Resistance: Retribution impressions

Sony Bend Studio's last PSP game wasn't that great. In fact it was awful. But by the simple fact of giving people the option to use auto-target, their latest game Resistance: Retribution plays a bit like a proper console shooter game as it does make use of the face buttons (which emulate the functions of the right analogue pad rather shoddily) less important. Still even though Resistance: Retribution looks like a third person shooter, it is actually more similar to a first person game.



Toggling the up button allows you to switch between auto and manual aim. Most of the time you will likely just ignore them as manual mode is simply too difficult to use (it zooms in a bit). The left button reloads your weapons and pressing the right will cycle through the available weapons. Firing is via the right shoulder button whilst the left shoulder button offers an alternate fire (if available). Sony Bend has also coded in options that will allows you to customise the speed and acceleration somewhat though I think the default setting was perfect. You can also turn off aim assist and auto recentre if you feeling a bit superior. Weapons includes an automatic, rifle, grenades and rocker launcher. No doubt more will be uncovered in the full game.

Auto aiming works well. As enemies enter the area covered by your weapons reticule you can merely press the right shoulder button down to lock on the enemy and let it do the work. At most you will need to run around for cover, kill a bunch of close enemies, switch to the rocker launcher and aim at ranged enemies like giant robots. I was fairly surprised by how intuitive the controls were considering how much I hated the PSP version of Syphon Filter. Here I found the gameplay to be of second nature, so well done to Sony Bend in getting at least the controls right.



The visuals are rather impressive. The frame rate is very smooth and never stuttered despite the number of enemies and special effects. While the grotto is fairly limiting (there is no sense of epic scale in the demo), the graphical details are still incredible. The load time seems to be very quick, not surprising considering I was running the demo from a Memory Stick. Perhaps the only issues of contention I can think of is the lack of anti-aliasing filter, and it doesn't look nearly as pretty as God of War: Chains of Olympus (which I doubt any developer can surpass except maybe Ready at Dawn themselves).

Resistance: Retribution certainly looks good and the gameplay seems to be working fine. In a year where one isn't expecting plenty of quality games, it is one of the few PSP titles (including Dissidia, Disgaea 2 and Patapon 2) I am actually looking forward to.

This impression is based on the demo. Resistance: Retribution is due out this March.

EU bureaucrats

As much as I hate Internet Explorer I do not buy EU's argument against Microsoft for bundling IE in their Windows OS. Jesus, Apple bundles their crappy Safari web browser with Mac OSX and until recently would not allow people to install third party web browsers on the iPhone despite calling it a 'smartphone'. What about iTunes? Nokia bundles a webkit browser on their Series 60 phones. Hell, even Nintendo is going to bundle a crappy web browser on the next DS revision. For fuck's sake how the fuck am I going to download Firefox and Opera if my system does not come with a web browser.

Fucking hypocrites.

Stop wasting our money and work on improving our lives instead. Jeez.

Battlestar Galactica: Sometimes A Great Notion re-cap

Holy frak.

The 13th episode (or 11th not counting Razor) of the final season of Battlestar Galactica did not disappoint. I know that some has been lamenting the lack of cohesive direction the series has been heading, but boy am I happy that finally some questions are finally being answered even as new ones are being created. The revelation of the last Cylon may prove significant just yet (and I have a theory on that - see below). But with just nine full-lenght episodes to go I question whether or not the series can afford to play around with new plots and story arcs. We will see.



Some spoiler-free re-cap:

• Earth was nuked, that much we have always known - but how long ago was revealed.
• Starbuck and Leoben finds something that freaks Starbuck.
• For the first time ever Leoben looks genuinely puzzled and frightened.
• Tyrol remembers something.
• Anders remembers something.
• Tigh remembers something.

Proper re-cap (the one with the spoilers)

• Earth was nuked 2000 years ago.
• All bones so far has been found to have once belonged to Cylons.
• Basically the 13th Colony were Cylons. Earth's humans were Cylons. Just a different form of Cylons to the one the Colonies created.
  
• Starbuck and Leoben finds the wreckage of Starbuck's Viper, and her charred remains.
• Dee gets back together with Lee for one final date, then kills herself.
  
• Tyrol, Anders, Tigh, Tory lived on Earth 2000 years ago.
  
• William Adama, griefed stricken, did not succed in killig himself via a Cylon. Great scene.
• Ellen is the fifth Cylon.

Some theories:

• Earth's Cylons can reborn, or at least the so-called final fives.
• In fact Ellen is being reborn. She is the baby inside Caprica Six.
• Kara isn't a Cylon, but she isn't human either. My guess is she is the first Cylon/Human hybrid.
  
• The ones who nuked Earth were humans, possibly Colonists. If not a schism has developed between the Earth's Cylons (who by then has forgotten they were Cylons).
• There is no 'Final Five', everyone is a Cylons. In fact we will see Dee, Cally, Billy, pretty much everyone whom we thought was frakked - back. Lame but Cally kicking Tory's ass would be wonderful.
  

Sennheiser MX 300 headphone review

So what can you expect from £5 these days? Well you could get a 'burger' or two at McDonalds. Or you could get a Sennheiser MX 300 from Richer Sound.

I wasn't expecting much when the Richer Sound guy chuck a pair into my palm. After all the MX 300 is Sennheiser's lowest common denominator in a range that spans from it to the £200 high-end IEM IE 8. The case housing the driver is made of plastic and felt cheap and light. The cable was thick and sturdy, an actual improvement over the cables used on some of their more expensive headphones like the CX 300. Overall the design is pretty generic. In fact the MX 300 is quite possibly the ugliest earphones I have ever seen. Still what matters is whether it sounds good...



Not expecting much I tore the poly bag, unplugged my Klipsch, plugged in the MX 300 and pressed 'Play'. Whoa. This little thing sounds amazing (for its price). Sure they sound like crap when compared to the Custom-3 (or any of the Customs actually...) and is uncomfortable like hell, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The bass was almost none-existent until I used the EQ to increase the low-end. The highs were shrilled a little bit and vocals recessed. But they do sound way better than the stock buds that came with my old Creative MuVo and Samsung DAP, though no where near the clarity of my Walkman's stock headphones. They also don't leak as much sound as the Sonys though.

I wouldn't exactly recommend the MX 300 at least unless you really really need something cheap. It is probably wise to get the best that your budget would permit and unless you are only planning on spending a mere £5 (versus the hundred or two you plonked down for your DAP), I would recommend something like the Sennheiser CX 300 or Denon AH-C351 instead for those on a tight budget.

But for people who hates canalphones and finds them uncomfortable or just do not care that much about sound quality (shame on you), and more importantly for the idiots who pay £25 to replace their bundled iPod headphones with the same, you really can't go wrong with Sennheiser's MX series.

Nokia E71 first impressions

I've been playing with my loaner E71 for a couple of hours now and I am finding myself loving the experience. The E71 is the QWERTY version of the E66 which I've reviewed previously. Apart from some minor changes inside (lack of accelerometer, much larger battery) and the form factor, it is practically the same device. As with the E51 and E66, the built quality is excellent with its lovely and tough stainless steel body.

The keypad is stunningly usable, much more than those virtual keyboards I've tried on those touch screen-only devices. Almost immediately I found myself accustomed to the keypad, typing out messages with far less mistakes and far quicker than I did when playing around with the Blackberry Storm and Apple iPhone. The only QWERTY devices I've reasonable experience with were the XDA IIs (HTC Blue Angel), XDA mini S (HTC Wizard) and XDA Exec (HTC Universal). All were excellent devices with excellent keypads, but I personally am finding the E71's keypad to be offer better response, tactile feedback and accuracy.

Look out for my review once I have installed a couple of favourite applications and have more time with the device.

Nintendo's new controller

Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains wants £5 admin fee to process a refund for tickets we never use. This despite the train service being completely cancelled due to their fucking incompetence in managing the West Coast line and having a line that breaks within the first sight of slow.

Fucking cunts.

Update: They refunded, minus a £10 admin fee. Daylight robbery. Fucktards.

Oh Britain...

These were the best selling video games in Britain last year... Oh dear.

1. Mario Kart Wii
2. Wii Fit
3. Wii Play
4. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training
5. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
6. GTA IV (360)
7. GTA IV (PS3)
8. Call of Duty: World at War (360)
9. Carnival Funfair (Wii)
10. FIFA 09 (360)