Criminals are an ugly, cowardly lot more worthy of pity and disdain than admiration. This is what you'll learn playing through the single-player campaign in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV. The series cheered (and criticized) for glorifying violence has taken an unexpected turn: it's gone legit. Oh sure, you'll still blow up cop cars, run down innocent civilians, bang hookers, assist drug dealers and lowlifes and do many, many other bad deeds, but at a cost to main character Niko Bellic's very soul. GTA IV gives us characters and a world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming and elevates its story from a mere shoot-em-up to an Oscar-caliber drama. Every facet of Rockstar's new masterpiece is worthy of applause. Without question, Grand Theft Auto IV is the best game since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
You play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European attempting to escape his past and the horrors of the Bosnian war. He arrives in Liberty City to experience the American dream, only to discover his cousin, Roman, may have fibbed a bit in his tales of success. Starting from nothing, Niko makes a living as a killer and enforcer, a bad-ass foreigner who appears to have no morals. The longer we stay with Niko, the more we see that there is a broken human being inside, one who would give anything to escape the person he once was.
Don't worry, GTA's famed over-the-top action and tongue-in-cheek humor are intact, but there is a new level of sophistication in the characters and the game world that raises the story above the norm. As Niko becomes mired in the death throes of American organized crime, he begins to become more self-aware. Niko's struggles with his ruthless nature never inhibit the gameplay, but instead enhance the emotional gravity of a brilliant storyline. The more absurd the action becomes, the greater we feel the very real pathos of Niko Bellic.
Much of the credit goes to the artists at Rockstar North who created as believable a city as possible. Liberty City is inspired by New York, but not beholden to it. While there are many parallels, Liberty exists in its own universe and rightfully so. Many open-world games have cities that feel as if they existed only from the moment you first turned on your console, but Liberty City looks lived in. It's an old city and each block has its own vibe and its own history.
Drive around Liberty City and you'll be able to identify each individual block. Though Liberty is filled with brownstones and a myriad of similar brick buildings, you can tell one from the other, just as you can in New York. Go to an affluent neighborhood and the street is likely to be newly paved, the pedestrians better dressed, the cops more plentiful. But head to Dukes or Bohan and you'll find streets nearly stripped of asphalt, homeless people wandering about aimlessly and criminals preying on the weak.
Niko is fresh off the boat.
Watch the people and you'll witness some amazing things. At one point, I saw a woman stopped at a light, looking in the rearview mirror right before she was rear-ended by a man ogling a girl on the street. The man got out of his car and went to the woman, checking to see if she was okay. This had nothing to do with Niko or a single action I took. These were the citizens of Liberty City going about their day. And it was just one moment in a day full of incidents.
Hang in one area of the city long enough and you'll see how traffic and pedestrian flow changes as the day progresses. When it rains, people bring out umbrellas or shield themselves with a newspaper and run for an awning. Cops chase petty thieves unaware that walking down the street is Niko Bellic, cold-blooded killer. There's a perfect balance of mumbling doomsayers to remind you that the reason this city never sleeps is because it's full of nut jobs. People go about their day, only altering course when Niko inserts himself into their lives with his crappy driving or excellent marksmanship.
Closing Comments Grand Theft Auto III was a revolutionary title, one that inspired a whole new generation of 3D action games. Grand Theft Auto IV is just as big a leap forward, though perhaps in subtler ways, and sets a new benchmark for open-world games. Everything in GTA IV works in harmony. The story would be nothing without the city; the city gains realism from the physics engine; the physics complement the improved AI; the AI would make no sense without the new cover system. And on and on. There is no one major weak aspect.
A "10" is not a score we give out very often. In fact, the last time we gave a 10 to a console game was Soul Calibur in 1999. A 10 doesn't mean a game is perfect -- it means a game is pushing boundaries, expanding a genre, and doing many things to a level so far above and beyond its competitors that they overshadows any flaws. Certainly, GTA IV has some issues, the most noticeable being the occasional flaw in the cover system, but there are many more pieces of GTA IV that are better than anything I've seen from a game in the past decade. We don't give 10s often -- just to games that merit the score.
As early as last year, we have been hearing rumors about the possibility of the world’s first 3G iPhone hitting Italy. We found out from those earlier reports that Vodafone might be the possible carrier of 3G iPhones in Italy, and that these new variants of the would be coming this year’s spring. But the rumors still continue up to now, and the latest development has us looking at Italy again, this time for the likeliness of a 3G iPhone that’s exclusivity-free and without a contract for revenue sharing with Apple. Could this be the true picture of iPhone 2.0?
We do know that an iPhone with support for UMTS is definitely coming, but the question is when, where, and how much? La Repubblica from Italy writes that the time for such a device is nigh, naming Telecom Italia as the exclusive carrier for a summer 2008 launch. This could be feasible basing on earlier reports, but what’s more interesting is that the 3G iPhone might be available without revenue sharing from Apple itself and free of carrier contracts. Supposedly, the Telecom Italia carrier contract that the iPhone will be initially launching with won’t be staying for long. Or at least that’s what they’re telling us.
This is definitely great news especially for the European Mac faithful, but we have to keep in mind that most of these rumors have an equal chance of becoming true and false. We can only hope that this new one doesn’t add to the list of unconfirmed iPhone rumors, and that Apple sees an official launch (or at least an announcement) to us very soon.
When the specs of Nokia N96 were first leaked to the net, I thought it was a pretty boring phone. After all, more then a year has passed since the introduction of Nokia N95 handset, and the only improvement that N96 had to show - was some added memory and DVB-H tuner…. Duh
During Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, I had an opportunity to check it out live. And I have not changed my opinion - Nokia N96 is boring.
However, I had an epiphany while playing with Nokia N96. It turns out, that except for us geeky/blog newsy types, boring is actually very good.
When Nokia N95 hit the market, it had multiple bugs, was slow, used to crash, did not really felt right in the hands, the slider on it sucked, as did the battery life. We, early adopters, actually became beta testers for a new device and even shelled out some serious money for the privilege.
But all was forgiven in the name of all these cool gimmicks like GPS, 5mpx camera, Wi-Fi and others, that worked more often then not.
With Nokia N96 it’s a completely different story. You can feel that the N95 platform had a year to mature just by holding device in your hand.
Smooth shiny surface, really well implemented slider hinge, big clear screen, fast responses and small details like touch pad navigation or built-in quick stand for watching video, makes using Nokia N96 much more pleasant experience then a year old Nokia N95 in my pocket.
But, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words and a moving picture should be worth even more. So here’s a video demo of Nokia N96:
You might not see it in this video, but the movie quality that Nokia N96 is really great. Thank’s to built-in video accelerators, N96 is able to support video bit rates of well above 1.5 Mbps (up to 5 Mb’s ?!), while conserving the power use at the same time.
I also have to take back what I said about Nokia N96 in my previous post.
2.8″ screen is not too small and, given enough bitrate/video quality, it is actually quite good for watching movies and TV shows on it. Nokia N96 should give a run for the money to any flash based portable media player around.
Other cool feature on Nokia N96 is 5 megapixel camera with geo tagging functionality (Via GPS). When enabled it automatically tags the images with the GPS location coordinates, which you can later use when sorting the pictures on your PC or online photo service.
Nokia N96 also comes with 16 GB of built-in flash memory and microSDHC memory card slot, where you can fit 8 GB memory card for a total of 24GB of storage.
One thing I’m not sure about - is the battery life. The 950 mAh battery in Nokia N96 is the same as in N95, and we all heard about the troubles with battery life that N95 had.
Let’s hope that newer, more efficient chips and software in N96 gives it much longer durability then it’s predecessor.
2.8” QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) LCD TFT display with up to 16 million colors
5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and auto-exposure
Dual-LED camera flash, video light, recording indicator, auto-focus assist light
Secondary VGA (640 x 480 px) camera for video calls
Video capture in MPEG-4 up to VGA at 30 fps
Digital Video Stabilization
Built-in GPS/A-GPS
WLAN - IEEE802.11 g/b
Stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz, 76-90MHz) with RDS
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 with Micro USB type B interface
3.5mm stereo headset plug , TV-out support (PAL/NTSC)
Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP stereo/EDR
950 mAh battery with up to 220 min talk, 220 hrs standby time, 5 hrs video, 14 hrs music or 4 hrs TV playback
Dimensions: 103Ă—55x18 mm
Weight: 125 g
All- in-all, Nokia N96 is a great, feature packed mobile handset. Initial retail price for Nokia N96 will be around 550 Euro, which is OK for it’s category.
When the Sony PlayStation Portable (known from here on out as the PSP) was first announced in May of 2004, gaming enthusiasts began clamoring for information on this state of the art handheld gaming console. Even though this device was originally released only in Japan (December 12, 2004), that didn't stop people here in the US from importing this highly coveted gadget at crazy inflated prices to keep from waiting till it would be available state side. Could you blame them, this thing is hot! Way more exciting than the earlier launch of the Nintendo DS. Lucky for me, I had Brando! He went above and beyond the call of duty to help me get my hands on one of these terrific game machines. Thanks Brando!
As always, let's start with the specs...
Hardware Specs
CPU: 2 32-bit MIPS processors Memory: Main - 32MB / Embedded Dram - 4MB Display: 4.3in diagonal, 16:9 Widescreen TFT LCD, 480 x 272 pixels, capable of displaying 16.77 million colors Communication: 802.11b Wireless Input / Output: USB 2.0, Infrared, Memory Stick PRO Duo Game cartridge slot: UMD (Universal Media Disc) Size: 6.7 x 0.9 x 2.9 in. (170 x 23 x 74mm) Weight: (with UMD disc installed) 10.2 oz. (290g) Power: Rechargeable lithium-ion 1800 mAh battery
Package Contents (Japanese Value Pack - may differ from US packaging when available)
Sony PlayStation Portable Demo UMD 32mb Memory Stick Duo Ear buds Remote AC Adapter Hand strap Slip case
On the day I received the PSP from Brando, I was super excited. Unfortunately, I soon realized that I wasn't going to be able to actually play with my new toy right away. Why? Well, because it didn't come with a game disc. It did come with a demo disc, but all it did was just mock me by showing trailers for several cool games available or soon to be available for this console. I went searching for sites that had games available and found that GeekStuff4U could send me 2 titles to try out. Yay! But I would have to wait a week or so before getting them. Boo!
After the long and painful waiting period, the games arrived and I was ready put this bad boy through its paces! And what a bad boy it is. Right out of the box, it is a wonder to behold. Much like a product from Apple, Sony knows how to make consumer electronics that look gorgeous. People aren't going to be happy when I say that the Nintendo DS is a hunk of junk looks-wise when you compare it to the PSP.
Rectangular with rounded outer edges, this unit is designed to be held comfortably between your two hands. That said, the PSP has a definite heft to it. Playing while laying on your back with the device raised above you, may quickly result in fatigue. Besides being a little heavy, this is a large device. Like the Nintendo DS, you are not going to carry it around in your pocket. Transport via backpack or gear bag is fine though.
People have been reporting that the PSP is somewhat fragile feeling. That twisting the unit while a UMD is inserted can sometimes cause the disc to eject and fly out. I had to perform the requisite Gadgeteer creak test to see for myself. First I shook the unit and did notice that the power button rattles a bit. Otherwise, the unit is solid with respect to rattles. As for the creak test, no amount of light twisting would cause the UMD in my PSP to eject of its own accord. I did notice that the door to the UMD cavity was prone to minimal flexing though due to being made of relatively thin plastic.
In my opinion, the PSP doesn't seem to be a toy that you would give to a child. For one thing, it is quite a bit more sophisticated in both hardware design and games than the Game Boy series. This is an expensive device that while solidly made, may only be rugged enough to give to an older child that can truly respect their toys.
Back to the hardware tour... The front of the PSP looks like it has been carved out of one piece of solid black Lucite. Like the Sony HMP-A1, the design looks very sexy, but with the slick surface, it very prone to smears and fingers prints.
This device has more buttons than any handheld gaming device that I've ever seen. There are 4 thumb accessible buttons on each side. The left 4 buttons are for navigation, while the right 4 buttons are the standard PlayStation menu interaction buttons. Seven small buttons along the bottom edge of the PSP give you access to Home, Volume up/down, Display brightness, Sound toggle, Select and Start. The directional and menu buttons are all good sized and easy to press. They have enough tactile feedback so that you know when you've pressed one. The directional buttons are angled so that your thumb will not easily slide off when you're moving from button to button at a quick pace. The other buttons are pretty small and a little difficult to press. Especially the tonight volume and brightness buttons. There's another button on the front of the PSP that I actually missed at first. I thought it was a speaker grill! Yes, I'm blind... Under the directional buttons is an actual analog joystick. This stick is spring loaded with a serrated thumb pad to prevent slippage. It works really well in games like Ridge Racer.
The display on the PSP is large and g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s. It has to be the largest handheld gaming console screen to date. At 4.3 inches diagonally, it's even bigger than my HP HX4700 iPAQ! Being able to comfortably see all the action on the screen without having to squint is great! This is the first gaming device that has actually given me the same feeling that I get when playing games on a large TV screen. You know the feeling you get when you're playing a racing game and you go into a spin and you almost can feel the spin. I've never felt that way with a Game Boy or other handheld device. I do feel it with the PSP, and I like it!
The colors are vivid, and graphics are crisp. Depending on the game, you do notice some jaggies here and there though. That said, I didn't notice any ghost or other annoying screen behaviors. The screen is evenly lit and the three brightness settings allow you to adjust the screen to your liking. I always run mine on the middle setting which is more than bright enough in any environment. I should also mention that my unit has no dead pixels which is excellent as I have read that some people have found some on theirs.
Located on the top of PSP are status LEDs for Power / Charging, WiFi and Memory Stick Duo activity.
On the left side of the device is the WiFi switch, and on the right side is the Power / Hold switch. The Power switch is spring loaded. You have to slide and hold it up for a few seconds to toggle power. If you just quickly slide the Power switch up and let go, it will cause the unit to go into sleep mode so that you can quickly restart a game at a later time. If you slide the Power switch down, it will lock into the Hold position.
Along the bottom edge of the PSP, you'll find the AC adapter connector (yellow), the headphone / remote connector, and lanyard connection point. Included with the PSP are a set of earbud and a remote control. These come in handy when you want to listen to music (MP3s) on your device. More on that in a minute...
The top edge of the PSP has two clear shoulder buttons, the IR port, mini USB port and UMD compartment latch. The UMD latch is a slider switch that opens the disc compartment. Think of it as an eject button. When you open it, the disc springs out of the compartment just enough so that you can grab the edge and pull it out. When you insert the disc, you have to press it down into the holder in the door so that it snaps in place.
The UMDs are small little 1.8GB capacity discs enclosed in a plastic caddy. A square window in the caddy allows the PSP to read the data from the disc as it spins. The problem is that this window is always open. It doesn't have any type of spring loaded cover. Dirt, dust and even finger prints can easily wreck a UMD if you aren't really careful while handling them. This is another reason why the PSP is not a good system for children. The actual UMD games come in a large plastic DVD like case that won't be very convenient to carry around even in a gear bag. I'm sure there will probably be UMD carrying case accessories out in the near future (I hope).
The UMD is a spinning drive. As such, it makes a noise during disc access. The noise isn't loud, but it is noticeable. The sound that the UMD makes while it is spinning sounds like something shuffling. The PSP doesn't vibrate during access, so that's good.
The back of the PSP has the battery compartment and Memory Stick Duo slot. Included with the PSP is a 32mb MS Duo card. You can copy music, pictures, video and games to the memory card and let the PSP play them for you. This expands the PSP into a media player in addition to just a gaming console. If you don't have a card reader that can read the small format Duo, you can just plug in a USB cable with a mini connector into the PSP and then into your PC. It will mount the card as removable drive. My PSP didn't come with a mini USB cable, but I found one for another gadget and found that it worked just fine. I did discover that you have to format the Duo before you start copying files from your PC. Why? Well, if you don't, the special hierarchy of folders that the PSP looks for won't be there and it will not know that you have music or other media available to it. There is an option in the PSP menu to format the stick. Once you do that, you're good to go.
Memory Stick Duo Slot
I should talk a little about battery life as that is one of the major concerns / complaints about this device so far. According to Sony, the PSP should be able to play games for 4-5 hrs at a time as long as you're not using WiFi. Now, all I can tell you is my own experiences as I haven't done any scientific battery tests... I've played Ridge Racers 10 mins here and 20 mins there several times throughout the week on only one battery charge. As for total play time on one charge, it's hard to say. Maybe 3 hrs or so? I've never been one to just sit down and play games for hours at a time. I'm more of a pick it up, play for a bit then sit it back down kind of gamer. That might change if I had some more engrossing type of games. Right now I just have Ridge Racers and a golf game that is too difficult to really figure out since I do not understand Kanji. Now if I had a really cool RPG, I bet I could get sucked into playing a game for 1-2 hrs at one sitting. So, for right now I am not going to complain about the battery life. For me it is working out great so far. I can see how it would not be great for travelers or people away from a power outlet. I should also mention that battery life will depend on how often the PSP has to access the UMD for info. It's easy to understand that the more it has to spin up the disc, the lower your battery life is going to be. Here's also hoping that extended batteries will be an available accessory in the very near future.
Regarding the PSP hardware, it's just plain lovely. This device is both sexy to look at and hold. I don't know how Sony is getting away with only charging ~$250. I mean, their later model CLIďż˝ PDAs were up to $700 or so! If I had to change anything about the hardware, I would maybe add a hard drive so that it could be a REAL media player in addition to gaming device.
The main interface is simple and easy to figure out even without reading a manual or user guide. Good thing because the manual I received was all in Japanese. The first time you power on the PSP, you are given the ability to choose a language. Japanese, English, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese are the available choices.
Basically you have 5 main functions across the screen. The main functions are Settings, Photo, Music, Video and Game. As you use the left and right directional buttons to scroll through these functions, sub functions appear below the main heading.
Main interface screen
The settings function gives you access to all the main settings for video, photo, music, WiFi etc. This is also the menu that you use to format the Memory Stick Duo, set the time / date, password protect the device and even implement a parental lock based on game ratings.
Setting up WiFi was a snap. I basically just allowed it to use all the defaults. I didn't even tell it the name of my wireless network (SSID) and it connected just fine. I couldn't do a darn thing, but hey, I could connect. Oh, I was able to have the PSP check with Sony to see if there was a software update. It didn't find one, but it checked ;o) It's really a shame that a simple web browser wasn't included as part of the feature set.
The Photo function allows you to view images that are stored on the Memory Stick Duo. Sorry, you can only view .JPG files. .GIF, and .BMPs are not supported. Small thumbnails of the pictures are displayed so that you can easily scroll through them. When you find one that you want to view full screen, you select it.
You can also view all the images in a slideshow if desired.
The Music function turns your PSP into a digital audio player capable of playing Sony's own ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus files as well as good old MP3s. Yay!
The included ear buds and remote look like they come from the land of iPod.
In Video mode, you can play movies and video clips. Unfortunately, the only supported format is MPEG4. You have to jump through some hoops in order to convert regular .mpg files to .mp4, but once you do it's a lot of fun to watch movies on this device. You can even use the wired remote to control video playback.
Of course the main reason to buy the PSP is to play games right? Well, I have to say that the games are great! Yeah, I only have one that I really like - Ridge Racers, but even though I don't really like the Mini Golf game all that well, it still looks fantastic.
Ridge Racers
Mini Golf
The only thing I don't like about using UMDs for games is that you have to load them into memory. If you're loading a game from scratch, the PSP screen will blank (turn completely black) for up to 15 seconds or so. The first time this happened, I was wondering if it had died on me or something. Kids might get impatient having to wait for a game to load. Adults probably wont mind as much. The wait is worth it actually.
Note: another use for the Memory Stick Duo is for saved games.
Ok, so what is the bottom line? Pretty much that I love this thing and everyone should buy one. No seriously, I do reallllllly like the Sony PSP. I don't say that lightly given the fact that I only have 1 game that I'm playing so far. There's just something about this device that makes me want to pick it up every time I walk by it. Yeah it's pretty, but the games are fun. More fun than any handheld gaming device I've owned so far. But there are some big gotchas that go along with my praise. One gotcha is battery life. But maybe the biggest gotcha is just how viable is the PSP in the current handheld game console arean? Even though a device is 'better' than another device as far as hardware and features, it always comes down to the games. Will the PSP come out with some excellent games that make this the device to buy? That's very hard to predict. I don't feel too confident given the fact that I've been here before. I was in love with the Atari Lynx way back when. It was an excellent handheld gaming console. Better sound, better graphics than the Game Boy... but it failed because the Game Boy was already very well established with 100's and 100's of games. Will the same thing happen with the PSP? Very possibly. Even probably. I sure hope not though! I have my fingers crossed that this device will enjoy a long life. For those of you considering a handheld game console purchase, in a few months when you go to your electronics store to choose between a Nintendo DS and a Sony PSP, I sure hope you choose the PSP!
Price:$349
Pros: Gorgeous hardware Gorgeous screen Games feel like full size console games Photo, Video and Music features
Nokia keeps hitting the world with extraordinary Smartphone devices. We are all well aware that devices like the Nokia N70, N73 and N95 rocked the world with their innovative style, features and specifications. The latest Nokia N96 Smartphone is no exception. Revealed at the Mobile World Congress in February 2008, it is being considered as the predecessor to the popular Nokia N95 Smartphone. It is packed with some great features & specifications, which are listed below:
Symbian OS 9.3, S60 version 3.2 5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss optics Camera with Autofocus & dual-LED flash VGA Video calling camera 16GB internal Memory/Micro SD Support 2.8 inch screen, 16M color display Size 103 x 55 x 18 mm, Weight 125G GPRS, EDGE, HSCSD, HSPDA (3G) Internet connectivity Bluetooth, WLAN, Infra Red & USB connectivity Built in GPS receiver with A-GPS support DVB-H TV Tuner and TV Out function MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA player & FM Radio Dual-slide with dedicated multimedia keys and gaming keys Li-Ion 950 mAh (BL-5F) Battery Stand-by Up to 220 h Talk time Up to 3 h 40 min Expected to be released worldwide Q3 2008 Expected Price: $800
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