Hardly A Review: Oblivion (2013)

Oblivion is the latest Tom Cruise vehicle which hit cinemas April 10th. The year is 2077 and Earth has been ravaged by war with invading aliens. The majority of remaining humans reside in orbit in a giant space station while a few remain on Earth gathering what little resources are left before the planet is abandoned. Jack Harper (Cruise) is one such person, servicing machinery and protecting it from the alien "Scavs" while haunted by visions of a mysterious woman. When a ship crash lands containing a human trapped in stasis, Harper begins to learn everything is not as it seems, neither for him or the world.

Hardly A Review: Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

In a rare turn of events i have a chance to actually write about a film before it is on general release here in the UK! I was lucky enough to win two tickets a preview showing last night of  "Olympus Has Fallen" which is due out on general release tomorrow, Wednesday 17th.

After having taken the US Box Office by storm (which is an apt saying considering were talking about a film where the white house is taken by terrorists) "Olympus Has Fallen" has arrived in the UK and i must say i really enjoyed it and feel it is well worth a watch.

Hardly A Review: WWE '13 - Better than just for Banter

This last week I have been playing a lot of WWE ’13 on Xbox. Yep, laugh it up, but this is one of those wonderful surprises in gaming for me where my expectations are low yet a game proves to be immensely enjoyable. Initially bought as a ‘banter purchase,’ (a game I and my regular Live Party all buy on the cheap to play for a bit as a laugh), this has actually turned out to be a great single player experience. A heavy slab of nostalgia plays its part here, sending us back to times we’ve all spent playing previous iterations in our youth. This Nostalgia is aided by the ‘Attitude Era’ storyline, allowing the relieving of some of the major wrestling storylines from when we all actually knew who was who and it was still called WWF. Who doesn’t love a bit of Stone Cold Steve Austin? And that’s the bottom line! For the current day, there is Universe mode, which can be essentially whatever you want. The range of customisation available is brilliant and it is really possible to get the universe to work how you want it and see storylines and feuds develop as they would in real life shows.

The controls are fiddly at first and there is a lot of button mashing, and online services are temperamental but when it all comes together and you nail your best mate with the People’s Elbow this game is as satisfying as they come. At a time when I find a lot of mainstream games have become too serious or gritty, this has been a shot in the arm of unbridled fun, greatly enhanced by how unexpected it was. 

Jimmy

Hardly A Review - Pitch Perfect

In the current trends of modern movies we have experienced a resurgence of first dance based films with films such as Step Up following on from such 80's classics as Flash dance, Footloose and Dirty Dancing. However now we have the rise of musical, in particular films showing vocal prowess. this seemed to first start with films such as High school musical, but i think we can fairly lay the blame/commendation at the foot of Glee and its phenomenal rise to almost cult status, bringing musicality to the masses and making singing and choirs cool.  Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with a visual audio expression of the human condition and journey we call life.

So having made that introduction clear i can round the business to reviewing the actual film i went to see, which was Pitch Perfect. It wasn't a planned excursion to the cinema nor my choice of film, more of a mission of mercy on behalf of my sister so she didn't have to see the film alone after the arrangements with her friends fell through. however it didn't cost me anything as the ticket had already been paid for, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth i agreed to see the film.

Shield Yourselves

One final post on CES for this week, but it’s about one of the very first products to be revealed. I really had to mull this over and work out exactly what I think about this piece of hardware, and yes... I found something good to say about it, sort of. So here we go, my thoughts on Nvidia’s Project Shield.

The Shield is essentially a souped-up android device, running Nvidia’s new Tegra 4 processor. It features a 5 inch, 720p display, and a very... very familiar game pad, all wrapped up in a nifty clamshell design. Let me start on the design, this thing is sexy, it’s like a 360 controller and a F-117 Nighthawk had very awkwardly positioned love and made a babby. For a controller it doesn’t look like there’s too much extra bulk, even though this is much more than a controller, and as pretty much anything else, yeah... there’s too much bulk. This thing is not pocket sized although it is marketed as portable, but practical is something we’ll have to see about, I’ll get to that later.

Cogs be Turning

So yesterday at CES we got a decent look at what is likely to be the specs for one of the 3rd Party versions of the long hyped Steambox. Codenamed “Piston” it’s based on Xi3’s X7A mini computer. And no, I hadn’t heard of them either. I’ll just briefly go over what we know so far, but since details are all over the internet by now I won’t dwell on them too much, and just focus on what to make of it all.

So at the heart of the Piston will be an unspecified quad core processor, the X7A clocks it’s quad core at 3.2GHz, so it’s likely the console will be based around the same basic power, with minor tweaks. The X7A also has 8GB of DDR3 Ram, and a 1TB solid state hard drive. Of these features the Piston has been confirmed to include “up to 1TB of storage,” so a possible hint that there will be multiple price points for the console. The X7A uses onboard graphics that can support up to 3 monitors, and is ram packed with ports and plugs on it’s back. The X7A boasts of being modular and upgradeable (like every computer, ever) and has a tiny form factor, looking a lot like the Ouya’s badass older brother. Essentially it’s a gaming PC with a thyroid problem, however there’s no word as to whether it’ll run Windows, Linux, or a custom steam-based OS.

Gotta Catch Them Polygons

We’ve caught them all, we’ve caught them all again, and again, we caught the one that made the land, the one that made the sea, the one that made time, the one that made space, the one from another dimension, and the creator of the whole freaking universe. Yes, I’m talking about Pokemon, and if this is starting to sound pretty cynical that’s because I am very cynical when it comes to Pokemon. However I’m willing to give the new games announced today a fair hearing, and the benefit of the doubt. If you haven’t already seen the trailer (where were you?) then take a minute to breathe it all in and join me again on the other side.

Planetside 2: What I’d Like to See

A couple of days ago, I gave you my review of Planetside 2, the unmissable MMOFPS from Sony Online Entertainment. What I deliberately missed out of that review was the game I wish they had made. Whilst I really enjoy the game, I feel they could have gone an extra mile towards making it my favourite game of 2012. As it stands I think there are a few small problems I have with the game whose absence does not detract from the game at all, but whose presence would have greatly improved the experience. So here we go, this is my wishlist for the Planetside 2 of my dreams.

Firstly one of my major problems with the game is that how you go about capturing a territory is the same in every case, with only tiny variations (such as the presence of generators) and it creates a kind of “been there, done that” feeling after long play sessions. I wish Sony had included a variety of different ways to capture territories, rather than just holding a capture point, and spread them throughout the map so every land grab felt like a different experience.

Project Fiona - Go Hardcore or Go Home!

What the earth is project Fiona you may be asking? Well it is about to rock your world and change the market again in terms of what we think of as a PC and what we think of as a tablet etc. As far as i understand it, it is tablet-esque in design but aimed at Gamers. Now i can imagine you saying weve heard this all before and all we can play on them is app based games, now whilst they may be great for 5 minutes when your on the loo or stuck on a long train journey. However they do'nt really resemble anyone who plays decent PC games would consider a game and therefore don't have any real interest in them for "real" gaming. 

 

Hardly a Review: Planetside 2

Planetside 2 is one of those games that scratches an itch you didn’t even know you had. Let’s face it everything it offers has already been done before in one form or another, so why should you care? Well citizens, it’s a lot like Mac ‘n’ Cheese Pies, the result is far greater than the sum of it’s parts. Allow me to elaborate.

Planetside 2 dubs itself an MMOFPS, and whilst it is not the first game in this genre, it’s certainly the first one to truly earn the title “massive.” Each server supports up to 2000 people at any one time, and whilst that may seem like a low number for MMO’s I can assure you I have never once had a problem logging into my chosen server. It also holds true to it’s title of FPS, whilst contemporaries like Firefall try to exist within the realms of a recognisable MMORPG, Planetside 2 comes at the genre from a completely different angle. Instead, it chose games such as Battlefield 3 as it’s starting point’ and indeed it plays very much like Battlefield 3... if you force-fed the maps steroids.

Hardly a Review: Firefall

So I've been on a bit of an MMO binge this past week, it’s been the penultimate open beta weekend for Firefall, so I finally managed to get a good look at the game. If you follow my twitter then you’ll know I've been trying to get my hands on it for the longest time, and I have to say, what little I've seen of it in the past 48 hours impresses me. Before we got any further, let me put this out there, this review is based on my very first impressions of the game, I don’t claim to know the game in intimate detail, I don’t claim that anything I talk about will be in the final release of the game, and I don’t claim my experiences will be the same as yours. If you disagree with what I have to say, or want to bitch at me, send it all care of Nosh cos I don’t give a good goddamn. Right, now that’s out of the way, to the review!

So the story behind the game, essentially we’re in the distant future where the world has solved it’s clean energy problems with the discovery of a new element called Crystite. That’s right folks, no shale gas here, if you’re gonna do it do it right. However, during the testing of an FTL drive powered by Crystite something goes wrong, and the resulting catastrophe (known as the Firefall) releases a tear in the fabric of spacetime known as the melding. This mutates wildlife and renders a lot of the planet uninhabitable, and also led an alien race known as the Chosen to Earth, where they launch an invasion. Wow... I mean only an idiot thinks shale gas is a good idea, but it never released some crazy alien race on us. Anyway that leads to the start of the game where your gang of mercenaries allies with what's left of Earth's government to force back the invasion and save the day.

Ultra HD - The reason your new HD TV is already on the way out!

Recently changed to HD? Just bought a nice big flat screen TV and have had all your friends/family and neighbours over to have a look. Well I’m here to tell you it’s old tech and on its way out. Now before you start crying and rue the day you signed that agreement on easy monthly payments for 5 years with high levels of interest! It is ok, its successor has only really just started to emerge on the commercial market and isn’t actually expected to be commercially viable and prevalent in homes before 2015-2020 apart from in China and Korea who are hoping for 2013-14 time frame.

How can HD be Beaten?

What could possibly be better than the “Michelangelo in motion” HD TV sitting in your lounge you must be asking yourself, well it is Ultra HD! Ultra HD I hear you shout how can that be, well I aim to introduce those new to Ultra HD to the world post HD in all its many pixelled glory. Ultra HD has actually been being developed since the early 2000’s and comes in two internationally recognised sizes 4K and 8K, or 3840 × 2160 (2160p) pixels and 7680 × 4320 (4320p) pixels respectively. This means in the case of 8K Ultra HD there 16 times the number of pixels in your current 1080p HD TV! What is the point in extra pixels, well it means greater depth of colour in each part of the picture bringing it ever closer to trying to show the scene exactly as if you were there yourself.

Is it expensive? Where can I buy it?

Why haven’t I heard about this, will they be available to buy? The answer is yes, commercial Ultra HD TV’s have begun to appear from the major companies such as LG, Sony, Toshiba and Sharp. However as this technology is still really only just beginning to enter the market there are the usual problems for early adopters to consider, few models so small amount of choice and highly expensive. How expensive can it really be you ask? Well models starting to become available in the later half of this year in the US market have been around the $20,000 mark! So it is really only for those with far too much money burning a hole in their pocket at the moment.

Can I see Ultra HD anywhere?

Well if you had been in London, Glasgow or Bradford during this summer’s London 2012 Olympic Game’s you would have had the chance to watch some of the world’s finest sports stars compete in Ultra HD, as the BBC put up 15m wide screens showing it. Korea’s major TV networks have said that they will be beginning to trial filming in Ultra HD, so with the BBC the world’s largest broadcaster having already invested and publicly demonstrated it during the Olympics, the rest of the world especially the US and Asian tech giants can’t be far behind the inevitable transition.

Does that mean my DVD’s/Blu Rays etc have had it?

Unfortunately your DVDs won’t be upscaleable currently to Ultra HD but HD video in 1080p or 720 would be able to be brought up to Ultra HD quality. This is much in the same way Videos and VCR player are still useable currently but the quality isn’t as good as on a DVD or really even comparable to HD on a Blu Ray. However don’t despair the first wave of Ultra HD TV’s look to be equipped with HDMI connections so your DVD player and other devices should still be able to connect and be useable.

I hope you enjoyed this brief look at the future of TV tech in the form of Ultra HD. I will probably revisit this topic and write another article once they actually start to be sensible money and available to the masses.

Thanks for reading.

Nosh, Signing Out.  

Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_television

http://www.t3.com/hot100/4k-ultra-hd-kit

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/11/30/lg-releases-23000-84in-ultra-hd-4k-tv-in-the-uk/

Horny Racing from a Limitless Perspective...

I've been on a kickstarter binge again, and I know what you’re thinking so I’ll cut to the chase, no, the intervention didn't work. So with that out of the way, I’d like to walk you through a few projects that caught my eye, (some have funding, some need funding) and what I liked or didn't like about them.

Shoulders of Giants

Now as you’re probably aware, I'm big on the Ouya, I think it’s got the potential, and the interest, to be a fun addition to everyone’s already overcrowded TV cabinet. However as good as the hardware sounds, and as good as the message of openness sounds, the console and OS are just the blank canvas that developers use to craft the worlds and experiences that imprint themselves in our memories forever. To further the hype, I’d like to look at the ideas and games that already exist, and show what Ouya developers need to have in mind to fully push the boundaries of this little box.

Objecty - The 2D game developers kit of the future!

So I was reading through my local paper in an elusive search of a job that I either am qualified to do or is interesting enough for me to not hate every living second of it, when I stumble across an article about a local independent game developer (SKN3) seeking funding through Kickstarter. I thought to myself, finally something of interest both personally and professionally (Try not to laugh, I know I don't get paid for this but here's hoping one day it will make me some beer money).

What was this product you ask, well SKN3 had looked at the developer kits and tools for creating games from scratch and found them to less than helpful! So Johnathon Pittock and his 2 employees are seeking funding for a project called Objecty, it seeks to become the go to tool for 2D game developers. It isnt a game engine but rather a set of tools to let you build 2D games using any Game Engine, SDK or Framework you have access to. Not being technically minded in this area I have borrowed this table from his Kickstarter page.

IPad Mini- What's the point?

I understand if this seems to be just another article from me railing at Apple products and their users, but even they must be question the point and worth of an IPad mini? In fact i know there isn't the usual mile long queue around Apples flagship London store in Regent Street, is this a sign that Apple have actually made something even their devoted Appel-ite's don't want?

Don't get me wrong, in of it's self there is nothing wrong with the IPad mini, it looks nice and functions as desired. However when considered in terms of the rest of the Apple product range it is sort of the runty ugly Crab apple of the Apple product orchard. It just makes no sense in relation to the IPhone, IPod and IPad as it is too big to be useable as a pocket device such as the IPhone or Ipod but too small to be really that usefull in comparison to its bigger brother the IPad. I mean who honestly looks at their IPad and goes you know what would make this better is making it smaller; so it therefore is less useful for all the reasons the IPad is its current size! Yet you cant even stop carrying it by putting it in your pocket!

I'm sorry if you disagree, if you can enlighten me on what it's point is feel free to comment and enlighten me.

Links:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/no-ipad-mini-queue-london-walk-buy-one-110500165.html

http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-mini/overview/

Nosh, Signing Out. 

“A major mindfuck, a stroke in the making.”

So I’ve been meaning to do this experiment for a long time, but there has never been the perfect opportunity. Now however that I am *ahem* between jobs (read: an unemployed bum) I have the perfect opportunity to try this out without letting any other work suffer. So, Friday morning, I stepped into the void, and started pulling the keys off my keyboard like a lion guts its prey.

Let me take a pause in the story to explain a bit before I start to sound like a madman. Look down at your keyboard, did you know that the ordering the keys dates back over a century? It was developed in the 1870’s by a dude called Christopher Latham Sholes,and it was originally developed for his typewriter. His first typewriter had two rows of keys and everything was basically in alphabetical order. The problem was that typists would often jam the hammers together when they typed common letter combinations too quickly, e and r were close to each other, and so was t and h. To remedy this Sholes arranged the keys so common combinations were further apart, and thus so were their hammers, reducing jams and thus solving the problem forever! ...except it didn’t.

Hardly a Review: The Five Year Engagement (2012)

This film has been subject to mixed reviews and I can see why, it’s marketed as a Rom-Com which it is, but not in the straightforward mindless way that most go for the predictable mundane plots and stock gags. I think the best way to view this film is to not think of it as a rom-com, but more of an exploration of a relationship between an engaged couple.

The plot begins where most predictable rom-com's end, with the lead couple getting engaged. That is really the last time it follows the usual conventions of a rom-com relationship, it takes the device of the inevitable “issue” that arises and is overcome before the protagonists marry, and applies a darker more realistic exploration of how a relationship works and changes.

We meet Tom (JasonSegal) and Violet (Emily Blunt) just as they get engaged, we then follow them over the intervening 5 years as their relationship and circumstances change causing them to put off their wedding on numerous occasions. The film explores the theme of equality in relationships and the effect of making sacrifices on the dynamic of the couple. A successful kitchen manager of a good restaurant Tom decides to give up his job so that he and Violet can move across the country, so she can take up a post teaching psychology at a university. However as Violet begins to thrive in her new job and environment, Tom struggles to find a chef job and is forced to take a job in a sandwich shop.



As time goes by Tom begins to feel frustrated at himself for being unable to do a job he feels proud of and begins to blame violet for forcing this situation. As a fish out of water and an outsider Tom begins to spiral and becomes ever distant from Violet and the rest of society. The film looks at how the relationship changes as Violet becomes successful and Tom begins to resent her for making him lose his life as it was before. As Tom begins to let himself go and live on the fringe of society, Violet despairs and begins to seek comfort in the arms of her boss. The relationship reaches breaking point and they split, starting separate lives which leads to them both being successful but ultimately unhappy, especially in their relationships with new partners.

Meeting again at the funeral of Violets grandmother they begin a casual relationship, before deciding that they have wasted too much time and that it is being together that means more to them than their careers which they can accommodate in each others lives. I realise that sounds cheesy and a little clichéd but that is more my summary than the way it works in the film.

An underrated film that examines what it is like to be in a real life relationship not a Hollywood view of one. It doesn’t take its self too seriously and doesn’t go for the easy laughs and predictable plot of most rom-com’s. Uses dialogue to explore what it really means to be in a relationship and how life is never simple. Definitely not your standard Romantic comedy but that’s a good thing, I recommend watching it if you’re a fan of other off beat rom-com’s like Elizabethtown.

Nosh, Signing Out.  

Hardly a Review: H+

I came across this interesting little web series last week, and after devouring the episodes so far I decided to share it with you lovely people, oh aren’t you lucky! H+ is a post-apocalyptic survival crossed with the sort of conspiracy laden drama you’d expect from the likes of J. J. Abrams. The show deals with the concept of post-humanism and the story centres around the H+ implant, which is essentially a smartphone in your head, and the inevitable pitfalls of technology that have been explored by authors dating back to Frankenstein. The show is set at an unspecified time in the future, with the only reference point being how long it has been from or to the day when “it happens.”

The main driving plot element is a computer virus infecting everyone with a H+ implant and killing them instantly, hitherto referred to simply as “the incident,” for simplicities sake, and because calling any event “the incident” just makes it sound infinitely more badass. Only a few survivors survive through the virtue of either being out of wifi range, or being one of the rural poor without an implant (the one time either of these is a good thing). The show then goes on to show the survival of the human race after the incident, and feeds a drip of information as to why and how the incident came about. The method of telling the story however, proves to be almost as inventive as the story itself, being distributed in extremely small chunks, sometimes only two or three minutes long, on a very regular basis. The ordering of the episodes seems very deliberate, however viewers are encouraged to watch the show in any order then like, to see if they can gain an additional understanding of events.

The simulator, simulated.

So a few weeks back I came across this post on reddit, basically telling the tale of a game of Minecraft gone terribly terribly wrong. Like putting a bunch of kittens in charge of a tank kinda wrong. The story tells of a minecraft game between friends, where the one rule of the server is to not leave the play area, which was only a few hundred blocks long. Since the world of Minecraft is infinite, and resources (even rare ores) aren’t that hard to come across, normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but make that infinite world into a finite one, and the problems you eventually face will be very similar to those the real world faces. Needless to say, once there was a demand for scarce resources, a power struggle broke out and the group descended into factions, using open warfare, subterfuge and trading to get what they needed.

Now I’ve been on reddit long enough to question the validity of this guy’s story. I’ve also been on reddit long enough to know that crazier shit has happened. Either way it’s a nice story but regardless of the truth it raises an interesting question. Can we use video games like Minecraft to simulate real world occurrences, and predict the outcomes of potential events via such a method? This played on my mind for quite a long while, so I decided to do some digging. (excuse the pun)