Duke it out with Battle of Cheetos! But when you lose hours of precious productivity time, don’t blame me.
Wanna play a game?
July 28th, 2010Starcraft 2 is f*ing phat!
July 28th, 2010
Give people what they want, and they will buy it. Boy, did Blizzard deliver. I purchased the ultimate collector’s edition of Starcraft 2. Yea, it was pricey. Being the Illustrator that I am, I take great pride in a product which spotlights its conceptual artist crew, acknowledges the music (thank you soundtrack guy!), and provides homage to its roots. Blizzard is proud of what they have done and the collector’s edition does not disappoint.
Now keep in mind, when I was growing up I was a big Command and Conquer (Westwood Studios) fan. The cult hit which was Starcraft 2 never appealed to me. Having witnessed EA’s cannibalisation of the C&C franchise as of late, I was ready for a sure thing. And after all…I thought PC gaming was done! Ssshhhhhhyeaaaa! Right! I don’t know if this is legal or not, but I have provided a pic of one of the cinematic sequences below. All in game 3d thank you very much. Kudos to the art crew. Starcraft 2 in game sequences put any XBOX title to shame. It just looks THAT beautiful. From the IK all the way to the texture mapping, I just got goose bumps all over. OK! I have to see more. What more have you given me to look at, Blizzard?
The game itself is awe inspiring. My question with this title was simple. How is Blizzard going to revamp in game graphics and keep frame rates down at the same time? Leave it to a few artistic geniuses to figure that one out. You get lost in watching the skeletal sequences of each little unit in action, enough so that I didn’t even realize the lush organic 3D landscapes scrolling from side to side. Volumetrics are perfect. I’ve always played RTS games panned out a bit. Yet, Starcraft 2 had me in my seat with the very first mission, zoomed in Dungeon Siege style, ready to take on the next nasty.
Now people are blasting the game for issues which have nothing to do with the actual game. You know, some of us actually have jobs that we don’t have time to explore the worlds of multi-player, play in LAN tournaments eating Doritos from sun up to sun down. Sorry LAN players. Playing video games while staying at grandmas is becoming a thing of the past. Blizzard delivered on everything I wanted as a single player. You want a good game, Starcraft 2 delivers.
Apple BUMPER case in the mail.
July 23rd, 2010It’s official. I have now taken part in what has to be the worst PR debacle of my generation. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps. But it’s always nice to get something for free. Or is it?
New TRON LEGACY Trailer
July 23rd, 2010Tron is coming out this Christmas and like its predecessor, it’s building up a lot of hype until it’s release. Whoever put together these trailers deserves a medal. It’s not easy making Disney stuff look UNDisney. Enjoy!
New Macbook Pros in 2011 could have Light Peak technology
July 19th, 2010Can you imagine a world where all you need is one wire protocol to deliver blueray content in less than 30 seconds? Well you better start. Light Peak technology developed by Intel is about to do just that.
Shake Weight SNL Spoof
July 13th, 2010Oh goodness.
iPhone 4. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
July 5th, 2010I consider myself an evangelical Apple fanboy. I started off as a PC guy. As for cellphone preference, I stuck it out with a Samsung Blackjack I and II. The Blackjack II did everything I wanted to. I could watch tv, manage outlook task lists, and even text to my heart’s content. Then I purchased my macbook Pro and everything changed for me. For the longest time, I had been stuck on a PC doing the most simplest of tasks. With the macbook Pro, I could go anywhere and not sacrifice performance when I had to take my laptop with me. I still had my Blackjack II for a little while longer, but was sick and tired of having to hack my device just to put iTunes tracks on it. I purchased an iTouch as a compromise, but I have to admit that it was the app store more than the device itself which attracted me to Apple’s mobile ecosystem. Three years later and three phone updates later, I purchased my iPhone 4.
The Good
The iPhone 4’s screen is like paper. The fluid motion of applications opening, closing, and being swiped in one direction to that of another is the best experience I have ever had with a phone GUI. You just don’t get the feeling that you are interacting with a screen at all. There are no wait times. Multitasking between watching a movie, reading email, and writing outlines and scripts can all be done seamlessly on the device via Apple’s multi-tasking feature. Though there is not much of a speed difference between the iPhone 3GS running iOS4 and the iPhone 4, you do notice a difference after you have multiple apps running at once.
Of all the cameras I own, I take most of my pictures with my iPhone, so the increase in resolution on the iPhone 4 was an important feature for me. The camera is great and the flash even better, but the HD video capture is where its at. I have been finding myself taking way more HD video footage of my finance and I with the iPhone’s new HD camera capabilities more so than taking pictures. It’s so easy to just point and record and the video quality is top notch.
802.11 N was a much needed feature on the iPhone if you want to transfer HD video (compressed) to the web. I found myself buying an Airport Extreme just to keep up with all the variable frequencies I have in the house, though.
The Bad
Still waiting to create “folders” for pictures and what not. The Photo album is absolutely useless if I can’t organize my photos. I guess I will have to continue using flickr until Apple gets serious about tagging photos on mobile devices. Video in low light situations is horrible and so are pictures with the flash. Though you can create some kewl artistic effects with the iPhone camera + flash, but its no SLR.
The Ugly
Bugs! I ran into a bug yesterday where the iPhone did not delete my pictures correctly. It took me a few hours to figure out how to get rid of these black boxes in my photo album. I also took video of fireworks on the 4th of July in landscape mode and the phone refused to orient the video capture in landscape mode, so you have to tilt your head just to see the footage as intended.
Conclusion
I have a few Droid owners as friends. When they hold their Droid device, they are quick to point out all of the features that they can do as opposed to what I can not. Each app, however, responds differently. There are no standards. Droid might do everything brilliantly, but I don’t want everything. What I want from my phone is efficiency. There is a difference and the iPhone 4 delivers.
Hitler gets pissed off at Jobs
July 3rd, 2010Cars and Freedom ?
June 30th, 2010Fantastic Dodge video.
