Designer//Slash//Model
June 12th, 2007 by rbanks
“You have to be beautiful to create something beautiful.”
Archive for the 'Entertainment' Category
Ocean’s 13 interview
June 5th, 2007 by rbanks
I’m not the least bit interested in seeing the movie because the last one was a bit crappy, but this interview with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Ellen Barkin is still quite amusing. They’re having a blast at the expense of the story. You’ve got to admire that.
Retro CD Player
May 31st, 2007 by rbanks
A CD player that mimics the gramophone.
Retro CD Player: Phonograph Concept Treats Your CDs Like Vinyl
Zelda’s Twilight
May 11th, 2007 by rbanks
Ok, I ran behind my prediction for completion. I said April and it’s now well and truly May. But various trips threw a spanner in the works and put me behind schedule. Tonight, though, after 53 hours of playtime, I finally completed Zelda.
Beautiful game. Great story. And for me a great balance between action and exploration. And not TOO hard so I never hit the ‘oh, screw it’ point. Mr. Miyamoto, thanks for a wonderful game.
Update: See Shannon’s opinion of my little saga-playing.
Pitbulls
May 4th, 2007 by rbanks
I made the mistake of buying Pokemon Diamond for my Nintendo DS yesterday. I’ve always wondered what the deal was with these games, and although they’re really targetted at kids I figured I’d have a go at one, purely for cultural research you understand.
Now, of course, I’m hooked, wondering the towns and roads desperately looking for Turtwigs and Piplups and any of the other 400+ Pokemon.
The goal of the game is to collect and ‘train’ these little creatures, and them put them up for battle against those belonging to other ‘trainers’. When they fight one another and lose they ‘faint’ rather then die, which makes sense because kids can’t deal with death. Even so I can’t help feeling like pushing these ‘animals’ to have a go at one another is still basically a form of dog or cock baiting. The guilt.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum: 25 today
April 24th, 2007 by rbanks
I remember buying one of these with Uncle Tom in the Boots Chemist that used to be across the road from Harrods in London. I think it must have been summer 1982.
Anyway, Happy Birthday to an enabling piece of kit!
Link to Sinclair ZX Spectrum: 25 today | The Register
LONDON /moleskinecity.com » London Markets
April 23rd, 2007 by rbanks
Good overview of London markets. Worth setting time aside if you’re visiting. I personally recommend Borough Market, Camden Lock and Spitalfields…
Link to LONDON /moleskinecity.com » London Markets
Somebody remade Ant Attack
April 2nd, 2007 by rbanks
I mentioned Digital Urban’s post about the Sinclair Spectrum classic game of Ant Attack last week. It turns out someone has done an updated homage called 3D Ant Attack. What a nice thing to do.
Puzzle Quest
April 2nd, 2007 by rbanks
I’ve joined the massed ranks of people playing Puzzle Quest, a weird hybrid of a role-playing game and Bejeweled, the puzzle game that involves lining up 3 or more colored balls.
Penny Arcade summarized how weird an idea this is in this comic strip. Meeting and fighting viscous creatures through the equivalent of Tetris shouldn’t work. But it does and is quite addictive.
The computer controlled opponents are viciously good, though. They ¨spot¨ combinations of colors that lead to a massive cascading effect, a light show that usually leads to your character getting really beat up. On my side, I’m lucky if I manage to just find 4 balls in a row. It does feel a little like the machine varmints are cheating, which is categorically denied here.
And I’m finding that the stylus on my DS is really badly calibrated, so I keep on miss hitting the little colored balls. Often this means that I miss my turn, and get beaten up even more. Anyone else seeing this?
Cities in Games
March 29th, 2007 by rbanks
The Digital Urban site has a great series of entries on the theme of Cities in Games. They’ve done City 17 from Half Life 2, which you could say is a current pinnacle, but they’re easing off the more recent games and going a little retro with the first in a series based on Sinclair ZX Spectrum titles. First up is Ant Attack. I loved this game. And it’s beautiful isometric view coupled with the spot use of color still looks classy. To me. The game is playable here.
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