McPhee

Saw this article over at Hexus.net and found it quite interesting (as someone who doesn't keep up with what's coming any more). Looks like a good year for the PC and PS3, not so great for the 360 (not surprising really given the number of closures at Microsoft Game Studios in 2008/2009). Had pretty much given up on PC gaming, the only notable release in 2010 was Starcraft 2, but 2011 looks packed! http://gaming.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=28159&page=1

This is actually quite a scary thought. I wonder how much of my life so far I've spent playing video games? Months? Years? The most time spent playing one game has to be pretty close between Team Fortress 2, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, Perfect Dark, Smash Bros. Melee, Timesplitters 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 (can use the work excuse on the last one though, earned my place at uni through the mods I worked on). Most completed is definitely Super Mario Bros. 3. Got All Stars for Christmas 1993 and Mario 3 quickly became my favourite. No idea how many times I'd completed it by the time I got my N64 in 1999 but I gather it was a lot.

Top 5 albums for me were; 1. Brothers - The Black Keys 2. How I Got Over - The Roots 3. This Is Happening - LCD Soundsystem 4. Only Revolutions - Biffy Clyro 5. Le Noise - Neil Young Plenty of other quality ones this year though, along with two in particular that I'm yet to get (Spoon and Arcade Fire - thought I was getting them for Christmas but it seems no). Oddly I've not been to a single gig this year. Picked up tickets to see BRMC and LCD/Hot Chip but missed both due to flu

It's tomorrow's 12 Days of Christmas download so grab it quick, will prob only be free for 48 hours.

Yup. Should be in the Control Panel. Network and Sharing settings or something? Been a long time since I last used XP (first Vista beta, so over 5 years ago now!) so I can't remember the exact menu layout, but it should be something like that.

The chopper in Vietnam is the UH-1 Huey. That's why it's got weapons. The Blackhawk is primarily a troop transport whereas the Huey was the first real attack helicopter. It's smaller than the Blackhawk and rather vulnerable to small arms fire (as all helicopters were in that time period, the US lost near 5000 in 'Nam!).

Some cracking tunes on this album. Downloaded it a while ago but only just got around to listening to it. Not sure if I prefer it to How I Got Over by The Roots though, one of the two is definitely my Hip-Hop album of the year.

I'm just after Left 4 Dead/2 and Team Fortress 2 for gifts, not too bothered about anything else at the moment. Too much to play and I don't use the PC much any more. Still, been some cracking bargains! Was really tempted by Dead Rising 2 and Borderlands GOTY.

I picked up Gears 2 recently to give multiplayer another go. Imagine my annoyance when I found out that I can't play multiplayer because I don't have the map packs! Suddenly that cheap (4 for £20) game is either no longer cheap, or it's worthless. I'm not against DLC, but stuff like that really annoys me. Had a similar problem with CoD:WaW, got booted back to the main menu every time a DLC map came up. I bought it about a month before MW2 came out so there was no way I was about to part with money for multiplayer DLC.

I've kinda mellowed lately. I used to drink a lot and wouldn't say no to a spot of weed if it was there. Don't really bother these days though. Different circles. The people I knew who smoked heavily are a bit fucked up now (to varying degrees) so I'm glad I never really got caught up in it. The drinking habbit has been cut down massively too, I buy good quality stuff and drink it because I like the taste, rather than because I want to get drunk.

Ohh. Stupid Dice. The game told me I needed to update to play online and took me to the marketplace to buy "BFBC2 Vietnam Multiplayer Update" at 1.64GB. I just assumed that something with that name and that filesize would be the Vietnam update, not enforced preloading for an update that I may/may not buy.

It's out on the 360 now. Just started downloading. Weighs in at a massive 1.64GB! free though which is awesomely unexpected (haven't read anythingon it since the firt announcement).

I'm not so sure it's a matter of success, more one of life fulfillment. If bringing up a family helps you achieve a full life then that's the important thing. It's actually quite a scary thing to think about. I haven't planned to get married or have kids, but then if I think forward to when I'm 50 do I really want to be alone? If I compare my dad's life to his sister' then is certainly looks a lot warmer and more appealing (she never got married or had kids). I'm in no position to think seriously about either right now though, my life is unlikely to settle until I'm past 30 and building my own restaurant/deli.

Had a similar issue with T-Mobile, except there were outstanding charges that caused them to put a black mark on my credit rating. CS wouldn't speak to me as I didn't have an active T-Mobile phone number, and as such I couldn't settle the balance. Managed to get an email address for someone quite high up the company by asking around mobile phone related sites (think it was the CS director or some such) and he got it sorted pretty quicj, waving all charges as an apology. I'd try MSE and What Mobile forums for a start.

FUUUUUUK YEAH! Can't wait. Been after a new Elder Scrolls game since Oblivion, never really got in to Morrowind. Please give us some sort of co-op this time tho... Please!

Oh it ain't easy. The opposite in fact, I was almost constantly out of ammo until I managed to afford the Rock-It Launcher. Now I'm just out-gunned. I might just start again. I tired to balance stats across a number of different skills, but now I'm thinking going all-in on combat would have been more sensible?

Picked up Fallout 3 this week. I'm not sure if I'm missing something or not, but it feels very 'meh'. Even after two years it's still buggy/glitchy with performance issues, the story ain't really grabbing me (not far in tho, just left Vault 112), the gunplay doesn't really stand up to today's shooters and the weapons feel crap. It has given me a desire to go out and buy Borderlands again though, a game which I enjoyed far more than this one on account of the co-op, awesome guns, awesome gunplay and vehicles (no trekking across sparse landscape for 15 minutes to get to the objective!).

I hadn't really given it any thought, it looks good on my TV regardless. However, now I'm looking more closely I'd wager it's still 720p scaled up to 1080p. It's missing that overall sharpness that I see on Blu-Ray disks. I've been quite disappointed by the latest dashboard update tbh. I was expecting Zune, Facebook, Twitter etc. to be fully integrated in to the dashboard instead of being separate programs. Would be wicked to be able to play Zune Music tracks while playing a game. Hopefully it'll be in next year's update along with Zune Marketplace (i.e. apps), a web browser and IPTV (I can dream lol).

You actually are getting an 8GB iPod Touch though, there is no con. The confusion comes from the dawn of computing, when it was deemed acceptable to term binary values with decimal names. As such, 1KB was 1024B, not 1000B as the name would suggest. This caused a problem where 1KB could be two different values, either 1000B or 1024B depending on which scale you are using. This was put right in 2005, the binary KB was renamed KiB (or kibibyte), MB became MiB or Mibibyte, and so on upwards. Now, 1000B is 1KB and 1024B is 1KiB. So, when you are sold an 8GB iPod Touch what you get is 8 Billion bytes. What the OS sees is 7.45GiB (with the unit shown as GB), still 8 Billion bytes. The problem is the use of KB, MB, GB etc. as binary values is so engrained in society now that they can't really be dropped from common usage. While KiB, MiB, GiB etc. will become the norm in the world of computer science they are very unlikely to ever replace the old units; to do so would cause even more confusion.

Part of it is the difference between GB and GiB. Storage is sold in GB, Operating Systems work in GiB, the difference between the two being about 7% (or roughly half of your "missing" storage). The rest has gone to formatting and the OS.

Any room for a late entry? Or wait on a new tourney?

Naw, projectors are where it's at. GT5 ain't the same until the car you see on screen is bigger than it is in real life and your £200 Logitech racing wheel looks comically undersized :p Seriously, do eet! In regret only going with a 42"er...

I guess the idea is to allow maximum exposure for each topic in the press - releasing the whole lot at once would keep a lot of big things out of the headlines. TBH I've found the US reaction more interesting than the leaks themselves. Since they started the government has been running a fine line between limiting damage, protecting security and tearing up human rights, the first amendment and various national and international laws. It could be very embarrassing if the next bout of leaks focuses on the US governments actions in November/December 2010, there's definitely been some foul play at hand.

Allegedly Move is selling "better than expected" so there'll be a stock shortage over Christmas. Either that means sales picked up, Sony never expected it to sell well, or they're trying the old marketing trick of "it's out of stock therefore it must be popular". I think I'll pick up a Kinect in time for Christmas, could be a good laugh with all the family round.

His voice seems too dry for that robot, it feels odd.