That Important Blog

Mafia II Demo Impressions

2010-08-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Incredibly enough it has been over three years since the sequel to arguably one of the decades greatest game was announced. Mafia II takes place in the same era as its predecessor, Mafia: The City of Lost Haven, as the player steps into the shoes of Vito Scaletta, a Sicilian immigrant in the 1940's and 50s. Think along the lines of The Godfather Pt. 2.

The demo allows the player to partake in a mission to a brewery to assassinate an over zealous Mobster known as 'The Fat Man'. We start the demo in Vito's apartment, a phone rings and we are prompted to answer it. Joe describes to Vito that he has the package and that we should begin our journey to meet him. Before we leave, the player can open the fridge and select from a choice of snacks or explore the very well detailed bedrooms. Near the door, we can open the wardrobe and choose from various attire that we have in our collection. Presumably in the full game as items are brought from stores they will appear here.

Outside, we are prompted to visit the garage to our right where we can choose from a selection of very well modeled cars. I chose the fastest based on the stats of the various vehicles visible. This motor itself wouldn't look out of place on the side of a Hornby train set.

Setting off down the road, the first problem becomes visible. The car mechanics. This is never a good thing and in normal circumstances could potentially be a game breaker, yet the very well detailed streets, pedestrians and the radio blasting out Little Richard is enough to persuade me that the handling is not going to be that of a Ferrari straight from GTA IV. This is, after all, 1947.

The mini map and HUD are as can be expected. We get a speedometer when in the car with a health bar wrapped around (this slowly regenerates). Pulling up the map I can see various restaurants and gun shops that I can visit. Buying a gun is simple enough, the screen moves in and highlights the selected weapon with a prompt to restock ammunition or purchase. Shooting a store owner and returning to the scene of the crime at a later date leaves a derelict building with crime stop strapped across the door. In contrast, simply robbing the shop and returning later one can witness police officers interviewing the owner - but don't stay around too long, if the owner notices you she will shout out in horror.

In a nutshell, the police AI is good and refreshing. They will pull you over for breaking the speed limit but through a well animated in-game cutscene you are able to hand out a few dollars so the officers forget why they stopped you in the first place. It is this kind of bribing system that propels you into the game. If you've watched such mob classics as Goodfellas and Once Upon A Time In The West the powerful influence the Al's and Frankie's of the era had will be of no surprise to you.

Nearing the start of the demo mission, I can walk into the clothes store and purchase a replacement for my now dusted suit or stop for a hot dog. One problem would be the cutscene that ensues when buying food; in GTA IV you are able to walk away but in Mafia II replenishing health will require you to be frozen into the cutscene for a short moment whilst Vito finishes his sicilian sausage.

The shooting mechanics are very well done and I am impressed so far with the overall quality across the board. Weapon sounds are powerful as you would expect and the impact on an entity really does feel real. Shooting from a Tommy Gun in a firefight will propel debris around the room adding to the immersion. Although the accuracy was very good, occasionally even when the reticule was placed over one of The Fat Mans' mobsters the bullet went off target. I can live with this however.

One of the stand outs from the original Mafia was the superb voice acting, not only on the main characters but on the general pedestrians when traveling down a street. The dialogue is fitting of the time set and does not feel out of place in the slightest. The cutscene movies themselves are built within the game engine and are of superb quality and realism, trumping GTA IV's with ease.

A topic of discussion so far regarding the game has been the implementation of PhysX. Yes, the dynamic clothing and particle effects are nice to look at but they cause a real FPS drop and the option on High or Medium is not fascinating enough for such a large drop in performance - therefore I advise the option be switched off. Playing on a top range system with my 5870 with PhysX off I received a comfortable 60FPS average, yet when set to high (and the option causing flowing skirts and realistic glass to everything) an FPS drop to that of 27 is unsatisfactory.

Mafia II is released across the PS3, XBOX360 and Microsoft Windows on 24 August in North America and 27th August for other regions.

Top 10 Great Greasemonkey Userscripts 2009

2009-07-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

The Firefox Plugin Grease Monkey really does provide thousands of amazing scripts for improved usability and the ironing out of general errors. You simply can't argue with 20 Million downloads of it. There are so many great ones to choose from and picking 10 of the best was a challenge. Please leave a comment if you have a favourite script!

10.Rotten Tomatoes Rating on IMDB - If you find yourself looking up a film rating on IMDB then visiting RT after, this script cuts out that process so you now see the RT Rating below the IMDB Score. Simple.
4,136 Installs

9.Linkify - Ever been on a page and found the text link is not clickable? That issue is fixed with this script.
6,000 Installs

8.Google Enlarge - Hover over an image in Google's Image Search and an enlarged popup of the picture will appear.
19,000 Installs

7.Google Extra - Not only does this script display video, image, wikipedia (and more) results on the right hand panel when performing a google search yet the home page now has some cool looking icons to take you quickly to Gmail and 6 other areas of the Google empire.
46,000 Installs

6.AutoPagerize - This basically removes the need to click 'Next Page' on search engines and similar pages. Install the script, do a google search and begin scrolling continuously. Pretty neat, huh?
300,000 Installs

5.Rapidshare (&Various) Links Checker - Shows green tick or red X beside active or removed links on the main file sharing hosts.
350,000 Installs

4.Rapidshare Free Service Helper - Despite the number of installs I am including this here as it is only really useful to those who regularly use Rapidshare. It fixes various issues and adds new options.
4,000,000 Installs

3.Facebook Fixer - If you are an avid Facebook user then you will very much appreciate this. It fixes a lot of issues and generally makes for a better experience. An 'Add to Calendar' option below a friend's birthday is just one of the hundreds of changes.
150,000 Installs

2.Download Youtube Vids as MP4 - If you find yourself frequently using a Converter Programme to turn Youtube videos into MP4 for use on a phone or iPod then you are in luck. This script removes that process and allows you download all videos in MP4 directly from YouTube.
130,000 Installs

1.Look It Up - With this script you can quickly look something up in Wikipedia. Simply highlight the text and press 'w' to reveal a popup of the desired page.
298,000 Installs

The End of the Internet Forum?

2009-07-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

The End of the Internet Forum?

Its the end of forums as we know them. This is the age of social networking, where such websites reign supreme. Forums have always been.... a place to hang out with people whom you share common interests with, to contribute to discussions, ask questions and to generally talk about nothing important. Avatars and signatures allow for endless customization and limitless posting capabilities mean you have more time to persuade your fellow forummers to download the latest Steam game or look for advice on an Anti-Virus programme. Such commmunities can be set up easily enough and are usually free yet such places would need high volumes of traffic to even be moderately known.

Despite obvious pros, Forums are slowly dying out. When was the last time you used a Forum to seek information? Websites and blogs provide a quick answer via a search engine and signing up to a community to ask a question is tedious considering you have no idea when or if it will be answered and if it will even solve the problem. These forums still have the community aspect, but do they really? Facebook provides quick and hassle free communication with people you know and with the Twitter faze at its height who wants to be browsing on a slow and usually advert ridden board? Forums do however have the advantage of in most cases providing a free community for online gaming clans and thus can prove worthwhile if a frequent gamer wishes to work his way up to an Admin level; yet will then face the task of having to remove the daily amounts of spam that will no doubt be found. Post Counts and 'Credit' schemes can also promote unwanted arguments and ego building.

Traditional forumming, in the sense of reading a topic and replying is seeing a very dramatic decline. I visited four popular forums and their 'Most users ever online' data all occured within early to late 2007. And the amount of members on these forums does not even compare to the predicted 250 million facebook users or the 8 out of 10 people that ask Google a question everyday. 4Chan, the immensely popular 'Imageboard' throws the traditional forumming out of the window as it is essentially a hive of comedy and the centre of Internet memes.

So why the popularity of such sites? They all share one thing in common in that they are simple, easy to use and all importantly - the next big thing. All regular Internet surfers want to be on top of the latest site craze. Traditional Forumming will soon become a thing of the past. as its simply not 'hip' enough.

Please give your opinion on Forums. Do you use one regularly? Is the community large? Comments greatly appreciated.

10 Essential Free IPhone/Touch Applications to grab now! - Must Haves

2009-07-20T13:16:00.001-07:00

Below you will find a list of the absolute must have, bare essential, no rubbish applications that just have to be installed upon you receiving your iPod Touch or iPhone. Don't leave the house without these synced!

What is your favourite app? Please leave a comment!

1. Sky News - If like me you like to keep up with the latest headlines on the move, then this is the only news app to go for. Its clear interface provides for easy navigation to the most important articles. You can even watch news stories in video form! And its absolutely free!

2. IM+ - This handy little all-in-one instant messaging app provides flawless, easy communication with your contacts. You can also share photos and videos.

3. Google Earth - You can reach the Galapagos Islands in a few touches with this app. Lost? Find out where you are with the Location feature. Tilting your iPod will adjust the view to see terrain.

4. Remote - This little app will let you control your Apple TV or iTunes direct from your iPhone/Touch! Perfect when you don't have the energy to reach your computer.

5. Flashlight. - Like me you may make the mistake of dropping something outside late at night. Simply install this app to illuminate a short area thanks to a bright white screen. Don't make the mistake I did, install this!

6. Dictionary & Thesaurus - For when you find yourself frequently making spelling mistakes or simply needing to look up a word.

7. Wikipanion - You may now have the word, but do you want to know more? Do you want to look something up when you haven't a computer near? Searching the famous encyclopedia is made easy with this application.

8. Last.fm - The Last.fm application version of the famous website allows you to sign in and listen to your favourite artists as well as create personalised radio stations.

9. Ebay - Do you need to bid for an item but find yourself away from a computer? Then help is on hand (or at least on fingertips) with this great app.

10. Pac-Man Lite You'll want a game, right? Then we recommended the all time classic arcade game, right on your iPhone!

Speed up Mozilla Firefox browser by 10 times!

2009-07-20T13:15:00.001-07:00

1. Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

The Definitive List of Top Time Wasting Websites

2009-07-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

Bored at work? Need something between coursework? Do not fear, below is the largest, most definitive list of time wasting websites ever amassed on the web.

Do you have a time wasting website of your own? Please leave a comment and I may include it in the next update!

1. Miniclip - A large collection of the most addictive games. Guaranteed to keep you busy between breaks.

2. Omegle - Have a conversation with a stranger!

3. Damn Interesting - A large collection of, well, damn interesting articles!

4. MyBrute - Automatic battles, create your Brute and fight!

5. Falling Sand - Addictive physics game.

6. Failblog - Pictures & Vids of immense fails

7. LolCats - Images of Cats with amusing captions

8. Spirograph - Rememeber these? Now make your own!

9. Youtube - Obvious choice, you really can spend hours on a subject.

10. Listverse - Fantastic site with a Top 10 list for just about any subject.

11. OVGuide - Search the net for videos

12. NewsMap - Find out whats happening in the form of large boxes to show popular stories.

13. Uncyclopedia - Tongue-in-cheek take on subjects

14. Grooveshark - Listen to music online, no software required!

15. Flickr - Spend hours looking at other peoples photos

16. College Humor - Infamous videos & pictures site.

17. Demotivational Pictures - Hilarious database of the famous pictures

18. Virtual Bubblewrap - Potentially the most pointless site ever. You may enjoy it.

19. Zombo - You can do anything.

20. Google Streetview Gallery - Strange and amusing images captured on Google's Streetview service.

21. Surf The Channel - Watch missed TV shows.

22. Mouse Breaker - Incredibly addictive online games.

23. Weebls Stuff - Great cartoons and games.

24. Fark - Amusing, real life news stories from your area.

25. Will It Blend? - Anything you can think of being put in an incredibly strong blender.

26. Digg - Find whats popular right now online

27. Cubicle Freak Out - Smash your office space.

28. Flow - Think the starting level of Spore.

29. Grow your Empire - Fun strategy based game.

30. Grid 16 - One of the most addictive games of all time!

31. Not Pr0n - A very annoying puzzle game. You really can spend days and posssibly even weeks on this.

32. Samorost - Essentialy a fun point and click game, with great graphics. Amusing and puzzling!

33. Sodaconstructor - Ever wanted to build your own robot? Well now you can with this great time waster. Muscles and physics included!

34. Google Fight - You type in two words and the programme will decide the winner via how many search results are found for each. Watch the Stick Men fight to the death.

35. MyGame - Dreams can become a reality with this site. Create and play your own games!

Easily Find Links with RapidShare - With this code!

2009-07-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

In recent years, the only website I have used for downloading desired items is German based file hosting website RapidShare, its easy to use interface, free and premium facilities have in no doubt had an impact on the websites success, as it is currently ranked the 17th most visited site globally.

Free users are required to wait a short time before the download can begin, and then again 15 minutes until another file can be started. Premium Users are treated to no waiting time and large amounts of storage.

Where does one obtain links for files?

- File Searching Script with Google. Simply type the following into your Firefox browser, then enter keywords. This script generates links for other File Hosting websites as well as Rapidshare. You can customize the sites you want shown by removing the word in the Google Search bar after keywords have been typed.

javascript:Qr=document.getSelection();if(!Qr){void(Qr=prompt('%20Find%20Hosted%20Files!%20Enter%20Keywords%20Here:',''))};if(Qr)location.href='http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q='+escape(Qr)+'+%28rapidshare.+%7C+megaupload.+%7C+sharebee.+%7C+mediafire.+%7C+slil.+%7C+sendspace.+%7C+turboupload.+%7C+speedshare.+%7C+depositfiles.+%7C+massmirror.+%7C+ftp2share.+%7C+zshare.+%7C+file-upload.+%7C+filefactory.+%7C+netload.+%7C+megarotic.+%7C+fileshost.+%7C+megashares.+%7C+upload2.+%7C+fileho.+%7C+uploading.+%7C+4filehosting.+%7C+zippyshare.+%7C+axifile.+%7C+filecoast.%29&btnG=Search'

- If the above code fails to work in your browser, then [RS] can be typed into a search engine followed by what you are looking for.

- There are as well various websites & forums dedicated to the posting of Rapidshare Links, a simple search will garner considerable results.