Quake Live adds support for Mac, Linux

id announced on Tuesday that support had been added to the game for Linux and Mac users. While this is at best ‘meh’ for me…I think the growing community of  Mac and Linux players were feeling a litle left out. Currently, Mac players are limited to playing through Safari, though id says that the Firefox/Mac combo will soon be a workable configuration.

Also interesting to note, that it might be going the paid route soon. John Carmak in one of this interviews said that the money received from ads within the game is well just not enough.

PS3 Slim Revealed

Getting straight to the point…The new PS3 slim measures 33 percent smaller, 36 percent lighter and consumes 34 percent less power. It’ll also pack a 120 GB hard drive as a middle ground between the current 80 GB and  the 160 GB SKU. The 120 GB size will also put it head-to-head with the Xbox 360 Elite.

Besides the new hardware, perhaps the biggest news is that the PS3 Slim will also bring with it a much slimmer price tag of $299, or 299 Euros, or 29980 yen.

For those of you who’ve been on the fence about buying a PS3, does this new hardware and price do it for you? Also note, that the new PS3 Slim is no longer PS2 backward compatible.

The pressure is on..how will you handle it?

Reality TV just gets better and better if you ask me. Enter truTV’s Black Gold – a stunning reality show about oil drillers in West Texas. Watch as the toughest guys in the Lone Star State get ready to do battle with their minds, bodies, wits and machines. The challenge: Drill four holes in just 50 days! Yes, 50 days!! And to make matters worse, they’re overseen by one of the toughest men to walk this route.
Black Gold comes from the creators of ‘Ice Road Truckers’ and ‘Deadliest Catch’, now in their second season of this thrilling challenge. The real question is will the men be able to handle it? They’ve put everything on the line – their jobs and more importantly – their lives.
If you thought this was gonna be easy – an on the job training requires massive amounts of physical energy along with mental strength and that never say die attitude. Because on the job – expect to be rough housed, push around, shouted at and cursed till your ears start to bleed.
Now if I were a roughneck (who’s to say I’m not), boy there would be some sorry folks when it comes to the employee review. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I’ve seen people work in oil drills and trust me this is as close to reality as it gets…but it’s even bigger!

Don’t miss Black Gold on truTV. Premiers August 19th at 10p/9c and catch a brand new episode every Wednesday at 10p/9c.
Take a sneak peek here of what to expect:

and more…

Ashes Cricket 2009 PC review

Those who were a fan of Brian Lara Cricket 2007, will definately take to this like duck to water - but yes, there are a few changes that make it well, a little more interesting and sort of a pain in the ass. I’ll get to more of the game a little later - what I’d really like to call out though is the graphics. They’ve done a decent job, but could have been a lot better, considering the pervious installment was over 3 years old. Also noticed that the logos are not entirely accurate and they’ve yet again not given access to full player names except in the world cup. But there’s a much better T20 format now with the music et al. Although I didn’t notice the cheerleaders and the dug out.

Anyway, back to more about the gameplay - Ashes 2009 is split into three disciplines: battling, bowling, and fielding. Most people will gravitate towards batting as it’s the most instantly satisfying, so we’ll deal with how well it’s been recreated first. When stood at the crease with a ball bearing down at you you’ve got a few shot options at your disposal. At the most basic level you press a button to either attack, defend or loft the ball - well that’s the theory anyway. A successful shot is all about good timing, with an on-screen meter showing you if you swung your bat too early, too late or just perfect.

Good bowling is essential if you’re going to stop your opponent scoring runs easily, but in Ashes 2009 it’s definitely the hardest of the three disciplines. It’s not tough to bowl the ball, with a button corresponding to a delivering type (swing, cut, spin, etc) being pressed once to begin with and again to set the delivery quality (via an on-screen meter), but consistently bowling high quality deliveries is very tricky. It’s essential you do though, as building up your confidence opens up more devastating bowling options that will really test the batsman.

Going hand in hand with bowling is field placement. If you’re trying to encourage the batsman to play some strokes by teasing him with deliveries outside his off-stump, in the hope that he’s going to edge one to slip, you better have some fielders in that position. Fielding is more or less handled automatically, but you can decide which end to return the ball to and catches are caught or dropped depending on if you press a button when the ball is surrounded by green (it cycles through red, orange and green) as it moves through the air. It’s quite basic, but full control of the fielders would have likely caused a fair few control and gameplay issues.

what’s dissapointing?

Although the batting and bowling is solid enough, the on-field presentation is lacking slightly. Player models and stadiums are decent, but the animations are clunky and don’t blend into one another well at all. There’s also a strange delay when a wicket is taken, meaning you’ll know you’re out but the fielders won’t react. Then a second later they’ll all leap into the air to celebrate. For a fairly average looking game the frame rate isn’t too hot either, frequently appearing a fraction too slow. Commentary is decent and the voice work by Beefy and Warne is solid, if a little sterile, but on the whole it’s not a game to show off to your mates.

Ashes Cricket 2009 is a solid recreation of the sport and this summer’s big sporting event, but it’s lacking spark and feels a little slight in terms of depth. Play with a friend as opposed to the AI and you’ll likely be able to have fun up to and beyond the end of the Ashes series, but as a next-gen sports sim it doesn’t feel as though Codemasters has done enough to push the series forward.

Here’s a sample game play video:

Test machine:

AMD Athlon X2 4800+, 2GB DDR2 800, Ati 4850 512, Windows vista ultimate 32 bit

Fantasy Football Season is on! Where are you?

Ok so I’m super kicked about this right now, I’m almost having a head rush as I’m writing this! Because this year I’ve got the edge!! The edge through WaiverWire!! What I loved about their site, is the ease and simplicity with awesome amounts of detail needed to make that informed draft!!
I signed up for their stimulus package which is a FREE one – I’m so impressed with it, I’m going to go in for the full package soon!  Fantasy football has always been a passion of mine..I mean it’s one of those games that I love getting deeply involved in. Apart from that I also do the Formula 1 draft, but that’s a story for another time. I’ve used a lot of tools earlier to help me with my drafts et al, but most of the time I’ve found that they’re too complex, lack enough information or just not user friendly enough. So far, the stimulus package from WaiverWire.com is looking great!!
But you know folks – like all sports its not the tools that matter it’s the strategy. Here are some of my strategy tips for fantasy football:

1.Leave your biases out – don’t pick your favorite player, go by numbers, leave your heart at home. If you take nothing away from my article, take this away at least!
2.Drafting starters helps a lot – When drafting, know what positions are required to start in your league, and then draft those positions.  Do not take three quarterbacks before locking up other key positions, unless you can start three quarterbacks.
3.Do your home work – I know this could be #1, but its at 3 because people just don’t do it and need to be reminded time and again. DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

Well folks these are my top tips for fantasy football – I would encourage you to download that tool at WaiverWire and try and it out..it’s very good and I think you’d like it very much.
All the best this year!!