Impressions
SSD Drives
I haven’t been drawn into the hype around SSD (Solid State Drive) drives, until I actually got to try one out. Over the last couple of days, my work laptop had its drive replaced with a brand spanking new SSD drive, and I’ve instantly noticed the difference. It did cause a few other issues, mainly recovering data from the previous hard drive when a caddy supposedly didn’t work, but once that was all sorted, I was noticing faster load times for pretty much everything. General response time has increased too, which is great.
With the experience of trying out an SSD at work, I’m not considering giving my 3 year old MacBook a much needed upgrade with an SSD of its own. Compared to my Alienware M11x, it’s considerably slow and normal applications such as my web browser and email client take a bit of time to load that I’m now growing out of with faster technologies.
I’m currently browsing around on Overclockers as they have some pretty well priced SSDs there, but I’ll continue to look around for a good price before diving in and getting one. I’ll have to transfer everything over, but recently I got a 2TB external drive which has a partition for Time Machine backups, so that shouldn’t be a problem. 
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Impressions
My colleagues (you know who you are!) recently started getting me playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for some multiplayer action. They’ve been playing for quite some time and have been urging me to get in there too, but I’ve held back because of the tons of other games that I still have to play. I still have games like Metro 2033, Fallout: New Vegas, Just Cause 2, Portal and The Witcher to play! So with that list, I definitely managed to put off playing BFBC2 for quite a while until about a couple of months or so ago.
I’ve barely played the single player of BFBC2 at all so far. I think I’ve just about finished the first compaign, simply because I haven’t had the time. All the time that I’ve put into the game has been on multiplayer with my friends. With good reason too, it’s a fantastic multiplayer game. I’ve become pretty tired of the war type games with the Call of Duty series drowning the genre, and I thought I’d feel the same for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, including the multiplayer. However, playing with people you know and working well together as a team really make the game enjoyable.
There are four classes you can play as in the multiplayer: Assault, Medic, Recon and Engineer. Assault is your standard soldier for some run and gun action, typically using machine guns and pistols. Medic is your medic in the field, being able to revive fallen players and use a light machine gun. Recon is your sniper, picking people off from long distance, using sensors to detect if there are enemy troops nearby or calling in an air strike. Engineers are able to repair tanks and use RPG’s to take out enemy ones too.
As you can see, there’s a good range of gameplay options at your disposal depending on your style of play. I’ve been mostly playing as a medic for a couple of reasons; Firstly, it’s the quickest way to level up when starting from scratch, as revives give you a ton of points. Secondly, it’s really enjoyable being able to revive your fellow team/squad members in the thick of battle – just when the enemy thinks that they’ve got the advantage, a medic can revive a few fallen players and turn things around. I’ve made decent progress and am currently around rank 20 out of 50. Not too bad considering I haven’t been playing the game for very long, and not exactly too much either.
The game is probably a bit tougher than the Call of Duty series in my opinion. It feels like there are a lot more hardcore players on BFBC2 servers, or I’ve just been in pretty tough servers to begin with. There are a lot of servers tailored at new players (noobs/newbies), however quite often you find higher ranked players camping out in there to better their statistics.
The most enjoyable aspect of the game has been playing in a squad with people that I actually know, and usually voice chat to communicate. Playing this way definitely makes it a lot easier and enhances squad play. It’s not feasible to be typing messages in a pretty fast paced game, so voice chat is common sense. At first it may not seem necessary, but once you start playing a lot more, you realise to get the best gameplay, you need good communication.
There’s a variety of maps that open up futher in multiplayer depending on which game mode you’re playing. There’s Rush, where there are two sides, one Attacking and one Defending. The aim for Attackers is to blow up M-Com points and move forward after two points have been blown up. The Defending team have to kill a certain amount of players for each M-Com station to win the round. After the round, the teams switch usually, but this depends on the server sometimes. There’s also Conquest, where there are three command points to take over and hold. You need to hold as many command points for as long as possible to win the round. There’s also Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch, where you play in a squad of four against other squads. This is where voice chat definitely comes in useful.
On the whole, I’ve really enjoyed playing the multiplayer part of BFBC2. As I’ve mentioned, I really have barely played the single player aspect and I’m not sure when I will eventually play it, since there are other games like Crysis 2 to play! However, for some good multiplayer action, I know I can rely on BFBC2!
Roccat Pyra Wired Mouse Impressions
I finally caved in and decided to purchase a new mouse. My old trusty Logitech VX Revolution wireless mouse for laptops has lasted me for 3 years, however it’s pretty much on it’s last legs now.
The wireless aspect of it is still really good, and works well, however the main left-click button has become faulty and way too sensitive. Clicking it once will often initiate a double-click, which can be extremely annoying when doing pretty much anything. I therefore decided that my next purchase must be a mouse and have been looking at quite a few.
I looked around quite a bit and finally found one that fitted my requirements. I wanted a pretty portable mouse, wired, nothing too fancy (certainly not one with too many buttons), and nice aesthetics. I took a bit of a gamble of going for the Roccat Pyra wired mouse, since I hadn’t actually tried it in person and just decided to order it from Amazon.
The Roccat Pyra mouse is really compact, I wasn’t expecting it to be so small at first. It’s a similar size to my previous Logitech VX Revolution wireless mouse. The Logitech had a bit more weight to it, however the Pyra doesn’t feel too light and flimsy. I’ve read that the wireless version of the same mouse feels a bit too weighted due to the battery, but I haven’t tried it myself.
I did try out two mice when I went to YoYo Tech last week. One was the Razer Abyssus, which I was really tempted to buy if only it had a couple of side buttons. The mouse literally just has left-click, right-click and the mousewheel, so very simplified. However, the weight felt really good and it definitely felt solid with a nice finish. The second mouse that I was looking at was the ThermalTake eSports mouse. This was a lot bigger than the Razer one, and did have a nice finish. I didn’t like the feel of the mousewheel however – I like having distinct clicks and not having the mousewheel be loose. This one certainly felt that way.
I therefore decided to look online a bit more. I had already seen the Roccat Pyra mouse, both wireless and wired, and just decided to go for it. It came in pretty nice packaging and was included with a quick start guide, driver mini-CD, and a carry pouch. Since my Alienware M11x doesn’t have a CD drive, I downloaded the software from Roccat’s website and installed it from there. The driver has a nice control panel to customise button behaviour and sensitivity, including toggling the DPI between 400, 800 and 1600. I left it on the default 800dpi, as it felt pretty good for me.
The Roccat Pyra uses a button called EasyShift. By keeping the button on your left thumb (side button) pressed down, it allows you to then click another button for extra functionality. This means you can program up to 6 additional button behaviours. At the moment, I haven’t played around with this, but I can see myself using different settings in different games. The control panel allows saving different profiles, so I can easily set up a profile for different games, e.g. one for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and maybe another for Team Fortress 2. It’s definitely useful and something I’ll give a go at a later date.
I haven’t got much else to say, except that I’m definitely happy with my purchase. Oh, the optical laser underneath emits a blue light, and along the top, there is a slight line gap which again, emits a pulsing blue light. The “Roccat” text is engraved on the right hand of the face of the mouse with a glossy finish, however this doesn’t get in the way of usage at all since usually my finger sits past that right on the button.
Summing up, if you’re a laptop gamer, then this is definitely a good purchase to go for. The mouse comes with a carry case to take around with you, is extremely portable and still delivers very good performance. Clicks are solid, mousewheel clicks are extremely solid, and the control panel is useful to configure button behaviour and set up profiles. At just over £30, it’s a very good deal.
SteelSeries Xai Laser Mouse Impressions
Gaming Zap have been very kind enough to send me a SteelSeries Xai Laser PC gaming mouse, with which I’ve been playing a ton of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 online! I’ll save the Battlefield talk for another time, however I really want to talk about the mouse. I’ve been using it thoroughly over the last couple of weeks, and have to say it’s a great mouse. Here are some official photos:
The mouse is of a good size to fit the average hand. The buttons aren’t distinct, but rather part of the top surface. In the past, I’ve experienced that this can lead to poor click feedback, however the buttons have good tactile response and have just the right depth. There are two buttons on both the left and right side of the mouse. In a browser, these are typically used for back and forward, but can be customised. There is also a responsive mouse wheel, which can be clicked, and another button just before the wheel. Again, these buttons are programmable.
On the underside of the mouse, there’s a small screen which can be used to customise the mouse with a variety of settings. These don’t usually bother me, however for a hardcore gamer, I’m sure these are important to configure. I haven’t seen a mouse before that has a screen on the bottom, and at first I didn’t even notice it! It’s a pretty nice feature to have though.
The wire of the mouse, rather than being of the usual plastic/rubber material, is fabric and very sturdy. I imagine this has been done for durability and to avoid it being cut or damaged easily. It does feel very nice, and definitely feels more rugged than most other wires from a mouse.
A unique feature of the SteelSeries Xai Laser mouse, due to its symmetrical design, is that it’s suitable for both right-handed and left-handed gamers. Quite a lot of gaming mice these days have quite funky designs and forget about the left-handed gamer, so it’s nice to see that this product keeps that in mind. Thanks to the two pairs of buttons on either side, functionality doesn’t change no matter what hand you use.
On the whole, the SteelSeries Xai Laser PC Gaming Mouse is a very solid mouse. It doesn’t do a massive amount, however it does enough in all departments and has a lot of nice touches to make it a justifiable purchase. It is fairly expensive for a gaming mouse at £60, however this will go the distance and thanks to its solid finish, it should certainly last quite a while.
LogMeIn Goodness
Remote access is certainly starting to play a bigger part in my computing world. The ease of being able to leave my laptop at home or at work, and then access it from even my iPhone is just amazing. I first used LogMeIn as a little test years ago when it was relatively new, and found it to stutter. It was pretty much pointless to use due to performance issues. I’m sure it was a combination of slow connection speeds back then combined with a not-so-great infrastructure that LogMeIn used.
I started using LogMeIn again a few months ago for work, to access my work laptop from home in the evenings when needed rather than carry the beast home. It’s certainly easier and probably more efficient, since building code is a lot quicker on the work local network rather than attempting to connect to the VPN.
With that, I thought let me try LogMeIn the other way – access my home laptop from work during my lunch break. That worked really well too, especially when I had to download and install large updates. I left my laptop downloading in the morning and checked it during lunch, installing the updates and completing the setup.
The final step was to try out the iPhone application. It’s expensive, £15 – the price of a lot of desktop applications these days. It does however work extremely well. I even tried it on a 3G connection, and I was amazed at how well it worked and rendered everything. You have the same options as LogMeIn through a browser. It sticks the mouse pointer right in the middle of the screen, and you drag the screen around. To click, you tap, to double click, you tap with two fingers. It may sound complex, but it works really well surprisingly.
Genshiken OVA Impressions
I wrote about Genshiken Series 1 about a week or so ago and thought I’d follow it up with my thoughts on the Genshiken OVA, a sequel and filler between the first and second series. It’s only 3 episodes long, however it introduces a few new characters and changes the dynamics of the group a bit. For a quick recap, Genshiken is an anime series about a group of university studies who come together in a society to study anime, manga and video games. This society is called Genshiken.
The OVA starts off in the new academic year, so the group are looking forward to potentially having some new members join. They’re first greeted with a visit from Kuchi, one of the guys who thought about joining the year before but embarrassed himself at the welcome party, so never came back. He never really connected with the manga club so decided to try get back into Genshiken. The second new member, and more important cast member, is Ogiue – the self described otaku hater. Despite hating otaku, she pretty much is one and also enjoys drawing manga.
The OVA deals with new members, otaku fashion and cosplay primarily in the three episodes. There are other themes also present, such as Kasukabe’s seemingly growing comfort around otaku, and how she is pretty much a part of the group rather than someone who tags along thanks to her boyfriend Kohsaka. The OVA is definitely just a filler between the two series and to bring things up to speed a bit and set things up. You can probably go straight into the second series without watching the OVA, which is what I initially did, and I was able to fill the gaps pretty easily myself. Therefore, the OVA isn’t a must watch, but still enjoyable for fans of the original Genshiken.
It’s worth pointing out that to me, it seems that the OVA and second series are not created by the original creators of the first anime series. The art style differs slightly and doesn’t have the serious polish that the first series had. It let me down a bit because of this, and the theme changes a bit too. I’m not sure if there was a change in the manga as well – I’ll definitely need to get a hold of the manga series and give it a read to compare. The OVA isn’t a necessary watch, but for fans of the original series, more Genshiken is always good!
New Xbox 360 Controller Impressions
I got my hands quite fortunately on one of the new Xbox 360 controllers, which feature the transforming D-pads, courtesy of Gaming Zap. I’m going to write a bit of a mini-review of it, and get straight into it. First off, here are some official photos from Gaming Zap as well as a few photos of mine:
First off, the new colour scheme works very well. It gives it a smooth sleek look and feel. It actually has a black panel along the top along with black trigger buttons on the shoulders. Compared to the white default Xbox 360 controller, this certainly looks more futuristic thanks to its colour scheme. The change of colours can also be seen on the face buttons, instead of using the red, green, blue and yellow, all we have here are different shades of grey. I think this is more suitable for this controller, the colours would most likely have looked out of place.
This particular controller package came with the play and charge kit, which lets the controller be charged while playing. I used my existing battery pack to play as I couldn’t really be bothered to charge, however I think Microsoft should try make all their wireless controller comes with a charger.
When I first picked up the controller, it had a much more solid build compared to my current wireless controller. The weight was quite nice and the smooth finish provided good grip. The analog sticks felt smaller, however upon closer inspection it turns out the engravings are actually smaller, which I wasn’t quite a fan of. It would have been better if they kept the surface area larger to use. All the other buttons function the same, except the D-pad, which has had a complete re-do.
The D-pad can now be twisted to allow for a more traditional styled D-pad, where it sticks out more. However, if you prefer the default 360 style D-pad, then that can also be used. I haven’t used it with many games, as most 360 games generally make use of just the analog sticks rather than the D-pad, however for people who play a lot of XBLA game, I’m sure this will be a pretty big feature.
Overall, the pad is very nice and the solid built and sleek finish make it very attractive. It’s definitely a premium controller and it’s good that it comes packed with the play and charge USB kit. It’s slightly pricey however at around £50, so I would be tempted to wait a bit until the price comes down. If you’re a hardcore gamer who needs an excellent quality controller, then this one would be for you.
You can find the new Silver Xbox Controller at Gaming Zap, who specialise in a range of gaming accessories including Xbox Headsets.
Genshiken (Anime Series 1) Impressions
Being a bit bored and lazy these days, I decided to watch a bit of anime that I’ve had around for ages. I’ve seen Genshiken before, but it’s an enjoyable series so I recently decided to give it another watch. It’s quite a short series (the original that is), at just 12 episodes so it’s pretty easy to pick up and watch. There was an OVA of 3 episodes and a second season, again of 12 episodes.
The anime is about a group of students who come together at a society called Genshiken, or the full title “The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.” The different characters and their interactions with each other is what makes this anime so enjoyable, so it’s better if I gave a description of each of the characters from the society.
First we have Sasahara, he has just started Shoiu University and wants to join some sort of anime or manga club. The main manga club seems a bit too mainstream for him, so he eventually decides to join Genshiken after almost being blackmailed into it! He’s a fairly normal guy who is quite into his anime and manga, but not enough to call himself an otaku.
We then have Kohsaka and Kasukabe, a couple who turn out to be childhood friends. Kasukabe is a fashionable girl, the total opposite from an otaku, however she sees Kohsaka who instantly recognises her. She thinks that she can change him, however Kohsaka is a good looking hardcore otaku, which frustrates her to no end and causes her all sorts of challenges throughout the series.
Cosplay is also covered through Tanaka and Ohno, who are pretty close to being a couple themselves. Tanaka is a senior at the club and loves tailoring costumes for cosplay. This fits in perfectly when Ohno joins after spending some time in America, as she loves to cosplay. It’s a natural pairing due to the similarities in their interests.
Kugayama is the big stuttering guy with a very timid personality, but enjoys his drawing. Due to his stuttering, he has less confidence in public and is often quiet.
Last but not least we have the most hardcore otaku, Madarame. He barely has enough money for the basic meals and rent, but spends all his money on everything otaku related! Time and again he makes several references to a variety of other popular anime series.
The group of characters work really well together and form a natural bonding, especially with the contrasting Kasukabe, who hates anything otaku related. The group go through a variety of situations throughout the series, such as holding a cosplay session, going to Comi-Fes (comic festival, very popular in Japan to buy manga and fan-made materials – doujinshi), going to the beach and partaking in different activities. Rather than having some sort of extravagant effects, thrilling plot, or other unique selling points for the masses, Genshiken keeps it pretty simple and just concentrates on telling the story of these characters, quite often in normal situations.
I have to say, Genshiken is one of my favourite anime series. It’s a difficult series to describe and create hype for, but it’s something that should be watched to really appreciate. I would definitely recommend watching Genshiken if you’re into anime a bit. I’ll go over the OVA and second season/series in the near future.
Day 6: Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box Impressions
I bought Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box for around £3 off the Steam sales, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, however I haven’t gone into detail about it. First off, for those who aren’t aware, it’s somewhat a racing game. The reason I say somewhat, unlike traditional racing games, it’s totally fine to crash into your opponent’s cars and take them out, in fact you’re rewarded for doing so and get extra Nitro boost for it! So Burnout has always had crashes in its games, and taking out opponents. Burnout Paradise is different in that you’re placed in a city called Paradise City, and are free to roam about wherever you wish. As you roam about, you’ll find events at traffic lights and can trigger them by pressing the accelerate and brake buttons together.
These events can vary from Road Rage, where you have to take out a certain number of opponents, to Races to Marked Man, where you have to get to a destination and survive your car being totalled by other drivers. What makes the game so great is the fact you have the full city open to you and can drive wherever and however you wish. Imagine a Grand Theft Auto game with no police and Nitro on your car, free to roam wherever you wish. Add to that really cool slow motion replays of when you crash or perform a stunt, and you’re in for a treat!
The game looks stunning as well. The graphics are great and it runs smoothly without any hitches on my Alienware M11x. To get a better experience, I actually plug it into my wall mounted 32″ HD TV and use an XBox 360 controller, since it’s much easier playing with a controller rather than a keyboard.
On the whole, Burnout Paradise is an awesome game. It’s encouraged me to purchase the PSP edition Burnout Dominator. I’ve played and completed Burnout Legends in the past, so thought Dominator would be a good game to play on my PSP. A good excuse to use my PSP at all, since haven’t touched it in a good couple of months.
I’ve also been playing Defense Grid: The Awakening, which is a tower defense game for the PC. I’m planning on going into it in more detail in a future post, but it’s by far one of the best games of its genre. It has an air of professionalism to it which is unparalleled in the genre and definitely makes it stand out. You can find out more at the website.
Day 5: Mass Effect Retribution
I have finally got around to completing the third and final Mass Effect book, Retribution. This book takes place between Mass Effect 2 and the upcoming third game of the trilogy. However, it plays a peripheral part to the main Mass Effect plot.
In all the Mass Effect books, there is no Commander Shepard apart from being a passing mention here and there. Rather, Captain Anderson takes a fairly primary role, especially in the first and last book, along with a scientist called Kahlee Sanders who does appear somewhere in the game.
It’s an enjoyable read, focusing on the threat of the Reapers and also the activities of Cerberus. It’ll be interesting to see how the third game starts off since some events from the book will certainly influence what happens there. It’s difficult to discuss the book in more detail without giving spoilers, so I’ll have to call it there, but here’s a picture of the book!
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