The Tidy - Your Blog for the Latest Tech News and Geek News

Sony Delays Much-Anticipated LBG for…

tidy — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:57:57 +0000

So Little Big Planet is being delayed. One of the most highly anticipated titles of the holiday season and one of the most uniquely designed games in quite some time, being held back. Game-breaking bugs? Balance changes? Nope. Get a load of this:

“However, fans of the game are going to have to wait slightly longer to get it. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has announced that it is recalling the game from retailers after it learned that the soundtrack featured some Arabic-language lines from the Qur’an backed with music. A SCEE representative also confirmed to GameSpot that this recall would be global, and could not confirm when the game would now actually hit shelves with the offending music removed.

The confirmation follows rumours that that Singing Safari level of the game features a song with two expressions found in Islam’s central holy text, the Qur’an. Cached pages on the official PlayStation forum claim that the two phrases are (literally translated from the original Arabic): “Every soul shall have the taste of death” and “All that is on earth will perish.”"

This is so random and weird and nonsensical that I really have no idea at all how it happened. Truth really is stranger than fiction. So, when is Little Big Planet’s Release Date?

Orchestrated Death

tidy — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:20:01 +0000

Description: Well, it’s October… Here’s a little something to get the month started You play as Death himself out on another day on the job. No connection between victims, just ruthless – and entertaining – murder in an arcadish point n ‘ click puzzle style. I’ll be the first to tell you it’s short, but it was just something fun for October and, to me, fit well with the holiday, although a little early A couple of notes: * Some things require the right timing, so going click-crazy won’t always help you. * Different items become available through actions (I think you’ll see what I mean). *** If you find it too easy, I apologize and may add more too it in time, if it’s too hard, right click and choose “download walkthrough, this will open the walkthrough in your browser.

* Content Rating: Mature

Instructions:

Controls: * Press “5″ to insert coins * Press “1″ to begin or continue to the next chapter * The mouse Optional: * Press “3″ twice to disable/enable scanlines

Control Scheme:

* movement: mouse

Embed the game to Your Site:

Vinnies Shooting Yard 4

tidy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:03:26 +0000

Description:
Vinnie’s back and he’s ready to sift some more heads in Vinnie’s Shooting Yard 4. Practice your shooting skills with the choice of a Desert Eagle, a Dragunov or Shuriken stars. This new game offers incredible graphics, more heads to sift and 3D weapons… a first in this exciting series.

Content Rating:
Mature

Instructions:

Use your mouse to aim and left click to fire your weapon. Spacebar to reload your weapons.
Control Scheme:

* fire: left mouse
* movement: mouse

Embed this game onto your website!

Samsung A650

tidy — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:17:55 +0000

So I’ve had the Samsung 52″ A650 HDTV for about a month now and I’m confident in saying I made the right choice.I have used all HDMI 1.3 connections. I have an Onkyo TX-SR705 A/V receiver which is great.

Watching HD content from DirecTV is pure pleasure to eyes. Eventhough I am sitting just 7-8 feet from this huge TV, I see breathtaking picture quality that I did not notice in any other HDTVs. There are some complaints about black levels, but the blacks are very deep and crisp to me in settings from movies to sports.

Blu-Ray picture quality is simply spectacular. It is by far the best home viewing experience I’ve ever had.
My one quibble is with the quality of picture with non-HD content on this TV. My old Panasonic plasma did a much better job at this. My only hope is that most channels would make the switch to HD in the coming years.

Video Games Today: “Qualintity”

tidy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:55:35 +0000

It seems like games have gone in a couple of different directions in the past couple of years. There’s the big, sprawling, open-ended games where linear story or progression is eschewed in favor of placing the user in control of a virtual world where they can control the direction of what kind of experience they want. The Grand Theft Auto games, Fable, and Oblivion are the paragons of this type of “sandbox” gameplay. In Oblivion, you can choose to completely ignore the storyline and decide “I’m going to be the leader of the biggest thieves guild in the land” and take the game that way. In my experience with Oblivion, I decided to be the land’s greatest gladiator– and was well on my way until the demon invasion that I’d ignored from the main plot took over the land and killed the entire audience for my grand duel. Such is life in Oblivion.

On the other end, there are games like Portal and Assassin’s Creed where the emphasis is not on hours of gameplay, but the value and variety of experience. It used to be that adventure and console style role playing games would boast 20+ hours of gameplay to complete. But with the gravitation of the gaming industry toward casual gamers, developers have recognized the value in making short, sweet experiences that don’t take weeks to complete.

Next time we’ll take a look at the upcoming PS3 title Little Big Planet, which looks to combine open-ended customizability with a short and sweet experience.