller sessions. This leads us to the conclusion that huge sessions with 10 or more players is a situation you want to avoid like the plague.

Final Thought Byte : The conclusion is fairly simple. Without a single grain of doubt, GRID is still a good game. If you just want to relax and drive around in a car that looks cool, go down to your nearest shop and pick it up for a few quid. The new patch may bring a few improvements, but I really doubt it.

Tags : FUEL, Codemasters, GRID, GT3

How can Spotify be legal?

For those of you who don't already know, Spotify is a UK based company which provides people with the means to listen to any song ever made...legally.

Now lets put aside the obvious legal issues that this may have and move straight onto a quick review of the application itself. After signing up to the free service, where you don't even have to give your name, which we assume is to protect potential customers in the possible event that Spotify is sued, you get greeted by a very sleek looking application. The first thing you will notice is that Spotify looks like a darker version of iTunes. In terms of usability, it fairs well against all the other major media players and easily outshines Windows Media Player.

After using it for about ten minutes, I am very impressed. It is very easy to search for your favourite artist and to make a playlist of your favourite songs. Of course, nothing in life is ever truly free. The only drawback to this 'free' service is an ad every once in a while, but only one advert. Considering that Sky channels, which we pay in excess of £30 a month, has adverts every 15 minutes, it's not bad. The quality of the music is also very good, I can't actually tell the difference between my own Linkin Park Meteora CD and the songs streaming over the net from Spotify.

So lets talk legalities. First things first, how can a company let people stream any song for free and only have a few ads. Conventional radio stations play a few select songs, play lots of ads and are practically crippled with having to pay for royalties. So what the hell is Spotify? Is it regarded as an internet radio station or does it pay a lump sum every year to the record companies? I would be inclined to go for the latter option, simply because it explains why adverts are minimal and the premium subscription is tiny.

Is it too good to be true? Probably.

Final Thought Byte : IF you haven't rushed off the sign up to Spotify, click on the link and do it now! All we need now is a version for the iPod Touch.

Tags : Spotify, Internet, Streaming

Gears of War 2

I have to say, what an epic storyline. It kept me gripped all the way through, with the fire fights, new enemies and a very emotional storyline.

The loss of some characters make you get emotionally attached to "Marcus Fenix" the main character in Gears of War. Although these guys act all tough, you learn that this is, in fact, a hard outer shell. What I liked the most has definitely got to be the storyline, the cut scenes that lead through the game are really worth watching...unlike metal gear solid 4's hour long cut scenes ¬.¬

If you were to ask me do I recommend this game my answer would be a definite yes. There are some things that put it down, for example the game practically gives you the path all the way through and practically points out every switch you need to push. But apart from that I would give Gears of War 2 a good 9.5/10 as there are a few elements missing but they can soon be ignored because of the awesomeness of the characters and the storyline.

Final Thought Byte : Gears of War 2 is a good game if you like constant action. If you don't, but wanted to try Gears of War 2 anyway, my advice is do it, try it out because you never know if you're going to like it or not.

Tags : Game Reviews, Gears, Of, War, 2

Vista 64 still crap...

Some of you probably saw my status update complaining about Vista 64. I spent 5 days trying to fix it, with new hardware since last time and a lot more patience. Unfortunately I got the same problems. As soon as I tried to use Nvidia's graphics drivers, the whole thing would burst into flames and complain bitterly about things not working.

Generally speaking though, it didn't burst into flames as quickly as the other time. IT just sort of...stuttered, stopped working, tried to correct itself and then limp along for a bit before it finally gave up. Like I said in the previous review on it, Vista 64 is a steaming pile of crap due to it's inability to actually work.

Unfortunately, I can't track down the reason to why it refuses to work. My gut instinct tells me that there is a problem in the way that Windows Update installs drivers for things. IT probably downloads really old drivers and starts replacing bits for the graphics drivers, which is a really bad idea. There is no way to fully reverse these updates, which basically leaves you with a difficult choice; chuck your graphics card or chuck Vista 64.

Final Thought Byte : Essentially, Vista 64 is useless. It might work for some people, but for others it will be money wasted. Like I said before, stay away from Vista 64 unless you are positive that it will actually work. IF you really want 64-bit computing though, just wait a couple of months until Windows 7 gets released.

Tags : Microsoft, Vista, Windows 7, 64-bit

XFX Do it Again

This review has been in our archives for months now, ready to be rewritten and released. Some of you, but probably not many, may have read our review on the XFX 8600 GT. When it was released, it was a mid to high specification gaming card, which was further boosted by XFX's superb manufacturing.

After using it for over a year, and giving it to my brother, my original XFX 8600 GT blew up. When we were doing a review on GRID we noted that the card had a tendency to run hot. It seems that it wasn't just GRID that was the problem, the design of all the 8600 GT's, regardless of brand, seemed to have major cooling problems.

So, in light of the fact that my card was going down the drain, I decided to try and buy a card for around the same sort of price. Luckily, Ebuyer had a sale on and I was able to get the XFX 9800 GTX+ Black Edition for £145. In effect, this card is a triple over-clocked version of the 9800 GT. In terms of performance, it easily outperforms any ATI card for the same price. Unlike the mid performance 8 series, the 9800 GTX+ is a dual slot card with a huge cooling unit. Under load it barely reaches 40 C, unlike the 8600 which would often reach up to 90 C.

So straight from the start, it was going to be a great card. The installation, however, was a little tricky. Due to the immense size of the card, in terms of length, width and height, you need a case with plenty of room. You also need to make sure you have two 6pin PCI-E power connectors and at least a 600 Watt power unit, anything less will choke your whole system.

In terms of playing games, the 9800 GTX+ performs well. The only game it has problem with is GTA IV. For some reason we can't see any performance boost between the 8600 GT and the 9800 GTX+, which leads us to believe that the game is crap, or that our CPU is choking the frame rates. In a couple of weeks we'll be trying to install Vista 64 again, which should open up the dual core potential.

Final Thought Byte : All in all, the XFX 9800 GTX+ is a great card if you don't feel like spending a fortune on the new 200/100 series cards. It does not match nVidia's new 295 GTX, but it will beat most of the new 100 series cards. It's also not far off the 9800 GX2. Stay tuned for a follow up review on how the XFX 9800 GTX+ Black Edition runs under Vista 64.

Tags : XFX, 9800 GTX+, Vista 64

Army of Two

The review this time round will be on the game "Army of Two". This game is focused on co-operative play which means you can play either with an AI player or with one of your friends.  The game starts off with a really good opening, which you can play through. 

If you're playing on your own, at the start of the game it will ask you which of the characters you want to be (not going to give details of the characters because that would be a spoiler). If you're playing it co-operatively, split screen or online with a friend, then there isn't a chance to choose who you want to be. But that doesn't matter anyway as both are just as good as each other, just with different armour. The basic training for the game is "alright" to say the least. The reason I say this, is because it gets the job done, but its not exactly enjoyable compared to some training sessions like...Call of Duty 4 perhaps. But anyway I didn't buy the game for the training session, that would be stupid. The beginning of the game (including the training sessions) is actually the title sequence of the game, in the way that you play a level and then you see the title appear. 

The levels are long, sometimes hard, but amazingly fun. I bought it about a week ago and played with a friend, him and I started playing at 10pm and didn't finish until 5:30am the following morning. That's how much the story and gameplay keeps you gripped. There's lots of action, a good story line and as you progress through the game its like you get to know the specific character that you chose to play. 

One final think I am going to comment on are weapons and the customization. To start off with...a spoiler...well it will be to those of you that haven't played it..but is there ANY need for that stupidly-overkilling-exscuse-for-a-weapon minigun?! Seriously you take it into the game hold down the fire button and everything in its line of fire is gone. That's not really fun is it? The whole idea is to be tactical, subtle and to get the job done...Not be like the heavy from TF2 (although he DOES get the job done). 

Final comment though on the customization. Again a spoiler so don't read if you don't want to. I think this is one of the best features of the game, the way you can customize almost everything. You can customize your primary, secondary and special weapon as well as your armour. This is a pretty cool feature of the game. 

Final Thought Byte : My final thoughts are that this game is a brilliant game. Most reviews will tell you that this game is rubbish, and it's not worth buying. To be honest, I thought it was bad but then I went out and bought it myself and I have to say, its something else. This game also caught my eye because it is purely co-operative play and there are proper tactics involved.

Tags : Game Reviews Army of Two

Game Reviews - Assassins Creed

Okay, well this is the first entry I have actually done for this blog, and I am going to do a games review of Assassins Creed. I have played through, and completed, Assassins Creed twice now and I have been able to form very strong thoughts/opinions on this game.

To start off with, the beginning...Obviously. The beginning of the game is not really clear. By this I mean you start as the character, Altair, and you don't know where you are. then you appear in a village, with someone saying "we've got a problem" and "Devon, just relax" and you think to yourself "my goodness whats happening to me?"

The world is flashing around you then all goes quiet. This is where you wake up in a laboratory...and that is as far as I am going to go with the beginning of the story line. There's a lot of talking which can render the user bored. Pressing the "A" button changes the camera angles...well pressing ANY button changes the camera angles.

After you lie down on the "Animus" you can look left and right...Imagine you are going into the Matrix but based on a memory, this is the REAL start of the game. First bit of the game is the tutorial. This is somewhat weird as you're not in the laboratory, nor are you in the world that you're supposed to be in. Instead you are in a tutorial world. Follow the tutorial as you would any other game.

Now to move onto the gameplay its self. The controls of Assassins Creed are pretty simple but in a time where you have to utilise them quickly, it can be tricky to recollect them. The gameplay is based in three cities, Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem as well as a huge area in the middle called the. After the three of them...they all look the same, theres nothing really unique about any of the cities involved. The way you physically move through the game starts off like the cities, exciting at first and then boring for the rest of it because theres simply NOTHING DIFFERENT about it.


The end of the game, lets be honest, is rubbish. There's a twist yeah...but (spolier coming, stop reading now if you don't wanna know)...

...all there is, is two scientists walking out of the test room you're in and then you're left to your own devices, which is a bitch because you want the lead credits to just end your game but no, you're left to find them (on the wall in the bedroom you sleep in...in blood :/).

Final Thought Byte : Final thoughts on this game are that it is alright if you are extremely bored and are looking for something to do. I wouldn't go out and spend a high amount of money on this game (which is why I bought it from CEX for £12.00).

I would probably give this game 4/10 because it is repetitive, boring, but strangely fun in some ways

Tags : Games, Reviews, Assassins Creed, Lemon of Reconciliation

Google Chrome

So I've been using Google Chrome for about two months now, and I must admit that I'm impressed. So much so that I've actually started recommending it to my friends, who are also impressed.

Generally speaking, Chrome is like a simple version of Firefox. The interface itself is simple, effective and it makes sense. Much like Firefox and IE, Chrome has tabs. The best thing about them, though, is that you can tell Chrome which tabs to have open when you start it up. That means if you want to see your e-mail, look at the news and search the internet all in one go from the start, it's possible. Not to mention that Chrome takes full advantage of the Vista Aero theme, which means it does everything and more in style. The options are also pretty simple which makes it easy for people to switch over from IE or Firefox. The simplicity of the whole browser is a testament to how much work that Google have put into designing it. It works so perfectly that there is no need for pages and pages of tick boxes and text fields under the preferences tab. Everything is already tweaked to get the best possible performance and security that it would be a real shame to let people totally screw it up.

Although the interface and the options are simple and possibly sparse, it does not mean that the browser is just Firefox with a pretty face. The browser itself is much quicker and safer than all the other major browsers and it hardly uses any resources. Which is great for everyone because we all know what it's like to run out of RAM whilst surfing the web.

Chrome also seems to be less fussy about security than all the other browsers. It won't keep asking you whether you actually want to see a website, but it will stop you if it knows that you are going into an especially dangerous area. As opposed to slowing you down and asking you lots of questions, it's smart and adapts itself to your own unique way of browsing the web.

The only issue I have with Chrome is its customizability. Although there is no need to mess around with the way it looks and works, there is no option for you to change the colour scheme or style. Similarly it does not cater for plug-ins and extra little tools that made Firefox such a big hit. You certainly notice the explosion of ads on your screen, but considering that Google makes most of its money off adverts, it's not surprising. That means we'll have to wait until adblock plus comes out for Chrome, but it's not really a big thing. Most people tend to just ignore ads anyway.

Final Thought Byte : All in all, Google Chrome is a very good browser. Its a shame that Mozilla didn't keep going with the things they achieved with Firefox 1.5. I guess that's just life though. You win some and you lose some.

Tags : Adblock, Browser, Chrome, Firefox, Google, Internet, Internet Explorer, Tabs, Vista

Death Magnetic

Death Magnetic, wow. That's all I really have to say.

Well actually, I should probably say some more. When I first listened to this album I was on a 8 hour ferry journey to La Havre on my way to Spain. I was in a cramped reclining chair sharing a giant room with crying babies and irritating French people who refused to stop rustling newspaper near my ear. So, to get away from the horror I decided to listen to Death Magnetic, which I had picked up a mere 6 hours earlier on the 10th of September 2008, the release date.

My first impressions weren't great. Being totally smashed from the journey to Portsmouth and having very little sleep, I was not mentally prepared for what Death Magnetic really was. The first time through was agony for me. It was like being mentally born again.

However, once I listened to the album again, I appreciated how you really really need to stick the volume up to understand the album. The songs aren't really songs, which is why there are only 10 songs in the album. They are more like epic events of pure metal. Once Metallica brings you through their traumatic re-birth, your whole idea of metal will be forever change.

I think in many ways, this is something that Metallica was aiming for. After St. Anger, they knew that they had a lot to make up for. One of the biggest attractions of Metallica is their ability to change, adapt and innovate in every new album. With the help of their new bassist, Robert Trujillo, the band has really moved forward and redefined themselves. The album starts off very well "That Was Just Your Life". There is a definitely musical theme going through the whole album, however, which makes listening to the album in one session very difficult. However, the pinnacle of the album for me was Unforgiven III. Once put together with Unforgiven and Unforgiven II (From the 'black album' and 'ReLoad' respectively), the story of James Hetfield unfolds. After the troubles shown in "Some Kind of Monster", the Metallica docu-movie, James Hetfield has created a song which almost concludes the story told in Unforgiven I and II.

Final Thought Byte : As a whole, the album is awesome. Metallica really have recreated the Metal genre and they have succesfully grasped back the minds of the millions they lost after St. Anger. Although the album is difficult to appreciate the first time round, it is deffinately worth adding to your music collection.

Tags : death, James Hetfield, magentic, metallica, Unforgiven III

Overheating, Overclocking Frenzy

The nVidia 8600 GT is the cheapest , and one of the best selling high performance cards on the market. It has been described as "the best bang for your buck" graphics card, however this legacy is about to come to an end. The 9600 GT has specs that are very close to the 8800 GT but at a much lower price. But, with the new Geforce 200 series coming out, will people be skipping the 9600 GT and going straight for the 200 series equivalent?

After 10 months of hardcore gaming, my XFX 8600 GT is still doing very well. In an earlier blog I mentioned that GRID was causing heat problems with the card, but that is the only problem I have really had. Bioshock has also caused artifacts to appear after 3 hours of play at full settings, but that was fixed with an extra case fan. Over clocking, however is not a good idea. For a card that is already very hot, over clocking will just mess up your system.

The performance of the 8600 GT is good enough to keep up with most new games, but it will soon become heavily out-dated. The new nVidia PhysX drivers are rumoured not to support the 8600 GT, which means the card will not be able to keep up with new games that come with full PhysX features.

Final Thought Byte : So what does that mean for those of us who bought the 8600 GT for gaming? It means that we'll probably have to wait till the new year deals to pick up a cheap 9600 GT, or a new 200 series card. But, if you're looking for something to keep you going till then, you can pick up a 8600 GT for about 50 quid.

Tags : 200 series, 9600 GT, Bioshock, Computer, games, Nvidia 8600 GT, PhysX, Race Driver : Grid

There's Blood everywhere!

When I first picked up Genesis Rising I thought it would a normal space flight game, something along the lines of EVE, but without the ridiculous monthly fee and irritating tutorial voice. I was , however, completely and utterly wrong. The game is more like a space based strategy game, like a cross between DarkSpace and Starcraft.

What makes the game really weird is the odd focus on the Universes most precious resource : Blood. The tutorial takes you through all the basic skills needed to fuel and upgrade your organic fleet. As you play the game you get more access to ship types , ship upgrades and weapons from bloody carcasses.

The interface is bog standard and the widescreen feature doesn’t quite work properly. It’s bearable, but it could do with some tweaks. The mouse cursor is also way too slow for the game. These common pitfalls, however, are made up by the graphics. They’re at the same sort of standards as EVE, but with more spectacular planets. They aren’t top of the range, but they aren’t bad compared to some other games.

Final Thought Byte : We’ll see how this game pans out before giving it a rating.

Tags : blood, DarkSpace, EVE, games, Genesis Rising, space, Starcraft, universe

El Orfanato, scorchio?

Ok, so maybe I'm being a bit stereotypical when it comes to the Spanish. (See the BBC : Fast Show)

My girlfriend came over last night after work with two pizza's and a copy of The Orphanage. We thought it was going to be some lame American ghost movie, but we were wrong. Instead, we got the Spanish version of a Sixth Sense and The Others hybrid.

Now, I haven't exactly seen many Spanish movies, and if I didn't know better I would be saying that most foreign movies are badly scripted and badly acted. The Orphanage, however, has superb acting, a great script and very good camera work. I was on edge throughout the whole movie and even jumped once or twice despite having to the read subtitles.

As you can probably imagine, the film is set in Spain. The main character, Laura, is an orphan that grows up and returns to buy the old decrepit Orphanage 30 years later, where she is subject to broken limbs and pulled nails when she gets chased by a child in a mask during the house warming party. The plan was for Laura to re-open the orphanage and to look after special needs children, but the disappearance of her adopted son (who is terminally ill) shatters her dreams and drives her a little nuts.

After about an hour of freaky encounters with ghosts, ghost hunters and dead bodies, the end comes bearing a clever yet understated twist. I won't share this twist, because you should watch the movie yourself.

Final Thought Byte : The Orphanage is a movie well worth watching if you don't mind reading subtitles. The storyline and acting is consistent throughout and can really draw you into the horror action. This movie should definitely be put next to Day Watch and Night Watch in the "Good Foreign Movies" list.

Tags : El Organato, Horror, movies, Sixth Sense, Spanish, The Orphanage, The Others

Power that GRID? You got to be joking!

Race Driver : Grid is like GT3 with a university degree in "kick-ass". The only problem though... is that anyone using a keyboard will find themselves spinning round in circles.

To add to the difficulty of the game, you'll also need a top of the range PC to play it properly. My tests (well...observations) have shown that Grid has a tendency to put a massive load on graphics cards and causes them to get really...really hot. The temperature of my 8600 GT was getting up to around 100 C and more. People with mid-range rigs will be experiencing much less detail, a forced max screen resolution of 1280x800 and a lot of hangs throughout loading , races and even the menus.

But, if you have a Xbox 360 wired controller plugged into your top of the range Quad Core, 9800GTX SLi power house with Nvidia's new PhysX drivers installed, you'll be laughing your socks off in pure enjoyment. The game starts by putting you straight into a race where you only have to finish in your overpowered Dodge to get your Rookie License. After you complete the race, your "manager" gets you to raise enough cash to start your own team. Each race gets you reputation points , which you need to gain new licenses and sponsors for your team and every time you finish a season you get the chance to race in the 24 Hours Le Mans.

The graphics are probably the best out there in terms of driving games. I haven't seen any Need For Speed games come close to the attention to detail that Codemasters put into Grid. One of the best features of the game is the ability to manipulate instant replays and to use "Flash Backs". On the easy mode you'll get 5 flash backs per race, which means you can screw up 5 times and still win the race. The instant replay is also good for viewing some amazing near misses in slow motion.

Final Thought Byte : With superb physics and graphics, Grid is definitely a game worth considering. But most people will be really pushed to play the game at it's full potential, whether it be a hardware limitation or a talent limitation.

Tags : Codemasters, Driving, games, GT3, Nvidia 8600 GT, PC, Race Driver : Grid

You made Vista cry...

Well, actually Vista nearly made me cry. You'd be surprised how hard it is to actually update a PC...

It all started about 3 weeks ago when I ordered a Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB from Dabs. From what I read in Tom's Hardware, this piece of kit was meant to be super fast and more reliable than other hard drives out there. After waiting for over two weeks, the package finally arrived. Installing a new hard drive is pretty easy, you just have to slot it in , put a screw in and attach the power and SATA cables. The hard part comes when you try to install Windows Vista Home Premium 64.

I had bought Vista 64 about a month ago hoping to upgrade the whole PC. Vista 64 is meant to be able to handle over 4 Gigs of RAM and it's also meant to make your computer a whole lot faster. Its a shame Microsoft forgot to say "Vista 64 only works if you have a lucky horseshoe nailed to your motherboard". After doing 4 clean installs of Vista 64 and getting massive problems with a file called “nvlddmkm.sys”, I eventually gave up and installed the 32 bit version.

Trying to go to a 64-bit operating system is a bit of a hit and miss affair. My brother, who had bought a Dell, upgraded to vista 64 without a problem. But if you have the slightest hardware compatibility problem , everything will break and overheat. The most common problem with trying to install Vista 64 seems to be something to do with the RAM and your BIOS. This will cause problems with graphics and it'll stop you from connecting to a wifi internet connection...at the very best.

So all in all, don't even bother upgrading to Vista 64-bit unless your 100% sure that your PC can take it. In fact, don't even bother installing Vista on a computer that hasn’t come with it as standard. One good thing about this whole experience, other than having spent £70 on a piece of software I can't use, is that the Hard drive is very good. You'll get something like 695 GB after formatting, and that’s not bad for just under £70. It's a little noisy when its reading/writing on full load, but that can't be avoided with high performance hardware.

Final Thought Byte : Upgrading your PC isn't as hard as it seems anymore, but if your unlucky it can be just as frustrating . Be sure to make a checklist of things to download and install when upgrading your system, whether it be extra drivers or a new BIOS. Always do your homework before fiddling with the innards of your metal pet...

Tags : 64-bit, Computer, Microsoft, nvlddmkm, Samsung, Spinpoint F1, Upgrading, Vista