My Poor Computer...

I think the announcement of the STO beta scared the living crap out of my PC because it's had nothing but problems since.

I somehow got a virus that completely disabled my PC, it installed something called "Antivirus System Pro" which wouldn't let me open Task Manager or anything that could be useful to stopping it because it was "infected", I managed to get rid of it after a few hours of desperate searching on forums and websites but it had already done its damage.

My sound card and network card wouldn't work after it. I tried uninstalling the drivers, reinstalling them, updating them. In the end it just made sense to wipe the computer and start fresh. I needed to clean my HDD anyway so I went ahead and did it.

I forgot to transfer a few files that I needed but overall all my media and important stuff was backed up on my external drive so no major harm done.

Star Trek Online goes into Closed Beta!

So I couldn't officially say it earlier but now I can. STO has officially gone into Closed Beta today and yours truly was lucky enough to get his hands on a first phase beta key.

As expected I "signed" my NDA which means I can't really go into much detail but I do intend on taking a lot of videos and screenshots over the coming months which will be posted online as soon as the NDA is lifted.

Until then, anyone who is looking for a Fleet of mature, fun loving gamers make sure you check out AllOutAssault.net as we are currently accepting applications for our STO division.

I love this music!

One thing I forgot to mention in my Uncharted 2 Demo was the quality of the music. Nate's Theme in particular is my favorite. One thing that Naughty Dog did brilliantly was have the soundtrack to the game stream constantly during menu's and loading screens.

It makes waiting for a multiplayer game that bit more bare-able

Check out Nate's Theme below

What a day

So I got a special email today which I'm not exactly sure if I'm allowed to talk about it so I won't divulge but I'm sure people can take a guess what it was which prompted me to go out and upgrade my processor. So after class I went into a PC store and picked up a Quad Core 2.33ghz which I assumed would be compatible with my motherboard since they shared the same slot.

Guess again...

I got home and installed it and it turned out that it didn't work, so I went about putting back in my old processor and the I think I broke the fan or something because it just died, gone like a fart in the wind.

Not having much money I freaked out a bit, 90% of my college work was on the computer and with a certain event happening tonight which required my PC, I went back out and picked up the cheapest motherboard that was compatible with all my stuff which came to €65. I got home and put it all together and after a few little problems everything is working again.

Overall I think I spent about 3 hours sorting this out when it really should have been a 10 minute job. I think I've had enough with building PC's for a while :P

Gotta say thanks to the guys in AoA who helped me out along the way, I'd have probably curled up and died without their guidance ;)

Uncharted 2 Review

I remember playing the original Uncharted and my mind was blown and it seems that Naughty Dog have only gone up with the quality of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

The story takes place sometime after the first where Drake is propositioned with finding Marco Polo's lost treasure, as with all adventures things go wrong and it's up to our "hero" and his friends to sort things out.

The Good

Graphically the game is just spectacular, hands down it's the best looking console game I've ever seen. In some parts I really felt like I was watching live action footage rather than playing a game. The amount of detail put into the smallest of things is brilliant.

Controls are solid, they've really nailed them down, I usually complain about PS3 controllers but after a few minutes it didn't really matter that much.

The story is very witty and it seems that Naughty Dog haven't lost their sense of humor either, some of the banter between characters while going through levels is very well thought up and probably the most satisfying aspect of the narrative.

The voice acting is also superb, The same actors have come back for their respective roles and it's like they left. Star Trek fans will recognise one of the new characters voice as Rene Auberjonois

They added multiplayer! Yes there is now a Call of Duty-esque style multiplayer complete with character levels, perks and a few different modes of gameplay which looks like it will keep the game in peoples PS3's for some time.

The Bad

The graphics can be so good in some parts that when you see one object or area that isn't up to the same standard it really sticks out and can ruin some sequences.

I've been kicked out or disconnected from the multiplayer servers a few times which is a bit annoying.

The game isn't as long as I'd hoped.

Verdict

I was really blown away by some of the set pieces in this game, the scale and complexities of some areas are just astounding.

I recommend everyone who owns a PS3 to go out and buy this game, it really shows what the console is capable of and it also proves that video games really are a story telling medium just as much as film and book. I was upset when it finished because I didn't want it to end so I hope now that Naughty Dog has nailed down their engine and unlocked the cell processor they will be able to spend more time with the next iterations length.

Get on my Horse

Usually I'd just post something like this on twitter or in IRC but it deserves its own post

http://getonmyhorse.com/

It's an addictive song, it's repeated over 10 times for me now and I'm still listening

Tastes like raisins ladies and gentleman

Oh yeah!

So I got the results for 2 of my exams today, got myself a 96% on my Computer Architecture exam final which means I technically only need a bare pass in one of the two remaining projects to pass the module and the second one was a presentation which I got full marks for.

We were given one of our architecture projects which I plan on getting out of the way over my midterm (which is next week thank god) and I also plan on completely finishing up all other assignments so that they're good to go, I've got all the dirty work done for most of them but some need a bit of polish.

I'm well ahead of the game this year so far, I think I might have 1 project and 1-2 other assignments that I'll pick up before Christmas but everything I've got right now is pretty much done which has me clear till January.

So gaming! I picked up Uncharted 2 which is awesome, I'll be publishing a review on it some time this week, I've still to try out the multiplayer but from what I hear its a blast.

STO looks like it'll go into closed beta any day now, F&F is going ahead right now which means it's only a matter of time before the rest of us get a chance to play test the game.

Later!

Awen is gone! GONE! HUZZAH

So anyone who followed Awen on twitter knows this already, it looks like the big dawg (pun intended) has either been fired or quit Cryptic, which means STO just got a whole lot better.

Now I know some people might look at that last statement and think "that's not very nice" but let's look at the facts

• She rarely engaged with the community
• She made some terrible decisions
• Very clumsy
• Very dipsy

A lot of AoAers know very well my hatred for her and now shes gone which makes life so much sweeter.

Hopefully Rekhan gets a chance to step up to the plate (if he wants that of course) and show the world how it's done, I think he deserves the chance and he'd do a hell of a job.

So bye bye Awen, don't let the door hit you on the way out and please don't come back

Updates, Updates, Updates!

So I've got nothing new to show as of yet, I've been working hard on 3 assignments that once I get out of the way I'll be able to check out some gaming stuff. Uncharted 2 is out next week too which I'm really looking forward to, it's getting some great reviews so I hope it lives up to my expectations.

So yeah, 3 assignments, one is a presentation which I've finished and I'm just waiting to get out of the way, another is a character design sheet which I'm finding pretty hard, I've no problem designing the actual character, it's explaining why I used such and such a color which has me going slow, the last is a website which is pretty much finished, just needs some polish and a spell check and it could go live.

I've an "unofficial" project going on with my 3D stuff which is designing a room, I decided to model my bedroom, its nearly finished I need to add in a few more things and it'll be good to go. We're touching on texturing and mapping next week which I'm really looking forward to.

One thing which has disappointed me though is the Java. We finally got on to things like text fields, buttons and basic input, unfortunately though since we're doing things via applets it's a pile of crap. Can't position buttons like you would anything else which means they have to be on the top line of the applet, I've been told there are ways of moving it, but it's nothing we'll be covering in our module which sucks balls.

Overall things are going well and I'm sorry for not keeping things up to date.

Bender in 3D

One of the guys in my class was talking about modelling Bender from Futurama but was having problems with his head, I gave him a solution but then it got me wanting to try model him so with it being a boring Sunday I decided to give it a shot and this is what I came out with.


I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out the best way to do the mouth so I left it out for the time being. Overall it's taken me about an hour to model that and it comes in at just under 3000 faces.

Theres loads of improvements I can make and as I learn how to go about it I'll do it but for now I'm happy :)