Kotick was also offered the chance to buy Blizzard in the 1990s for $7 million, and then in the early 2000s for $700 million.

[12:10] “I took a look at World of Warcraft and I thought, ‘Who would want to buy a subscription to that?’”

[12:10] “So, of course we ended up merging with them in 2008 when they were worth $7 billion.”

You can buy World of Warcraft for just £4.99 from Amazon.

Activision Blizzard owns the following gaming brands:

Crash Bandicoot series
Guitar Hero series
Call of Duty series
Tony Hawk franchise
Spider-Man series
Spyro the Dragon series
Warcraft series
StarCraft series
Diablo series

The Logitech G7 went down the route of 2 seperate batteries that could only be used in the G7. Only one battery could be used at a time, so while that was in use the other could be recharged in the charging dock, which also had a USB port for the USB receiver. It worked well, but could be a bit annoying when the battery ran out of juice mid-way through a game or work, but it only took a couple of seconds to swap. At first the batteries lasted around 7-8 hours each between charges which was more than enough generally for 2-3 days of use. But over the years the battery life has shrunk to less than an hour on both which made the mouse more and more frustrating. Unfortunately as good as the mouse was, very comfortable and with a relatively good sensitivity (2000dpi), new batteries for the mouse would of cost around the same as what the moues is worth second hand. So for the second time since owning the G7 I went out looking for a new mouse. My first outing resulted in buying the corded Razer Lachesis. That didn’t last long though, the feel of the mouse was wrong, the mouse was too light and the shape of the buttons never felt right as well some issues with the mouse not being usable upon Windows start up which I imagine was down to drivers.

So now the Microsoft Sidewinder X8 is in, same price as both the Razer Lachesis and the Logitech G7 but is packed with a lot more features.

It comes with one standard rechargable AA battery, so the battery can be charged using a standard battery recharger or the more useful and usable charger that also acts as a receiver. In what looks like a hockey puck is a small wire wrapped around the middle with a small pad with 3 metal elements on it. This attaches magnetically to the bottom of the mouse but in such a way as not to pull off easily. This provides a charging facility over USB which is great as when the battery is running low, you can just plug the cable in and carry on as normal, then when the battery is charged up, just take the cable out and carry on, no changing batteries required here.

Another nice touch is that in the hockey puck like receiver is a set of 2 feet for the mice with different levels of slipperiness to go with the standard feet on the mice, so you have 3 sets of feet.

The mouse has different resolution settings like the G7 and Lachesis but like the Lachesis goes all the way to 4000dpi. The Lachesis and G7 have 2 buttons below the scroll wheel to go up and down the sensitivity settings, the X8 offers 3 buttons allowing 3 different settings. The X8 also features a nice LED screen next to the thumb which tells you the DPI as well as the battery charge state, I feel it would of been better to be more like the G7 and allow more than 3 settings and to be able to scroll through as you would easily be able to tell which sensitivity you are on by looking at the LED screen.

The scroll wheel on the X8 feels very solid with a textured metal finish allowing good grip which although I think it shouldn’t, actually feels better than the rubber used on both the Lachesis and G7 and gives a reassuring click sound when pressed.

So far I highly recommend the X8 at the moment I would say it is a better mouse than the G7 and definately better than the Lachesis from my experiences, but only time will tell.

Skins were exported from the game then modified using Photoshop and saved back in to VTF for Counter Strike: Source.

Blue Scout

A blue coloured Scout. [download id="7"]

Blue Scout Skin

Daisy Scout

A pink Scout with daisy’s on the sides. [download id="8"]

Daisy Scout CSS Skin

Hi-res Desert Eagle

A hi-res Desert Eagle skin, giving off better details on the original Valve skin. [download id="9"]

Hi-res Desert Eagle skin for CSS

Hi-res M4A1 Carbine

A hi-res M4A1 Carbine skin, giving off better details on the original Valve skin. [download id="10"]

M4A1 Carbine Skin for CSS

Silver P90

A hi-res silver P90 skin. [download id="11"]

Silver P90 for CSS

Why do all the old games seem to be more fun years and years on when the graphics have been improved so much?

Will I be wanting to play Crysis again as a classic game in 10 years time because it was a classic game of the time (well Crysis may not be the best example, but you get the idea).

I have also found myself playing SWOS (Sensible World of Soccer) 96-97.  Not the absolute rubbish remake that came out a couple of years ago.  The original was so good because it was simple and fun not because it was 3D.

My favourite Final Fantasy of all time was Final Fantasy VI which was 2D sprites.

So is the fact that games are becoming 3D that makes most games dull and boring with no fun factor (well a little fun maybe when you are killing aliens while trying to run down an icy hill in a suit with lots of fancy features) or is the fact that developers are trying to make the games look more realistic without thinking too much about the actual gameplay?

Who knows, but what we do know, is the banana bomb can be extremely deadly…

You can download the new updated version from the ePSXe website and clicking Downloads on the left.

It has been long time since the previous ePSXe status update. During this time the ePSXe development has been on hold and our lives have changed a lot, probably just like yours. In summer 2007 we decided to continue working in ePSXe encouraged by the users support even after 4 years without updates. ePSXe is currently in final testing and we hope to release a new version very soon. We wanted to thank you for your support and show you some screenshots from games that should work better in the next release.

I have played it on PC and Xbox 360 and I would personally say PC is better.

Gameplay

The style of game is arcade, which surprised me as I was expecting a game to compete a bit more against GT5.  But that wasn’t too much of a problem as I prefer arcade driving games such as Need for Speed, although ProStreet was rather annoying.

I find the game is similar to Project Gotham Racing but only better looking.

A very nice feature of the game is something called flashback.  If you crash and write off your car you can use the flashback feature to rewind through the race and pick up from a certain point in which you can avoid the accident.  Not only is it a useful feature for when you crash but it is actually pretty good to use, it acts like replays do in any other game then you press the designated flashback button (F12 for PC, X for 360) and the game will carry on from that point.

Damage is also a very good feature which is a lot better than I thought it was going to be, which by itself puts it ahead of NFS:PS.

Another positive about the game which I haven’t seen used in any other game is in the profile system you can chose your firstname from a list so the computer can actually speak out your name rather than you having a set name like in NFS:PS or having name spoken out like in PGR.  All you do is type your firstname and surname in to the create profile screen and you are then given a list of names to chose from which will automatically select your firstname ready for confirmation if it is in the list.  The game contains male and female names as well as a list of nicknames.

Controls

I played both using the Xbox 360 controller and the controls just seemed a bit more responsive with the PC.  The plus side on the 360 is the fact that all the controls are on the controller.  Even if you use a controller on the PC you have to use the keyboard for some functions such as the flashbacks.

Graphics

Running on an E6750, 3GB ram, 8800GTS 320MB at 1920×1200 with AA set to MSAAx2 the fps stayed above 35fps at all times, staying around 40fps most of the time and graphically at this settings was better than the 360.  The 360 did look a lot better on the loading screens and menus though, I can only assume the PC version had a slightly degraded graphics for the menus and loading screens to make the game work on lower spec PCs.

The smoke from the tyres is very good though, a lot more impressive than NFS.

Conclusion

All in all I think GRID is a very good game.  Not a great game, but a good game. If you are tired of GTA IV or you don’t like GTA IV and no new good games come out then it is worth a purchase.

If you have a good PC with a wired 360 controller I would get the PC version, otherwise get the 360 version or if you don’t have a 360 and a shit PC, but have a PS3, get it for PS3. If you have none, don’t buy it…..

EDIT: I have found out that GameTrailers have done a side by side HD video of the GRID; PS3 vs Xbox 360.  From the video the graphics are almost identical, the only visible difference is that the PS3 colours seem to be a bit washed out in comparison to the 360 version.  You can watch the video here.

Gametrailers HD

Gametrailers SD

Keep an eye out at stores for a prereleased copy.