Posts by Thrik

  • James Cameron's Avatar

    Is it wrong to find the blue alien girl hot?

    Seriously though, looks good. At least it looks like it's going to be something a bit different, rather than just featuring aliens as grotesque killing fucks (granted, coming along at the same time as District 9 hasn't done it any favours). It has a colourfulness to it that really draws me in, which is extremely rare for this genre nowadays I think.

  • IO Interactive presents Mini Ninjas

    Idle Thumbs is great, anyone who might be into gaming podcasts should definitely be following that. I think the people who run it speak for themselves:

  • The PS3 Slim

    While I applaud the way that the hardware has been shrunk to such a snug size, who the hell did they assign the design of this thing to? That plastic style is typically only seen on cheap, shitty products like modems (mentioned above) and inexpensive peripherals. Even if they gave it a glossy coat instead it'd immediately look a billion times better.

    My PS3 fits on my TV stand fine so I wouldn't get one anyway, but man that's disappointing — the PS3 is a fantastic piece of hardware for both games and movies, and I endorse anything that makes it accessible to more people. At least it still looks better than the 360 though, just like the regular PS3.

  • HDTV as a PC display

    If it sheds any light, my graphics card is an ATI 4870 1GB and it comes with a native HDMI slot. As in, you literally just plug the card into your motherboard and it somehow gets both the picture and audio together and sends it to the TV — there's no extra wiring between the sound card and the graphics card or anything like that.

  • HDTV as a PC display

    I have my 42-inch VIERA hooked up to a gaming-only PC downstairs. It's a pretty beefy machine, and most critically I use a graphics card that has a HDMI output so I can have my picture and audio sent to the TV via one cable. Older plasmas wouldn't be very good for PC use due to the static interface elements, but newer ones like this VIERA don't really suffer from screen burn.

    You can get minor image retention (fades within a minute or so and is unnoticeable unless you're staring at a plain black screen) if you leave like a bright white window on screen for a while, but I just have my screensaver kick in after 5 minutes to stop that. It's worth it IMO because the native blacks are insanely good, which is superb for dark games. The blacks are actually darker than the Samsung CRT TV I still have knocking around in my bedroom.

    I can't really report any problems, other than needing to adjust the DPI in Windows as using 1920x1080 is just too small for general Windows use at six feet. Windows Vista/7 are much better than XP for this as they can enlarge all applications, even if it causes a bit of blurring — XP will only enlarge stuff that's been specifically designed for it, with the most notable application that doesn't have support for XP's way of doing it being Steam. I also have Firefox zoom in to 120% by default as most sites are a bit hard to read.

    You may want wireless peripherals if you're at a significant distance. I did a lot of research and isolated the Microsoft Sidewinder X8 as the best wireless mouse for the job, and I've been very happy with it — able to kick ass in games like TF2 as usual. Steelseries do a nice mouse mat that's got a solid plastic base but a cloth top, which is good for putting on sofa arms. I got a Logitech wireless keyboard but it's a bit badly designed as the transmitter is where my leg often touches the keyboard, resulting in a blocked signal which causes input lag. Need to replace that at some point.

    If there's anything else in particular you wanted to know, go ahead and ask.

  • Monitor seems to have reset itself...

    For a start, if you have a DVI port (grey) on your monitor/GPU then use that instead of VGA (blue). VGA is an analogue signal which is ideal for old-school CRT monitors, whereas DVI is a digital signal which is designed for LCDs. This will mean each pixel outputted by your card matches specifically with a pixel on your monitor, resulting in no need for adjustment to get it into the right place. This can result in a sharper image at best, and one that doesn't shift around at worst.

    As for your colour problem, check if your monitor has different modes (warm, cool, cinema, game, etc). These typically have different inherent colour properties that can't be overridden.

  • Anders Jansson - Level Designer

    I was going to say something similar to Steppenwolf. If you don't have a particular talent for web design, you might be better off going with a service that lets you put something together that looks great. Everybody appreciates something that's well designed and a pleasure to use, even if they technically shouldn't judge you because of it — kind of like how turning up smart for an interview can and does change perceptions.

    I was going to suggest Squarespace, but Carbonmade is evidently a similar affair that specialises in portfolios.

  • Shall We Make A Game?

    I think by 'guys' you probably mean 'Buddy' (I deleted his original EOT-like post), but yes I agree that was quite a disappointing reaction. On the flip-side though, similar threads to this are made quite often by spam bots and such, and I can see how people might assume it was just an automated post or something due to Alex not really introducing himself or anything.

    But now you know.

  • Monkey Islands! Plural!

    I really like the new visuals to be honest, although I do think Guybrush's sprite looks a bit obnoxious — yet I think he looks fine in the close-ups.

    I think I'd find it really difficult to play the original MI1 after this, as the added ambience and voice acting adds so much to the experience.