09.05.07

Review: Test Drive Unlimited

Posted in Gaming at 9:37 am by Silesti

I have to be honest, I didn’t really have any solid expectations of TDU. I played the demo and thought it was generally OK (apart from the motorbike riding dynamics of course.. being a biker and racer in the past NOTHING ever really works properly in this area - actually MOTOGP come close, only close though).

The best I can come up with is that TDU is a driving simulator in arcade mode so there’s no damage. There’s racing in there too, street-style in the mold of Need for Speed with all of the attendant risks of oncoming traffic etc and this is used to win money to allow you to buy and drive faster cars. The racing also progresses you through the difficulty levels which opens up more races and facilities too.

The cash element of the game is also important in buying property, the garages of which you keep your cars in which kind of makes sense.. in a PGR kind of way I suppose. But then there is another form of currency in play too.. the fashion voucher/credit which you can use to purchase clothes and accessories for your character. This is no doubt the most obvious and blatant piece of advertising I’ve seen in a game so far (I mean driving games are going to have cars in so you can forgive the manufacturers being there), this even goes as far as having an achievement for owning all of the items from a particular brand! It’s quite strange.

Now, I’ve reached Pro level, I have 1 house and 2 cars, so I’m sure there will be TDU fans out there who will say that so far I’ve only just scratched the surface of this game, and for sure I’ve not engaged in any multi-player antics (although the full time on-line play is actually quite cool!), so I’m prepared and more than happy to continue running through and expanding my real-estate empire and racking up the miles. So I’ll probably be back when I’m done! :)

Silesti.

09.03.07

Podcasting kit part 2 - Microphones and USB

Posted in Podcasting blog at 1:17 pm by JohnB

In my last post I described my initial setup with the Altec Lansing head-set. Well after listening back to the fuzzy quality and finding out that the podcasting idea was a huge hit with Planet, I decided to start doing things a little more properly (at least in my head!).

My first purchase then was to be a ‘proper’ microphone. After a little searching around I decided that a USB mic would be perfect for my needs. No pre-amp or phantom power requirements, plug and play functionality simple! I went for the Samson C01U Studio condenser and got it in a ‘podcasting kit’ from Dolphin Music. This gave me everything I thought I needed, the mic, the spider mount (I still think this is VERY cool!) and a sturdy desk stan, pus a nice case to keep it all in. I actually got a ‘B’ grade package which had been returned but was in excellent condition, and was a bargain price too.

I was very happy with my new kit and couldn’t wait to record my next ‘cast. It was then I discovered that this mic provides a left channel only feed via it’s USB interface. This was a little frustrating as the software I was using didn’t support balancing the input over both channels, or mirroring it in the mix. BAH! The solution was to record everything on the left channel, mix it down with the bed into a stereo WAV file and then encode this down to a mono MP3 file, not ideal but as I’m only talking on the casts it’s good enough.

The Samson mic provides a really good sound and I’m very happy with everything I’ve got from it so far. I did invest in a boom mic stand and a pop filter too though, the former the help with my vocal projection and the latter because the plosives were just a little harsh.

Next time… My current kit and future plans.

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