Download The TCS IT Wiz 2009 Quiz Finals

I’ve given you the prelims, Now eat the finals. The prelims were compiled by Shikhar, and hosted by me. The finals are compiled and written by Shreyans, and hosted by me. You can now see how I love to take credit for others’ work and boost my blog views.

Download The TCS IT Wiz 2009 Quiz Finals

A small note here. This quiz archive is EPIC. It’s simply awesome! Download it for sure. At. Any. Cost. Shreyans has compiled a truly magnificent archive. Never before have a seen something like this. If possible, print it on photo paper and frame it.

Download The TCS IT Wiz 2009 Quiz Prelims

TCS IT Wiz 2009 was held on 31st October 2009, and 909 teams turned up. I managed to finish tenth out of them (along with Saumey). DPS Noida won this year’s edition of TCS IT Wiz. You can download the quiz prelims here. Quiz finals are being prepared. More later.

Please give Shikhar complete credit for this work. It may have been hosted at my blog and typed by me, he made it a point to write them all down during the quiz (you can improve your handwriting, Shikhar).

Download the TCS IT Wiz 2009 Prelims

PlayStation 2 versus PlayStation Portable

Note: The PS2 and the PSP are two entirely different sets of consoles, rendering them incomparable. However, I was compelled to write this post owing to popular demand and rapidly dwindling blog traffic.

(Another) Note: I am NOT considering the PSP Go here. Doing that would force me to compare the PS3 with the PSP Go.

My previous gaming-console-comparison post had gone down well with the public. It’s time to write another post now!

PlayStation 2

The PlayStation 2 is the most selling gaming consoles in the world. It was probably one of the first consoles that actually attracted the masses towards the field of gaming, and also helped boost economy, by getting games created for it. Currently, the number of games to be manufactured for the PS2 is negligible, and so the number of games already present amounts up to, approximately, one thousand and nine hundred.

PlayStation Portable

The PlayStation Portable has no record to boast about. It is not the best selling console, nor is it the best selling portable gaming console (GameBoy is). Further, it does not beat its primary rival, the Nintendo DS, in sales. But what actually save the PSP are the games created for it. It has captured the minds of the audience like never before. It was launched after the PS2, so naturally, the number of games made for it are lesser than the PS2 games.

Let the comparison begin, now!

Hardware: Both, the PSP and the PS2 have really nice accessories for them. The PS2 definitely scores over the PSP in this. While the PSP has an external camera, an external microphone, some others, the PS2 has hardware the PSP cannot dream to match – Guitars for Guitar Hero, EyeToy cameras for a motion sensing experience, SingStar external huge microphones for karaoke on SingStar games, and so much more. Plus, the PS2 also has USB ports for your USB sticks. The PS2 goes one up

Score: PS2: 1|PSP: 0

Graphics: The PSP may appear to have superior graphics, but the PS2 speaks for itself. Connecting a PS2 to a large TV will give you a fantastic experience. Many games (such as Transformers) support full HD graphics, running at a 1920×1080 resolution. The PSP is vibrant, but the detailing in graphics goes with the PS2. The PS2 goes one up again. Way to go, fatso!

Score: PS2: 2|PSP: 0

Games: Again, the PS2 scores. With over 1900 games, there are classics the PSP just cannot have. Ever. Though the PSP has Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and God of War: Chains of Olympus, the PS2 has so many excellent games: Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Substance, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, God of War, God of War 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Burnout Dominator, Burnout Revenge!, Guitar Hero, etc. So the PS2 has some great games. But. The PSP is catching up. There is more scope of games coming up for the PSP than the PS2 now, and in the future. Resistance: Retribution, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Killzone Liberation, Need For Speed Shift, Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines and so many more. The PS2 gets a one up here, for already existing good old games. The PSP gets a one up for great coming-up games.

Score: PS2: 3|PSP: 1

Portability: Although you can pack off your PS2 and take it anywhere, you’d always need a TV to play. The PSP definitely scores in this field. After all, “Portable” is the name!

Score: PS2: 3|PSP: 2

Looks: The latest PS2 looks slim and light, like a small novel. But, of course, the PSP is way better. It is light years ahead of the PS2. This is the reason for buying a PSP. You may say that “The PS2 isn’t built for all this blah blah”. Still. The majority of the public don’t care. Neither do I. The PSP gets a one up, to impress the chicks.

Score: PS2: 3|PSP: 3

Operating Systems: The PS2 has a Linux known as Linux for PlayStation 2 developed by Sony itself. It’s a great kit complete with keyboard, and runs an entire operating system with a hard drive and your 8MB memory card. It runs OpenOffice.org and Firefox as well. People saying Vista runs on their PSPs are effin’ crackpots. Those are animated themes, guys, not operating systems. It is not possible for obvious reasons. Although the PSP has Linux OSes ported to it, the PS2 has an official, stable Linux. The PS2 goes one up.

Score: PS2: 4|PSP: 3

Homebrew Applications: Involves mainly exploits and “hacks”. The PS2 does have exploits, but these are extremely complicated to use. The PSP, on the other hand, can run exploits easily, the most famous being firmware changes and ISO loaders, which is often considered as the main reason for PSP sale boosts. One up, PSP!

Score: PS2: 4|PSP: 4

Entertainment: The PSP has a built-in audio and video player, supporting many formats which can be converted from the original and loaded on to a PSP. The PS2, on the other hand, can run full length DVDs, even dual-layer ones. So one up for both.

Score: PS2: 5|PSP: 5

Connectivity: The PS2 has an Ethernet cable slot, so you can use your LAN cable to connect anytime for online play, irrespective of whether you have a Wi-Fi connection or not. The PSP has no Ethernet slot, but Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing you to access internet directly on the PSP via a Wi-Fi hotspot, which are increasing in number by the day. Even your home can be equipped with a Wi-Fi router. One up for both.

Score: PS2: 6|PSP: 6

Controls: The PSP has only one analog stick and one L and R button, whereas the PS2 controller has two analog sticks, and two L and R buttons each (L1, L2, R1, R2). This offers way better controls in games. Let us take an example of EA Big’s Fifa Street 2 and NBA Street V3. You use a combination of the L and R buttons to do tricks. In the PSP only three types of tricks will be possible (L, R, L+R) but in the PS2, many more are possible (L1, R1, L2, R2, L1+R1, L2+R2, L1+R2, L2+R1…). PS2, one up!

Score: PS2: 7|PSP: 6

Game Detailing: The PS2 has better graphics, better physics, and better rendering and detailing for games for the PS2. Games are generally sold in single- and dual-layer UMDs (0.9 and 1.8 GB) for the PSP and DVD5s and DVD9s (4.7 and 8.5 GB) for the PS2. The sheer capacity of the PS2 DVDs is enough to tell you how much detail can be packed into PS2 games. You may say that the resolution of PSP games is designed to fit a much smaller screen, but a 3.8 GB difference is a bit too much. Take an example of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The PSP version is sucky and buggy. The PS2 version is just so breathtaking and captivating, you can easily see the difference. One up for the PS2

Score: PS2: 8|PSP: 6

Piracy: Pirated games are bad, people. But we don’t care, do we? The main reason the PSP sells is the easily done piracy. The PS2 can be modded to play games for any DVD region as well, by fixing a mod chip. No need to do all that hardware mumbo-jumbo with the PSP. Just put in a cracked firmware and done. The size thingy mentioned above actually becomes a disadvantage for the PS2 when it comes to piracy. Who has the patience to download a 4.7 GB DVD ISO and then burn it on to a DVD, with no guarantee that it will ever work? I’m currently download God of War for my PS2, and is has taken me 1 day 14 hours continuous, to finish 64% of download. PSP games will finish downloads overnight. And there is a near 100% guarantee that it will work as well. One up, PSP.

Score: PS2: 8|PSP: 7

Future Scope: This is where the PSP can kick the PS2’s big fat ass right out of the window. Portable gaming market is growing. Fast. The PS2 already has a successor – the PS3, and games for the PS2 are being made only for the sake of reaching more customers, since the PS2 has been the most selling console of all time. However, PSP games are made more enthusiastically these days. Reviewers no longer bother to review PS2 games, but do so for PSP ones. Although the PSP has a successor now (the PSP Go), Sony has made it clear that it will not discontinue support for the PSP-3000. Plus, remote play via the PSP with the PS3 is an added advantage. One up for the PSP.

Score: PS2: 8|PSP: 8

That brings us to the end of all sections! As you can see, the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable are tied at 8 each. But that does not mean, that we don’t have a winner or a loser.

Who wins: Sony does. Irrespective of what you buy, Sony will emerge as the winner, getting revenue from both console sales and game sales as well.

Who loses: Your parents, whom you will nag till eternity to buy a console.

Buying guide

I am a hardcore gamer with limited budget. I want to play games which are flawless with no technical glitches whatsoever.
Buy a PS2. Games for the PSP generally have coding errors, and have certain technical glitches

I don’t really game much, but I do play occasionally. I mostly listen to music and watch movies on-the-go. I don’t want to have an iPod and a gaming device always – just one.
Buy a PSP. It has a great interface for seeking videos, and a really good audio player.

I’m into the ninth/tenth grade, but still love gaming. I cannot afford a high-end PC.
Buy a PS2. Games for the PS2 are numerous, and more games won’t release anyway, so there’s no question about getting addicted to the new games. A PSP will cause a major distraction now, when you should spend all your time studying.

I game, and want to impress the chicks!
Buy a PSP. Girls fall for it. They’ll love it and, in turn, love you as well. This is, I feel, is the main reason why gamers buy PSPs.

I want to play good, old classics.
Buy a PS2. It has great games, with fantastic trilogies and series, such as Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Grand Theft Auto, Shin Megami Tensei, Final Fantasy, etc. The PSP has great games as well, but not such series to die for. Also, you can play memorable classics such as the PS One game Chrono Cross on your PS2 as well.

I want to play the latest games. Get the latest game reviews as well.
Buy a PSP. All major games releasing for seventh-generation non-portable consoles will release for the PSP as well (with the exception of a few). Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Need For Speed Shift, Resistance Retribution, etc will never, ever release for the PS2. Ever.

I am a hardcore gamer with unlimited budget. I can buy all original stuff and keep the cash flowing like water.
Then buy a PS3. Or an Xbox 360. And a PC. You may buy a PSP for remote play with the PSP. Read this for more.

lolcatz

June Wrap-Up

June has officially ended, and here are the stats for this month. This is the first month-stat-post I’m doing, because I never really explored how good WordPress’s stat system was.

Total views this June: 9,920 (Nine thousand, nine hundred and twenty, which is eighty short of ten thousand)

Top posts/pages:

List Of Games That Work With 3D Analyze	3,967 views
3D Analyze: Virtual Graphics Emulator	2,695 views
Review: Nokia N96	836 views
Install Windows Media Player 11 In A Non	503 views
Review: Need For Speed Undercover (PlayS	166 views
Fix Your Hung iPod	152 views

Review: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PlayStation 2)

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Developers: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan

Kojima Productions

Publisher: Konami

Designer: Hideo Kojima

Hideo Kojima is back with his lovely Metal Gear series. This time, it is Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater which I will review right now. Since I haven’t player other Metal Gear games, I certainly will not compare it to other games in the series.

When the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater DVD is in your hands, you begin to tremble. The box art and the description behind will make you hungry. And you can be sure – Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater will not disappoint you.

Unlike other games in the series, MGS3 is set in the past – in the 1960s. The game kick-starts with a thirty-five minute long cutscene, when you crash land in a forest in Russia. The gameplay is very little in the beginning. There’s hardly any shooting and grappling. Just moving around, trying to search for your lost bag hanging on a tree. Since controls are not specified to you, it’ll take time to figure ‘em out even in the beginning of the game.

The game as an innovative feature to converse with your seniors and advisors who are known only by their codenames – Major Zero, Para-medic, The Boss and Signit to name a few. The radio. You need to press the Select button and access the radio. You can dial various frequencies and make contact with them. Take tips from them, ask how to go about the current mission objective, what food you can eat, how good the weapon you’re using is, etc. You can even dial a frequency to save the game record mission details. Funnily enough, the game saves only in the Japanese PS2 Memory Card (the one with a silver sticker behind it), and not in the Chinese one (the one with a blue sticker behind it.)

What impresses you about the game is the sheer detailing. The sound you make while rustling grass, the recoil of weapons, your character’s flying hair, all catch your fancy immediately.

To the story now: it really can get confusing. It looks more like an army movie from Hollywood, cashing in on the evergreen concept of America-Russia battles. Its all about a scientist kidnapped by the Russians to create a mobile nuclear device to launch nuclear weapons. Based on post-World War II scenario, the story kinda takes time to unfold, but a superb script with some amazing gameplay and characters keep you on the edge of the seat. Oops. I meant controller. I really don’t want to reveal the plot now – it’ll spoil all the fun.

The graphics in the game are outstanding. Its probably because the game was due for realease for the PlayStation 3, but released for it predecessor, as the former ran into launch delays. Shadows, reflections and textures are all brilliantly done. Especially in the cinematic cutscenes, which may run upto nearly twenty-five minutes in time, the graphics and camerawork are beyond explaination. You just have to see for yourself and admire the technical prowess of the designers. A splendid experience indeed. You’d be watching cutscenes from time to time, but never get bored of them, if you follow the story.

Music it superb. Especially in the title track. You’ll always feel like a part of the game, when a suspenseful music runs in the background.

Naked Snake: "Don't look now. I'm naked. Or I'll shoot you."

Your character is Naked Snake. That doesn’t mean he’s naked in any way. Its just his codename.  There are other characters too: EVA, The Boss, Major Zero, Volgin, Ocelot and Sokolov, just to name a few. You’ll have a lot of fun playing around with the nice environment set in the 1960s in the forests of Russia. There’s hiding behind trees, glancing, grappling enemies, killing them with no sound, etc. The coolest part, however, is the camouflage. Snake can camouflage with the environment by wearing different clothes. Different outfits are effective for different environments, such as against a tree bark, in the night, crawling on the grass and hidden in a building. There’s face paint as well. To top it all, there’s an awesome cure feature to treat your wounds surgically. Like removing a bullet with a knife, and treating it with a disinfectant, and wrapping it up with a bandage.

The weapons are plenty, and pretty cool. They offer just the right kind of recoil, and have a perfect sense of controller vibration. Firing a tranquilizer gun hardly vibrates the controller, while firing the M63 for a long time increases the intensity of vibration. Excellent.

Now thats the end of all good stuff. Starts the negative. First up, controls. X and O are reversed, so now X is cancel and O is accept. This irritates. The controls are extremely cumbersome. You’ll almost always be fumbling for buttons to press. Travelling on while crouching or laying flat on the ground is extremely difficult when you wish to turn around. The camera angle is a peculiar one; you can move the right analogue stick to pan the camera here and therem but thats all. The lack of 3D camera was sorely missed. You cannot move the camera in a full circle to know whats going on behind you. Even turning around yourself doesn’t help. Often, you end up getting stuck beside a crate or a log. Then you have to get up, and your enemy sees you, and you engage in a battle..

The cure feature mentioned above is good, but what is hard to swallow is the you can cure yourself within a battle! Imagine tackling four soldiers and getting hit by a bullet. And saying, “Stop. I gotta remove that bullet and bandage that sharpenel wound and mend that bone I broke.”

The aforementioned radio conversations are extremely boring in the beginning, leaving little for you but to see what is being said. Of course, you can skip these conversations.

Bottom Line: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is not a game. It is a movie, where you’re the lead role. The story and detail are exceptional, but small flaws spoil the fun. Although it isn’t the best out there, it does prove to be a memorable game, nevertheless.

Detailed Ratings [Out of 10]

Gameplay: 9

Graphics: 10

Controls: 7 [Scrapped Difficulty bowing to popular demand]

Music: 10

Realism: 9

Rating: 9/10 [Brilliant]

Stuff You MUST Try Out

There are a lot of movies/games/software out there, which may be unknown to a majority of people. People are hardly interested in this kind of stuff, and ignore it purely based on public reactions. I don’t think they’re bad at all.

PS: I’ve included a Criticism characterisitc with each topic to explain why it is criticised by people, and my counter-point as well.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

The Metal Gear Solid [MGS] series by Hideo Kojima of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan is quite famous. But this is one of the games on the series you just have to try out. It was initially planned for the PlayStation 3, but released for its predecessor due to launch delay. So you can imagine how great the graphics will be. Cinematic cutscenes with a movable-and-zoom camera option, superb music, brilliant physics and an amazing storyline make Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater one of the coolest, if not best, PlayStation 2 game ever made. The game does have it flaws though. The O button is the X button and vice-verca, so you have to press O to accept and X to cancel. Camera controls are cumbersome too. However, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater makes you realise that the PlayStation 2 has pressure-sensitive controls! Pressing O lightly will suffocate an enemy, while hammering it will sever his throat with your knife.
Criticism: Metal Gear Solid games are no different than movies.
True. Quite true. And this is often a line used by MGS haters. But play the game and you realise “Hey… This is like a movie, but I can haz like to be a hero in the movie!!11111111!!!” Who wouldn’t want to play a lead role in films? Metal Gear Solid 3 allows you to do just that.

Burnout Dominator

Burnout Dominator

I reviewed Burnout Dominator in the past, and gave it about 8/10. Burnout Dominator isn’t a bad game at all. Its absolutely amazing. However, it leaves you disappointed only because you’d have expected more from the successor of such an awesome game like Burnout Revenge.

Criticism:Burnout Dominator is extremely difficult, and hence, is a pain to play.
It may be tougher than its predecessors, but difficulty is the major criteria for playing! Anybody with amateurish driving skills can rule Burnout Revenge overnight, but it requires gaming expertise and concentration and determination to achieve the same for Burnout Dominator. Only a hardcore gamer can do this.

Phineas and Ferb

Phineas and Ferb

Phineas and Ferb aired on Disney Channel a couple of months ago, and is probably the best cartoon I have seen in a long time. The lead characters Phineas and Ferb are extremely cute and always have some of the naugtiest inventions up their sleeves. In fact, their title track says it all:

Building a rocket or fighting a mummy

Or climbing up the Eiffel tower

Discovering something that doesn’t exist

Or giving a monkey a shower

Yes. They really do all that. Without their parents getting to know. But their nosey sister tries to bust them, but always fails. Also, there’s a song in every episode, which is not at all childish. In fact, all of them are catchy, especially the title track. It also involves a side plot, where Phineas and Ferb’s pet platypus doubles up as a secret agent to foil the evil scientist Heinz Doofenshmirtz’s plans.

Criticism: Phineas and Ferb is a cartoon for kids. You’re a baby if you watch that crap!
Wrong. Completely. Wrong. Its like you’re saying South Park is for kids. Phineas and Ferb may not be that vulgar, but is certainly witty. Kids can watch it as well, but people of all ages must give it a shot. In fact, its got all those witty takes on many fields, such as fashion, reality shows (such as one named as “America’s Next Teen Pop Star Idol!” taking a dig at ridiculously named reality shows. The winner even performs a one-hit wonder. Phenomenons only adults or teenagers can understand), evil scientists, and even mammals. You must see the season opener episode “Rollercoaster” which I’ll put up here.

Rebecca

Rebecca

Rebecca is an Alfred Hitchcock film made entirely in black and white. Its that old. Many enthusiasts may already know about this one, but many don’t. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1940, but chances are it’ll win any year. The actors deliver spectacular performances, and the horror will really freak you out. It may not be as gory or deadly as your Grudges or Hannibals, but it is Hitchcock’s superior directorial skills which will keep you glued to the edge of your seats.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License

Review: Burnout Dominator (PlayStation 2)

Burnout Dominator

Developer: Electronic Arts/Criterion Games

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Burnout Dominator is Electronic Arts’s final venture into the PlayStation 2 market. It is (probably) the only Burnout game not developed by Criterion Software. Burnout Dominator is the successor to the extremely popular and critically acclaimed Burnout 3:Takedown and Burnout Revenge. Obviously, it has a lot riding on it.

The game starts with a basic training video. What strikes players who have already played Burnout 3 is the reintroduction of the Burnout. A burnout is done when you empty your boost completely in one go, by pressing R1. Burnout Dominator is not a new game, as it takes bits and pieces from previous Burnout titles and puts them together in a new fashion. The result is a refreshingly good experience, as it has all the things which previous Burnout games were lacking.

Gameplay, as usual, is fabulous. As always, Burnout Dominator has no story. You complete events, earn dominator points, and unlock another series containing a particular set of cars, like Muscle or Hotrod. Its fast, and feels good, with the controller vibrating mildly in your hands. But unfortunately, the game is so fast, that is generally stays a step or two behind itself. For example, when you crash, and you do an aftertouch takedown (thats when you make other cars deliberately crash into your wreck), your boost bar gets filled with a blue flame, and when you press R1 to boost when you recover from the crash, you will be boosting, but the sound effects will make it look like you’re driving normally. There are minor bugs, but there’s forgiveness factor for such a good game. Multiplayer mode to, is not good, and there is no online play at all.

The graphics are quite good. The cars are detailed pretty well, and even the crashes look good, but not as good as they did in Burnout Revenge. The atmosphere looks great. The sky looks good – just the right shade of blue and 0range. The buildings, trees and under construction stuff also looks good. The trucks and the traffic on the street are also good, but because of the extremely fast gameplay, halfway through the game when you begin to unlock new cars, you notice the blockiness of traffic vehicles. Fast gameplay also makes it tough to recognise the already indistinguishable traffic cars, making you crash badly, especially when your average driving speed is about 270 kmph. Unlike Burnout Revenge, you crash even when you hit a car from behind. Minus marks, EA.

Cars have specific groups, such as Hotrod, Race Special, etc. but each group has only about four to five cars, and more can be unlocked after fulfilling certain conditions in certain races, such as taking down a particular car three times, or winning a gold in a race. But still, there isn’t a really vast choice of cars. Cars from a particular group cannot be used in another; not that you’ll need to do that. Unlocking all cars unlocks a special event: the Dominator Challenge. I never played one as yet, because of the difficulty level. Burnout Dominator is quite tough. The difficulty level is high. Very high. Even a bronze medal will get you a sigh of relief. You have to be an exceptionally good gamer to win gold in all medals. Lots of practice is needed. Of course, this has its own benefits – trophies. Completing a particular set of challenges will earn you a trophy. And show you a nice trophy video. Wow!

Also there are some other good things too. Game physics are not bad. Cars dont make a full 360 while hitting a wall. And the best part is the harder you rub against a wall, the more will be the emission of sparks. Another cool thing is that EA managed to make the car controllable in in the highest of speeds. Also, the soundtrack is phenomenal. Superb music in the menu and in the races. The electric guitars seem to go very well with the crashes and drifts and boosts. Avril Lavigne’s (then) new song Girlfriend from the album The Best Damn Thing is also on Burnout Dominator, and it seems to go well with high speed.

Burnout Dominator shows the reintroduction of Burnout, which was last seen in Burnout 2: Point of Impact. A burnout is achieved, when the boost bar is emptied completely at one time. The new modification is a supercharge boost. You increase your boost bar by driving dangerously on the wrong side of the roads, smashing cars, rubbin’ with ‘em, and closely escaping a speeding vehicle. And once the boost bar is full, the orange flame turns shocking blue. Hold R1 and empty the boost meter at one go. Burnout. Drive dangerously while emptying the boost bar, and yellow arrows light up at the boost bar. If all the yellow arrows are while boosting and then you do a burnout, you get your boost bar full once again. Do this continuously, and you can have chains of burnouts. Get better at it, and master the game. This is amazing stuff! But the greed of chaining burnouts is often the cause of many crashes.

A striking fact about Burnout Dominator, is that you begin to wonder why this was made for the PlayStation 2 in the first place. The controls are designed to fit the PlayStation Portable, and the game does not take advantage of all the extra controls on the Dualshock 2 controller, such as R3, L3, R2 and L2. L2 is used for changing songs, but you won’t do that during a race anyway. Its clear that EA had no desire to release this on the PlayStation 2, but designed it with the PlayStation Portable in mind, after the immense success of Burnout Legends, the first ever Burnout game on Sony’s handheld console.

So to sum it up, Burnout Dominator is a great racing game, but definitely not the best one. Its extremely interesting and even though its extremely difficult, it is the burning passion in you which will compel you to finish the game and win all trophies. Rent or borrow it, but buy it (if its still available in the stores) only and only if you’re a Burnout addict (like me). And  oh, a funny incident just popped up in my mind. I unlocked Menu Damage in one of the races. After enabling it from options, a huge glass-cracking sickening sound came and made a huge crack in the menu, as if Sehwag had smashed the ball into the TV. The crack did look really awesome and came as a mild surprise.

Detailed Ratings [Out of 10]

Gameplay: 9

Graphics: 8

Difficulty: 7

Music: 9

Physics: 8

Rating: 8.2/10 [Great]

Review: Need For Speed Undercover (PlayStation 2)

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: EA Black Box

Designer/Director: Oliver Mariott

Need For Speed Undercover was probably the most anticipated game of of 2008. I saw the HD trailers and, seriously, I was quite excited. I couldn’t get my hands on the game until this March. The controller was shaking with anxiety and excitement. The game I always wanted to play was here! A note here: Since this game is based on the MostWanted and Carbon formula, comparison to them and other EA titles is inevitable.

The game starts with a cutscene. Chase Linh (played by Maggie Q) is speaking with an oversized police officer about a “dangerous” mission. Then a chopper is shown – chasing down a car and BANG! you’re driving the car. The first mission is evading the cops, and I’m like “whoa! This is gonna be great!”. But even before you finish that thought, the pursuit is over. Sob. What started as an amazing aderalin rush turned out to be a crap race. What a waste. But hope is still there. After the ProStreet fiasco, Electronic Arts wanted to cover-up; and they returned to their original successful formula of illegal racing and high speed, engangin pursuits, from their Most Wanted and Carbon titles. Undercover is no big improvement. Its only mildly interesting.

You work undercover for the police and race (illegaly, of course), join other gangs with leaders having loony names such as G-Mac, and bust them by “taking them out”, which is nothing but ramming their cars real bad. As the story progresses, you begin to frame your “friends”. Mistakenly, you frame Chau Wu – a ruthless leader of the crime syndicate. To pay for your mistake, you must steal a Porsche 911 Turbo having some evidence which Chau Wu believes G-Mac stole it from the dockyards and is with this girl called Carmen, but is mistaken himself, as two other crackpots Hector and Zack stole it, and return it to Chau Wu. Since Carmen fears Chau Wu will kill her (as she has the car), she tells you to steal the car from her again, which Chau Wu thought G-Mac stole it from him but was actually stolen by Hector and Zack from Chau Wu. Anyway, you don’t care and simply steal the car and keep it with you, for no apparent reason. Chau Wu holds Chase Linh hostage and wants the car back. You get the Porsche to Chau Wu, and find Chase Linh has been involved with Chau Wu all the time. Chase kills Chau and escapes with the Porsche. You have to get her back. Its done it three minutes and twenty seconds flat. The police arrests Chase, and we find that the “evidence” in the Porsche was actually a PDA, containing the her criminal records. Thats it. No high-speed pursuits. Nothing.

The entire story is told in cutscenes, which is enacted by real people. The acting is atrociously pathetic. Even a star cast of Tusshar Kapoor, Koena Mitra and Dino Morea would have done a better job. In many of the cutscenes, which come after a couple of races, Chase Linh says “That’s enough. We have what we wanted.” after you do some job for her. But what did she want? You have no idea. You just get on with the game. During the cutscenes, the camera focuses on Maggie Q’s body, rather than her face, and the other people in the room. In every cutscene, you have her butt, her chest, her lips and her hand holding a mobile phone. End of cutscene. The dialogues have an amazingly low volume. I had all the volume settings maxed out in the game, and even though my PlayStation is wired to my home-theatre, even a reasonably high volume does not help you to understand the dialogue. There are no subtitles either. Its not because of the heavy American accent. I could easily understand what people said in other NFS titles.

The gameplay is actually good. Its entirely in daylight. The sky looks extremely realistic. Graphics are also good. There is enough detailing in the cars – even the traffic and cop cars. But strangely, the road has reflections of the buildings. The reflections look good and you feel “Wow. Thats good detail.” But the reason is: why? Does it rain everyday in the city? If so, why don’t we ever experience rain during races or free roam? It is as beautiful and as useless as Windows Vista’s Flip 3D.

The races are too easy. Even if you crash and your opponents are way ahead, you can easily beat them. Cases have arisen where I had a split time of nearly 43 seconds and still came first, that too in a sprint (an event with no laps). The game physics suck. If you crash into the wall, your car makes a full 360 turn. Damage is not at all visible, although the game does claim to have damage. You can get totalled in a highway battle (which is a new type of race event), but it never happened to me. I deliberatly crashed into walls, traffic, and huge eighteen-wheelers, and only then does my car get totalled. The damage is not distinctly noticable even now. You may claim that happens because of the low graphics engine of the PlayStation 2, but what about Burnout Dominator? The crashes are realistic here, and so is the damage within the races. What is even more maddening, is that when you take out a car by ramming into it, the damage cannot be seen. But when the cutscene is shown, scratches are seen all around the car. The pursuits are good, as the spike strips emerge quite quickly, and so do the helicopters. But again, its too easy. You get cornered by four cops against a wall with no pursuit breaker in sight and have all your tires spiked, and still you escape and successfully evade the pursuit.

The choice of cars is vast. There are many cars to choose from. But the real sh0w-stealer is the customisation. An immense choice of vinyls, colours, hoods, rims are there. Too many. You can actually spend three full hours deciding what’s good for your car. The right-analog stick rotates the camera, so that you can see how the car looks from every angle. This, is probably the best aspect of the game.

Besides the Career mode, there is the Challenger Series, with pre-customised cars given to you to complete races. Of course, its easy. You get the drill.

So to sum it up, Need For Speed Undercover is a mildly intersting game with an extremely easy difficulty. The customization part is good, but the races and the story aren’t. Buy it, if you want, for the customization, and only if you’re bored with MostWanted and Carbon, and have finished both of them five times each. Only than can you hope that something different will help you. Download a torrent, buy a pirated DVD, or borrow it from a friend, but do not buy the original. It is not worth spending money.

Detailed Ratings [Out of 10]

Gameplay: 4

Graphics: 6

Difficulty: 2

Plot: 4

Physics: 2

Rating: 3.6/10 [Poor]

Upgrade Your PlayStation Portable Firmware

Games, software, or simply being up to date. Getting the new firmware for any device is great for you. And its of extreme importance for the PlayStation Portable , or simply, the PSP, as it is the world’s most widely used portable gaming console. Here’s what you need:

1] A PlayStation Portable (obviously), which should be fully charged.

2] A USB Cable/MemoryStick Duo reader to transfer the update data

3] Internet

Here are the steps:

1] Download the latest PlayStation Portable firmware from here. You may charge your PlayStation Portable while the download is on.

2] After the download is complete, connect you PlayStation Portable to your computer via the USB cable, or simply insert the MemoryStick Duo in the memory card reader.

3] Now, create a folder by the name of PSP. Open it, and create another folder GAME. Open that too and create another folder UPDATE. Take care that the folder names should be in CAPITAL LETTERS. Else, the update will not work and I will receive unnecessary curses for writing this absurd post and wasting your time, when you could be doing some takedowns.

4] Once you’ve downloaded the file, makes sure it’s called EBOOT.PBP . Transfer it to the UPDATE folder you created in the previous step.

5] Now, after you’ve made sure that your PlayStation Portable is fully charged, and yet it is plugged in to the socket with the charged ON, insert the MemoryStick Duo into your PlayStation Portable.

6] Make sure the MemoryStick Duo is detected. If not, restart your PlayStation Portable. Running the update is as simple as running a game. From the Home screen, select the Game icon, under which you select the MemoryStick Duo icon, and press X on your Update file. It should look like PSP™ Update Ver. X.XX, where X.XX stands for the latest version you downloaded.

MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT SWITCH OFF YOUR PLAYSTATION PORTABLE OR REMOVE THE MEMORYSTICK DUO WHILE THE UPDATE IS RUNNING. THIS MAY CAUSE IRREPARABLE HARM TO YOUR PSP.

Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition

Finally. Symantec realised that the most popular antivirus in the world was pretty heavy on the computers. Keeping this in mind, they released their new Norton AntiVirus 2009. This time, they also have a Gaming Edition!! Norton is actually very light this time. I tried out NAV 2K8 and chucked it out within a week. It ate up resources as if nothing else was running. Then I switched to AVG, McAfee, Kaspersky, NOD32, and finally settled for avast! Then I switched back to the world’s most trusted.

This is the memory footprint.

All the blue stuff is the memory being used now, and all the yellow stuff is Norton’s usage. Its using so less, that you cant even see it. If possible, look at the small yellow pixel in the bottom right corner.

This is the CPU Usage.

This is how the window looks like. Notice how Norton boasts about it being lightweight.

Just to make sure they weren’t lying, I fired up the Task Manager. See the highlighted, selected, blue row.

Uses only 5.3 MB! Thats less than the 6 MB mentioned on the home page!

Now, as you go into fullscreen (even for a game or a media player while watching a movie), Norton activates Gaming Mode. It uses as less resources as possible, and uses them according to resources available, and temporarily disables updates and notifications. Work Play uninterrupted!