For all people eager to animate and program games, I want to tell you that I will be needing all the help I can get in creating a third person survival horror of the RPG genre . Even if you do not know anything but have the drive to put in an effort for the game I'm creating, just let me know at shaun_reapswaal@yahoo.co.in or post a comment.
Urban Dead Rising is an instance of the MMORPG genre and comes under copyright ownership of "anonymous" (for now). It's game engine is in no way related to the GNU General Public Use liscence for now. UDR is an enormous under-development flash application. And hence all people who wish to join in the project will have to work in flash. T&C apply.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortess has quite a history behind it. It started out as an ordinary mod for Quake, but with time, it became one of the most popular mods based on the Half Life version of the game was released seven years ago, and an update has been pending for a while now. The update has been delayed for so long thst it was dubbed vaporware for several years by Wired Magazine.
Thankfully, the wait has been for the good. The way technology has evolved over the past few years has boosted the version we have now, and has given a new lease of lofe to the franchise. A lot of changes have been made, including the absence of perclass grenades except the Demoman, which actually play really well and provide a nice mix and distinction to each class.
Meet the classes of 2007
Each class has it’s own unique abilities, weaknesses, health values, and sounds, which blend well with the theme of the game. Let’s look at these classes in a little more detail. We have the Scout who is fast, can double jump; the only problem is that he’s the weakest class in the game. The soldier is a moderately slow class type who carrries a rocket launcher and a shotgun. The Pyro is also a moderately slow class, but is resistant to fire attacks and carries a flame thrower. The Heavy is a big, gung-ho type of character with a huge mini-gun. Medics can heal other and can also Ubercharge anyone to make him and themselves invincible for ten seconds. Te Demoman can throw grenades and sticky bombs that can also be used to double jump if timed correctly. The Sniper carries a bolt-action rifle that places a red marker on players before shooting and can even bring Heavies down with one hit.
Spies can turn invisible till their timer runs out. Also they can disguise themselves as players from the opposing team and can sneak behind people to kill them with their knives. The Engineers build turrets, health, ammo dispensers, and teleport portals. This class needs to keep collecting metal from fallen players to build their structures.
The different classes and their abilities are very well balanced, with well designed weaknesses and strengths that play really well in the multiplayer world. Players can easily change classes in mid game. Respawning is timed and takes between five and 20 seconds depending on the number of players.
The game types currently available are ‘Control Points’ and ‘Capture the Flag’. There are six map types available, which have been designed by Valve for the mod community. The current map listing is: 2Fort, Dustbowl, Granary, Gravel Pit, Hydro, and Well.
The graphics are a Departure from the Photorealistic setting of Half Life 2 Episode Two, and take a wild comic turn for the better. Mostly inspired by 20th century commercial art, the characters and weapons are drawn with bold lines and heal=vily exaggerated caricaturized looks. The graphics add a lot of humor to the on-goings and work really well with the characteristics of each class and weapon.
Because I like to nitpick my games, I have a few negative points to mention as well. I would have loved to have bots enabled in the game. It would have definitely added a lot of value to be able to play the game without an internet connection. Also, considering I had to wait so long for the game, I surely need a bigger collection of maps to pent-up excitement.
For: Very well balanced classes and weapons, looks really cool.
Against: Really few maps
Thankfully, the wait has been for the good. The way technology has evolved over the past few years has boosted the version we have now, and has given a new lease of lofe to the franchise. A lot of changes have been made, including the absence of perclass grenades except the Demoman, which actually play really well and provide a nice mix and distinction to each class.
Meet the classes of 2007
Each class has it’s own unique abilities, weaknesses, health values, and sounds, which blend well with the theme of the game. Let’s look at these classes in a little more detail. We have the Scout who is fast, can double jump; the only problem is that he’s the weakest class in the game. The soldier is a moderately slow class type who carrries a rocket launcher and a shotgun. The Pyro is also a moderately slow class, but is resistant to fire attacks and carries a flame thrower. The Heavy is a big, gung-ho type of character with a huge mini-gun. Medics can heal other and can also Ubercharge anyone to make him and themselves invincible for ten seconds. Te Demoman can throw grenades and sticky bombs that can also be used to double jump if timed correctly. The Sniper carries a bolt-action rifle that places a red marker on players before shooting and can even bring Heavies down with one hit.
Spies can turn invisible till their timer runs out. Also they can disguise themselves as players from the opposing team and can sneak behind people to kill them with their knives. The Engineers build turrets, health, ammo dispensers, and teleport portals. This class needs to keep collecting metal from fallen players to build their structures.
The different classes and their abilities are very well balanced, with well designed weaknesses and strengths that play really well in the multiplayer world. Players can easily change classes in mid game. Respawning is timed and takes between five and 20 seconds depending on the number of players.
The game types currently available are ‘Control Points’ and ‘Capture the Flag’. There are six map types available, which have been designed by Valve for the mod community. The current map listing is: 2Fort, Dustbowl, Granary, Gravel Pit, Hydro, and Well.
The graphics are a Departure from the Photorealistic setting of Half Life 2 Episode Two, and take a wild comic turn for the better. Mostly inspired by 20th century commercial art, the characters and weapons are drawn with bold lines and heal=vily exaggerated caricaturized looks. The graphics add a lot of humor to the on-goings and work really well with the characteristics of each class and weapon.
Because I like to nitpick my games, I have a few negative points to mention as well. I would have loved to have bots enabled in the game. It would have definitely added a lot of value to be able to play the game without an internet connection. Also, considering I had to wait so long for the game, I surely need a bigger collection of maps to pent-up excitement.
For: Very well balanced classes and weapons, looks really cool.
Against: Really few maps
Halo 3
The story of arc of Halo 3 continues from the comic series Halo: Uprising, which most of us in India never got to see. On second thought, the story of the game alone is sufficient to hold one’s interest-so you don’t need to know the story of the Halo series to play the game.
The initial part of the story is the usual boring Halo saga with huge choral and orchestral music backing the glory of the great Spartan 117 Master Chief. It is only after playing for almost an hour that something different happens. That’s when the story starts gripping you, which is something that did not happen in the other two installments. This is probably the only version of Halo that actually has an engaging storyline that gives you sweaty palms as it progresses. The heat of the action is heavily present now and the glory finally shows. You keep providing resistance against the Elites and have a range of environments to fight your battles in. You have your teammates accompanying you all the time, and game. Then, suddenly, the story becomes a survival horror and all the things you were warned about come to smack you in the face. We don’t want to spoil the fun here, so we want elaborate further on the story.
The gameplay has been tweaked in lo of ways; there have been weapon enhancements, and almost all the weapons from the previous games are still there, albeit with slightly modified power and firing rates. We tried to break the game’s flow a few times, but there were systems in place to take care of this. One such situation was when our game got automatically saved at a point when a fatal shot was fired at our character. We were getting hit by the shot, dying, and spawning again. This sequence repeated about eight times, but then the game corrected the error on it’s own by loading an earlier save point to fix this problem.
On the multiplayer side, many options in the game are tied to the Xbox Live network and only when it is available in India will we get to see the full potential of the game. The community features are extend to a theatre function that allows players to record their games, share them with their friends and broadcast them through Xbox Live. The multiplayer mode is where the game shows it’s full potential. However, in India, this mode is only available through the Campaign, Custom Game and Forge modes. Up to four players can play using split-screen modes on a single console; additional players can join in using System Link with 16 being the maximum number of players allowed. System Link can also allow players without sharing a screen, allowing them to keep their strategies to themselves.
The Forge mode is quite cool and enables map editing on the fly even as the game is going on. Map editing is mostly concerned with adding and moving spawn points, weapon locations, power-ups, the location of vehicles, etc. There is no way to edit the map geometry or add custom models and meshes. You can edit the map before the game starts, and specific players can be given the rights to edit maps while the game is on.
While the players are editing elements in the map, they are vulnerable to attacks because they freeze and are not able to move. These edited maps can be saved on the console for use in future multiplayer games both online and offline. These maps can also be uploaded to the bungie.net site when Xbox Live service becomes available in India.
The custom game mode comes with nine modes including CTF, Slayer, Oddball, King of the Hill, Assault, Territories, Juggernaut, Infection, and VIP. All these also have submodes with minor tweaking to the gameplay to add more variety. For example, in Slayer we could play a free-for-all game, team slayer as a team death-match mode, or even specify rockets as the only weapon in the game.
The campaign mode is also a lot of fun and allows you to play the story mode with up to four players, who play as Master Chief, the Arbiter, and the elites N’tho ‘Sraom and Usze ‘Taham. The mode is very well made and it actually feels like being out there in the field with an ally. If your partners are really good at riding the turret on a Warthog, impaling Brutes all around will be a fun way to spend a few weekends. All the usual connection modes also work in the campaign mode and when playing with three players, The first player gets the top half of the screen and the other two have to share the bottom half. A problem that we faced here was that the game refuses to run in the Widescreen mode with split screen enabled. Bungie has confirmed that the game doesn’t render at full 720p, and only displays a resolution of 1152x720 pixels; it’s just the upscaling engine on the Xbox that feeds 1080p displays. From what we saw, the game has superb HDR effects in all levels. However, the foliage in the game looked quite poor, as is common in other games on the Xbox platform.
Verdict
The game is a Big leap in the terms of it’s storyline, and it is surely much more engaging than whatever we have seen from Halo universe till now, I thoroughly enjoyed myself while playing this game in the Single Player mode but feel that Multiplayer is still the way to go. The way the story plays out and the levels are designed, we are sure gamers will have a lot of fun with this release.
For: Excellent multiplayer mode, the forge mode is really cool addition, the story is more engaging than the previous installments.
Against: None
The initial part of the story is the usual boring Halo saga with huge choral and orchestral music backing the glory of the great Spartan 117 Master Chief. It is only after playing for almost an hour that something different happens. That’s when the story starts gripping you, which is something that did not happen in the other two installments. This is probably the only version of Halo that actually has an engaging storyline that gives you sweaty palms as it progresses. The heat of the action is heavily present now and the glory finally shows. You keep providing resistance against the Elites and have a range of environments to fight your battles in. You have your teammates accompanying you all the time, and game. Then, suddenly, the story becomes a survival horror and all the things you were warned about come to smack you in the face. We don’t want to spoil the fun here, so we want elaborate further on the story.
The gameplay has been tweaked in lo of ways; there have been weapon enhancements, and almost all the weapons from the previous games are still there, albeit with slightly modified power and firing rates. We tried to break the game’s flow a few times, but there were systems in place to take care of this. One such situation was when our game got automatically saved at a point when a fatal shot was fired at our character. We were getting hit by the shot, dying, and spawning again. This sequence repeated about eight times, but then the game corrected the error on it’s own by loading an earlier save point to fix this problem.
On the multiplayer side, many options in the game are tied to the Xbox Live network and only when it is available in India will we get to see the full potential of the game. The community features are extend to a theatre function that allows players to record their games, share them with their friends and broadcast them through Xbox Live. The multiplayer mode is where the game shows it’s full potential. However, in India, this mode is only available through the Campaign, Custom Game and Forge modes. Up to four players can play using split-screen modes on a single console; additional players can join in using System Link with 16 being the maximum number of players allowed. System Link can also allow players without sharing a screen, allowing them to keep their strategies to themselves.
The Forge mode is quite cool and enables map editing on the fly even as the game is going on. Map editing is mostly concerned with adding and moving spawn points, weapon locations, power-ups, the location of vehicles, etc. There is no way to edit the map geometry or add custom models and meshes. You can edit the map before the game starts, and specific players can be given the rights to edit maps while the game is on.
While the players are editing elements in the map, they are vulnerable to attacks because they freeze and are not able to move. These edited maps can be saved on the console for use in future multiplayer games both online and offline. These maps can also be uploaded to the bungie.net site when Xbox Live service becomes available in India.
The custom game mode comes with nine modes including CTF, Slayer, Oddball, King of the Hill, Assault, Territories, Juggernaut, Infection, and VIP. All these also have submodes with minor tweaking to the gameplay to add more variety. For example, in Slayer we could play a free-for-all game, team slayer as a team death-match mode, or even specify rockets as the only weapon in the game.
The campaign mode is also a lot of fun and allows you to play the story mode with up to four players, who play as Master Chief, the Arbiter, and the elites N’tho ‘Sraom and Usze ‘Taham. The mode is very well made and it actually feels like being out there in the field with an ally. If your partners are really good at riding the turret on a Warthog, impaling Brutes all around will be a fun way to spend a few weekends. All the usual connection modes also work in the campaign mode and when playing with three players, The first player gets the top half of the screen and the other two have to share the bottom half. A problem that we faced here was that the game refuses to run in the Widescreen mode with split screen enabled. Bungie has confirmed that the game doesn’t render at full 720p, and only displays a resolution of 1152x720 pixels; it’s just the upscaling engine on the Xbox that feeds 1080p displays. From what we saw, the game has superb HDR effects in all levels. However, the foliage in the game looked quite poor, as is common in other games on the Xbox platform.
Verdict
The game is a Big leap in the terms of it’s storyline, and it is surely much more engaging than whatever we have seen from Halo universe till now, I thoroughly enjoyed myself while playing this game in the Single Player mode but feel that Multiplayer is still the way to go. The way the story plays out and the levels are designed, we are sure gamers will have a lot of fun with this release.
For: Excellent multiplayer mode, the forge mode is really cool addition, the story is more engaging than the previous installments.
Against: None
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Episode 2 is the fourth game after the events of the original Half Life and it finishes a major chunk of the saga of Gordon Freeman. For all you newbies, Freeman is the scientist who had to drop his lab-coat for an HEV suit to rid the earth of an alien invasion after an anomalous materials experiment went horribly wrong.
The story, which has continued very well after the events of Episode One, develops a bit faster than the stories in earlier versions of the game. It starts after the fall of the Citadel in City 17, and now it is up to Gordon and Alyx to get a data packet to the White Forest resistance base.
AI has been worked on immensely and is much smarter in helping you play. Alyx never came in our way when fighting zombies. We can no longer expect to get free kills throughout the game with our sidekicks doing all the fighting and us just hanging around in the background. In Episode 2, your sidekicks want you to lead and will make sure you do that. Even the AI of the enemy has changed quite a bit, with some amendments including zombies who run around with just their upper halves when sliced by a saw blade or by the Combine’s automatic guns, later in the game. We also noticed that in the initial levels of the game the FAST zombies were s bit slower and were instantly killed with one shotgun shell. The poison headcrabs are smart and hide as soon as they are spotted, proving to be a challenge to hit. They suddenly charge with their poison fangs! We found that the headcrabs and antlions are also affected by fluids and now die after being dropped into water or hazardous waste.
Hunters are as big and dangerous as they were known to be, and can do major damage. They don’t show up in combat for the major part of the game. But when they finally do, they need to be dealt with extreme prejudice. In one of the last levels, they even team up with the striders and run around trying to escort them to the White Forest base. The only strategy I could think of here was running my cage car over the Hunters. But this is not as easy as it seems because Hunters are really agile synths from the combine army and can easily dodge a car. I would like to mention that the cage car in the game has been changed quite a bit. It doesn’t have a turret now like in the previous installments and is much easier and faster to drive. The absence of the turret does not make the player weaker in any way as Alyx is always at hand to dispose any enemies that need to be attended to.
The strider-Buster as it was known before the release of the game is actually called a ‘Magnusson Device’, and is probably the most fragile super weapon ever thought of. It is named after Dr. Magnusson, the head of projects at the White Forest base-an egomaniacal scientist who pushes everyone around and proves to be a major headache. The Magnusson Device is supposed to be thrown at the underbelly of the strider with the gravity gun and then has to be shot at to blow up any strider with one hit of any firearm. While this may sound easy, I can tell you that when I get to use this device, there are hunters all around each strider and they can shoot down the device thus disabling them. Additionally, the device is so fragile that it almost blew up[ in my face the first few times I tried it.
Of the big treats in the game, you finally get to come face-to-face with an Advisor and look him in the eye. You get to see a snapshot of the Aperture Science ship Borealis that players of the Portal might find interesting.
The voice acting is superb and the sound effects have also been improved. The guns sound convincing, with the delicately controlled environmental reverberation that is typical of the Half Life series. On the graphics front, there is motion blur, anisotropic filtering up to 16x, selectable reflection levels, heavily improved dynamic shadows and lighting, and very well produced HDR and bloom effects. Other graphic enhancements include impressive foliage and particle systems, especially in the scene where you encounter the Advisor. The physics system has becom ever complex and adds a new dimension to the puzzles.
The usual gameplay problems associated with Half Life are still present. We found various points in the game in which a player can get stuck for no reason, and all movement gets restricted. The only way to get out of these situations is to jump in different directions until you are freed. Also the long load times between cave sequences can be annoying.
Steam still proves to be a huge problem and was quite disappointing to use. I found that it is better to install the entire Orange Box pack as there are a number of files that are shared from the earlier parts of the game. When I installed just Episode Two, Steam had to download around 2 GB of content, but when I installed everything on the disk we had to do just a small update that ran the game within five minutes. Still, a broadband connection is a must to handle the kind of network stress that steam places on the system.
So was it worth the wait? We got Half Life 2, Episode One, Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 for Rs. 999. Oh yes, it was worth the entire wait and a lot of days of Supreme gaming entertainment.
The story, which has continued very well after the events of Episode One, develops a bit faster than the stories in earlier versions of the game. It starts after the fall of the Citadel in City 17, and now it is up to Gordon and Alyx to get a data packet to the White Forest resistance base.
AI has been worked on immensely and is much smarter in helping you play. Alyx never came in our way when fighting zombies. We can no longer expect to get free kills throughout the game with our sidekicks doing all the fighting and us just hanging around in the background. In Episode 2, your sidekicks want you to lead and will make sure you do that. Even the AI of the enemy has changed quite a bit, with some amendments including zombies who run around with just their upper halves when sliced by a saw blade or by the Combine’s automatic guns, later in the game. We also noticed that in the initial levels of the game the FAST zombies were s bit slower and were instantly killed with one shotgun shell. The poison headcrabs are smart and hide as soon as they are spotted, proving to be a challenge to hit. They suddenly charge with their poison fangs! We found that the headcrabs and antlions are also affected by fluids and now die after being dropped into water or hazardous waste.
Hunters are as big and dangerous as they were known to be, and can do major damage. They don’t show up in combat for the major part of the game. But when they finally do, they need to be dealt with extreme prejudice. In one of the last levels, they even team up with the striders and run around trying to escort them to the White Forest base. The only strategy I could think of here was running my cage car over the Hunters. But this is not as easy as it seems because Hunters are really agile synths from the combine army and can easily dodge a car. I would like to mention that the cage car in the game has been changed quite a bit. It doesn’t have a turret now like in the previous installments and is much easier and faster to drive. The absence of the turret does not make the player weaker in any way as Alyx is always at hand to dispose any enemies that need to be attended to.
The strider-Buster as it was known before the release of the game is actually called a ‘Magnusson Device’, and is probably the most fragile super weapon ever thought of. It is named after Dr. Magnusson, the head of projects at the White Forest base-an egomaniacal scientist who pushes everyone around and proves to be a major headache. The Magnusson Device is supposed to be thrown at the underbelly of the strider with the gravity gun and then has to be shot at to blow up any strider with one hit of any firearm. While this may sound easy, I can tell you that when I get to use this device, there are hunters all around each strider and they can shoot down the device thus disabling them. Additionally, the device is so fragile that it almost blew up[ in my face the first few times I tried it.
Of the big treats in the game, you finally get to come face-to-face with an Advisor and look him in the eye. You get to see a snapshot of the Aperture Science ship Borealis that players of the Portal might find interesting.
The voice acting is superb and the sound effects have also been improved. The guns sound convincing, with the delicately controlled environmental reverberation that is typical of the Half Life series. On the graphics front, there is motion blur, anisotropic filtering up to 16x, selectable reflection levels, heavily improved dynamic shadows and lighting, and very well produced HDR and bloom effects. Other graphic enhancements include impressive foliage and particle systems, especially in the scene where you encounter the Advisor. The physics system has becom ever complex and adds a new dimension to the puzzles.
The usual gameplay problems associated with Half Life are still present. We found various points in the game in which a player can get stuck for no reason, and all movement gets restricted. The only way to get out of these situations is to jump in different directions until you are freed. Also the long load times between cave sequences can be annoying.
Steam still proves to be a huge problem and was quite disappointing to use. I found that it is better to install the entire Orange Box pack as there are a number of files that are shared from the earlier parts of the game. When I installed just Episode Two, Steam had to download around 2 GB of content, but when I installed everything on the disk we had to do just a small update that ran the game within five minutes. Still, a broadband connection is a must to handle the kind of network stress that steam places on the system.
So was it worth the wait? We got Half Life 2, Episode One, Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 for Rs. 999. Oh yes, it was worth the entire wait and a lot of days of Supreme gaming entertainment.
An introduction to the absolute begineer in game programming
I’ve spent a hell lot of time in understanding how to go about game development and the best combination of programs and languages for a successful title atleast. I’ve had no training or done any course (just didn’t have time for it). So I searched the net for all the help I could get and I’ve come to a conclusion, that the best language for game programming is C++. And even better is the combination of C++ with Python and Blender (a software that is used for animation which can be combined with Python for mind-blowing results).
Here are the good and bad points of my combination:-
C++
For
Ideal for game programming because of its flexibility owing to its low level nature.
Lesser bottlenecks encountered because of its low level nature.
Huge class library support. With free and vendor-based class files spread all over the net for faster and more rational programming.
It has always been main stream in the game programming world, meaning you will find more support, tutorials, and eventually help (even helpers) in this language.
Other languages keep getting better and better versions of themselves, which you have to keep in contact with for the best techniques of programming, whereas in C++ there is only one version of the language (means once you learn it you don’t have to do any other version of it again in the next one and half years), only different versions of compilers (which doesn’t matter) and different class libraries which can be used to your advantage.
Against
Takes a lot of lines of code and time for development (can be tackled on combining with Python).
Can get cumbersome due to its low level nature.
Some technicalities have to be known at expert levels of its usage. (Not to sure about this)
Python
For
· Ideal for game programming due to its efficient high level syntax.
· Takes much lesser lines of code and hence lesser time for development than in C++.
· It is derived from Java and hence it has the ability to multi-task or muti-thread (perform more than one operation at the same time).
· It is also platform independent.
· It forms a great networking language and is a project still under development, meaning cooler features in due time.
Against
It consumes much more RAM and takes more load on the CPU than the equivalent programs made from C++.
Blender
I don’t know much about animation, modeling, rendering, texturing, anisotropic filtering, linear in Blender except that it is as good as the latest version of Maya. It has a completely different interface than the other animation software, which it is a pain to learn at first, if you have done some other animation software’s interface like Maya or 3D Max etc. For further details on tutorials, jargon, etc. put a comment up.
An Overview of How It Goes
For successful titles development takes about 2-3 years with a workforce of about 30-50 programmers. Usually it takes about a hundred thousand lines in creating a decent title. It will be meticulous and cumbersome work at first. Which is why you should start small. You may have heard this many times, so have I but I’m making the big leap on my first go. Once you’ve finished these languages or even one of these two from a professional’s point of view. You can always join my project. Just post a comment for any help or details.
The prospects
The prospects are great if you get a decent singleplayer title out meaning about a million US $ on average. An a few more million in long-term if it is an MMORPG (Massively-played Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). For further details you can post a comment.
Here are the good and bad points of my combination:-
C++
For
Ideal for game programming because of its flexibility owing to its low level nature.
Lesser bottlenecks encountered because of its low level nature.
Huge class library support. With free and vendor-based class files spread all over the net for faster and more rational programming.
It has always been main stream in the game programming world, meaning you will find more support, tutorials, and eventually help (even helpers) in this language.
Other languages keep getting better and better versions of themselves, which you have to keep in contact with for the best techniques of programming, whereas in C++ there is only one version of the language (means once you learn it you don’t have to do any other version of it again in the next one and half years), only different versions of compilers (which doesn’t matter) and different class libraries which can be used to your advantage.
Against
Takes a lot of lines of code and time for development (can be tackled on combining with Python).
Can get cumbersome due to its low level nature.
Some technicalities have to be known at expert levels of its usage. (Not to sure about this)
Python
For
· Ideal for game programming due to its efficient high level syntax.
· Takes much lesser lines of code and hence lesser time for development than in C++.
· It is derived from Java and hence it has the ability to multi-task or muti-thread (perform more than one operation at the same time).
· It is also platform independent.
· It forms a great networking language and is a project still under development, meaning cooler features in due time.
Against
It consumes much more RAM and takes more load on the CPU than the equivalent programs made from C++.
Blender
I don’t know much about animation, modeling, rendering, texturing, anisotropic filtering, linear in Blender except that it is as good as the latest version of Maya. It has a completely different interface than the other animation software, which it is a pain to learn at first, if you have done some other animation software’s interface like Maya or 3D Max etc. For further details on tutorials, jargon, etc. put a comment up.
An Overview of How It Goes
For successful titles development takes about 2-3 years with a workforce of about 30-50 programmers. Usually it takes about a hundred thousand lines in creating a decent title. It will be meticulous and cumbersome work at first. Which is why you should start small. You may have heard this many times, so have I but I’m making the big leap on my first go. Once you’ve finished these languages or even one of these two from a professional’s point of view. You can always join my project. Just post a comment for any help or details.
The prospects
The prospects are great if you get a decent singleplayer title out meaning about a million US $ on average. An a few more million in long-term if it is an MMORPG (Massively-played Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). For further details you can post a comment.
Vista Vs. XP For Gamers
Ever since the launch of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Window’s Vista, confusion has reigned on the Web. Since it’s mostly gamers who are early adopters of the latest hardware and OS upgrades, it’s no surprise that windows vista is on every gamer’s mind. “Should I switch, or should I ditch the idea?” seems to be the question. And the answers are not hard to come by. Quite the reverse actually; there are just too many answers at this point in time, and all of them contradicting the other in some way or the other.
It’s obvious that no previous operating system from the Microsoft stables has created so much buzz-whether it’s apple fans crying foul fr alleged “copying” of Mac OS X’s prettiness, or Windows fanatics raving about Aero, to confused PC gamers standing in the corner shaking their heads at all the commotion while console gamers happily ignore everyone and everything as they rejoice with their PS3s! and Xbox 360s!
Respected geek sites-Extreme Tech. Tom’s Hardware and the likes have done every Vista review possible, including benchmarking the performance differences between a clean Vista install vs. an upgrade from Windows XP. Incidently, an upgrade from Windows XP seems to be better for gaming than a clean install of Vista, according to benchmarks.
Facts remain facts, however, and currently, Windows XP is slightly ahead in terms of performance for most games. This may be because those games were built for windows XP, or just the fact that Windows XP has lower hardware requirements, but the message is clear; if you want the best performance you can eke out of your hardware for current generation games, stick to Windows XP!
So that’s it? Am I telling gamers not to upgrade to Windows Vista? Keeping up the confusion that reigns, I’ll say yes and no! For some of you the answer is yes, don’t upgrade; for a smaller number it’s no, upgrade immediately, and for the majority… well… I just don’t know, and you’ll have to make up your own minds.
Here in India when it comes to gaming Hardware demographics are a little more of a complicated affair. The majority of computer owners have aging hardware that has no right to be running even Windows XP, very obvious that if those users upgrade to windows Vista, they’ll have to deal with really slow PCs. Those with better hardware are seldom gamers. Now we come to PC gamers segment, which again is broken into two segments: the first and larger segment comprises of computers that have pretty decent configurations- an equivalent of an Athlon 64 or Pentium D, 1 GB of DDR RAM, and a good DirectX 9 graphics card with 256 MB of RAM. The second and the smallest section of the public is the hardcore gamers with on top of the line hardware- Core 2 Duo/AM2, 2 gigabytes of RAM, and the latest DirectX 10 capable cards.
For the first gamer segment, switching to Vista right now may be a problem and kind of pointless. The reason being: Vista brings to table DirectX 10 compatability, which the next generation games will run on. If you’re going to be running DirectX 9, it’s perhaps best you do it on the operating system it was designed for.
For the top-of-the-line-or-nothing-else gamer Vista is probably what you should be looking for future-proofing. That said before switching to Vista, make sure your hardware your hardware manufacturers are making Vista drivers-this is for al your hardware.
The majority of Indian PC gamers will probably play it smart with the wait and watch game, which isn’t such a bad idea - atleast until some good DirectX 10 games come out and alland all the initial teething problems for Vista are solved. For now, just watch the Vista news flashes on various sites, all the benchmarks, and chuckle contentedly.
It’s obvious that no previous operating system from the Microsoft stables has created so much buzz-whether it’s apple fans crying foul fr alleged “copying” of Mac OS X’s prettiness, or Windows fanatics raving about Aero, to confused PC gamers standing in the corner shaking their heads at all the commotion while console gamers happily ignore everyone and everything as they rejoice with their PS3s! and Xbox 360s!
Respected geek sites-Extreme Tech. Tom’s Hardware and the likes have done every Vista review possible, including benchmarking the performance differences between a clean Vista install vs. an upgrade from Windows XP. Incidently, an upgrade from Windows XP seems to be better for gaming than a clean install of Vista, according to benchmarks.
Facts remain facts, however, and currently, Windows XP is slightly ahead in terms of performance for most games. This may be because those games were built for windows XP, or just the fact that Windows XP has lower hardware requirements, but the message is clear; if you want the best performance you can eke out of your hardware for current generation games, stick to Windows XP!
So that’s it? Am I telling gamers not to upgrade to Windows Vista? Keeping up the confusion that reigns, I’ll say yes and no! For some of you the answer is yes, don’t upgrade; for a smaller number it’s no, upgrade immediately, and for the majority… well… I just don’t know, and you’ll have to make up your own minds.
Here in India when it comes to gaming Hardware demographics are a little more of a complicated affair. The majority of computer owners have aging hardware that has no right to be running even Windows XP, very obvious that if those users upgrade to windows Vista, they’ll have to deal with really slow PCs. Those with better hardware are seldom gamers. Now we come to PC gamers segment, which again is broken into two segments: the first and larger segment comprises of computers that have pretty decent configurations- an equivalent of an Athlon 64 or Pentium D, 1 GB of DDR RAM, and a good DirectX 9 graphics card with 256 MB of RAM. The second and the smallest section of the public is the hardcore gamers with on top of the line hardware- Core 2 Duo/AM2, 2 gigabytes of RAM, and the latest DirectX 10 capable cards.
For the first gamer segment, switching to Vista right now may be a problem and kind of pointless. The reason being: Vista brings to table DirectX 10 compatability, which the next generation games will run on. If you’re going to be running DirectX 9, it’s perhaps best you do it on the operating system it was designed for.
For the top-of-the-line-or-nothing-else gamer Vista is probably what you should be looking for future-proofing. That said before switching to Vista, make sure your hardware your hardware manufacturers are making Vista drivers-this is for al your hardware.
The majority of Indian PC gamers will probably play it smart with the wait and watch game, which isn’t such a bad idea - atleast until some good DirectX 10 games come out and alland all the initial teething problems for Vista are solved. For now, just watch the Vista news flashes on various sites, all the benchmarks, and chuckle contentedly.
MS To Blame For Piracy? (The Russian Perspective)
Russia is amongst the top 10 nations responsible for usingpirated software. According to studies conducted by Bussiness Software Allaince (www.bsa.org), 83% odcomputers sold in Russia run on pirated software. Incidently, the top ten pirated pirated software countries are listed below:-
Vietnam 90%Zimbabwe 90%Indonesia 87%China 86%Pakistan 86%Kazakhstan 85%Ukraine 85%Cameroon 84%Russia 83%Bolivia 83%
Russia IT minister Dmitry Milovantsev recently said that the cause of high piracy rates in Russia was more the fault of software vendors than that of the users! Now that may sound like a really tal claim, and a lot of you will be going, “Oh no, not another person moaning about how Microsoft should take into account the earning of the average Russian!” Do Russians really want a crippled version of XP, like the one India saw a few years ago? Will the Russian public pay to have a Windows version which allows only three windows to open at a time, especially when the “free” version that is available from the local market costs almost nothing and gives you full functionality? It’s an old debate, and we are not going to get into that…
Those of you who want to sit down and start shooting off an e-mail to Mr. Milovantsev and point out that open source is always a viable alternative might want to hold off hitting “Send” on that pirated Outlook window for a while… apparently, in a bit to reduce piracy, Microsoft does not allow hardware partners to sell computers without Windows loaded. So Russians have no choice but to buy from smaller assemblers or fork out the cost of the Windows OS that’s preloaded on their machine. But the bit that really stinks is that if you buy from these PC manufacturers, still insists on using an Open Source OS, and do not want Windows loaded, you have to shell out an extra $50 to have the company remove Windows! Now that’s just a cost of formatting your PC- they won’t load Linux for you!
We’ve heard of extreme measures being adopted to combat piracy, but this one takes the cake! Hopefully with Vista’s new phone-home type security, which forces you to uninstall it if you haven’t payed for it, will get rid of such ridiculous policies.
For those of you who are interested on knowing where India stands on the piarcy list, don’t worry, we aren’t in the top twenty however with 72% piracy, and an evergrowing number of users buying assembled PCs, we will have to spread awareness if we want to avoid being put on the list of shame!
One thing you need to remmember is that this 72% figure means that for every 100 Indian users who buy a computer, only 28 buy genuine software. So according to BSA, even though Vietnam tops the list of shame in terms of percentage, it is not the country with the most PCs running on pirated software. Take China for example: studies and estimates put the number of Internet accessing users in China (not PC owners), stand at around 120 million.
Lets supply BSA’a stats to this figure: 86% x 120 million = 103.2 million Chinese users run pirated software. Compare this figure to vietnam’s entire population of 84 million humans, and you should get what we’re saying…
Vietnam 90%Zimbabwe 90%Indonesia 87%China 86%Pakistan 86%Kazakhstan 85%Ukraine 85%Cameroon 84%Russia 83%Bolivia 83%
Russia IT minister Dmitry Milovantsev recently said that the cause of high piracy rates in Russia was more the fault of software vendors than that of the users! Now that may sound like a really tal claim, and a lot of you will be going, “Oh no, not another person moaning about how Microsoft should take into account the earning of the average Russian!” Do Russians really want a crippled version of XP, like the one India saw a few years ago? Will the Russian public pay to have a Windows version which allows only three windows to open at a time, especially when the “free” version that is available from the local market costs almost nothing and gives you full functionality? It’s an old debate, and we are not going to get into that…
Those of you who want to sit down and start shooting off an e-mail to Mr. Milovantsev and point out that open source is always a viable alternative might want to hold off hitting “Send” on that pirated Outlook window for a while… apparently, in a bit to reduce piracy, Microsoft does not allow hardware partners to sell computers without Windows loaded. So Russians have no choice but to buy from smaller assemblers or fork out the cost of the Windows OS that’s preloaded on their machine. But the bit that really stinks is that if you buy from these PC manufacturers, still insists on using an Open Source OS, and do not want Windows loaded, you have to shell out an extra $50 to have the company remove Windows! Now that’s just a cost of formatting your PC- they won’t load Linux for you!
We’ve heard of extreme measures being adopted to combat piracy, but this one takes the cake! Hopefully with Vista’s new phone-home type security, which forces you to uninstall it if you haven’t payed for it, will get rid of such ridiculous policies.
For those of you who are interested on knowing where India stands on the piarcy list, don’t worry, we aren’t in the top twenty however with 72% piracy, and an evergrowing number of users buying assembled PCs, we will have to spread awareness if we want to avoid being put on the list of shame!
One thing you need to remmember is that this 72% figure means that for every 100 Indian users who buy a computer, only 28 buy genuine software. So according to BSA, even though Vietnam tops the list of shame in terms of percentage, it is not the country with the most PCs running on pirated software. Take China for example: studies and estimates put the number of Internet accessing users in China (not PC owners), stand at around 120 million.
Lets supply BSA’a stats to this figure: 86% x 120 million = 103.2 million Chinese users run pirated software. Compare this figure to vietnam’s entire population of 84 million humans, and you should get what we’re saying…
No Flash In The Pan
Flash memory teams up with hard drives to speed up your PC.
I have been closely following the Microsoft Vista beta releases, and trying to figure out the benefits that the new OS will offer regular users. Sure eye candy looks good, but it’s the more tangible benefits that count. By tangible I mean features that will make a difference in performance and productivity.
I am particularly intrigued by the technologies in Vista that aim to make the computer faster. The “Ready-Boost” feature sounds like a magical speed up in a sluggish PC by plugging in a high speed USB flash drive. The operating system will automatically use the fast flash memory on the USB drive to boost performance-without restarts or drivers.
Ready for the boost?
Vista’s Readyboost Uses the available free memory on the flash drive to create an additional page file that stores freequently acessed data. Naturally, fetching data on the flash memory is a lot quicker than getting it from your hard disk-making your PC much more responsive.
Following this train of logic, would it not be a good idea to entirely dump the hard disk and run everything off flash memory? For one the cost would be prohibitive (think how much 60 GB flash drive would cost you). The second is that flash memory is good for small, random I/Os (like paging to-and-from disk), but hard drives are better for large sequential I/O commands. So, it’s probably a better idea to combine the two and to leverage thneir individual advantages, with some clear support from software.
What if you yank the flash drive, either accidently or deliberately? Will the system hang or crash? According to microsoft, it won’t. (But we need to watch this). Vista, it seems, maintains a back-up copy. Of course, any performance gains are also nullified. The good thing is that this performance boosting measure can be used anytime and will work with any hardware-so no need to open up your PC to add RAM. And it even works for PCs that have limited, or no memory expansion slots.
The bigger picture
While readybost is specific to Vista, we have another concept from hard drive makers that also aim to speed performance. These are hybrid hard drives, which combine a magnetic hard disk drive and non-volatile flash memory on a single device. With the hybrid HDD, manufacturers are seeking to combine the robustness, low power consumption and speed of flash media with the storage density, low density and low cost of magnetic drives.
Samsung has already announced a hybrid hard drive that combines NAND-based flash memory with a mechanical drive to speed up performance and conserve power. In the hybrid mode, the mechanical drive is spun down for majority of the time, while data is written to the flash write buffer. When the write is filled the rotating spins and the data from the write buffer is written to the hard drive. The hybrid drive saves power by keeping up the spindle motor in idle mode almost all the time-a portable devices. Windows Vista already supports hybrid hard drives with it’s “Ready Drive” feature.
Intel’s next mobile platform, code named Santa Rosa, also implements flash memory to storage related performance. It uses Intel’s Robson cache technology which will enable motherboards to embed flash memory to store common elements of the OS and other related data to boost performance right from the boot process. Thus the boot times as well as the resume times will improve significantly. Imagine your system taking just 3 seconds to boot and get ready for action!
The marriage of flash based storage with hard drives is a step in the right diection, and I hope the industry giants concentrate more on smarter solutions that don’t necessarily require cutting edge hardware to run applications.
I have been closely following the Microsoft Vista beta releases, and trying to figure out the benefits that the new OS will offer regular users. Sure eye candy looks good, but it’s the more tangible benefits that count. By tangible I mean features that will make a difference in performance and productivity.
I am particularly intrigued by the technologies in Vista that aim to make the computer faster. The “Ready-Boost” feature sounds like a magical speed up in a sluggish PC by plugging in a high speed USB flash drive. The operating system will automatically use the fast flash memory on the USB drive to boost performance-without restarts or drivers.
Ready for the boost?
Vista’s Readyboost Uses the available free memory on the flash drive to create an additional page file that stores freequently acessed data. Naturally, fetching data on the flash memory is a lot quicker than getting it from your hard disk-making your PC much more responsive.
Following this train of logic, would it not be a good idea to entirely dump the hard disk and run everything off flash memory? For one the cost would be prohibitive (think how much 60 GB flash drive would cost you). The second is that flash memory is good for small, random I/Os (like paging to-and-from disk), but hard drives are better for large sequential I/O commands. So, it’s probably a better idea to combine the two and to leverage thneir individual advantages, with some clear support from software.
What if you yank the flash drive, either accidently or deliberately? Will the system hang or crash? According to microsoft, it won’t. (But we need to watch this). Vista, it seems, maintains a back-up copy. Of course, any performance gains are also nullified. The good thing is that this performance boosting measure can be used anytime and will work with any hardware-so no need to open up your PC to add RAM. And it even works for PCs that have limited, or no memory expansion slots.
The bigger picture
While readybost is specific to Vista, we have another concept from hard drive makers that also aim to speed performance. These are hybrid hard drives, which combine a magnetic hard disk drive and non-volatile flash memory on a single device. With the hybrid HDD, manufacturers are seeking to combine the robustness, low power consumption and speed of flash media with the storage density, low density and low cost of magnetic drives.
Samsung has already announced a hybrid hard drive that combines NAND-based flash memory with a mechanical drive to speed up performance and conserve power. In the hybrid mode, the mechanical drive is spun down for majority of the time, while data is written to the flash write buffer. When the write is filled the rotating spins and the data from the write buffer is written to the hard drive. The hybrid drive saves power by keeping up the spindle motor in idle mode almost all the time-a portable devices. Windows Vista already supports hybrid hard drives with it’s “Ready Drive” feature.
Intel’s next mobile platform, code named Santa Rosa, also implements flash memory to storage related performance. It uses Intel’s Robson cache technology which will enable motherboards to embed flash memory to store common elements of the OS and other related data to boost performance right from the boot process. Thus the boot times as well as the resume times will improve significantly. Imagine your system taking just 3 seconds to boot and get ready for action!
The marriage of flash based storage with hard drives is a step in the right diection, and I hope the industry giants concentrate more on smarter solutions that don’t necessarily require cutting edge hardware to run applications.
METAL GEAR SOLID: portable ops
T he Playstation Portable launched, had it's share of the spotlight, and has been on the decline ever since. At the same time, its rival (the Nintendo DS) suckered the non-gamer\retro-gamer\faggot for it's success. And for all this time, I've expected Hideo Kojima to bring the Metal Gear series to the hand-held system. Metal Gear fans couldn't help but ask for more when Metal Gear Acid was announced for the PSP (and though we're gullible as hell MGS card games won't win us over). The wait is finally over with the comming of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops(MGSPO).MGSPO plays out in 1970, roughly 6 years after the events of Snake eater, where Snake (sickening name if you ask me) defeated the Boss, split away from the FOX unitand gained the title of the Big Boss. He proceeded to start a misspelled reality show that grew to become the second best programme on TV (right after Takeshi's Castle of course). But for this game, but for this game snake wakes up in a prison with no particular memory of recent events and learns much to his horror FOX unit colleagues have stolen nuclear warheads (yawn, koosh-koosh balls are far more interesting) and plan to start a war. Snake has been accused of treason and must get out of prison, stop his former comrades and clear his name.A loosely strung history, over-the-top drama and a Hollywood style presentation are just some of the things we expect of MGS games and MGSPO would do well to feature them all. Graphically, MGSPO seems to be pushing the PSP to it's limits just as MGS 3 did with the PS2. The game will have comic-book styled cutscenes done by Ashley Wood, artist of Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel.It will be interesting to see however, if Kojima will stick to see his old top-down perspective, or go with the 3rd person view introduced in MGS3 subsistence.Gameplay-wise, things are pretty much the same (except for the fact that we won't be selecting a 'shoot' card to take out enemies), which is probably a good thing. The game will have you sneaking around, snapping necks (YaY!!) and watching really long cutscenes. The biggest difference in MGSPO however, is the decision of allaince (sorry ladies, snake isn't geting married). In the numerous outings of snake, he is always preferred working alone-teaming up to complete missions isn't the snakey way of doing things. Time around the swirls, snake can capture enemies, interrogate them and make them do his dirty work (Laundry, etc.). You can form your own army of disposible goons, though only three will be usable at a time. Allies will gain ranks as they complete missions alongside you. However, if you lose an ally in the heat of battle, he is lost forever.But the real highlight of MGSPO is it's multiplayer. evidentely, kojima discovered the Wi-Fi capibilities of yhe PSP! and now he is allowing you to team up with other humans(which is great since you blame them for your loss). Apart from this, the game will also have an onlinemultiplayer mode which is identical to MGS3: subsistence. The regular DM, Team DM and CTF (dubbed capture the frog) modes will be available to quench your online thirst.MGSPO could very well be the game that revives the PSP. In the recent trailers, the story seems to be good with the expected quality of dialogue and graphics. If you're an MGS fan, you've possibly decided a purchase quite a while back. And if you haven't, I suggest that you save up for the UMD and watch the Tokyo game show trailers to create an appetite... after all, not all of us are snake eaters (sic).
ASSASSIN’S CREED
Set in 1191 AD, during the time of the Third Crusades, Assassin’s Creed puts the player in the shoes of Altair lbn’la-Ahad (The son of none). Orphaned as a child, he is raised by the secretive Hashashin clan, who train him in their ways and mould him into a master Assassin. As conflict rages between the armies of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, Altair -freshely disgraced and struggling to regain his honour - is handed the responsibility of tracking down and eliminating nine key figures that are fuelling the war machine. Journeying across the holy land in an effort to end the strife and rise through ranks of the Hashashin brotherhood, Altair gradually discovers that things aren’t what they seem and that the crusades are a facade for something much worse.FAST FORWARD TO THE PAST ?Although Ubisoft has carefully avoided major spoilers, Assassin’s Creed seems to have an unique “Twist in the tale” element. While being pimped at various shows, trailers and gameplay footage showed futuristic elements making their subtle presence felt at various points. Contrary to the plot, the game is supposedly set in the distant future, with an unnamed descendant of Altair recalling his ancestor’s medieval exploits using Genetic Memory Access technology. Taking on shades of The Thirteenth Floor and Quantum Leap, the game has this descendant plug his mind into a virtual-reality simulation to decode his genes and discover the dark secrets of his lineage. Producer Jade Raymond, has talked about subsequent sequels bearing a futuristic streak, with the player alternating between the worlds of the past and future.Assassin’s Creed seems to borrow its gameplay style from Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, allowing you to decide your own path. Caught neck-deep in conspiracy, the out of the flavour assassin is forced to explore the countryside and the cities of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem, eavesdrooping on secret conversations and picking pockets to find clues as to his victims wheareabouts. NPC interaction is critical here- since the NPCs of the world usually have conflicting interests. Helping one group could easily land Atlair in the bad books of another, prompting careful consideration before accepting the quests.Once the board is set, the assassination shifts from planning to execution. helping altair dispatch his victims is a collection of melee and short-range weapons - Short Swords, Mini-crossbows and Throwing Knives are this assassin’s weapons of choice. What we have seen and liked the most however, is a wolverine-esque retractable dagger conceiled beneath Atlair’s left arm. Daresome in-game histiory behind this - Altair’s left ring finger was chopped of to make for this spring-loaded dagger, a rite of passage that each assassin endures as he makes the transation from novice to master. TO ALL SNEAK-FRIENDSWhats interesting here is the stealth dynamics - defined by the developers as next-generation. assassin’s creed introduces the concept of social stealth. The crowd is a living obstacle that changes with every action. As long as Altair behaves in a completely ordinary way and maintains a low profile, the masses pay no attention to him. However, if he decides to run through streets and engage in roof-top jump session, the crowd erupts into chaos, making it dificult for the character to complete his mission. For example, shoving people aside to move forward, instead of gently making your way through the crowd, would result in getting shoved in turn and recieving a punch for added measure. Such actions attract the attention of the guards - you know the drill after this.Encourage flight over fight, the game borrows heavily from th french free-running phenomenon of Parkour, with Altair being able to use any protruding object to nimbly scale walls, vault over rails and leap over rooftops. In combat, however, he cannot take the least bit of damage - even a single blow is instantly fatal. Much like the protagonist in Condemned: Criminal Origins, you get a chance to sidestep or block an oncomming attack. If manoeuvre succeds, your stamina is preserved. This allows you to counter yout opponent’s attack by shoving him violently to the ground and sticking the dagger into his heart. However once Altair or his opponents run out of stamina, they lose their ability to bloc attacks, allowing the final blow to connect.The development team at Ubisoft will look to hone the fighting system from Prince of Persia, allowing players to create their own styles of movement and combat. Assassin’s Creed will make a fair puppet out of Altair, with the controller action buttons being mappd to his head, arms and feet, allowing for full-body awareness at all times.Explaining the concept in a developer interview, Creative Director Patrice Desilets talked about how the organic design of the scheme will let you control Altair much more fluidly. Faced with a set of struts on a rooftop, pressing the (PS3)\(A) (x360) button on the controller would make altair jump across them inturn, while the (CIRCLE)\(B) button allows him to grab them and swing from one to the other. With the (SQUARE)\(X) button controlling Altair’s weapon’s hand, the (LEFT ARROW)\(Y) button allows him to translate the local language being spoken around him or single out his target in the crowd. Using the dual-analouge sticks in their traditional roles, the control scheme also features an emotinal trigger, which can be used to alternate Altair’s intensity of action between gentle and violent - making him run, shove people side roughly or dish out heavy attacks.
Featuring a soundtrack composed by Hitman and Splinter Cel vetaran Jespre Kyd, stunning visuals and a revolutionary social gameplay mechanism, the POP team seems hard at work creating a bright and shiny future action-adventure games. Assassin’s creed seems all set to prove that true next-gen gaming involves improved gameplay mechanics, rather than just giving pretty-looking stuff to blow up. Until the game finds it’s way into our homes sometime next year, it looks like thew only thing we get to kill is time… Unless you count dead rising.
FACT FILE:HASHASHINSFormed in 1090 by al-hassan (Te old man of the Muntain), the hashashins were the world’ s first professional hitmen-faceless, silent hunters who struck out a high-profile target and dissappeared without a trace operating from the stronghold at masyaf in Syria, these disciplined killers introduced the world to assassin’s. they executed daring murders that changed the course of human history. they were known for their unflinching loyalty to the cult and their violent initiation ceremonies. the cause of many mdieval bueaucrat nightmare, the Hashashins have figured prominently in contemporary media-often in tales involving major conspiracies.
All the trailers of assassin’s creed are available HERE.
Featuring a soundtrack composed by Hitman and Splinter Cel vetaran Jespre Kyd, stunning visuals and a revolutionary social gameplay mechanism, the POP team seems hard at work creating a bright and shiny future action-adventure games. Assassin’s creed seems all set to prove that true next-gen gaming involves improved gameplay mechanics, rather than just giving pretty-looking stuff to blow up. Until the game finds it’s way into our homes sometime next year, it looks like thew only thing we get to kill is time… Unless you count dead rising.
FACT FILE:HASHASHINSFormed in 1090 by al-hassan (Te old man of the Muntain), the hashashins were the world’ s first professional hitmen-faceless, silent hunters who struck out a high-profile target and dissappeared without a trace operating from the stronghold at masyaf in Syria, these disciplined killers introduced the world to assassin’s. they executed daring murders that changed the course of human history. they were known for their unflinching loyalty to the cult and their violent initiation ceremonies. the cause of many mdieval bueaucrat nightmare, the Hashashins have figured prominently in contemporary media-often in tales involving major conspiracies.
All the trailers of assassin’s creed are available HERE.
Broadband!! Yeah right!!!!! Bloody $#@%$#!&*(*(^!!!!…..
I had known for a long time and now finally. It’s here! The 2mbps revolution is here!! Well, what is this so-called revolution? I’ll tell you what it is. You see the most popular conventional internet connection in India is or should I say was broadband, the connection which gives you the speed of 256 kbps. Which was also a kind of fraud in the sense that people used to think that there download speeds would actually goup to 256 kilo “bytes” per hour. Whereas the actual speed was 256 kilo “bits”. Now you see This is where everything went haywire. The difference between kilobytes and kilobits is that 1 kilo-byte equals 8 kilo-bits. Yes if you think that this means that even 1 mega-byte per second(1 mBps) equals 8 mega-bits (8 mbps). You may have noticed that everytime you see the speed given on any advertizing board they always talk about a 256 kbps connection and not about a 256kBps connection. What’s the difference? If you haven’t figured it out yet let me tell you the diference. mbps stands for mega-bits per second whereas mBps stands for mega-bytes per second.
The download speed is measured in kBps. So, if you do the math you get that you are actually recieving 256/8 kBps which is (32kBps) of data that is why your download speed never goes beyond 32 kBps for an appreciativley long period of time. Another sad case of mass fooling of customers by even more retarded companies. If you’re internet connection comes from MTNL, you just want to check out the section “Revolution” for The 2mbps revolution.
The download speed is measured in kBps. So, if you do the math you get that you are actually recieving 256/8 kBps which is (32kBps) of data that is why your download speed never goes beyond 32 kBps for an appreciativley long period of time. Another sad case of mass fooling of customers by even more retarded companies. If you’re internet connection comes from MTNL, you just want to check out the section “Revolution” for The 2mbps revolution.
Microsoft’s Anti-Virus The Worst
Microsoft’s Live OneCare security suite is not as secure as they think. OneCare is Microsoft’s foray into the security suite world. that is already hot contested by companies such as Symantec and Mcfee. Now one would think that since it’s made by Microsoft, it should be able to do a pretty good job, protecting other Microsoft products (namely, Windows XP/Vista and IE), right? Wrong. Various security experts who conduct security suite tests, including AV-Comparatives (www.av-comparatives.org) have already pish-toshed Microsoft’s attempts. Andreas Clementi, the AV-Comparatives reviewer has gone as far s suggesting that OneCare might not even bve included in the next comparison, because it’s just no good!
Microsoft was quick to do the necessary PR clean-up job promising to look into the test and make sure that OneCare does better. Of course since OneCare is still a registered security suite, certified by the International Computer Security Association, it will continue to be sold. We must concede that it is still early days, and OneCare can obviously get better. What worries us is that it is a Microsoft product. Which is obviously being scrutinsed by every hacker and script kiddie for flaws . Do we really want to be using security software from the most virus-targeted company in the world? Of course in a few years Microsoft may make us eat this very paper we’ve printed on, by using the whole experience to build another stable and secure product-and we’ll be only too glad to pay for the ketchup to help digest the paper. It’s ironic, isn’t it? All those virus writers out there are unknowingly helping Microsoft clean-up their code, resulting in more stable products by the day. Perhaps 25 secruity patches down the line, OneCare will win the 2008 anti-virustest. I look forward to the day.
Microsoft was quick to do the necessary PR clean-up job promising to look into the test and make sure that OneCare does better. Of course since OneCare is still a registered security suite, certified by the International Computer Security Association, it will continue to be sold. We must concede that it is still early days, and OneCare can obviously get better. What worries us is that it is a Microsoft product. Which is obviously being scrutinsed by every hacker and script kiddie for flaws . Do we really want to be using security software from the most virus-targeted company in the world? Of course in a few years Microsoft may make us eat this very paper we’ve printed on, by using the whole experience to build another stable and secure product-and we’ll be only too glad to pay for the ketchup to help digest the paper. It’s ironic, isn’t it? All those virus writers out there are unknowingly helping Microsoft clean-up their code, resulting in more stable products by the day. Perhaps 25 secruity patches down the line, OneCare will win the 2008 anti-virustest. I look forward to the day.
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