Monthly Archives: September 2007

Further Call of Duty 4 Beta

So I played CoD4 Multiplayer Beta a lot more now and really getting into it. It has a great levelling up system that I’m sure you’ve heard of. I haven’t really experienced anything like it before – all the multiplayer games that I’ve played have been simple running around shooting and blowing stuff up. Basically like Quake III Arena, great stuff.

As for CoD4, that’s a different story. The more games you played, you level up which unlocks certain abilities such as sniping as well as some more unique ones, such as when you die you get a single shot to quickly take out the guy who killed you. Now that’s some instant revenge right there, no need to run around the map looking for the jerk who shot you in the back, you can now do the same to him.

The graphics are awesome in the game. I’ve only played a handful of maps but they are well crafted. Most of the battles take place outside of buildings in more open spaces, but occasionally you’ll come across people while walking through buildings.

There seems to be less attention on picking up new guns or more ammo, since it’s actually a pretty fast paced game so choosing your weapons before the match is vital since you’ll start with those every time you respawn.
And finally, there was no lag while I played, which is great. The game ran fine at all times and never slowed down or became jerky.

Shadowrun, Skate & Call of Duty 4 Beta

I had some free time from my usual university work, so I went on to XBox Live and downloaded some games I hadn’t tried – including finally trying the Call of Duty 4 Beta. I’ll talk about that last though, let me first start with Shadowrun.

Shadowrun has been out for quite some time now. I played through it a bit and while the ideas such as using skills like teleporting and thermal vision are utilised pretty well, the gameplay itself was just no engaging. A total of 9 maps?! Now that’s just crazy talk, especially since it’s a game that requires XBox Live and the PC version requires Vista. If it was a PC only game without requiring Vista and open to modders, then that would be great.

Skate is completely different from the normal skating games that we are used to, namely the Tony Hawks series. Instead of pressing one button to perform an ollie, you actually have to flick the analog stick down then up, and flicking it in different directions allows you to perform other tricks. The game is built around this and moves away from the stereotype created by Tony Hawks that one button performs the trick. This definitely makes it more challenging and I can see this being a great game.

And finally, Call of Duty 4 Beta. I’ve been sitting on this for a while before actually playing it yesterday. It’s good fun, I’m much more used to playing Quake 3 Arena on my laptop so when I first started playing, I was running around like a loony in the middle of a map looking for kills, and obviously got mowed down every time! You learn to use the environment a lot more and actually creep around and use a bit of tactics. I haven’t played it enough to give a detailed view on the levelling up, but from what I’ve seen it definitely gets you coming back for more!

New iPod Range

So the new iPods came out about a week ago or so. I’ve always wanted an iPod especially since I have a MacBook, and before an old iBook G4. Syncing between iTunes, iPhoto, iCal and the Address Book all on to the iPod is a great thing. I especially love podcasts, so having that aspect of iTunes sync after I listen to them is great.

So the new range features an all new iPod Nano. Previously the iPod Nano could only play music and view photos. Now, in it’s “chubby from front but very thin” design, it can also play videos and basically do all the things that the iPod Video before could do. That’s awesome, and for £99.99, not too many people can complain. But 4gb for videos? If you want to watch movies, then you’ll probably only fit one on there, unless you compress them. As for TV episodes, you can fit a few but then you’re reducing the space for your music.

The iPod Video if I remember is now the iPod Classic – the norm of the range. The iPod Shuffle has some more colours and there’s a new iPod Touch, similar design to the upcoming iPhone but limited features and pretty small hard drive space.

But back to the iPod Nano. That’s the most reasonable solution for the average entertainment enthusiast who wants to take some media with them. The design is horrible. Yes, I know they have to fit the widescreen in, but the iPod Nano has lost that sleek design from the front. The features are awesome, price is great, but design… ugh. I therefore opted to go back in time and get a second hand first gen iPod Nano, 2gb. It cost half the price with some accessories and does what I want it to, besides videos – however that is one thing that I can live without unless I had at least 10gb built-in.

My blog, nice and simple

Finally, after working on the website for about a solid week, I’ve got it online. It’s taken a while building the layout and trying some other CMSes (Content Management System), but I’ve finally gone ahead and put it online. So let me give a formal introduction first.

I’m Shabbir, I used to own and run MangaView. MV used to be a website dedicated to reviewing manga titles released in the UK, but began to slow down over the last year due to other responsibilities. It eventually began to turn into a blog anyway, so I decided to close down MV. The reviews have gone over to my good friends over at Anime Boredom, for whom I still write reviews.

This blog will serve as my primary website that I’ll aim to update whenever something is going on. As the small intro at the top right states, it’s mainly just a blog related to anime, manga and video games but also tech related stuff. Hopefully you’ll find it an interesting read, since I’ll be writing up my views on various titles and news, or just random stuff.

As such then, there’s no “real” content of the website – it’s just the blog entries. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing, who knows but it seems to work for several other blogs out there! Let’s hope you enjoy it.