Wednesday, 8 December 2010 11:07 AM
2010 is almost over. The year has flown past. One of the things that I will take from this year is that it has been a bumper one for great games.
I would not call myself a gamer (though I do plunge a lot of my time into it), but I have spent a lot of hard-earned cash on games this year for both the PC and my XBox 360.
Here is a list of games that I remember buying this year, in no particular order:
- Mass Effect 2
- Red Dead Redemption
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- NBA 2K11
- Bioshock 2
- Civilization 5
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Halo: Reach
- Naruto Shippuuden 2
- Transformers: War on Cybertron
That's not even all of them...and I probably would have bought more as well, if it wasn't for the fact that I had to pay for my knee reconstruction.
I can't remember the last time there were this many great games in one year. I definitely can't remember spending this much money on games (as my wife would attest, and reminds me on a regular basis).
If I had to pick, I think my favourite game this year would have to be NBA 2K11. It was quite a coup for 2K to integrate the greatest basketballer of all time into their game. Michael Jordan is notorious for keeping the rights to his name and brand pretty tight. It's been awesome to relive some of his accomplishments on the hardwood and it's even better playing the game with several others in multi-player.
So do you agree that the were plenty of AAA releases this year? Do you disagree? What were some of the great games you bought? What was your game of the year? Feel free to leave your comments below.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Games | 0 Comments
Thursday, 22 July 2010 3:33 PM
It seems that we cannot get anything done quickly in this country. The committee of Attorney Generals were meant to meet this month to discuss about the games classification issue in Australia. This has been cancelled and with it goes the hope of a quick resolution to the matter.
This is obviously a very important topic of discussion because it saw an unprecedented number of submissions when it was opened for public consultation.
The proposed date for the discussion has now been delayed to early November.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Announcements | 0 Comments
Wednesday, 21 July 2010 1:04 PM
I just had to post this. It seems to be a genuine news report about Apple's iPhone 4 and its issues, but the fact that it references Star Wars in its animation sequences is priceless.
The video is in Chinese, but you don't need to know it to understand the message. It is hilarious.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Apple | 1 Comments
Wednesday, 21 July 2010 8:47 AM
TechFlare is turning a grand old age of 6 soon and we're going to be having a bash to celebrate it. As prelude to the occassion, I am posting this video that I did last year (photos by Ronald Atengco).
Quite a slideshow, if I do say so myself.
Heres hoping that it will be bigger and better this year!
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Announcements | 1 Comments
Tuesday, 13 July 2010 12:12 PM
"Opposition to the government's plan to protect kids".
This line (in one form or another) has been used countless times since the proposal for a mandatory Internet filter was first put forth by Senator Stephen Conroy. Now it seems that this has got legs because a member of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Dr. Joe Tucci, is spouting the same nonsense.
When will these people get it into their heads that the filter will not really protect our children. Parents have to take responsibility for their kids and not the government.
Based on everything that I have read so far, the proposed system will NOT protect our kids enough to warrant a China-like approach. Surely there are other ways to resolve this issue because, make no mistake, the Internet filter IS a form of censorship.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Censorship | 0 Comments
Monday, 12 July 2010 10:08 PM
* The original article was posted back in a previous publication of our newsletter.
Other than being the world's most popular search engine, Google has developed some really cool software. Many of them are free. We have touched on a few of these before, but here is a summary list of some of the more commonly used ones.
Google Mail
To quote the company: "Google Mail is built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient and useful. And maybe even fun." This is a great free mail application that provides lots of space (about 7GB), mobile access and has a pretty good spam filter.
You can find out more about Google Mail and signup for an account.
Google Earth
This application lets you fly anywhere on the planet to view satellite images of maps, terrains and even some 3D buildings. It basically contains a whole lot of geographic information and presents them at your fingertips. Awesome.
You can download Google Earth and see for yourself.
Picasa
Oddly enough, this app does not have Google in its name, but it is still a Google product. It is a free photo editing software that also allows you to share your photos with friends and family. Create, organise and share your web albums.
You can download Picasa and try it for yourself.
Google Maps
An alternative to something like 'Whereis' but it contains maps from the rest of the world as well. Google Maps include great features like local listings and driving directions. It even offers satellite images for the more complex or pinpointed regional searches.
Google Chrome
Chrome is one the fastest browsers currently out there. It has been designed with simplicity in mind to make it more efficient and easy to use. Many of the guys in the office have defected from IE8 or Firefox3 and are now using Chrome for their everyday use.
You can check out some really cool experiments that users are doing with Google Chrome. Mind blowing!
Download Chrome and try it out for yourself.
You can also check out some other products by Google. This article may well list some great products that you may not have heard about.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Browsers, Google | 0 Comments
Friday, 9 July 2010 1:35 PM
The government has placed the mandatory Internet filter on the backburner. They are finally going to do an independent review on all this nonsense.
Senator Stephen Conroy says that the review will likely take up to a year to be carried out and that Telstra, Optus and Primus have agreed to the move.
It's about time that someone got through to him. I guess now we have to wait and see what happens.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Censorship | 2 Comments
Thursday, 8 July 2010 11:48 AM
The article below was initially posted way back in April 2009 on our newsletter. Many of these points are still valid but don't just take my word for it, look it up for yourself.
The Australian Government has been running a trial with some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to censor inappropriate material on the web. In a nutshell, any user who tries to access certain "inappropriate" sites are denied access to that site. These inappropriate websites are stored on a blacklist maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The sites on this list remain a secret.
I would not normally touch anything even remotely political with a 10-foot pole, however, censorship across Australian networks is not a good thing. I am not saying that the idea itself is bad, far from it. The problem is that there are so many intrinsic issues related to this. Firstly, there may well be legal ramifications to censoring content. Then you have to think about the fact that the filter will actually slow our networks down (in some cases quite significantly) even more than they currently are. The additional cost for filtering will be likely be passed down to users. There are numerous other issues, and you can click here to read just one of the many blogs that are popping up on the Internet and protesting about the censorship.
iiNet is Australia's third largest ISP, and has recently withdrawn from the trial. Click here to read more about it. As you can see from the article, the blacklist is far from perfect. Here is another article on the controversial blacklist.
For a more objective overview about Internet censorship in Australia, click here.
Being a parent myself, I understand that other parents would want the Internet to be a safe place for their children. However, I believe that censorship by the government is not the right direction. It should always start in the home, with the parents.
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Censorship | 1 Comments
Thursday, 8 July 2010 10:59 AM
We were recently updating our own website and ran into some trouble with Internet Explorer. This reminded me of a video I saw a while ago on YouTube.
Sooo for all you web designers out there, enjoy!
Author: Nick Heng | Filed Under: Browsers | 2 Comments