Korger's Damn Blog

No posts for a while..

2011-02-17T20:06:00.000+01:00

So tomorrow I'll be leaving for about a week (back on February 24th) and there will be no new posts during that time. Also, I know I did not post a review yesterday, but I've been busy packing and I did not have any time for a post (yes, that's not an excuse, I should be working day and night on new reviews). So, after 24th I'll be back and I'll resume writing.

To make up for the lack of yesterday's post, here's a quick review of a very addictive game:

The game is called Bust-A-Move (a.k.a. Puzzle Bobble). Your main objective is to shoot bubbles and match three or more on the top of the stage. After few shots, the stage will lower itself bit and if even one bubble crosses the bottom line, the game is over.

The original game was developed for Neo-Geo in 1994 by Taito Corporation and since then, many new versions came out for PS One, PC and even an iPhone and iTouch versions came out some time ago.

As I said, the game is very addictive and there are hundreds of levels to play, so you won't get bored easily.

The game is now quite hard to get. You can try to get the original version for Neo-Geo from a ROM site to use with an emulator or if you have a working Neo-Geo, try on ebay. Also, if you're an iPhone/iTouch owner, get it on App Store.

That's all for today. See you on 25th and sorry for the problem.

P.S: If you know an interesting game, that's worth trying, write a comment or PM/e-mail me the title and I'll check it out to write a review.

A new road + review of Hacker Evolution

2011-02-14T23:01:00.001+01:00

Greetings!

I haven't posted on Friday, because I came to a conclusion, that my blog is a no-go. It's about everything and nothing thus making it not quite interesting. So, after a massive brainstorm I decided to write short reviews of indie games I find interesting and entertaining. The schedule remains unchanged: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays + sometimes a bonus on weekends.

Well, to not stay empty-handed, here's a quick review of a game I found today.

Plot:
The game's called Hacker Evolution and was developed and published by Exosyphen Studios. It's a hacker simulation game with a nice and full of side quests - story. You start as a former intelligence agent, specialized in computer security. Your main objective is to find out who is behind recent events which caused a massive interruption in web traffic. You hack into computers, steal money from bank accounts to upgrade your system and find clues and bits of information.

Graphics:
The graphics are minimalistic. A game, where you mainly use a command-line does not need a fancy layout, eh? Instead you get a nice computer-like interface with a variety of skins to choose from.

Sound:

The sound is also very minimalistic. A nice ambient in the background, typing and option-choosing sound is everything you will get. That's really enough for a game like this.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is very nice. You really get the hacking feeling from it. You even get a chance to edit and write your own code to make programs and needed tools to get what you need. The main screen consists of a brief schematic of your system configuration, a map showing available servers, a command-line and a message box. Everything is almost like in a Hollywood movie with Tom Cruise as the main character or something.

Final thoughts:
I strongly recommend trying this game as it is quite realistic and gives you hours of brainstorming, puzzle solving and gathering information. You can get it on Steam for 9,99€ or in a pack with Hacker Evolution: Untold for 23,99€.

Get it here!

iPad knocked-out by Xoom?

2011-02-09T19:53:00.000+01:00

Xoom is a tablet presented by Motorola. It's the first tablet with Android 3.0 Honeycomb. It features a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, 3G connectivity and a 10,1" display. With 1280x800 resolution normally used in 15,6" displays in notebooks. The best thing is about Xoom is that it's smoother than iPad - it's 12,9mm thick and weights 730g.

Motorola's Xoom

Xoom has been supplied with a 5 Mpix camera with a flash diode lamp and ability to record HD films and a 2Mpix front camera. This tablet comes with a 32 GB drive and a microSDHC card socket.

Aside from havin the Tegra 2, Xoom contains a 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, a battery with 10 hours of playing videos and a set of standard wireless connectivity: 2G, 3G, LTE (as a future upgrade), Bluetooth 2.1 and WiFi b/g/n.

Is this amazing or is this amazing? If I only had enough money, I would buy this shiny jewel of technology.

See you on Friday!

Cheers.

Frozen in time and ice!

2011-02-07T19:59:00.005+01:00

Woston lake seen from a satellite (photo by NASA)

After 15 million years, frozen in Antarctic ice Wostok lake is about to be explored! Russian scientists are trying to drill through the ice to reach the waters of a lake, that remembers the prehistoric times. Its wildlife was developing independently from other regions of the world and will soon uncover its secrets to the world. Scientists refer to it as "The Oasis Frozen In Time" as it froze about 15 million years ago.

The main problem is the upcoming arctic winter and unpredictable discoveries. "It's like studying an unknown planet that was never explored by a human being. We don't know what we will find there" - says Walery Lukin from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg, who oversees
the operation.

The current depth of the borehole is 3750 meters - 5 meters from the lake. Scientists are afraid of going deeper because of the possibility of contamination of the samples from the prehistoric water. Also, there comes the possibility of finding new, never before discovered bacteria, which evolved independently from the rest of the planet.

The scientists are planning on inserting an R/C robot into the lake to get some samples.

Interesting, isn't it? See you on Wednesday! (Also, sorry for a late post...)

Share ye music collection!

2011-02-04T16:37:00.004+01:00

Greetings!

If you love music as much as me or even more, collect old vinyls like me, then this is something for you!

What I am talking about is this website called Discogs - a site dedicated to audiophiles. After registering, you have the ability to build your own list of albums you would like to buy and, what's even better, add music to your collection! Yes, you actually can use the built-in search engine to access Discogs' massive database of artists and their albums and add albums you own to your list. Neat, eh?

If this is not enough for you, then wait for this! Discogs allows you to buy whole albums or by them one by one in a digital form. And if this is still not enough - you can search the site for users who want to sell something from their collection and buy it through the site. What's more, you can also sell something from your collection if you want.

No some details about the site. Discogs launched on October 2000 by Kevin Lewandowski and was meant to be a massive database of electronic music. On July 25, 2010 the site contained more than 2 million releases, more than 1.6 million artists and nearly 170 000 labels.

But what about those vinyls I mentioned before? Well, the database contains also vinyl releases and you can buy them from Discogs' community members around the world. That's why I really like this site!

If you want to check it out, click here!

That's all for today! Cheers!

Google's Art Project

2011-02-02T16:00:00.001+01:00

Ever wanted to visit a museum in a distant country, but didn't have enough money or time to travel there? No worries, because Google has a solution.

Last Tuesday Google has launched the Google Art Project - a project aiming to take museums from around the world into virtual , three-dimension world. It already has works of 486 artists and will grow with time.

The tour itself is very nice and really detailed. You can even zoom some paintings to the point of single paintbrush strokes. So, if you have some spare time and are interested in arts or just want to check this new 3D tour, go ahead and visit www.googleartproject.com right away! It really is worth the time spent there.

Greetings!

2011-01-31T18:43:00.000+01:00

Hello and welcome!

My name is Christopher and this is my blog. This blog is mainly aimed at publishing and sharing my thoughts and things, that I find interesting. Also, as I'm starting on designing various things, I will be posting concept arts and stuff featuring my designs (there won't be much, so don't get excited xD ).

My posting schedule is as follows: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. Sometimes I will write extra posts on weekends, but only on special occasions and not so often.

So, to start my blog with something more interesting than my blabbering, here's something to check out and play with:

http://megaswf.com/simple_serve/102223/

This is basically a genetic algorithm trying to develop a perfect car. It makes a series of random cars (some are really surreal) and checks which of them got the best score, which is the distance the car has drove. The closer it was to the checkpoint, the more chances are it will be included in developing the next generation of cars.

It's pretty addicting, though it's a launch-and-stare type of fun. You have almost no control on the development (aside from choosing the "mutation rate").

Now some more information on the technical side:

The algorithm is using the Box2D physics library to build cars.

There's also version 1.2 which is slightly different which can be found here!

That's all for today. See you on Wednesday!