Mirror's edge review

Just finished Mirror's edge. One of the few video games with minimum violence.
The concept of the game is to avoid using firearms of any kind. Some successful games in the past followed this concept, but they were aimed mainly at stealth. Avoiding detection. (Metal Gear, Splinter Cell, Thief: The dark project)
This one is different because you don't try to hide your tracks, you just try to run away.
The feel is very smooth. It gives you a sensation like watching a Jackie Chan movie. It's very fast paced: You climb drain-tubes, jump-off roofs, balance on flag polls. The game is a lot about fast response, and timing. For example when a bad guy tries to shove you with a gun stock, you have to press the disarm button the precise moment to effectively avoid being hit and disarm him. There is also a bullet-time button at your disposal, and many combinations of acrobatics.
The cut-scenes are animated and awesome, the gameplay is fresh, graphics are cool. Just don't try to play it without the latest patch. At some points it's unplayable.
Also if you get stuck and don't know where to go next, the hint system works very well to show you the way.
Only problem is that it's short. But no-one stops you from playing it again to beat your own score.

Photoshop Mutations - Bulb Head

You know how in comics the hero has a bright light bulb on top of his head every time he gets an idea?
Well that's the real-life version on it.

I'm not too happy with the shadows, but it's an early experimental pic. I might revisit and make a better version some time.
Next I'm going to try the clothes-no-body manipulation. I'll be the invisible man.
Stay tuned.

Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box Review

One word: SUCKS!
Allow me to contemplate:
I absolutely loved the first 3 Playstation versions. I almost bought a PS2 just to play burnout. So now that finally a PC version came out you can imagine my excitement. All that went away just minutes after installing and jumping in my first car.

Of course there's no story, no need for one anyway, but the game just dumps you in the middle of a boring city and if you want action you have to drive around to find it.
This was firstly done in Need for Speed Underground and it worked great. It gave the player a sentiment of freedom. BUT in NFS you had stuff to do. You had a linear story, performance upgrades, you could fool around with the looks of your car to customize it in sickening detail, money you earned helped you buy stuff and pay fines, plus you had cop chases.

In BP none of that exists. You don't get BP just to have another clone of NFS, you get it for it's uniqueness. Well that's gone too. That thrill of the race with the boost and the crazy speed and the speed blur? gone. The crash mode from burnout 2? Yup. Gone. The game has nothing that reminds you the first instalments of the series.
At least is it playable? No! The car physics are so dumbed-down that it's more arcade than the arcades. I didn't expect a driving simulator, after all, in the past I didn't enjoy Colin Mcray games because they were too hard. But this, this feels like it's 1995 and I'm playing Sega Rally again.
And what about the menu? It's a nightmare! you have to press F1 & F2 to navigate to various menu categories, with an added delay between each screen just like on a freakin' console. Sometimes keyboard navigation doesn't even work and after you press frantically the enter button several times, you drag the mouse and click the enter button.
The only points that I did like were the graphics, and the car models that get smashed pretty nicely in slow motion. Unfortunatelly those advantages are not strong enough to make me like the game.
Another bad thing is that it doesn't convey the feel of the speed properly. I'm driving flat out with a fast car and it feels like I'm on first gear. The fact that it doesn't have a speedometer doesn't help either. I was fighting my way through the menu to change a setting or something and get a speedometer, and I noticed paradise bikes mode! Another joke! Whoever developed that, never rode a bike in his life!
Yikes! Uninstall, throw the disk away!

Upgrade time!

It's about time I upgrade that machine of mine. It's vintage by now. I've had it since 2003. It can't run any of the new sweet games. Ahh.. the sadness...

Because of a very short budget, I can't go crazy on the specs, but at least it will be something I can live with for now and maybe upgrade it more later.

My first choice of CPU was the AMD athlon x2 6000+, but intel nowadays gives you more juice for your buck so I think I will go for the Core 2 Duo E7400, E7500 or E8400.
So that settles the "which socket?" question. LGA775 it is.
Moving on to the Motherboard, I definitely want performance, but on the other hand I'm not gonna go crazy on overclocking, so there's not much point in getting a high-end mobo.

Now for the "which brand" and "which chipset" questions:
I really hate MSI for that lame KT6 VIA they made. It sucked big time and I was stuck with it for 5 years.
Abit closed-down, so that leaves me with Asus, and Gigabyte. At this point I got lucky because I really wanted the P45 chipset, but could only afford the P43 for around 75 euros, and then I found an Asus P5QC refurbished, with the P45, at the price of P43!
Sadly it only has 6 months waranty, doesn't include any cables or manual, (or anything else beside the board), and I don't even know if it works, but what the hell it's cheap.

So what's missing now is a GPU and some dimms.
For the GPU I'm thinking a second-hand 8800GTX, or a 4850 ATi.
I don't care much for the dimms as long as they're DDR2 1066Mhz. Later-on I can upgrade to DDR3 since my mobo supports both.

Best games of all time

Which are your all-time favorite video games?
Here's my list of the best of the best.

Adventure

• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992)
• Sam and Max: Hit the Road (1993)
• Day of the Tentacle (1993)
  
• Full Throttle (1995)
• Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for sail (1996)
• Lula: The sexy Empire (1998)

Simulation

• Grand Prix Circuit (1988)
• Comanche: Maximum Overkill (1992)
• SimCity 2000 (1993)
• Screamer (1995)
• Creatures (1996)
• Subculture (1997)
• Carmageddon (1997)
  
• Theme Hospital (1997)
• Interstate '76 (1997)

First Person Shooters
• Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
• Doom (1993)
• Duke Nukem 3D (1996)
• Quake (1996)
  
• Shogo: Mobile Armor Division (1998)
• Half-Life (1998)
  
• Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear (1999)
• Call of Duty (2003)
  
  
  
  
  

Arcade

• Double Dragon (1987)
• Golden Axe (1989)
• Star Wars: Rebel Assault (1993)
  
• Worms (1994)
  
• Desert Strike: Return to the Golf (1994)
• Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994)
  
• Raptor: Call of the shadows (1994)
• Metal Slug (1996)
• Grand Theft Auto (1998)

Strategy

• Command & Conquer: Red alert (1996)
• Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far (1997)
• KKnD (1997)
• Incubation (1997)
• Dark Reign (1997)
• Starcraft (1998)
• Company of Heroes (2006)
  
  

RPG
• Fallout (1997)
• Fallout 2 (1998)
• System Shock 2 (1999)
• Neverwinter Nights (2002)

3rd Person Shooter

• Metal Gear Solid (1998)
• Max Payne (2001)
  
• GTA San Andreas (2004)

Call of duty

That's it. My numbers are up. I'm off to to serve the country.
I was drafted to join the special forces. My training will be tougher and more interesting than regular army. I hope that I'll learn a thing or two and hopefully get beefed-up on the process.
I'll try and post photos of me and my M16.
The registration day is on 11 February and my service lasts 12 months. It would be kinda hard to keep my blog updated as there are no PCs nor internet connection inside the camps.

Must... post....

It's been a long time since my last post. A lot have happened:

I managed to finish my dissertation and not only I earned my MSc Networking Professional, but my dissertation will get published and presented in a security conference. A guy can brag right? I even went back and had my graduation ceremony. Gown, square hat and everything.

On other news, I finally got my shiny new bike. I ended up with the Aprilia Strada. A wise choice I must say.
Last but not least, I found a job: Technical customer support on Altec Telecoms. I guess my life starts to get on track. The salary sucks, the shifts are ok, but at least I get work experience and some pocket money to get-by until the day I join the army.
I'll post some stories of the funny calls I had from times to times. 90% of the users that call are totally dumb...

Greece on Fire!

Unless you live in a cave, you probably have heard about the fires that burned-down more than half of the country this summer.
For the people who do live in a cave: The situation got out of hand. More than 170 fires in total, and 60 new ones just yesterday. Death-toll is 60 and rising, with hundreds wounded. Almost all of our majestic forests turned into ashes, and now even the national heritage area of ancient Olympia is threatened by the fires.

Our prime minister Kostas Karamanlis declared state of emergency, while neighbouring countries are sending help with fire-fighting aircrafts such as the BK 117 helicopter, and Canadair CL-415 water bomber.

I feel anger and sadness when I think of the extent of the damage. mountains and forests where I used to climb and go camping in my youth are now gone, and will probably never grow back. You see, in Greece, everything evolves around money. Everyone want a nice luxurious villa on the mountain with a breath-taking view. However, it is illegal to build anything inside, or within specific distance of a forest. The work-around is 4 simple steps:

1. Burn-down the forest. Make sure it's summer and windy so that it's very difficult to extinguish it.
2. Wait until next year, and burn it down again, to wipe-out any chances of natural reforestation via pine-cones, seeds etc.
3. Put a fence around the area that you want to build, then wait for a few years until the land is considered yours. (Some weird Greek law.)
4. Now all you have to do is sell it between friends, 5 or 6 times, until it gets registered in the national cadastre. That's it! You're ready to build anything you want!

Disgusting. People die, entire species get wiped-out, whole families are found charred, for what? For some rich guy to build on the top of the mountain and pretend to be king.
Then winter comes around, the rain starts, and without trees to hold the water, floods plague the country. And then we have even more deaths.
I'm angry. I'm pissed-off.
The government will offer 1 million euro (£678,000) as a reward to anyone who helps arrest the arsonists. I say kill 'em. We need to set an example. Let them burn on a stake or something.


I wish I was in Greece so I could join the above protest. One might argue that protests don't make any difference. Even if this is true, it's good because it shows that we still care. That we're all united. Don't forget that elections are coming on the 16th of September. What will you vote for? The same 2 parties that we had in power for ages? Nothing ever changes.
Maybe it's time to start voting for the Green ecologists parties.

Blaaah

I predict that my posts are going to be a lot less frequent than normal, in sight of the looming dissertation deadline on the 21st of September.
I'm supposed to write 15,000 words on the subject of replacing the standard alphanumeric passwords with a graphical password system. Don't ask. It's complicated.

Here. Feast your eyes on my dissertation experiment:

All video-game playing is put on hold until I hand-in the damn thing. I've got Colin McRae DiRT ready to go, but I have to control my urges and go cold turkey, otherwise I'll never make the deadline.

Also, some exciting new changes that happened in my life lately, will most likely keep me occupied. Change is always welcome right? In this case you bet your ass it is.
Life is damn good!

Video-Game Junkies

Apparently video-game addiction is about to be officially recognized by the American government as a medical condition.
This made me think: Am I a junkie? When did I first started playing video-games? How many have I played?
I don't worry too much for my health, I don't think I'll overdose or something...
However, a 28 year-old gamer died after playing starcraft for over 50 hours non-stop.
Are video-games evil?

LoveFilm Promotional code

Free DVD rental anyone?
I got here a promotional code from LoveFilm that will give you 30 days free trial instead of the usual 2 weeks. The code is: RAF96
What's in it for me you ask? Well... if you decide to become a paying member, they'll give me 30 days too.
They'll probably ask you for your friend's email, so remember:
SuNbLoCk(at)hotmail(dot)com

Yamaha MT-03 VS Aprilia Strada

After a lot of thinking, I ended up in those 2 final contestants: the Strada, and the MT-03. They have the exact same engine, minus some differences in the tuning.



Aprilia Strada
Advantages:
Convenient tank-top compartment, Lightweight, advanced instruments, greater range, More horsepower.
Disadvantages:
Less torque, more expensive, electrical parts hard to replace, expensive parts, re-sell value drops dramatically.

Yamaha MT-03
Advantages:
Great design, More torque, Less fuel consumption, Cheaper, Easier to find parts?
Disadvantages:
No fuel gauge, lack of instrument functionality.

Moto Day-Dreaming

When I'm supposed to be studying, I get bored. When I get bored, I day-dream.
Once I go back to Greece I'll buy my new shiny motorcycle and hopefully do some long road-trips all around Greece. I've been thinking for a long time now which bike would best suit my needs: maneuverability, light-weight, low fuel consumption, good for trips as well as city commuting. Great acceleration speeds would be nice, while top-speed doesn't matter much as long as it's at least 160Km/h.

The final contestants are the following:

• Honda CB600F Hornet
• Yamaha FZ6
• Yamaha MT-03
• Yamaha XT660X
• Kawasaki ER-6N
• Kawasaki Z750
• Aprilia Pegaso Strada
• Suzuki GSR600
• Triumph Speed Four
  

I can't decide! I want them All!! Here are some specs:

Geocaching. The hunt is ON!

Weee! My first GeoCache is now active, live n' kickin'. You can find details about its activity here.
If you got no clue what I'm talking about, read all about GeoCaching.

Curse you Royal Mail!

Stupid royal mail, they never deliver special deliveries to me. They always leave a card stating that they couldn't find me. How do you expect to find me if you don't knock the freakin' door? This time I left a message tapped to the mailbox:

Dear postman,
I don’t live inside the mailbox.
Pretty please with sugar on top, don’t leave a card saying that you didn’t find me. I’m one floor up, in flat 38. I’ll be there all day. I don’t bite. I Promise.
If you leave a card, I’m gonna have to go to the central office the next day, and a lot of innocent kittens will die. Save the kittens. Deliver the parcel!

Bike Upgrade

New toys for my bike!
I bought a new bottle-cage, kickstand, brake levers, and gear shifter:



It took me about 3 hours to install the gear shifter and adjust the gears. It's a pain-in-the ass job...

Global Environmental Day

Take part in the Mend of the World 05.06.07

Mini Cycling Adventure

Took my bike and went for a test-drive expedition around peak district.

My initial goal was to reach the Redmires Reservoirs, but stopped at Ringinglow because of severe rainfall. Although I had a waterproof poncho with me, the ride wasn't that fun anymore. The trip lasted about 3 hours, and I covered 20Km in total.
Here's a compilation of the photos and video I took:

Networking Fun

Went to a 10 o'clock class today but the proffessor didn't show up. So I had a little bit of fun instead...



Cable spaggeti anyone?
Click on any picture to super-size it.

New bike

I bought a new mountain bike! I got it off ebay, for just £10. It's a bit old and it shows its age, but with a little more money and love I'll convert it into a shiny mean bad-ass machine.
The plan is to take it in peak district and explore the wilderness.
Here's a photo of it before I started working on it:



Up to now, I removed the n00b stickers, washed it, and put the gear levers back to their normal position. The previous owner had them the other way around.
Next step will be mud-guards, and maybe new tyres.
I'll post any updates from my mountain-bike pimping. Watch this space.

Spain!

I'll be travelling to Spain, Barcelona from Sunday 6 of may to wednesday 9. I'm planning of taking a tons of photos and have the time of my life. I'll post news and experiences once I get back. until then...
Hasta luego muchachos!

Strategy is back.

I just finished playing company of heroes. Amazing game! There aren't enough WWII strategy games out there...
It was very similar to Joint Task Force, and Desert Rats VS Afrika Corps. Infact I think they all use the same engine. On the other hand, Company of heroes has some insane hardware requirements if you want to enjoy the awesomeness to the fullest.
I have now moved-on to Command and Conquer III: Tiberium wars, Which seems dull and boring compared to Company of heroes.
Seriously, what's with all the actors? It feels like I'm watching battlestar galactica, lost, and house, all at the same time.
I have to finish it though. It's my sacred duty. Command and Conquer series was and will be part of gaming history.
Onwards my brave ones! To the meat-grinder!

Logos anyone?

My latest photoshop-obsession is spoofing corporate logos:



Check out my flickr page regularly for updates.

Rainbow Six: Vegas

What an amazing game! I finished it in less that a week and enjoyed every part of it.
It's different than the previous Rainbow six instalments, in the sense that the tactical element is simplified. They probably did that to make it appealing to the console* type of gamers that like things simple. The game is still enjoyable, with a new feature added to it: Taking cover. It has an amazing system that works great.
Remember Time Crisis? A light-gun arcade game that had a dedicated pedal for taking cover. The player had no other control apart from taking cover and aiming. Nevertheless it was entertaining.
Similarly, in Vegas, you right click to take cover when you’re near some wall, crate or anything that could provide protection from rain of bullets. It feels kinda like splinter cell, only it’s even easier to use. You even have blind-fire! When the shit hits the fan, just stay behind cover, creep out your machine gun over the corner, and… say hello to my little friend!!

Other features include rappelling, upside-down rappelling, thermal goggles, night vision, wire-cams, silencers and many more.
Graphics and lighting are an eye-candy, realism is great, tactics is sweet… The only slight disadvantage is the story. It’s kinda weak. It doesn’t matter much though. Breach the room, save the hostage. Assault the dam, kill the terrorists. No need for a story-line. Just lock and load!

*Mentally challenged type of gamers that just want to put disks in the tray and hit play. They can’t be bothered with game installations, hardware configurations or assigning keys. They can only play games that use joy-pads and use them even on 1^st person shooters.

Photoshop news

I discovered lately some techniques that I really have to explore further:
HDR, in which you take 3 pics on a tripod, with the same framing and different exposures and combine them into 1. The result is that you get balanced exposure levels everywhere, even with difficult lighting conditions. On top of that, if you play a bit with tone mapping, you get very artistic results. example 1, example 2, example 3.

The second technique is the Polar Panorama Effect, or "Create your own planet".
Get your examples here, here, and here.
All I need now, is a nice sunny day to explore my creativity.

Long time no see

I've been busy lately with assignments, essays, group meetings etc, so I didn't have the chance to update. Nothing has changed anyhow...

I went to Nottingham again for Dennis' Birthday. There was some kind of a festival to celebrate the opening of the new town-square. We arrived at the scene 5 minutes before it ended. Proper Greeks or what? Always late.
Of course a trip to nottingham couldn't be complete without the "missing-the-train" experience, therefore, as the tradition requires, I missed the last train. I had to take a bus, change buses, go to derby, take a taxi, and then catch up with the same train that I missed in Nottingham. To treat my self, I snuck into the first-class coach, laid back, and enjoyed the ride home.

Back in the UK

Yup. The rumors are true. I'm back.
I had a good time in Greece meeting friends, going out, drying-out bars etc. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to archieve my initial goal which was to ski till I drop. Because of a global shortage of snow (Stupid climate change...) I was able to go skiing only once, on a crappy ski resort up north, with only half the slopes open. The weather was great, and we were having fun until Filippos fractured his hand and we had to look for a hospital.
You can watch me skiing down the slope on youtube. I didn't had the chance to film a more spectacular one, because of the accident.

Greece for Xmas

I'll be going to Greece for my xmas Break. I'm leaving on Sunday, and I'll come back on January 9.
Posting will be harder from now on because of the weak 56k Dial-up I've got in Greece. I'll provide updates as soon as I can.
The plan is to Ski. Ski A LOT

Quake 4: I need my fix!

I finished it already! On the hard level too. Apparently there were only 15 mins of gameplay left since my last save. Now what am I going to do? I need my fix...

I wathed "Cars" the movie, earlier and I think I need a good racing game to get by.
What's that? Need for Speed Carbon?! Is this really you? You're talking to me? You want to be played?! Here? NOW?!
Ohh yeah baby. Let's get dirty...

Please don't hurt me?..

I started Quake 4 yesterday, and I can't have enough of it. I'm addicted.

This was not the first time I played it. I tried it before, on May, got really immersed in the scary atmosphere, crapped my pants, and vowed never to play it again. In the lack of anything new to play, I reinstalled it now, haven forgotten the bad first experience, and with a different state of mind, I kicked some strogg ass.
Maybe it was the candle-lit room, maybe I was more of a pussy back then, the fact is I really enjoy the game this time. Maybe I'll give Doom III a chance after quake, (if I feel brave enough). I don't think I'll ever be able to play F.E.A.R though... One preview video was enough for me. I'm not gonna even install it. That little girl? Scraaary shit...

Although I believe the prize for the scariest game ever, goes to System Shock II. I'm proud to announce that I managed to finish it back then! (Plus I was only 16 and the game was rated "Mature 17+"). Anyway the game was hands-down CREEPY! I was scared shitless with every step I took in that virtual world. It wasn't so much the stuff you could see, it was mostly the stuff you couldn't see. Most of the times you would walk in a dark corridor with just 3 bullets or so, and listen to the creepy moans of the zombies nearing on you. Well... the stuff you would see weren't exactly all fluffy and cuddly either. You had your typical disfigured zombies, the "ghosts" of slaughtered crew-members in audio-logs, flesh-infested walls, and various other hair-rising stuff. You can get a taste of the gameplay here.
Gamespot wrote in a review:
"The game was scary. Damn scary. And this isn't schlocky-horror-movie-style monster-closet scary, where the bogeyman jumps out at you when you least expect it. Shock 2 projected real psychological terror through the tragic grotesquery of the formerly human enemies, the urgency and grim portent of the crew members' audio logs, and the unparalleled sound design that brought the menace and forebodingness of the Von Braun to horrible life."