allround geek

Gabriel Knight 2: A true epic that doesn't age.

2009-11-04T15:27:00.007+02:00

I will start by saying that Grace Nakimura is bitch. A horrible, horrible bitch. That is how much she annoys the shit out of me; I start the review of one of the most fantastic adventure games ever created by stating my feelings of hate towards that particular character. To a certain reviewer of a certain classic adventures' site that found Grace sexy I 'll tell one thing. You are particularly dangerous to society, a pervert and a fool, dig a hole and stay in there.

With that out of the way let us begin.

I do not know if it's the rain that brings that feeling of wanting to relax playing a good adventure game, or that I am getting old and I want to relive the glory days of my gaming youth, but I definitely wanted to play a Gabriel Knight game these days. I decided to play the second in the series as it is my personal favorite (not that the 1st or the 3rd one are not fantastic). Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within (as is its full title) takes place mostly in the area around Munich in Germany and the Bavarian countryside. It revolves around a werewolf story that goes back many centuries, the last Bavarian King Ludwig II and Wagner. I really cannot say anything without spoiling something to anyone who hasn't played it before. As, in all Gabriel Knight games it is very good at blending real history with the occult and create a fantastic totally immersing setting. The game starts with Gabriel going back to his ancestral castle to reclaim his long lineage of Schattenjägers (Shadowhunters) and investigate a series of mutilation murders.

In Munich city center

This is the most brilliantly produced adventure game ever made and I am not exaggerating one bit. It makes use of full-motion-video and prerendered photorealistic backgrounds as they were made back in the good-old mid 90s. The acting is top notch and the direction is brilliant. The actors really bring the characters to life, as Jane Jensen had intended, with Gabriel Knight the protagonist being an absolute dick. He parades his cockiness and american ignorance on European culture at all occasions, even though, the game is created by Jensen and the all-American Sierra Online. Jensen stresses the differences in culture between Europe and the US with any chance using caricature characters as well(Fat loud lady from Pennsylvania anyone?).

Music plays a particular important role in the game. It features an original score especially written and conducted for the game. It creates the perfect atmosphere and sets the tone. The production values are so high that an actual original Opera was written and performed for the needs of the game. The opera is supposed to be a long lost Opera from Wagner who plays an important role in the background story of the game.

Investigating Ludwig II

The gameplay spans across 6 chapters and you control Gabriel and that bitch Grace in turns in each Chapter. Gabriel investigates the mutilation killings while Grace researches the history around Ludwig II. Most of the riddles are logical and inventory based. Some are particularly smartly conceived but all of them are well blended into the story just as any good adventure should do. If it wasn't for this stupid and unfair reflex thing in the finale.

I played this game again after 12, or so, years. I can testify that this is a timeless gem and one of the best adventures ever made. Once you start it you will not want to let it go until the credits start rolling and even then it will stay with you for a long time. Heck, its been 12 years and I was still thinking about it every now and then. Make yourself a favor and buy this one as well as the rest of the GK games. You can find them in compilations in online shops as well as on ebay. If you find any trouble playing the game in modern computers you can try dosbox(for 1st and 2nd) as well as the tools provided by the Gabriel Knight 2000 project. Also dont forget to join the Gabriel Knight 4 campaign.

Oh...and Grace Nakimura is a bitch...

"World of Goo" and Windows 7 problem - SOLVED

2009-11-03T01:37:00.009+02:00

A couple of days ago I decided to finally make the move from Windows XP to Windows 7. The installation was a breeze with no problems whatsoever and it took around 30 minutes for Win 7 to be up and running with the latest updates.

Although it is a bit early to judge, I have to say that my initial impression of Microsoft's latest OS is very good!

Ten minutes ago I encountered my first problem when I tried to install World Of Goo which I purchased some days ago through the pay what you want offer.

The installation started just fine but when it completed, windows informed me that the program may not have been installed correctly and asked me if I wanted to re-install it using the preferred settings. I did that and after the second installation tried to run the game. The screen went black and after a few seconds an error message appeared saying that World of Goo had a problem and windows needed to shut it down.

Running it in compatibility mode for Windows XP did not help so I decided it was time to exercise my google-fu! Sure enough after 2 minutes the answer was discovered on the official 2DBoy forums (thanks GMMan!).

I edited the config.txt found in the World of Goo folder and I changed the resolution from 800x600 to my monitor's native 1920x1080. That did the trick and now the game runs just fine.

Now I can enjoy an excellent game on a very good OS. But that is a story for a future post.

The Google Story in 2 minutes

2009-10-30T16:02:00.005+02:00

Today I stumbled on the following video that highlights some of the most important events in Google's 11 year history.

I can't wait for future Google products or improvements on existing ones and as we approach the end of 2009, one thing is certain: Google will continue to play a major role in our everyday lives by providing free, fast and innovating services!

The Brit Report: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

2009-10-24T13:13:00.009+03:00

First, we need to set some things straight. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (terrible title) has no relation whatsoever with Ferrara's masterpiece, apart from the central thing of a junkie, violent, gambler cop. It's a much lighter piece, with lots of sarcasm in its core. It's also a great ride.

Werner Herzog, a really bizarre directing choice, brings out the best in Nicolas Cage, in a performance reminding of the good-old days of Wild at Heart, Raising Arizona, and Red Rock West. He's completely over the top as the titular character, but also manages to be believable and makes the audience root for him. There are several set pieces (a 2.5min music video with Cage's character staring at two iguanas, a funny-as-hell confrontation with two old ladies) that will serve as points of reference for Cage from now on. He also gets excellent support from Eva Mendes as his prostitute/girlfriend, Val Kilmer as an even more psychotic cop, and Brad Dourif as his suffering bookie. Herzog directs full of confidence, despite being at a strange territory for him, and still manages to deliver some typical Herzogian shots (a handheld sequence with an alligator near a motorway really stands out). All in all, the movie got a great response from the audience, and comes highly recommended.
8/10

Coded music: sc140

2009-10-21T20:17:00.003+03:00

This is totally geeky: a collection of electronic music, each piece having been composed using only 140 characters of SuperCollider code - this was done by some of my colleagues. Download the album and sourcecode here!

Pay what you want for World Of Goo

2009-10-21T16:32:00.005+03:00

World Of Goo the award winning puzzle game from 2D boy is celebrating its first birthday with a Pay-what-you-want purchase model. The normal price for the game is 20 $ but now you can pay literally anything. They have set up a donation buying mechanism and then they sent you an email with a url from where you can download the three game versions(Windows/Mac/Linux). The offer stands for the next 4 days.

At the end of the purchase the have set up a small survey about this new buying experience with some interesting results.

We, on allroundgeek.com, welcome this buying model. Not because we are cheap bastards, but because we think that the game industry in general are greedy bastards that overcharge for games. Kudos and respect to 2D boy.

Go take advantage of the offer and show your support and at the same time get one of the best gaming experiences of the last year.

The Brit Report: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

2009-10-18T22:13:00.006+03:00

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a must-see movie in every sense. Is it great? Not really, but like most Gilliam movies, it's an experience. And a profoundly personal experience this time, because Parnassus is actually an autobiographical tale.

The plot is quite convoluted, so I will not attempt to make any coherent summarization. Let's just say that Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is actually Terry Gilliam, who is trying to tell tales of imagination, but nobody really cares anymore. Also starring is Heath Ledger as Tony in his last role, who actually isn't the lead, in a role inspired by Tony Blair himself. Great support comes from Tom Waitts as the Devil, as well as Lilly Cole as Parnassus' daughter. The three actors replacing Ledger posthumously (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farell) all do a terrific job at portraying different aspects of Tony's character, with Johny Depp delivering a terrific speech written about Ledger's passing, and Farell shining as the darkest aspect of Tony's character. Personally I think the inclusion of the three actors has really improved the movie's thematic core.

With this film, we see Gilliam completely unrestrained, but unlike Tideland, this time he has a modest budget that allows him to present a fully realized vision of decaying modern London and the utter craziness of the Imaginarium (a special mention has to go to a certain Pythonesque chorus line with transvestite policemen!). But like Gilliams' latest work, it's overly chaotic, with a fragmented narrative that seems to neglect its audience, thus losing momentum at times. The first 30 minutes suffer the most, with the actors almost muttering their lines and some weird filming angles, but fortunately the movie gradually picks up. In the end, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a fitting farewell to Ledger and a wonderfully imaginative and original tale, at times where originality has ceased to exist...
7/10

Starwars Uncut

2009-10-07T16:04:00.007+03:00

Some franchises enjoy eternal love from the fans who would do anything to re-live in any way the magic and enhance the experience of others for the franchise.

Starwars is such a franchise. Many fans across the Internet have come together to recreate Starwars episode IV: A new hope by any means they have. The project is named Starwars Uncut. The whole movie is re-filmed scene by scene using various techniques from many different people. Each scene has 15 seconds length. Techniques used include cartoons, still capturing, comics, real life actors and many more. Many of these have already surfaced and you can view them in order. After all the participants are done it will be edited together for the complete movie.

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 194 from Rather Childish on Vimeo.

X-Files: the 00s are over. Bring back the show!!!

2009-09-29T18:26:00.025+03:00

It will not be long until the first decade of the new millennium is over. The beginning of this decade one the greatest television shows was canceled. The X-Files marked the 90s but could not withstand a changing world and a new audience in the new millennium. I am currently finishing re-watching the whole series and I am getting incredibly convinced now that the series had many years of quality episodes left in them when they ended but was axed nevertheless.

When the show first aired in 1993 the world was entering in new phase after the end of the cold war. The american audience did not have a standardized enemy anymore to fear or hate. Conspiracy Theories where on the rise and everyone was on the look for new threats. Mid-90s saw an increase in cult groups, a rise of far-right extremist groups and alien sightings. This was a perfect time to introduce X-Files into the world. The show dealt with a government that people "should not" trust, the inherent fear of the unknown, occult interests and used a streamlined mythology arc with twists like no show before it.

After rewatching the series I have to say that its strength though was not the mythology episodes. It was the monster of the week episodes. The mythology episodes were interesting had a lot of twists and turns but it was in the standalone stories that the series really shined. The chemistry of Mulder and Scully was strongest at these episodes and it was where these characters were better defined by their actions. These episodes introduced us to many paranormal themes. Most of them were really well done and some were really creepy. On the other hand the mythology episodes were full of uninteresting, and some times plain stupid repetitive, dialog. The characters were caricatures of their own existence with Mulder being a passionate 1-dimensional bozzo and not the witty open minded guy we liked and Scully...well Scully was...Scully but was just refusing more things than usual...

In Series 7 (aired 1999-2000) it becomes apparent that the show is in trouble. It is like the producers are not sure which direction to take. The 90s are over and with them many of the social aspects that gave birth to the show's success. It was a very mediocre season to say the least. In season 8 though, the whole show reestablishes itself with excellent episodes, a new turn in the mythology arc and a new interesting likable protagonist alongside agent Scully. Many were afraid the X-Files cannot exist without Mulder but agent Dogget proved them wrong. Yep, it was X-Files alright and it was very good.

Series 9 started in whole different world than when the season 8 had finished. Season 9 started 2 months after the attacks of 9/11. Even though the episodes of these series were very well done much like series 8 it had to win an audience that was told that had a new very well-defined enemy. It had to win a audience that was supporting a far right, fundamentalist government and was arguing about supposed safety over rights and freedom. You could not win that audience with government conspiracies, horror stories and the paranormal. The people behind the show did their best but it was an unwinable battle. The show was canceled.

From then on the TV is full of beautiful people, fast paced action, incomprehensible scripts and more "cool" upperclass characters than you can count. X-Files could not survive in clean-cut, boob-jobed, fast-car-driving, tough-guy, trendy television world. As we approach the end of this decade, and we hear less phrases like "axis of evil", the economy is on the decline, people are starting to get bored of the clean-cut approach and again we started to have as a society more question than answers, maybe, I say maybe, a show like X-Files can still find a place in the prime-time television world. I sure hope that it does.

Under Jolly Roger: Sid Meier's Pirates!

2009-09-23T13:03:00.019+03:00

Sid Meier has been one of the most influential men in the video game industry. He has given us blockbaster series and games that kept us awake in front of our computer night upon night, with the most famous being Civilization. One Sid Meier's series, though, has given us the chance to do what almost everyone that has ever been 10 years old always wanted to do, live the life of pirate!

There have been 3 pirate games since 1987 with relatively very few differences between them as far as the gameplay is concerned. Basically you play the 1987 game the same way you play 1993 game and the 2005 game. You start of with a small sloop somewhere in the Caribbean and you head off to find treasures, pirate ships, wage war on enemy countries, and fool around with daughters of governors. Why would you ever need to change that?

The 1987 game might lack the graphics but gameplay still rocks

In the game you can play as any of the 4 countries in the region at the time (English, French, Spanish or Dutch). Depending on the Era you choose to start different countries have different difficulty. You can get a Letter of Marque and start hitting enemy ships. The dynamics change constantly in the Caribbean with peace treaties, new governors in towns, colonies changing hands so you have to be on top of the game in order to be survive. For example if you profit from a war and you know the there is a ship that transfers a diplomat that he is about to propose a peace treaty what do you do? Like any good privateer out there you hunt and attack the ship and continue to profit from the war.

Besides pirating ships, though, you can occupy yourself with commerece. Get a big cargo ship find where each good is sold for a low price and where it is bought for high price start making your hard earned honest money. Why would you want to do that? Attack cargo ships, steal the goods and sell them to make profit! Arrrr!

You can travel around the whole map of the caribean freely. You can literally go everywhere. Your ships speed and the route that you will choose will depend on the wind and your destination(which will piss you off when you want to travel to the east.) In your travels you 'll meet other ships that you would want to attack. When you engage them the same wind rules apply for handling the ship and moving it while in battle. You can use different cannons for different jobs (attack the sails , thin the men's number or blow it to hell). When you decide to board the enemy ship, depending on how the naval battle went, you might have to fence with the enemy captain.

The graphics have obviously evolved over the past 20 years. The Caribbean is a stunning place.

After long travels and battles you want to go back in a friendly town. In towns you can sell the goods that you stole and repair your ships(yes you can even have a small fleet). Besides that, you can upgrade your ships and recruit men from the tavern. You can even catch the latest news and rumors(pay attention to rumors as they usually involve information that you can profit from) and pay a visit to the local governor.

There so much more that you can do in the game. You get hooked and you never get bored. Naturally in your travels you will come across treasure maps that you can consult to try and find treasures. The latest Pirates game has the additional quest of finding long lost family members scattered across the Caribbean.

The games offers a truly fun and addictive gameplay. When you start playing it you will not be able to stop. As any good sandbox game it allows you the freedom to play it any way you want and enjoy it without any restrictions getting in the way. So if you want to have tons of fun living the life of a pirate give the game try. You can download the 1993 game for free from abandonia or you can buy the 2005 game for under 10 euros from many online retailers.

YO HO HO and a Bottle Of Fun!!!

The Brit Report: Moon

2009-09-20T23:08:00.012+03:00

And thus this review concludes the exclusive trilogy of must-see-now-or-die-in-agonizing-pain movies. I think I'll have to take it easier from now on... Thanks to Hotshuk, I watched this movie only for 6 pounds instead of 10! Hurrah for that!

MOON
(by Duncan Jones)

Moon is a movie that nobody saw. It made $6M worldwide. My prediction is that in 10-15 years, it will be on most top sci-fi movie lists. Destined to become a cult phenomenon and to be rediscovered later on, Moon is reminiscent of the great sci-fi movies of the '70s and '80s: THX 1138, Solaris, Blade Runner, Alien. What these movies have in common besides offering bleak visions of the future is that they use the science fiction backdrop to tell character-based stories, not offering some eye candy just for the sake of it.

It it impossible to form a synopsis of the movie without falling into spoiler territory, so I'll just say that the movie involves a certain worker (Sam Rockwell), stranded all alone on the surface of the moon for a 3-year contract for a mining company. His only colleague is the base computer, GERTY (Kevin Spacey's voice). Towards the end of his contract, bad things start happening. Sam Rockwell gives a career-best performance, carrying the movie throughout. His choice was inspired, injecting healthy doses of sarcasm and humor in an utterly dramatic role. Duncan Jones' (son of David Bowie, no less) direction is superb. The sets are impeccable, reminding a bit of 2001 and Alien, and although the movie was shot with a $5M budget, it never feels cheap - quite the contrary. Spacey's role is superb: his chilling and sleazy voice is exactly right for the HAL-like computer, but never being a cliche. Bottom line: if you can catch it at a cinema, go see it.
9/10

Drag Me To The Movies

2009-09-19T12:30:00.004+03:00

When I was 9 years old, if you had asked me what my favourite movie was, I would have offered the unlikely answer of "Evil Dead II". This was mainly thanks to my brother (10 years my elder) forcing me to sit through countless horror movies and the "Revenge of the Nerds" series while he was babysitting me. I had lots of nightmares and sex dreams; a disturbing combination for a 9 year old boy.
Still, out of all these movies, nothing quite stayed in my memory as vividly as the "Evil Dead" Trilogy. Something about it's slapstick, over the top, gross-out violence and horror that made it more endearing than your run-of-the-mill scary movie.
Yesterday, 18 years later, I left the cinema feeling as giddy as a 9 year old with all those old memories renewed and once again I had Sam Raimi to thank for them.
With "Drag Me To Hell" he really went back to his own old school approach to directing horror movies. It's slapstick. It's silly. It's gross. It's amazing!
After telling an old gypsy woman that she will be evicted from her house for failing to pay her mortgage (in a pathetic attempt to achieve that dream promotion), bank worker Christine Brown befalls a curse that will see her tormented by a demon spirit for 3 days before being dragged to hell for tea and biscuits. Torments that will include being covered in various sticky substances, beaten up, thrown about, loud noises and dinner with the in-laws. That is unless, of course, she can find a way to escape her horrible fate!
The movie never pretends to be something it's not. It's dialogue is amusing rather than hard hitting, and the plot sits on the rail tracks and heads towards it's destination without any surprise stops but these things do not prevent it from being a really fun watch.

As far as the acting goes, everyone really did their part. Justin Long playing the ever suffering boyfriend, Lorna Raver as a really disgusting old woman, but they can not take attention away from the performance of Alison Lohman as our hapless heroin. She is cute without being really sexy, strong without offering much resistance and defiant without really getting anywhere. She really does look just like a rabbit in the headlights, the poor lass! However, come the new year I will be expecting an Oscar nomination in the new category "Actress with the most things vomited upon her in a motion picture".
Unfortunately, I think this review may be coming in a bit late as I believe the movie will stop showing at most cinemas soon. However, you still have time! Grab a couple of friends and a few girls and this will be an unforgettable movie experience.

8/10

The Brit Report: District 9

2009-09-17T22:58:00.014+03:00

You have to face it: this year I'm going to produce quite a lot of exclusives, so be patient: all will come eventually! Thankfully this time the ticket was only 4 pounds, albeit at the glorious Whitechapel district, which made the movie feel more realistic... A final word of warning: for heaven's sake, peace my brothers! Do not fight over a lost battlefield, the Jaunty Jackalope will come crashing through the windows and eat all the apples!

DISTRICT 9
(by Neill Blomkamp)

I'll try to keep this one short and spoiler-free: District 9 was a sleeper hit. Made just for $30M (1/10 of Avatar's budget), it has already made 4 times its money worldwide, and it still hasn't opened in a lot of territories. The first geek reviews that came out were ecstatic, so my expectations penetrated the stratosphere. Finally though, I think that I raised the bar a little too much.

Not to be snobbish though: the direction is excellent, with extreme attention to detail, the action scenes are suspenseful, and the CGI are really top-notch. The script has a few twists and turns that generate some excitement, but the movie dosen't delve a lot more than the initial premise. While watching I kept being reminded of these terrific Galactica episodes (ie. Exodus), that really knew how to create sci-fi allegories. The acual problem? "It's the characters, stupid", as Ron Moore had said. While the main lead tries very hard (and succeds) at being likeable even if he's an irritating racist, other basic players feel like cardboard cutouts: the evil plotting businessman, the evil macho mercenary, the sobbing wife... But the movie is owned by a CG: the prawn Christopher - amazing performance. Maybe I'm over-analyzing it. Every geek should see this movie - It's almost a miracle that this one came out. Don't mind my blabbering! Go see it!

7,5/10

Windows 7 upgrade may take up to a day

2009-09-15T15:01:00.007+03:00

Microsoft has done it again. It really never stops to amaze me how low quality software and insulting assumptions from the side of Microsoft quality assurance team result in crappy Microsoft products. A Microsoft engineer posted on his blog the results of internal experiments on how long it takes to upgrade Vista to Windows 7.

The experiments involved 3 different hardware configurations and 4 different system condition as far as the data and the installed programs where concerned. One of the experiments took 1220 minutes, over 20 hours to complete the upgrade and that was not even on the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario was not even reported.

Data Profile	Low End Hardware	Mid End Hardware	High End Hardware
Clean No data and 0 applications	32-bit: 40 minutes 64-bit: 50 minutes	32-bit: 30 minutes 64-bit: 35 minutes	32-bit: 30 minutes 64-bit: 35 minutes
Medium User 70Gb of data and 20 applications	32-bit: 175 minutes 64-bit: 185 minutes	32-bit: 115 minutes 64-bit: 95 minutes	32-bit: 100 minutes 64-bit: 85 minutes
Heavy User 125Gb of data and 40 applications	32-bit: 345 minutes 64-bit: 355 minutes	32-bit: 185 minutes 64-bit: 165 minutes	32-bit: 160 minutes 64-bit: 150 minutes
Super User 650Gb of data and 40 applications	N/A	32-bit: 1220 minutes 64-bit: 675 minutes	32-bit: 610 minutes 64-bit: 480 minutes

It is stated that the transition from XP to Windows 7 is more complex and it will take significantly more time. How much more? Are they kidding us?

Realistically speaking I would say that most users(at leats the ones I know) fall between the Heavy User to Super user. Even simple users have not formated their XP installation for years and have all sorts of crappy software installed on the machine(let alone the dll nightmare). How long will it take for them?

Comparing this with the upgrade process of Mac OS X or certain Linux distros such as Ubuntu makes me lough out loud. System upgrade is something that should be painless and automated but I guess in Redmond they have diffferent ideas(they still live in mid 90s wearing funny shirts).

The Brit Report: Antichrist

2009-09-14T22:08:00.018+03:00

Ahoy there fellow Brits! 'Twas a lovely day today in London -no rain and all- and I'm here for a jolly good review. Put the kettle on then, and don't forget yer tea towel or yer'll get all burned and everything! The movie I'll talk about was shown in the oh-lovely Odeon scene at Panton road, right next to Picadilly! Nice price too: I got a movie for a tenpound and a bottle o' good-old Thames water for just a twopound and a fivepence! Isn't that a bargain? But enough chitchat luvs. Let me start me fable:

ANTICHRIST
(by Lars von Trier)

Having seen quite a few movies in the short span of my life, it is safe to say that I cannot be easily impressed or shocked. It is also safe to say that Trier's new movie achieved both - maybe less the former and more the latter, anyway. Much as Dogville, the movie is divided into 4 chapters, with an accompanying prologue and epilogue. Right from the very start, Trier sets the movie rolling: beautifully shot, with an excellent soundtrack, and overly misogynistic. It is not strange that Trier received from the Cannes film festival a special anti-award for the movie's misogynistic views. He's practically screaming to the audience: "Women are evil! Sex is evil! Nature is evil!", and so on.

I won't spoil the surprises the unaware audience member is about to discover, but brace yourselves. This movie is not for the faint of heart- I personally tried very hard not to look away during certain scenes. Performance-wise, the film is of course a winner: Dafoe reigns the movie utterly, while Gainsbourg puts tremendous effort in her role, which mostly comprises of screaming, fucking, and mutilating. One special note has to be given to Trier's camera work - he's far from his Dogma 95 rules, creating some breathtakingly beautiful shots (and some breathtakingly gruesome shots as well). But apart from the technical details, the movie really feels like Trier's psychotherapy project. His views on women, motherhood, and nature are frankly, laughable. So, the movie practically boils down to arthouse torture porn. If you're the type of person that can appreciate the sight of Dafoe's penis cumming blood in a close-up, this is your movie. Everyone else, avoid. There's really no in-between...

P.S. The movie is dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. I can picture his rotten corpse, somewhere on the Russian cemetery of Paris, trying to escape from his grave so that he could mutilate von Trier. Alas, he cannot.

Cloud gaming on the rise

2009-09-09T17:05:00.005+03:00

A few days ago we reported about the beta openings in onlive. It seems that they are not the only brave people pushing the idea of cloud gaming. Another service called Gakai surfaced in Europe with similar approach.

The company states that the only technical requirement is a computer with a flash capable browser and that nothing will require to be installed in order to enjoy the service and play games. This is a different approach from onlive that requires a special plugin to be installed on the browser.

This leads me to believe that (even though its not mentioned anywhere on their website) that Mac and Linux boxes will be able to run the services. This is all very exciting since people from the Mac or Linux communities will be able to enjoy titles that only the windows crowd enjoys. In addition and more importantly the promise of not needing to upgrade hardware in order to be able to play the latest and greatest games is very appealing indeed.

This time round(onlive beta is only open for US residents) the european gamers will be able to participate first in the beta. Go sign up.

A fantastic trailer for "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

2009-09-08T17:32:00.006+03:00

Wes Anderson (director of The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited) is making a stop motion animation film based on the children's novel by Roald Dahl.

The voice cast is stellar! The film will feature the voices of Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Michael Gambon, Adrien Brody, Brian Cox, Anjelica Huston and Wes Anderson himself.

Now that is some SERIOUS talent for just one film. Combined with the excellent craftsmanship of the puppets and sets evident from the trailer I'd say we are in for a unique experience.

Onlive Beta Program opened

2009-09-04T17:11:00.008+03:00

Remember Onlive? The company that promises to change the way we play games? They had announced that they are building a technology that allows gamers to play the game via a video streaming technology through any entry level computer through a browser plugin and to be able to do it in HD. Yea, I know, unbelievable.

Anyway...it seems that they have opened their beta program so go there and sign up if you are a US resident. I still believe that it's a rather expensive hoax. It would be awesome though if its true.

Gmail is down

2009-09-02T00:22:00.007+03:00

Gmail has been down for the past hour. The site either appears to load but then the user is unable to to login or the site does not load at all and a server error page is loading.

Something pretty bad is happening because Google is usually able to resolve this issues (fix the problem or redirect the traffic to another cluster) in a matter of minutes, but not this time. We will have to wait and see if there is some kind of formal announcement.

Update 1:
Gmail team has acknowledged the problem in their blog:

Update (2:37 pm): We've fixed the issue, and Gmail should be back up and running as usual. We're still investigating the root cause of this outage, and we'll share more information soon. Thanks for bearing with us.

Update 2:
Gmail tracked the problem and posted on the Gmail Blog about the issue. Turns out it was an overload on their request servers.

In other news battle.net has thrown me out from my Diablo 2 session and I cannot connect back to the game(past the game room screen that is)....what is it with today?

Playstation 3 firmware update 3.0 is out but store and browser still suck

2009-09-01T18:20:00.009+03:00

Today Sony released the new firmware update 3.0 for the Playstation 3. The new features are welcomed changes from the previous versions but still do not cut it for me as better experience. I do not care about dynamic backgrounds or a million new avatars as the store still sucks and the browser is painfully slow.

A lot of weight on the new update has been put to the access to the Playstation store. I am guessing this is a strategic decision as Sony is starting to shift towards the whole online downloadable stuff store (PSPGo anyone). The thing is the Paystation store remains shity. I 've it used many times to either download free stuff or even to purchase games but I have a really low opinion of it. It reminds me of the Playstation network pages of Playstation 2. It looks old and it is not usable. Xbox Live Arcade or steam are better viewing and buying experiences than this. I cannot find the things I want easily, the menus are a joke and most of the content is cheap-ass DLCs.

Try using YouTubeXL from the PS3 browser without resorting to violence

Another grudge is the browser. It is still painfully slow. All this processing power playing games with a gazzillion polygons at HD and the browser is slower than running Internet Explorer 7 on a 486 processor. Basically the only reason I use the browser on the PS3 is to view youtube videos on the TV. Default YouTube interface viewed from the TV while managed with the joypad sucks. A few months ago they released YouTubeXL for use with TV screens but it is just unusable in terms of speed on the PS3. It takes ages to load. The interface is much better but I just can't use it. So, please, Sony do something about this.

Allround outage

2009-09-01T17:49:00.006+03:00

As you might have noticed, yesterday we had a service outage. We are sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused you especially if you wanted to show us off to hot geek girls. Don't worry though, we are back and running (and kicking I might add).

The outage was caused due to some "complications" while moving from one domain registrar to another. Ok, I admit it, the complications where my fault (for half the day at least). Naturally, I lied to ebenet and eraserheadx saying something about the domain propagation for the nameservers across the Internet takes a long time (which is half-truth), but who cares.

The move was made due to the fact that our previous registrar sucked donkey ass and we wanted something better, in order to provide you guys with even cooler stuff (eraserheadx has some new filthy ideas among other things). So, in that perspective, please, don't hold us any grudges.

Megan Fox on Xbox Live

2009-08-28T16:08:00.011+03:00

EraserheadX will be buying an Xbox 360 Saturday morning as his dream girl Megan Fox will be playing the sorry-ass-excuse-for-a-game Transformers on Xbox Live this Sunday as part of a publicity stunt to promote Xbox 360.

You can fix my car any time you want

Megan will play Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: The Game using the gametag "Megan Fox 2009". In this rather stupid interview Megan declares that she is a gaming geek. In the interview we find out the Megan was a Nintendo kid back in the day. Take that Sega...that's why you pulled out from the console market...

Microsoft is running, for some time now, an ongoing promotion series called "Game with Fame" where celebrities play games on Xbox Live with other subscribers. Celebrities that have attended include Green Day, Dream Theater and Linkin Park.

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" trailer

2009-08-28T12:06:00.005+03:00

Would you watch a film with the title The Men Who Stare At Goats?

No? What if I told you that the cast includes the following names:

George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges , J.K. Simmons and Robert Patrick.

Still no? Take a look at the just released trailer:

If the answer is still no then what the hell are you doing reading this blog? Goodbye!

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" has a teaser trailer

2009-08-25T00:24:00.007+03:00

Christopher Nolan has managed to become one of my favourite directors with just a handful of films. From his debut film "Following" to the mega-hit "The Dark Knight" Nolan's films have always ranged from good to excellent. It would appear that Nolan is set to amaze us once again with his latest film.

Inception is a sci-fi thriller staring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine (in his 4th appearance in a Nolan film). The teaser sets the tone for a very atmospheric film without really showing anything. I think I will try to keep it that way and avoid learning too much about the film before it's release.

One more for the MUST SEE list!

New Diablo III class announced: The Monk

2009-08-22T11:07:00.009+03:00

Yesterday it was officially announced at BlizzCon 2009 that the 4th playable class in Diablo III will be the Monk. Watch the cinematic introduction of the character and some gameplay footage below:

Hmm sort of like a replacement for the Paladin. My guess for the last class would be a Hunter. From what I've seen so far though the first class I'll try will be the Wizard.

must...play...this...game...NOW!