Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed allows you to play as a badass Sith as Darth Vader's apprentice. The game is set between the two trilogies and fits nicely into the existing mythos.

You start off playing as Darth Vader with full powers and that level alone is worth the price of admission. :-)

Once you get into the main game, you have enough powers to take out just about everyone. As you progress through the game, your powers level up via you spending points on a desired area. More powerful enemies will come along for you to exercise your powers, not the least of which are Rancor's and AT-ST's.

There have been a lot of Star Wars games over the years with not many being that good. This game is one of the best and is a great game in its own right. Thanks to great use of the Star Wars license the game really shines and the story would have been a good movie.

Overall:

Playing as a Jedi/Sith with a lightsaber and force powers is awesome beyond belief. A great game that is made even better because it is a Star Wars game.

iPad - early thoughts

So the Apple hype machine announced the iPad and will release it on March 20th. It is basically an enlarged iPod touch. I just wanted to capture my early thoughts here as they are bound to change.

So lets sum it all up first and then break it down: Amazing Hardware. :-) No flash browser support. :-(

The breakdown:

• Mail - Looks nice, don't really care. With a screen this size, would just use the gmail interface in the browser.
• Photos - couldn't care less.
• Multitasking - haven't had issues without this on my iPhone.
• Battery - An excellent 10 hours while playing video. This is perfect.
• Video Playback - Mostly excellent.
• App Store - good to see that out of the box it will be able to do a lot. Hope that developers release certain apps that take advantage of the larger screen.

Lets face it, Apple had to build this as an enlarged iPhone to tap into the existing App Store that they already have. If the hackers get onto it and figure out how to Jailbreak it, that will solve a few of the issues geeks have.

The hardware is great, and there are many advantages to have an iPhone with a 10inch screen. its just a shame we can't get flash in the browser.

Recover deleted files

Ever delete a file by accident and bypass the recycle bin?

Recuva to the rescue. This free windows only program (donation ware) is handy for those times when you want to recover a file.

When windows deletes a file, it doesn't actually remove it from your system, it just marks that space as 'available'.

If you run the software straight after deleting something there is a very good chance that you will be able to recover it.

Install it now so that is is there when you need it. :-)

Avatar

James Cameron's latest movie Avatar is in 3D, and just like Terminator 2 before it, this is a movie that is a turning point in technology and heralds a new age of 3D movies.

The movie is well put together and the visuals are fantastic. The 3D effects blow away anything that has come before.

While he was making the movie James Cameron also invented a single camera that can shoot live action 3D. With 3D blu ray and 3D tv's on the way, this movie might be the one to get home 3D started.

Overall the movie was great and I can't wait to see it again.

Infamous

Another sandbox game Infamous (PS3 only) is a little different. You get to choose to be on the side of good or evil.

It plays the old 'forget your memory card' and you wake up after an explosion and notice that you have some weird electricity powers.

As the game progresses you have to choose between following the good or evil path and this will affect the powers that you will have access to. Trying to maintain a balance will just nerf your character so you go either good or bad.

The Good:

• Graphics are great. Your powers are extremely explosive and you can blow up cars, people and just about everything else in between.
• The game is good at showing you where 'shards' are that can increase your power bar. So it doesn't become a complete chore to find hidden packages.
• The powers are great and the story is pretty interesting.
• Gets a lot of the sandbox issues right such as always knowing where you need to be going.

Not so Good:

• There isn't a true 'evil path', more a do some bad things path. It was still pretty fun to be a bad guy and destroy everything.

Overall:

Pretty good and lots of fun to play. Story was good and I found it hard to put the game down, it was always just one more shard. :-)

Game: Guitar Hero: World Tour

Never thought the day would come, though I got Guitar Hero: World Tour for the Xbox 360.

For a long time, I never understood the 'plastic guitar' thing. It just seemed to be boring to me. After constantly hearing about it, I finally took the plunge and grabbed the World Tour kit which has a guitar and drum kit.

Verdict: AWESEOME!

This game is just pure fun. There are a lot of great songs to rock along to and the challenge of getting the notes is a lot of fun. The drums are a lot of fun to hammer away on as well. :-)

While there are some songs that I don't enjoy that much, even they can be interesting as you get into the challenge of the game and not just the music.

The only bad thing so far was my guitar broke after 2 weeks, but the replacement is holding up fine.

Overall a really fun game. :-)

Game: Heavenly Sword

A game that was long in development, Heavenly Sword for the PS3 is a game that is like an epic martial arts movie with great action.

What I liked:

• Good balance of gameplay difficulty, it doesn't get too punishing.
• Graphics really shine and even 2 years later are better than some current games.
• The martial arts feel permeates the entire game and makes it feel like films such as Hero and House of Flying daggers.
• Great performances by the voice actors. Andy Serkis shines as usual.
• Story was great and they didn't cheap out with a lame potential sequel cliffhanger.

Overall:

Great rental that is a lot of fun to play. This game is only 6 hours long, though it is an awesome 6 hours and there is no filler like in other games.

Convert Firefox to Chrome

Want Firefox to look like Google Chrome?

These plugins will allow you minimise the browser and maximise the web while keeping all your awesome firefox plugins.

• Chromifox Extreme and Chromifox companion to get things started with the Chrome look.
• Hide Menubar to remove the menu bar (alt key brings it back).
• Auto hide Status Bar can make the status bar disappear until you need it.
• Remove the title bar and you are as thin as can be. :-)

NOTE: There are some issues that I had that were fixed by either closing some tabs or hitting the restore/maximise button to force it to redraw the tabs.

It's about an 90% solution that should work pretty good for you.

Game: Halo 3: ODST

The expansion that became a full game. Halo 3: ODST is more than just a copy and paste job. :-)

This is the same gameplay as Halo 3, though there is quite an interesting story here, half of it is burried in hidden sections of the game.

The new firefight mode isn't much different from Horde mode in Gears of War 2 and isn't as good as the similar mode in Resistance 2 though it is still a big of fun.

The game has just one big problem: No autosave. Very frustrating to turn your xbox off and then when you turn it back on you find that all your progress is gone. Not cool.

Overall:

Another great Halo game, though there is nothing really new here, fans will enjoy it.