Archive for November, 2009

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Sure Sellout: Wicked Brütal Legend T-Shirts by Mishka

Its a sad fact. Wearing a videogame T-shirt can make you look like a total dork.

Fashion-forward outfits like Meatbun and Panic Goods have gained major headway in making game apparel fashionable, but now the big kids are getting in on the game.

Brooklyn clothier Mishka has teamed with Double Fine to create a pair of badass Brütal Legend tees. The new designs feature artwork by metal art veterans Daniel Mumford and James Callahan.

In the months to come, the Brütal Legend blog will reveal how to get your hands on these killer T-shirts. Be vigilant, because Mishka’s exclusives frequently sell out quickly, never to return. Until then, Mishka is giving away copies of Brütal Legend. If you are one of those naughty people who listened to Kohler and skipped the game, pay a visit to the Mishka blog to enter the drawing.

Image courtesy EA

See Also:

• Review: Brütal Legend Rocks the Story, Whiffs the Gameplay
• PS3 Bogarts New Brütal Legend DLC
• Brütal Legend's Botched TV Ad: Welcome to 'Hell No'
• Eyes On: Jack Black Destroys Demons With Power of Rock in Brütal Legend
• Brütal Legend Finds a Home At Electronic Arts

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Review: Modern Warfare 2 Kills Well With Others

Here’s what you need to know about Modern Warfare 2: It’s a magnificent multiplayer game.

Yes, the incredibly popular new shooter for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (reviewed) comes bundled with an entertaining and substantial single-player storyline, one that has already stirred up a little controversy.

But it’s not this string of missions that will cause millions of gamers to stay glued to their machines through Thanksgiving and beyond. It’s the addictive and robust player-versus-player online combat.

There’s serious voodoo in Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer mode. The game integrates the character progression and user customization of role-playing games into its death-matches. Every kill earns you experience points. Even if you lose, you earn upgrades at the end of every ass-whooping. And with those points, you earn access to new weapons, customized avatars and new challenges that — you guessed it — unlock more goodies.

At first, I felt like it was a cheat, as if developer Infinity Ward was fooling me into playing the same old vanilla multiplayer shooter all over again by dangling carrots in my face. But I soon found that the bonuses you earn are meaningful and alluring. I entered my first multiplayer match as a Grenadier equipped with the standard FAMAS assault rifle. As I racked up kills with the French bullpup, I started leveling up my proficiency with the weapon, unlocking upgrades.

Many of the rewards were superficial, like ammo patterns, but the “heartbeat sensor” upgrade was a game-changer.

This requires a bit of setup. As with many games, Modern Warfare 2 has a radar in the corner of the screen that shows enemy positions. But your team has to earn that intel. Players will occasionally be able to summon a friendly drone that will fly in and point out enemy positions. The enemy can try to jam that drone’s signal, or call in their own aerial vehicle to find you.

It’s a complex game of technological cat-and-mouse that relies heavily on each team’s ballistic prowess. And that’s just the fight over the radar screens.

So where did my new heartbeat sensor come in? Mounted on my gun, it showed me the position of every living, breathing entity on the map. Just like the space marines in Aliens, I could look down at my weapon and see where my enemies were, even if my team didn’t have a drone in the air.

My heartbeat sensor upgrade gave me a slight edge in combat, because I’d grown to rely on radar intel to hunt down enemy stragglers and keep myself from accidentally wandering into a hornets’ nest.

There are dozens of similar paths that players can explore, be they snipers, explosives experts or run-and-gun grunts. Modern Warfare 2’s tweaks, upgrades and perks are the reason to play — not the “been there, done that” combat.

Modern Warfare 2 also features a series of special-ops missions that you can play cooperatively with friends. Some of the scenarios play out like time trials, urging players to hone their tactical techniques. Others are about survival, with waves of enemies pushing in on the players’ position. These tasks are no replacement for a true cooperative campaign mode, but there’s so much to do in Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer they don’t feel like a gyp.

Played solo, the game seems like a string of action-movie set-pieces sewn together with the flimsiest of plot. Big things happen: A terrorist organization fools Russia, under the sway of ultranationalists, into invading America. Players hop in and out of the boots of a handful of soldiers in a broad variety of missions.

A large-scale battle goes down in the National Mall. Amidst the wreckage of a stately building, the player takes potshots at enemy tanks and copters with a rocket launcher, with the Washington Monument looming in the smoke-darkened sky. On foot in Rio de Janeiro, the player finds himself running for his life, attacked from all sides by militia men in the claustrophobic shanty town.

The logic that draws us from one gunfight to the next isn’t terribly sound. The plot delivers some contrived reason as to why you find yourself in Brazil, but the real reasons your boots are in this particular dirt is clear to anybody who saw The Hulk: The intricate favela is a killer place for an action scene.

Trying to puzzle meaning out of Modern Warfare 2’s plot is a foolish endeavor. The game cribs its morality from post-Vietnam Hollywood: War is bad, except when it’s not. Soldiers who fight for freedom are good, except when they’re not.

The moments when Modern Warfare 2 isn’t good are few and far between. That’s about all you can ask from a hero.

WIRED Mesmerizing, meaningful multiplayer.

TIRED Patchwork single-player story hemmed together with quick cut scenes.

$60, Activision

Rating:

Read Game|Life’s game ratings guide.

See Also:

• Powerful Modern Warfare 2 Plot Hits Close to Home
• Test-Driving Modern Warfare 2’s Night-Vision Goggles
• Debating Modern Warfare 2 on News Radio
• Limited-Edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 Boasts 250-GB Drive
  

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Final Fantasy XIII Gets U.S. Release Date, New Theme Song

The long-delayed Final Fantasy XIII will be released in the U.S. and Europe on March 9, 2010, Square Enix said Friday.

Square Enix also said that the Western releases of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game would feature a new theme song — “My Hands,” by RCA Music Group recording artist Leona Lewis. The Japanese version of the game, to be released on December 17, features two songs performed by Sayuri Sugawara, written by composer Masashi Hamauzu.

This is the first time that the overseas release of a Final Fantasy game has featured anything other than a translated version of the original theme song, so this use of a licensed track represents a bold new direction for Square Enix.

The publisher apparently considered today’s announcement way too important for something so positively mundane as a press release, so it put together an elaborate video to announce the date.

Highlight: Watching Square Enix overseas president John Yamamoto’s eyeballs as he visibly reads off of cue cards.

Not at all coincidentally, Lewis’ new album, which contains “My Hands,” will be released on November 17.

Some Final Fantasy fans are of course in high dudgeon over the swapping out of Hamauzu’s original music for a pre-existing, licensed track. What do you think — is marketing trumping artistry here, or is it not worth getting one’s limited edition Shinra-logo panties in a twist over?

Image: Square Enix

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Nikon’s Projector Cam Shines Through Exorbitant Price Tag

Product: COOLPIX S1000pj

Manufacturer: Nikon

Wired Rating: 6

When Nikon released the S1000pj, we were stoked about having a projector grafted to a traditional digital camera. When we put it to the test, the camera did a decent job but was definitely, ahem, outshone by its luminous counterpart.

Many of the camera’s features — like the 11.044mm image sensor, 2.7-inch screen and 24mm wide-angle — look good on paper and proved decent in our trials. Shooting on auto mode, we consistently got clean, well-exposed pictures. Noise was never a problem when we kept the ISO below 800, but if we cranked it up any higher, images became a lost cause. Why? While the camera is capable of resolutions up to 12.1 megapixels, at ISO 3200 and 6400, the highest resolution you can get is a measly 3 megapixels.

The unit as a whole has a nice appearance (we’re especially fond of the snowy silver color) but it’s definitely a bit hefty for a compact camera. We’re going to let it slide though, because that bulk is housing this camera’s pride and joy — the projector.

The S1000pj delivered everything we would want in a small, portable projector. The picture is bright and clear while a slider on the top of the body lets you adjust the focus with ease. As with all projectors, the images look best in dark surroundings, but even in a well-lit office we were extremely impressed with the visibility.

Before you prepare to narrate (in painful detail) a 3,000-picture photo essay on the Twilight cast at Comic-Con, know that the battery will only last for about an hour in projection mode. So have an extra battery on hand, or be prepared to give your audience a break to while you recharge for round two.

WIRED The projector feature is Yuri Gagarin-stellar. Pictures were pretty good in most situations without having to adjust a lot of settings.

TIRED Low-light pictures are a struggle, especially if the ISO has to be raised. Camera is heavy and bulky. Novel feature means early adopter price tag.

Style: Compact

Resolution: 12.1 megapixels

Zoom Range: 5x optical, 4x digital

Media Format: SD/SDHC

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Verizon’s $100 Android Phone Is a Hot Mess

Product: Droid Eris

Manufacturer: HTC

Wired Rating: 5

Naming a phone after the Greek goddess of discord and rivalry is a bold, possibly crazy move. But it’s a sign of how competitive the smartphone market is right now and how far HTC, whose latest phone is the Droid Eris, will go to take on its rivals.

At a mere $100, the Eris is the cheapest smartphone to run Google’s Android operating system. It’s a simple, yet handsome device that attempts to marry beautiful design with a slick user interface but the result is a slightly, ahem, chaotic experience that strikes a discordant note more often than not.

The Eris is roughly the same thickness as an iPhone. With rounded edges and a smooth, soft-touch finish, it has a luxurious pebblelike feel in the palm. The phone’s 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen is bright, and fairly responsive to finger swipes. And at 320 x 480 pixels, its screen has about the same resolution as the iPhone 3G, but much lower quality than the (higher priced) Motorola Droid’s 480 x 854 pixels.

Despite its slim profile, the Eris’ hardware is far from perfection. Most annoying are the four touch-sensitive controls (home, menu, back and search) that sit below the screen. These buttons easily blend into the screen and offer vibrating feedback for users. But they can be temperamental. Slight pressure is not always enough to activate an icon and it can get annoying to keep pecking at it to elicit a response. Also, you’re pretty much hosed if vibrating feedback annoys you. There’s no way to turn off that feature.

The Eris’ major problem is that it feels sluggish. Running a Qualcomm 528-MHz MSM7600 processor, it’s slower than the Palm Pre and the Motorola Droid, both of which run the much faster 550-MHz Arm Cortex A8 processor. Oh, in speed tests the similarly priced iPhone 3G (not even the 3GS) proved to be quicker, too.

This translates to every task on the phone taking a second or two longer than you want. Apps such as Google Sky Maps (available exclusively for Android OS) feel lethargic and the browser isn’t very zippy.

The Eris runs Android 1.5 (and not the latest 2.0 version seen on the Motorola Droid). But HTC’s custom user interface, the Sense, dresses up the OS. The opening screen includes icons for browser access, mail, messages and the Android app store.

The user interface is certainly not on par with the Droid, iPhone or Palm Pre. Though the Eris is a touchscreen phone, many tasks require a clumsy Kabuki dance between the virtual keypad and the physical buttons. Check this: While checking e-mail, you can reply and move to the next message using virtual icons on the touchscreen. But to delete a message, you have to click on the menu button on the phone’s hardware to pull up a new user interface that has delete as one of the options.

Is this a lot of work? Not really. But could it have been accomplished in fewer steps? Oh, you betcha.

Because the Eris runs Android 1.5, Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation — a very impressive feature on the Motorola Droid — isn’t available. HTC says it does plan to update the Eris to Android 2.0. The Sense UI works well in some places like the phone’s browser, which renders web pages well and supports the pinch to zoom out, and the two-finger spread to zoom in, that’s familiar to iPhone users.

The Eris has a pretty decent 5-megapixel camera that takes images that are brighter when compared to the iPhone 3G’s 3-megapixel camera. But the Eris certainly gets smoked by other 5-MP camera phones like its older cousin the Droid. Sharing photos, though, is easy. With a single click you can upload to Flickr, Picasa or post an image on Facebook.

The phone also has a camcorder but video is often choppy and there’s a conspicuous lack of editing tools.

Surprisingly, call quality is rather pedestrian. Verizon’s powerful network generally equates to no dropped calls and strong signal. But in our call tests, most of our conversations were stained with a great deal of background noise.

The Eris is a valiant attempt to make an Android phone widely available on a decent network. But the phone’s many flaws — its unresponsive physical buttons, middling call quality, poky performance — make it positively difficult to recommend. If you want an Android phone for a hundred bucks though, there’s really no other option. For now.

WIRED Hardware smoother than a shave with a cutthroat razor. Brilliant touchscreen is shiny and responsive. 5-megapixel cam shoots very passable pics. Price is a friend to wallets everywhere.

TIRED Processor lags like a chain smoker running the Boston Marathon. Mediocre voice quality. User interface could use a tune-up. And a valve job. Hell, how about a complete overhaul?

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Geeky Podcasting Mike Avidly Absorbs Audio

Product: Yeti

Manufacturer: Blue Microphones

Wired Rating: 8

As its name suggests, the Yeti is big, imposing, and has near mythical abilities. But unlike its Himalayan counterpart, Blue Microphones’ newest USB podcasting mike is most definitely real. Better yet, it also soaks up fantastic, professional-quality vocal recordings, and its flexible settings make it a viable tool for a smattering of audio apps like recording music.

The Yeti’s killer point is versatility. Like the Blue Snowball before, the Yeti has settings for the two most common types of audio recording patterns: A directional (cardiod) pattern that picks up only what’s right in front of it, and an omnidirectional pattern that picks up sound from all angles.

We managed to attain excellent audio with both settings, although the cardioid option can sound thin unless you’re recording right on top of the mike. Not so fun if you have a couple of hours worth of voiceover to lay down.

But what really sets the Yeti apart are two new recording patterns: bidirectional and stereo. Both formats achieve nuanced results that would otherwise require multiple microphones.

The bidirectional setting picks up sound in front of and behind the mic (rejecting everything else). The effect is subtle but creates a more intimate feeling recording than the omni does. It’s good for situations like chronicling a face to face conversation.

We’re generally skeptical when a product claims to create stereo recordings from a single location, but the Yeti’s stereo setting works shockingly well. As an audio source moves from left to right in front of the mike, the recording is panned with great accuracy to the corresponding channel.

This lends recorded conversations a realistic sense of depth and space.  The setting works as well with acoustic instruments as with vocals, although we suspect the effect will be largely lost if your deafening Led Zeppelin cover band tries to rock through Houses of the Holy start to finish.

The Yeti looks like it belongs on a late-night talk-show host’s desk and feels like a studio quality mike. It’s mounted on a sturdy stand heavy enough to knock out misbehaving interview guests (or withstand shock if you accidentally bump your desk). But because of its ample weight, the Yeti would not be our first choice for the field-recording applications Blue hints it is capable of.

As anyone would expect from a plug-and-play mike, the Yeti is easy to use, and our recording software instantly recognized the mike without any awkward tinkering. It’s also the first mike ever certified by THX.

For folks getting started in recording on their computer, whether it’s for podcasting or music, this mike offers a ton of versatility and the recording quality that Blue has built its name on. In fact, the Yeti makes other lesser USB mikes look downright abominable.

WIRED Sharp, clear recording in all four settings. Stereo setting yields dizzingly dynamic results for podcasting. Bidirectional setting yields audio more intimate than an afternoon in Victoria’s Secret.

TIRED Gain, headphone volume, and pattern-select switches on the mike’s body are awkwardly placed — makes them hard to get at when the mike’s in its stand. Using hefty mike for field work probably not a wise idea.

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

St Ledger: Our defence can cope with French pace

Republic of Ireland defender Sean St Ledger has said that the experience of his fellow defenders will help him cope with the pace of the French strike force in the World Cup play-off today.

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Last-gasp goal denies Ireland U-21s victory

Georgia U-21 1 Republic of Ireland U-21 1
The Republic of Ireland were denied victory at the death once again as they were held to a fourth successive European U-21s Championship qualifier draw in Georgia.

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

McGeady relishing ‘big game’ atmosphere

Republic of Ireland midfielder Aiden McGeady has said that he is looking forward to the World Cup play-off against France today because of the atmosphere around the game.

Posted on November 14, 2009 - by blogtheking

Ireland U-21 team announced

Don Givens has announed the Republic of Ireland U21 team to face Georgia U21 tonight.