The Playstation War Machine Marches On....

The allegedley ill-fated PS3 released by Sony 14 months ago is now poised to enter its golden era. Upon release, it was bashed by gadget geeks and Xbox gamers and the likes, but it has weathered the storm and now the forums which were once bubbling with anti-Sony vibes have all but disappeared. Perhaps the greatest sign of just how much the big black box is appreciated is that in its first year it equalled the amount of Xbox 360's that were sold in its first year, and despite huge releases for Microsoft last year including Halo 3, Mass Effect and Bioshock amongst others, the PS3 is now set to unleash hell on the gaming world...and I mean that in a good way!

Exclusives on the line for 2008 include Metal Gear Solid 4, White Knight Chronicles, Resistance 2, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (and maybe the actual GT5 too!), Final Fantasy XIII, and Killzone 2. In comparison to its competitors line-ups, it's the clear winner, though in Microsoft's case it is acceptable given that last year was such a huge year!

Not only has Sony got these great games in store, but the hotly anticipated "Home" service for its PSN users, aswell as support for DivX and likely other formats in the future on its Internet service, PLUS the Dualshock 3 and even more Blu-Ray DVD's on the way there's never been a better time to own/buy a PS3. Most recently Microsoft announced that it was in talks over Blu-Ray technology - something Sony already built into their PS3. With that in mind, once Microsoft join Sony on the Blu-Ray bandwagon, the likelihood that people will buy a PS3 will further increase, given that it is the only console to support Blu-Ray and the suckers who bought HD-DVD players will be fuming (as no other companies will continue to produce HD-DVDs).

If those aren't reason enough to buy the PS3 over its competitors, look no further than free-online gaming, something which has to be PAID for on Xbox. Admittedly upon its release, the 360 versions of multiplatform games far outpaced their PS3 counterparts. However, now that developers have had time to work on the PS3 (most notably the excellent Call of Duty 4 released last year), it is very hard to discern the quality of one from the other - i.e. whether you buy a multiplatform game (for example the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed), you no longer have to worry about which it looks better on, as it will be virtually identical - although this is purely dependent on the developer... Assassin's Creed anyone?

In short, 2008 is gonna be a good year for gaming, most notably in the PS3's corner. Here's a taste of things to come:

Click the links as these are HD videos and I can't squeeze them into the tiny space on this blog:

Resistance 2:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29999.html?type=flv

Upcoming 1:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/28079.html

Upcoming 2:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/28081.html

BLISS!

~The Damo

Grinds My Gears!! - Issue 15

Sorry about the delay for this one, but I've been fairly busy in college at the moment and didn't have the time. However, with a two hour break on my hand before Mechanics labs, I'm taking the time to give a GMG on something which I think many people have experienced and will agree with me. I'm talking about the World's Worst Company....NTL!

Where to begin... when we first moved to Lucan we had NTL, it was crap. Bad reception, channels coming on and off, no customer service nothing. 14 years later - still the same. If you ring up NTL you have to put up with one of those annoying tunes while you wait to be connected to an operator. Not only do you wait for about 15-30mins, but when you are connected, more often than not the person can't help you with your problem. The fact that you have to wait so long to get through to them is a sign of just how many people are ringing up with complaints!

I'll explain with a personal example. As many of you will know, I spend every Friday, and indeed some Saturday mornings in Walkinstown, in the house my Grandmother owned. She died about 4 years ago now, but we've kept the house for convenience during the school week - I'm avoiding details. ANYWAY, around November/December we noticed that the TV reception was totally gone, the only stations we had being RTE 1 & 2, and even they were pretty bad. Initially we thought we had forgotten to pay a bill - as I said no one is living there on a regular basis, so a bill could've been overlooked. So, we rang NTL, and after the mandatory 15 min wait we found we had paid the bills - therefore it was a technical problem.

With that in mind, we rang NTL a week later to arrange for a technician to come out. We were told he'd be there on Monday between 1.00pm and 5.00pm, an EXCELLENT timeframe (end sarcasm). Why they can't be like SKY and actually tell you EXACTLY when the technician will be there is beyond me. Nevertheless, he amazing arrived at 1.30pm and told me he'd have to send out a repair team. Don't ask me why he couldn't do it. I was told they'd be there tomorrow morning; that being Tuesday morning. The following day, I waited from 9-4.30 for the repairmen to arrive. Guess what? They never came! We rang NTL that evening to ascertain why they hadn't shown up to be told that no team had been scheduled for that repair, but we would be contacted when they were.

Thursday I fly over to Walkinstown to pick up my sister from school and lo-and-behold what should I find in the postbox at the house: a call card to say a technician had arrived but we hadn't been in! The mother f'ers! We rang them up later to express our dissatisfaction! I mean how FUCKING bad is that type of service!

In the time we've been SKY customers in Lucan, we've only ever ONCE had to call someone out, and that was to install another Minibox in another room. Perfect picture quality, huge range of channels, excellent customer service (when you ring you get an answer and they can help you!) and just an all round fantastic service. It is amazing to see NTL still functioning as a company. A few years ago we received a letter from NTL saying they were taking us to court for not paying years of our bills on our service. The thing these jackasses had failed to notice was that during those years we had been on SKY, and had disconnected their NTL service. The fact that they didn't even notice that is further evidence of how bad they are. Needless to say an apologetic letter from NTL ensued.

What's the message I'm trying to put across? AVOID NTL AT ALL COSTS!

~The Damo

College Semester 2

Holidays are over and as of today I'm officially a week back in college. So what's new? Well nothing much other than the fact I have 6 new modules really:

Maths for Engineers V
Better known as STATISTICS :( , I was never a fan of statistics and probability for the Leaving Cert, but the lecturer says it's easy enough so we'll have to see.

Mechanics of Solids I
After the awful Mechanics of Fluids last semester I wasn't exactly looking forward to this, but once the course outline had been delivered I saw to my delight that most of the course I had covered previously with my first year module "Theory and Design of Structures", WOOP!

Design and Communications for Structural Engineers
When I first read the course overview I was quite excited, a really hands on course, but after the Thursday lecture for the "communications" part that excitement has been crippled, much like the way the Enterprise was crippled in Star Trek II after Khan....I'll stop there. Yeah so aswell as our studio work we'll have a huge mother f'n written project to do!!!

Theory and Design of Structures II
I'm HOPING that this will be as good as last year, but the first week of lectures has questioned both the content and the speed which we'll be going. It may well go slower than French for the Leaving Cert.....

Computer Applications for Civil Engineering
Easy peasy lemon squeezy - for now anyway. When we move on to MATLAB I expect it to get more difficult, but for now I'm enjoying it, plus we've the added bonus of Dr Yaqian Zhao who was brilliant in first year!

Surveying
Definitely looking forward to this, interesting, hands-on AND field trips. Have you seen those saps around the city with the metre and tripod, yep? That's what we're going to be doing!!!!

So other than that what else is new? Monday's is footie night up in ASTRO PARK, so if you'd like to come along let me know. LOST and PRISON BREAK are BACK!!!! Mondays and Tuesdays - serious conflict on Mondays with football. I'm 3 weeks into the recruits course in the John's, I'll have them become the best damn recruits EVER! Especially after a certain someone did the course on his own two years ago.....

GRINDS = MONEY!

I currently have Goal of the Month in our little thing on Mondays with an average scoring rate of 7 per game too!

Death or Glory awaits...

The Damo

Angry Video Game Nerd - Rambo

With John Rambo hitting cinemas soon it's appropriate that the Nerd reverts back to the first game of the Rambo film series on the old NES.

I'm also loving the new theme tune, enjoy:


Here's hoping the new film won't suck as bad as this!

~The Damo

Top Ten - Megadeth!

It's been over a week since I made my last post, but I have my reasons, mainly due to NTL, the FAI and college, hence you can expect a GMG regarding NTL hopefully by the end of the week.

In the meantime it's back to Top Ten's, this week Megadeth:

10. Prince of Darkness (Risk):


9. Blackmail the Universe (The System Has Failed):


8. Gears of War (United Abominations):


7. Tornado of Souls (Rust in Peace):


6. The Scorpion (The System Has Failed):


5. Washington is Next! (United Abominations):


4. Die Dead Enough (The System Has Failed):


3. Symphony of Destruction (Countdown to Extinction):


2. À Tout le Monde (Youthanasia and United Abominations) This version is the 2007 one featuring Cristina Scabbia:


1. Holy Wars...The Punishment Due (Rust in Peace):


Remember, it's just my opinion!!

~The Damo

OMFG - OVERLOAD!!!!!

Courtesy of IGN.com

January 11, 2008 - When the original Resistance: Fall of Man launched alongside the PlayStation 3 in 2006, its status as a best seller was all but guaranteed. The game looked good, played well and offered the kind of online firefights the Sony fan base was clamoring for. Thanks to map packs and a devoted following, Resistance is still running strong on the PS3, but as more and more FPS games hit the console, gamers are starting to want more. They'll get it this fall. Resistance 2 is official after Sony announced the title in the latest issue of Game Informer, which should be hitting subscriber mailboxes anytime now. In the cover story, Sony spills the beans on all sorts of nifty gameplay features and functions.

1. The game will feature the standard single-player campaign as well as an eight-player online co-op campaign that's objective-based. Two people can still work together locally.

2. Ready to beat each other senseless online? Resistance 2 will feature 60-player matches set in the United States.

3. Sorry, Rachel; the campaign will pick up from Fall of Man's epilogue and stick solely with Nathan Hale as he copes with getting shot down in Iceland, escaping to the states and joining the "Sentinels" program.

4. There will be classes. Characters will start out from one of three basic templates -- a "tank-style" soldier rocking a chain gun, a "Special Ops class" that seems like a sniper or a medic whose "Medicator" gun will hurt enemies and heal allies -- and go from there.

5. When you and a team of friends head into battle, there will not be a selectable difficulty. Insomniac will be auto-scaling the challenge to the skill of you and your squad. When you jump into a random online match, you'll be teamed with partners and opponents who are around your personal level.

6. "Personal" is going to be a big word in Resistance 2. The game will have dedicated servers for gaming, community and stats as well as gamer profile pages on myresistance.net. In-game, the setup will be completely open when it comes to clans and parties -- the era of invites has come to a close.

7. Vehicles are in the game, but Insomniac wouldn't let on about their role.
The game's set in the '50s, but expect a more modern U.S. landscape as well as a focus on the aerial side of the Chimeran attack.

8. The game's AI has been overhauled -- they have improved routines and detachable armor pieces -- and boss battles will be more important than ever. Exciting, no?

Here's a few screenshots:


JOYGASM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~The Damo

Revenant Project Log - Final

As with the Avatar, I finished up on the Revenant aswell.

So now that I've two Forgeworld projects under my belt, what's next?

Hmmm....birthday in March anyone......?

~The Damo

Avatar Project Log - Final

In the last steps then, I painted over the black necklace in a white to make it really stand out, as I had done with my old Avatar.

Lastly, I painted the gems over the body in blues and purples, aswell as a few details in silver and gold. The headdress was painted in the green with streaks of white running through it and the cloth was painted as shown.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

~The Damo

Angry Video Game Nerd - Chronologically Confused Over Zelda Timeline

Yeah that's a mouthful alright. This is apparently an unreleased video from....2006!!! I warn you, it's LONG, so you know, grab a beer, sit back and enjoy.

Oh, and another GMG is on the way during the week!



Very tired!

~The Damo

A Haze-y Future is on the Horizon....

A few months ago I posted a blog about the top ten games to look forward to in the coming months. One of those games Haze on PS3 was supposed to come out in November, but was put back to the Jan-Mar 08, and it seems it might be released in two weeks time. Normally I wouldn't get excited over the release of any game, with the exception of MGS4, but it was only when I started watching all the trailers for Haze that my expectations started to grow.

Here's a few videos with gameplay, interviews and TV commercials which will likely accompany the game's release. It's good to see Sony finally getting their act together with this exclusive and with multiplayer that reviewers have said could out do the untouchable Halo on Xbox 360, the game's release now has even more significance. Korn are also releasing a single entitled Haze to go with the release.

The game almost looks more like a movie than anything else, and the storyline is quite original if you ask me. A good deal of the background is revealed in the vids, so I'll let you listen up there.

A very VERY likely TV commercial:


One of the earliest trailers:


A likely TV Commercial, well a shortened version anyway:



A Walkthrough of one of the levels:


Can't wait for this one!!!

~The Damo

Revenant Titan Project Log - Part 3

Only a small update for the Revenant. The reason being that it took me about 3 coats of Snot Green to get the finish you can see there, not to mention the 4 or 5 coats of white needed to get the clean finish on the head, pulsars and leg plates.



Anyway, next update I'll be going through assembly and what not!

~The Damo

Avatar Project Log - Part 2

Okay, so here's the latest on the Avatar front:

Stage 1: White undercoat, and blazing orange for all the cracks and recesses. Remember, the Avatar is practically made of magma, so reds and oranges are what I'm using.


Stage 2: After that, I painted the majority of the Avatar's body black, as I'm going for a darker shade red. The difference in white and black undercoats becomes apparent next.

Stage 3: I went over the orange in a yellow colour but I wasn't too satisfied with the finish. The rest of the Avatar was painted in Red Gore. You can see for the crown that the red painted over the white is brighter than the rest of the body.

Stage 4: I mixed some orange and yellow and painted that over the yellow from the previous stage giving a much better finish as you can see. I also went over the red to make a cleaner finish.

Stage 5: Next, I went around each and every crack with a thin line of Burnished Gold. Though not clearly apparent in the pic there is a difference!

Stage 6: I then covered any areas of plated armour (shoulders and lower legs) in Shining Gold. The black finish on the sword was redone aswell as the white for the face. Finally, I painted the necklace in black, the reason for which will be seen in the next blog.

Don't forget to check out the Revenant above!

~The Damo

A Taste of Things to Come....

No sexual innuendo intended, the blog (or rather the collection of pictures) is actually about my painted miniatures.

I've already posted two separate series regarding my Revenant and Avatar projects, and yes they will be updated soon, I've just been up to my neck in... well... it's better you don't know.

ANYWAY, I just wanted to post the quality I can paint at when I'm required to. The following selection was predominantly painted next week a year ago where I was sitting downstairs watching Myth-busters when I just said do myself "You know what Damien, I'm gonna paint!", and by God did I! The day was even topped off by a text from someone who I hadn't heard from in a long time, so I guess that was karma or the likes. So, onto the pics, I want to show you what I can do when motivated correctly (how Myth-busters motivated me to paint is still a mystery...even a year later!):

Autarch:

Dire Avengers:

Eldar Rangers:

Farseer:

Fire Dragons:

Howling Banshees:

Striking Scorpions:

Swooping Hawks:

Just looking there, I don't know why I didn't take a pic of the Warp Spiders... Oh well!

~The Damo

Grinds My Gears!! - Issue 14

Hello 2008! A new year merits a new issue of Grinds My Gears, and I thought I'd cover a topic that is not only close to my own heart, but (I'm quite sure) is close to everyone else's.....

Do you actually want to know what grinds my gears? Well do ya? Yeah? Well guess what, it's people who complain!!! I mean come on, complaining has got to be one of the most annoying things ever. And we ALL do it! Everyone needs to have something to complain about, and there's some people who aren't happy unless they are complaining! They probably annoy me most, but I also don't like people who don't complain enough cause chances are they're bottling it up and then one day will explode all over your ass and then you'll complain about them complaining and that usually puts you and them in bad moods, who will brush off that negative emotion on other people, resulting in a slow and negative spread of the complaining and bad humour like some kindof virus, ergo if its a virus then its bad, and so complaining is bad!

Complaining... let's look that up in the dictionary:

1. to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief; find fault: He complained constantly about the noise in the corridor.
2. to tell of one's pains, ailments, etc.: to complain of a backache.
3. to make a formal accusation: If you think you've been swindled, complain to the police.

More often than not people complain regarding definition 1 above. There's many other words which are frequently used instead of complaining: bitching, moaning, pulling out of one's arse, whinging, nagging, grumbling, bitching, etc. More often than not "complaining" (the verb, not the word itself) is most commonly associated with young people. I mean let's face it, young people can be bitches when it comes to bitchin'! I'm allowed say that since I'm nearly 19 and won't be the half-teen half-adult age of 18, where you're simply just a baby adult.

What right do people have to complain, most of the time it's about stupid bitchy stuff like Paris Hilton, or people on the bus, or stupid TV shows or something. Why can't people complain about serious stuff like War, Famine or whatever. Of course there are people who think they're complaining about serious stuff, they're called "Protesters" kids. They think that what they're doing is complaining about something serious but in reality they're just a nuisance, stopping traffic or boycotting some product or something. All they're doing is slowing down the economy and giving other people something to complain about, meaning they will then complain about protesters by protesting and hence will piss off other people who will complain and the whole thing will eventually come full circle.

It's interesting that the things people complain about is rarely gender dependent. Men complain about women and women usually complain about men. They only time you'll have men complaining about men and women complaining about women is if they're gay. Wait.... strike that, women always complain about other women, it's one of their favourite things to do. And in fact.... men never bitch about other men. It's a simple case of buying the bloke a beer and things usually work out. If not, a bloodthirsty battle in the gladiator arena usually settles the score should absolute clarity on the issue be required (and in that case the dispute is usually over a woman, hence satisfying condition 1 of men bitching about women). You never see women settle they're differences like that, they just keep it to themselves choosing to bitch about someone in secret, and they never want that person to know. LOOK AT ME!! I'm doing what I just described what men do, I'm complaining about women! Maybe I'll dedicate Issue 15 to that topic...

So enough of women for now... how does one go about complaining?

Firstly, its essential and I mean essential that you find something to bitch about which you feel absolutely passionate about. There's no value whatsoever in moaning about something that you don't feel for. Once you've got that you have two choices: (a) research the topic to ensure that you can make a carefully constructed concise complaint or (b) do absolutely no research whatsoever and let your deep rage on the matter form the basis of the argument. After that is decided you need a medium to effectively transmit your argument. The internet, a public forum(particularly if you're live on TV or receiving an award in front of a crowd or something cause you have SO much power at that moment!), a newspaper or anything like that is ideal. Finally, decide the basis for argument: personal experience or no experience and just think you have experience and hence justly complain about it.

Speaking about that briefly, is there anyone who can justifiably complain? Well kindof, if say a guy gets his penis cut off, he can rightly complain about having his penis cut off. Realistically, one can only complain justly about something if it is "out of the norm", like in the above example. Complaining about "the traffic" for something isn't justified, because it happens to everyone, its an accepted way of life. HOWEVER, if you are sitting next to a woman on the bus and she decides to plop out her enormous left breast right beside you so she can feed her child then YES you can complain justly!!!! (That last instant was me, see a previous issue of GMG for further information) Goddamn, I'm complaining about women again!! Really though, I love ya's so don't take it to heart....

Finally then, what's to be done about all this complaining? How do we smote the complainers, cripple the bitches (not women, I mean those who complain!) and decimate the bemoaners?

I say we lock them up together, then they can complain together, no doubt about their predicament of being locked up together. And of course we should separate men from women, not in attempt to deny them sex or anything, but then they will we want to be able to moan about the opposite gender amongst their fellow brothers and sisters in privacy...of a sorts.

~The Damo