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Before reading this from cnet news. I really thought it would either be digital download or Blu-ray, never once I thought they could co-exist. But now I think its possible because we are not dealing with two similar formats here like the HD war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Blu-ray is a physical storage medium while digital download is well, digital where data is stored in say, a hard drive.

There will always be people that prefer to buying the actual DVDs instead of downloading even when broadband Internet access becomes widely popular and fast. One reason being is that a lot of people, including me, are not comfortable downloading everything off from the Internet. Another reason will be the hard drive space you need to purchase in an on-going basis. And in the very near future, almost everything will be in HD format, we will be dealing with large files (think of a Blu-ray disc which holds either 25/50 GB). There are two questions you have to ask yourself before going the digital path.

- Are you willing to wait for a while in order to download such large files?
- Are you willing to constantly buy hard drives to store your data?

Of course, these two questions are irrelevant if broadband Internet access becomes extremely fast and that the price of hard drive space is like buying candies. But still, would you rather have a collection of DVDs on your shelf or a collection of hard drives instead?

I think in the end, the two WILL co-exist where people will use both depending on the situation. For movies, most likely people will continue to buy physical DVDs and download things that take up less storage space such as games and trailers (which is a common thing already on xBox Live and PSN).

Looks like there won’t be a war, at least not so soon.

I could hardly concentrate at work today because I knew once I got off work, I would be driving to EBGames close to my home for a copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Ever since I tried out the demo. I could not get it off my mind. One reason because I have hardly played any Star Wars related games prior to the release of this game. Although I was really close to getting Lego Star Wars but I didn’t in the end. That’s why I love downloadable content so much because you can actually try out the games before you buy. And a lot of the games that I like happen to offer demos.

But did the game live up to my expectation?

 

Graphics & Audio

The graphics are amazing and I have mentioned that in my demo review already. But with the demo you could only see so much since it was only part of a level. The voice over and lip synching is much more life like compare to other games with dialogues. One thing I forgot to mention from my demo review is that, the environments really give you the impression that you are within something massive like when you are inside the hangar or deep inside the ship’s core. And since so many people asked, no this game does NOT support 1080p full HD output unfortunately. It would be nice if it was though obviously.

And as for audio, I’m no expert but I like the sound effects, specially the lasers and when you are killing enemies with your beam sabre. The sound effects are really movie-like. I have not encountered any missing audio yet as reported by Gametrailers.com. It did mention about missing audio in the ending though. That would be such a turn off!

 

Game play & Controls

With the EMM engine controlling what materials to use for creating each object, the Havok controlling the objects’ movements and finally the last engine, the Euphoria engine determining how enemies react to their environments. The combined affect of the three physics engines really created a realistic experience. For example, watch closely when you Force Grip an enemy, if he is close to some crates, he will actually try and hold on to it. I think little details like this really add to over gaming experience. I have not encountered any clipping problems so far reported by Gametrailers and I hope I do not. The game is also somewhat on the short side as well with only 9 missions.

Controls are pretty straight forward, if you have played other action games before it will take you no time to get used to the figure out which button is for what purpose. When fighting bosses, you will finish them off by following a set of buttons much like in Heavenly Sword. If you fail to excute perfectly, you will have to start over again. Overall you will go through each level killing enemies with a few different combo moves, and the hack and slash may bored some players after a while. It quickly turns into a level grinding fest like an RPG game when trying to level (power) up your three forces – Force Lightning, Force Grip and Force Push. The forces do provide hours of excitement but after that, they become just a bunch of weapons. And did I mention there’s no online game play?

 

Final verdict

After all the hype generated over the past few months, I can assume this game will be a must for hardcore Star Wars fans. Those that are into third person action like Devil May cry may also find this game entertaining. But for how long? That really depends on how fast you get bored of repetitive game play with no online component. In my opinion, its another game that didn’t quite live up to the hype generated unfortunately. At least its good for a rental game.

7.5/10

 

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Lap-Band surgery is one of many ways to lose the extra unwanted weight and is considered to be the least invasive bariatric surgery available. Each surgery generally takes about 40 minutes where patients can leave a few hours after post surgery and be ready for work or any normal activities within 4-5 days. Unlike many other relatively more invasive operations, Lap-Ban surgery only requires a very small incision in the stomach to allow a small restrictive device. The device consists of a small band with a balloon inside that is filled with a saline solution around the top section of the stomach and connected to a tube and in the end with a access control switch that will control the amount of “contraction” of the band. This contraction slows down food from going into the stomach and makes the patient feel full for a longer period of time. The band also creates a “pouch” in the upper stomach which holds less food than the rest of the stomach and therefore making the patient eat less.

If you want to learn more about Lap-Band Surgery, one of the specialists performing such operation is Dr. Richard E. Collier and his office is located at Conroe, Texas. He also provides free weekly seminars for those interested to learn more.

His web site is easy to navigate and packed with useful information from about himself, Lap-Band FAQ, nutritional info, body mass info to testimonials etc.

Just found out from Gametrailers the former Playmate will be our new sexy Tanya. While I don’t deny Jenny to be…sexy. Don’t you think its time to find someone a bit younger? When I was looking at the video, the British blonde Gemma Atkinson on the left of the screen in the second half of trailer basically got the rest of my attention until the end.

I personally think Angelina Jolie suits the role better, probably because of her Lara Croft role and she is 2 years younger than Jenny. Then again its just my personal preference. I guess the clips are only a small part of the game, the actual game play is where the core of this game is. As a long time Japanese anime fan, I am really looking forward to trying out the Empire of The Rising Sun faction with its transformerish units. The only thing I worry about is if my PC can handle the game.

I received an email about intodit, a free flexible hosted WiKi service. I spent some time browsing around intodit and I found it easy to navigate through pages. The site combines social networking and wikipedia together where people with the same interests can join similar groups and discuss/contribute to similar topics. Another feature that I like is you can browse through different WiKi categories so you can quickly jump around different interests with just a few clicks.

Ok so its just a WiKi, you will probably ask why does it look and feel like a social networking site? Each pages’ theme can be customized with different background pictures, logos and font styles. Instead of the plain-o white background from wikipedia. You can also add videos/music clips, images and display them much like on Facebook and MySpace but in a drag and drop style. On the other hand wikipedia displays information mostly in a form of text with a few to no images.

 

The site looks like its pretty new, so there isn’t a lot of contents added yet. Hopefully in a few months or so, there will be more added to it!

 

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The $8 billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, a system that will help test and answer some of the universe’s questions such as the Big Bang theory, was hacked last Friday. The system that was hacked was reportedly “one step away” from a control computer but did not cause any major damage.

There were many people rejecting the machine and the experiment because they believed if something went wrong, it would create black holes that would eat up the earth. Well I don’t blame them since not everyone is a scientist. Well, we are still alive after the initial test.

I just checked the CERN web site and it wasn’t working for some reason. Hacked again? Or too much traffic?

Scientists invovled in this experiment have been receiving death threats from phone calls and emails.

Source: news.cnet.com

After following Steel Frog‘s Photoshop tutorial called Dark Art that teaches you ways of creating freakish looking eye ball. The instructions are very clear and to the point even I found it easy to follow since I’m still a Photoshop beginner.

I created a quarter of Angelina’s face when I followed the tutorial a few days ago. Today I have alienized the entire face of Angelina Jolie with a some subtle changes plus a major skin texture change. At first I was planning to use the “blood veinish” texture on the lips only. And ended up pretty good on the entire face as well. I have also toned down the color of the eyes to make them look a bit more blend in to the rest of the face. Finally I have also changed the three “space scars” on her face with a different layer option called vivid light instead of pin light. Again experimenting with other options sometimes can end up with positive surprises.

Here is the pictures of my quarter face:

And the entire face: [click to enlarge]

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So today, I went to Gametrailers.com and guess what, I found another LittleBigPlanet trailer. And boy, another EPIC one. I just cannot wait until I get a copy in October, October 21st to be exact based on Gametrailers.com. The end of the trailer mentioned there is another part to this! I seriously can’t wait, I think the hype that is being generated by this game is just as great as Metal Gear Solid 4 generated a few months ago, if not more in my opinion. I know i’m not comparing apple to apple because they are two different types of games.

LittleBigPlanet’s innovative game style is what attracts me and a alot of people. With its massive list of customization from character (sack boys and girls) customization (which reminds me if you pre-order the game, you get the Krato custom from God Of War from EBGames) to creating your own levels. I strongly believe customization is the way to go for future games because everyone wants to be unique and different in his or her own ways.

Anyway, let’s cut to the point and enjoy the trailer from GT. Oh by the way, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be out in less than a week! Stay tuned for my review.