I was already intending not to get Windows 8 with (in my opinion) its hideous Metro more suited to tablets and mobiles than the prime user, the PC user. Now it gets worse from what I hear, with the removal of Aero from Windows 8.
We applied the principles of “clean and crisp” when updating window and taskbar chrome. Gone are the glass and reflections. We squared off the edges of windows and the taskbar. We removed all the glows and gradients found on buttons within the chrome. We made the appearance of windows crisper by removing unnecessary shadows and transparency. The default window chrome is white, creating an airy and premium look. The taskbar continues to blend into the desktop wallpaper, but appears less complicated overall.
HAHAHAHAHAHA. It just keeps on being steps backwards. A jarring transition between Metro and the proper desktop interface, no start button, not knowing what programs are running at what time over the two distinct systems, introducing ribbon to explorer when it doesn’t have anywhere near as many functions as Word (and therefore isn’t as necessary), the list goes on…
I also find it ironic they go about simplifying things and clean and crisp look and all that, when Metro has a bunch of rotating tiles that keep on changing, tiles of different sizes and probably about 5 or 6 Kindergarten-shade solid colours all on the one screen at a time.
At least I hope they wake up and allow people to use a start menu instead of a start screen, though last I recall, things weren’t looking up for that. If they do intend to go down this route, I hope they are prepared to face the fact that businesses aren’t going to be upgrading to it.
Diablo III launches soon, but for those of you getting it, are you truly prepared? Whether you bought off Battle.net, or are getting a retail copy, you might be confused as to how things are going to go down. Here’s the gist.
Right now, if you have purchased off Battle.net you can already download the installer. If you haven’t already, you should download it now. On Tuesday, at 1am (Sydney time), people who have purchased off Battle.net will be able to install the game. You won’t be able to play the game yet, but you will be able to check if everything installs correctly. On Tuesday at 5pm (Sydney time), global play will be unlocked, allowing you to finally play the game.
Excitement is literally excreting out of my body. The fluid kill animations, that parkour escape through the window, the Total War-esque battles, and that bear… this is too much for me.
Finally I am out of the crunch time of mid-semester assignments and exams. Apologies to the people whose birthday parties I missed. Anyway I can finally catch up on my anime.
So this is a pretty good season for anime. And particularly fatal if you get nosebleeds from cute girls. We also have guns, jazz, zombies, ghosts, augmented reality battles and deities from the Cthulhu mythos. I’ll try to keep the impressions brief to get through all of them.
Hyouka
Some beautiful art from KyoAni for this show. I’m also enjoying the story setup, which is slowly ramping up for this 24 episode show. Houtarou Oreki wants to live a low-energy lifestyle, so he displays a reluctance to do any activity that surpasses even Kyon’s reluctance to do anything. On the plus side, he has the deductive skills of Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately he is told by his older sister to join the Classic Literature Club in order to save it from extinction. He joins, expecting to be the only one at the club, when he meets the immensely curious Eru Chitanda. Once Houtarou gazes into her eyes he finds himself unable to resist solving the mysteries she finds.
Satomi Satou does an admirable job as Chitanda, but she does stray into Ritsu Tainaka territory on occasion.
Even though I have yet to try it, I believe this is the most amazing game ever. I mean, what more could a man want? There’s multi-track drifting, awesome music and sound effects, smooth gameplay, and even voice acting and a story.
For those that are not aware, this game is based on Densha De D, the manga parody of Initial D.
It has been so AWESOME that they have actually made TWO games – Lightning Stage and Burning Stage.
EDIT: Holy shit what was I smoking, this piece read like grammatical cancer. Well it probably still does, but it’s much easier on the mind than before. Apologies to anyone who read this before the edit. Also included the OP because it is awesome.
There’s a new anime this season, called Sakamichi no Apollon. It’s set in the 60s in Japan, down in the south in Kyushu. It’s about a couple of school kid’s lives, and how jazz music changes their lives for the better. I know a few readers here are watching it, and hopefully by this time, they’ve seen the latest episode, and were blown away by the session scene near the end.
The show is in super capable hands, and it comes across in the quality of the writing and character development (it’s been a while since there’s been any sort of a subtle heart-tugging, tear-inducing character back story in anime). Add on top of this an authentic setting, and sparkly jazz goodness (composed, or if not, rearranged by none other than Kanno-san), and we really have something special. The cherry on top of the already copious amount of icing on the cake was the hiring of American voice actors (or at least they sounded American, and had the correct intonations) to voice Americans, and someone who could actually pronounce English to be the singing voice for a Japanese college student (who supposedly attends Todai, and so you’d expect some degree of competency with English).
It is not surprising that there’s a new Call of Duty game. What is surprising is that Treyarch actually intends on making changes to the tried and tested (and some would say stale) COD formula. The first thing you’ll note is the change in setting to the year 2025 (though there are flashbacks spanning from 1980 to 2025), which means Avatar-style VTOL aircraft and MGS4 style autonomous drones. And for those of you wondering why this is Black Ops 2, you play the son of the protagonist of Black Ops 1. Therefore this is the second sequel to the Call of Duty: World at War timeline.
But the changes go further than that, with a campaign with multiple paths and endings. As you play through the campaign you’ll be able to play side-missions called Strike Force missions. There you control a team of Navy SEALs who need to capture resources from across the world. In these missions you gain access to an RTS style overwatch view, letting you give orders to your drones and squad. You can even take direct control of drones. However, if you lose all your units, you lose the mission but the campaign continues. I bet what that means is a Mass Effect 3 style campaign, where your ‘war readiness’ will influence what ending you get (though hopefully it won’t have a ME3 style ending).
Here’s the trailer, and while it is as always very Michael Bay, there are some interesting sequences such as the horseback chase.
Anyway, I bought Journey more or less the day/week it came out, and never got around to writing about it. Neither has Ben (well I haven’t dug around in the drafts section… don’t know if you started on a post about it =S).
So I shall do a quick write up. Nope, not happening today. For now, I shall leave you with a piece from the OST. The OST itself is fantastic, gentle in its melodies, but emotionally uplifting as it swells into its main themes. It definitely added a lot more atmosphere to the game that it would have otherwise had. In fact, I would go so far as to say that without the music, the game would have been a much drier and less emotional experience.
None of the official stuff mind you – these are all rearrangements or remixes.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Initial D – Takahashi Ryosuke Fastest TYPING theory
It appears to be some sort of typing game on PS2. And there is a keyboard with it too!!! I can’t find any proper gameplay of it sadly, but if anyone finds anything, let me know. This looks awesome.
