Bending over backwards, the network is

Fast forward 16 days of no online gaming (I played some of Final Fantasy XIII in the meanwhile). The network was back, I could play online, and Sony promised to ‘make it up to’ the gamers.

I expected them to go all Japanese on our asses, with something really cool in the works, what with the thousands of lawsuits being piled. It was not to be. Each account holder is entitled to 2 games of a list of 5 which includes LittleBigPlanet and inFamous, and two more for PSP users, out of another list of 5. But these games are way past their sell-by-date, and fail to interest me (or anyone else).

There is also a 30 day free subscription to PSN Plus. What will that gave me? Discounts on games I can play for free anyway on my iPod Touch? No thankyou.

People on the boards said free is free. Atleast they’re giving you that much. But don’t they realize its their ph***ing identities that have been compromised. Our personal data, and that includes our house addresses, passwords, email-addresses, phone numbers etc. is for all we know in the laptop of a sleep deprived Pakistani teenager who could then sell it to far more shady organizations. The entire attack could be a little Chinese kid executing his project for the school science fair, and that’s best case scenario.

That guy could have all our credit card numbers

Even then I was part of the lucky ones, having never used my dad’s credit card to make an online purchase on PSN store, and thus atleast safe from credit card fraud. And now I won’t even consider buying anything from there. It will simply make more sense to nip off to Planet M.

I expected a quick reaction from Sony to atleast reinstate some of the faith in its disappointed fan base. But no. The date for the reopening of PS Store kept getting delayed, and when it did come back online, the much touted ‘Welcome Back’ package was missing. And it’s still not here as I write this.

Also, the Network is still not back in Hong Kong and a few other countries. Most irritating of all though is the fact that Sony still hasn’t beefed its security to acceptable levels, according to some experts.

Final verdict: Sony. Make believe.

the Beholding Part

Make: Skullcandy Skullcrusher

Price: Rs. 4000 MRP, but available for < Rs. 3300 online

Colour: Snoop Dogg (*sigh*) blue

Specs: in-built subwoofer and bass amplifier, 30 mm speakers, over ear

So here’s what you get:

Design and Form Factor

Design. Hmm… It has two cups, so that is ok for anyone who is not from Eroticon Six. The headband is slightly weirdly shaped, making the whole thing look very inorganic and affected. The earpads and headband padding are all leather, which makes the experience incredibly comfortable.

Rolled up

There is the tiny matter of the subwoofer requiring its own power source, i.e. one AA battery. That’s all very understandable, but the attachment for the battery is bulky.

Also, I liked the fact that my Lowriders could fold into a mass that fit in my pocket. Fortunately, these too roll up nicely into a travel friendly size.

Sound

With bass, bigger is usually better

The subwoofers are spot on. I got the same kind of response I would expect from the big black box in my room I adore so much. And scientifically speaking, that is pretty sweet. As far as I know, bass needs big membranes to be produced properly. That is why everyday subs are big and have so much back. And here there are 30mm things throwing you this stuff.

One by one, I tried mainstream rock, prog and metal songs. On most songs the bass was a blessing. It was thumping and buzzing properly, but in some bits the vibration got very intense at the expense of audio quality. There is a vibaration control dial but its just not natural to keep fiddling with it. As soon as you turn off the subs on a song though, you begin sorely missing it immediately.

Funk rock is something you can best enjoy with these. Be it Killing in the Name of by RATM or Give it Away by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, you suddenly know why you bought these.

I also tried hip hop, and I can see why these are aimed at that target audience. (Hint: its not because they go well with blue hoodies.)

Subwoofers switched off too, the lows and mids come out good and there is a lot of depth, but nothing you can’t get from a cheaper pair.

Exhibit AA: The battery case is bulky

Other Stuff

Battery life is a minus. This I haven’t tested yet, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be much to speak of. The noise cancelling is good, and the person sitting next to you won’t be able to tell whether you’re listening to Gaga or Audio erotica (As long as you keep the vibration down of course :P ).

[Try watching a movie with these with subwoofers switched on. Chairs being pulled back sound like whipcracks, and if you're crazy enough you can sit around listening intently for a fart. Or Satan. Or both.]

Verdict

Rating: 8.5/10 If you’re looking for something different from your stick-in-the mud-Sonys, be sure to atleast check this one out.

======

And you can use a pokeStone to evolve this into… Subwoofer Chair

The Lo-ing Part

I rather liked Skullcandy because of good audio quality, and loud but good looks for OK prices. My first Skullcandies were Lowriders and I decided to give a certain pair of w/ Mic Heshes a pop that had caught my eye last month. I know a pair of, say Sennheiser’s would do slightly better justice soundwise but I just don’t see me buying those, especially the lower range models.

My Original Purchase

The order was placed on 30th April at Infibeam.com, with a promised delivered by date of 10th May. 11th May passed and I had heard zilch: my order had not even been dispatched yet. There was an understandably angry phone call to the website’s helpine as I was going out of town on the 16th for a week. It was on 15th May that they called up and told me that the cups I selected were not available and they were offering me a different product at the same price.

So I Firefoxed up the attached link and the sight greeting me was… hideous. The band at the top looked like it had an abdominal hernia, the white on blue pattern was patchily gay and even worse — they were christened after none other than Snoop Dogg. I have never heard a Snoop Dogg song and never plan to, as this hideous cover was enough:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xcub7YxI98

[Blackboards screech better, at least they don't insult Metallica]

Also, the review was shit. But try as I might, I couldn’t move my eyes away from the cover feature. The headphones had in-built subwoofers and I am a sucker for bass. I somehow felt audio quality wasn’t going to be an issue. So after much indecision I placed the order.

I came back to Delhi yesterday and these were waiting for me.

What I Got

The Beholding Part

Much of the beholding has already been done but I will.. er.. feel them a little more and post a review soon. Till then, let the hate comments begin.

But everyone always loves an interesting ad campaign, and these two (found via AdFreak) get my buck for their amazing execution:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=883UlMNOuX4

[Vodafone-the Evolution of Mobile Phones]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu0TRA6a21Q

[Hyundai Accent  - 3-D Projection Mapping]

The Hyundai one may have 6 humongous projectors and a hanging car but I personally liked the Vodafone one better, because they pulled it off accurately on such a small scale. I figure there’s some audio too but I can’t hear it (failed sound card).

The specs do sound like a whole lot: an additional analog stick, OLED touchscreen, a rear touchpad, two cameras (augmented reality games planned) , Six-axis motion sensing, Bluetooth, WiFi and 3G connectivity, Location based gaming , a 4 core ARM Cortex-A9 core processor and a 4 core SGX543MP4+ GPU. A new interface called LiveArea will replace the standard XMB used earlier. Also, a new data storage medium (the NVG card) will be used which will allow more storage.There are also videos of the system playing PS3 titles, as unreal as that sounds for a portable console.

However I feel there is much that could go against the device:

1. Battery life: A 4 hour battery life has been announced, but even that sounds a tad less and anything lesser will defy practicality.
2. Price: A reasonable price will be a major tipping factor. Possibly leaked prices in a survey suggest disparities of $100 between the 3G and WiFi-only models.
3. Shying away from innovation: Lack of innovation is disconcerting. Take the example of the Playstation Move, which did what the Nintendo Wii managed to do 4 years ago, if only better. It didn’t quite clinch the deal, and the Kinect stole the show (I have a Move controller, might as well have been a brick).
   And this time it looks to me that Sony might once again be bested. People are already flocking to the Nintendo 3DS simply because of innovation. All the NGP sounds like is an amalgamation of trending features in the game market.
4. Too much on the platter: Too many things will drive the price up and draw up battery life. Its probable that certain features may go entirely unused or neglected by game developers as happened to the Sixaxis motion features in PS3 controllers. A full set of controller buttons with dual analog sticks, a touchscreen, a touchpad and motion sensing may be the number of controls required to entertain the 4-handed aliens on Betelgeuse, but for us mortals its way too much.
5. Stagnation: Sony is trying to cash in on the new Smartphone game market buzzwords, such as location gaming, dual cameras and augmented reality. Since such games have been kicking since a long time and barely made big breakthroughs, these words can lose their charm on the market by the time of release.
6. Release date: With so much hype and the closest expected release date being in November, the early hype could work against Sony.

That said, it might just be this beaten path that works again for Sony, and we’ll have to wait and watch.

The human species, as it is, is put across as a mere fateful chemical accident  and the tendency of philosophers and other thinkers to associate the very fact that we exist with some implied higher ‘purpose’ has been criticized. Sagan also talks about the ‘deprovincialization’ upon such awareness and the sense of discomfort it lends to many people, who go on to impede the paths of science and progress.

But there was one thing that I was continually reminded of: that thing being a rather worn out and much passed around thick, blue book. This book, as many who know me would have guessed, is my much loved copy of the original five stories of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as its called) which is around 4 years old now. (The first copy I read was a borrowed one from the British Library)

Douglas Adams tries to get across many things from his own personal experience, amongst them the fact that the universe is a terrifying thing. When Sagan talks about unnerving deprovincializations and such, I realized Adams was saying the same thing through his Total Perspective Vortex (for those who don’t know what this is, you can read about it on Wikipedia, but I sincerely suggest you go read the book): The universe is so gargantuan a thing, the scales of its vastness in four dimensions can be used as a weapon itself. If there were a way to communicate truly these scales, there is a fair chance that they could cause the very life force to ebb out of a person. Insignificance is dangerous, you realize.

The Total Perspective Vortex (Click for source)

All the while I was reading the book (I’m only on the sixth chapter as I write this post), there were other similarly identifiable instances from H2G2 popping up in my brain , often prompting me to look up and ponder, often causing me to marvel at the genius of Adams, though its been more than one and a half years since I read H2G2. For example, I was reminded of planet Krikkit and its residents, who when exposed to the universe after a long isolation immediately decide “it’ll have to go”. Paranoia which is not hard to imagine.

This post might have not come out the way I wanted it to, the way the idea sounded in my head when I thought of writing it, but it serves as a much greater reminder to me: I need to go read that fat, blue book again and I need to read it now. (Also, on a related note, I’m trying to find this book. Anyone know where I can buy it in India?)

Rating: 5/5

Price: $4.99 (iTunes link)

Continuing on my iOS ‘gaming’ spree, I played EA Fight Night Champion. And as tired I am of every two-third thing I write a review on doing this to me, this game blew me off my rocker. To confess I’ve never really played a Fight Night title before, so this was a first.

First up, the game offers a roster of over 20 great fighters, including the likes of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. The visuals are amazing for an iPhone game (replete with dynamic lighting), and there is an ad hoc multiplayer offering too.

'Moving like a butterfly' can be tough with tilt control

But what’s amazing is the how game won me over from a newbie’s perspective. Within 5 minutes I knew all the different types of moves  that were to offer (and there are a lot of them) and was touching and multi-touching my way to victory, though I eventually lost my first match. In fact it is the highly intuitive gameplay that is the major high point of the entire experience.

There is traditional EA Sports style commentary, though sometimes it feels repetitive and stagnant. Apart from “Fight Now” and “Multiplayer” modes, the game offers a “Legacy” mode, much like the “Be a Pro” mode available in FIFA. You can create a character, and play out his career watching as he develops.

Legacy mode, its all in the stats

Haven’t tried out multiplayer yet, but it sounds pretty promising. Now look no further, and go buy the game.

Rating: 1.5 /5

Price: $4.99 (iTunes link)

I am not the one to buy little known games/apps from the App Store. When I go looking for a new iOS game, its usually to pass me some time when on the move, and choosing one from the bestseller list works just fine. But this is one game that will probably never make it big there, but it still caught my eye. Here’s why: it’s a cricket game.

First impressions were good. Clean UI with all the World Cup teams available and stadiums to choose from. The graphics are appreciable, for an iOS game, although I realized the “screens” shown on the iTunes page were much better, because they were definitely rendered on a computer. The players come in, and you realize they’re all the same 3d male model, wearing different uniforms and stereotypically assigned a skin colour depending on their team.

You wouldn’t mind that, if the game play were good. But it isn’t. You’re supposed to swipe your finger in the direction desired when batting, but the timing lags so much its almost impossible to hit a shot correctly on purpose. And the bowling is worse. Spin and swing play out the same way, and the power meter actually stops a few milliseconds after you touch it, resulting in frequent no balls.

There is nothing much else in this game apart from this bowling and batting regime, although admittedly the replays and hawk-eye ball trajectory displays will interest you for a short while.

All in all, don’t buy it if you don’t like cricket or are a casual fan. But if you’re  a hardcore maniac, I’m sure you’ll find some way to make this work for you.

Low Production Values

Just pause there and think about it. Here, some visuals might let your juices flow better:

Before

After

I mean you go grow cotton “bolls” on plants, but thats still ok. They’re plants, they’re meant for growing stuff on. But the fact that my sweater was once the body hair of some bleeding, pooping carnival of dust on four legs is a bit indigestible. (After I wrote this sentence and I looked down, and saw that I was infact wearing a sweater today. The following scream was muffled)

It had never occurred as strange to me before… I mean you’re not killing the animal for it, its more like exploiting chicken to make eggs. But still, and I cannot stress upon how much this bothers me the more I expound the idea, why on Earth are we still wearing animal body hair? If you have that much a fetish for body hair, or for thermal insulation, you can go grow your own. Colours? No problem -- dye it, thats what you did to the sheep hair right?

Or if you don’t care about cruelty towards animals and kill six puppies before breakfast (don’t sue me PETA), it should still be grossing you out right now. The above picture of the sheep after the shave, the fact that you don’t even know which part of the sheep your sweater grew on (Yes, you know what I’m talking about) should ideally have you writhing on the floor repenting.

Mad rant, or food for thought? You decide. As for me, I pulled my sweater back on, need I say more?

___

If this didn’t convince you, this will: (Video: Scary Sheep)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKExXjFAQz4