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| Wed 24 Dec 08 - MUSIC - Transcending Bizarre? |
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I recently found a new metal band with great potential. 'Transcending Bizarre?' is the name and the style combines black, industrial, symphonic with an avantgard-ish flavor. The band has produced two exceptional albums so far, great albums from start to end. Combining different sounds is where the band shines, jumping from one theme to another without making our ears hurt. The guitars sound very powerful also, raw at some points, melodic or technical in other. The vocals are mainly brutal and some times female operatic. The brutal are ok, just ok, nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary.
Bands like 'Transcending Bizarre?' are worth mentioning not because they are from Greece, Im not a patriot afterall, but because they dont afraid to experiment and create something new. |
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| Tue 28 Oct 08 - STALKER Clear Sky impressions |
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Once again I bought the new STALKER on release. I knew that Clear Sky wouldn't disappoint me and I really appreciate the developer's efforts on bringing such a complex and deep game to us.
CS is not STALKER 2 but an improved game carrying the legacy of SoC and improving it drastically. The game is actually a prequel set 10 years before the Shadow of Chernobyl incidents. The script this time around is not that impressive but that a minor issue. The setting is the same as SoC (the Chernobyl area) plus some new territories. The level design if SoC was remarkable and this passes to CS's new areas as well.
CS has some noticeable improvements over SoC as we mentioned before, the first is the full day-night cycle which changes the gameplay drastically. Unfortunately you cannot skip time, you can only wait for the time to pass. Another improvement is the money. This time they are useful but only for weapons and armor upgrades (yes you can upgrade your equipment), If you are patient and search the bodies you wont need to buy anything else from the merchants. The upgrades -at lease- gives you a reason to collect weapons and sell them. Artifacts are much more improved this time. You dont find them random locations pick them up and never bother again. This time around you have a detector device for searching them and the are more useful. The enemy AI is improved as well, the NPCs seek for cover and they use grenades... they handle the grenades veryyyy good, they throw them for very far distances and excactlly where you are. Thats a minus ofcource because at some circumstances with many enemies a rain of grenades may occur.
The last thing worth mentioning is the graphics, aside of the day-night cycle CS has numerous improvements such as ambient occlusion, volumetric rays, soft particles, new animation system and many more. CS is one of the most demanding games out there but its not even close to be as heavy as Crysis. On the down side, the developers left a couple of effects for the DX10 renderer, the wet surfaces and the volumetric smoke, effects that DX9 can handle as well. If DX9 can handle them why putting the on the DX10 renderer only? To force us upgrade to a crappy/shitty OS like Vista? These are not good tactics on behalf of the developers and thats my only complain about CS.
The new installment of STALKER is here to stay and I really hope for high sales in order to see a new STALKER. Great job GSC Game World!!! |
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| Fri 08 Aug 08 - PROGAMMING - Two Methods for 3x3 matrix re-orthogonalization. |
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Here are two methods for 3x3 matrix re-orthogonalization of a given matrix M.
Method 1: Using a correction matrix.
We are going to re-orthogonalize M by computing a correction matrix C. The C is given as:
C = ( (3 * I) - (M * T) ) / 2
where 3 and 2 are just scalars, I is the identity 3x3 and T is the transposed of M. Then O, the re-orthogonalized M, is:
O = C * M
Method 2: Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization with a twist for z_axis.
We are going to use some C++ code here. We assume that the M is in the classic format (not like opengl but the transposed). Here is the code:
vec3_t x_axis, y_axis, z_axis; // temp vectors
M.GetColumns( x_axis, y_axis, z_axis ); // get the columns of out M
x_axis.Normalize(); // self explanatory
y_axis = y_axis - ( x_axis * x_axis.Dot(y_axis) ); // the result of the big parenthesis is the projection of y_axis into x_axis
y_axis.Normalize(); // self explanatory
z_axis = Cross(x_axis, y_axis); // we compute the z_axis using cross product
M.SetColumns( x_axis, y_axis, z_axis ); // we restore M |
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| Mon 07 Jul 08 - Buy Crysis Warhead, NOT pirate it |
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Crysis Warhead is the follow up of the Crytek's great Crysis, a game released in November 2007. Crysis was one of the biggest PC exclusives of the previous year, a major success but with poor sales. It sold one unit for every 20 pirated copies!!! I mean with a number like that I can completely justify the developer's frustration about the current PC-gaming scene. Ok Crytek made a few mistakes but the issue lies with the greedy/non supportive/pirates gamers.
Crytek wants to give PC-gaming a second chance with Warhead. This time around they state that the previous issues are dissolved. Warhead will be in top of a more optimized engine, with more shooting and non linear approaches.
This time Crytek gives PC a second change, they dont need our alms, they only ask of what they deserve.
Check the official site for more info: crysis-thegame.com |
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| Sun 29 Jun 08 - Mass Effect Review |
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Bioware is well known for their quality games and Mass Effect is one of them. The events of the game take place a few hundred years from now. In the distance future, Earth is a united nation and a part of a large alliance between alien races (yes there are aliens). The aliens are inhabitants of the same galaxy as we and they are having technology and intelligence close to humans. In this futuristic world giant ships, called mass relays, work like slingshots, throwing the ships in distant systems. With this way the intergalactic travel is a reality. This interesting technology is a product of a powerful alien race suddenly disappeared 50.000 years ago. The Protheans left behind the mass relays, a giant ship called the Citadel and ruins scattered throughout the galaxy, these are the only remains and the legacy they left behind. Questions of how the Protheans disappeared, who build the mass relays initially and many more will be answered during the game. The story is really epic and one of the best I've ever encounter in game.
In Mass Effect you play Separd, a space marine with a great task, to save the universe and establish humanity among the strong players of the alliance. In this fight you are not alone, in the beginning of every mission you can chose 2 of your comrads to fight along you. Your commrads are part of your crew and the play their part in the story. Just like every RPG you will face the main quest as well as the secondaries. With the help of your ship and mass relays you can travel in distant lands to complete your quests. Unfortunately the secondary quests are not in par with the main. You can find 2 kinds of secondary quests. The first kind is when you land in a planet with your vehicle and search for ruins, or rare metals and occasionally wipe out bases or camps (...boring). The other kind happen in places of your main quest and they are more interesting but few.
Mass effect features action elements already seen in the SUPER AWESOME CRAP game called Gears of War. Mass Effect uses Unreal Engine 3 and the developers copied many elements from gears of war like the covering system. Your inventory features 5 weapons (pistol, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle, grenades) and biotics. Biotics is another name for the “magic spells” every RPG features. During your play you can update your weapons with mods, buy new and better ones and bla bla bla your armor too. Classic RPG stuff. Compared with Gears the combats are better because biotics give a new twist.
In this epic journey you travel different planets and areas as well as the Citadel, the giant Prothean ship inhabited by humans and aliens members of the alliance. The Citadel is an epic and beautiful place but with not all the places you visit are that good. The environments in general are not detailed enough but at least they differ from each other in both architecture and textures.
The graphics are good, great cinematics, the models are high poly with detailed textures, the game features Unreal 3 after all. But the truth is that I never liked Unreal 3. They always use tricks to avoid realistic approaches. The absence of global illumination model always bugged me and this time more than ever.
Overall the game is good build in a great story, a fairly good combat system and great production. In the other hand the game is short and the secondary missions lame. In the end Mass Effect leaves you with a sweet taste that wont last long. If you liked it you should check The Witcher witch is a far better game in every way.
Enjoy!
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