Antique Code Show I remember 1991 starting on a sombre note, with my sister and I sitting in a bar doing shots under an Apocalypse Now poster waiting for the start of World War III, as we watched US bombers strafe Iraq. The end of civilisation? Well, not quite.
Civil engineering?
Looking back on events of the time, the emerging Civilization completely kickstarted the turn-based strategy (TBS) game genre and opened it up to the general public, thus spawning a franchise that continues to sell after three decades and that is still going strong. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Many years ago, a family friend who at the time flew for the United States Air Force gave me a personal tour around a Fairchild A10 Thunderbolt and said: “Y’know, Al, she ain’t a plane she’s more a gun with wings.”
Something similar could be said about the Scenic Bose Edition which isn’t so much a car as a Stereo system with a tyre at each corner.
Bose-black suits the design
In every way, the new Bose Edition is the pinnacle of Scenic evolution. Not only does it come with the sort of Stereo you simply don’t find in cars of this class but it also has an integrated TomTom navigation pack, the latest turbo-diesel stop/start drive train and a styling pack that comes close to making it look like a car you would actually want to buy rather than have to because of untamed fecundity. Read the rest of this entry »
Product Round-up I wish I had my own flat, but I don’t. Cue Slayer Reign in Blood thundering from upstairs. Six hours into a raid and my housemate comes home and turns the volume up on their shitty boombox above my head and I have completely lost any sense of immersion. Yes I could get into a ‘speaker-off’ with them but luckily I have some of the best headsets around to hook up and bring back my suspension of disbelief.
Yes, I tend to dribble at a decent amount of polygons but if you’re playing Amnesia: the Dark Descent, gameplay is all about the atmosphere and to really make the most of it you want to be sure you’ve got the best gaming headset that blocks out the most background noise. A lot of these headsets boast virtual 7.1 surround sound aimed at your lifer FPS gamer but really how immersive are they? To find out, I tested these headsets on World of Warcraft, Battlefield, Bad Company 2 and my favourite mixcloud of the moment.
1. Creative Sound Blaster Tactic 3D Sigma
Creative knows what its doing and prove this on a regular basis with top end gaming hardware. These are decent sounding gamer-spec cans featuring fairly convincing surround sound for the price. Pretty pretty, easy to instal and use, the THX TruStudio Pro software almost had me onside.
World of Warcraft PVP really showed off the intense, penetrating output this headset can deliver. From the off using the default settings, the Creative Sigmas can definitely do loud, without distorting. The main selling point of these headphones is the 3D audio – delivering 5.1 and 7.1 soundfields from just two drivers with Creative’s THX TruStudio Pro audio technology. Read the rest of this entry »
Android App of the Week I’m not a big enthusiast of mobile phone photography. As long as the end result is in focus and the lighting doesn’t make it look like it was taken on the surface of some distant planet orbiting a green sun, I’m happy. If I want better, I use a real Camera.
The sketchy UI
But if your photographic emphasis is more on fun than verisimilitude, JFDP Labs new Paper Camera app is worth its asking price. In a nutshell, it takes pictures and converts them into graphic art right there on your handset. Read the rest of this entry »
Generally, users have two beefs with Android. One, handsets often don’t get updated when a new version of the OS rolls out from the Chocolate Factory, and, two, many of the bespoke overlays and ROMs cooked up by handset makers and telecos are more akin to painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa than adding anything of value to the user experience.
Luckily, you can fix both these problem, and fix them quite easily by installing a new ROM to replace the entire operating system with a better version. There are several out there, some generic, others coded for specific handsets. Probably the best one is CyanogenMod.
CyanogenMod: revamp your Android
The latest version – at the time of writing; updates are frequent – is CM7. It’s available for a wide range of devices, including HTC’s Desire and Desire HD; Samsung’s Galaxy S; and even Dixons/Advent’s Vega tablet. There’s a visual list of supported handsets on the CM website. I installed it on an Orange San Francisco – aka ZTE Blade – kindly lent to me by Orange. Read the rest of this entry »
