Geek Shivers

EA bought Bioware

2007-10-12T14:46:00.000+02:00

Check this out.
Can't say i'm not a little afraid... EA is kind of used to buy developers for their IPs and then effectively destroy them along with any talent or innovation that happened to be there. Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood... pick your favourite.
I hope Bioware (and Mythic) will get a better treatment.

Too much stuff on my plate

2007-10-03T14:08:00.000+02:00

Ahhh a full 10 days without updates... so what's new? I've been committing most of the free time to complete Bioshock another time, so i could see the 2nd ending. I could have checked it on the tubes, but the game is so good I somehow felt I ought to replay it and deserve to get the good side ending (also slightly better than the evil one in terms of storytelling, if you ask me).

Now that I digested this heavy masterpiece I kinda feel lightier... and since i already had enought of Team Fortress 2 (it's very cool but it didn't blow me away) I'm ready to dig through promising new releases, such as Quake Wars (by now hopefully waiting at home in his Play.com package) and the new Zelda for DS.
By the end of the month I expect to give a try to Stranglehold and HL2 Episode Two. After that.... well it's probably going to be Xbox 360 time. Mass Effect and Rock Band are coming baby!

So Windows died on me (again)

2007-09-21T16:07:00.000+02:00

Nothing out of the ordinary here... just another meticolously tweaked installation of Windows XP, gone to hell after a violent system crash of my gaming rig (during a NET 3.0 installation, of all things) that completely wiped out my booting partition.

Pixelated blue screen of death and *YAY!* it suddenly felt 1995 all over again.

So far no way to restore it... all I could manage was to reinstall the fucking OS on a dummy HD, mount as slave the busted one and backup my friggin Bioshock savegames...

I'm so angry that i might as well do the imponderable (like, install Vista, or something...)

Final Fantasy Concert

2007-09-20T16:41:00.000+02:00

On a totally awesome note, I'm already getting all geeked up on this thing. I nearly burned out my ability to enjoy J-RPG after playing FF7 for most of 1998... it's been years since I actually finished a Square game, but anyway, I can't really miss a most likely once-in-a-life-time performance of Uematsu in Italy...

'Guess I'll start recruiting buddies for the trip to Firenze :D

Jedi Wiimote-Saber coming, finally, but...

2007-09-19T11:18:00.000+02:00

Well, we've been crying loud for a Star Wars game for the Wii using the remote ~~ass~~ as a light-saber, and it's not exactly fair to complain just now.... but still, this looks like another cropped conversion of a promising "next"-gen title that the Nintendo console will handle poorly, just like all the others.

I mean, the cool factor of Force Unleashed is essentially his advanced physics engine, supposedly offering a new twist to the whole Jedi/Sith powers experience.
Remove that, add those awful low-res texture which are the bread and butter of the whole Wii third-party lineup and you have something not really different from any other crappy multi-platform title who looks shit on HDTV.

I doubt that being able to swing a lightsaber with the Wiimote in some silly last-minute "duel mode" would make me choose this version of the game instead of 360's...

R.I.P. Robert Jordan

2007-09-17T16:45:00.001+02:00

Can't say i didn't see this one coming, but it makes feel sad, nevertheless.

RHCP in Rockband!

2007-09-11T09:41:00.000+02:00

We're gonna have Red Hot, KISS and Soundgarden in Rockband. Waaaaay too much awesome, this game is gonna.. uhmm... rock.

Gotta fetch a damn 360...

Quake Wars Demo Released

2007-09-10T22:36:00.000+02:00

Sweet.

Still downloading it, but already overly excited, even as I had plenty of that Valley map already at a couple of E3s and a cool UK press tour last winter.
This game can definitely see me back to some serious online gaming, almost one year after WoW backfired on me, searing me out from the tubes. Ever since I've been focusing myself on all the signleplayer experiences I've been missing since the start of my pro-gaming on that dreadful MMO.
Quake Wars will hopefully provide a more healty, less time-devoring, kind of fun :D

Big news? Not so much

2007-09-05T12:07:00.000+02:00

Still spending most of my spare time on that heavenly masterpiece known to mankind simply as "Bioshock".
Given how I consistenly refuse to write enything now, without my Bioshock pen, that's an indication of how I'm enjoying the game. A bit too easy with that whole
Vita Chamber business... but I'll hardly find the time to replay it on a harder difficulty level.

Aaanyhoo... our beloved PC release list is crowded to say the least for the next month. With Stranglehold, HL 2 Orange Box, the NWN2 expansion pack, Quake Wars and the Witcher, we're still at the end of October, and in November here they come Hellgate, Assassin's Creed, Crysis and UT3. That and that little Mass Effect and Halo 3 just looming there as well.
I guess I'm already filled up for the whole 2008.

On a side note: changing role at work again, yay! ^^''

Still recovering

2007-08-28T09:56:00.000+02:00

The Game Convention rocked but has been devastating. These Germans know how to party, but lining up a dozen of articles about as many games in less than 3 days has been tiring as ever.

Anyway, now I'm back, with more pressing concernes: I still haven't got my Bioshock copy for PC, and thats totally NOT awesome.

News from the front

2007-08-19T03:05:00.000+02:00

Ahhh vacation.
After a whole week of do-nothing I should feel refreshed... and I would if I just didn't spent the last 2 days trying to hammer my new geforce in its place in some "working" fashon.

Countless pink screen crahes and three reinstallation of Windows Xp later (following just as many corrupt boot partitions of my HD) I found out that the secondary 4 pin PSU connector on my motherboard was loose. Having the system finally stable just made my day, but damn... I miss the days when I did find all this screwing with hardware entertaining...

Aaaany-hoo... time to check out that Warhammer Online beta... I'm still not sold on this one, but I love that setting too much no to try again.

Lastly, next week it's Game Convention time! Not sure if I'll ever have the time, but I might try to update from there. Hell, and all I'd like to to is stay at home waiting for Bioshock...

Fake Steve Jobs uncovered :-(

2007-08-08T10:43:00.000+02:00

Reporter Brad Ston from the New York Times has succesfully exposed the true identity of beloved FSJ, aka Daniel Lyons of Forbes.
Not surprisingly FSJ was indeed a competent techie journalist... his blog was both well written and too documented on industry matters and Valley gossip to be just the work of a fan.

Still, this whole uncovering thing is just depressing... they robbed me of half of the fun. Sigh.

Well, now, that would be cool...

2007-08-07T10:28:00.000+02:00

... if they confirm the price drop in Europe as well. I hope they don't change in some friggin' "value bundle" like the one SCEA aborted for the Ps3...

If anything, now I finally have a valid reason to restrain myself from buying an elite SKU at full retail price... after all Mass Effect is still some months away.

About the Zune...

2007-08-03T09:31:00.000+02:00

Yes, I know, the Zune sucks.

Still, I got one really cheap on eBay obut 5 months ago... it seemed a fair deal for a 30 GB mp3 player with video capability and FM support (wich is something I still enjoy from time to time).

The Zune itself isn't that bad, really. A bit clunky, heavier than your regular iPod and the battery is kinda short-lived... ok maybe it sucks a bit more than I expected, but forget my cognitive dissonance, the interface is still decent and the screen nice enought to see a movie while traveling. I'd give it a 6 out of 10.

What really bothered me and almost drove me nuts in these 5 months has been the constant fight against the horrible Zune software that you ought to install on your PC.
It's slow. It's buggy. It sports the worst user interface ever conceived and it will mess with your MP3 collection like a drunken monkey, unable to read your files tags without generating countless duplicates of albums, authors and whatnot.

It can also get his own database easily corrupted, wasting days of careful tweaking, and once you connect your damned Zune device, it will go berserk anyway, eagerly trying to syncronize it with whatever drunkcrazed playlist it dreamed about on his own accord.

In other words, it stinks big time. Don't. Waste. Time.
Second generation is said to be on his way in Europe this fall, but I won't even get near one of these things...

Damn computers

2007-08-01T12:55:00.000+02:00

Maybe it's just my impression, but computer hardware is not as reliable as it used to be.

It could be the constant struggle to shrink and miniaturize everything to push the technology state of the art, but i remember when everything in a computer would work flawlessly even when mistreated (by me) for years. Now that i'm much more gentle with my stuff, I'm lucky if it doesn't break in less than 12 months (and I'm not taling about 360's rings of fire...).

That friggin' GeForce costed me 300 euros and was barely 6 months old... jeez, it's the third major component that gave up the ghost in the last year. What's wrong with this stuff?

Rock Band + Nirvana = Totally Awesome

2007-07-31T10:23:00.000+02:00

Now thats what I'm taling about. Fully featured all stars albums that made the history of music!

Guitar Hero and his crappy covers was the experiment, I have very high expectations about the futere in the making from Harmonix.

Guess what? I'm baaack

2007-07-29T14:56:00.000+02:00

So, 25 days without an update.... BUT! I must say it's been one hell of a month, where I managed to:

finish the thesis and get my friggin' master degree (whooohooo!)
fly to Santa Monica, CA to attend that crappy E3 2007 (had a good time, but it's a long way from Italy... gettin' old for this?)
buff my primary job from marketing-consultant-jack-of-all-trades-kind-of-guy to full employed product manager (while changing boss, office building and whole business unit in the process).

So, I must say, it's been pretty tough... and satisfying. The party last thursday was a blast, and so were my super supportive friends.

I hope August to be much more relaxing... given that I expect to start seriously on the new job, attend the Game Convention in Leipzig, fetch a 360 Elite by the end of that month... and start digging that HUGE pile of books, games and DVDs I didn't have time to check in the past 6 months or so.

Ah well, I guess it can't be helped, I'm doomed to be forever busy. At least it's time to have some serious fun. And now back to that new Harry Potter book... :D

Rock Band goodness

2007-07-04T14:28:00.000+02:00

While I'm so busy these days that i have to schedule calendar events to remind myself about pee and sleep, I can't really move along without taking note of this awesome leaked video, featuring the upcoming Rock Band and a bunch of dudes which are clearly having a blast.

Jeez. This is going to be nasty for my neighborhood.

"Losing" time

2007-06-25T22:53:00.000+02:00

I spent most of the evening adding books on my aNobii shelf instead of writing.
Way too much addictive if you ask me... I managed to delay as much as I could, but the account was already there... like, whispering...

The man with the hat is back

2007-06-24T01:32:00.000+02:00

After more than 10 years worth of rumors, they're finally shooting the damn final flick.

George, screw up this one too, and I might die and come back to hunt your bedroom forever.

Ah, you've got to be kidding me...

2007-06-20T22:13:00.000+02:00

Duke Nukem Forever scan? Pfft.

I don't belive it.

Can I?

del.icio.us is driving me mad

2007-06-19T17:40:00.000+02:00

I've been using del.icio.us for about 8 months now, mostly as a way to keep track of my favourites between home and work, than a social bookmarking tool... and i have to say it's very handy, as long as you remember to check the stuff and delete old crap before it stacks too much.

The problem is, I'm a rather lazy person which can't really keep his RL things in order, nevertheless entering carefully chosen tabs every time I stumble upon an interesting link i mean to check after business time. it's boring enought to do so for the blog posts... and there's only 13 of them so far...

This means that my list now includes about a hundred links and it's extremely painful to dig anything useful out of it... but I'm fairly sure that what I'm looking for is there, somewhere under all the uncategorized stuff... what's wrong with me??

Diablo movie in the works?

2007-06-19T01:38:00.000+02:00

So, after like years of pleading Blizzard to make a proper movie out of the talent of his outstanding CG studio, we end up having two of them on thir way.

The Warcraft one has already some months of hype on his back, but the Diablo one is totally new. And unexpected too!

It's been 6 years since the last establishment of the serie (Diablo 2's expansion Lord of Destruction) and I doubt it ever occurred to anyone that the next revamp wouldn't be another sequel.

I mean, they both were cool, epic and all, but it's not like their story was such a big deal, aside the kick ass idea of having people sticking pointy cursed stones in their bodies and being possessed by these three big evil brothers.
But is there a movie here? Honestly I don't know... a Starcraft movie would have made much more sense to me.

Anyway, I absolutely loved both Diablo(s), even if, when compared to Starcraft and Warcraft (which I worship), they always felt a bit different... maybe it was Blizzard North, or the lack of that lovely black humor stealed from the Warhammer franchises along the rest... or both... dunno.

Ps3 raytracing in real time

2007-06-17T11:45:00.000+02:00

That's something every 3D studio geek should check out... looks like these IBM guys are definitely having a good time tinkering with Sony's hardware (and their own, after all).

CPS3 decrypted

2007-06-17T00:36:00.000+02:00

These brilliant guys finally managed to beat this ten years old engima... causing waves of joy along all my spine ^_^

Kudos to Capcom, who managed to build a fragile, expansive and unrealiable arcade board no one wanted to buy ever, which also happened to be utterly nightmarish to crack.

One might ask if it's been worth it... but hey, finally a chance to try all those gorgeous fighting games (like.. SIX of them!) who never hit Italy's shores... yay!

Clover Studio (now Seeds) alive and kickin'

2007-06-14T00:25:00.000+02:00

That's sweet news.

I loved everything that came out from the hands of these guys... ok maybe just one Viewtiful Joe was enought for me, but it was GREAT and so were Okami AND God Hand (yeah, and whoever says not, he's a douchebag ^^).

Now I can happily wait for interesting new gameplay breaktrought coming in full HD, yay!

Safari on Windows?

2007-06-12T17:49:00.001+02:00

Yeah that sounds as crazy as MS office on OSX... which already happened, after all.

Indeed iTunes is being installed on some tens of gazillions of PCs , which already makes Apple one of the most notable Windows developers of today, but still... Safari on the PC?

That's not saying that we could't use one additional "icy glass of water in hell", but I don't see Apple's flagship browser getting the kudos of Mozilla advocates... Myself, i keep using Firefox on my old iBook too, and I-m surely not the only one.

Maybe if they add support for Firefox extension it could stand a chance, but I doubt it'll happen with such a piece of closed software.

If anything, it could help eroding the helpless Internet Explorer userbase.... man that IE7 is so detestable.
And the whole story just reminded me of this uber-funny old video!

Hilarious

2007-06-11T18:34:00.000+02:00

Today's Dilbert strip is definitely worth a check.
The joke is old (as much as true...) , but the subtle irony is just too much for me to handle.... good stuff.

On weekend depression...

2007-06-09T22:07:00.000+02:00

It's only Saturday evening, but it's bad enought having spend it helplessly at home, buried under thesis work, I can't even think that tomorrow will be exactly the same.

BUT! For now... let's just boost how I (almost) effortlessly beaten Ouendan 2 in hard mode... all your songs are belong to me! :D

Still, I didn't remember the super-duper hard mode to be so damn difficult... and playing with the cheerleaders is not nearly rewarding and funny as with the regular crazy-haired guys.

I guess I'll save finishing it as well for the L.A. trip next month...

Now, where the hell is my new passport?? If anyone said something bad to you about Italy, it's not even near what they should have said about italian burocracy. And its fees.

Almost 110 euros (147 USD!!!) for a new passport. Can you believe it???

Damn you Ouendan!!

2007-06-09T00:32:00.000+02:00

Lost most of the evening to Ouendan 2... definitely not cool.
I'm currently stuck on the last level in hard mode, but I think I'm figuring out how to crack that as well... can't wait to see the new alternative characters.

I don't know, I have already completely beaten both the original Ouendan and that western-like sequel Elite Beat Agents, but I simply can't have enought. Too damn addictive.

On the new PSP

2007-06-08T19:46:00.000+02:00

Looks like it's coming, after all.
LED screen?
4x battery life?
8 GB built-in flash memory?
New sleek design?

Sounds good to me... I'm sold. I never considered buying the original PSP exactly due to the poor battery life, and lack of internal memory (which is bad enought for something expansive marketed as the ultimate portable multimedia device).

The third reason was that very idea of having a slow, fragile and power-hungry optical drive on a portable device... it sounded too much like 1990 all over again.
But I guess I'll have to cope with that if I want to enjoy that new God of War...

Stan never rests

2007-06-08T12:36:00.000+02:00

Looks like the old man just won't stop spawning super-heroes.

Good for him... to me he and Kirby practically created modern western comics from nowhere..

Still, it's been years since I made it trough a Marvel comic book without feeling frustrated... plots and characters are definitely worned out.

And all these new super-dudes? Plain awful to me, compared to the old-fashoned capes Stan and Kirby created last century... at least they retain the nostalgia factor, to some extent. Show me a new guy in tights in 2007 and I will laugh the snot out of myself...

But that's probably me being a grown up, I guess they're being happily fed to teenagers as we speak.

One thing though: Stan should really stop doing cameos on every damn Marvel movie. One, it's ok. Two? Maybe. Now it's just seven times, with more on the way...
It's... just... silly.

Multi-flavoured Smash Bros

2007-06-08T12:10:00.000+02:00

Looks like the new Super Smash Bros will be playable with any piece of plastic hardware actually able to hook up to the Wii.

That's good news in multiple ways... fo once I'll save the money for that fourth expansive Wiimote+Nunchuck combo, and also I'll get a chance to actually use that neat classic controller, besides the Virtual Console bullcrap.

I mean, I only bought Sonic... which runs awfully in all his bordered 50 Hz glory...

And so it begins...

2007-06-08T11:55:00.000+02:00

So much for telling myself I'd never try to start a new blog... it's been like, what, three years since the last failed attempt?
The thing is, I'm lazy and got distracted easily, especially when I've got enought on my plate already.

Still, this time it's all in English! Do not expect perfect grammar or proper semantic... I won't even try that hard.
But I can use the practice.

Ah well, well' see how it goes...