Thursday 6 May 2010

Well.. It's been a while...

Seems like MANY moons have passed since we last updated this blog. What's everyone been up to (playing). I finally caved in to the relentless (and justified) hype and got an iphone last year, Angry Birds is probably my most played game these days, don't have as much time for the xbox anymore.

So what has everybody been playing?

Tuesday 19 August 2008

XNA Dream Build Play 2008

I've recently joined the XNA creators club and have started work on a game for the Dream Build Play 2008 competition.

It's going to be a game targeted at my 4 year old daughter who enjoys the various games on the CBeebies website such as counting and shape identification games. The game will be influenced by this and educational games such as brain training.

It's going to be pretty noddy game with basic 2D graphics to start with and maybe 3D if I have the time, but should be a fun little project.
Blogged with the Flock Browser

Thursday 1 May 2008

GTA IV Night

So who is up for some GTA IV cops and robbers action?

Saturday night from 8PM should be good for me.

Wednesday 30 April 2008

GTA IV First Impressions

So far I am absolutley LOVING IT!
Have played for 5 hours but have only done a few missions from the
main story. Have been so lost into the GTA world trying out all the
new stuff. Dating, Playing pool, watching TV and cabaret, some great
shows! I agree with all the rave review but I must admit the graphics
are slightly disappointing compared the GOW or Assassins Creed. Very
dull colouring and dreary (that could just be to set the current
tone), I find the HDR is is really overblown and makes it difficult to
make out detail at times. I had a similar issue with Burnout Paradise.
Beautiful at times, but quite hard on the eyes. Maybe I need to play
around with my TV settings. Thats really my only complaint aside from
the bloody noisy 360. I'd forgotten how loud it is compared to the
PS3. Almost wish I'd gone for that version!
Anyway the main reason for getting the 360 version is so we can play
multiplayer!

So when shall we have a bash at some Cops and Robbers?

Tuesday 1 April 2008

Microsoft announce the XBox 2800

Microsoft just announced their 13th gen console, it's so good in fact it's going to skip a few generations! The XBox 2800 will be based on the intels and nVidia's new "Looflirpa" chipset which includes a combined CPU,GPU and PhysX processor with a staggering 256 Cores running at 4Ghz sharing 1 Gig of Cache! Further deatils are scetchy but Microsoft have released the following photo of the first working prototype.

Friday 14 March 2008

I have finally given in to the dark side.

Yes I admit it, despite my protestations and insistence that I would never support Sony and their legacy of proprietary pap. I have finally succumbed to the dark side and purchased a PS3!
Now that Sony has won the format war it was either that or get a dedicated Blue Ray player, and by all accounts the PS3 is one of the best players around.
I hate to admit it though. I actually quite like it. Yes I do miss rumble and gamer points but it there are some things the PS3 actually does better. Firstly it dead silent, I actually have to check the standby light to be sure it's off! The interface is very slick and makes the 360 blade interface looked dated and quite cartoony. The build in browser is very nice and navigation is very well implemented. Text entry is much easier then the 360, it even has predictive text!
One thing I don't get is that everything has to be installed!? Whats that all about? Once a demo has downloaded you have to go through a long installation process before you can play it! This will be alien to any 360 user and I'm not sure why this is necessary on a console. You do get a nice background image appear for every installed game which does look nice.
There are a few decent exclusive titles, I really like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and the Eye toy games look cool. Not too impressed by Resistance or Motorstorm, really miss rumble!
The photo viewer on the PS3 is really nice and puts the 360 to shame. Also I love the fact that I can playback the footage shot on my Full HD camcorder directly from the PS3 without any conversion of AVCHD files as they are based on blueray.
Overall I am pretty impressed with the PS3 and have to eat large chunk of humble pie. However I still think that with Gamerpoints, XBox Live, XNA and no installer, the 360 is a much better gaming platform.