Tony Hawk RIDE

I have played the majority of the Tony Hawk games all the way back to the playstation days but the recent incarnations have been below par. Because of the drop in quality I defected to the glorious game that is Skate and Skate2. EA have staged a remarkable rebirth of the genre by completely redesigning the control method and taking the game back to its roots.

I have been intrigued to see what Activision could come up with to counter the emergence of the almighty Skate. With this in mind Activision have revealed their challenger.


A digital skateboard peripheral...

Now this 'could' be amazing but it also could be a horrible gimmicky piece of rubbish that will gather dust in your cupboard while you finish off the last few freeskate challenges on Skate2. But I admire Activision for trying something new and I for one will be first in line to pick this up and try it out.

I just hope my balance is better on this than it was on a real skateboard.

I'll post more details as they emerge because I'll be following this game like a Hawk...no pun intended.

Render to Video Beta

Bungie have gave us a nice random present today by releasing their much awaited render to video beta. Render to video allows you to render your clips on your fileshare straight to a downloadable wmv video. The beta is open to Bungie Pro subscribers and ex subscribers like myself, nice of Bungie to reward the people who subscribed back in the day when Pro was new, exciting and expensive. Rather than give you a meaty meandering explanation I'll give you the info straight from the mouth of Bungie.

Q. How do I create a video?

A. When a saved film or clip is in your File Share (or someone else's) and you want to turn it into a computer-playable video file, you can click "Render Film" on Bungie.net and it will tell you the cost in "Bungie(R) Points (tm)", based on the length of the file and the resolution you want to render to. If you have enough points, you can confirm your purchase, and a little while later your video will be available for you to view and download. Simple! (Well, simple for you. We have to deal with storing 500GB/day of new content!) There are currently two resolutions you can choose from. Standard definition is 640x360 WMV at about 1Mbps. High def is 1280x720 WMV at 6Mbps. That's full 720p resolution!

Q. How do I get Bungie Points?

A. We expect to make points available in a couple different ways: for light usage (say, one short clip a month), Bungie Pro members with active subscriptions (or, currently, beta testers as described above) will get one or more points dropped into their Bungie Pro account each month at no additional charge over the current Pro plan. You can think of a point like a rollover minute on a phone plan- you can redeem it for your short clip, or save it for a longer one. For more dedicated render users, we plan to offer a pay-as-you-go model where you can buy "point packs".

Q. How do Points work during the beta?

A. We'll start off beta users with 2 points each. For now, standard-def video will be set to cost 1 point per minute, and HD will cost 5. After we make sure that things have spun up smoothly in the SD world, we'll start topping off users' accounts to 5 points so that you can try out HD. Don't worry about saving up points right now, go ahead and use them as you get them.

Q. How do I watch my rendered videos?

A. After the video render is complete, you'll see a video player appear in the web page for your saved film. You can watch the video right there, or download the WMV to your computer. Currently, all Beta users can see the videos of other Beta users, but other users cannot. We're looking into getting enough bandwidth to enable public embedding of the player in the future.

Q. How long is the Beta?

A. We expect for the beta to run until sometime in July, and we plan that real post-beta points will start to accumulate on Bungie Day (7/7). So if you're planning to buy Bungie Pro for the video feature, mark your calendars, since that's the first date that will give you a full year of video service with your subscription!

There is more information on Bungie's news page.

I for one am very very excited by this, I was a little put off at first by the points but it makes sense now. How could Bungie cope with all the millions of Halo clips being rendered at one time, it makes sense to slow it down and deal with it in bite size chunks. I can see myself buying points packs to capture the odd full game. I don't mind giving Bungie more money as they do give us, the halo player, so much.

As for the quality? Why not have a look at a standard definition clip that I got off my fileshare and uploaded to Youtube this morning. I'm very impressed with the quality...and the skills.



The only problems with the clip is the lack of reticule. All Halo addicts know you fix this with a few clicks of the right stick but as of now there is no way of getting around this on the Render to Video. The other problem is multi angle recordings, if you capture footage with a capture card then you can record it from multi angles. There is no way to fix this with your old clips but if you plan to render a clip in the future then you could save multiple replays of the clip showing different angles and edit it together.

All in all im very excited by this and its just one more lovely gift from the beautiful girls and boys at Bungie. We <3 you...most of the time.

Assassins Creed News!!

New information and a screenshot is now up on nowgamer, found out from NowGamerDan over Twitter, nice bit of gaming news to wake up to. The bit that really got my attention was this;

“The entire game structure and its mission system/story [of Assassin's Creed] was the most central element for us to improve following the feedback on the game,” he says.

“We want [Assassin's Creed 2] to be unpredictable and full of epic moments that will immerse you into our story featuring our numerous characters and environments. We are redefining the mission gameplay structure to give gamers a more enjoyable and rewarding experience.”

Now I played and loved this game. I remember playing it for 4 hours on Christmas morning and just falling in love with the physics. I'll be first to admit that the game has many flaws which I do not have to point out but I still found this to be a great game, it was just fun.

It really makes me happy to know that they are working to make Assassins Creed II a more enjoyable experience, if they keep what made the game great fun and bolster that with a really good story then this could be one of my favourite games.

Do you Swapgame?

I just joined Swapgame on Tuesday and I got a bit carried away adding games to my list. You are supposed to add at least 5 games but I ended up adding over twenty. I'm going to get my god damned moneys worth out of this service. So here's my list...

1. Afro Samurai (in the post)
2. Overlord
3. King Kong (Achievement whore...don't judge)
4. UFC 09 Undisputed (Best.Demo.Ever)
5. Prince of Persia 4
6. Street Fighter IV
7. LOTR Conquest
8. Amped 3
9. Sid Miers Civilisation : Revolution
10. Brothers In Arms : Hells Highway
11. Tomb Raider : Underworld
12. Star Wars : Unleashed
13. Viking : Battle For Arsgard
14. Lego Batman : The Videogame
15. Guitar Hero : Aerosmith
16. Beautiful Katamari
17. Shaun White Snowboarding
18. The Chronicles of Riddick : Dark Athena
19. Bionic Commando
20. Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Conspiracy
21. Quantum of Solace
22. Lego Indiana Jones
23. The Godfather II

These are in no particular order as I have not sorted through them, I honestly have no idea how to sort them out. I thought I'd just play whatever they decide to send me as I don't know what I will be in the mood to play that week.
Anyway, what i want to know is what would you recomend to add to my list? I know you wont know what games I have played before Swapgame but still, let me hear your ideas.

Geekdom part 1

Thought I'd show off some of my geeky horde. If I had more money I would have a hell of a lot more figures. My girlfriend has a few cool figures that I'll try and get her to show off in her blog. If she does not do it then I will because her Labyrinth figures and Enid (from the film Ghost World) doll are fucking awesome.

The Xbox Generation, I got the Bioshock Big Daddy with the Lmtd. Edition version of the game. I honestly cant describe how awesome the Gears of War figurines are, they have so much detail, would love to get the rest of them especially the nasty looking Theron Gaurd.

I have a HUGE love of Mario and especially Mario Kart, these little remote controlled karts are great fun, especially for annoying my cat. The Koopa plush is one of my favourite pieces as I pwn with Koopa in Mario Kart on the SNES.

Christmas is awesome when you have an Etsy loving girlfriend. I've had a lot of envy over the Mario Ipod case, as well as some very odd looks.

My small collection of Kevin Smith figurines which I'd love to extend one day. I'm really missing the Mallrats! Personal favourite is Willem from Mallrats as he was a very late Christmas present. My girlfriend bought it in time for xmas (don't moan I've already typed it on full twice) but it did not come until March, nice surprise.

My prize pieces are my Shaun of the Dead figurines, I really wish they brought out Zombie Ed, it would complete my collection perfectly. There's been rumblings about Spaced figures coming out, there was even drawings of them on the net somewhere, I may have to have another night of heavy research to see if their ever going to emerge.

Ill dig out all my gaming t shirts soon and show you them.

Post a comment and tell me what you have.