xampp – http://www.apachefriends.org/
A bundled installer of Apache, PHP, MySQL and a few other programs. This allows you to set up a server on your computer accessible through http://localhost which saves you having to upload the files to a server during development.

Notepad++ – http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/
An extension of notepad in Windows with more features including syntax highlight for PHP, HTML, javascript and many more languages.

GIMP (GNU Image Maninpulation Program) – http://www.gimp.org/
A worthy alternative to the hugely expensive Photoshop.

Paint.net – http://www.paint.net/
Based on the simplicity of MS Paint, Paint.net takes this a lot further with the introduction of many tools that are present in GIMP and Photoshop.

There is a fix for this and is on all current Mondeo’s been made. The fix is a rubber seal going all the way round the boot.  All the water that sits at the bottom of the window now floods down the sides of the window and drops a short distance at the top of the boot and flows down the side gutters.

Unfortunately everyone who bought a Mondeo before this was fitted is in a situation where they are getting wet.  This is a design flaw and as such should be fixed free of charge by Ford.  But no.  Ford seem very reluctant to do anything about it.

The problem is the rubber seal can’t be retro fitted.  The part in question is a whole new rear windscreen.  A brick through your rear windscreen would get your a new part at your expense.

All Ford Mondeo owners should phone Ford Customer Relation Centre on 0845 841 1111.

The dealers don’t care or want to know about the problem and the Ford CRC just want to push everyone to their dealer.  Poor service from Ford especially as it was a problem on some of the hatchback Focus’ too.

Escapist Magazine

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn’t talking very fast into a headset mic he also designs freeware adventure games and writes the back page column for PC Gamer, who are too important to mention us. His personal site is www.fullyramblomatic.com.

The Escapist

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn’t talking very fast into a headset mic he also designs freeware adventure games and writes the back page column for PC Gamer, who are too important to mention us. His personal site is www.fullyramblomatic.com.

Project Kahn is proud to announce the launch of the new Bentley Continental GTS ‘Black Edition’.

The ‘Black Edition’ has an eight-piece body consisting of a three piece rear valance, two side skirts, a two piece front valance and a rear boot spoiler. This kit has been developed by our Project Kahn design team and has undergone many hours of testing not only to ensure safety but also to ensure that a perfect fit is achieved for each car.

The ‘Black Edition’ package contains a full interior styling programme which includes a bespoke Project Kahn Luxury Leather upgrade and high gloss piano black interior fascia panels with the optional extras of either a high gloss piano black steering or a carbon fibre finish steering wheel. Each car comes with privacy tinted glass perfectly matched to compliment the cars exterior.

Source: SeriousWheels

Also check out Project Kahn’s new updated website.

I also will be going through and tagging all the old posts which weren’t tagged.

Categories can now be found at the top right of the page.

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.

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn’t talking very fast into a headset mic he also designs freeware adventure games and writes the back page column for PC Gamer, who are too important to mention us. His personal site is www.fullyramblomatic.com

Source of image: Far Cry 2 Headquaters

Far Cry 2 is set in the savannah of Africa.  The Far Cry team has moved away from the jungle environment which we basically saw again in Crysis.  The weather is humid and green vegetation is rare in this vast openness.

At the demo we were told that the whole games playable area was 50×50km.  We supposingly only saw less than 1×1km in the demo.

The demo started off showing off some of the basics.  You are in the savannah, you carry 4 weapons, a primary weapon which is a shotgun/rifle or submachine gun, a secondary weapon such as a pistol, the 3rd weapon is a grenade launcher type weapon but we didn’t really see much of that.  The 4th weapon is a trusty machete.

Next we were shown how the wind affects a lot of the game.  You can pick up flame throwers and use them to burn vegetation and buildings, which will spread along vegetation in the direction of the wind.  You can see the direction of the wind by looking at the trees and vegetation and your compass that you have also shows you the wind direction.

At this point the game got in to a bit of action.  AI seemed a bit like the Crysis AI.  We were told they weren’t scripted and would do whatever they want, and that they did.  They didn’t really seem to care that the enemy was around until you started shooting them.

Another interesting point of this game was the way you get health.  You can pick up morphene from around villages etc which you need to inject yourself with when you get low on health.  If you die, you don’t really die.

In the game there are NPC that you can become friends with.  Once you befriend them, all you have to do is talk to them, they will come and assist you in a fight if you die.  Well you don’t really die.  The NPC will drag you away from the firing line and heal you.  You are now in a reasonably safe situation with no weapons apart from a machete and I think you get a pistol too.  If these friends die though, they don’t come back.  So it is best not to use them for fighting as they can be used to get equipment from them.

It was at this point that the guy playing actually did die.  So they had to restart the demo.  On the restart the game was flickering so they had to stop the demo there.

We went on to a short Q&A which revealed a few things.

The game will be released around August/September 2008.  The release will be on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC at the same time.

The level is designed to be seamless and should have no loading screens at all once in game.  Unlike Oblivion on the consoles which had loading screens.

At this point we were asked to leave while they reset all their equipment and to let the 200 waiting people in to view the demo to.

…those 200 people were actually around 30 or 40 max.

The first of many lie’s from the developers I am sure.

Far Cry 2 homepage

Microsoft has once more come under fire for allegedly anti-competitive behaviour – this time from software rival Opera. The Norwegian company, which makes an internet browser of the same name, has filed a complaint with European Union officials accusing Microsoft of stifling competition.Opera, which has around 12 million users worldwide, said today that Microsoft had been acting anti-competitively by bundling its Internet Explorer program with the Windows operating system.

“We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them,” said Jon von Tetzchner, the chief executive of Opera. “We cannot rest until we’ve brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide.”

The company said it was looking for a series of measures from European officials, including forcing Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer or allowing rival products to be preinstalled in Windows, and compelling Microsoft to follow design guidelines issued by web standards groups.

Source: Guardian

Microsoft is once again most likely going to have legal action simliar to that of the Windows Media Player antitrust suit in which the EU fined Microsoft €280M.

Opera is now asking the EU to file and antitrust suit for Internet Explorer. Computer users with some intelligence tend to use Firefox or Opera over Microsofts Internet Explorer claiming them to be both faster and more secure, and in some ways that is true so you can’t really complain.

Why is Opera only just bringing up this now? They have been down in the browser rankings for a long time and are trailing behind Mozilla’s Firefox as well as Apple’s Safari. It is most likely because they have a minature stake in the market but feel that they need more as making their software free didn’t help at all.

In my opinion Microsoft have every right to put Internet Explorer in with Windows. Why not? There is nothing stopping the user from getting another browser from elsewhere. There isn’t a message saying to access the Internet you must use Internet Explorer. Apple bundle Safari with OSX do they not? Why aren’t Opera filing an antitrust suit against Apple? Probably because they will get sod all out of it. Microsoft is a much better target and the EU seem to love taking money out of Microsoft. Where they money goes no one really knows for sure.

Back to the case of Windows Media Player, there is nothing making you use Windows Media Player, you can get new media players. Apple also bundle Quicktime and iTunes with their OS, but no complaints or antitrust suits against them.

If Microsoft released their next OS with no browser and no media player there will be outrage and everyone will acuse Microsoft of slacking and delivering a product which isn’t fit for purpose, so they really have no way of getting around this.

If they didn’t include a browser and media player, it will be down to the OEMs to decide which software to put on with all their other shit they like to install.

Why don’t we see any complaints about messenger programs?

Why aren’t Adobe coming out complaining about MS Paint being included with Windows? Or some maths software company about the built in Calculator.

Hell, Apple don’t even allow OEMs to build or sell their computers. That in my eyes is monopolisation.

When you install Firefox or Opera does Windows tell you not to install it and that Internet Explorer is the only way on to the Internet? No.

So to the people at Opera shut up and carry on making your browser better so that the general public may give a shit about what you are making and pay you some attention. Then change your name so it isn’t the same as a genre of music and sound the same as some daft overpaid women on US television.