Sunday 26 October 2008

Zombie Apocalypse

I read some reviews about Far Cry 2, and as I liked its predecessor (hmm may be not much the Sci-Fi part, the monsters were much less convincing that the humans), I began to be interested.

But although the game exteriors seem to be really gorgeous, it also seems to fail in a number of ways:

  • Character models really look like some cheap plastic. This was not a problem in a game like Doom 3, because monsters were much more important than the (very) few humans, but here it seems odd in this recreation of Africa. Also Interiors impressed me much less than landscapes,

  • No real story, enemies annoyingly respawning when you should have killed them minutes ago, and cheap tricks such as malaria bouts in the middle of action, or jeeps needing repair much too often to be real, enough to be annoying),

  • Long, long trips without real action / story, save maybe (over and over) the same checkpoints, over and over,

  • It seems you only see soldiers in the map, no villagers at all in 50 sq km ?

  • Why having a real map in your hand if this is a magical map ?



This does not impress me at all. I don't mind not super-high realism (even if it was advertised), but I mind getting bored but a non-existent story and long minutes of nothing.

And now for something completely different: The game I'm eagerly waiting for now is: Left 4 Dead, from Valve, of course.



Being in the middle of a zombie movie as one survivor really seems to be a great idea, especially if the zombies are of the speedy kind as in 28 Days Later. Having the game deciding the mood and drama depending on how you are doing so far is a feat. If it works, it is really the beginning of a new era in gaming.

What Ubisoft seem not to have understand is the fact that a video game (or a movie) is not about reality, and the world it paints for us is only a prop. Wanting to have the maximum realism at all costs is a mistake (and especially in the case of this game, because it is hindered by many other bad game decisions). Players (or film viewers) don't want realism, they want the illusion of realism. This is not the same thing at all.

Sunday 19 October 2008

Shazam

I just tried the free Shazam application on the iPhone (available through the AppStore), and it's really really great (even if I don't know if it could be really useful). In case you don't already know what it does, here it is:
You point your iPhone microphone in the direction of any music playing, wait for approx. 10 seconds, and it gives the title of the track, album, and even the cover... Some people commented that it could only recognize mainstream, but it's not true: although it failed on Neurosis, Asphyx, and 1349, it had absolutely no problems with random songs of Emperor, Zyklon, Gorgoroth, Carpathian Forest, Marduk, Celtic Frost, or Arkhon Infaustus.

I don't think this list can count for only mainstream ;-)

Saturday 18 October 2008

Interesting times

I just bought the last Bloodbath album: The Fathomless Mastery , featuring the return of Mikael Ã…kerfeldt. For me, it is a really good Death album.
All this will be followed, by:

Do I really have to choose ?
This was the good. And now the bad and the really really ugly: Vorkreist should have played near Plaisir this Week-end. But the sucker who is the director of the venue cancelled the gig because of possible troubles (sic) with Metalheads, whereas he organized another fucking French song concert took place near the venue the very same evening.

Friday 3 October 2008

My new Phone

You already know of course, I could have titled this My New iPhone. I have the new iPhone 3G since Tuesday, and I have only one thing to say about it: This is really a killer. No need for a user manual, internet navigation and mails as simple as on PC - no much more simple in fact, SMS dangerously simple to write and send, google maps (even with satellite view, and very very fast !!!), plenty of cool apps for free or a few euros, and oh it can be used as a phone too.

How I was happy to click on the youtube icon, search for Emperor, and be able to watch almost immediately one Wacken video of Inno A Satana (among many others, of course).