Morphia - The World of Morpheus

Story of Kites

2012-01-22T21:21:00.004+05:30

It was the evening of 16^th January, 2012 that ourSensei informed us about a Japanese Kite Making workshop to be held for 2 daysin Kolkata, with kite making masters and experts being flown in from Japan. Havingalways watched my neighborhood skies filled with kites of various colors andfashion during the month of January with wide-eyed fascination, I was the firstto jump up to inform that I’d love to attend the event. So what if I don’t actuallyknow how to fly a kite (there….I said it!), that won’t stop me from being ableto enjoy making one, now can it. Plus I also wanted to see how different a kitecould be from another country, or were they all the same. The event, aptlynamed “Story of Kites”, was organized by the Ministry of Culture, Government ofIndia, The Indian Museum, Crafts Council of West Bengal in collaboration withthe Japan Foundation and the Consulate General of Japan in Kolkata. The venuewas Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Sector 3, Salt Lake Kolkata.

I was not familiar with the venue, but that didn’t deter myexcitement for the workshop and so based on a friend’s “concise” directions Iset off. But as it turns out, the people from the place where I was supposed toget the final ride to the venue didn’t ever hear of the venue, Eastern Zonal CulturalCentre or EZCC. After bouncing around like a ping-pong ball from one point toanother based on vague directions, which always seemed to be the opposite sideof the directions given by the last person, I finally decided that I’ll try myluck with Sector 3 and find the thing myself. So, after barely holding my cooltogether, and walking past two traffic signals, I finally find a traffic policewho has actually heard of the place and points me to the proper direction. Thusafter a lot of self-control I reach the destination, half-an-hour late, to findthe event already underway and all the people busy finishing up coloring theirkites. Thankfully, after I explained my predicament, the kind hosts quicklyfound me a seat and a printed, pre-cut kite paper and two boxes of sketch pens.After some time they even helped me with the alignment of the spines of thekite and the accessories. Having almost arrived at the end of the workshop, Iwent for a sketching effect with my kite, along with the fact that I couldn’t think of anything else either. Itis different from the more colorful approach of my three friends who also turnedup there. Anyways, it was pretty fun making coloring the kite, as well aswatching the various kites that the Japanese Kite masters and experts had ondisplay, which were quite exquisite.

After the coloring, we had a group photo with all our kites,after which we were given packages of food consisting of a Cake, juice box, anorange and a lot of toffees and a break of one hour to spend before we wouldfly our kites. Having finished our food, me and my friends spent the remainingtime speculating whether the kite would actually fly. As it turns out, Japanesekites are different from those that you would see here. For one, they have asingle large hole at exactly the point of the spine’s intersection. Plus thethread given to us seemed a lot thicker, along with an unnaturally long tail. Allthese factors made us conclude that the kite won’t fly. Being practical we evengave one of our friends kite a spin, which didn’t fly (But that could be alsohave been due to the fact that his kite had a Sumo on it!). Anyways, after thebreak we were called out to the grounds where we were shown how to fly it. Andit turns out these things really do fly. My friend also, finally managed to flythe kite. Since I didn’t know how to fly a kite, I decided to stay back andwatch the sky filled with the soaring kites. One of the hosts noticed it, andasked me in English why I wasn’t flying. On telling him that I didn’t know howto, he took me to the kite master and explained the situation, who gladly tookme and my kite and showed me how to fly it. Even though my kite managed to flyfor about 5 seconds that was one of my happiest achievements. The entire experience of learning from a masterwas quite humbling. The event came to a close after an hour of kite flying anda wide smile on everybody’s face.

We then decide to go somewhere so we could grab a bite afterall the kite flying. After the bite atMcDonald’s in Mani Square, we slip into Starmark, where we spend a huge chunkof our time browsing, flipping and general chatting about books. We even managedto learn how to play Foosball! After all that we end the day, with me getting awonderful ride on my senior friend’s bike while the others took a bus in theother direction. Overall a wonderful experience that I definitely won’t beforgetting for a long time.

Picture Courtesy Sharon.

Anime Vs. Cartoons

2012-01-13T02:31:00.000+05:30

Sharon : ♪ ♫ ♪ One thing I don't knowwhy

♪ It doesn’t even matterhow hard you try ♫

♫ Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme ♪

♪ To explain in due time ♪ ♫ ♪

-What the-! Morpheus, why the hell are you growing mushrooms in the corner ofour study?

Morpheus: 72 ND "Woa! You still watch cartoons atthis age!" cartoons??...of all things CARTOONS!!!!!

Sharon: ありえない!!! I just got overmy 68th one! I think it's high time we enlightened this world, for our sake andfor our comrades out there still suffering! *Curl fists*

Morpheus: Aaaannooo........

Sharon: …..

Morpheus:
AAAAAAAnnnnnnnoooooo......I......I...

Sharon: …..

Morpheus:. I GOT IT!!!!

Sharon: はい! *Snaps back to reality*
So, just like Manga don’tequal to Comics, Anime don’t equal toCartoons either. How can people confuse them?

Morpheus: Exactly! If people just used their dictionaries more often, ourworkload would definitely decrease.
Anime (pronounced Ah-ni-may),as defined by the dictionary is "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation"! It is a style of animation that originated and is still heavily centered in Japan. Now, doesn'tthe vast difference in its history, say it all?

Sharon: !!! Absolutely! Cartoon comes from 'caricatures'. Cartoons basically originatedfrom the political drawings of the west. The ones drawn during The GreatDepression are the best example. The ones drawn at the time of the French Revolutionare a classic too. They were intended to be light hearted
satires. Representativeof the new genre, it is a quick, impressionistic drawing that exaggeratesprominent physical characteristics to humorous effect.

Morpheus: Whereas for Anime it all began in the early 20th century when Japanese pioneerswere experimenting with animation techniques from France, Germany, Russiaand the US. The first anime thus produced was a 2-minute clip depictinga samurai testing his new sword in 1917. A talkie anime also followed in 1933named Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, produced by Masaoka. Another animated filmfollowed called Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors directed by Seo in 1945 withsponsorship by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Then Osamu Tenza.....

Sharon: Astro Boy!!!! *all smiles*

Morpheus: Yeah...The author of Astro Boy, to be precise a mangaka (manga artist in English),considered one of the legends of Japan’s anime and manga industry. He wasinspired by Disney’s work and experimented & improved upon the techniques to createanimation that was cost effective and needed the least number of frames toproduce. Thus in this way not only could he cut down the costs, but also developed a technique in which he could easily recruit inexperienced people. By1990 it began to be widely accepted in the West too.

Sharon: IMO....I'd simply put that as 'Anime is to Japan what Hollywood is to the West', i.e.,an art style that is used to tell stories or bring to light more realisticissues or simply give form to thecreator’s wildest emotion.

Morpheus: Yes, now that I think about it, I find that Hollywood is mostly, if not totally, similarto that notion. Heck, even some of the Hollywood movies were inspired by anime;a case in point would be the Matrix trilogy, which was inspired by the Ghost inthe Shell series, which is an excellent series, by the
way.

Sharon: One of my fav in that case is "Blood: The Last Vampire",a manga turned Hollywoodmovie.....in which Koyuki Kato starred as the Vampire. :)

Morpheus: Umm, I feel it’s not that safe to start talking about Koyuki orJun in front of you. Else I'll have to sit here for days listening to yourfantasization.

Sharon: Hehehehe....Okies. Coming back to the main topic. Western cartoonsgenerally caters to the comical aspect of a situation and mostly tries to bringthat situation out in a comical light, Anime on the other hand also focuses onserious topics, though concerning Japanese society more, and doesn’t only caterto comical situations.

Morpheus: Welcome to the N.H.K!!!! It’s one of my favourite anime. It focuses on the multipleproblems of present day society, like pyramid schemes and social recluses.

Sharon : Don’t start nagging me again, but here I would like to mention themanga Kimi Wa Petto (tramps like us).....which touches the sensitive issue of youngerguy- older woman relationship. And which also (its live action) stars Koyukiand Jun. Awesome....just awesome.

Morpheus: Sharon, we get the idea. You can cut on those 'awesomes'.

Sharon: Okay, okay! Back to topics, not all anime are super-heroes shows, there are anime that focuseson the seemingly mundane topic of a student’s life, Paradise Kiss is one suchanime where the protagonist is torn between following her heart of being amodel and keep up with her mother’s dream of getting her into the topmostcollege of Japan.

Morpheus: Also, let’s not forget two of my top-most anime,Code Geass,(my Fav of the lot *Wide Grin*), an excellent anime that’s about aboy who would change a harsh world into a gentler place for his little sister, andDeath Note….

Sharon: Eeeeeeeeeeppp!!!!!!! *Jumps up excitedly* Death Note!!!! It’s anexcellent anime I don’t even have fitting words to describe the awesomeness ofit.

Morpheus: Hey, wait a sec! It isn’t normal. I mean, for me, it is. But yousaying you love "Death note"....its seinen not shoujo!!

Sharon: Hello Mr. Racist. Now, doesn’t a true anime lover watch almostall genre's of anime without discrimination? Or do you now-a- days, call thosewannabe "naruto" freaks as "true anime lovers"???

Morpheus : *Laugh Out Loud* Nope.

Sharon : What’s there to LOL? It isn’t funny! These people get my blood boiling.They kind of made me so sick of Naruto, that I kind of started disliking theanime itself!

Morpheus: It was because; it reminded me of the time DB wasairing. Every one became an anime otaku....but the only anime they ever talkedabout was Dragon Ball!!! People really fail to see that anime carry a lot ofvariety and generally cater to all age groups. Genre-wise anime can’t really be put under somedefinite few. Though it encompassesthe general ones like comedy, rom-com, fantasy, mecha(their version ofsuper-slick robots and my fav), thriller, slice of life, horror, action,anti-hero etc.

Sharon: Yup. For more age oriented classifications, starting from thekodomo ones (or anime for kids) like Shinchan,Doraemon.....

Morpheus: Hagemaru......to shonen, for boy’s ages 12-18

Sharon : Shoujo, for girls age 12-18. Josei is for adult ladies above theage of 20; mainly working women. Seinen is for young men between the ages of 18and 30.

Morpheus : and Hentai is pornographic, adult anime.

Sharon : Ahhmm, aahhhmm!! Now that was fast.

Morpheus: I do not watch those!

Sharon: Yea, I never said you do.

Morpheus: I really don’t!!!

Sharon : Don’t worry, we believe in the theory of being "total animelovers" now, don't we Morpheus?

Morphはいeus: Keep this up and I'm gonna start writing a really horrible reviewof Jun's new series!

Sharon: Okay, I’ll stop! :D Coming back, the thing thatdrives me mad about people the most is how can they not see the difference betweencartoons from the art-style? I mean, the Big-eyes, the crazy hair-dos and the generally human looking proportions are a dead-giveaway.Though the stylizations differ from artist to artist, with some going for thewild, while some for realistic and while some go for a uniform style, butoverall the depictions are based on proper human proportions, with the humanbody as base. Even the expressions used in cartoons are different from those inanime. How can people miss those?

Morpheus: People always seem to miss the most obvious. Andspeaking of eyes, Osamu Tenza was the who first pioneered the technique.Apparently, he was inspired by the works of Disney in Mickey Mouse & Bambi.So, as an experiment, he used big eyes, with a personal addition of a big Irisin his work, Ribbun no Kishi, which also happens to be the first ever Mangatargeted towards young girls. He used the big eyes as a tool to convey emotionseasily. And even after decades have passed, his method is still used and is considered as a template in Shoujo genre. That’s how effective it was.

Sharon: The part about emotions just reminded me of thelanguage of anime. That’s one thing every anime lover knows isn’t it? Why don’twe revise THE ANIME LANGUAGE?

Morpheus: Yes, agreed. Let’s do it the anime way.

1. Growing mushrooms = extreme depression

2. A # on the forehead(top left side) = irritation

3. Glistering eyes = trying to flatter

4. Doki doki = heart beat faster (excitement)

5. Zzzzzz= dozed off

6. A flickering eye = angry to the power infinity

7. A big droplet on the forehead = Phew!! Lost it

8. X eyes =Dead/dumbfounded

9. Blushing cheeks = embarrassed

Sharon: I guess, we have successfully conveyed thedifference between an anime and cartoon. So, I expect we won’t make it to our73rd and 69th 'You guys still watch Cartoons'! But, we sure got a lot sentimentalalong the way, now didn't we Morpheus?

Morpheus: Yup. We did. But, then, we had our reasons. Ourreasons, of loving anime.
The first Anime that I saw, and which made me fall in love with anime, was CardCaptorSakura (CCS), back when I was in school. It used to air on Cartoon Network.When I first saw the anime, the first thing that struck me was the eyes. I’m asucker for big eyes. I just love big eyes. So, I was reeled in and hooked bythe big eyes of the cast of Sakura, so much so that I went on to find out whythis program had this unique art-style, which was quite different from all theothers airing on CN. That’s how I stumbled onto the world of anime. Also, thevarious depictions of their life, which were very different than ours piqued my interest. For me it was analien world, a world that I had to explore. Plus the stories of my uncle, wholives in Japan, fascinated me. I always asked myself how can a country that wasanything but annihilated during WWII, progress so much and yet be so polite andkind after suffering so much. The notion amazed me and I just had toinvestigate it. The closest thing I could find then was Anime. That was how I gotinto the world of Anime.

Sharon: Woa!! Amazing yaar! It was my 1st anime too.Although I would suggest that people watch anime according to their age. Yet,no matter how old you are, CCS sure is a very sweet and nicely done anime,which you won’t regret watching.

Morpheus: Yeah, I think after reading through this, thereaders will have a proper idea where they would want to start from. And evenif they are stuck after that long a discussion, there's always sites like Anime-Planet.com that not only tracksyour views, but also recommends you new ones based on your watching taste orgenre-wise.

Sharon: and dramacrazy.net and animefreaks.com and myshojo.com , etc too. Ja minna,looking forward to an increase in the rate of growth of anime lovers across theglobe. Sayonara!

Morpheus: Sayonara!

Sharon is a blogger, the one who came up with this article’sidea and a co-writer of this article, whose blog can be found at http://sharoncardsofheart.blogspot.com/,where you can also find this article.

Sister

2012-01-08T18:40:00.001+05:30

As I saw off my sister today, who returned to her medical collegein Pune, the feeling of separation weighed down heavily on me. When she hadcome from Pune to spend her 15 days winter vacation, all she would say for thefirst 3 days was how she missed her friends and then 3 days before thedeparture date, she kept saying that she didn't want to go back. Our motherbeing the strict one would always say that sacrifices such as these arenecessary to succeed in life. I too echoed the same and even added in a littlebit of “elder brother” admonishing to the lecture to show to her that I wouldn'tmiss her a bit and in fact would be happy, since I get the entire house tomyself.

But now that she's off to Pune, I can feel how much I havegrown used to her presence over the short 15 days that seemed to me no lessthan a month. The house seems a lot quieter today. Though I prefer peacefulenvironment, but still I miss her constant chatter. Even our pets seem to havenoticed her absence and have gone awfully quiet. It's as if they want to showthey are missing here too, like me. Yes I am glad that I finally will have theTV all to myself, yes I am glad that there'll be no-one to weasel off to myfather for every single bit of my mistake, yes I am glad that now I don't haveto put up with her teary-eyed ploy to get my father to get her something mostof the time from my possession, but I'll miss those all the same. For she wasafter all the one person who would cheer me up when I was sad, advice me on howweird my drawings looked, comment on my articles and creations, order heraround the house to do my part of the chore so that I can catch up on a littlebit of extra sleep or just plain help me pick the color that looks best for anew application that I was coding. Even the part that I should be happy aboutseems dull because I won't have to fight over them with her. And at the end ofthe day, I'm going to miss those more than anything else.

The only silver lining to all this is the fact that she willbe coming back after a long period of 6 months, though I reckon this is goingto be a very long 6 months. To make matters worse, my vacations are stillhalf-way from being over, otherwise I would have something to bury my head in. Thoughnow I also wish that my sister never stumbles on my blog, because if she readsthis article and comes to me with that grin and “you missed me!”.........*shudders*

Free Sniper: Ghost Warrior Giveaway

2012-01-01T18:22:00.000+05:30

So the New Year's rolled in. What better way to celebratethe coming of a new year than with free games? Apparently GreenManGaming are ofthe same opinion, for they've organized a giveaway of free copies of Sniper:Ghost Warrior over at GreenManGaming . The giveaway is a first-come-first-serve-basisfor a total of 20,000 copies of the above mentioned game.

All you need to do is head over to GreenManGamingwebsiteafter 13:00 Hrs GMT and put Sniper: Ghost Warrior in your basket. At thecheckout apply this:

GREEN-MANSS-NIPER

This should entitle you to a 100% discount on the title andyou can have it for free. The coupon doesn’t have any deadline, but after20,000 copies are served, it’ll become invalid. So hurry up and grab ‘em!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:34:00.001+05:30

With a year gone from our lives and a New Year full ofpromises to look forward to, I wish all my readers a very Happy New Year! Mayall your dreams and wishes come true. Thanks for being there. This year's even more special as I can now say it in four different languages!

সুভ নববর্ষ!

नया साल मुबारक हो!

あけましておめでとうございます!

Happy New Year!

Though I shouldn't complain, but with the cacophony of soundsand music playing around, I would've loved a noise cancellation device thisyear. Its good thing that my rooms at a corner of my house and the sound isn'tas loud as it is in some other rooms, due to multiple “celebrations” with loudblaring music that aren't to my taste. But then again, not everyones equal andits perhaps just their way of welcoming the New Year, which happens to bequite different from mine, so I can't really blame them.

Royal Bengal Rohoshyo

2011-12-28T01:28:00.000+05:30

Vacations are nice, especially the winter vacations (whichjust happens to be my favourite season). But sometimes long vacations run thehigh risk of turning into a boring affair. Today (the 27^th of December)was a day that was supposed to become one. But thanks to one of my friend whocalled up yesterday night and asked me whether I was willing to go watch Royal BengalRohoshyo. Being an ardent fan of Satyajit Ray and his creation Feluda, it wastoo tempting to pass. So, I agreed immediately. After getting up late (it’swinter, I just couldn’t help it!), and almost missing the meeting time, Imanaged to meet up with him on time and then we went on hall-hunting where we’dget a ticket.(Yeah the movie was so good that movie halls were actually goinghouse-full even after 5 days.) After searching 2 theaters, we managed to get aticket at Star for the 2:55 pm show. The hall also happens to have a good Bose sound system (luckyme!). Since we had about 2 hours on our hand, we found a restaurant, had ourlunch and then to waste the remaining time went into a shop on my friend’s suggestionto browse, (he reasoned that it’s better than wandering on the streets) wherewe ended up almost sneaking out, because the attendant came up on us because wewere just loitering around and not actually buying anything. And to makematters worse, it was a shoe shop! (In my defense I blame it squarely on myfriend, who pulled me there)

Anyways, with enough time wasted we got into the movie hall.The film started off with Jatayu receiving an invitation from a certain MahitoshSingha Ray, a former hunter who had written a successful book, to visit hisestate and bring along Feluda to help him solve a problem. As with most ofFeluda’s adventure, the seemingly beautiful trip turns into an adventure in thejungle. But the movie didn’t feel boring for even a moment. So much so that Iwas wishing the interval was shorter. The directing was done superbly by SandipRay. The actor’s, as always, fit their character’s shoes perfectly. The maintrio was exactly like the characters portrayed in the book, with SabyasachiChakrobarty being the enigmatic and observant Feluda, Saheb Bhattacharya theyoung detective-in-training of sorts Topshe and Bibhu Bhattacharjee the writer LalmohanGanguly (Jatayu), who was keen on meeting the animals of the jungle, but wouldfreeze and border on fainting every time he meets one. All of the audience waslaughing at the antics of Jatayu. The death of Bibhu Bhattacharjee is a greatloss to the movie community and those who see this movie will definitely feelthe loss. Maybe a replacement will be found, but I personally feel the void thathas been left by him won’t be filled. As for the others, Dr. Basudeb Mukherjeeas Mahitosh Singha Ray was really good as the former hunter, coming from a longline of hunters as was Paran Bandyopadhyay did an excellent job playingDebotosh Singha Ray, the mentally disturbed elder brother to Mahitosh SinghaRay. Debesh Raychowdhury as Shashanka Sanyal, the best friend of MahitoshSingha Ray, along with Sanjib Sarkar as Madhablal did an excellent job. It wasa small cast, but it was acting that was solidly done which resulted in a veryenjoyable movie. The movie wasn’t long, at 1 hour and 50 minutes (with theinterval in between), but the story didn’t feel rushed or hanging, so the smalltime can be forgiven. And once the story got started, it will get you hooked tothe story till the very end where Feluda does the big reveal.

Overall it was a great movie, which I’m happy that I couldwatch. As I prepare to go to bed and think back on the day spent, I can honestlysay that it was day well spent and enjoyed.

Assassin's Creed Revelations first impressions

2011-12-20T21:34:00.001+05:30

I recently pre-ordered AC Revelations, since I'm absolutely in love with the series. So a little info on the edition that I got, which happens to be a Special Edition, before I go to my first impressions. This edition comes with the Soundtrack, which is totally out of this world, 2 extra multiplayer character and the Turkish Assassin Outfit for Ezio, with is pretty cool, if you are tired watching Ezio's standard costumes.

Overall I am quite satisfied and can say that my pre-order was not in vain. Love the character of Yusuf Tazim. It doesn't kill to put in a little humour, and this proves it. The overall gameplay is similar, except for a few button re-maps and some optimized systems. But then again that is what makes the game so accessible. The settings are really well done, as always with the series, but somehow, Istanbul is a lot more attractive than Rome. And yeah, there are some really detailed textures this time in the city, makes it come alive. And yeah, the hook blade is a wonderful addition, specially for those that didn't like the climb leap jump. And the zipping around is quite fun. Also worth mentioning is the character modeling. Ezio looks a lot mature now, and tired. Even his movement shows his weariness of fighting which seems, as he so correctly puts, to lead only to chaos. Oh and I like the new things they've done to the recruitment mini-game.

Apart from these, this game is one buggy game. Ubisoft should've put more time in optimizing it. There were instances when the sound would stop playing, or the instance when Ezio would grab just air and climb up. Another instance had me hanging on a ledge and just the animation for climbing up playing without Ezio going up, even though the ledge was perfectly climb-able. I had to drop down and try going around until I found a spot that was free from the bug. And yeah, there was just a single bug free spot. Also, the desync in chase sequences happen as soon as the warning sign appears. Plus I even managed to fall to the underground table in the middle of Constantinople, from the where you can't see the sea for miles. Hopefully Ubisoft will patch these out quickly, even though there is already a Day 1 patch out, weighing in around 700 MBs. You can grab it here, if you are looking for it. Just right-click and save it.

Though I haven't really gone through the majority of the game, so will probably later add a more detailed review here.

Welcome the Holiday Seasons with GOG.com

2011-12-12T21:24:00.000+05:30

You gotta love the Winter! The cold weather is when you can cuddle up with a good book all bundled up in warm clothes, eat to your hearts content without upsetting your tummy, lie in the gentle morning sun reading a book with a plate full of fried foods or perhaps go shopping online for that game that you've been eyeing for quite a while, thanks to all the sales that goes off this time of the year.

And so it is with GOG.com that is kick starting the sales with their Holiday Sale over at Gog.com, with almost the entire catalog at 50%. It is now the cheapest place to buy the Witcher EE (with all the Xtra extra goodies). And for those of you that are wondering, yeah this is still that Edition, that I blogged about earlier. And yeah Witcher 2 is at 40%.

And yeah, to celebrate the Holiday Season, they're giving away Empire Earth Gold Edition to anyone who visits them, but for 2 days only. So grab 'em while you can! (Our wallets and cards must really hate this season :P )

Tunes Jungle Adventure

2011-11-13T19:05:00.003+05:30

Yet another free games giveaway. It's visible on the side of my blog, but still thought I'd point it out for those who would miss the side-bar. Simply go to here and click the download and activate the game, before the time runs out (18 Hrs left as of the time of writing this article).
Here's a little excerpt from the description:

Once a traveller discovered a secret of an ancient manuscript that points to the treasure of ancient people. The manuscript says that one has to wake up the fire totems and light the sun before the mighty spirit Vislipuzli will reward one with treasure. The only way to do this is to play the magic music.

Burnout Paradise for Free

2011-11-13T18:54:00.003+05:30

Just a little heads-up that as the holiday season approaches, EA is offering a free game, albeit a repeat of the last year's Burnout Paradise giveaway. If you like arcade style racing with sleek cars, then Burnout Paradise is a must have for you.
Before redeeming the offer, you have to have an Origin account. Next, fire up the Origin Client and go to the Store tab. From here search for Burnout Paradise and then add it to your cart. Click checkout and in the place of Promo Code, enter: PARADISE and then click apply. The value should come down to 0. From here proceed and voila, you are now the proud owner of Burnout Paradise! The offers limited so hurry!

Mobile Tethering with BSNL 3G

2011-10-09T18:24:00.003+05:30

I was never a fan of mobile tethering for internet. Sure it’s a convenience for the Laptop users and people on the go, I always argued that I had a good PC which had a rock solid broad-band connection. The shear notion that the speed of the internet would vary depending on how far you are from the nearest tower was revolting to me. So, even when all my friends were all the rage about having Edge connections for their Laptops and even PCs, I kept quite even when I had a 3G phone.

So when my telephone line was chopped up during some construction work, I had to force myself to get my 3G phone tethered to my PC to get me back online. I thought of getting a BSNL 3G connection for my mobile, because not only was I satisfied with the broadband service and speeds, but also BSNL has the cheapest rates compared to anyone on the market and time of the year. Activation of 3G on the sim was seamless; my phone detected the network and showed the 3G symbol automatically, once I activated BSNL’s internet profile. I even happily recharged my phone with a Data Top-Up of Rs. 98, which gave me 3GBs of data, which was actually a GPRS plan but would work with 3G networks. Sweet! I return home and eagerly connect up my mobile to the PC and all, and lo-and-behold! After showing the registering on the network message, it gives an error message, “Error 734: the PPoE link control protocol was terminated”. I was puzzled, so I went the very next day to the mobile section to ask about the problem. They simply stated that I had to put in the APN as bsnlnet. But the thing was my phone didn’t come with any mobile suite, just a driver that makes it show up as a Motorola modem. I ask them where should put this APN on my PC, they simply reply they don’t know! They even go on to say that since they don’t have any Motorola sets, they don’t how to set it up. Angry and frustrated I stormed out of the counter.

Thankfully the Opera on my phone could use the internet at 3G speeds. Now all I needed was to load Google and punch in the query. Surprisingly this is a common problem. After searching through quite a few website, I chanced upon an article for using BSNL 3G on Linux. Going through the article, I saw that in order to specify the APN one had to set a specific initialization string for the modem. Having once tackled such a situation for a friend with Aircel, I logged into Windows 7 and followed the following steps:

1) First make sure that you have a driver installed for the Phone and it shows up in the Devices and Printers in Win 7, and it’s connected to the PC.

2) Next go to Phone and Modems, by typing “Phone” in the Win 7 Search field on the Start Menu

3) Click on it, put in your location and code when prompted

4) Click on the Modems Tab. Select the modem and click Properties

5) In the Properties Sheet change to the Advanced Tab.

6) In the Advanced Tab type in this string:
AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","bsnlnet"
7) The last part is the APN, which happens to be bsnlnet for me, check with your provider for your area.

8) Click Ok twice, create a dial-up connection using the credentials given by your provider and then connect to the internet using the created connection, it won’t complain.

It was just a few simple steps that got me up and running with 3G speeds, which by the way isn’t phenomenal but isn’t as creeping as GPRS either. I would’ve figured it out even if they had mentioned that we need to initialize it.
But thank God for Google, I was able to figure it out myself and wasn’t at the mercy of those worthless people, who claim to help people. BSNL should just put up some kiosks with internet access and Google as the home page, it won’t be any different than the people that they now have at those so-called “help centers”. Those kiosks will be even better than those morons, at solving problems!

Arma II, Men of War & Tower Bloxx Deluxe for Free

2011-07-11T01:56:00.006+05:30

Just found this while surfing, but some might still be able to salvage it. The Sun, along with GreenManGaming, is giving 3 free games, namely ARMA II (a military FPS), Men of War (a WWII Strategy game) and Tower Bloxx Deluxe (a puzzle game), for the weekend to any and all.

Just go here: http://www.greenmangaming.com/thesun/

and click the required game. On the purchase screen add the respective promo codes from here:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gaming/3681414/Games-for-gratis.html

On successfully redeeming the voucher codes, the price should drop to $0.00 at which point clicking the purchase button will add the games to your account.

If you hurry you still have about 2 and a half hours before the promo-closes.

P.S.: I just got all three of the games, so I can vouch for it's authenticity.

Dungeon Siege III Demo Impression

2011-06-13T23:16:00.001+05:30

Dungeon Siege was the first contact with my RPG genre, so it holds a special place in my heart. The very ability to customize characters was a wonderful experience for me. So the first flaw of DS 3 that I notice is the pre-made characters (2 in the demo). Sure it helps in carving the story in a definite manner, but still character customization can be seen in most of the games that claims to have RPG elements and with the first and second game both allowing for a custom character creation, the latter with different races.
With that out of the way, the game surely was designed with the console in mind, the PC version seems to be an after-thought. I say this because of little things like for example a total lack of control customization system. Yes, you can't bind your keys to the configuration you like, but rather will have to make do with the game's configuration. Another annoying little quirk is the assigning of only 3 powers in the interface. Although PC version could very easily manage up to 9-10 hotkeys assigned for this purpose. Clearly this game was developed for the console in mind. (Though, the graphics customization is quite good. I mean for a game that doesn't allow you to set your own key-configs, being allowed to set the MSAF, Texture, Shadows and visual effects is quite surprising!)
The game supposedly supports controllers, but I couldn’t get my controller working, even though I checked the controller support box. And since there’s no input-config screen, I couldn’t even force the game manually in-game to default my input to the connected controller. Maybe the game only supports Xbox 360 controllers, or it’s one of those infamous Obsidian bugs. So, I started the game with the normal Keyboard-Mouse combo. There’s a short introductory sequence that sets up the story and the backdrop of the story. The cut-scene is done through painting based narrations by the grandmaster Odo of the 10th Legionnaires. After the cut-scene you’re made to choose one of the pre-made characters. The demo allowed for 2, a warrior and a mage. Since I’m the mage type, I took up Anjali (yeah seems Square Enix is very interested in Indian names, which makes me proud), an Archon, who can switch between the Human form to fight with a spear, and an elemental fire form, fighting with balls of fire. After this you’re allowed to choose the difficulty from 3, with the Hardcore version, according to the game, not for faint of heart and those prone to throwing controllers (not banging keyboards, even though the controller didn’t work!). Following this there is another cut-scene through a letter based narration and you’re finally thrown in to the game world. The game pops up Tutorial texts giving you directions around the world. The tutorials are very basic covering only the basic usage like moving, attacking and looting and some advanced topics like Empowered attacks. Yet the game doesn’t tell you that for accessing your special power you need to press the numerical keys. Even clicking on the power’s picture doesn’t work. Even after changing the difficulty to Casual, the tutorial wasn’t shown. RPG players might find their way around, but new-comers would be at a complete loss. Also, there are help topics, but again, given the genre of Hack-n-Slash, the players won’t be as patient and it would’ve been preferable to have the info integrated into the game rather than reading pages after pages of it in-game. Maybe it would be included in the Manual, so that players can read it while the game installs.
The game play is simple hack-n-slash like Torchlight or DeathSpank; you move your character using the right mouse button and attack using the left. The movement can also be done using the W & S keys, while A & D rotates the camera. A nice touch, according to my preference. But the console bug is here too, you don't click to loot chest, but rather go near the object and press a button! The combat is based on clicking. Every click makes your character attack, depending on your stance. There are 2 stances for every character: one for handling multiple foes and another for a single foe. Anjali for instance in the human form fights with a spear that attacks in a frontal arc. That means anyone caught in the arc takes damage, and the enemies are intelligent enough to get behind you to attack as well as swarm to overwhelm you. So you’ve got to keep moving about and watch your back while doing it. And the second form for Anjali, her elemental form is for single foes, as she throws fire balls in a single direction. Speaking of enemies, the primary enemies faced by me looked like colonial English soldiers, specially the attire. There are both ranged enemies with bows as well as rifles, and melee enemies. As mentioned above, if you don’t properly guard and block, using the space bar which also drains focus, the enemies will soon overwhelm you. The enemy health stat is displayed by a green circle at their feet, which gradually turns to red as they lose health. The game itself is linear, atleast from what I've seen in the Demo. There aren't any fogged up part, the path's all revealed, and you have a clear marker as to where to go for the objective, so you can just run in that direction to get your objective.
The customization, unlike the previous quirks is quite varied. Sure not as RPG-epic kind, but for a hack-n-slash, it’s quite varied. You have the standard slot for armor, helmet, boots, Yantras (magical amulets for Anjali, another term related to Indian mythologies) and so on. The best thing is the inventory is auto-sorted, so you don’t have to scroll through list of all the equipments to find that specific ring. Every piece of gear is given its own tab, and you’ll find only those things that apply there. The skill system, though short on first look having just 12 skills, is also varied. There are 2 proficiencies for each of them allowing you to customize the skills even further. The talents, likewise, can be upgraded too, to provide better bonus. The health and Stamina are auto-increased at every level, so you don’t need to think of them in term of skills or talents. But different gears do act as Health and Stamina modifiers, so you might pay attention to what you’re equipping. The game makes it easy for you to choose them as the game gives you a summary when you select them in the form whether you’ll gain in any attributes over your current equipped gear or lose them.
It seems like an upgrade over the original Dungeon Siege, but nothing spectacular. The presentation however is very sleek (it’s a Square Enix game after all!). The interface is clean, with the different bars and the portrait at the bottom left, the map at the top. Any items you receive from NPCs are shown in the top left corner. The objective updating is done through slide outs in the bottom center part of the screen, like an achievement pop-up. The game is fully voiced, including the character voices. The dialogue is done through a dialog wheel, kind of like Obsidian’s previous game, Alpha Protocol, though the time limit is removed. The dialog wheel is quite beautiful with intricate art design, a real eye-catcher. That being said, the voice-over of Anjali was, in a word, horrible. It seemed the devs put in a slightly better version of Microsoft Anna, with the voice actress devoid of any emotion and an almost robotic feel to the dialogue. The other voice actors however are quite good, especially the voice-actor voicing Grand Master Odo.
Overall, for players who want to get into the Kingdom Ehb once again, or people looking for something to hack away at will probably love it. The combat is enjoyable, the story intriguing and the presentation is sleek, which can make this game worth playing. Plus the different customization options does warrant some re-play value. It is quite different from the other Dungeon Siege games in the series, it shows that the game's rights have changed hands. Plus the game seems to be lacking in the traditional Obsidian bugs and tech-mis-haps, which seems to be another boon for it.

E3 Live Tour by Gamespot

2011-06-10T20:43:00.001+05:30

So, after 4 four days E3 comes to an end. I managed to see about 3 hours of live coverage by Gamespot. The coverage included booths by Atari, which seems to be working on multiple re-makes of their older games from the Arcade era on the newer consoles, mainly the Wii family. One of the games that was allowed to be filmed was Caterpillar infestation. Console players here might recognize it, I really don't have any experience with the franchise. It was for the Wii. Another game was Terra Online. The person in-charge touted it as the first MMO that won't have generic click-auto-attack sequence, but rather a cross-hair that can be controlled with a mouse, akin to the Witcher's OTS mode. The combat is basically based on the type of button that you press, so "it's based on the skill". Apart from that the game has a political system, through which a player can be crowned controller on a region, after the other players have voted in your favour, and if you made the proper promises to them.
There was a coverage of Rusty Hearts too, which, unlike traditional MMORPGs, won't let yo build a character from the ground up, but rather give you one of the four pre-designed characters to choose from. The game can be played with a Gamepad, and is also based on a combo-based combat, that doesn't include auto-attacks. The Anime-esque gamestyle was really cute. It's closed Beta is coming late July.
Another game that caught my eyes in the Stage show was Spiderman: Edge of Time. Here, spidey actively goes around following the instruction of the Spidey from 2099, through time, and thus prevent the future spidey from dying. An example was that while fighting the future spidey mistakenly bursts open 3 toxic containers and starts to die from the chemicals. Now he sends a message to the older spidey, across time nonetheless, to contain these vats, so they don't explode. With the help of PiP, you can see the future spidey breathe a little easy, literally, as you go about re-enforcing the above mentioned vats. The combat is quite fast-paced. But then came the bad news for me. It's scheduled for a release on the PS3 and XBox, no PC!
Some other games that looked interesting was X-Men Destiny, Bioshock Infinite and Tombraider. In X-men the character being played had these pick-ups from the enemies that fills a bar that is used for special attacks. Once the bar is completely filled, it grants a bonus orb, or ward for the RPG minded, that can auto-attack nearby enemy. The Wards' number can be upgraded too. The character shown was using lightning attacks, and the animation and graphics for it was beautiful. Even the sound sounded like real lightning going off, with all the chirping and bursting you'll associate when a ball of lightning hits an enemy.
Bioshock Infinite looked quite gorgeous, but since I don't have much background so cant really comment.
Other games didn't interest me that much, maybe because I wasn't familiar with the series. Games like Harvest Moon. It had a dungeon crawler MMO where you could pet the monster you defeat and use them to work for you in mines or fields.
But the best booth in my opinion was that of IndieCade. It featured all the indie game and also new ideas by independent developers, like Skulls of the Shogun. The concept of the booth was to act as an intermediate for developers and publishers and give some exposure to new game ideas. There was many games that were college projects, and that came out to be full-fledged games, like a game with ideas from Portal mechanics but is a dungeon crawler. One of the new additions to the booth was games based on the You as a Controller concept. One of them was a sensory deprivation game, that will have you wear a helmet that blocks your vision, only giving access to sounds. Your input will be your breathing and your movement. The game will have you thrown underwater, and you have to navigate using the mentioned controls. It's kind of like a torture routine straight from a thriller!
Another have you kissing for your control. A magnet in one's mouth and a sensor on the partner's cheek will be the controller. Just like the Gamespot presenter said, "taking you as the controller to a whole new level!"

Anyways, though this year's E3 was lacking some publisher, it did turn out to be quite nice. With many new things being announced. That being said, there seems to be a game to forward to for everyone, in the coming holiday seasons and the Q1 of next year.

Oh, btw for the ME3 fans, do check out the ME3 booth coverage by Gamespot. It has some extra infos too!

Nintendo's E3 Presentation

2011-06-08T15:21:00.000+05:30

Nintendo's presentation was short. It started off with 5 new games announcements for the 3DS, which didn't really make anyone too happy, as evident from the non-enthusiastic crowd. The games were basically remakes of older Nintendo games with the 3D aspect and in some cases (Mario), with new graphics. The only new game was Kid Icarus Uprising, which did garner a few claps. Also announced by Nintendo for Pokemon fans was a new System Update, which would entitle them to a new Pokedex available only through online for the 3DS.

After this lack-luster announcements Nintendo announces the Wii U, the follow-up to the Nintendo Wii. The console can run games in HD. The new console comes with a better hardware, and a innovative controller. The new controller is more like a portable gaming console, complete with 2 analog sticks, the face button, a front facing camera, speakers, microphones...the works, and not to mention a 6.2 in touch-screen! Plus it still has the motion sensing and all the features of the Wii controllers and is compatible with the Wii Accessories. The main point of the new controller is that now players can continue gaming even if they can't access the TV or even share what they are doing on the controller with the TV, with just a simple swish of the fingers on the controller, kind of like sliding the content towards the TV. But still controller can't be used as a portable console, because all of it's processing is done and transfered by the main Wii U console. But this also means that whatever is made for the big screen can run effortlessly on the smaller screen and vice-versa. Some of the demos are really interesting. With a golf game where you put down the controller to see the ball, a shuriken game where you slide the shuriken from the controller onto the screen (like the previous sharing), using the controller to shield against in-coming projectiles, using the controller for scanning targets or use it as a portable hand-held map in large-scale quests (An RPG players dream)!
And with many developers promising new games to hit this console like Batman Arkham City, Assassin's Creed Revelation, Ninja Gaiden, Resident Evil, Tekken, Driver, Ghost Recon Online...this console sure looks promising. Sure it won't appeal to hard-core gamers, but for people who want a drawing room entertainment hub, that can be used for occasional serious gaming, this seems to be a perfect match.

Ubisoft and EA E3 presentation

2011-06-08T02:09:00.002+05:30

I managed to catch Ubi's presentation live, and also was able to see EA's presentation. There was this retro version of some games, a sort of special being 25 years in the gaming scene. What would games have looked like if they had been released 20 years ago. It was a nice touch.

The game's announced/talked about were:

Driver: San Francisco

FarCry 3: The villain was awesome! As was the lush jungle graphics!

Brothers in Arms Furious Four: Say hello to Inglorious Bastards meets Brothers in Arms

Tintin: A small bit of gameplay, nothing more, except the fact that the game world will change based on the choices you make.

Ghost Recon Future soldier: Synchronized kills, drones deployment and the likes of Tom Clancy's kinck-knacks.

Ghost Recon Online: Free multiplayer for all.

Rayman: A kinetified version of the Rayman. The fill-up the shapes was quite fun to look at, though!

Just Dance 3

RockSmith: Gives you the ability to plug in a real guitar and start playing/learning.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012

Now, the only game that interested me was Assassin's Creed Revelations.

They showed the trailer, where Ezio was cornered by around a 100 guards, with one of his Hidden blade being broken just like his father's was in the film, and then led up to the platform from where Altair had first performed the leap of faith. And just before jumping, a noose was put around his neck. Following this trailer, there was a live demo, depicting a memory sequence in Constantinople. In the demo, the player is given some grenades and asked to escape the Janissaries' blockade. From the demo, the graphics seems to have been further improved, featuring a much more believable city, with an earthy feel to it. The people don't just move about, or murmur, they also greet each other. In the combat front, all the things seems to be unchanged with a new Grenade addition, whose destination you can select. Nothing was told about the multiplayer.

EA's showcased 9 games, both from studios that EA owned as well as independent studios.

EA kicked off the presentation with a trailer of earth under attack by reapers of Mass Effect 3. Following this, there was a live Demo from a mission concerning a Reaper base, which turned out to be a Reaper itself. Many faces returned, like Legion, Garrus, Wrex and surprise surprise, Liara!! There was air-strikes, new enemies, that seemed like indoctrinated people, as well as a new feature, the close combats. In ME 3 not only does your Tech-tool cracks, hacks and heals, but it can also transform into a dagger with which you can kill any enemy that is foolish enough to come near you! Bioware sure does know how to craft a hit! The game looks to be focusing on scales too this time around, which is appropriate, since after all it's all-out war. There still wasn't any mention of the new weapon system or the crafting for that matter. It's going to hit the shelves on 6th March 2012.

Following this was NFS The Run. The most talked about feature here was the Auto-Log which now encompasses the career. Also this time around, there are off-car sequences, where the driver has to out run and even fight off cops, though the interactions seems limited to quick time events only. The game looks quite promising. I might give it a try if there's a demo out. And yeah, this game's powered by Frostbite 2 engine, with some really good visuals.

Then there was Bioware again, with SW TOR. But disappointingly, there wasn't any gameplay demo, just a trailer that was released earlier, highlighting the different classes. I was looking forward to seeing something here.

38 Studios then took stage for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, an open-ended RPG with Elder Scroll elements, having the lead Director of Oblivion and Morrowind. The game looked quite nice with some good fluid combat. Very interesting.

Insomniac's newest game OverStrike was announced too. It's a TPS squad based shooter, consisting of 4 agents, assassins, spies, thieves, and scientists. I would recommend seeing the trailer of this game, just for the laughs. It's targeted towards Xbox 360, but I do hope a PC version comes along.

The Sims Social was announced to be a free facebook game, that'll allow the player to integrate Simming and social networking. The graphics are similar to those of Sims 1, that is an isometric view, and it seems you can do everything that you could do in the Sims, atleast in the vanilla sims. No official date was mentioned, only a coming soon.

2 sports game was announced SSX and FIFA 2012. FIFA's focus will be on community this time, with the ability to play matches based on the real world football scenes. So, if your favourite club lost a match, you could re-write virtual history by winning for that club. Not only that, but you also could put your favourite club on top of the virtual leader board, if enough community members win with that club. Apart from these, there's a new player collision system, that simulates realistic injuries and collisions. Plus, there's more realistic dribbling and blocking.

Finally there was Battlefield 3. Also powered by FrostBite 2 engine, this is one good looking game. The demo included a short footage of multiplayer set in Paris, and a long tank battle scene from the single player. Both looked great.

E3 2011

2011-06-06T18:15:00.004+05:30

With less than 3 hours remaining, I thought that I'd post a schedule of sorts here on my blog, with the required link to help my blog readers stay on top E3, courtesy of GameSpot. Though this time some devs like Bungie aren't officially coming to E3.

For latest news of E3, you can head to http://e3.gamespot.com/

And for a primer on what is E3, you can head to http://asia.gamespot.com/features/6314700/how-to-e3-2011/

And here's a handy schedule, courtesy Gamespot.

Monday, June 6

Microsoft Press Conference: 9:30 a.m. - 11 a.m. PDT
EA Press Conference: 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. PDT
Ubisoft Press Conference: 2:30 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. PDT
Sony Press Conference: 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. PDT

Tuesday, June 7

Nintendo Press Conference: 9 a.m. - 11 a.m. PDT
GameSpot's Live Stage Show, Day 1: 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. PDT
GameSpot's LiveCam Tour 1, Day 1: 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. PDT
GameSpot's LiveCam Tour 2, Day 1: 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. PDT

Wednesday, June 8

GameSpot's Live Stage Show, Day 2: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. PDT
GameSpot's LiveCam Tour 1, Day 2: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. PDT
GameSpot's LiveCam Tour 2, Day 2: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. PDT

Thursday, June 9

GameSpot's Live Stage Show, Day 2: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. PDT
GameSpot's LiveCam Tour 1, Day 3: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. PDT
GameSpot's LiveCam Tour 2, Day 3: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. PDT

I hope that you enjoy this year's E3.

The games that I'd like to see about are:

Mass Effect 3
Star Wars The Old Republic
Assassin's Creed Revelation
Sims 3 Pets (I didn't have the Sims 2 one, so am pretty excited, as it'll add animals in general, like skunks and horses!)
Diablo III (the reason should be obvious enough)
X-Men Destiny (I love a good super-hero game)
Star Craft The Heart of the Swarm

What's your's most anticipated?

P.S.: All the links are from GameSpots' site.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition Director's Cut

2011-05-15T23:40:00.004+05:30

Due to some technical problem with my net connection, I just finished downloading The Witcher Enhanced Edition Director's Cut from GoG today. If you remember from my older post, you’ll know about the promo that’s running at GoG from 10^th May till 24^th May. Though I do prefer physical copies, unless there are some irresistible Steam deals, I went out of my way and got the game as soon as I booted up my computer on the 10^th of May. And was I happy that I did purchase the game online. The retail box here still costs about Rs 1500. In addition to the general goodies, I also got the extra GoG goodies, which include the Witcher Story, Soundtrack, Music Inspired by, 18 HD Wallpapers, Witcher Calendar and the likes. Out of all these, the soundtrack alone makes up for the $5 price that GoG is charging. Quite frankly, it's one of the best I've heard so far.

As for the game, when I first played the demo back in 2007, I was very disappointed. Not only were the load times very long, and I mean really long tea-break-length long, but it was missing simple things like an auto-save. Plus the game stuttered and crashed quite a few times, and along with a weird combat system, I eventually gave up on the game. But then I read the review of the EE, and how CD Projeckt fixed many bugs and re-did the dialogues and slashed the loading time by about 80%. But the price was still the deterrent. But thanks to GoG, I can now say that whosoever has not played this game is officially missing a great RPG from their collection. The GoG version of the game is fully patched to patch 1.5. Not only is the game more stable, with better dialogue, but also the load times, my greatest gripe, are pretty quick. The game starts up almost instantaneously and the loads that took well over 15 mins for me in the demo barely take 5 secs. Plus they now have an auto-save feature that saves your progress before every major encounter, a real boon for some players. The inventory is also revamped, with sorting and stacking buttons and separate places for quest, general inventory and alchemy items. I would advise discovering this game by one-self. I don't want to spoil the fun.

Like I’ve already told, I would absolutely recommend it to every and any RPG lover who wants a little mature storyline in the game and doesn’t want to see a Black and White world, rather have a world that's shades of Grey.

You can check out all the extra content that this game comes with for free in addition to the game and the patch features:

I just wish all the games could offer something of such tremendous values!

Age of Empires Online Beta

2011-05-03T22:05:00.006+05:30

With the NDA Lifted a public Beta seems to be on the horizon. But till it is announced, I thought it would be nice to share my experience since now I am legally allowed to do it. For those people looking for a Beta key for the closed Beta, you can try your luck by following the instructions here.

Age of Empires holds a special place in my heart. After all, this is the game that brought me to the world of Real-Time-Strategy. I still cherish the day when I took up my mouse and commanded Joan of Arc over a seemingly never-ending campaign of Age of Empires II. After my first tryst with Age of Empires, I just couldn’t have enough, and I had to check out everything that was related to the series, even so far as to going back and checking the first game in the series. And till now, the series, with its gems like Age of Mythology and Age of Empires III, the hasn’t disappointed. So, naturally when Microsoft game studios announced Age of Empires Online, I had to take a look, even though I tend to avoid online games like the plague. And luckily, I was also sent a Beta key. The game is being developed by Robot Entertainment (founded by former Ensemble Studio members of the original AoE repute) and Gas Powered Games (the developers of Supreme Commander). Though the initial core development was done by Robot Entertainment alone which included most of the game, as of 24^th February 2011, they have handed over the further development, the polishing and balancing, to Gas Powered Games, moving on to one of their own IPs, Orcs Must Die! Finally before beginning, I want to say is that this is an review of the Beta version of the game. The problems and bugs mentioned here shouldn’t discourage you from trying gout this game, as they are still in the Beta stage and might get fixed or changed. So the final product might change a lot.

The first thing about designing a sequel is to answer the question, how do you improve over the predecessor. In case of Age of Empires (AoE), it’s a tough question to answer, because the previous game wasn’t broken, in fact it was down-right beautiful, the best looking Strategy game of its time. The answer for the developers seems to be to attract a different audience, while keeping the older core players satisfied. With the games featuring a progressive advance through the ages, throughout the series, it was a little shocking, if I might say, when the game was announced to go back to the ancient civilizations of Greece and Egypt. Even weirder is the fact that the game that revolutionized strategy game’s graphics department, to go for a cartoony look. All these things, at first glance seem to point to a younger audience. But due to my infinite curiosity, I had to look into it, and I’m very happy that I did. In simple words, the game is indeed geared towards a new and younger demographic, but the game doesn’t forget its core players.

The game has changed, with respect to its predecessor AoE III, but most of it is because of the new game play model suited to the online play. The first time you load up the game, you’re given the option to choose a civilization, for now it’s just Greece, with Egypt disabled and a yet unannounced civilization. At the bottom left, you have an option of choosing a realm, alternate for server, though there’s just one for the Beta phase, with hopefully more to be opened. After you choose your civilization, you are dropped onto a map containing 4 basic buildings, including your capital palace, at a corner of a huge map. This is your capital city. Very much like the home city of AoE III, all the things you do, the XP, the coins, the empire points, the raw materials and the loots (Yeah, there’s even a loot system), are used to improve and expand this capital city of yours.

Your game play is basically divided into the time you spend in your capital city and the time you spend on accomplishing different quests, which are basically skirmishes with definite objectives. Unlike the home city of AoE III, where the customization was just cosmetic, here in addition to the decorative customization, you can also add some functional buildings that in turn produces raw materials required to build other buildings, which in turn produces different types of objects depending on the building type. Apart from these there are also other functional buildings, like the Arena, which lets you host party matches, or the Mercenary camp, where you’ll always find a quest giver to sign you up for a PVP match. It’s a good design, which could’ve been done through menus, instead of integrating it into the city itself. Building these buildings is easy. You need to buy blue-prints for each individual building by spending coins, and then having the required raw materials at hand which are required for the building. If you happen to have them in store, you can place the building directly, which results in a nice little construction animation of scaffoldings being thrown up and the construction sounds playing as your building is constructed up. The process is fast, you don’t need to wait, but it’s nice to watch. As you build these buildings, your city grows, not only in then space that it consumes, but also it the way the landscape changes. The buildings that you build brings with it cobbled streets, squares and little details like it. Just like AoE III, your streets aren’t empty. You have tiny villagers strolling around, some relaxing, some just roaming around the bazaar, or praying at the temple, or even fishing! Once you have an industry up, donkey pulled carts will also show up ferrying goods from your workshops to the bazaar and stores. The details are cute and add to the overall charm of your capital city. Among these there are some static persons, who don’t move around much and tend to stay in front of specific buildings. These are your quest givers. Only clicking them, they’ll give you the option of accepting a quest, or if you’ve already done so, abandoning one. The screen where you do these, a sprite of the quest giver with a speech bubble containing some background about the quest, along with the occasional humorous comment, along with a dialog box, detailing the quest, the objective and the rewards.

These quests are skirmishes that you can play in order to earn XP, Coins, Empire Points and Loots and Equipments. This brings us to the second part of the game, the Real-time part which is familiar with most of the strategy players out there. This is the part where you start off with a town center and some villagers and gradually need to build up your economy as well as your military depending on the given objective. This is the part where old players will feel the most “at home”. Most of the game play mechanics are unchanged, apart from small things, which are actually taken from a previous part, like the fact that your villagers are no longer the Atlantean villager types that doesn’t need a drop point for whatever they are carrying; rather they need to build drop sites like AoE II. Another change is that you are not granted access to the full arsenal on the outset, rather you need to play earn XP and unlock the units from the tech tree through leveling up. This restriction also applies to the aging up. In order for you to research the later ages, you need to first unlock them. What this does is that it brings down the learning curve to a gentle slope, with which both new comers as well as veterans will be satisfied. On one hand you aren’t made to feel powerless, but at the same time you aren’t over-powered either, much like the gradual unlock of the campaigns. This gentle learning curve is further reinforced with the tutorial, which gradually eases you in with the different mechanics of your city as well as the game in skirmish mode. The skirmishes are like the older games, which I feel isn’t that bad. After all the old mechanic wasn’t broken and didn’t have too much of a flaw, so retaining that and not changing the game play was a good move. You are given some starting villagers and a town center along with a scout, which this time around, for some weird design concept or perhaps due to the Beta, is irreplaceable and can’t be built from the Stables. From this point you need to build up your fledging settlement and the economy related to it to a strong one to support your offence as well as your defense. Some of the UI elements help you in getting the work done more efficiently. For example, idle villager button no longer cycles through single idle villagers, but rather selects the groups of nearest idle villagers, so you issue quick commands to them. And, as older players would know, during the mid-to-late game sometimes you’ll find villagers standing around because you have finished gathering a resource. On mousing over the resources the game tells you exactly how many gatherers you have and on clicking them cycles through nearest group of gatherers. Also issuing way-pointed commands are much easier, you press shift and order a group of soldiers or villagers, the respective orders and they do it one by one in the order issued. This was a feature that was needed very much and thus allows you to execute some amount of strategic command and tactics, not too advanced, but still it’s welcome.

Like AoE III there is bandit camps here too that holds treasure chests which contain loots in the form of Raw materials, equipments or even blue-prints and recipes. These equipments can be applied on the different units and buildings for a permanent bonus to them, as long as you keep the equipments on them, through the equipments hall in the capital city. The recipes are like the blue-prints, except they allow you produce consumables, which are like the god-powers of Age of Mythology, granting you bonuses like free gold mine or spawning mercenary soldiers or even spawning buildings. Producing these consumables require raw materials given that you have learned the recipe and have space in your inventory. The inventory itself is very basic, just a 16-slot space, that is used to store everything that you get, that’s not currency, on your quest or from your work-shops or as rewards. There are no auto arrange function, but you can drag and drop to organize it the way you like. Each of the slots can hold 100 units of similar objects. So, you see the game play has been stream-lined to welcome new comers but doesn’t forget the older players.

Then there’s the graphics. AoE III introduced very beautiful graphics that included beautifully rendered objects and trees and included are good Physics system. Age of Empires Online instead of going for even more cutting edge graphics, probably due to being an online game, goes with a cartoony approach. With Caricatured characters models and buildings, the game indeed looks cute. Purists may shun it due to the simple graphics, but it fits well with the settings of the game. The game isn’t meant to be very serious, after all. But that doesn’t mean details are missed. Even in this new approach the attention to details is great. Like mentioned above, in your capital city, villager strolls around, fishing, relaxing, tearing grass and the likes. The same amount of details is found in the skirmish too, although a lot less autonomous. Idle villagers from example, sleeps, with “Zzzz” floating over them. Defeated enemies, like the bosses, fall down on their knees or collapses clutching their heart. Normal soldiers, some of them fall down and a grave stone and flowers erupt in their place, while some of them just collapse. Mounted soldiers are thrown off while their horses as both of them die spread-eagled. Trees crash down with the leaves trailing behind, bushes fall-apart, fish jumping at the back of fishing boats, dust billowing around a building under construction, Ships have a rickety feel with planks sticking out from the decks, and being jostled after firing, the flashing of swords of soldiers, donkey-pulled carts that have a carrot dangling in front of the donkey on a stick. Small details like these are abundant, and make the game enjoyable. Sure the buildings don’t go off as spectacularly, but does burst into fire before falling apart. Overall, the effects are quite enjoyable and sometimes it is quite satisfying just looking at your villagers and units scampering around carrying your orders.

But no effect is complete without a believable sound effect backing them up. And this is one field that this game hasn’t disappointed. The sound effects are quite brilliant, with the sounds changing appropriately according to the part where the user is focused. For example when you’re over the market you’ll hear carts and merchants shouting, while when in front of the Temple, you’ll likely hear people praying. The same thing happens in the Skirmish too. Miners have that distinctive sound of their pick-axes striking against ores, gatherers rustling the bushes while gathering, horses neighing, arrows swishing and bows going twang, people shouting when their Town Center are under siege and many more. The sound really does a good job immersing the player in the game. The background score is quite good. Some of them are remixes of the older AoE trademark tunes, while some are new.

The AI in the game is also commendable, with it scaling itself along with the user. Think you can over-run an opponent with just foot soldiers? The AI, even if defeated at the first encounter will send out the proper counters. And it is also intelligent enough of not setting up just lone towers; rather, it’ll put up a range of towers each supporting each other. Thus sieges of enemy towns, especially in the early game without any siege units is quite challenging, requiring multiple stabs at it and a strong economy supporting the effort. The AI doesn’t seem to be cheating too, and earning its resources truthfully. Though one quirk that I noticed is that even when I have a superior army, a group of villagers will attack the soldiers rather than running for the town centers. And when under attack some of the villagers will just run a little distance and stand there, waiting to be killed. But then again it’s the Beta.

But still with so much improvement, there are still many quirks. For example you have to buy a Blueprint for every single building every time you want to build it. That means not only are you paying in material for the building, but are also paying in Gold for every blueprint. Next on the list is the lack of formation commands. While the older AoE was known for being able to command soldiers in formations for some really good and effective tactics, that mechanic is completely missing in this game. There’s just an attack-move command and nothing else related to advanced combat maneuvers. Then there’s the soldiers charging into battle with whatever they have, against a building. A friend once asked me, why is it that people striking with a sword can make a building burst into flames? With AoE III it seemed like the developers had heard such things, but why is it missing here, especially with attention to other details, this aspect sticks out. Another weird aspect is that you can’t save your game while on a quest. So even if the quest drags on for hours you have to play it for hours (even in quests marked as single player only), till you get to your capital city where the game is saved automatically. Then there’s the final controversial point. Though the game will be free to play, many of the juicy units will be only available for premium city owners. I really don’t want to comment on this, but just for the sake of knowing I thought it would be good to mention it here.

Age of Empires is something that I always loved and Age of Empires Online hasn’t let me down. Some people might not like the new looks, but I think this new look gives this game a fresh look and separates it from just a remake. The work by Robot Entertainment, Gas Powered Games and Microsoft game studios is truly commendable. Though, I would’ve preferred a offline game, but with other game companies making you stay online even in a single-player game, the prospect of a game that has online feature built into it, but still having single-player element, is good enough for me. If Microsoft can get the pricing right, they might just have another success story on their hands with Age of Empires Online. On a last note, this is a very enjoyable game that I have enjoyed very much, and often find myself drawn to the game just for that one last quest.

Scores:

Overall: 9.5

Game play: 9.3

Graphics: 9.5

Sound: 9.9

Here are some of my in-game screenshots:

Supreme Commander (Plus Forged Alliance) Review

2011-04-30T22:19:00.005+05:30

This game is a classic example of how an excellent product can be marred because there isn't much explanation and an introduction to the mechanics. When I played the demo, I thought, which was reinforced, by the tutorial, that this game is just like all the other RTS games, where you build, group and coordinate an attack to decimate your enemy. So, naturally it didn't make sense when an injured unit would come near an engineer and it wouldn't heal. But then I happened on a video primer on IGN, where I was introduced to the wonderful mechanics of Assistance. This simple, yet wonderful, mechanics makes this game a strategist delight! It's perhaps the only game (out of those that come to my mind anyways) that makes you plan your actions in this game, and that includes the building part too. Once you get hold of this mechanic this is a pretty wonderful game, and suddenly the high scores of Gamespot starts to make sense. I haven't played Total Annihilation, but if it was half as good as this one, then it sure does earn it's place in the RTS Hall of Fame.

The mechanic is simple, you order other units to assist by right-clicking on the one you wish to assist(the plus cursor). Once that's done, depending on the unit that is being assisted, and which is assisting the work changes. For example, if it a combat unit is assisting an engineer, then it will follow it and protect it from enemies, while an engineer assisting a combat unit might increase it's efficiency or rate of fire and heal it when required. Then engineers can assist each others, which results in a tremendous boost to the working rate of the primary engineers. It also keeps units manageable, as controlling the main assisted engineer makes the other assisting engineer follow it around. And there's no limit to the number of unit that can assist. So, as long as you have enough mass and energy to go around, you can make 100s of units assist one engineer, which suddenly makes the building time of 40 mins seem reasonable. And this assistance also extends to buildings, where production buildings will share load, and defensive buildings will gain bonus.

This brings me to the next point of economy in Supreme Commander. It's not the run-of-the mill economy, that is to say, the more unit you have on one resource the quickly you can gather it. You have to build a sustainable economy that remains in the green profit margin and doesn't become more consumption than production, at which point the building will go on, albeit at a slower rate. It's not as if you aren't producing, it's that whatever is being produced, is being used up, and not getting stored. Plus, many of the buildings and even units take up energy, mostly the shielded ones, to operate, whose shield will fail if there isn't a sufficient energy reserve. So, you have to pay attention to the economy too, otherwise your entire army, no matter how powerful can easily fall apart.

Which also reminds me about the army. Unlike other games, where you can spam a single type of unit and hit your opponent until he is overrun, this game puts more stress on the type of unit you bring into play while going against your opponent. Think your hulking giant can make mince meat of anything in it's path, with it's land based Oblivion Cannon? Well, think again, as the hulking giant will be quickly transformed into assimilate-able scrap metal when the opponent brings in it's air-force. So, not only you have to keep a good mix, but also have to keep an eye on the opponent's weakspot, from whence you can stab him and stab him good! It's because of this strongly set mechanic that sets it apart.

All of this strategy talk, can't be done if you don't mention the Tactical view. Out of all the RTS games that I've played till now, there was only Empire Earth that had given me the ability to carry out precision strike and plan my attacks with my Units. CnC has a basic form of it. But this game has that mechanic tightly integrated into the game. Not only can you set a waypoint, but also you can merge 2 waypoints as well as carry out coordinated attacks, wherein your bombers can fly in and bomb high value targets while your tanks move in as soon as your bombers are done, like the real-world battlefield, only you don't have to be a quick shot for this to be precise. Coming back to tactical view, it is a strategist's gold-mine, to put it in simple words! Not only can you do everything from here, but also plan and execute complex tactics, like marking out high value target or identifying the weak points of your enemies as well as your own base. Plus you can see how far your defenses cover and which area needs reinforcing more.

As for the graphics department, the game has quite good graphics and effects, which, if your machine can handle, is pretty nice. Some of the behemoth units crashing down, like the Aeon Assault bot, falling on her knees and then crashing or the shot down planes spinning out of control and then crashing and making a long crash line on the ground, really makes you feel you're in the heat of the battle, not to mention the smaller units that simple gets blown to smithereens when a heavy unit's done with them! Add to that the animations of the units that feel like real mechanical units, with the giant robots stomping onward or the tanks starting off slow and then accelerating in a straight line, or the subs surfacing with one side pushed up first, or even the less maneuverable bombers taking a huge diameter to turn around, makes this game one of the most immersive games on the market. And all these effects are made to come to life, with the excellent sound effects. The creaking of the ships, the floating of the saucers, the sounds of the lasers and missiles going off, or even the muffled artillery shelling that's going on at a distances and the subsequent screen-shaking makes you feel like a commander that's duking it all out on the battlefield, and keeps you glued on for that one more attack, that can easily result into 2+ hours battle which very nicely complements the humongous maps this game has.

As for the campaigns, they are one of the most well designed campaigns. They start off small but gradually eases you onto the humongous maps so that you don't feel lost. The scripted events are great, and the difficulty challenging enough to keep your grey matters humming all through out the campaign till you see the operation complete dialog box, because the defensive line that you thought was impenetrable, will eventually fall. Special commendations for the last missions of the campaign which really makes you feel like the last hope of your respective race, of the main game, and all of the campaigns of the Expansion, which really makes you feel you like backed into a corner.

Apart from all these good sides, there are a few quirks. For one, the game is a Major resource hog, specially the CPU. Unless you have a top of the line CPU, this game will bring it down. Good thing the game does natively support multi-core CPU. Apart from that there's the bug part. The game's buggy as hell. The game starts off fine, with everything smooth and clean, but 2 hours into the game, and the videos start to lag. Completely shut it down and start it off again and it's back to normal! Also, this doesn't qualify as a bug but still a flaw nonetheless, every building you build in this game adds to the unit count! That means even if you put up immovable walls, it will be counted as your unit! What the hell is that supposed to mean! And to add to it, there isn't an unit counter! Although the later part is solved in the expansion, which got a complete facelift.

But still barring all the problems, I would still recommend it to players who like their strategy part in RTS, and not just mindless unit spamming. It's a wonderful game, with a wonderful plot and backdrop as well as wonderful and awesome units (some of the Experimentals are just too awesome!). Kudos to Chris Taylor (whose Dungeon Siege brought me into RPGs ) for such a wonderful and true RTS game. Just that the tutorials needs a lot of work, and leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall: 9.7
Gameplay: 9.8
Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 9.9

Here's some screenshots from my playtime:

Welcome to the N.H.K Review

2011-04-26T00:31:00.004+05:30

Being a fan of Anime, I thought I should start sharing my impressions of the various Anime that I watch. So, beginning with this post, I have decided to add Anime Reviews too, to my Blog. As for the first Anime, I would like to share one of my all-time favourite, Welcome to the N.H.K.

Welcome to the NHK is a great anime that tells the story of Tatsuhiro Sato, a social recluse. The story not only tells of his present predicament, but also why he became a recluse in the first place, as well as why he couldn’t accept the society around him. But the story just doesn’t stop there. It goes on into how a girl, about whom he didn’t know anything comes to him and offers to help him for nothing in return, and how he meets an old junior schoolmate, who also impacts on his life. Along with these, the story shows the different traps of society that’s just lying outside to snare people, and how Tatsuhiro manages to fall into almost each and every one of them and then be saved by his 2 friends.
Welcome to the NHK is not an anime which you can classify as a single genre. There are multiple types of anime, all rolled into one. The first and foremost would be the comedy. This anime has soon very good laughing moments that will force your funny bone. Sure the amount isn’t as much as other dedicated comedy, but there are enough to keep the sailing smooth and keep you interested in the story.

Then there’s the second type that showcases the various social traps and the vices of society that we can see people falling into regularly like pyramid schemes, online gaming addictions and suicide. Not only does Sato manage to get involved into all of these, but he also manages to experience them from the perspective of the addicts, that is why they do what they do. It really makes us think, having a perspective that is common with the society and the perspective that is of the people that are involved.

The third type of story that goes on in this anime is obviously the story of Sato. The anime develops his character very nicely, with his motivations of becoming a recluse, why he suddenly believes that the mysterious girl can help him, or why he can’t really bring himself up to lie to his mother easily. The story also deals with his view of the world, how it was influenced and how he manages to relate his senpai’s notion that the world really is a conspiracy to be true and everybody in this world is part of that conspiracy plotting behind his back, or how the society feeds off recluses like him and how they have measures ready to keep him a recluse. At the end his conclusion that he really is alone in this world seems to be perfectly right.

Lastly, there’s the story of the human nature. Like it was said in the anime, the human nature makes us think we are better than others. So, as a result, when we can’t accept something we blame it on others to make ourselves superior. In this case, Sato influenced by his Senpai, the conspiracy to keep Sato a Hikikomori. So, in a way Sato being a Hikikomori is actually following his human instincts of being superior. Since he was always afraid of what the people are thinking about him, he decides to cut him off from the society and think himself to be alone in the world, and thus automatically make himself superior.

Apart from the story, the animation is great. The characters animations are quite believable. The animation where Sato comes at Misaki with his fist raised and anger on his face, and how Misaki, like the little girl embraces herself and pleas, was great. The anger showed how angry Sato was, and Misaki reflex does show how really afraid she was at that point, even though spending all those time with Sato and thinking she had reached out to him.
In the sound department, the starting theme is good, while the first ending theme wasn’t to my liking, but that might be because I’m not into rock music. That being said, the second ending theme is very nice. The voice acting is also quite good, with Sato’s character having that reserved tone that really brings out his character. The other characters are also voiced just as good. But the special mention in this segment is definitely the background score that plays during the anime. This anime has one of the best and the most spot-on background score. The guitar riffs really sets up the mood for the different emotional scenes throughout the anime.

All in all, this is a great watch, for anyone that wants something serious. The characters develops properly, the story moves on at a great pace, and at the end of it, you have a great story that stays on your mind for quite a long time. Overall it is a fine example of an anime. As was said by the person that recommended me this, this anime really did manage to leave a mark on me!

Flipkart.com Review

2011-04-24T23:32:00.004+05:30

The Internet is a wonderful thing, a boon if I may say so. Not only is it a treasure trove of virtually everything you could want, or hope, be it knowledge, keeping in contact with distant relative or even business. Speaking of which, there are many entrepreneurs who have made quite a mark on the economic scene, using the Internet. The best part of these is that they don't need huge investment, only a bright idea, and some way to attract customer.

Such was the story of Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, two IIT graduates, who, along with a workforce of five people, started Flipkart.com, an online book-store in India back in 2007. And within 4 years, they are now selling Mobiles, Movies, Music, Games, Cameras, Computers, along with Books. Such an achievement makes one wonder how they accomplished so much?

I, too, was intrigued by such a question and so decided to have a peek at the website. I was also in need of two books and a game. (Here, I would like to mention, that I have dealt with both online retailers like NextWorld.in, as well as over the phone ordering from directly the publishers. Since my first online purchase, I was hooked to it, so now I prefer online purchase over everything else. Not only does it save some amount of cost, but also saves a lot of time and guess work.) As soon as I opened some of the deals, I knew, this would be the site that I'll be shopping the most from in the future. Not only are the discount out-of-this-universe, but the variety of items available are staggering. For example, this is the only online site in India that I have seen so far that stocks Manga! Plus there are some books that are not readily available in the Indian market, like works of writers like Drew Karpashyn, Mel Odom etc. And best of all, this site offers free shipping anywhere in India, on purchase of, drum rolls please, Rs. 100 or above! That's virtually free shipping for all of the item you can buy. Add to these, the option of Cash On Delivery on almost all the items, no matter where you are located, and you have an absolutely irresistible online shopping site.
But all these things can't make a business shine, if their customer support or after sales isn't upto the mark. And this is one of Flipkart's strongest point. They have a customer care helpline 24X7 in addition to the now standard e-mail care. Writing to them about a query, I got a prompt reply within the next day, with each and every question answered individually. I don't like spamming, so if I have multiple question, I generally write them down in a single mail in a list. But most of the CC used to answer just one of the question, and I have to follow up with my other question individually. But Flipkart's different, they answered every single question of mine, separated into different paragraphs.
Apart from these they have a Facebook page, a standard, an active Blog and Twitter feed too. I mention these because, for a business that employs technology, I think it is essential, they know the technology and use it properly. These active Blog and twitter, indicates how much aware they are. The style of blog is very friendly, it's not that they are looking down at you, they are beside you, inviting the customers to help improve them. These friendly gestures are even more evident in the Careers section. There's even a video of them during there office time.

But I've talked too much about them, so let's see how is there service. Like I said before, I was looking for two books and a game. I found that both of the books were listed as available and to be delivered in 3 days, along with a good discount. The same was for the game too, Tom Clancy's HAWX 2, but with a delivery of 5 days. Being an online seller, we need an account, which is one of the most simplest account creation I've seem so far, fill up only 3 fields and you're good to go. After the sign-up you can optionally go into the accounts settings, and create multiple address, as well as fill up some of your personal details. As for the purchase, you just need to sign-in (if you haven't already done so), select the items and add them to your cart, pretty standard fare. After you're done, you can proceed to checkout, which is a really pretty interface with side-tab navigation. From here you can choose a delivery address, along with a delivery update phone number. After which the address will show up on your right side of the page. After this, you need to
chose your payment option, after which you just need to fill up the necessary details and voila, you're done! They'll even send you an SMS and an e-mail regarding your orders. Plus your account will be updated with the order details, along with the expected delivery dates.
The very next day after I placed my order, my first book arrived, with the rest of my order following the next day. The order that was supposed to reach me after 3 days, was shipped in just 2 days! The packaging of the orders were great too. Instead of a box, which all the other sellers use, they put the items in Folder like piece of carton, with packing tapes generously applied. Many might not agree with me, but I find this arrangement better than the Carton Box. Instead of yanking out the item, I can gently lift it up. The item itself is packed in a layer of plastic, like those covering new books, and beneath the item, you'll find a receipt. This is the only online seller that I have found sends the Invoice along with the order. The books also had a bookmark with clever quotes, a thoughtful addition that could easily be skipped, with all those discount and the free shipping. The DVD that came to me was wrapped in a sheet of bubble-wrap with lots of tape inside the standard Carton sheet. All of the items were in excellent condition as if freshly off-the-store-shelf.
Over all, it was pleasure to shop at Flipkart.com, and I will absolutely recommend to anyone whose looking for an online shop with good option, as well as to those who are looking for their first online purchase.

The Witcher's discount, practically giveaway

2011-04-16T21:48:00.002+05:30

I always love a good bargain on the games that I buy. And so Steam sales are one of my favourite times of the year. I even save up just for those times of the year. But yesterday I came across a deal so awesome, that I just had to let everyone know. As you would know, the wonderful game site/store that is GoG.com is a sister site for CD Projeckt the developer who made the wonderful RPG The Witcher. Now the thing is, in celebration of the release of The Witcher 2, Assassins of Kings, GoG is bringing in The Witcher into their catalog for only $9.99 from May 10 onwards (a full $10 less than Steam's list price), with extra exclusive content. And being GoG, the good news just doesn't end their, they are putting a cherry on the icing in the form of a discount of 50% on The Witcher from May 10-24, thus bringing it's price down to $4.99, with all the exclusive deals! Now if that doesn't make you happy, nothing ever will! So be sure to save up your $5 before May 10 and grab the game, I know I will.

Good Old Games that is gog.com

2011-04-16T13:42:00.004+05:30

There are times when we feel extremely nostalgic for a game that gave us countless hours of entertainment. You go up to your attic(or down to your basement) and after rummaging through your proud old game’s collection, find your copy and after dusting it off install it on your spanking new high-end computer, expectantly, only to find that it doesn’t run. Or perhaps you find out that a certain someone sold off your cherished games CD along with your other stuff. So, now you’re all stranded without anything to satisfy your nostalgia. Fear not, because this is the age of Internet, and there’s a solution for everything out there.
So, say hello to Good Old Games (Gog.com)! Just like the name, someone came up with the bright idea that people would like to be able to play their old favourites. So, came up the site, which not only sells old games at low price and with extra goodies, but these games also comes prepared to run on modern Windows OSes. No extra software and tweaks needed to run these. Plus most of the games here aren’t really pixilated class DOS era games. Some of the games included are Guilty Gear, Pain Killer and many more games being added. Sure you won’t find Crysis and the latest games, the some of the games of yore were equal to the fun you can have with the present games.
Also, this site happens to be the sister site of CD Projeckt. So you can pre-order/pre-load the DRM free version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings at a discount of 10% from here. Plus if you sign up with the site, you’ll get 4 complementary free games, just to show their appreciation!

Subho Noboborsho!

2011-04-15T13:05:00.003+05:30

Wishing you all a very prosperous Bengali New Year! It is one of my favourite time of the year, a time when our relatives and friends get together and celebrate the arrival of a new year, of new hope and of summer. This is the festival that marks the official arrival of Summer. Not only do we get to meet with our friends and family, there's also food of various kind, celebrating the spirit of Bengal.

Now if, you'll excuse me, I have some sumptuous food and friends and family waiting for me :P

The Sims 3 Review

2011-04-11T21:27:00.006+05:30

There are very few games that I’ve played that reeled me in. And there are even fewer games that made me miss both my dinner and my favourite TV show. Yes, The Sims 3 made me miss both of those things on my first day of playing it. And even after missing them, I wasn’t mad, but still continued to play it! I heard, or rather read, about The Sims in a magazine, the idea of which enthralled me. And when I got the game, I fell in love with the series. So naturally when EA announced The Sims 3, I was pretty much excited. And after having played this game for about 3 days, I feel my investment was not a total waste. The game was touted as an evolution of the Sims franchise, allowing for even more freedom and a lived in and a believable society. New features like following your Sims everywhere, customizing everything and assignments of traits to create truly unique individuals were also touted.

For the uninitiated, The Sims series is, like its fore-father, the SimCity Series, a Strategy or God playing hybrid but with a lot more focus. It’s a people simulator. But don’t let the small scale fool you, as it happens managing people can be quite bit challenging than managing a city. Like all of us, these tiny computer people, or Sims, have varying needs, habits and traits. They need to regularly clean themselves, have proper food and avoid over-eating, go to the bathroom as and when needed, hunt for jobs and maintain a social standing. And like the real world, if the Sim has a family depending on it looks after them, like paying proper attention to the wife/husband and children and fulfills their wishes. Not only that, new parents need to even wake up in the middle of the night to change Junior’s diapers! Add to that a finite lifetime, in which they can even meet untimely death, and a lot more things, and you have a quite complex and engrossing, and not to mention unique game genre. You can choose to be as generous and make a model sim, or simply play the devil and reduce your sim to a hapless loser! But beware, if you can’t manage the variable properly, both you and your sim would be ripping your hair off!
That said, the Sims 2 was the first 3D game in the series and was a huge success, spawning many expansion packs and a loyal fan-following. So, The Sims 3 had to be something better than that. Let’s see if it succeeds.

First Impressions:

The first thing you notice about The Sims 3 (TS3) is the almost, if not complete, lack of loading screens. Save for the game loading screen and the save game loading screens, there is absolutely no loading screen interruptions. Maybe the lack of loading screen has become a style, as most games tout such a feature anyway. And I for one am grateful that TS3 team decided to go in with the flow in this field. The lack of loading screen really keeps the game flowing smoothly. While the predecessor had a loading screen for almost every task that involved leaving your lot’s compound, this game is seamless. Whether you want to just go Downtown to grab some grub or go for a little grocery shopping, there isn’t a single loading screen in between. You Sim just hails in a cab and you can follow the cab as it travels through the neighborhood! And if you can afford it, your Sims can drive themselves given that they have transportation medium, which ranges from Cars to even Bi-Cycles and a Sims 3 Exclusive Scooter too!

The next thing that you notice is how much cleaner the interface has become. It’s as if the game guides you in the right direction and instills a sense that you can’t go wrong. The launcher, which also doubles as a content manager auto-logs-in if you are connected. There is a big blue play symbol that starts the main game. For new games you choose a neighborhood and click the check-mark. After which you can choose to create a sim or move in into a pre-made lot. Selecting the family tells you the necessary information as well the level of difficulty. And if you already have a game saved, then the start-up interface changes to a list of the saved lots. From here you select the game you want to move in and on clicking the check mark, loads the selected game. No need for getting into the neighborhood every time and clicking on the house to load your game. And all the while, in TS3, you have these helpful pop-ups that prompts you and displays the relative Lessons, which in itself is quite vast and is kind of an in-game manual, detailing almost every aspect of the game.

Create A Sim

This change seems to have crept into every nook and corner of the game. Right after you drop into Create a Sim, you’ll notice that the interface has been completely redesigned. The slider controls for the advanced tweaking like fine-tuning the sims has been condensed into an advanced setting, with the default view being a multitude of pre-made body shapes a components that you can choose. You can always opt-for a random part too, if you’re not feeling like customizing. And if you peek into the advance settings, you can see that, that too has been redesigned. The sliders are grouped into different region of the face, which can be accessed by clicking the specific dots on the face, shown under the advanced settings.

Similarly, the clothing sections have been redesigned to include Tops, Bottoms and Sets for each category, with additional accessories too. After you’ve set the cloths, but think that the shoe doesn’t exactly match, you can fire up the Create-A-Style mode, another touted feature of the game. Through this, you can absolutely mix and match any style to create that perfect blend. Want your Sims to wear a Brick patterned shirt? Why not! (No matter how weird it looks!) Just get a shirt and enter Create-A-Style and select the Brick pattern. And it doesn’t stop there; you can customize each of the style, drag it onto different object (perhaps to create that perfect camouflage) and even save them and share them on the sim community! The style itself can have multiple patterns associated and each can be differently colored, by specifying the tone and the color of it. Also for those extreme enthusiasts, there’s even the option for viewing and entering in RGB numbers too. The associated Lesson does a pretty good job in teaching the basics about it. And the best part, you can use this tool absolutely anywhere in the game, be it your furniture or even the walls. Everything can be customized.

Being done with the main sim, it’s now time for setting the characteristics of Sims. And this is where one of TS3’s main attractions comes into play: Traits. Each Sims can have up to 5 traits assigned to them from a huge pool of 63 traits. So, you can virtually make the most well natured, world-leading, Utopia-founding sim or if you’re feeling that devilish, then you can even make an Evil mad scientist! These traits cover almost all of the traits that you might think of, from Kleptomaniacs to even plain unlucky sims. These traits are not for just the cosmetics purposes, each of those traits have effect on how the sim interacts or how the game reacts. Like for example, ambitious Sims will be able to get promotions faster, being ambitious, while loner sims can stay at home and doesn’t need to socialize as often as others, and thus even work from home. After you’ve chosen your desired traits, you get a selection of career tracks’ Lifetime wish (more on this later). Next you choose your favorite music and food and color and you’re done with your sim.

Live & Buy Mode:

After you’re done creating your sims, you now need to choose a house, or a lot, if you want to build a custom one. Buying a house will give you 2 options, furnished, costing a bit more and unfurnished, costing less, but coming with only the basics, in the form of the bathroom plumbing and the kitchen. But according to the manual, an unfurnished house might contain special surprises.

Going into Buy mode, will reveal a significant change, which has become one of my favourite. Although the older buy by category is present, going into Room-wise sorting will result into the puck being changed into a mini-display of a room, with a pictorial representation of the entire related thing that room might have arranged in an aesthetic way. This way it not only makes it easier to figure the required object, but also gives an idea of what should be where and helps with the aesthetics. After figuring out the basic amenities, it is off to Live Mode.

At first glance, the Live Mode interface doesn’t seem to have changed much. There is still the similar control puck, with the household sims displayed in a skewer along the left side. But inspect closely and you’ll see how much the game has changed. The first and foremost, is the complete absence of Aspirations. Aspirations in this game have been replaced by Wishes. And unlike fears or the negative aspirations, there are no negative wishes. You can click the wishes to promise them to your sims, that is move them into one of the four slots, and thus freeze it till you accomplish it, unlike the locking of Aspirations which allowed for just one constant Aspirations. It doesn’t really affect the mood meter, but does spawn a positive moodlet, that has an effect on the mood meter. Completing promises or wishes, grants you Lifetime Happiness points, which can be used to purchase various rewards like a never having to pee, or discovering sims’ traits or even a teleporter, from the tab of the same name. Unlike the aspirations, these doesn't always ramp up in difficulty, but it's simple wishes like baking some cookies or even going fishing! So, fulfilling these wishes doesn't take up much away from enjoying the game, and thus makes the game a little more easier.

Gameplay:

As mentioned above, there is now a new game mechanic, which has been dubbed as moodlets. Every action as well as surroundings spawns a positive, neutral or negative moodlet that affects the mood meter. In plain RPG speak, these are modifiers of the mood meter. So, your mood meter doesn't bottoms out if one or more of your need variables fall low. Instead, that spawns a neutral moodlet that has a time limit. If you can solve it within that time, your mood meter goes back to normal. This new mechanic not only makes the game play a tad more easier, but also rewards you for doing small things like brushing your teeth and even going out on your holidays, thus in a way this mechanic simultaneously allows and motivates you to explore the world of Sims more.

The next thing you’ll notice is the weeding out of unnecessary details. For example, when you start off with your sim, you don’t have access to all the skills. They are revealed as and when required. That is if you are planning on a scientific career, and never play any musical instrument, then you won’t have the related skill showing up. Also, the ones that do show up have a skill journal associated with it. This journal, details the various nitty-gritty that you’ve gone through to acquire that level. Plus, it also includes the pointers for the mastery levels of its own Opportunity.

This brings me to a major upgrade of the game. Everything in TS3 is so detailed, and I’m not talking about the graphics. For example, in The Sims 2, when you searched for a job, a pop-up would come, and if you didn’t like it, you’d need to search again, till you get the one you want. But in TS3, you just get a single dialog box, with conveniently placed arrow keys, that lets you choose whichever job you want, from that single dialog box. And it spreads to all over the game. Then there’s the social interaction. Every time you enter into an interaction, an icon shows up with a bar that starts off in the middle and increases to the right if the other sim approves your action or left if your actions are disapproving. This, quite literally, takes out the guess work out of the game. Switching to the career tab, it also details what is needed the most for your job performance and your next promotion. It’s no longer only white boxes around the skill levels and the number of friends and the mood in which you reach your job. It’s about your performance. Max it out and you get a promotion, a slack and your meter drops and when it bottoms out, you are demoted or even fired. Wherever you look there’s this helpful upgrade in-built. From time until which you’ll sleep to even the time until which you’re going to complete a task, all are represented by a progress bar in the icon.

Plus there are these little additions to the standard Sims life. You can now tinker around the household to upgrade the various machinery to become fire-proof or even self-cleaning. And if you have a computer, you can hack, which brings in cash, and even over clock it! Every sim now carries a cell phone, so no need for an extra phone. This phone comes equipped for checking real-estate, calling services and the likes. And oh, yeah you can take pictures with it and even set it’s ring tone!

Speaking of jobs, jobs are no longer the standard fare. While some jobs have a different path, like the law enforcement, all the jobs can be done in various ways. If you sim left with low energy, you can ask your sim to slack off. Want to build up relationship with co-workers, ask your sim to spend some time with their co-workers. You can even impress the boss by helping the boss or even plain work hard. Each of the way has different effect on your sim. So, you have to choose the one accordingly. This does make the job part of the game a lot less cosmetic and a little more interactive.

This then brings me to the already mentioned Opportunities. This one, very much like the moodlets, is another new mechanic. These will pop-up from time to time given by your co-workers, known contacts or even by checking the happenings through reading newspapers and using the internet. To simple put in simple words, these can be termed as side-quests. The reward varies as well the missions. Some will have certain variables to it, while others are plain simple. You have 3 kinds of Opportunities, which can be accessed through your Opportunities tab. The puck automatically tracks your Opportunities and informs you what you need to do, without opening the tab. A simple right-click also allows you to step-down from the Opportunity and thus makes room for another. I could go on and on about the list of improvements that this game has made. But that would be too long.

Graphics:

As for the graphics, TS3 has a slightly higher requirement than its predecessor. But considering the default hardware available in the market, any system can run this game pretty smooth. Also, the game does make use of the new extra resources more. The graphics are crisper, the environments are lively and looks lived in and little effects like trees swaying in the breeze and various other effects abound. Even the objects have higher quality textures. You can now make out small details on the food as well as other items in the game world. In addition to this, you can see pretty clearly the TV shows and the games being played on the computer. Not only that, the game has many nifty improvements too. Your sims shows some really cute animations and sometime even pleasantly surprises you. For example, you sims now sings songs while bathing, or hums a tune while gardening. And if you buy them a bath-tub, they’ll sometime take a dip in the water, while bathing, blowing bubbles and then coming up and start giggling. These little things form the basis of the Sims charms. Everything from the small animations of your sims jumping up and down in joy, to shaking their little fists at you, to the humorous quotes of loading screen like “Unloading Loading Screens” and even the witty descriptions of the objects, will bring a smile on your face. And before you know it, you’ll fall in love with the game.

But with all these things going on, the game does a pretty good job of keeping a steady frame-rate. The transition from the house-level to the map level, for example, is seamless and without a frame-rate hitch. Even following your sim around in through the city is smooth. And if for some reason, you still aren’t able to get decent frame-rates, you can turn off some of the details from the highly detailed options screen. From here you can even turn off things like Story progression, sim aging, placement grid etc. The story progression means that the other sim will also age like normal, get married, have children and eventually die off. The sim aging, which could be controlled in the earlier game only through a certain aspiration reward, is now directly controlled from the options. You can adjust the time it takes the sim to age, essentially determining your game’s length and difficulty, or you can simply turn off aging for a pseudo-sand-box feel. The grid placement allows the objects to snap to a grid, while on, and while off, gives you complete free-will to where you place them. In addition to this, you can now place any object diagonally by default while rotating too.

Sound:

The sound of TS3, however, requires a special mention. Like always, yours Sims speaks in a gibberish known as Simlish and the voice actor does a pretty good job of delivering it with charm. Even your Sim now has a voice option, in which you can choose how your sim will sound and along with the pitch of the voice. The environment also sounds great, with there being different sounds present for all the environments, from the crashing waves at the beach to the birds chirping in the park, every sound detail are covered. Not only that, the music playing on the radio are pretty good. You might even recognize some of the songs as being the simlish version of real-world songs. Along with that you have the option to listening to your songs too. The general background tracks, like its predecessors, are very catchy. While you might recognize some of the tracks from the older games, you will definitely notice the new ones. The recycling of these tracks doesn’t make this game loose its charm in any way, rather adds to it. And before you know it, you’ll be humming the tunes yourself!

Conclusion:

With all these improvements, one might ask the question: What about the expansions from the previous games? Are they included? The answer to that, is a no, and a small yes. While the most obvious expansions like Pets or Seasons are missing, there are some lingering shadows of the previous expansions. For example, you can try out your entrepreneur skills, but are only limited to real-estate. You can start off with a partnership and go onto buy the entire business. You can then upgrade it, collect rent every Monday morning and even fire employees. Similarly, other inclusions of mini-games are shadows of previous expansion packs. Like the cooking skill. It’s no-longer a wide variety of cooking options. You have to learn the recipes as well as buy some, to be able to make them. Also, you just cannot order your shopping over the phone anymore. You need to go down to grocery store and shop for the ingredients for the recipes. As you improve in cooking skill, as well as prepare a food more often, you get better at that. The result of which is that although you might have to stomach burnt food at first, you get better at it, so much so that the diner’s food start to taste bad. And if you can use good quality ingredients, the quality of the food automatically increase, just like in real life. And for the Farmville fans out there, here’s a good news, Gardening features more prominently, with the ability to grow produce of varying quality and even selling them off. It’s no longer a cosmetic feature of weeding plants, full-blown gardening from tending to fertilizing to even harvesting of plants. But with these additions, there are still some glaring holes that can be felt to have been left deliberately for future expansions.
In conclusion, we come back to the main question: Does the game succeed. To that, I would like to say this: This game is what the original game should’ve been. It’s not just a sequel; it’s essentially a reboot of the franchise. With a more accessible game play, a believable society, powerful editing and creation tools, the ability to create individually unique sims, and the additions of mini-games like gardening, cooking and real-estate, the possibilities seems to be endless. Add to that the games’ habit of pleasantly surprising you now and then, and you have one perfect Sims game. So, yeah, I would recommend any Sims fans out there to go grab a copy and play this game, as well as those unsure new-comers to go ahead. But, if you are looking for immediate gratification with this game, then The Sims are not for you.

Scores:

Game play – 9.5
Graphics – 9.5
Performance – 9.9
Overall – 9.7

Plus, for those who register the game, they not only get community access and tech support for free, but also $10 worth of SimPoints (the online Sims Store currency) for free, in addition to a whole new town. Not only that, but you can download user-created content as well as free stuff from the store, like the Renault Concept car. All this can be done from the launcher, and after updating the game, you get an in-game browser, which entitles you special free contents too, from the official Sims team.

Here are some screenies:

Star Craft II: WIngs of Liberty Review

2011-04-03T15:54:00.002+05:30

I was introduced to this game, by an old Starcraft Fan, who is a proud owner of the original Battle Chest back when it was just released. At first I was upset with the pricing announcement and the various server limitations that Blizzard has imposed on the game. But after having played the game, I can honestly say that I forgive Blizzard for all those, in lieu of the great game that we get to play.
Just so that I can compare, I played through the original game, not only to get a feel about why the original was such a hit, but also get to know the story, which is continued in this game. Even though that game was made in DX5, I was quite amazed with what the devs of that game achieved with that game at that time, and suddenly the fact that a game can go strong for 10+ years, seemed very true to me.

And true to Blizzards style, this game is solid in gameplay, with ample single-player content to keep you satisfied for a good long time. Add to that the story line throws in choices too, that can result in different units to characters leaving, you have a good replay value. Sure it's not RPG-grade choice-making, but it just adds to the innovations that Blizzard has got just right with their game. Also, after you're done with the single-player, if you are feeling a bit cagey to go online, like me (because you don't want to get you butt whipped the moment you crank out your first SCV), Blizzard has, quite thoughtfully, included some challenges, that teaches you the nitty-gritty of online competitive play, and how to respond to different types of zerg or protoss rush, and even manage your army at full efficiency. These, along with the standard skirmish mode and also lots of achievements, in both the Campaign and the Challenge, will keep you motivated to come back to the game and give it another go.

The game-play is the same the as the original, with the different races providing completely different type of gameplay. The Terran are still SCV dependent for building the bases and defenses, and being the only race to be able to repair. The Zerg are still the creep-loving-creeps that they used to be with native healing for all their units and the early rush capabilities. The one thing that you'll immeadiately notice is that the building gives off some units when destroyed. And finally, the Protoss, the high-tech morale-bound alien. They still have their shields and the touch-and-get-back-to-work Warping technology. The major attraction of the Protoss is that you can change your Gateway to Warp Portals, which allow you to teleport in Gateway units, directly onto the field within the radius of a Pylon, faster than conventional training, albeit with a few seconds cooldown on all the units for that respective gateway. Blizzard even thoughtfully, since this technique would result in multiple gateways, added a shortcut key to select all your gateways at once!

The interface remains the same for all the races, which is ok, since why should one try to fix something that isn't broken (unlike a certain RTS with Cs in the name)? You still issue orders from the right-hand command card, while the middle portion represent the health of the unit(s) using different colours and the Left part is the mini-map. But you do find small innovations here and there, which aren't exactly as revolutionary, but would make new-comers to SC universe feel at home. For example, it is now possible to upgrade your SCVs to allow multiple SVCs to work on a single building.

Now, the main focus of the game, is the continuation of the story, and I must say that Blizzard did an exceptionally good job in this front. The traditional conference based mission objective is gone. You now control, almost, Jim Raynor and interact with not only different people, that you get to recruit in the course of the game, but also with various part of your flag-ship, the Hyperion. These include a TV, that keeps you updated on the results and the portrayal of your actions and sometimes some plain silly commercials, just like the real-world counterpart, only you can't change the channel. You can also check out the new, select few, units that you acquire during the game (The spider-mines animation is real cute). Along with this there's a mission archive computer, from where you can check and replay any cinematic or missions, in case you missed something, and also see your collected alien specimens grow. In short, you do have a lot of things, if you are interested in the story of these things. They don't get in your way, but do make the game feel more alive and give a sense of interaction. Plus, if you click Raynor, you can hear him grumble some funny lines too. Apart from that, the main story is very well-told. It answers a lot of questions and follows up on the previous story very closely. The character are well fleshed out and develop quite nicely. Again, it isn't forced onto you, but if you want, you can talk to them and find out the story. You meet with some old friends, while you make and recruit new helps. The voice acting is great, with quite good emotions given in. The ending of the campaign left me wanting for more and gave me a feeling of emotional attachment with the game. The events felt real, like the last stand really made you feel like you were making your last stand, with your comrades and friends coming in to aid you with everything they've got, but still falling one by one to your unending enemies. Over all the story is a big plus point of this game, and Blizzard has managed to deliver on that. Also, you get to see many of the classic units as well as some new units come in the campaign, which, otherwise you don't have access to in the main game. The campaign structure is very lenient. You have to choose a planet to launch a mission from the Starmap, from the Hyperion's Bridge. Each mission has a back-ground story that is told by the respective character, along with a specific unit unlock, which will help in the that particular mission. In other words the missions are designed around that specific unit. So, in a way, you can choose which units to unlock first and take with you on your future mission. Plus, if you are feeling adventurous, you can attempt the bonus side missions that rewards you with different research samples, that you can exchange, in your lab, for different powerful upgrades. But you can choose only one type, so you might want to replay to check out the other upgrades.

As for the graphics, if you have a good enough system to meet it's requirements, it is one of the most beautiful game in the RTS genre.The best visual treat is perhaps the forest covered map. But even in the lower end, with textures set to medium, it looks pretty, kind of like Warcraft III's. It uses the Havok engine for it's Physics rendering so ATi owners can also enjoy Physics. The animations are great, you can also zoom in for better details too. But the one thing that I really liked about this game's technical aspect, is that, all throughout the game that I played, on a 1GB RAM, HD3200 IGP with XP, this game didn't crash even once. Though the loading times were long, but once it's loaded, the gameplay was smooth. And if, while playing, the game runs out of resources, or starts to lags, it displays a dismissible dialog that tells that the game is running slow and that I should lower the settings or that I have run out of paged pool memory and adjusts itself on the fly and lets me continue to play the game! Unlike other games, which would crash in such scenarios and would force me to hard restart the machine, or just exit to desktop. It was really thoughtful of Blizzard to put in guard codes and let people with lower speced machines enjoy the game, rather than making them feel guilty for having such a low speced PC.

Another great aspect of the game is it's background score. The music, in accordance to the Terran theme, is mostly Texan, but still it blends in well with the game and doesn't distract you. Rather it adds to the atmosphere of the map and lets you feel more into the game and enjoy it. The same can be said for the sound effects too. Each of the units have a distinctive queue sound, and on clicking them multiple time, like traditional Blizzard game, they'll say something funny. The units shout out for medics when they are low on health and even shout out when under heavy fire. The gunfire, laser blast and explosions, everything is spot on with perhaps the best effect, for me, is the charging of the main-gun of the Battlecruiser.

Overall, this game has been worth all those years of wait and more. It's a gem of a game, that managed to perfect the persistent unlock system and still not ruin the game. They kept most of the game the same, but did make lots of improvements within that boundary, that makes it feel like a fresh game, which I think is a great achievement. The game also has the option of saving your saves and profile online, so you can jump in from anywhere. So, would I recommend others to get the game, given the high price here in India? I would say definitely get this game, if you can afford it now. You won't be disappointed. Otherwise, you could wait for the other parts, when the main game might come down by a few bucks or get it as a gift from someone else!

As for score, I would give it something in the range of 9.6/10 That 0.2 is because of a weird mechanic, where all the units feels like bubble. I mean, if you order a tank to go in front from the back of a group of marine, it will push aside the marine and go forward, while the marines slide along the side of the tank. And the other 0.2 is because there still isn't any formation command. I mean most of the RTSes have the formation commands by default, but still, after adding so many improvements, Blizzard could've put in a formation function. Getting the marines into a definite formation, with the medics always at the back is a pain. If I command them to turn back, or even right or left, the medic will take the lead, because the medic was there in the first place. Apart from these two weird problem, I didn't see any major problem. (And that doesn't count the high price and the online restriction)

DarkSpore Beta Impressions

2011-04-01T22:40:00.003+05:30

I haven't played Spore: Galactic Heroes, but I have a feeling that players who have will find DarkSpore quite similar to it. And I also think the name appropriate for that very reason, Darkspore = Spore with Darkness.
The gameplay reminded me of Torchlight, but I can't put my finger on it, there's something different about this one that makes it Torchlight level of exciting. But it is still enjoyable, just not that much. It can be termed as an Action-RPG with all the elements there, like levels, XP, currencies, loots and so on, but everything is in moderation, that keeps new comers from being overwhelmed.
The premise of this game is that you have these Super-Scientists going around enhancing organisms using genetic modification, and like all such stories to become full circle, these modifications became unstable and mutated and they turned on their creators, thus giving rise to Darkspores. Fast forward a thousand years, and you are one of those last remaining Super-Scientist packed up in a cryogenic sleep and kicked into orbit, with an AI babysitting you while you and also trying to figure out a way to stabilize the mutations to create a prefection in the genetic heroes that your ancestors couldn't. So, at the game's start you awaken with the analysis reaching 100% and thus giving you access to perfect genetic heroes, with which you are now tasked with clearing out the Darkspore hordes from the different galaxies.
After a quick tutorial, you are allowed to choose one extra hero from 3. There a different classes of heroes like in all action RPGs, including tanks, medics, long-range etc. Being me, I tried out one with healing and range, and I quite enjoyed it. The campaign can be played solo or co-op and there's even PVP for the moment in the Beta. You can also deck out your heroes with extra war-gears that range from defense to offense to even augmentations to increase the levels, making the game something more than just mindless hack-n-slash. And I have a feeling that EA might cash in with this point and make custom heroes put up for cash, along with gears. Although the number of in-game hero number is quite large.

Although my game ran at the lowest graphical settings, the level designs were quite good, reminding me of the worlds of Spore. Maybe, when the game reaches the final stage of release and goes out of Beta, they might tie in Spore in some way. The movement is done entirely with the mouse and special abilities with the keyboard. But I would really like to see keyboard shortcuts integrated more for movement and interface controls too. Maybe they'll do it in the final release.

I tried the co-op in the single player campaign, through the Matchmaker. The experience was quite smooth, with the matches taking only about a second to be found. The matches with 2 others, for a total of 3 players, was even more fun than the solo campaign. Not only are you able to easily take on the hordes that would otherwise overwhelm you, but you are also able to amass a greater number of loots, that help in making your genetic heroes even more powerful. The players you're matched are appropriate too, with your level, so that you don't feel out of place, and the social component works without any fuss. Plus, chaining levels becomes that much easier. You can keep track of your co-op mate through 2 extra cards on the top-left of your screen which not only tells you how much energy or health they have left, but also the genetic heroes they are playing as. I tend to stay away from multiplayer, but this is one game that made me go back to the multiplayer. The only gripe that I found with this is that the game takes way longer to load, for the first time only, when you are playing with other players. But I guess that's just because of the Beta, and it will be ironed out eventually before the final release. Though after the initial load, my second game and so on for the session took just about 5 seconds to load.

The background score is quite good, given that it's in Beta stage, and I think it will get better in the final release too, not that it really needs it. The effects were good, but some of the weapon fire sound effect were missing, which might be because of the beta.

Overall, I quite liked the Beta, and just might get the game. But for people who like Action-RPGs and multiplayer, this is a good game to try out. For the casual gamers, it could be used as nice break from the more hectic routine, and a must for Spore-fans.

Back Online

2009-02-25T20:27:00.002+05:30

It has been really painful for me not to be able to blog. I really loved it. But as fate would have I was put back by some of my personal pursuits, a personal tragedy that befell me, followed by my monitor going for a spin and thus having to be fixed twice, after finally coming back to proper order, and my Internet connection going off, whose fixing was further delayed as the persons responsible were training, and the office didn't have any substitute.

But, atleast I hope, that I will be able to get back to my previous schedule and be able to blog again without any interruptions. Stay tuned to this site, as I'll soon be having a new post ready. It just needs some last finishing touches.

Rise & Fall: Civilizations At War

2008-12-21T13:04:00.008+05:30

You must be remembering that I had posted about a free games bundle sponsored by the US Air Force. But, the thing is that the server speeds were terrible. So, terrible that I got a measly 5 KBps on my broad band line!!!! And that too after retrying to get a slot for 5 times!

But after a helpful search and tip I got this link for a Direct Download link for just this game. I'm using FlashGet, and am getting around 200 KBps on this. It's also supporting resuming on this download.

As for the game, the game's been given off free as an ad supported game, sponsored by the US Air Force. I'm downloading now, and will give you all a heads-up as soon as I'm done downloading and playing a little.

The main features of this game are:

Choose from four of the ancient world's mightiest empires: Persia, Greece, Egypt, or Rome plus four minor civilizations: Carthaginians, Babylonians, Gaul-Barbarians & Assyrians.
Enlist over 80 unique units to your cause, including footmen, archers, cavalry, siege and massive triremes,
Use realistically-scaled siege towers, ladders, and battering rams to annihilate city defenses and clear the way for the player's ground forces Fight for control of the seas by boarding and ramming enemy naval vessels using massive, accurately-scaled warships. Outfit warships with infantry, archers, ballistae, or catapults, depending on the player's strategic objectives,
Engage in awe-inspiring feats of heroism by personally joining your troops during climactic battles (from a third-person perspective),
Control one of eight unique Heroes including Julius Caesar, Germanicus Caesar, Cleopatra, Ramses the Great, Achilles and Alexander the Great, each with special abilities and weapons. This unique feature places the player on the battlefield as a fully controlled super weapon.
It allows you go into battle along side your troops as you take control of your hero unit, like a third person action game

The Download links are below. It's a bit too large for people with slower internet connection. But, hey! It's a free game and the servers are supporting resume, so why not give it a go?

Download (2.43 GB)

Mirror (2.43 GB)

BSNL Usage Monitor

2008-12-14T16:36:00.004+05:30

This nifty little software is for all those people on BSNL connection, or in oher words, specifically for Indian users.

Given the common scenario, how many times is it that you had to worry of an overblown bill, just because you couldn't check your usage? Or perhaps, you've been saving the bandwidth for the entire month, and just on the last you go overboard with your bandwidth and get handed a huge bill?

Well, if you've been facing this kind of problems and would give anything for a solution, you're in good hands. For I present you... *drum rolls* DataOne Quick Usage Finder !!!!!!

It not only helps you check you your usage, but also, gives you an approximation about how much bandwidth you should be spending everyday to keep within the borders. You can configure it to start with windows. It sits unobtrusively in the system and tray and on doublue-clicking the icon checks with the BSNL Servers and gives you informations like, how much left, days to go, balance bandwidth, and avg usage and the bill so far, in a pop-up balloon.

On installing, you just need to feed-in your username and password, and then the program automatically checks with the servers and autodetects you plan. But the real treat is for night unlimited users. The program gives the ability to schedule the connection and disconnection times. So, you could now keep your PC running and go to sleep, while it connects at 2 am and then disconnects at 8am, giving you full download with no overblowing! It can also connect through different dialers, so, if you have multiple dialers, you can configure it to use any one to automatically connect and disconnect. Also, it has the address (the numbers thingy) for all of the BSNL portals, so that you check with the other ones, if ever one goes down.

Now, for the paranoids, that this software might use our password or something like that, I've been using it for over a year now along with my friends and haven't noticed any anamolous usage. So, you can rest assured!

And the best part is that you get all of this feature for free !!!

You can read and download about it here.

Google Chrome gets a Final Release

2008-12-12T17:43:00.002+05:30

Finally, the face of Google in the Browser scene has gone up to it's Final release and is finally out of Beta.

According to officials, Chrome Beta has gathered up an user-base of about 10 million users, across all the continents, within 3 months. That's going to the Final release within a 100 days of it's release!

Chief improvements are even better rendering time, specially for resource hungry pages like the GMail page or other Java based web-pages, and also flash based webs, as well as videos. Then there are the obvious improvements to the security and the sand-box browsing features. Along with these, the bookmark management has been tweaked and improved, along with other overall improvements based on the user feed-backs.

According to the officials, the main reason to remove the Beta label is because Chrome has reached the targetted stability and performance milestone. But still, there's plan and rooms for future innovations and additions, most notably the Auto Form Fill feature and also an RSS reader.

You can get the download here.

You can also read more on the topic here.

Opera goes 10 (Alpha)

2008-12-08T16:18:00.004+05:30

For all those people who've been waiting on Opera, to throw an answer to the newly released FireFox 3, like me, it's great news. So rejoice my friends: Opera is going 10.

Opera 10 will be using the new Presto 2.2 as the rendering engine, and promises to imporve it's performance on resource intensive pages like GMail and FaceBook.

Also, Opera 10 alpha is also able to score a perfect 100/100 on the Acid 3 test, the only browser to be able to do so till now.

Other features include:

In-Line Spell Check- Opera will flag mis-spelt words
Auto-Update- Configure it to update and install without notifying
Full HTML Format supporting Opera Mail- Customize your E-Mails

The Alpha build is up for grabs here. You can also get the overview of the new things in this.

You can read more about Opera 10 here.

This one's an alpha build and it showcases the Presto 2.2 rendering engine. The new features will be available in the Beta Build.

I, for one, am waiting eagerly for the Final release. It's such a wonderful browser. Once I got used to it, I couldn't switch over to any other browser.

Red Alert 3 demo fast download

2008-11-29T18:05:00.005+05:30

For all those patiently waiting for trying out Red Alert 3, why not get a taste whether it's worth it.

Get the demo of the Red Alert 3, that contains the tutorial, including intro to the dual nature of units and how to boss over your co-commander.

Plus it has two fully playable campaign from the retail game's campaigns, one from the Soviets and also the Allies. Along with these, it also has the full intro 7-min video included.

It's a pretty nice game, sprinkled with jokes and it is quite funny. The download's at 1.83 GBs, but this one supports download managers and so you can get high speeds. I got about 200 KBps on this one. Way better than others, like gamespot, which was crawling at about 16 KBps.

A part from the site

" The single-player demo includes the entire 7-minute opening cinematic from the game, along with three of the game’s interactive tutorials and one campaign mission from both the Soviet and the Allied campaigns for a full-blown taste of Red Alert action:
Krasna-45: Circus of Treachery – The second mission of the Soviet campaign, players will immediately be introduced to battling the series’ newest faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun, escorting the Soviet’s commando Natasha to a launch facility, protecting her from the Imperial ambush division waiting to attack.

Heidelberg: The Famous Liberation – Players will then switch their attention over to the Allied cause, in the third mission in the Allied campaign, teaming up with an in-game Co-Commander to take out the Soviet’s powerful Iron Curtain and headquarters in Germany.

The demo gives gamers a great opportunity to try out Red Alert 3 before the game’s first major patch is released later this year. The upcoming update will include the WorldBuilder, the game’s map-making and mod tool and a community favorite, enhancements to AutoMatch for multiplayer, balance fixes and an easy-to-use de-authorization tool that will allow players to de-authorize previously authenticated machines that they no longer wish to play Red Alert 3 on, ultimately giving them the freedom to play on an unlimited number of computers. "

More info here.

Or you can skip all this and get to the direct download from the above mentioned site here. But do check out the site mentioned for the full listing of the features of the game

Contro Optical Drives from the Taskbar

2008-11-29T17:28:00.004+05:30

This trick is for the lazy ones, like me :)

But it has other uses too. Too much pressing of the eject button could ruin it. And if you're like me, changing between 5 optical media in under half an hour, then the buttons will bless you for this. Along with this, you could just show off to your friends and be cool.

Now for this trick you need a software with which you can do more than just this trick. Get the software here.

After you get the software, start the 50KB exe and the program will start. No need to install. But I recommend that you put Tooler in the Program Files under it's own folder, so that there's no confusion. Then open the program, and do the following:

1. For shortcut location, select Desktop

2. For Function select, for each of your optical drives:

a) Eject CD-ROM Tray

b) Close CD-ROM Tray

3. For the Drive letter, put the appropriate drive letter

Like this:

After this, get the shortcuts to a separate folder for safe-keeping. Then right-click on the taskbar and click lock the taskbar, if it's already locked.

Right click the taskbar again, and select Toolbars -> New Toolbar... and navigate to the folder where you kept the newly created shortcuts, and select OK to confirm.

Move your mouse over the newly created toolbars doted vertical line until the pointer changes to a double-headed arrow. Drag the toolbar out and drop it off at the corner of the screen until it docks to the side. Then rightclick on the docked toolbar and select show text and show title to remove the text and title from the toolbar.

At this point, right click the shortcuts and click Properties and then change icons. Navigate to %SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll in the box that pops up and you'll get XP's icon repository. You can also use your own icon collection too. If you have a good icon, please do mention and I'll show it here, and I might use it too. ;)

Remember to choose icon that'll tell you what each shortcut will do. Then rightclick on it again and select rename and put in the proper sentences.

Then drag out the docked toolbar and place it on the taskbar and resize the toolbar until you are satisfied with it. After this, rightclick (this is the last time!!) and select Lock the Taskbar.

Now check your shortcut.

nJoy....

Red Alert Free Downloads

2008-11-24T21:26:00.002+05:30

Welcome fellow commanders!

As yo have no doubts heard about the latest release of Red Alert 3. To celebrate this great release as well as the 13 years of giving us gems in the names of Command and Conquer, EA has decided to give off a full copy of Red Alert, the very first game, for free!

You can download the 2 disc in ISO format, along with the guides for installing on Vista and XP here. This might not be such a great news for new comers, but it has a high nostalgic value for the veterans of Red Alert series. As it's the first that started this series.

So if you're one of those persons who're nostalgic about it and would like to keep in your collection, a gem, then go on and download this. It's totally Legal. Hope you enjoy it.

Download Original Red Alert here.

All about Naruto

2008-11-23T12:33:00.003+05:30

This one's for the Anime fans. Fans, like me, of the Anime Naruto.

Have you ever wondered what is the true power of the Sharingan is? Or who the parents of Naruto are? And so on.....

If you've ever wondered about these facts relating to this anime but couldn't find it, I'm sure you'd find it here. It not only covers the first Naruto, but also the second chronicle after 2 and a half years, known as Naruto Shippuuden. Every facts that's ever been revealed, or may be you can think of, it's there. Best of all it's a dedicated Wiki of Naruto, so if you think you can contribute to it, then you can do even that. There's even a community portal that you can use to ask questions and get answers. But be warned, there's lots of spoilers there.

So, go on and find those answers you're dying to find here: Narutopaedia

As for the uninitiated, Naruto is the story of a boy, who lost his parents when a vicious Nine-Tailed fox attacks his village. The village is saved only after the 4th Hokage (head Ninja, pronounecd: ho-ka-gay) seals the fox's spirit in the newly born Naruto. But the villagers live in fear of this very spirit, fearing that the boy is the monster thus levaing him alone. The serious chronicles his struggle with life to earn the respect of others and friends along the way, and of attaining his lifelong dream of being the Hokage.

Naruto Shippuuden, chronicles his life, 2 and a half years after the events of Naruto. He has grown and all his friends have become chuunin or jounin, with Gara becoming the Kazekage. But it is only Naruto who is still the Genin in their age-group.

GMail Introduces New Themes

2008-11-21T17:24:00.003+05:30

Google has introduced special themes for their E-Mail service Gmail. I got mine activated yesterday, but there were reports that not everybody has got the update. But by now, everybody has been given access to it.

The themes are really wonderful, and it just adds to the great services of GMail. Unlike other themes, these are Google themes, and thus the speciality that some of them changes with time or even weather. If the theme is changeable then it'll ask for your city location with a pop-up box, and will adjust the theme with that city's timing.

"In some cases, you can also customize by location. Some themes change during the day, and we use the location information you provide to correctly time these changes with your local sunrise, sunset, and/or weather. If you select one of these themes, you'll see a Country/Region drop-down menu appear."

You can read more about it at the official Google Blog.

Here's a screenshot:

Free Game Bundle Download

2008-11-20T16:07:00.002+05:30

Free Game Bundle Sponsodered by

The U.S. Air Force

Well this is a rare thing that you won't come across everyday, or even once in a week. The U.S. Air Force is sponsoring 3 Games for free downloads. The Games are Area 51, The Suffering: Ties That Bind and Rise & Fall: Civilization at War.
You can download the games without any registration, and the games are for yours to keep and play forever.
No official deadlines are mentioned, so I don't know for certain for how long this offers going to be. So, just give it a try. You might like it. All the games are for PCs.
You can also read the Review of the games below:

1. Area 51
2. Rise & Fall: Civiliazation At War
3. The Suffering: Ties That Bind

Get the Game Bundle here.

Free ZoneAlarm Pro: Happy Birthday ZA

2008-11-18T19:44:00.003+05:30

ZoneAlarm's offering FREE ZoneAlarm Pro with One-Year's License to celebrate the Birthday of their Firewall.
Hurry the offers only from 6 A.M. 18th November 2008 for 24 hours!!!!!!
For your free copy head over to http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/sum/index.html

Maximise your Game Budget

2008-11-14T17:13:00.001+05:30

So, you've saved up a couple of cash and are ready to go out and buy a game for the holiday season?

But wait, what if you could buy 3 games using that money instead of just 1?

Sounds interesting? Then watch this video: Game Collector - Big Game Hunter

The games featured in this video have all got an 8+ points in GameSpot and so, you can rest assured that they're a good deal.

There are 10 Games in total and I'm sure that you'll be satisfied with your purchase. Just give it a try!

AMD Fusion for Gaming

2008-11-12T04:29:00.010+05:30

Okay here’s another gem of software, directly from the stables of AMD. It’s been in its beta stage for a while, but nonetheless, it’s worth giving a try. For those of you people, who like to squeeze out every last bit of power from your machine for gaming, I give you AMD Fusion. It’s an ingenious product, and best of all it’s free!

I, for one, am among those people who turn off all the background apps and keep only the bare minimum running while gaming. But still there are plenty of services in Windows, as well as the processor that we are not aware of, or are not needed at all, while gaming. This is where Fusion comes in.

It’s a software that is designed to disable the various process that are run by windows and the CPU routinely, but are not needed at all while gaming. Like, for example, the process related to internet, or networking, or even indexing, is not needed when one is gaming. So, why not turn them off? After all that’d be a boost. Fusion simplifies the task by giving the user the freedom to do that all through just a simple, but awesome, interface at the click of a button. Then after gaming just turn Fusion off, and you’re back to the way you started before Fusion was turned on.

Now, coming to the mechanics of the software, it’s divided into two types of boosting: the Hardware and the Software, although you can mix up both of these to get your sweet performance point. The Hardware is further divided up into AMD Boost, AMD Overdrive (CPU), ATi Catalyst AutoTune (GPU) and Hard Drive Acceleration.

Now as the name suggests, the software parts are related to processes that are windows specific and specific to some software’s. Overall it’s very efficient and powerful. It even turned off the volume icon from the tray, along with the Anti-Virus and Firewall, when I selected all of the options available. So, beware, choose wisely here, if are going to use it for Multiplayer games.

Now for the Hardware part:
AMD Boost: It’s specific to AMD processors only. It turns off some of the processes that are built into the processor which are not needed when gaming. Hence, the freed CPU cycles can be better utilized for the game’s number crunching.

AMD Overdrive (CPU): As the name indicates, it needs you to install Overdrive before applying this. It tunes up the frequency, automatically. So, no need to panic, as it’ll go nowhere near the possible limit of the overclocking, but will do a decent and safe overclocking.

ATi Catalyst AutoTune (GPU): Again a specific to the AMD family, don’t try with nVidia’s hardware. It uses the Catalyst to automatically and intelligently overclock the GPU clocks.

Hard Drive Acceleration: It’s just as the name suggests. It’s the only part of the Hardware, which can be used without any specifics.

Now coming to the interface, I’ve got one word: Awesome. The minimalistic interface makes me feel like I’m running some kind of sci-fi software. There’s even sound to accompany the starting of the software. Very well thought out. You just click on the interface once, and it starts spinning while it applies the patches, and then the AMD sign glows green. After the gaming, click once again to start the spinning once again as it undo the patches. It recommended that you leave the mouse and keyboard when it does that. Then the AMD sign goes fade and everything stops, you’re good to go. The making of new profile or even existing in-built one’s are really easy. Although, you won’t be needing a new one, unless you are a little bit curious or you know what you’re doing. Just click Edit or New and select the patches you need applied, give a description and a name and save it. Check the Make default at the bottom to make it your default profile. There’s just one bug that I noticed. While in the profile management window, if you close the window, the app exits. You have to press the concentric circle thingy, to get make to the main interface.

This software really boosted my rigs performance by about 15-20% overall. And I did notice a frame rate increase in my games. But there have been complaints about people’s machine hanging. But a restart solves everything. It never messed up a single machine. As for me, even after using it for sometimes, I did not face any problem at all, not even a single hang.

All said and done, here’s the page of info over at AMDs, and you’ll get the thing for here.

Now enjoy some screenshot of the same below.

And here's a video of it in action (you'll find it at the page mentioned above too :), but anyways):

And my comments boxes are open, just drop by a line.

Devil May Cry 4 GamePlay, Mission 10 Boss Fight: A Must See

2008-11-09T22:13:00.002+05:30

This one's a complete insanity. You just gotta see it to believe it.

A Fun Time With Legends: Tradewinds Legends

2008-11-09T16:18:00.003+05:30

It was one of those days, when I was looking around for a decent game, which I could play. I was on the lookout for a good strategy or a tycoon type. It was on that day that I stumbled upon the game Trade Winds Legends.

I’ve never played any games from this series or have ever heard of it. But it was the genre of the game that attracted me. Its story line is that you’re a ship’s captain in the Arabian Nights era, and your aim is to discover the story of the character as you build up your fleet and earn unimaginable wealth and fight different Bosses along the way. Now, this may seem to be the standard fare of any given wealth, but I decided to give it a try. And believe me that was one of the best things I did till now.

Upon starting the game you have to choose your character, based on which, you’ll get a different storyline. There are characters ranging from a Widowed Bride out to take revenge to a mysterious Chinese woman. The story’s different depending on your character. Depending on the character, your starting conditions vary, some might have Big debts, but all of the character will start from a basic ship. The starting city will be your home base, and it’s from here that you get your main storyline missions. Also this is the only city that has all the commodities. The game play mechanic is pretty simple: You accept missions from the palace of the city, starting from your city, which in turns opens up other cities whose rulers, get to know you on carrying out the missions and thus eventually you get access to all the cities. Complete the missions and the helpful people will give you hint about your main quests and thus put you down the storyline. In between all these you have the option of trading the various commodities up for sale at the market and make a profit by buying low and selling high, so keep an eye out for falling prices. But beware there are some commodities that are considered contra-band and will be seized on being found at some ports. The trading is optional as you’ll get paid handsomely for the missions, but in order to build up a pretty strong fleet to keep the pirates from sinking you you’ll be needing lots of ships. And yes, some places are only accessible, only when your entire fleet consists of Air-Ships. Yes, you read it right, it also features air-ships and you get 3 choices in it.

Now coming to game play, the thing that’ll keep you latched onto this game is the great sense of humor. The dialogues in the game are, in one word, brilliant. They made me laugh quite loudly and it’s a nice addition to a game that might get repetitive, especially after running around the ports looking for a runaway.

The game is not from a big budget game company like Crytek and so don’t expect high quality 3d graphics that’d make your GPU cry. The graphics are decent and sharp. The ports are pretty nice-looking. The animations are very good, with the sliding in and moving out of the different menus. The sound effects are great for this game, giving you all the sounds that you’ll be expecting to hear from a sea-faring games.

So, if you’ve played the previous games then this games worth playing. But if you haven’t and are looking for a game, and like good jokes, then you won’t be disappointed with this one. I for one had to go back to play it multiple times for its great funny dialogues. And given it’s price, you can rest assured that it was a wise purchase.

Here's a screenshot of the action going on :

You can find more screenshots and also the download link here.

AMD Live Explorer

2008-11-05T03:04:00.003+05:30

Well here’s another reason for owners of AMD processors to be proud: The AMD Live Explorer. It’s a little utility that allows you to view your Music, Video, Pictures and TV collection in 3D! Not only that, but it also allows you to log onto the net and get your online TVs streamed onto your PC.

The effects are great with the media zooming in at you and starting to play. You can go full screen with the button at the top, or go back to the previous view, which will cause the media to play at the top right hand corner of the Explorer. In the video tab, the main focused video in the Live Explore Mode, starts playing so that you can preview it. But sadly, this happens without the sounds. But then again some people might want the preview to be this way. You also get a “live” search, where the media starts to lists it as you type in the search letters, much like the search feature of Vista. Very “Lively” indeed. And…oh yeah…it also have a tiled view, if you don’t want the 3D view, which can be switched with a single click.

Weighing at around 5MB, it’s a very light weight installer. But the program does a very good job of showing all the media. On my first run, it automatically detected my media, my songs and videos stored in a separate drive, automatically. It’s very easy to configure, all the things through the settings link located at the top right hand corner of the interface.

But all these things come with a catch. You need a pretty good processor to be able to pull this, a dual core is minimum, although a quad-core is recommended. And it’s also one of those things that only the users of Vista can enjoy, as it doesn’t support the earlier OSes. The official minimum Requirements are:

AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 dual-core processor 4000+
1GB DDR RAM
DirectX9 GPU (e.g. ATI X1200 or NVIDIA 6150)
Windows Vista®
10MB Free HDD space
Broadband connection to Internet

And the recommended:

AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 dual-core processor 5200+
2GB DDR2 RAM
AMD 580X chipset or NVIDIA nForce 500 chipset (AM2 socket)
DirectX10 GPU (ATI 2400HD or NVIDIA 8300)
Windows Vista® Ultimate or Home Premium
SATA2 7200 RPM HDD with 16+ MB cache and NCQ
TV Wonder™ 650 Combo PCI-E tuner
Wired, high speed connection to Internet

You can also run it on a Laptop, for which the requirements can be found at here.

Too bad there's no skins for the Explorer. It would've been a very good addition. Though there are separate plugins for it, available on the above mentioned page. Though I haven't tried them out yet, mainly due to technical reasons, I'll be trying them out pretty soon. But I would recommend the users of iTunes to go ahead and download the FusionTunes plugins to integrate their iTunes Library into the Explorer. Get it here.

As a recommendation, since this uses Windows Media Player for playback, ensure that you have the necessary codec (K-Lite Mega Codec Pack recommended) installed for being able to view all the media, specially the videos.

Before I leave it’s not that Intel users can’t use it, but it’s a software tailored and made by AMD. After all it’s just a software, and besides I didn’t have access to an Intel Core’d system.

And here are my screenshots:

The Download link's here. Just click Accept and your download'll start.

Vista Glazz: Maximized Transparency

2008-10-31T16:08:00.006+05:30

One of the best features of Windows Vista is perhaps the Aero interface, the translucent Glass effects that are present on the windows. It’s best use is perhaps on the Windows Media Player 11, which has it’s controls “Glassed up”. But there’s a catch to it all: The effects disappear the moment the windows are maximized, the glass effects being replaced by solid black borders.

Given that most of the people who use Vista nowadays have a decent DirectX 9 or higher capable GPU, able to handle the Aero interface decently, Microsoft could’ve made the glass effect omnipresent in its OS, rather than limiting it just to it’s non-maximized windows. There are third party software’s like Windows Blinds that does a pretty good job of improving it, but degrades the performances of the PC.

But, like always, there’s an escape hatch: Vista Glazz. It patches the Windows files responsible for the effects to retain its effects even when maximized. You can even unpatch the files if you want the old windows back. It also allows you set up your own custom styles, like in Windows XP, with icons, cursors, wallpapers & themes.

You can get the latest Vista Glazz (version 1.1) here

A note of caution though, if you’re using Vista Service Pack 1, then make sure you get version 1.1, as version 1.0 doesn’t support Vista Service Pack 1.

The Requirements are:

Minimum system requirements

Windows Vista Premium/Business/Ultimate edition

Hardware support for Windows Aero

800 MHz processor

512 MB of system memory

2 MB of disk space

Recommended system requirements

Windows Vista Premium/Business/Ultimate edition

Hardware support for Windows Aero

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 GB of system memory

2 MB of disk space

Screenshots:

Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars BattleCast Viewer

2008-10-28T16:00:00.014+05:30

Main EA Link Battle Cast Viewer Download

So, your one of those people who liked and probably played the previous Command & Conquer games but haven’t been able to play the latest Tiberium Wars, simply because your PC’s struggling to run that game? Or you might be looking for some solid tricks and strategies that’d help you own your friends or competition on the battle grounds of Tiberium Wars, directly from the pros, but don’t have enough time for yourselves to formulate your own strategy?

If the above two situations describes you, then you are in the right spot. ‘Cause the following tool would allow you to do just these and that too for FREE. The Command & Conquer Battle Cast Viewer allows the user to view live combat happening between pros around the world. It’s like a private Command & Conquer channel through which you can see the battles as well as the strategies employed by the Pros.
You don’t need to own the game, just download the Battle Cast Viewer from the link given below and you’re good to go. But if you already own the game, the Viewer is built into it, and you don’t need to download this.

Battle Cast Features:

-> Spectator/Observer Mode

-> Archive Matches

-> Compete in Online Games

-> Player Statistics

-> Game Ladders

-> BattleCast supports Clans

Source

Jokes For All

2008-10-28T14:26:00.004+05:30

NAPOLEAN: "In my Dictionary there is no word called 'IMPOSSIBLE'....

Sardarji: "What's the use of saying it now, you should have checked it before buying THE DICTIONARY !!

This blog's a gem. I came across it on a Forum. If you love jokes (like the one above) or never miss an episode of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge or any Comedy shows for that matter, you'll be definitely be wanting to subscribe to it.

Here's the link: http://laughstoall.blogspot.com/

The blog's updated daily and so you'll have your daily dose of laughter, right at your PC. The jokes had me rolling, the top being the Napoleon’s and the Chinese-Sardar's.

It’s really great for you, if you had a bad day at work and would like to lighten up a beat.

After all, laughter is said to be a good medicine.

Handy HTML Guide

2008-10-23T20:59:00.003+05:30

Here's for all those HTML programmers and budding web-designers out there. It's a compilation of HTML tags that one might need to look up. It's kind of a Cheat Sheet that you can print out and keep handy in the very unlikely scenario that you forget a syntax or command.

Here's the link: http://www.netlingo.com/tags.cfm

I for one need it very regularly. Since I'm one of those who are curious about HTML, but have not been trained to use it professionally and the only knowledge is from experimenting, this list is indispensible.

Control the PC with a Game Pad

2008-10-19T13:54:00.005+05:30

How many times have you felt the need of a good software that could allow you to control your entire computer with just your gamepad? And if you own a wireless controller, then who'd want to be tethered to the computer with the mouse and keyboard, when you can easily control it from a distance?

Well, if you search around then you'll surely come across Total Game Control, that does all the above mentioned task. But there is a catch: It's a Shareware. So, unless you are a pirate or a hacker or a person who can afford it, you might think you have no alternative (personally I would not go for the illegal methods). But you'd be wrong!

There is indeed an alternative out there. It's X-Padder. It performs all the functions and is totally free for use. It can support upto 16 separate controllers and give advanced tuning options as well as supports Force Feedback, if your Game Pad has it. If you have a Game Pad, then this little utility would help you immensely.

Main Features:
- Full keyboard and mouse emulation.
- Supports up to 16 controllers at the same time for multiplayer gaming.
- Rumble (force feedback) and advanced fine-tuning options.
- Constantly updated database (over 120 controllers, adapters and drivers).
- Multiple profile management.

Xpadder is freeware but the author does accept donations:

The interface is really clean. I got my gamepad up and running the mouse and keyboard emulation within 10 minutes. For starting, just click the small GamePad button on the top left corner and then configure the things and you're set. You can even attach a picture of the GamePad, or if you're a great artist then you can draw it yourself. It's really easy, but if you have any problem just go through the help file.

Source

Image source: Softpaedia

Download

Fastest Shutdown in the world

2008-10-18T19:45:00.002+05:30

Do you have prying eyes trying to get a sneak peak into everything that you have? Do sometime need to get that machine to shutdown in the blink of an eye?

Then your in the right place. But be warned, this method forces Windows to instantly power off, without executing the routine scripts that it does in the case of a normal shutdown.

Bring up the Task Manager of windows by the key combination CTRL+ALT+DEL. Then keeping the CTRL key pressed click on Shut Down > Turn Off.

There you have it. The PC will instantly turn off.

P.S.: Because it forces to instantly poweroff, don't use it often.

XP/Vista Task Manager Trick

2008-10-18T19:22:00.007+05:30

This had me bowled over for quite few moments. I thought it was virus attack. It was discovered by me accidentally. This trick makes the window controls disappear. It's really very easy, no programming knowledge needed, just the mouse.

Bring up the task manger by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL simultaneously. (In Vista, select Start Task Manager from the list. It's the last option). Then Double click on the area just around the buttons, but not on the button or the title bar, the grey area. And voila you have a task manager without any titlebar or windows controls. You can freak out a friend by closing the Task Manager in that state by pressing ALT+F4. The next time someone brings up the Task Manager it'll remain like that, devoid of the titlebar and the controls.

To get it back, just Double click the grey area again, and everything will be back to normal :)

Here are the pics:

Introduction: The First Ever Post

2008-10-18T18:43:00.004+05:30

I have been thinking of starting a webpage, a web presence, through which I can reach out to all the beautiful people out there. I have been looking for a medium, a portal, through which I could share all of my knowledge, my findings and my thoughts, in an easy to retrieve format. So, after testing the waters of the Internet through a forum of my favourite Mag for a year, I thought it might be high time that I got a personal page. And what other way would be better than my very own Blog. So, one fine morning (night actually), I decided to start one, and here I am writing out this Intro.

But enough of the inception talk! The primary objective of this blog is to share my thoughts, views and findings with the world. It doesn't have any specific genre, so don't try to categorize it. It's a blog, just like the Title, about my world. A world that includes everything that's dear to me: Computers, Games, Movies, Music, Books, Programming, Pets... and the list goes on and on and on. It'll, thus, have small life updates of mine, tips and tricks, useful softwares that I've found useful, reviews of the things that interests me etc. But they won't follow any order. I'll post them as they come to me or as I feel right. But I am open to requests and suggestions.

Lastly, as a Disclaimer:

The tips and tricks featured here are the result of my experimenting on my config. I'll try my best to only post those specific tricks and tips that is working perfectly on my system, and if the steps are followed thoroughly, I'm sure that there won't be any problem. But in the rare case it does, because these are after all machine and are proned to fail sometime, I cannot be held responsible for any type of damage. Use the tips on your sole discretion.

So without further ado, I'd like to break the champagne bottle and set this ship (Blog) sailing into the Wide Wondrous World.

P.S.: To all the Tech specialists and Pro Bloggers and all those great learned friends out there, if you find any mistakes, or any violations of the rules, please inform me about my mistake and the correction immediately and I'll rectify it immediately. I'm not a master and I'll make mistake, but I intend to learn from them.