IT, video game, and mobile news, IT tips, good links, and reviews! Welcome!

Bioshock 2 – Not Bad

I picked up Bioshock 2 and was really excited to play it. I loved the first game. Everything from the controls to the story line and scenery. It gave a sense of sorrow for Andrew Ryan who meant well creating Rapture, but you see it crumbling all around you. Bioshock 2 I was hoping would not do any less.

The first thing that I noticed when I put the disc in was the picture was “letterbox”. Meaning it was made for a widescreen TV. Now I do not have a whole lot of money so I am still using my old SD standard format TV that I have had for years. So not only am I missing 3/4 of an inch from the top and bottom of my screen, the text is unreadable! I had this happen once before with the “it-was-meh” Infinite Undiscovery title from SquareEnix. I changed my 360’s format to widescreen even though I did not have the TV for it. The picture was not distorted, at least not that I could tell, and I could read the text (although still small). Once I began to play the game though I really enjoyed it!

I like that they kept most of the old plasmids in the game. Incinerate was always my favorite. The new tonics were fun to find and experiment with as well. The weaponry was a definite bonus. New weapons like the chain gun (which could be compared to the Tommy Gun from the first installment) and the drill made the game interesting. Fighting of new enemies the the brutish splicer and the Big Sisters with the drill was a lot of fun.

The game’s difficulty curve seemed to be a bit all over the place at first. I started the game on the normal difficulty and played all the way through it on that. They do give you the option to change the difficulty at any given time as well. Once I got used to everything it seemed to get easier though. The story was easy to follow and it filled in some gaps from the first game nicely. The ending left a sense of incompletion for me though. I obtained the “good” ending”. There are four in total: the “good”, “evil”, “less evil”, and “sad” endings. I won’t say anymore so I do not ruin anything.

I recommend the game. Even if you do not have a lot of time to play it. It is not incredibly long. You should be able to finish it up in under 20 or 23 hours and still get a good amount of the achievements. Good luck!

Another Borderlands DLC

There is no doubt that I enjoy playing Borderlands. It is an all around awesome game. A perfect blend of RPG and FPS elements makes it something that I haven’t really had the opportunity to enjoy before. The cell shaded graphics are easy on the eyes, controls are crisp, dialog is annoying at times but provides humor as well. You cannot forget the opening sequence. I have yet to see a better mix of an opening song and video sequence. Introducing the characters of a rogue world to the song “Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked” by Cage the Elephants was perfect. Has anyone else noticed that song has been popping up in a lot more places since it this game was released?

I have not had the time to complete the game yet, but I’m getting there. Once I do finish it I’ll give this a try. I am hesitant though after the last DLC, Mad Moxxi, being a total flop. Hopefully they worked out all the bugs this time and made it worth your time to actually complete.

iSlate, iPad, iDon’tCare

There has been a lot of fuss going around over Apple’s new tablet. I’ve never understood why people freak out about these releases. I know it’s mostly marketing since Apple keeps everything behind locked and closed doors, radioactive lakes, and velociraptors until launch. I had 3 iPod video devices within the course of 4 months. I took care of it like I take care of any other device but it would still crap out on me, different problems every time too. First it was the battery only holding the charge for 45 minutes to an hour after being charged overnight. I turned it off when I wasn’t using it and this happening after only three week was ridiculous. I had to fight with them repeatedly to get a replacement under the warranty. Second time was the screen and the third was the buttons.

Every time a feature is added to an Apple device I just look at it as another point of failure on an overpriced piece of hardware. People will flock to it I’m sure paying exorbitant amounts of money for it when there are fairly decent alternatives to be had. At least wait until the third or fourth generation of the device comes out so they have had the time to work out the bugs.

UPDATE

It’s five hundred friggin’ dollars! I’m curious to see how this fares though. It wouldn’t be the first time Apple has taken a product that has been on the mrket for awhile and made it huge and successful.

The 360 has time left, and Natal development is looking good

One thing I have been wondering is how much longer will we keep this generation of consoles. Since this round is the most expensive series yet, I am hoping for awhile. I read this. It gives me hope that console gamers can go several more years without needing to shell out another $300 to stay current. David Hufford, the senior director of Xbox product management, says that the XBox 360 still has plenty of time left.

Project Natal seems to be doing well in the development front as well. So instead of getting a whole new console we will be getting a nice add-on that adds a whole new depth to the system. Microsoft has stated that 70% – 80% of software developers are on board with Natal and are developing Natal games. I’m looking forward to trying this out. It’d be awesome to have an actual sword fight in Fable or have do make some patter with your hand to cast a spell in a fantasy game.

Pre-Orders: Halo Reach and Final Fantasy XIII

I went ahead and did it. I pre-ordered Halo: Reach and Final Fantasy XIII. I ordered Halo: Reach because all the videos look awesome and well, it’s Halo. I am really hoping that this will not be a huge disappointment like ODST was. They really should have just released ODST as a $20 or $30 DLC, not a $60 game. I had done everything there was to do in the game in a week. After that it was just completing the Firefight levels. Nothing special. It did not even come with my promised Halo: Reach beta. I’m still pissed about that. Reach is slated for 09/01/2010.

Final Fantasy XIII’s graphics look spectacular. I have played almost all of the titles in the series. Except the eleventh installment. I couldn’t justify paying for it every month. FFXIII looks to have a promising story, interesting characters, and a well-integrated combat engine. I’m looking forward to playing around with this one. FFXIII is due to be released on 03/09/2010.

Day Three with the HTC Eris

So far so good. After letting it drop down to 10-25% battery and then charging it all night, two nights in a row has really seemed to help the battery life. I even used it to listen to MP3s for a little while today. I’m browsing around for new photo viewer since the native app puts all my images into one folder for some reason. Astro may be the way to go. I’ve recently used GTalk a few times on the device and it functions very smoothly. Still haven’t had to do a restart and there is no lag. Call quality is still excellent as well. I noticed last night that when I have the phone up to my ear the screen goes black. When I tip my hand back to use the keypad the accelerometer kicks in and it lights back up again ready for use. I really like that.

I contacted Verizon Wireless about my issues with my 3G changing to 1X then back to 3G all the time. They said that it could be because of some LTE service integration in my area (the northeast). It doesn’t really affect me at all, but I feel as though if the phone didn’t have t struggle with which wireless protocol it was using the battery may improve even more.

All in all, I am still enjoying the phone. It has officially passed my 3 day test. I’m hoping to get a WordPress app on there so that I can make new posts from my phone. Now that would be convenient.

Day 2 With the HTC DROID Eris

Since I let the battery nearly die and did a full charge overnight I’m hoping for some better battery performance. I also did some tweaks suggested over at the Android Forums such as disabling the native SMS client and using ChompSMS or Handcent for my SMS/MMS needs. So far so good. I already have quite a few apps downloaded and am not having any issues. No battery pulls yet either. Email is smooth and the virtual QWERTY keyboard works very well when it comes to guessing what I am trying to say. I still haven’t gotten Exchange to work yet, but I think it is because my previous admin never installed ActiveSync on our Exchange server. After I do that I shouldn’t have too many issues.

It’s still too soon for me to recommend it to anyone, but so far so good. Speed, signal strength, and all around ease of use are definitely up there. I’m still going through the ins and outs of the phone. I would definitely recommend download a task killer app like Task Manager or my new favorite TaskPanel. The way apps are managed in Android wasn’t well thought out. Nothing closes on its’ own. You need to use one of these apps to kill it yourself, which isn’t a big problem but it is something that they may want to look into for the next big update.

More tomorrow. I’m going to put it to the test with MP3s today

The Nexus One

No doubt you have heard about the Nexus One, Google’s god-phone and self-proclaimed iPhone killer. I hope it is. Sporting the Android OS and available in an unlocked format as well as for susidized carrier pricing this phone is shaping up to be a good product. Already it haas been announced for T-Mobile. It will also be on Verizon Wireless’ network and Vodaphone as well sometime this spring. Here’s a link to the order page for the carrier listing and the prices (not all the prices are there yet, most likely still under negotiation).

I must say that I definitely like the size of the screen as well as the Android OS based on my personal experience with it so far. Should I buy some GOOG stock now? Google apparently has high hopes for their device as well. They are predicting to sell somewhere between 5 and 6 million units this year alone. With a phone on par with Apple’s iPhone and the nation’s leading 3G network right behind it I don’t see why not. I believe the iPhone did just as well its’ first year after launch. I just hope VZW can keep up on the network though. I don’t want my data dropping like it does for the iPhone users.