Year: 2004

Burnout for Real

Been playing Burnout over the weekend and apart from connection issues it’s a class game. This video from America though looks like Burnout in real life. The police try 3 times to take him out and each time he managed to regain control. The scary part is that the police tried to take him out in fairly heavy traffic – what would have happened if he hadn’t regained control?

Scottish Pairlament

So. First reaction to above is that I’ve spelt it wrong. Nope – it’s taken directly from the Scottish Parliament website. Clicking on ‘Scots’ to the left of the site takes you to a Scots welcome page.

We hae producit a publication cried “Makkin Yer Voice Heard in the Scottish Pairlamentâ€? that tells ye aboot the different weys that you can let the Pairlament and the Memmers o the Scottish Pairlament (MSPs) ken whit ye think.

Bloody hell. I think it’s bad enough we have to put up with Gaelic versions of sites and the Gaelic TV that we have to suffer but this is taking the piss. Also added are some spiffy new video’s for each of the MSP’s. All filmed in the new parliament building and lasting just over 4 minutes for each MSP, Tommy Sheridans is worth a watch just for the line on how he prefers a Tory as although he dislikes them at least he knows what they stand for unlike the Labour party. Class. If he wasn’t a buffoon and the policies he stood for added up economically I would consider voting for him. Would never carry it out though. Not with that suntan.

I never actually realised that there was a Holyrood.tv website where you could watch most of the parliament debates live. The server is fast and quality is good. Watching first ministers questions from last week shows just how much the SNP had Jack McConnell on the run.

Star Wars DVD

I’ve finally given in (to the force) and ordered the Star Wars trilogy. Amazon will deliver on the day of release (20th Sep) but the chances of it coming that day are slim. Digital Bits has a review of the box set and also screens of some of the changes that are in this release.

It’s a pity the DVD release didn’t take advantage of branching to allow the original and these updated editions to exist on one disk. The tampering Lucas has employed with the originals does not, in my book, make the films any more watch able. Indeed some shots just look wrong when mixed in with the new effects. More fool me for buying them. But I’m looking forward to seeing them – it’s years since I’ve watched them in full and I’ve a week off at the end of September. Perfect.

Burnout 3

Burnout 3 is out this Friday and it looks like an essential purchase. I’ve been playing it since yesterday (from the usual sources) and although I haven’t sampled the online modes, single player is superb – the best Burnout yet.

Now that EA have taken over publishing it’s easy to see their influence. EA Trax supplies the music and there’s some good variety including Ash and Franz Ferdinand. The structure of the game is also similar to other EA Sports games with lots to unlock and a real polish to the front end and general presentation.

In game graphics are great and the sound is used to good affect. You can easily tell from which side your being attacked from. What surprised me is how aggressive the AI is – the computer controlled cars really try and take you out – much more so than previous games. It’s also quite challenging even on early rounds which is good.

What I can’t wait to try (and why I need to buy it this Friday) is the Live racing. It promises much and it’s the first game online where you can’t complain when your rammed of the road as that’s the name of the game. Fun with a capital F (cheese!) and hopefully no lag.

Arsu

Adobe Acrobat seems slow to start-up nowadays. Loads of plugins are getting in the way of easily viewing pdf’s. Thats where Arsu comes in….or Adobe Reader Speed Up. Download from here and run – I’ve got reader starting up in no time at all now. It cleany removes some of the plugins that aren’t really required for day to day viewing.

PES 4

Soon to be released on Xbox, and it WILL support Xbox Live. Proof (kind off) can be seen here. Question is whether it will just be 1 vs 1 or support 2 vs 2 or more? I also might need one of these so I can play PES (Pro Evolution Soccer in case your confused) online using the ps2 pad. Good as the Xbox pad is, the ps2 pad might be more suited to PES. I’ll wait till nearer the time, which is hopefully 22/10/04 according to Amazon or 12/11/04 if you look at Play.

PES is by far the best football game you can buy (ok – Winning Eleven is arguably better/as good as) but to be able to play this over the net via LIVE makes this potential game of the year material. Yes – getting excited, but its PES!

iMac

The new iMac was announced today. Underwhelming is my initial reaction. Isn’t this a desktop laptop? In fact, isn’t this one of the tablet pc’s that have failed to take off? And whats with the nasty row of sockets at the back of the machine? That won’t look too tidy on a desk. But of course, order the wireless keyboard, mouse and bluetooth adaptor for £70 (got to love those optional extra’s) to get that wirefree look. Doh!

The design is also the least radical of the latest Apple products. In fact it looks fairly…tame. Still want an Apple laptop though. Maybe next year!