Archive for the 'Entertainment' category

Doom 2009

So, the great FPS game will be back before the end of the year 2009. Either the launch campaign started early in Nepal or the bus drivers are using their vehicles as video game weapons (the latter would explain the extraordinarily high frequency of dramatic road accidents there).

The arrival of Windows 7 also annonces the arrival of a new updated DirectX to serve the PC gamers’ community. We already knew that Vista did not have the favour of the gamers (who often stayed with Windows XP) and that had (among other things) some significant impact on DirectX 10 that required Vista. Will gamers now run to Windows 7? It’s possible, but if you want to see the real progress brought to video games (here, to the very popular Crysis FPS) by the various version of DirectX, check the video below:

See what happens to video game players, when a real World Rally Championship (WRC) pilot takes them to the real dirt. “Are you ready for the real thing?” Ken Block is not only a good driver, he’s trying his best to have them p…ing their pants.

Source: Autoblog.

If you want to grab the maximum CPU power for your PC video game (or any other PC application, by the way), there is a free utility that will ensure that the PC CPU does not spend to much time on anything else: Game Booster. It may be bad for a correctly balanced performance, but some games may appreciate the help.

Nota: This is similar to AMD Fusion Tool, but simpler.

In automobile racing, if you start from the last position, it is difficult to come back to the 1st position. But if you have the same car as the other drivers, this is even worse.

Dean Evans, in 1985 did much better than this in an Australian car race where all the competing cars were Lotus Elise: He went from the 16th and last position to the pole position within a single lap.

Watch this demonstration from a hell of a race driver:

Plenty of people will try to teach you how to create a good business card. Catchy, well-designed, well-balanced and unforgettable.

Apart from the plain design (OK by that time), here the best possible business card. You will never forget about this guy.

The best business card, ever

Unfortunately, we will not know who W.W.Green is.

The exact text:

Simply the best video player for Windows, VLC, just quit its long beta phase. This is official now, VLC v1.0.0 is available with a list of small improvements brought to an already impressive product that I can only recommend if you are using video (to read DVD, BluRay, HD-DVD discs; to stream videos from your computer; to convert your videos; and I sure forget some).

How many PC gamers started their career with video games as raw (according to today’s criteria) as Doom or even Quake. We may find their quality too low for our eyes, but they already demonstrated their main strength: the gamer found interesting adversaries and environments where you could not know what would happen behind the corner of a corridor (that generation of video games did not yet open the doors to a wide environment like in FarCry or Crysis).

Doom 1

Already, before the year 2000, PC games were expensive. But here comes the Internet and bands of Internet users now expect to find free things all around. Authors of such games (like Id Software) decided to follow this trend and offer some of these older games as ways to attract more customers for other games. These ones start by being free, and stay as being very pleasant to play.

Doom was put in the public domain a few years ago. Consequence: Here is somebody deciding to re-write it in Flash and you will be able to play Doom (more precisely, Doom 1). You will need Flash 10 and I’m told that PowerPC Macs are not compatible, but you’re going to tote a shotgun and the BFG mini-gun at outer-space monsters and without paying (free).

Doom is not enough? You want more, more quality, more guns, more speed? Why not Quake? Id Software just opened access to QuakeLive.com. For free, you’ll get to play Quake, right now, freely, for no money. It will be fun…

More precisely, here is Quake III Arena with free access to all. It will go fast. This is violent gaming. It will only stop when you’re dead.

This is not enough? Again? So, let me offer some video games with calmer settings, but still free. Even better, Linux games.

live.linuX-gamers.net succeeded at preparing Live-DVDs (DVD that are completely autonomous, you can boot on them without installing Linux).

live.linuX-gamers.net (DVD)

What could be hiding in your cell phone? The worst is still possible as shown in this diabolical video.

Say you are parent to a kid who is more than willing to play those games that he/she discovered with his/her friends and you don’t know much about them. It’s time to learn some before you make a decision about letting fun happen or not.

From IGN vault.

I learned (in karting) that you should not break and that you must choose the best trajectory. These French and Italian drivers are decidedly learning. And they crash so many cars that they are helping reduce the impact of recession on car manufacturers.

Be ready for more than 90 minutes of broken WRC cars, or crash compilation videos.

Final note: Even if most of these crashes happened about 20 years ago (there are plenty of Golf GTI, R5 GT Turbo, 205 GTI, Fiat Uno, Autobianchi Abarth and others 1980’s cars), some of them have killed or maimed people. So, drive safely and use the highway.

You could fully appreciate this video only if you have some experience of Role Playing, but I couldn’t help posting it here.

Stan, this video is partly dedicated to you, the Dungeon Master.

I am a great fan of miniature model railways. But this one is all railways, locomotive, trains geeks want. It’s ok for kids as well as adults.

This is so nice: A Stop-motion video that is very well done, funny.