MV, AKA me, shares his thoughts on the games industry, the future and personal experience.
More of a blog than a column, but that may change...

• 13Nov 09

  Smallworlds: A beautiful little indie game

  I don't blog much, and this will be a short one. I found this beautful little game at RatherGood.com:

  http://www.rathergood.com/small_worlds

  Hopelfully some people will read this and experience this jewel. It hhas done incredible things, with outstandingly clever level design, an intersting gameplay concept (play it to find out), and a very moody feel created by both excellent music and an original artistic style (textured Atari 2600 -- it has to be seen).

  I have come away feeling sad, and yet also uplifted. I'm not sure what this game is all about to be honest, but I will look into it.

  Anyway, if anyone reads this I'd like to know. You know how to tell me! Leave a comment.

  • Posted Nov 13, 2009 9:16 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 26Oct 09

  Why Laptops Imbibe

  You probably know I don't like laptops. Not one bit. And I suppose there's not too much wrong with them. They may not be great but they a few decent features. However, what really sucks is that people are now using them instead of desktops.

  Last year, laptop sales boomed while desktop sales slumped.

  http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/01/2008-could-be-the-year-laptop-sales-eclipse-desktops-in-us.ars

  This is worrying. Very much so.

  You see, laptops have this mainstream appeal: ie, teenage girls love 'em. In my school, you can't go into a room without seeing a girl listening to pirated hip-hop music.

  This probably wouldn't be such an issue if teenage girls with brain defects actually knew anything about computers. Perhaps they'd realsie that they're paying huge amounts of money for an underpowered desktop? Stores can sell laptops for whatever price they want since you can't build you own: everything is proprietry.

  This is one of the saddest things about laptops: despite breaking all the time, nobody seems to care because they're just used to having about 10 companies dictate what they buy, and forcing them to deal with their dire customer service because all the components are the company's own.

  In general, you get about half of a desktop's power for double the price, or so it seems. Ie, say you have a £500 desktop. It would cost around £1000 if you were to buy a laptop with half the specs. You can pay £2000 for something with integrated graphics!

  At least the screens are big, but then you have netbooks: thoses horrible little disc-driveless things. I used to have a laptop. I wasn't allowed to choose which one I got. And it had NO DISC DRIVE! Believe me, this is immensely frustrating, especially as a gamer. It meant I had to plug in a bug fat external discdrive to use any discs. It was the same size as the laptop itself, and needed to be plugged into the wall just to work.

  Netbooks don't even have the afforementioned big screens, but I suppose they're okay for one reason: price. They're inexpensive, and don't question the fact that they're meant for one app: FireFox. But then, of course, they had to spoil it all. Yup, the phone networks are now renting them out like flipping contract phones! This is someone's PC here, people, not just a little, unused phone!

  Well, that's enough ranting for now, but I may post another blog if I remember something else that sucks, like constant overheating or lack of USBs.

  In conclusion, I suppose laptops are okay for travelling businessmen, but only if used for work. That's what they're for. All these people need to learn that laptops are not the way to go for your own home computer, used for pleause: a desktop is the only way to go. Keep your laptop for browsing the web on the go, but buy a desktop for goodness sake!

  And yes, it seems the perfectly normal four letter word beginning with s and ending with k which is a synonym both of to imbibe and to be rubbish is in fact sensored.

  • Posted Oct 26, 2009 3:49 am GMT
  • Category: Computers
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• 23Oct 09

  Carphone Warehouse Are Filthy Liars!

  Oh my god!

  Today, I was at a shopping centre looking for a cheap USB memory stick, and ventured into the pit that is The Carphone Warehouse. As usual, I was greeted by an array of mobile phones, mobile broadband, accessories and laptops.

  Now, I may not like laptops and advocate the usage of desktop computers, but one caught my eye -- and not for its stylish colouring and fabulous free bundled rubbish. Instead, it was the promotion displayed on screen.

  It was a video of numerous popular and recent PC games, including the smash-hit graphical behometh Call of Duty 4. I found it slightly ironic to tout a laptop with PC gaming. However, even if this specimen was better suited to a teenage girl who's intersts include pirating music and "Fessburk", there are decent laptops out there.

  Unsurprisingly, it was decked out with an intel integrated GMA. Yuck, I know, but good enough for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word, the primary programs of non tech-savvy users. What got to me was the message at the top of he screen,l which read something like this:

  "To make sure you are achieving the very best performance in all the latest PC games, make sure your laptop has Intel™ Integrated Graphics!"

  

  • Posted Oct 23, 2009 5:36 am GMT
  • Category: Technology
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