GTA Fight April 21, 2008

We can all agree that the leading men in the Grand Theft Auto series are pretty tough. But when it comes down to it which one would win in a bare knuckle bar room style brawl that would put Willie O’Dea to shame?

The Contenders

In the blue corner…

The small but scrappy collective cast of GTA1 who for the sake of moving things along will be classed as one character. Also the only thing that really changes is their shirt colour. Their main strength is the ability to duck and dive being so small it would make any attacks by the competitors near useless. Their weakness is that from what we can tell they appear to he heads with feet attached. 

 

In the red corner…

Claude, the gruff, burly, man machine from Grand Theft Auto 3. His main strengths are that he was the first proper 3D character with actual facial features. His hobbies include include running over hookers, posing as a taxi driver and climbing up on a rooftop and throwing grenades at pedestrians.  

 

In the magenta corner

Tommy “Vice City” Vercetti, the Hawaiian shirt loving walking stereotype from the 1980s. His strengths are that he looks bad ass on a motorcycle and possesses the ability to go in and out of buildings. He was also the first character to actually think to change his clothes. His main weakness is that since he lives in a different decade to the rest of the fighters by the time we can get them all together he’ll be considerably older. Unless the fight is held in the 1980s then he can just kick their pre-teen asses. 

 

In the forest opal corner

Carl “CJ” Johnson of GTA San Andreas. His strengths include being able to work out to the point where he looks as if he can’t support the weight of his own neck. His main weakness is that his girlfriend will probably want him to go somewhere, usually the club, bar or shooting at passers-by…low maintenance girl really. He also has a penchant for BMXs ad running around the city smacking pedestrians with a rubber phallus (in case you haven’t found that weapon it’s in the cop station I’m not crazy).

 

The Main Event 

The contenders stood nervously in their respective corers of the ring waiting for the fight to start. After the bell CJ was first off the ropes but it soon became clear that he was going for his mobile to phone his girlfriend. This task was soon forgotten after Vercetti made whipping noises in his direction as he leaned against the ropes, rolled up the sleeves on his suit and stroked his muzzle. 

The GTA 1 characters were nowhere so be seen, it was only when CJ knocked Tommy Vercetti clean out they were smashed on the bottom of his shoe. 

Claude was late into the fight since it took him 20 minutes to run from his dressing room to the ring. He had to stop periodically to catch his breath and eat mysterious red and white sweets he found on the ground.    

The two faced off in the ring for a while each taking the occasional jab but the fight took a turn when CJ from all the physical activity instantaneously grew 6 inches onto his chest and fell down incapacitated.    

 

A review of a review? How Shakespearian March 19, 2008

 

Escapistmagazine.com is one of the web’s newest and most original blogging and review sites and an absolute must for anyone who dares to call themselves a ‘Gamer’. The main feature of the site is the side splitting computer game reviews by English-born, Australian-dwelling computer journalist Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw.   

The razor tongues Yahtzee delivers his weekly video game reviews in a distinctive four and a half minute non-stop monologue. Relentlessly he tears through the latest video game releases pointing out the flaws that most other reviewers are too gracious to mention. Quite often his hatred for his the Nintendo Wii, first person shooters, boy racers and           ex-girlfriends are drawn on in his maniacal ranting but they never distract him from his original goal – taking game designers down a peg or two…or three.

The videos released every Wednesday turn traditional reviewing methods on their head. He takes a bold new approach making them accessible to anyone, not just those with a prior knowledge of video games. The site also houses blogs from a number of other gaming experts who offer readers advice and opinions on everything from computers to religion. With blogs and reviews as sharp as these the games industry should be concerned. Not only do they have to worry about bad reviews, the critics are becoming more entertaining and innovative then the industry it is reviewing.

 

iPod, iPhone, iDon’t Care March 9, 2008

It’s not even on the market yet but we have already been saturated with talk of the iPhone. From the way it has been built up in the media apple seemingly have programmed a solution for world hunger into it.

Don’t get me wrong I love apple products, maybe in ways that it’s wrong for a woman to love a piece of technology (they’re just so beautiful) but my feelings about the iPhone are the same as any piece of flash in the pan technology. There are two kinds of people who will buy this product (a) the loyal Apple customer who will keep returning to their products out of genuine appreciation and interest and (b) the guys named Finntan or Fiachra who are going to buy it to use sitting in Starbucks writing a screenplay, because you’re just not a real writer unless someone sees you writing.

The iPhone has some fantastic features and is a remarkable leap in mobile technology and it’s just damn sexy. Even the way in which the menu scrolls is enough to make you want to sell your friends just to get the money to buy one of these bad boys. Because it’s all touch screen you have to slide the menu along and if you flick it quickly it senses the change in movement and scrolls rapidly. It even picks up Wi-Fi so you can use safari.

My favourite feature, which will probably go unnoticed and unappreciated (like me …sigh) is the inclusion of three sensors in the phone: (1) A proximity sensor that shuts off the display when the phone is held to your face (i.e when on a call), to save battery and prevent accidental inputs. (2) A 3-axis accelerometer which senses the angle of the phone and adjusts the screen accordingly. Meaning if you turn the phone 45 degrees the screen rotates as well so you can look at it from any angle and (3) A Light sensor that adjusts the brightness of the screen to an appropriate level for your surroundings in order to preserve battery.

As much as I love technology I’m still a bit of a traditionalist. I grew up in a world where men were men, women were women and phones were just phones (I make it sound like the old west but in fairness Dublin in the 80s wasn’t much different). If I can get mine to call people and send texts and maybe wake me up in the morning I’m happy. I’m an urban Buddhist, I still have material possessions but just enough to get my. I take pleasure in the simple things. I’m still giddy that I can text my meteor friends for free. I switched about 6 months ago and on any normal person the novelty would have worn off long ago.

The iPhone is not without its flaws though, oh no. And if you will allow me to clutch at straws for a moment here’s a list of criticisms I have of it (I’m not just jealous I swear)…

(1) Because of the touch screen you can’t use it with gloves on. Sucks to be iPhone users when winter rolls back around.

(2) If the battery runs down you have to send it back to Apple to replace it. If you’re outside your warranty this will cost you upwards of $90.

(3) It’s actually quite bulky. Something that would instantly put me off a phone.

(4) The cheapest model will cost about €600 and they grow in price up to about €1200. That’s half my car.

(5) There’s a newer model already due to come on the market at the end of the year. It’s already dating itself.

Sometimes it feels like in the race to get the newest trendiest products onto the market we are actually taking a huge leap backwards. We have technology that is less available to people and definitely less user friendly. LG recently unveiled the slimmest laptop to date and one of its most notable features was its lack of a disk drive. Call me old fashioned bu that always seemed to be an important feature to me. It’s robbing the laptop of it’s…laptoppyness (it’s 2am you come up with a better word). I don’t want a computer that’s tiny if I have to go through a big rigmarole just to play The Sims! (I still have the original one with buckets of upgrades…Representin’ old school).

I believe these designers should stop showing off and start making something useful. So I say good job to those trying to bring affordable laptops to children in the third world, and to Ubuntu who give software away for free. We need more innovators and less exhibitionists.

Interesting links

One Laptop Per Child plan: http://laptop.org/