Archive for October, 2007

Portal

Sunday, October 14th, 2007


It’s time to think with portals! This game has been a huge surprise for me. Who would of though a puzzle game could creep you out, threaten the life of your character and actually care. It is not the best game I played so far but it’s an experience everyone should go through.So I finished the game in just under three hours and a half, and there are still a few bonus maps and challenges to complete. But I can say this game is worth it’s price (when included inside The Orange Box). Even it’s $19.99 stand-alone price would be worth it. The game is not funny, it’s mind boggling a reflex intensive. The story starts out at the Aperture Enrichment Center, you go through a series of test that grade in difficulty. At first you think it’s going to be very linear and you get hints that something “fishy” might happen at the end of the test. The unexpected happens and the game adopts a totally new setting.All you have for yourself is the portal gun, it allows you to open two portals that are connected, so when you pass through one, you exit on the other. You’ll have to handle cubes, gun turrets, deadly goo and energy balls. This game is close to perfect, short and precise. The end theme song is priceless after you’ve been through the game. Expirence it yourself.

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Transformers: The IMAX Experience

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

Transformers: The IMAX ExperienceThanks to a  contest at The Movie Blog I had the chance to win a pair of tickets to see The Transformers in an IMAX theater. My impression of the movie hasn’t changed much since my last review, but seeing that movie on a 6 story high screen is sensational. There is also a few minutes added to the IMAX cut, mostly a dialogue here and there, some where funny, others unnecessary. The DVD will be released on October 16th so don’t forget to pickup this amazing summer blockbuster. It’s a nice action movie! Not bored one bit to see it again!

One fun fact; IMAX promotes themselves like crazy before the movie. Showing off with lasers, soundmix and everything. It’s the equivalent of HD for theaters. If you never seen something in IMAX theaters I think Transformers is a nice one. But just picture Beowulf in 3D!

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Vista Is Just Fine

Saturday, October 6th, 2007

While listening to the latest TWiT, it was brought to my attention that the world seems to hate Windows Vista. That is not just coming from technology personnalities like Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton. A few weeks ago, I heard a friend from work saying she is shopping for a laptop but doesn’t want to have Vista on it. Again, on a totally different occasion, someone saw my Vista laptop and asked me if Vista was a “shitty” as everyone says it is. A recent blog post written by Don Reisinger threw me off  when the writer claims that “Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself“.

The idea of have Microsoft withdraw an operating system that comes on a wide number of new PCs is utterly stupid! I’ve been using Vista for months now and I can’t complain about it, of course there are minor performance issue (that is if you’re running XP hardware). The price for upgrade is steep, especially for the Ultimate version. But that is no reason to stop innovation, the old formula of if it works why change it can’t always work. Do you really want XP to still be there in 2010? When you are pushing the technology forward you spur up innovation, programmers have to work with new structures and all. More then ever there are nice alternatives (Linux and Mac OS) and now is the perfect time for Windows to show they too can do something different and try to make the best of it.

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The Orange Box

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

For some stupid reason I’ve dedicated myself to Valve games and enjoyed playing Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One, since then I knew there would be three episodes and I would have to buy these games down the line to enjoy the complete story. Fair enough, the next chapter has been delayed for quite some time now and is set to be released next week on October 10th.

The Orange BoxI was extremely pissed off when Valve cancelled the release of The Black Box that would of included Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The games I don’t already own and would gladly purchase. However now there is only The Orange Box that includes these three games and the two I already own. Every game site seems to tout it as a great deal, and price wise it’s really good. I’m sure if you’re out there and never played those games you’ll have your money’s worth of playtime. Valve has an other clever idea for their marketing, since you don’t need these games twice you should/could give them to a friend that hasn’t played these games 2 years ago. Upon release I’ll be able to send a code to a friend so he can get these two games. The thing is if he really likes it, he’ll probably end up buying The Orange Box and get stock with two copies of those games too. I would of like better respect from Valve and at some point I wanted to vote with my dollar, make them understand how wrong it is. I just wonder what will happen when they reach the end cycle for Episode Three… will they create a new bundle to rip off their loyal contributors? I believe they had the right method at first with The Black Box, but were corrupted by evil and let money get to their heads.

I’ll finish off with my appreciation of the purchase of the game via Steam, since you need the thing running anyway to play their boxed games why not get it online. It was a few clicks and hop they got money through PayPal. The games are associated with my Steam account and through a nice pre-order discount I saved a total of 16$ compared to what my local Canadian retailer would of charged me. I consider this my first digital purchase and I think it might grow on me…

Expect a review soon, if you never played those games before look-out for massive give aways in the coming weeks, not from me – but from all the ones buying this bundle across the globe. Half-Life 2 made a kind of revolution in my gaming life with a solid story line and cinematic value action adventure.

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PSP Slim – 10 Days Later

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

I must get all my due for being right about the PSP redesign, a lot of people said it would come. It has been in the rumor stage for months and was confirmed earlier this year at E3. The only thing is that the world had to wait until September to get their hands on it. When it comes to Sony gaming products I’ve been a fan of their redesigns and can say that for the PSOne and PS2 found my money well invested. When it comes to portable gaming I’ve never been a huge fan of it. I mean, the last thing I had is the original Game Boy, I had three games for it; Tetris, Donkey Kong and Pokemon Blue.

PSP-2000 Ice Silver

The reason I conveinced myself to purchase a PlayStation Portable is because of the games. I wanted to play Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. I want to enjoy God of War: Chains of Olympus and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core coming out next year. The price was good and the money was there. But after 10 days I can say that I haven’t got a lot of time to play with it (to play at all; remember Bioshock… not done yet).

The PSP still has some nice games coming it’s way and the developers seem to have a nice hold of it’s technology. The package I purchased came with Daxter, a Family Guy UMD and a 1GB Memory Stick. It’s still a bit pricey but I would never trade that for a DS Lite, despite the price difference, I want some serious gaming on my handheld, otherwise I’d rather just play with what’s on my phone.

Just in case you’re still wandering, the new PSP is slimmer and lighter. It has apparently a brighter screen, and thanks to a decision made by Sony, all PSPs will be able to access the whole processing power of the device. This way developers will be able to push the games a little further.

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