For those not in the know, Duke Nukem 4Ever was first announced waaaay back in 1999. Since then it has languished in development limbo, occasionally spewing out screenshots in an attempt to let us know it was still in development. Then last year 3D Realms (the developing studio) went under and it was finally laid to rest, much to the relief/consternation of the gaming public (see this link for a look at what I mean)

So after all that it appears Gearbox (the guys behind Borderlands and Brothers In Arms) have taken on the mantle of the game and aim to release in 2011. Surprised? Yes very. Will it be any good tho? Doubtful. As Yahtzee points out in his review (see above link) the original DN series did well as it was a sign of the times. I suspect this new game wont do so well as the world has moved on. Sure it will have that nostalgic twing and should be reasonably amusing to play, but I don’t think its going to be a world beater. I certainly don’t think it will be as ground breaking as the original was (which although didn’t feature true 3D gameplay was the first FPS to allow players to stand in rooms above one another – which just pipped Quake to the title by a couple of months if memory serves)

We will see

Covering three floors in the Old Market area of Bristol, this centrally placed store aims to provide gaming tables, wargames models and supplies, painting stations and a general hub for miniature wargaming.p

I had a very nice chat with the owner (I think his name was Alex?!) who laid out his whole aim for the place and i think he’ll do very well indeed!

So what next? Well still running the business on the side but looking for full time work. We will see what comes up

Oh and have a new motorbike (a gift from someone in the church) so Im mobile again. Honda XL125 Varadero and its sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Well today I finally did something I thought I’d never do. Yes I have gone to the other side… I have switched from Nvidia to ATI!

I’ve been using Nvidia graphics cards since it became clear that having a 3DFX card wasn’t the way forward (which was back in 1999 I believe). Nvidia have done me proud over the years but part of me was scared to try new things and ATI was ” the other side” of graphics cards.

For those who don’t know what Im talking about, ATI and Nvidia are the Coke and Pepsi of the graphics card world. Both big, both good but you tend to side with one or the other.

Anyway I found my 9600GT just wasn’t pulling its weight anymore and decided it was time for an upgrade. After a lot of research into the new GTX 200 series from Nvidia I was conscious that ATI always seemed to have more cards in the top 20 performing cards that Nvidia. This was confirmed when looking at specific application tests such as Far Cry 2 and the like. So I decided to see what ATI had to offer. I thought I would aim for a DirectX11 card as Dx10 is (in theory) on the way out, however ATIs HD 5700 and 5800 series didn’t seem to pull the same punch as their older 4800′s. IE for more money you can get a 5750 graphics card over an older 4870 and get WORSE performance all round. But it will do DX11. I figured I could live without that for now

So whats it like? Huge is one word. It fills two PCIe bays and sounds like a hairdryer when starting it up. Whats it like? Don’t know yet. Haven’t put it through its paces. BUT I will say this. ATIs drivers are about 50MB smaller in file size than Nvidias which is a bonus

I only saw 11 films at the cinema this year, and 2 of those were the same film

Defiance
Slumdog Millionare
Watchmen
Star Trek
Star Trek IMAX
Harry Potter 6
Moon
Surrogates
Up
An Education
2012

Of those I think I only really loved 4 of them and some I didnt like at all. Some months I saw 2 films others none.

The point of this? Absolutely none whatsoever

Anyway for the new year? Well Ive just seen Avatar in 3D. Very good but made me feel very sad for some reason.
And for myself? A job would be nice, a continuing growth in my relationship with my girlfriend (whom Im quite enamoured with as it is! ), and oo something even more adventurous !!

Things are not top gloomy tho. I have several applications in the pipeline and Dave Hops new DVD should hopefully maybe financed by the end of this week. I have options plus trusting in God is where I hope to be, free from worry

Anyway the two which have caught my attention are Borderlands and Warhammer Online. Now yes I did work on the old Warhammer Online many years ago (and left before it got canned I hasten to add) so its been amusing to see what they’ve made of this version… and its pretty much a shifting of the World of Warcraft model. Yes there are significant differences and things I really like (such as different ways to get XP etc).

It falls down slightly given that this kind of game demands a high userbase. Realm vs Realm (or massive PvP to put it another way) only works when you have a large player base online at the same time which is not usually the case I’ve found. So much so that they seem to have lumped all the races on the “Destruction” side into the same newbie area (Chaos). This fails to work for me playing an Orc, but you are given a nifty scroll to teleport you to the right area. Sadly its not actually explained when the best time to do this is and as a consequence I’ve now done nearly 2 newbie areas!

Its a pity as there are some really nice touches but it seems … lacklustre in a way. Also of note is how on earth Paul Barnett (a man brought in to the original WO project as an advisor but his CV only listed text based games as his experience) landed the job of “Creative lead” on the project after he had a hand in the originals demise…. Suspicious? I think so. Bitter? Nah I would have liked to see my stuff come out but the project had more than one issue

ANYWAY the other game of Note is Borderlands (by Gearbox). A nice little meld of RPG and shooter with some 4 player coop action thrown in. I quite like it. Sure it has its quirks and some things are a little broken but its good fun (which is all you can ask from a game). I’ve not tried the online content yet but the single player is gripping enough to warrant continued play. I love the characters in the game and theres some great humour and film / game references in there.

32 today and feeling.. quite old actually.

Was amused the following also happened today :

• 1773 – The first recorded ministry of education, theCommission of National Education, was formed inPoland.
• 1888 – French inventor Louis Le Prince filmed Roundhay Garden Scene, the earliest surviving motion picture, inRoundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
• 1926 – The first book featuring English author A. A. Milne‘s fictional bearWinnie-the-Pooh was first published.
• 1939 – World War II: The German submarine U-47 torpedoed and sunk theBritish Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak while the latter was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland.
• 1947 – Flying at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13.7 km) in an experimental Bell X-1 rocket-powered aircraft, American test pilot Chuck Yeager (pictured)became the first person to break the sound barrier.
• 1953 – Israeli military commander Ariel Sharon and his Unit 101 special forces attacked the village of Qibya on the West Bank, destroying 45 buildings, killing 42 villagers, and wounding 15 others.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Interesting a number of good and terrible things happening at the same time, but I guess thats true of any day. Poor day at work again. In for dinner then out for drinks later. More sociable than my last few years efforts anyways.