New iMacs

I’ve been patiently waiting for new iMacs to come out because I’m pretty certain I’m going to invest in one this summer.  Yesterday Apple finally gave us the goods after a bunch of rumors popped up about it last week.  I had originally assumed that the updates wouldn’t come until WWDC, but I guess Apple’s new announcement style for these sorts of things is to slipstream them in like no big deal.  The updates aren’t exactly ground breaking after all, but they definitely add a significant amount of value to the computers that so many covet.  Going into this weekend after all of the speculation when I was fairly certain the update would be coming (after all, who can argue with MacRumors?) I told myself that as long as there was an update to the graphics processor in the iMac I’d be pretty happy.  I’m a gamer and even though macs aren’t exactly renown for their ability to run games I’d still like to play some after the switch under boot camp or Parallels.

This morning before heading off to work I went ahead and checked the internet to see if the news was delivered and I was happy to see that not only had the iMacs been given a refresh but my wish had come true – the 24″ iMacs were upgraded to the Nvidia GeForce 8800GS, the little brother of the 8800GT.  It’s not the absolute top of the line but it’s definitely a step up over the previous card which was 2600 series ATI card.  From what I last read no one’s quite sure if it’s a mobile version of the 8800 though.  Either way right off the bat I was pretty happy about the announcement.  The GPU wasn’t the only thing to be updated though.

Coming into this update there was a lot of speculation as to whether the new iMac would use the Montevina chipsets from Intel which aren’t due out until later this summer, or the more likely Peryn alternative which had already been put into the Macbooks and Macbook Pros earlier this year.  The Peryn has negligible benefits for a desktop as its best feature is that it doesn’t consume as much power, so a lot of enthusiasts assumed that Apple would be able to pull a rabbit out of their hat to get the Montevina ahead of time.  Well, the chipset was updated, but not to Montevina.  The current chipset has a 1066 front side bus which is a significant upgrade, but it seems that it’s the maximum output for a Peryn chipset.  So Peryn it is, which doesn’t bother me much.  Another added benefit of the new FSB speed is that the RAM has had a speed increase, up to 800mhz (PC2-6400) over the previous 667mhz (PC2-5300) which was looking pretty antiquated.  Along with the new ram it seems Apple also reduced their prices for RAM upgrades…before you could go from 2 to 4 GB for an amazing $400.  Now the same upgrade (for better RAM) only costs $200.  That’s still pretty expensive but I’m glad they’re realizing that marking their components up so heavily isn’t the way to go.

The processors also got a bump in speed.  On Sunday the fastest processor you could get was a Core 2 Duo Extreme clocked at 2.8ghz.  Now the fastest processor you can get is the Core 2 Duo 3.06ghz for the same price.  There are some missing updates that people were hoping for though.  Number one on my wish-this-would-happen-but-I-know-it-won’t list was a Blu-Ray drive.  It would be nice to watch some of my BD discs on that 24″ widescreen.  Of course, even the Mac Pros don’t have Blu-Ray drives so no one really expected it.  There was a lot of hope from people for a new updated version of the Mighty Mouse too.  It seems like the Mighty Mouse is a bit of an ugly duckling in the Mac line-up…no one seems to like it very much.  The fact that it didn’t get upgraded isn’t a big deal to me because when I get the iMac I know I’m going to use my MX Revolution mouse.

So really in conclusion I think this was a great update.  Apple delivered what I was hoping to see and more.  Maybe within a month or two an iMac will be on its way to me so I can stop thinking and blogging about the it and just use it!  Also, one other thing I wanted to mention real quickly – today Grand Theft Auto 4 came out.  It’s been getting ridiculous scores from reviewers and I know everyone’s crazy with anticipation to play it.  So whether you waited in line last night at a Midnight Madness event or you decided to wait until today to pick it up, have fun!  This game has been a long time coming.  Expect a more detailed post about it sometime later. =)

Now Playing:
Canibus – Rip Rock
Grand Theft Auto 4, Rainbow Six Vegas 2

A pretty chill site

One of my favorite TV shows is The Office.  It’s great, I always make sure to catch new episodes, and now that the writer’s strike is off and new episodes are finally coming out on a regular basis I’m happy (although if you’re a fan you have to admit that it isn’t the same now that Jim and Pam are together).  I say that for two reasons – one to let you know that if you missed The Office and want to catch up Hulu is finally out of beta so you can view them all on the internet (I’m sure they’re on NBC’s site too, but Hulu has a bunch of other worthwhile content), and second to tell you about an online show that I find similar and pretty great as a result.

JakeandAmir.com has been around for about a year so I’m surprised it took me this long to find it.  That being said, their videos are some really great stuff.  As far as I know both Jake and Amir are actual employees of the media site College Humor who have been able to put up this little side-project based on their dramatized work lives.  The thing I like best about The Office is the relationship that Jim and Dwight share, Dwight being completely annoying and Jim having to cope with that.  Jake and Amir is sort of the same thing – Jake is just there to do his work and get on with life where as Amir is unrelentingly idiotic and constantly distracts Jake.  The main difference is that Amir in this case is trying desperately to become Jake’s friend throughout the series which makes for some funny situations (most of which revolve around Amir paying Jake to act like his friend in some way).  Also whereas with The Office Dwight is a "hard worker," Amir is anything but.  He’d rather just work on his chill website with his bro and to be honest, who can blame him?  It’s funny, I started out thinking Amir was really annoying but now that I’ve seen almost all of the videos they’ve put up I’ve grown to like his character.

Overall the plot of their videos (which usually only last a few minutes) ranges from office humor to completely over-the-top situations that sort of break the fourth wall.  From what I can tell it seems like they put up a new video a couple times a week (like I said, I haven’t been watching for too long) but it’s more than enough to keep me interested.  I’d have to recommend to anyone who wants to check them out that you catch maybe a few of the newer videos at most and based on whether you like that go back into the archives and start from the beginning.  The reason I say that is you can sort of tell that when Jake and Amir started this whole thing they weren’t really sure where it was going to go.  In the first few videos there is a little more emphasis on Jake being a goof rather than Amir – for instance there’s one video where Jake goes on for about 2 minutes about how pimp his kite flying abilities are.  They’ve really come into their own over time though.

So really I don’t have much more to say.  This seems like it’s kind of a short post (of course anyone who reads any of my posts probably disagrees since some of them are so long!) but I just wanted to share the love.  This is another shining example that proves to me that "big media" isn’t as relevant to consumers these days.  Then again, I don’t really think I’m your average consumer…ah well, just go check it out!  Here’s one of my favorites:

New Website from Amir on Vimeo.

Now Playing:
CKY – Plastic Plan
Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Getting to know Parallels

I’ve been an advocate of using multiple operating systems from the same computer for a long time, and that’s especially true for my Macbook.  Despite the fact that I love OS X I still find myself needing to use Windows quite a bit.  Up until recently I primarily used Boot Camp to get this done, as well as VirtualBox to run Ubuntu as a virtual machine.  Sometimes though, I only really need to use maybe one or two Windows applications and so to restart my computer and boot into Windows for only a few minutes is a waste of time.  Additionally VirtualBox is pretty clunky and has some performance issues.  Because of all of that I decided to give Parallels a go.

My main reason for trying to use Windows as a virtual machine stemmed from a topic I’ve blogged about pretty frequently.  I really want to be able to manage my blog from OS X.  The only problem is that none of the desktop blogging applications for OS X appeal to me, especially the free ones.  I love Windows Live Writer though, which of course is Windows-only.  Now that I have Parallels up and running with a copy of Windows XP I can automatically pop in and out between OS X and XP and blogging from OS X has become a non-issue.  I’m writing this post in Windows Live Writer in OS X and it’s all because of Parallels.

The first thing I noticed about Parallels was the ease of installing an operating system.  Like I said I set up Windows XP which can generally be a laborious process when you’re installing from scratch.  When you start up Parallels for the first time you’ll be prompted to set up a virtual machine, and the nicest thing about it is that there’s an option to do a streamlined install of the most popular operating systems out there (XP and Vista).  All I really had to do was provide my cd-key and let Parallels do its thing.  In a little bit I had a completely functional copy of XP on my Mac and I was able to start working right away.  One of my biggest concerns about virtualization software is that, although it’s extremely useful the technical aspect setting up a virtual machine might be too daunting for your average user to take on.  That’s a non-issue with Parallels.  It literally only took me a few clicks and I was good to go – no worrying about formatting or partitioning drives or any of that.  You just go through a normal wizard and away it goes.

Working with Windows in Parallels is pretty seamless.  You can either work in a Window on your OS X desktop or press alt+Enter to go fullscreen.  I prefer fullscreen personally, but if you really only need to pop in for a couple seconds working in a window is fine.  When you’re in fullscreen mode you’re basically using Windows though.  It looks like Windows, it works like Windows, and there’s no hardware or software hiccups like you might expect.  Performance is good too, I didn’t notice any slowdown.  One other thing I thought was cool was that when you are doing something in your virtual machine and you go to look at your dock in OS X, the dock icon doesn’t just say "Parallels," it actually shows what the active window is in the virtual machine.  For example right now I’m using Windows Live Writer so even if I have my Parallels window minimized I can just look at the dock and know that the reason I had Windows running was that I was working on a blog post.  It’s a little feature but it’s definitely nice to have.

Anyways, my favorite feature is that I can easily share files between my Mac and Windows XP because when you’re setting up the virtual machine you’re given the option to have access to that machine’s virtual drive.  What that means is that I have a Windows XP disk drive on my desktop so that if I need to grab a text document I created in Windows or copy over something from the OS X side all I have to do is drag and drop.  Alternatively if there’s a file in OS X I can immediately share it to my Windows virtual machine.  For example, I’m writing this post in Parallels but I wanted to take some of the screenshots you see throughout (you can click to enlarge them by the way) in OS X.  I went ahead and took the screenshots and then copied them onto my Parallels version of XP’s desktop and instantly had them.  I didn’t have to reboot XP or anything, they appeared as soon as I copied them over.  The best part about running in Windows in Parallels though?  That would have to be the "no worries" approach to operating a Windows computer.

What I mean by that is this: everyone talks about how insecure Windows is.  How there’s so much spyware and all these viruses just waiting to cripple your machine.  Sure the hype might be overblown a bit but it’s definitely there and it can be a nuisance.  A lot of times that’s an intimidation factor to new users, especially those who aren’t sure exactly how to protect their computers.  When you’re running Windows as a virtual machine, none of that matters.  So you got a virus?  No big deal.  You can just delete your local Windows virtual machine files and start up a new session – none of it will affect OS X.  Worry-free computing, that’s how it should be.

So really all I can say is that if you’re on a Mac and you aren’t already using Parallels you should at the very least give it a shot.  You can get Parallels and see for yourself! Feel free to send comments and email to let me know how it goes. =)

Now Playing:
Shane McGowan – Pair of Brown Eyes
Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Buy, Borrow, or Bury: Puzzle Quest

This is a review that’s been a long time in the making.  I remember about a year ago when I played the PC demo for Puzzle Quest.  I was initially put off by the idea – an RPG game based solely on Bejeweled-like puzzle gameplay – and yet after playing it for a while I was hooked.  Then, this past year when Puzzle Quest came out for Xbox Live I downloaded it immediately.  I finally beat the game about a week ago so I figured I’d offer up my review.

Puzzle Quest is a traditional RPG a lot like some of the classics like Final Fantasy.  The only difference is that instead of having a battle system based on physical attacks and pre-set health and mana levels you instead play on a puzzle board.  By lining up 3 or more identical gems on the board you gain attributes or do attacks.  For example, if I line up 3 green gems I get some green mana.  If I line up 3 blue gems I get blue mana.  If I line up 3 skulls I do some damage to my opponent and so on.  There are also skills you learn throughout the game that you can also use to affect the outcome, but for the most part you’re playing an easy to learn but difficult to master game of bejeweled.  You can choose your character’s class (I was a knight) and you progress through a standard story where-in you’re trying to save your city (and inevitably the rest of the world) from evildoers.

One of the first things I noticed about Puzzle Quest was the music.  Despite being originally released for the Nintendo DS this game has really great sound.  The music is epic and sounds almost like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie.  Whether you’re traveling along the road via the 2D top-down map or in the middle of a battle it’s hard to miss the grandiose orchestral soundtrack.  My only beef with it is that a lot of the music tends to repeat, but like I said this was originally a handheld game so you can’t expect a whole lot more than what they give.

The gameplay is, like I said, easy to learn but difficult to master.  You’ll find yourself doing quests for all different types of people as you travel from one city to the next and meet new companions.  In these quests you always run into something or someone to fight, and when that happens you’ll be pushed into the gem battle system.  After you’ve successfully beaten a foe 3 or more times you’ll be able to capture it by playing a matching game based on the same gem battle system.  Basically, you’ll be seeing the gems quite a bit.  That’s alright though, I never really got tired of it while I played.  As you progress through the game you can also siege cities to expand your empire.  Each city you successfully capture will then generate money for you to use on new weapons, armor and so on.  You can also have a mount in Puzzle Quest which varies between the wide array of beasts in the game.  You train up your mount as time goes by and they end up adding additional bonuses to your character to make you more proficient when battling.

The story is pretty straight forward.  You start out as an initiate in your hometown and are tasked with some basic errands and you inevitably get caught up in a much larger evil plot.  Nothing really surprising throughout.  From the time you start to the time you finish you know who you’re after and all of your work is towards defeating your nemesis.  Still you meet some cool characters (my favorite was Khalkus, the long-winded dwarf obsessed with machinery) both friend and enemy alike.  Let me just say right now – Puzzle Quest is a long game.  I’m not sure how much time I put into it but I’d say at the very least 20 hours.  I’m assuming the actual figure is somewhere near 40 hours.  Some people think that’s way too long, especially since 80% of the gameplay involves the gem battle system so it might get tedious and repetitive by the end. 

Puzzle Quest also has online multiplayer where you can fight people online in both ranked and unranked matches.  These again are the standard gem battles but you get to talk a little smack if you’d like.  One thing I really like about the game is that you’re never completely out of it.  In your standard RPG if you’re fighting someone that is even a couple levels above you you’ll probably get destroyed.  In Puzzle Quest, because the game is based on your ability to play the puzzle game effectively, you can technically beat a higher level opponent.  Sure higher level opponents have a larger repertoire of attacks and do more damage, but if you can outplay them in the gem battle you can also take them down.  Not only did I beat people and single player NPCs that were above my skill level, but I got taken out by some that were below me as well.  You’re never completely out of it and it’s one of the few games that works actual skill into a traditionally stat-based game.

Overall I’d have to say Puzzle Quest is one of, if not the best game I’ve played on Xbox Live Arcade.  It has tremendous value first of all, like I said the game had me playing for months and I believe it was only 800 points (around $10).  When the game came out for The Nintendo DS it was around $30 so it’s a good deal regardless.  So basically if you own an Xbox 360 and are looking for an Arcade game at least give the demo a shot.  Unless you’re really opposed to RPG or puzzle games chances are Puzzle Quest is worth a purchase.

Now Playing:
Opeth – Windowpane
Metal Gear Online ß, Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Metal Gear Solid 4 Beta

Pretty much everyone with a Playstation 3 has already preordered or is planning on purchasing Metal Gear Solid 4.  It’s one of those rare games that is classified as a "system seller" along with games like Super Mario Galaxy and Halo 3.  I preordered my copy a month or two back, and last week I received a message from GameStop saying that they had a special Metal Gear DVD which also included an invite to the beta.  The beta actually starts on the 17th (the day this post goes up) so I figured I’d do a little post about it in advance.  I have activated my copy of the beta, installed it, and I’m now waiting for it to update which is a very grueling process.  Sony recommends the P2P update downloader (think bit torrent) but it’s going awfully slow.

While I’m waiting though I’d like to comment on how appreciated this is.  Usually when you preorder a game from GameStop or whichever other game retailer you choose you don’t get many perks in advance.  Sure you’re guaranteed a copy of the game on its release date but most of the time there isn’t any other reason to preorder.  In Metal Gear Solid 4’s case, Konami has seen it fit to not only give people who preordered access to the beta but there’s also a really cool DVD I received which outlines the Metal Gear franchise and its story so far.  Metal Gear has been around a long time, actually it came out in 1987 so it’s been around since I’ve been around.  Because of that you can see that it’s nice to get a refresher on the Metal Gear lore, especially since I never owned a Playstation 2 so I missed out on Metal Gear Solid 3.

The beta that I’m referencing is for Metal Gear Solid 4’s new multiplayer component which has never been seen in a Metal Gear game so far.  I’m pretty excited to try it out.  It’s good to see the Playstation 3 getting some more exclusive releases worth looking forward to.  With the MGS4 beta going on and the Resistance 2 teaser-trailer that came out last week things are starting to look good for the rest of the year if you’re a PS3 owner.  Personally I wasn’t huge into the first Resistance: Fall of Man game but some of the improvements they’ve listed are welcome, and the completely separate co-op campaign should be fun.

A couple of the other games I’m looking forward to on the Playstation 3 in the coming months are Killzone 2 and Little Big Planet.  Killzone 2 is the sequel to Killzone which was on the Playstation 2 and, at the time, was labeled a "Halo-killer."  What that means is that it was assumed that Killzone would be as good if not better than Halo.  That didn’t really pan out but Killzone 2 is looking great, the graphics particularly.  On the complete opposite spectrum is Little Big Planet which is a cartoon-like platforming game which heavily stresses user-generated content.  Gamers will be able to create and share content using the included level editor which should be pretty fun.  That seems to be the "new hotness" as far as gaming goes.  I wrote a post a few weeks ago saying that "hostile takeover" was the official buzzword of 2008 but if we’re talking strictly gaming then it would have to be user-created content.

Another recent update to the PS3 is the new finally re-created Playtation Store which needed a makeover pretty bad so I’m glad to see it finally happened.  The new store is a lot like the Xbox Live Marketplace which makes me happier.  It displays content in a much more cohesive way and actually made me think about purchasing something again, which is good news for Sony.  You can see a little demo of the new store here if you’d like. 

Now Playing:
Peace Orchestra – Who Am I?

Nvidia Vs. Intel

This week I read an interesting article where Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO and co-founder of Nvidia, laid out some fighting words against Intel.  I didn’t care much about the bitterness that seemed to be bubbling up between the two companies but I found the subject which incited the rant pretty interesting.  Basically, Intel is on their way to developing CPUs which have integrated GPUs in them, eliminating the necessity of having a separate video card because moving the GPU onto the CPU should increase performance considerably. 

That sounds great to me, it means potentially smaller computers for less money, who can argue with that?  Of course Nvidia has a problem with it because the thought of a 2-in-one CPU/GPU undermines their business of creating discrete GPUs.  Honestly when I read the article it made sense to me, after all look at where sound cards went.  It used to be that having a separate sound card in your computer was a necessity to get any semblance of decent audio from your computer, aside from that little "bleep-bloop" speaker you hear when you start your computer.  Now it’s pretty much a given that the audio is just integrated with your motherboard and you don’t have to worry about a separate sound card.  It’s only a matter of time before the same thing happens to video cards.  Sure you can get integrated video today but it’s generally looked at as being the budget video solution, needless to say no one expects integrated video to produce much gaming performance.

So then, if this does happen what happens to companies like Nvidia?  When I read the article I thought to myself that Nvidia should just try and be bought out by Intel as soon as possible unless they plan on branching out their products into other components aside from video cards.  Look at ATI, they were purchased by AMD and if AMD can put together their own combo CPU/GPU they might be able to beat out Intel as a result.  Sure there may not be much use for discrete video cards if these combos become a reality but having a well-established company to work with such as ATI would definitely ease along the transition and might make AMD’s offerings superior.  If Nvidia and Intel teamed up though, the game would be all but over.

So really I just wanted to comment on this article because I think it’s an interesting look into the future.  I doubt we’ll be seeing this take hold anytime soon.  You also have to consider that the first few revs of the combo proc probably won’t be comparable to having the latest graphics card in your machine, more of a continuation of what Intel is already doing with their integrated video chipsets.  Still, I thought the subject was pretty interesting considering my recent posts about the state of PC gaming and what will happen as we move forward.  In a few years time Intel’s offering may be all you really need, but as of today I’d say keep that GeForce 8800 handy.

Now Playing:
Deftones – Xerxes
Puzzle Quest, Project Gotham Racing 4

Buy, Borrow, or Bury: Project Gotham Racing 4

Unfortunately I didn’t beat any games this week.  I did however, revisit a game that I finished a few months back.  I’ve been sucked back into Project Gotham Racing 4 via its multiplayer and so I figured what the heck, I’ll do a throwback edition of Buy, Borrow, or Bury.  Project Gotham Racing 4 is the 4th game (surprising, right?) in my favorite racing game franchise – the Project Gotham series.  Project Gotham Racing first debuted on the Xbox many moons ago, and since then there have been 3 more games, all Xbox (or Xbox 360) exclusives.  PGR4 is basically an arcade-type racing game which encourages the style factor of racing over the simulation games such as Forza or Gran Turismo which encourage realism.  I happen to like the arcade racers more myself, if only because I’m not a gear head, so in any game where I have to swap out drive trains or pick better shocks I’m lost.  In PGR4 every car is rated, you don’t have to mod anything aside from the paint job, so you can just get out there and race.

Of course the premise to PGR4 is racing with style, and you’re awarded points for pulling off cool moves while on the track.  For instance, if you pull off a powerslide around a corner, catch some air, drive at a ridiculously high speed – all of these maneuvers will award you points called kudos.  You can chain the moves together to earn a multiplier and get more kudos.  There are even specific race types which encourage stylish racing and are based around maintaining a kudos multiplier, but there’s also your standard race types as well.  What PGR4 brings to the table that’s new is a set of beautiful locations which you can racing during different times of the day as well as with different weather patterns, new racing modes for both single player and multiplayer, an overhauled multiplayer experience, and finally new vehicles to tool around in including motorcycles.

For single player you get to modes – Career and Arcade.  Anyone who’s played the PGR games in the past will instantly recognize Arcade, as its basically what the games were before.  You’re broken out into different races and challenges across different locals with different vehicle classes and you have to complete the challenge to move forward and unlock new challenges.  You also get a medal for completing a challenge.  If you don’t get at least a bronze on a challenge you can’t move forward, and some of the challenges can be a bit frustrating (especially the kudos challenges, for me at least) so you’ll find yourself doing the same challenge over and over.  Still though if you liked the old format Arcade mode is for you.

Me?  I instantly took to the Career mode.  You’re an up and coming racer who’s ranked on an in-game leaderboard, and you play out your career as you try to top the leaderboard at rank 1.  There are a ton of different events just like in arcade, but you don’t have to do well in an event to progress.  The only punishment for not doing well is that you won’t rank up as fast as you would if you were doing well.  Basically, career mode takes the pressure off and just lets the player have fun racing.  You make your way all around the world to the many locations in PGR4 across all of the car classes (A – G, G being the lower end cars while Class A contains some super sports cars that blaze the track).  Another cool thing about the Career mode is that you’re rewarded by doing well in a particular race circuit by either unlocking a special event or earning a new car to add to your garage.  The events are cool little challenges like racing around the longest track in the game – Nurburgring – in a car straight out of the 40’s.  Think that’s hard?  It’s also winter-time.  Ouch.  But, if you complete the race in the allotted time you unlock the car you raced in.  Basically, the career mode had a lot to it for me.  It kept me occupied while the arcade mode was just that, a mode where you can jump in and try out a couple events without investing too much time.  It should be noted that Career mode, if you play it all the way to Rank 1, takes roughly 2 to 3 times longer to complete than Arcade mode does.

The multiplayer includes all of the single player events (race types like classic races and eliminator) as well as some new additions like the cat and mouse "chase" mode, bulldog races, and my personal favorite team racing.  In team racing a group of racers is split into two or more teams and each racer is rewarded points for their position at the end of the race.  These points are accumulated by team and whichever team has the most points win.  So, for example, if a driver on the other team takes first but the rest of his team ends up in last place or close there-to, chances are they’ll lose.  It adds a completely new element to racing games that you don’t usually associate with them.  The cooperative element is really fun.  Online racing can also be split up into circuits and championships, where a group of racers race in a series of events to see who gets the best overall ranking throughout the entire slew of events.  That’s a game mode that you would typically associate with a single player experience but it transitions into multiplayer beautifully.

Just some other things to note…first off, the game is gorgeous.  There’s nothing like screaming down a street in New York City in the rain, it’s absolutely beautiful.  A lot of people complained that the graphics weren’t significantly better than the graphics in Project Gotham Racing 3, but I’d have to disagree.  PGR3 was a pretty game too, but with the added weather effects and road conditions PGR4 only improves on that.  Also, you can save replays of races and watch races live via PGR On Demand (this was also featured in PGR3) but now there’s a whole different out-of-game experience you can have with your saved replays.  After you save a replay you can go in and take pictures of the race, and, if you so choose, you can upload these pictures to the Project Gotham website so your friends can see.  I think this is a really cool feature, and there’s nothing like grabbing a snapshot of your moment of glory in a particularly brutal race to share.  Of course this feature has since been upstaged by Halo 3’s extensive video and image sharing integration, but remember PGR4 came out first.  Here are a couple examples of snapshots from my recent races (click to enlarge):

The first two are from the starting line from a race, the third one is us rubbing paint mid-race.  I was driving the silver Enzo, and my brother was driving the red Atom 3000 (I think that’s what it’s called).  As you might guess the reason I got back into PGR4 is that my brother recently got a 360 as well as PGR4.  We’ve played quite a bit the past week and have had a lot of fun.  Anyways, the images aren’t bad, right?  Pretty good looking if you ask me, and that’s all in-game stuff from a race, no cinematics.  Of course those are just my amateur shots that I made real quick, but you can also look at the highest rated images taken in PGR4 in-game and there’s some way cooler stuff there.

I have to say that, unless you hate racing games, you should buy PGR4.  Is that the first time I’ve given a game a ‘buy’ recommendation?  I think so.  In any case PGR4 deserves it – and as far as I know it’s your last chance to try out Project Gotham because it’s the last game in the series unfortunately.  As always you can leave feedback if you agree, disagree, or just want to discuss something via the comments or my email address which can be found here.  Thanks for reading!

Oh, and using the handbrake to slow down in PGR4 is NOT recommended.  =P

The Evernote post

I’m sitting here wracking my brain and I can’t come up with anything to write about.  The reason?  Probably because it’s getting towards the end of the semester so school work is picking up.  I’ve also been more busy with work-related projects as of late.  All of that worried me until I remembered an awesome application that I received a beta invite for a week or two back called Evernote.

Evernote, to put it simply, is a web clipper.  You know how Apple had an update to the dashboard where you could copy any piece of a site and set it as a dashboard widget, that way you could monitor just that portion of the site (it’s probably the portion that you go to the site for) instead of having to load up the full page in a browser?  Well that’s sort of what Evernote does, except you can catalog all of the various things you find on the web into a notebook for review later.  For example, let’s say I’m looking for a new piece of geek swag to add to my repertoire.  I can go to think geek, drag my cursor over the bit of page I want to save (this includes images, links, text, the whole 9), use my Firefox Evernote extension and the note is instantly added to my Evernote notebook.  I can set up folders for various projects or studies, and review my notebook from a thousand different platforms.  Okay, not really a thousand, but with the individual PC and Mac clients Evernote has, not to mention the web interface, chances are you’ll never have a hard time accessing your notes.

Once you have a notebook full of web clippings you can search through it quite rapidly using the search feature.  The best part about the search?  Not only does it search the text you pull off of a site, but it can also search an image for text contained within.  For example, let’s say I grab a blog post that has a picture in it of a front window sign from a club.  The sign says "Ladies free all night, gents $4.99 with flyer."  If I remembered that text from the image but I can’t remember exactly where the image was located in my notebook, I could simply search for ladies (click to enlarge):

As you can see the part of the sign that says "ladies" is now highlighted yellow.  Alternatively, I could search for gents (click to enlarge):
 

Now the part of the sign that says "gents" is highlighted yellow.  Pretty awesome, right?  Imagine using Evernote as an actual note-taking application, you could scan in your notes from paper and use Evernote to search through them quickly.  Sure, there are already programs out there that do similar things, Microsoft’s OneNote for instance, but that’s mostly for straight hand-writing recognition.  The fact that you can pull basically any image off of the internet that has text in it into Evernote and it automatically recognizes the text is pretty cool.

So that’s Evernote.  Unfortunately they’re still in a closed beta which means I have no invites to give out (if I get any I’ll make another post asking if anyone wants one) but you can pre-register to get into the beta if you want to try it out.  Another nice thing about the application is that it’s free (as of now), but I wouldn’t be surprised if they charged for it down the road.  Evernote is definitely a handy tool to have on your machine.  If you’d like to learn a little more they have some good video tutorials on the site too, this one will give you a run-down of all of the features.  Again, despite the tutorial video showing Evernote on a Mac it’s also available for Windows XP and Vista.  They have a cellphone app too, and the online application I mentioned before.  Now, back to work!  =P

Now Playing:
Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body
Project Gotham Racing 4, Puzzle Quest

Making the switch?

I’ve been talking about how badly I’ve needed a new desktop machine pretty much since I started this blog.  I still need a new desktop.  The problem is that I’m having a really hard time deciding what to get…and, well, without teasing too much I’m beginning to think that an iMac might be the way to go.  Last week’s PC gaming post might be sort of an indication that this switch has been on my mind quite a bit since in the past I would never get a Mac desktop just because the lack of OS X games.  Now though?  PC gaming isn’t as big a deal to me as it was.

Not only that, but the particular iMac I’ve been looking at has plenty of testimonials of being able to play Crysis, the most demanding PC-exclusive game, quite well.  You know what?  Forget it.  For my convenience more than anyone else’s I’m going to create a list of reasons why I’m considering a Mac against those that suggest I should stick with a PC.  We’ll start with the Mac side of things.

1. I can still run Windows, which includes games.
2. I won’t have to muck about building the machine.  I’ve always built my desktop computers in the past, but I’ve been sort of dreading the process for the new computer.
3. OS X is fresh.  Now I love Windows, it’s where I’m most comfortable, but it seems like all of the applications I use on my Macbook under OSX 10.4 (this is Tiger I’m talking about, not even the latest version Leopard) are more fun to use not to mention prettier.
4. The hardware is pretty and simple.  One cord for an iMac.  That  alone makes me so excited…I hate all of the cables I have coming off of my current desktop, it seems like every little thing has its own power cable, not to mention the myriad of cables for my I/O devices.
5. All this for ~$2,300.00 US.  Not bad considering the convenience factor.

Alright now I’m going to do the same thing for the PC side of things.  Here’s that particular list.

1. I’m 100% comfortable with Windows, including Vista.  I actually like Vista and, if I had a machine that was beefier I would have no problems running it.
2. DX10 support for gaming – Vista has it.
3. I will have to muck around with building machine.  I say that as a positive here for a couple reasons.  First of all, to buy a pre-built gaming rig such as an HP Blackbird or a Falcon Northwest I’d end up spending ~$4,000.00 US.  Trust me on that, I’ve already spec’d out the machine I would want.  Not only that, but as I said above I always have built my own machines and to not do so now is almost to admit that I don’t "have it" anymore.  That sounds weird, no?  It sounds weird to me and I’m the one typing it.  Basically, I want to prove to myself that I can still build a machine even with a quad-core processor and all of the new hardware required.  There’s a great sense of accomplishment associated with building your own computer and I might just miss that a bit.
4. Technically, I could spend as little as $1,000.00 to build a new computer.  Now, that doesn’t mean it would be a Crysis-killer of a machine but it would be way better than what I have now.  Much like this machine that I’m writing this post on it would probably need upgraded in another 2 years but that’s been the general pattern of all of my computers.
5. I have a lot of accessories now that I could use with a new computer.  I’m referring to my two LCD screens that I have right now, plus my newly acquired keyboard and mouse, some external media, my headset and so on.  Of course I could always keep those attached to my current machine and use it as a media center or something.  Not only that but pretty much everything I have right now is compatible with a Mac so…

That’s it.  I’m still not positive but I have to be honest, I’m leaning toward getting an iMac sometime this summer.  I say sometime because I really want to wait until new iMacs come out (at least with a performance boost over the current iMacs which should be getting Peryn chips – in turn that might make the iMac smaller, plus Blu-Ray maybe?).  When I bought my Macbook, a few weeks later Apple introduced new versions of them that had Core 2 Duo processors instead of my lowly Core Duo.  I was a little peeved about that, not bad enough to return the Macbook of course, but still no one likes to get bitten. 

So how do I know that the iMac is due for a refresher?  Well MacRumors has a handy guide called the "Mac Buyer’s Guide" which, based on previous releases of hardware, can tell you if a product is due for an upgrade anytime soon or not.  Based on that they rate a product as "Buy Only If You Need It – Approaching end of a cycle," "Buy, product recently updated," or "Don’t Buy – Updates Soon."  The iMac is listed as Updates Soon because it has been 244 days since its last update and the average amount of time it goes before being updated is 205 days.  Check the guide if you’d like to see for yourself.

Anyways, I’d really appreciate some input or thoughts.  I’m still not 100% sure one way or the other, but this is a pretty big deal for a (primarily) PC user since birth.  We’ll see you on Thursday.

Now Playing:
Flogging Molly – Us Of Lesser Gods
Project Gotham Racing 4, Puzzle Quest

Buy, Borrow, or Bury: Army of Two

Electronic Arts isn’t exactly known for bringing quality titles to us gamers.  Still, there was a lot of buzz about Army of Two leading up to its release, many people said it was actually a quality game…one that people could purchase without buyer’s remorse.  Now that I’ve had a chance to complete it, I figured I’d share my thoughts in yet another installment of Buy, Borrow, or Bury.

Alright so if you don’t know what Army of Two is about, it’s basically a third person shooter which revolves around cooperative play.  The game heavily encourages team work both in the single player campaign as well as online with a friend.  I had the opportunity to play the game both ways and as is usually the case  you can get a lot more out of Army of Two if you have someone to play it with.  The most common theme of the game is something that any MMO player will be comfortable with – aggro.  Aggro, to those fortunate enough to have not lost their lives to an MMO like World of Warcraft, is the concept of one person taking all of the attention of the enemy so that other players (or, in Army of Two’s case, player) can do what they need to do without being harassed.  This works in a shooter environment because one soldier can be distracting all of the enemies while the other sneaks around behind them and takes them out without being discovered.  This is a re-occurring theme in Army of Two to say the least, so make sure you get the idea of managing aggro down if you plan on playing Army of Two.  There are plenty of other cooperative objectives as well, things like boosting your companion over a wall, busting down doors, and even giving your pal a high-five when you approve of his performance.

The other key cooperative gameplay element occurs when you get knocked down.  Basically, when a player takes too much damage they’re knocked to the ground where they can continue to lay down some support fire and kill enemies, but as they’re seated on the ground they can’t move.  This is where teamwork comes in.  It’s not your friend’s job to come in and heal you.  The only problem?  You may have fallen in an area where you can’t be healed without getting shot at.  Sounds pretty frustrating eh?  That’s why there’s a feature to drag a downed player to safety.  It’s actually pretty cool, you as the downed player can be dragged to relative safety all the while firing your gun and holding off the enemy.  It’s straight out of the movies.  As long as your partner gets to you in time (and vice versa, if you’re the rescuer) you can be downed pretty much as many times as you want without worrying about losing the game.

So with all of these cooperative elements of the game I have to admit I expected there to be a lot of bugs.  Things like my partner not following me or not helping to boost me over walls or getting stuck somewhere where I couldn’t get to him or he couldn’t get to me to complete a cooperative objective.  I was very pleasantly surprised to find that that almost never happened.  I only ran into problems with the cooperative play on the very last level where my AI partner became stuck to a wall and I had to sort of come and push him out so he could follow me.  Other than that there were no problems.

One of the big elements of the game is unlocking and customizing weapons.  Roughly two times per level you’ll be presented with a “Mid-Mission Store” that allows you to purchase new weapons and upgrade existing ones.  The weapons run the usual gamut of guns – AK47s, M4 carbines, sniper rifles, missile launchers, sub machine guns and so on.  There’s a good deal of upgrades for the bulk of the weapons (although side-arms were generally devoid of upgrades).  You can buy a better stock for your gun to make it more stable and accurate, upgrade the magazine capacity, add an under-barrel grenade launcher, and even add a shield to the front of the gun to prevent some damage.  One of the funnier upgrades is the ability to change the appearance of your weapon by “pimping” it.  Now pimping is a phrase that should have died with MTV’s Pimp My Ride, but the idea is fairly straightforward.  When you pimp a gun you get a gold-plated version of that gun along with tons of pretty accents.  What’s the good part about that you ask?  Well you don’t expect a flashy gun like that to go unnoticed do you?  With a pimped gun you can draw more aggro than with a normal gun.  Admit it, you’ve always wanted to run around wielding a gold AK47 with a golden Stinger missile strung across your back!

The game is short.  Only 6 levels, but to be fair each level is pretty long…about the size of 2 levels in your average game.  Since the game I completely most recently before Army of Two was Condemned 2, I’d have to say that one Army of Two level was about the equivalent of two Condemned levels.  The single player campaign took me about 8 hours to complete but there’s a lot of replay value there.  Aside from playing through the campaign both single player and with a friend online, you can also play online multiplayer modes.  The usual suspects are there, team deathmatches of the world unite, and so on.

Overall I have to say the game is really fun.  It takes a little getting used to and the tutorials leave something to be desired but it’s the perfect equivalent of a summer fun film.  One of those shoot em’ up types of movies where you go to just relax and turn your brain off for a couple hours to enjoy some mayhem.  That’s what Army of Two is only you’re causing the mayhem hopefully with one of your friends.  Still, because of its relatively short length I have to give Army of Two a Borrow.  It’s the perfect game for a rental because you can beat it in a weekend and have a good time doing so.  I was pleasantly surprised by the game and I’m interested to see what the sequel (if there is one) will bring.  Not only that but I’m interested to see what they’ll name it…Army of Two 2?  Army of Three?  Vexing…

Now Playing:
Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body