Ridge Racer 7

Army of Two

A year and a half ago, while EA was busy promoting Army of Two, Alain Tascan, General Manager for EA Montreal, had said that he wasn’t too impressed with Gears of War since it wasn’t innovative enough, nor did it bring anything new to the table. Now when you make such a powerful statement you better make sure your game delivers or you’re going to end up looking extremely foolish.

Looking back at that news article I can’t help but feel bad in a way for Alain (who I’m sure is hiding under a rock right now) since Army of Two is nowhere as awesome as Gears of War; in fact it’s as generic as it gets. To make matters worse, it’s shipped with virtually half the features that were announced during earlier previews. Enter one mediocre shooter.

Besides the whole co-op element, the only other "trick" this game has going for itself is the concept of AGGRO. For the uninitiated, AGGRO basically boils down to either you or your teammate firing at the enemy to draw their attention so that the other person can flank them and kill them. Now this works well while playing with a human partner but things can get pretty disastrous in the single player campaign. It’s not that controlling your partner is an elaborate process or anything; in fact, guiding him around the place is a very simple process; you can order him to follow you (passively or aggressively) or stay put to cover you (once again passively or aggressively) while you flank the enemy.

The reason this simple process becomes such a chore is because the game’s PAI (Partner Artificial Intelligence) suffers from extreme mental retardation. As and when you do require him to draw AGGRO, he finds it funny to just sit there and stare at the wall while mocking you with dialogues like "I got your back soldier"… when he clearly doesn’t. As expected you end up drawing all the AGGRO and he just sits put not even bothering to flank them. And then there are times when your partner will actually expose himself and attract thousands of bullets… even after you’ve ordered him to stay put. Hurray for stupidity!

As and when your partner starts taking a whole lot of damage he’ll get pretty vocal about the whole deal and if you still ignore his pleas he’ll go down like a sack of potatoes. Now it’s up to you drag him to safety and revive him by keeping the A button pressed for a couple of seconds (its Game Over if he dies). When it’s your time to get revived he manages to get the job done but there were times when he actually dragged me from cover into the line of fire only to get us both killed in a matter of seconds.


Once you get past the toolish AI, the game can actually get a bit enjoyable in bits and pieces since it does have the makings of a solid shooter. As in most action games today, it also boasts of a cover system that may not be as awesome as the one from Gears or Vegas but it’s a whole lot better than the one from Kane and Lynch (that one still gives me nightmares). Run up to a solid surface and you can manually stick behind it after which you can either pop out to shoot people or blind-fire as in the above mentioned titles. Running from cover to cover has also been simplified using a sliding mechanic, (just like in GRAW) and it works well. The same button designated for sliding also helps your character roll and climb over obstacles but for some reason there’s no sprinting in this game.

Besides all the running you’ll also indulge in a whole lot of gunning and in Army of Two you have a wide arsenal of weapons that allows you to do just that. Initially you’ll only have access to stock weapons, but the more money you make, the better you can customize them – by increasing the size of the barrel/cartridge, attaching silencers, grenade launchers, shotguns and shields, or just pimping them out with severe amounts of bling; it’s all possible in this game. As and when you do get bored of your weapon you can exchange it with your partner, but for some absurd reason you cannot pick up the weapons dead foes leave behind... WTF?

Once you’re done playing the single player campaign by yourself, you can head over to Xbox Live to play that very same campaign with a friend (although I seriously suggest you do so in the first place). Props to EA for making the co-op component absolutely lag-free even while playing with people from different countries (and I mean PAL countries only, since this game’s MP is region-locked). Besides co-op you have a bunch of mediocre PvP (player vs player) modes like Versus, Warzone, Extraction and Bounties that are nothing to shout about and you’ll find yourself heading back to CoD 4/TF2 ASAP.

Visually the game’s not bad-looking – but it’s nothing to drool over either. Certain levels (e.g. Miami) look pretty awesome while others like Somalia and Afghanistan are as generic as they come. One thing I do appreciate is the fact that frame rates are rock solid throughout the game, and both the lead characters (Rios and Salem) are extremely well-detailed.

As far as voice acting goes you have two "frat bros" constantly dropping the F bomb every few minutes while indulging in tons of juvenile jokes. While some of their banter was a bit funny, some was just plain annoying and seemed solely geared towards pleasing testosterone-charged fifteen-year-olds. But then again, this game is supposed to be a brainless shooter so it's no use expecting BioShock-esque writing in the first place, eh?

At the end of the day Army of Two is a game with tons of wasted potential. What irritates me further is that even though EA delayed this title significantly, it’s shipped with tons of problems, broken AI, and only half of the stuff we were promised initially, as a result of which it dives head-first into mediocrity. It could have rewritten the whole co-op tactical shooter genre as we know it but EA decided to rush out a dumbed-down shooter that’s painful to play alone thanks to stupid AI. Play it with a friend offline or online and you’ll enjoy the single player campaign to an extent. But after that’s over, there’s absolutely no reason to revisit the game!

LG Reveals KF300 Slim Fashion Phone

Fashion phones seem to be the in thing these days. 'If it ain't flashy it's trashy' – seems to be the sort of thing making waves in the mobile phone circuit these days. With Samsung's G600 Belle that recently debuted, LG has one to show off as well, their new KF300.

The KF300, to be brutally honest, while it looks slim and sleek does give off a bit of a girls-only type vibe. And that’s not a bad thing ladies. It’s a flip phone with a 2.2-inch QVGA display on the inside and a 1.3-inch TFT screen on the outside. The external screen has a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and the inside has a 240 x 320 pixel resolution with 256K colors. It’s quite the feature rich phone with a 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus to boot, Bluetooth, microSD card support, an FM radio as well as a media player. The KF300 will also support EDGE / GPRS. From the images you’ll also see that there are also a few shortcut keys located right under the screen. It also has a five way nav-pad and rather large keys which is surely a good thing.

The LG KF300 will be available in black and pink. Unfortunately there seems to be no price tag associated with the handset yet. Stay Tuned.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand Announced

Remember 50 Cent: Bulletproof? Remember how much that game sucked? Yeah well apparently it sold really well so Vivendi Universal are back with a sequel called 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

By Blood on the Sand they don’t mean the sand of a beach resort cos that would be way too mellow for Fiddy and his band of badass thugs AKA Gggggg G unit. This time around these player haters actually find themselves stuck in a war torn unnamed Middle Eastern country after one of their concerts gets fudged. As expected tons of F Bombs, rapping, bling and terrorist killing ensue.

The game is being developed by Swordfish Studios (Cold Winter) using the Unreal 3 engine and will include a bullet time mechanic called Gangster Fire that as the name suggests will allow Fiddy to blast fools in glorious slow motion. Also expect a cover system a la Gears of War and context sensitive games a la God of War. More details to be revealed soon.

AMD Ships Tri-Core Processors

AMD has announced the availability of its triple-core processors, a first for the PC market. The company also updated the quad-core Phenom lineup by resolving the famous "errata bug" that plagued it earlier this year and has confirmed that the quad-core Opteron chips for servers will be available later in the second quarter.

The AMD Phenom X3 processors delivers significant enhancements in gaming and high-definition experiences for mainstream PC customers. It provides a full HD experience with support for the latest and most demanding formats, including VC-1, MPEG-2 and H.264 on a mainstream PC. With the AMD Unified Video Decoder (UVD), the solution can process HD playback on the better-suited GPU rather than the CPU so consumers may enjoy a smooth HD viewing experience - less lag, stalling and dropped scenes - in the latest Blu-ray titles.

"In 2007, AMD committed to delivering AMD Phenom triple-core processors in Q1 2008 and today the company makes good on that promise," said Bob Brewer, corporate vice president, strategic marketing, AMD. "AMD understands that today's PC applications are best accelerated with a range of multi-core products from quad- to triple- to dual-core processors, and that’s why we now deliver the broadest multi-core desktop lineup in the industry."

Dell Unveils Sub-$1000 Blu-ray Laptop

Dell is offering a Blu-ray laptop, the Inspiron 1525, for under $1000.

Available from today on dell.com, movie buffs can pick up the laptop with optional Blu-ray disc playback starting at $879.

The Inspiron 1525 laptop features a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display with 720p resolution. It also includes an HDMI port for easy connectivity to high resolution displays and HDTVs.

The Blu-ray player disc drive is fully backwards compatible, and will play as well as burn traditional DVDs and CDs. Consumers can also choose a Blu-ray burner drive for backing up and storing important files like digital photos, videos, financial records, etc. A Blu-ray disc can hold up to 50 GB of data, vs. 8.5 GB available on the typical DVD disc.

The Inspiron 1525 offers designs like Chill, Blossom and Commotion, in colors like Sunshine Yellow, Midnight Blue and Ruby Red.

Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops with Blu-ray disc drives incorporate Broadcom Media PC technology that allows PCs with integrated graphics to play high definition video. The high-definition video playback is enabled through a built-in dedicated accelerator located in a mini-card slot.

The Inspiron 1525 features Dell MediaDirect technology, which provides one button instant access to media files, even if the system is powered off or in hibernation mode. Optional accessories include a slim travel power adapter ($80), Dell travel remote control that slips into the ExpressCard slot ($22), and Creative noise-isolation earphones ($25).

As of now the Inspiron 1525 laptop with Blu-ray is in the U.S., Canada and Europe, but let's hope with the tie-up with Croma we get to see this laptop here pretty soon.

Mobile Voip on Nokia Wi-fi Mobiles LaunchedMobile Voip on Nokia Wi-fi Mobiles Launched

Tpad has announced the availability of a free SMS text service that will automatically setup a WiFi enabled mass-market mobile phone that will bring free or ultra low cost mobile VoIP calls to millions.

The SMS text service is currently configured for Nokia's latest E and N series phones and will be updated when mobile phone producers such as Samsung and Motorola release their brand new WiFi phones later this year.

Mobile calls between Tpad users are free worldwide if the calls are routed over their WiFi Connection. All other PSTN calls from the user's WiFi mobile to any other landline or mobile in the world will be charged at the usual low Tpad VoIP rates.

This SMS text service has been designed to remove the need for complicated set up procedures. Customers need to create a mobile account that is free of cost and they will then automatically receive a free SMS text that will configure their phone's SIP settings with Tpad.

Tpad integrates seamlessly with the phone using the existing address book, so there's no need to retype your contacts. Once set up to use a WiFi hotspot, the mobile connects automatically next time the phone is in range.

No special software is needed, as it uses the inbuilt software that Nokia already has pre-installed. This ensures that there will be full compatibility with trouble free usage.

Chris Morris, Tpad's General Manager, said, "Tpad is at the forefront of the natural evolution of VoIP. First people began talking via a PC and headset, then they were tied to a fixed line IP device and now the next exciting step is Tpad mobile VoIP. Free calling has finally arrived on mass market mobiles. We are giving all new users who sign up for a free Tpad mobile account a free test call to the value of $0.50 for a limited period. This will give users the chance to experience the call quality of next generation mobile VoIP."

"For example, with this free credit you can make a 10 minute call to any mobile in Pakistan using our ultra low VoIP call rates. Of course calls between Tpad users are 100% free all the time.

If you combine this with our policy of no connection fees and per second billing we are at the forefront of the new wave of mobile VoIP companies".

Macbook Air Hacked in Under 2 Minutes

One of the things that Apple has always prided itself over and promoted in no uncertain terms, has been the so-called 'robust security' offered by its OSX operating system. However this supposition of Apple's took a huge beating on Thursday when a team of researchers from Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) managed to hack a MacBook Air in just two minutes using a previously unknown security vulnerability in Apple’s own safari browser.

The people who did the 'hack' were ISE security researchers - Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel – who were participating in the "PWN to OWN" competition at the CanSecWest security conference, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In this competition there were 3 laptops, with different OS’s offered for being hacked into. These included an Apple Macbook Air running OS X 10.5.2, a Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10 and a Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1. Anyone who could successfully hack or exploit these machines would win a $10,000 price from famous security company Tipping Point.

The first to go was of course the Macbook, followed by Windows Vista. Ubuntu stood strong despite repeated attempts.

For further details on this hack, check out this post here on Tipping Point.

Nvidia Responsible for 29% of Vista Crashes

In a recent revelation that should come to no surprise to anyone, Microsoft has released documents that show drivers for Nvidia PC graphics cards were the cause of roughly 29% of logged crashes in Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system.

This story which was reported by Ars Technica, goes on to say that Nvidia drivers caused 479,000 crashes out of a total of 1,663,748 logged by Microsoft in 2007. This was closely followed by Microsoft's own drivers followed at 18% while ATI clocked in at fourth with 9.3%, and Intel was at fifth with 8.8%.
This information came to light, when 158 pages of internal emails was made public as part of a lawsuit that is currently under-way against Microsoft. The suit contends that Microsoft was partially responsible for the rise of prices of computer hardware during the important Christmas/New year buying season of 2006.

Given the fact that Nvidia is today’s easily the world’s largest manufacturer of discrete external graphical display solutions, their figure of 29 percent should come as no surprise. I personally was a victim of this as an Nvidia user.