Satan Sam.co.uk

Well I’m still getting used to this new computer and Windows 7. I’ve been running it for just over a week now and yeah, I think it’s quite good! There hasn’t been a single thing this Quad-core i5 has balked at and the graphics card can run Crysis and GTAIV at native res on medium-high settings just perfectly. And native resolution is 2560×1440 by the way!

There are some bugs left to fix in the game again. I’ve added in a few more minor features-

• Hell Mode- an alternator for all modes. During the event enemies become weaker but shoot out lasers in the direction they’re facing. It lasts around 20 seconds and appears every 1-2 minutes.
• Starbit Laser- collecting starbits charges it up, once you collect 150 of them you’re free to fire. It shoots through anything (‘cept bosses) and even absorbs enemy lasers. Psychological funtimes in multiplayer mode.
• Game clock! Because every game needs one, in my opinion. But this one only counts the time you’ve spent in flight.
• Mini achievements. Added little medals next to enemies that changes depending on how many times you’ve killed them.

There are 4 bugs left to fix before the next round of testing and maybe a couple more features to add. Depending on how well the final testers react we could be launching very soon indeed!

But let’s have some Twitter style reviews of this machine!

Magic Trackpad- Great! Apple’s laptops have oversized trackpads and this one is bigger still. Perfect in OSX, not so great in Windows 7.

Apple Magic Mouse- Surprisingly useful and definitely their best design yet. Again it’s great in OSX, but under Windows 7 the touchpad area is a little too sensitive.

Apple Bluetooth Keyboard- Was going to give this away but found out it works with iPods. Smashing combination.

You really do get used to your display size though. I used to worry that 27” for a display would be too big. It isn’t. It fills your vision but not overwhelmingly so, infact I set mine back and up the system’s DPI. And Firefox+Safari haven’t been in their default 100% zoom state since they were installed!

On Saturday I picked up a new computer.

Not much to say about it really! It’s a huge step up from my previous iMac.

Previous iMac Life Story

Bought in October 2006. For 2 years prior to that I was using a PowerBook G4 – so the only access I had to Windows was borrowing my dads laptop (which is what I made New Sam on). I needed something of my own to make Tormishire with and I was in my last year of uni so… Bam! Low end 17” iMac. The base model. But ah tell ya wart Apple are good at putting stuff together. Because 4.5 years later and the only thing to break is the DVD drive (that 2004 Powerbook has had no problems to this day!).

But it’s old. Super old.

Splurged a little bit on the new machine. It’s the (stock) top end iMac. The absolute best one you can get from a retail Apple Store  (build-to-order, which takes weeks to arrive).

3.1ghz Sandy Bridge i5
Radeon 6970 1gb
27” LED 2560×1440
4gb ram

FUNNY BIT: I asked the sales chap if we could swap out the Mighty Mouse for the Trackpad (which you can do online). But he just chucked in a Trackpad for free. Which was awfully nice.

Thing’s brilliant. Faultless.

Big Sky is being wrapped up now. There are no new features to add, no bugs to fix, just a bit more testing and balancing to even it all out. I’ll be banging together a little trailer in the coming days. I’ve got a bit of a maths exam on Monday so I’ll probably release it after that. The testers have enjoyed it too, which makes a change from my other games! And thanks to them I’ve added a low resolution option.

I’ve ordered Goldeneye for the Wii! Used to love the original N64 version and being pretty damn good at the multiplayer. Almost 100%ed it too – got all the cheats except for the Silver PPK (which was attained on the train level IIRC). So that should be fun. Oh hey if you have it and want to exchange friend codes then drop your code in the comments.

Last week I ordered myself a Wacom Intuous4 tablet and a 64gb iPod Touch – 2 brilliant machines! The Wacom replaces a £30 A4 tablet that a relative got yeeears ago and never really used. The Wacom’s a dream. I’ll never be going back, wherever back is now. Who else make tablets? Nobody. That’s who.

What I really love about the iPod is that it’s more or less a mini computer now. It’s my first iOS device, and a good time to jump in too since only this version supports multitasking. I can just flick through apps and games continuing where I left off. The notification system is too splendid for words. I bounce between many OS’s and computers in my working day so it’s great to have my emails, Facebook, Twitter all combined in one little location. Also: my Gamecenter name is Sneakybison.
Yesyes I know I’m late to the party!

Then at night it becomes my video player as I catch up on iPlayer.

As much as Apple have been shifting their market and being downright dickish at times they really have made a ground breaking machine, effectively replacing the need for a laptop (for me at least).

So after Big Sky!

The plan is to get back to work on Tower. There’s also a little project planned, a kind of stop gap that I’ll be starting up and finishing soon.

Big Sky’s menu. Look! Social networking integration!

Big Sky has changed an awful lot since its inception and even more so in the past week. I’ve added an upgrade system, added a system to measure your performance and adjust the difficulty to be one step ahead (after a minute or so of playing). The stats page is full of lovely numbers too and I’ve added support for resolution changing. The native res is 1280*720 and runs at 60fps even on my crummy ATi x1600. There are options to make it prettier that my machine can’t handle though.

Um. Stay tuned for the trailer… I guess!

So yesterday I got a fancy new MacBook, didn’t plan it until the day before either. Not much else to say really, cept it’s faster than my current iMac so working on this will be a breeze. It’s a really beautiful machine and that trackpad… It’s perfect, just not under XP. Really impressed by the design of this thing. Going round the shops yesterday I saw similar spec machines but they were all much thicker and heavier, didn’t have a multitouch pad or LED display. Apple really made an awesome machine with this.

Also snagged a free printer off them.

And of course the lengthy process of transferring files from my old PowerBook.

It’s my first Windows capable laptop in about 5 years so I can go out and make Tormi anywhere I damn well please :3

2ghz C2D iMac renders an 1800kbps H.264 DVD at 30fps

1.5ghz G4 PowerBook renders an 1800kbps H.264 DVD at 8fps (or 3 in low power mode)

_____________

Thus ends an exhaustive benchmark for people looking to upgrade to last years iMac from a Rev D 12″ PowerBook. Been punishing my PowerBook by rendering series 1 of the Office, 75% done and its only been 24 hours. 

I’m a sucker for things like this. Just bought myself a little 60gb 2.5" HDD for my games. My Steam folder is 32gb now so I needed a non HFS+ formatted drive to store Steam on (yea MacDrive isn’t so hot when it comes to running games off a HFS drive). The little buggers really quiet and USB powered too. My new travelling buddy I think! Just need some more USB ports now.

500gb 3.5" to left and the new baby under the iMac!

It’s not the best lighting but it’s a friggin beautiful shade of blue.

Or something like that.

Hey so I’ve had a busy week. Bought a PSP off eBay, the thing was buggered so I went out and got a Slim instead. Then my bro ended up getting one too! They’re really nifty and immensely improved upon from the last model, that and they’re getting some very good games now. It’s a really awesome machine that has replaced my DS for the time being.

So I was bazzing around on my PSP for the past few days and just last night I finally settled down for some Tormi work only to find my keyboard wasn’t working! So in a mad rush to get some work done (I always like to put an hour or so in each day at least! Even during Christmas) I ran out to the Apple store and got one of the new Apple keyboards! It’s a thing of beauty and it’s so thin!

Also got in touch with a really ace game studio out in the ‘states who… Well I might have some brilliant news in the coming months.

So back to work I suppose!

So I installed Vista about 5 days ago. It was going great until-

- The sound broke. Every 15 seconds the sound would stutter badly. Wouldn’t be so bad if I just used word processing.
- It actually does eat RAM. It’s no joke or myth or anything like that. It sucked all the juice from my Core 2 Duo (which flies by in OSX and XP).
- No drivers for my tablet, scanner or USB Midi cables.

Fed up with all this I decide to jump back to XP. And here we go!

XP fails to install. I don’t know why, it just doesn’t work. Something to do with a broke .dll file. This took me 3 attempts before I just give up.
Jump back into OSX with the intention of doing a full format of the Windows drive. Only it can’t find a mount point (botched XP install).
I run the Bootcamp setup app in OSX, restoring the drive to a single volume so I can re-partition it and get everything working again.

Oops! Turns out for OSX to do it’s Godly awesome partition-without-format it needs a lot of free space. Of which I don’t have.

Just finished making a big backup (260gb if you want to know!) and I’m now reinstalling OSX. Only I find the greatest feature ever – format OSX whilst keeping your documents and settings! What an afternoon saver!

So I’m not too pleased with Windows right now. It wants a fight.

*ooh, OSX just finished doing it’s business!*

But I’m not really excited.

Up until this moment I’ve been dreading the thought of a new iPod, out just months since I bought my 80gb model. Then they go and release (or just update)-

iPod Shuffle
More colours! Great… but no more orange one!

iPod Nano
Got hit with the ugly stick. It’s starting to grow on me, and it seems to have the same features as the iPod Classic now, which leads me onto the…

iPod Classic
Good call. Shame about them smooth edges. 80gb and 160gb with a lovely 40 hour battery life.

iPod Touch
Poor. 8 and 16gb models, everything else sounds spectacular though. 8mm thin.

So glad that my 80gb model isn’t that bad off! I put it to the world that the 5.5G is better looking than the 5.75G (oh, come on).

So the servers were down. But we’re all back up now after 24 hours. Which isn’t too bad considering this is the first time in nearly 4 years this has happened!

 Got interviewed at the Clickzine a couple of days ago. It might be my first interview. I forget these days! Mostly about Tormishire and that. Might be some new info in there.

Speaking of which! I’ve added the coolest little feature! I haven’t seen this in an Adventure game yet.

I graduated about a week ago too. That whole cap and gown ceremony. Stood out a bit too, I didn’t know you were meant to wear a long sleeved shirt underneath! Ah well. Really nerve racking experience until you actually got up on stage. My folks decided to get me a little graduation gift – iPod Radio Remote! I’ve been wanting one a while but have been waiting till my bank account cooled down a little from all my rabid spending.

I’ve also bought myself a very cheap Gameboy Color, Pokemon Yellow, Links Awakening DX, Metroid 2 and some other little games off eBay in preparation for my Nostalgic Summer. Dreamcast with a RGB Scart cable is all good to go too!

Last 7 days have got a 2 thumbs up rating.