Archive for February, 2008

Audiosurf a Musical Masterpiece

Audiosurf is an easy but cool looking game. This game combines 2 things most of us likes music and gaming. Before you start the game you have to choose a song from your MP3 collection or a song which is already in the game. The game will then make a customized course based on the song. Audiosurf is technically impressive and it takes only a few seconds to create a course based on the song you want.

Audiosurf is a very easy racing game where you follow a course and you have to avoid blockings in your way. The game features many different game modes and the “easy” gameplay can be very hard at some times. The game mixes up some tetris modules and you have to avoid and catch different blocks in different colors while you are driving. The courses are nicely built after the music and if you play a course made for Death metal it will be a lot harder then a song for Titanic. You are also able to play online versus your friends etc. This system is very cool because you will be to find a list with all songs played online and you can see the record for each song so here you can hold the world record on your favorite songs if you are good enough. The game will be out this month and I think it will be a great arcade hit and a party game.

Alone in the Dark 4 Delayed (PS3)

Alone in the Dark 4 was actually going to be released this month but has now been scheduled for March which is quite understandable since they had many things to improve before they released the final product. Alone in the Dark is a third person horror shooter but you can also play in first person. The first person aiming is however awful and you wont be able to hit many creatures like that. The physics of the game are quite bad so they have some things to fix before they start to sell this game.

Like all the other Alone in the Dark games this one also features many puzzle missions. But the puzzles have improved greatly and are more realistic then ever. Before the puzzles were like “find the storm key to open the storm door” now they are more like find an iron bat to break down the door”. Everything is in a very realistic environment. The game also features cool attack combos like spraying some monsters behind a fence full of gasoline and throw a match and watch them burn to death. Lets just hope they will fix some of the physic bugs and the first person aiming before we gets it in the stores in May.

PowerBooks

Upon its invention, computers were touted as the next big thing to hit the world of technological innovations and personal computers had been since then considered one of the most marvelous inventions of the times. However, personal computers today have been pushed to the back by another improved version, most commonly referred to as the laptop. Macintosh or Mac is the premium brand name by which Apple’s range of personal computers is known and PowerBooks refer to the laptop versions of these Mac computers. With the coming of the MacBooks however, the PowerBooks were retracted from service in 2006. But it should be admitted without any note of disbelief that PowerBooks were extremely efficient and won a series of awards for their proficiency. Some of these awards include Endgadget’s ‘Laptop of the Year’ in 2005 and ‘Gold’ status in the 2001 Industrial Excellency Awards.

The first series of PowerBooks introduced were three in number PowerBook 100, PowerBook 140 and PowerBook 170 and they were immensely successful to the extent that it is estimated that it took hold of a share of a whopping amount of 40% of the total laptop sales. In fact PowerBook 100 had been ranked by Mobile PC as the ‘#1 gadget of all time.’ The PowerBook 500 series was also referred to as ‘Blackbird’ and it was the first laptop to allow built-in Ethernet networking and the first computer ever to use a trackpad. However, the PowerBook 5300 which was highly anticipated turned out to be a major failure and Apple introduced new PowerBook 1400 to make up for its debacle. These were the first PowerBooks to possess an internal CD drive. The PowerBook G3 was launched in 1998 and climbed popularity charts and its versions like the ‘Lombard’ and the ‘Pismo’ were provided with newer innovations like AGP graphics and the use of AirPort wireless networking.

However, it was in 2006 that this series was terminated and was replaced by the MacBook versions.

Sony BMG will finally delete the DRM and let the music flow free on the internet. They are the last of the dinosaurian companies that have to late realize that protecting the music this way is not going to work.

First out to release the music with no DRM is Justin Timberlake’s trough Amazon.
We can always hope that the big movie companies will follow the music companies and stop the protecting that does not work anywhere. Look how far it took Apple with iPhone 24 hour and the iphone was cracked.

The free sharing is here to stay and there is nothing the companies can do to stop it. They can just follow behind or be in the lead.