The Urban Shogun’s Guide To Buying a Laptop

If you’re looking at perhaps treating yourself out to some tech goodness or just looking to update the mammoth of a machine that you’ve been using then look no further. Below is a breakdown of some of the key things you should look out for when purchasing a new laptop including a few recommendations at the bottom. For more advanced users, there are plenty of advanced advice at AnandTech which maybe more up your street. Of late I’ve done a bit of laptop shopping myself as well as advising upon a few people, so either a lot of people have been tempted to change round or perhaps they’re gearing up towards the ever busy Winter holiday period. Either way, here are my two cents on buying a new laptop.

 

Contents

 

Classes of Laptops

Key Features

Extras

Recommendations

 

One of the most important factors when it comes to purchasing a new laptop really depends on who you are as a user. Going on from that, what you use your computer for the most will affect what laptop would best suit you. There are generally three classes of laptops out there on the market being:

 

Classes of Laptops

 

Netbooks

These are the little babies of the computer world. Generally between 8 to 13 inches in size, these are small low powered laptops which primarily are good for checking your email, document writing and browsing the web. The average price of a Netbook now in the UK is around £200 - £400 and the more popular models include the Acer Aspire One as well as the ASUS Eee PC. The main positives of this class is that they’re very light at around 1kg and the battery life last anything from a couple of hours to a whole working day. The negatives are however that they’re underpowered, have a small screen estate and usually comes at the sacrifice of ports and optical drives.

 

Notebooks

The mainstay of the all laptops, these are the middle of the range with the most diverse choice and therefore the most options. What we’re talking about here is anything above a netbook at 13” and below a desktop replacement usually at 16” or 17”. Your average notebook can range from anything from a £300 cheap student laptop to a very good entry level Intel i3 processor at £600 which will be explained further down the page. The range of options are vast but your best bet would be to the Toshiba Satellite Series, Acer Aspire, HP Envy Series and the Dell Inspirons. Most of the these laptops will weigh around 2-3kgs, have a battery that last usually 2-3 hours and are usually separated by a few key extras such as DVD/Blu-ray drives, backlit keyboards and extra USB ports for example.

 

Desktop Replacements

Desktop Replacements or Gaming Laptops however you look at them are the mother of all laptops. As the name suggests, they’re primarily designed to pack the power of a big desktop into the relatively small frame of a laptop however that does come at a cost. Your average gaming laptop ranges anything up from the standard 15.4” to the big 17” beasts. Everything that can be achieved on a desktop PC can be achieved on one of these machines and come in at a price of anything between £600 upwards to money no object laptops at £3,000. Your options include the stylish Sony Vaios, the legendary Dell XPS/Alienware series and of course the much underrated MSi range of gaming laptops. The good thing about these laptops is they pretty much run everything under the sun, the downside is that these machines usually weigh upwards of 4kg and you’ll be lucky if the battery survives more than 2 hours on a single charge not to mention of course being the most expensive of all laptops.

 

So those are all the classes for you. Of course there are those tablet PC’s and desktop-all-in ones that you can check out but those I consider more to be novelties. So you know your laptop class now, how do you pick the right laptop with all these complicated specs thrown at you? Below is a breakdown of the main features to look for in your average laptop with of course the netbooks and desktop replacements being accordingly under and over powered versions of these specs.

 

Key Features

 

RAM

The importance of

Random Access Memory or RAM is all too often overlooked. Sometimes all you need to beef up your system in a noticeable way is to up the RAM. On a new laptop the minimum you should be looking for is 3Gb of RAM and with 4Gb being more the standard today. You’ll need a 64-bit processor in order to use anything over 3Gb’s but that I’ll cover in the next part.

 

Processor

The two main brands of processors out there are Intel and AMD. Some people will traditionally stick with one or the other but really there isn’t much of a difference as long as you can compare one to another directly which CPUBenchMark.Net comprehensively does although the list is a little daunting to see at first. For a low end computer you should probably stick with a cheap Core II Duo processor however that technologies quickly going out of fashion. Depending on your price range an entry level Core i3 will set you off at around £500, Core i5 at around £600/£700 and the Core i7 at anything over £800. The AMD equivalents are the AMD Athlon II X4 for the Core i3, AMD Phenom II 955 for the i5 and AMD Phenom II X4 for the Core i7. As the AMD cores are older than those of it’s Intel counterparts, you won’t get as much power from these than the i3, i5 and i7 series. If you want to understand what all the fancy L1/L2/L3 Cache and Front Side Buses etc, you might want to check out this good article in PC World. Also to take advantage of anything above 3Gb of RAM, you’ll need a 64-bit processor. This used to be a problem a few years back with compatibility issues but pretty much most modern programs offer both a 32-bit and 64-bit version of their software.

 

Graphics Card

Unless you simply have no interest in HD video, photoshopping or playing any video games avoid the Integrated Graphics Cards that ship with a lot of modern day laptops like the plague. If you plan on playing anything more than the default games that come on the Windows then a discrete graphics card from Nvidia or ATI is a must have. Look for anything above 512mb of discrete RAM to 2gb for the best gaming performance and personally I’d recommend a 1Gb of discrete memory which should allow you to play pretty much every game out there today. TomsHardware.com gives a very good benchmarking table for comparison for those who want to delve deeper.

 

Hard Drive Capacity

The standard for last year’s computers was 250Gb, now that’s been upped to around 320Gb as standard. As 2011 approaches however, it’s looking increasingly like a 500Gb hard drive has become standard for the industry. When picking out hard drives, you might also want to take a look at the higher speed 7,200 RPM drives compared to the standard 5,400 RPM drives. Further down I’ll address SSD drives that some laptops will have available to them.

 

Screen Size and Resolution

This really is entirely up to you and your preference. Obviously the larger the screen, the heavier it’ll be and the more expensive the laptop so if you want an average sized laptop, you’ll usually find it bringing a 15.4” screen. This year there’ve been a lot more 16” screens which accommodate widescreen modes and so don’t be phased by the resolution being a funny 1366 x 768 as that too is becoming standard. Your higher end graphics cards will support higher resolutions usually up to 1920 x 1200, and why would you need this? Well the higher the resolution, the more things you can pack onto the screen and that includes pixels, giving crisper sharper images. There can be a trade off though as sometimes the screen isn’t large enough to accommodate the high resolutions and you’re found squinting at small text. You’ll also want to look for whether the screen you’re looking at supports HD, and not just 720p but the full 1080p for the best media viewing. Even if you can’t quite dig deep enough into your pockets to fork out on a full HD display, if you have a proper TV that supports HD and a spare £3 then purchase a HD cable and use the TV to view all your HD goodness.

 

Extras

 

3D Laptops

These are a relatively new line in laptops and therefore have quite a hefty price tag. If you’re into 3D gaming or media viewing, I’d recommend a laptop which has NVidia 3D Vision capability. What you get is a display which has a high Hz rate usually around 120Hz compared to the standard 60/70Hz, a pair of NVidia active shutter glasses and a USB-powered IR emitter. You’ll usually find that there’s about a £200 premium on the 3D models over their standard counterparts so it’s really a personal preference of how much you want 3D really.

 

Touchscreen

Touchscreens on a laptop rarely work, and the few experiences I’ve had with them feel more like an out-dated touchscreen mobile from a year or two back. Often the inbuilt software provided is too sluggish to be used naturally and well, the screens are usually a fingerprint magnet so my recommendation is to hold off on the touchscreen at least for now.

 

Backlit Keyboard

You’d be suprised how much of a difference a few LED lights behind the keyboard can make. Aside from the general cool factor, even in dimly lit rooms, the backlight on a lot of newer laptops really come into their own. On that note, you should be careful to try out a lot of laptop keyboards before putting down on the hefty price tag, sometimes the keyboard can make or break a good laptop.

 

Solid State Drives

The term solid state drive or SSD refers to a hard disk without mechanical parts. The benefit of this is simply a ridiculously fast drive and as there aren’t any mechanical parts, it’s a hell of a lot sturdier and resistant to bumps and knocks, something that can be important in a portable device like a laptop. What’s the catch? Well SSD drives can cost you an arm and a leg and for a small capacity. The standard for SSD drives are the 64Gb and 128Gb drives which although fast, will set you back price wise.

 

USB Ports

Your standard laptop should come with a minimum of 2 USB ports but I usually find that when you add a cooler, external hard drives, wireless mouses and the plethora of other computing peripherals that 4 is quite a good base number for USB ports. You’ll also perhaps find the odd laptop sporting one of the newer USB 3.0 standards or a high speed eSata port on some of the newer laptops which’ll enable high speed data transfer. Useful if you do a lot of photography or chunky music library.

 

Multi Touch Track pads

Multi Touch Track pads are a standard on Apple computers and are very quickly being built into the majority of new Windows computers. Even if your track pad doesn’t support multi touch out of the box, there’s a good chance that you’re using a Synaptic branded track pad in which case a manual install of a few of their newer drivers will give you all the multi touching goodness you can handle.

 

Speakers

Look out for Hardman/Kardon or Bose speakers when purchasing a new laptop. Although not usually a deal breaker, it can often help if you watch a lot of movies or listen to a lot of music. On the other hand if you do end up with tinny speakers then hook up an external subwoofer and some stereo speakers and you’re good to go.

 

As with anything, purchasing a laptop is a matter of personal preference and use. The perfect laptop for somebody might be a nightmare for another to use. So what I’ve listed below are some of what I feel are the better laptops in their class.

 

Recommendations

 

Netbooks

 

Samsung N210	ASUS Eee PC 1201N Seashell

 

Standard Notebooks

 

Toshiba Satellite L650-1FW	Dell Inspiron N5010

 

Gaming Laptops/Desktop Replacements

 

Alienware M17x	SONY Vaio VPCZ13V9E/X

 

Of course these are only a few laptops and there are many many more that you should definitely consider but at least now you have somewhere to start looking.

 

EDIT (25/11/10) – The guys over at Gizmodo have just released their best laptops of 2010. It’s a very good list and something you should definitely take a look at here.

 

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Call of Duty Black Ops Review: It’s No Modern Warfare 2

Black Ops enters the FPS market with huge expectations being the follow up to the massive 2009 hit Modern Warfare 2. But do Activision have a title that’ll live long in the memory or fade away in time as World at War did. This is the spoiler free TUS review of Black Ops.

 

Switching from controversial developers Infinity Ward, Activision have opted for Treyarch who’ve previously developed such games as Spider-Man 3, Quantum of Solace and NHL 2K3. Already selling well over 7 million copies worldwide and beating the previous record holder Modern Warfare 2, should Black Ops be regarded as an automatic shoe-in success or is there more than meets the eye.

 

Storyline

Black Ops depicts the story of Alex Mason, a member of the Studies and Observation Group (SOG) a highly classified US covert special operations unit. This gritty new atmosphere that’s thrust upon the player is clear from the get go as even the Main Menu functions as a branch of the on going storyline. Black Ops will bring you back and forth from the Jungles of Vietnam to the depths of an icy Russian Gulag. Along with the jumping to and fro of locations is also the jumping back and forth from timelines. This can be quite confusing considering that it can sometimes be incoherent in the way the story pieces together and given the content of the plot, rather than be immersed it can be easy to feel detached and unconnected to the main protagonist.

 

This is I feel one of my biggest gripes with the game, there just isn’t the same connection I felt when playing Modern Warfare 2. Aside from the constant repeating of “Reznov” every other minute, it was a struggle to really care for any of the characters not to mention even remember any of their names. The pains and the struggles the game attempts to put across simply don’t convey properly and compared to MW2 it’s definitely a very linear plot rather than an actual experience. MW2 had an epic storyline and more importantly characters with actual charisma; Roach, Makarov, Soap and of course the icon that is Ghost. Don’t get me wrong, the voice acting of Sam Worthington, Ed Harris and Gary Oldman are just some of the many great voice actors involved that definitely give the characters a realistic edge.

 

Aside from the character flaws, the plot although complex and a little convoluted never really hits a high point. Some people will be pleased with the conclusion of the game, some will be left disappointed. Personally I felt the climax never quite lived up to the hype and the game feels much more like a series of levels rather than a rollercoaster of a story. There aren’t any real wow moments and although there are enjoyable individual scenes, that aren’t many that stand out enough to make you want to play them again.

 

Gameplay

In this edition of Call of Duty, Treyarch have definitely expanded on the gameplay option available to the player and that’s definitely a plus. Piloting the helicopters and boats through Vietnam feels solid and the weapons have a significant sense of power about them. There is a Stealth bomber section which although is a cool idea in theory doesn’t execute well as it’s both too short and lacks polish. In many ways perhaps Treyarch wished to mimic the “Death from Above” level from MW2 where you man the gunner position in an overhead AC-130 as you quite literally rain death from above, however this new level in Black Ops simply doesn’t come close to the level of enjoyment felt in the original.

 

Weapons in Black Ops feel solid if a little dull. It appears that AK-47’s are dominant through every time era and they look and fire pretty much the same wherever you go. Some of the guns however do sound rather pathetic in comparison to the same model weaponry in Medal of Honour (2010) and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (which in my mind sets the standard for superb sounding weapons). Perhaps the way I play first person shooters in the style of double tap to the chest with single shot enabled on an M4 Carbine for example doesn’t suit Black Ops. You’re better off running head long towards the goal spraying ostensibly like a Labrador in heat. The SPAS-12, a familiar shotgun in most video game FPS’, is far and away one of the most entertaining modifications of a weapon when you add “Dragon’s Breath Incendiary” slugs. It never gets tedious to watch you one hit kill shot and incinerate enemies.

 

Black Ops is though what you’d expect from these Call of Duty games in that it’s a very straight forward and absolutely linear game. You get told an objective and you head towards it shooting and powering your way through, there are no puzzles or anything to think about and if that’s what you want from an FPS then great, this is just the sort of game for you. The game holds few surprises so fans of the franchise will undoubtedly enjoy Black Ops much as they’ve enjoyed previous Call of Duty’s.

 

Bugs. Bugs. Bugs. All games have bugs and Black Ops is no exception. I definitely came across a number of bugs from the obvious clipping issues, AI standing around frozen while you pop them off from close range and doors preventing enemies from spawning into the game whilst the muzzles of their AK’s clip through the door like some virtual glory hole. Although these certainly aren’t the hyped game breakers that other bloggers might insist they are, they do show a lack of polish on the game which can only be a negative thing.

 

Other minor qualms I had with the game involved when you sprint. Other video games such Kane and Lynch 2 as well as Modern Warfare 2, hold a strong sense of realism when you’re moving from place to place. The sprinting in Black Ops feels more like you’re playing the multiplayer side of the game and unless I’m not mistaken unless you’re superhuman, nobody runs that fast up stairs and through entire levels of the game. A minor irritation but an irritation nonetheless.

 

Presentation

Black Ops looks good. Not amazing but it does look good. Treyarch haven’t changed the formula very much from Modern Warfare 2 and some people will say this is a good thing whilst some would say that it needs a little uplift from last year. I didn’t find anything wrong with it per se but I did come across many performance issues. Even in quiet moments of the game, there’d be significant lag where there shouldn’t have been and tuning the graphics levels down did little to help the issue. Doing a simple search revealed that this has been quite a widespread problem with a number of players so perhaps a future patch from Treyarch should fix it.

 

The soundtrack for Black Ops is strong, a little less dramatic than Modern Warfare 2 but is suited to what’s going on in the story. Directed by composer Sean Murray, and featuring a full 80-piece symphony orchestra, the soundtrack features the appropriate “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones during Vietnam which appropriately sets the scene.

 

Conclusion

Call of Duty Black Ops has it’s flaws and gripes but it’s a good game and a decent addition to the franchise. Many people will be hugely impressed with the direction Call of Duty have gone in and certainly a trawl through the big game review sites will show that they’ve given Black Ops the full five star rating. Rather than just add to the praise that other reviewers have given it, I’ve focused more on the flaws of the game than the positive aspects. I’m not sure what it is, whether the lack of focus in the storyline or the lack of polish in the presentation but there’s something lacking in this edition of Call of Duty. It’s still however a very good game and all fans of the series should give it a chance if they can.

 

TUS Rating: 88%

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Website Review: Qwiki

With much anticipation, Qwiki finally opened it’s doors to the first Alpha testers earlier this month. After quite an extended use I must say, it’s a lot better than I’d first thought it’d be. The hyped up engine that powers Qwiki, essentially the core of the website simply works and there is already an abundance of content at this early stage of it’s development.

 

Qwiki produces a rich video experience for it’s user summarising information into an easy to digest format on the fly without the need for any human intervention. It currently holds a database of over 3 million articles and is constantly expanding. Search terms that I couldn’t find on the first day of release could be found two or three days later. Using the website is very easy and the content produced is about 90% accurate. There were a few issues with it such as finding the wrong images for actors in films on a few occasions but these should be ironed out if the feedback program gets some attention. Otherwise most the information delivered is in a crisp and very entertaining fashion with the electronic voice sounding unnaturally natural if you will.

 

Qwiki recently received an additional $1.5m in seed funding hopefully towards expanding it’s servers and increasing capacity so it doesn’t fall down the same route as places like Twitter. As it currently stands, it’s an interesting service but not one that could be considered critical as it stands. I think where the service would succeed is in implementing it ubiquitously into mobile devices and into household electronics. In the future you never know, we might just have our first Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Guidebook in the palm of our hands.

 

 

PS: if anyone is looking for an invite into Qwiki, drop a message in the comment section below or get in contact with me for an invite.

 

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MW2 Night Vision Goggles Review

So I recently purchased the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition Box set. The Prestige box comes with, an XBOX 360 “Hardened Edition” of the game, the Night Vision Goggles, a head modelled on Captain John “Soap” Mactavish and an art book of the game. So I thought I’d put my two cents down on what I thought of it.

 

So to start I’ve taken a couple of images of the Night Vision goggles, click them to enlarge so you can have a clearer look. One thing is for sure though, this is a pretty awesome geek toy to have and is currently sitting proudly on my shelf in my room. Not only does it look great on the mohawked-out mannequin “Soap” but it performs actually a lot better than expected. I thought this may be a bit of a gimmick inclusion however they really do work.

 

The test I used was my en-suite inside my bedroom as after turning off the bedroom lights and closing the en-suite door, the bathroom is remarkably pitch black without even the faintest trace of a photon. It worked stunningly. As soon as you flick the on switch, the area in front of you lights up like a Christmas tree on fire. It was clear and bright enough to even read the larger lettering on shampoo bottles and other random labels around the room. What must be said is that the lens does make it a little bit hard to judge depth of field as everything is slightly magnified.

 

 

There are two dials, one on the front for focusing the camera and one on the body to adjust the eye pieces. There’s the on switch on the left which is very easy to get to and the next switch turns the image from either real time grey and white to the awesome green hue mode. The last switch turns it from what it calls “Stealth mode” to “Long Distance” mode which essentially powers down or lights up the main infra reds.

 

The view from within a view. Which is all powered by a battery pack that goes to the back of your head (acting as a stabiliser support type strap) and is powered by 5 AA batteries.

 

 

All in all, they’re a fantastic piece of kit, and I’d highly recommend them to anyone whose thinking of adding something cool to their shelf. Current retail price at time of posting: £119.99.

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Inception: A Modern Day Masterpiece

No doubt many of you will have either seen Inception or be wondering what indeed is all the hype about this film? It’s a film that some people will describe (like myself) as being a technical master piece whilst others will see it as another good film to see along the lines of Toy Story is also a good film to go and see. All in all, there does appear to be an overwhelmingly positive response to the film with nobody that I know of disliking the film. I felt the film warranted a review as I think it’s a true thought provoker which is a refreshing change to a film like say “The A-Team” or “The Expendables”. Also for those who’ve already seen the movie, I’ll include a few explanations on the ideas in the film for anyone who either didn’t understand some areas or wanted to read my interpretation.

Non-Spoiler Section will come first then my theories and explanation are halfway down the page.

NON SPOILER SECTION
This film is brilliant. I just cannot begin to say that enough. On a personal level, the way in which all the positive ingredients that go into making a truly amazing film all came together on this film. A combination of great story writing, solid pacing, great acting, continuous attention setting, great originality, great cinematography and great musical scoring made this a modern day master piece of a film. Christopher Nolan has really outdone himself on this film not only for creating a great film but also by having the audacity that other directors don’t have, in creating a very big budget movie that’s complex enough to leave a movie lover frothing at the mouth whilst bringing in the big bucks.

The movie was viscerally satisfying throughout demonstrating that yes there are a lot of special effects, but when put together cleverly and in cohesion with the story can make for a great film rather than throwing as many bullets and as many explosions then say a certain transforming robot series. There was a lot more of a “how will I demonstrate my story point more clearly” and throwing in a shudder of a glass of water to illustrate the point rather than “how will this many explosions make the scene look exciting”. There are many more things I’d like to add about the special effects but I think if I did then it might give away too much of the story.
One of my favourite segments appears in the climax of the film. I won’t spoil what happens in it except to say that when Hans Zimmer means business, then Hans Zimmer means business and that’s why it pays to have the big name composer in town. For a good 20-30 or so minutes in one period of the film I was gripped on the edge of my seat by mostly just the sound track alone. The music scored for this film absolutely fitted it to aplomb. Perhaps it was also the effect of watching the movie in the IMAX where the bass of the speakers would literally judder and vibrate my seat giving you a surreal experience of watching an intense action scene whilst seemingly also being there. The musical scoring was quite simply magical and to tell you the truth, I’ve been writing this blog post with the soundtrack solely in the background for the last few hours.
The complexity of the idea behind the film will astound you the more you think about it after you’ve seen the film. I’ve had so many discussions with so many people who’ve seen it giving their own opinion on the overall storyline. Little segments people notice here and there have been very enlightening. I haven’t been able to stop talking to my younger brother for a good few hours after the movie finished. Again I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t seen the film yet but with the amount of layers in the film, you can understand why it took a good portion of the beginning to explain “the rules” of what was in Inception. However unlike other films where the explanation would be long winded and tedious, it was presented in a way where not only you as the audience were discovering what was happening but also the characters on scene. Characters were learning new things as you the audience would be learning them which I believe helped to connect one and two together to string the story along.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays one of the key antagonists in the movie I think was superb. His ability to add suave and class to the “team” gave it another angle that the rest of them didn’t. In fact I think all the casting was pretty much spot on. Ken Wanatabe’s depth and tone of his voice really came across in the film and although I’ve heard many complaints about his diction, I really thought he spoke his lines perfectly and would rather he do those lines as he did in his native Japanese accent rather than your stereotypical well pronounced westerner who wouldn’t have provided as great a depth or interest to the character profile. Leondardo Di Caprio I believe is also one of the most underrated actors in his generation. I think the amount of skill required to pull off a main role part in this film really lays a platform to opening the rest of the characters up. The rest of the cast really do just leave themselves out there to shine.

SPOILER SECTION
For anybody who hasn’t seen the film, please do not read on. There will be a lot of spoilers and is only intended to be read by someone who has already seen the film or by someone who has no intention of watching the film by which case, none of it will make sense to you anyways!

Mal’s Safe and the Spinning Top
Throughout the film we’re led to believe that Cobb had performed an Inception before and he reveals towards the end that it was in Mal that he did it. He discovers that in Mal’s childhood home, she kept a safe in there which was secret and buried deep inside her subconscious. By entering that safe and taking Mal’s totem and spinning it, and then closing the safe, he effectively plants the idea in her mind that the totem is spinning and therefore she is in a dream. He does this because Mal refuses to accept that she is stuck in limbo for 50 years and refuses to believe that it’s a dream therefore will not come out of it and will not kill herself. However as the safe is shut, the totem will always be spinning making Mal never believe that she has returned to reality even when she really does. Cobb hints this when he goes on to say that a single idea can define or destroy a person. In this case, it did both.

If Ariadne is the architect, how does Arthur change the hotel?
Early in the film, Arthurt describes “paradoxes”. Things that can logically exist but cannot then exist in reality like the staircase that he changes in the hotel. Although Ariadne designs the dreams and teaches them to the dreamer, ultimately Arthur is the dreamer and it’s his to do what he will.

Resuscitate Fisher Jr. then why not Saito too?
I think this one works depending on what level you’re on. Saito was shot in the first level of the dream therefore all subsequent levels he would’ve been “shot” and therefore to heal the wound, you’d need to transcend up the levels until the original level and resuscitate or kick him out of that level. However Fisher Jr. was shot on the third level therefore he was only shot in his dream in the 1st and 2nd levels meaning he was unaffected by it.

But wait, does Fisher Jr. actually die in the third level of the dream?
This is where I think technicalities come into play. I think Fisher doesn’t die in the third level of the dream but is instead hooked up with Cobbs and Ariadne and goes into Cobb’s dream which becomes very unstable, evidently shown by the collapsing city. He needs to go back so that he can find Mal and then also to give more time to Fisher to live as time slows down. However this is NOT limbo as a lot of people have thought it might be because if that was the case then Ariadne jumping off the building would have sent her into limbo world rather than going the opposite direction and back into the third level of the dream.

Fisher Jr. not recognising Saito?

Something I hadn’t noticed but was pointed out to me was how comes Fisher the heir of a huge energy company not recognise Saito, the head guy of their rival company. Even after so many levels down, you’d think that in a dream your personality would still react at least unfavourably to working with the head of a rival company. Then again many strange things do happen in dreams.

Cobb’s Totem?
This one had me baffled a little bit. Throughout the film, he clearly states that the totem that he spins doesn’t belong to him but that it belongs to Mal but that nobody can know the particulars of a totem else it would defeat the object of having one. Except he always knew and always spun it therefore rendering it useless anyways. I think all along his totems were his children’s faces. If he could face up to his children’s faces, then he’d know that he was in reality and not still stuck in a dream. Alternatively the spinning top really could’ve been Cobb’s totem. He does mention that only he and Mal knew the weight and everything of the totem so the fact that nobody else knew about it still counts and therefore really could still be his totem in the end. EDIT: OR that in fact his totem was his ring. Perhaps the fact that in every scene of the dream world, his ring can be clearly scene and in every scene of the real world, his ring is gone. Perhaps only he knew about the ring and therefore this was his totem.

What is limbo?
My interpretation of what limbo is that it’s a shared state of consciousness that is shared by everyone it is a shared state of conciousness that is shared by everyone currently sharing the dream i.e. “if Cobb wasn’t sharing the dream, Saito’s limbo would be blank” (thanks to BryanJWatson for the correction there). As Cobbs explains, it is a combination of all the things that are left behind from people who once were lost in limbo. However time goes much much slower here leading to the fact that only minutes in the real world could be decades in the world of limbo. When Saito dies, he enters this limbo world and when Cobbs joins him, made decades have past. It also explains how the world he built was still left standing.

Saito and Cobb’s Age Difference at the end
Here I believe the key lies in when each of the characters died. Saito died in the third level of the dream in the fortified bunker in the snow. As Cobb explains earlier, every level of the dream becomes slower and slower in time, so as soon as Saito dies and goes to limbo, time accelerates for him but not for anyone else. Therefore what may have only been minutes apart for their deaths in the dream worlds would have been decades in the limbo world thus explaining why Saito was so old and Cobb hadn’t aged at the end of the film.

Inception hints at Greek mythology?
This one I’ve picked up from reading online sources and something I really should’ve spotted but just never did was the hints Nolan left in the wake of Greek mythology. The little girl who plays the architect is called Ariadne who in Greek mythology gave Theseus (Cobbs) a sword and a thread to lead him out of the labyrinth of the Minortaur (Mal). In the end Theseus abandons Ariadne like Cobbs does by staying in his subconscious.

It was all just a dream?
This was an interesting point a friend suggested in an IM conversation was that the entire film was in fact a dream from start to finish. That being that the film was in fact, an Inception within and Inception rather than a dream within a dream. And that the purpose of the film was not so that they could plant a seed into Fisher Jr.’s mind but actually the entire film was devised in order so that Cobbs would face his guilt and his subconscious in Mal and therefore the idea of an Inception would lead him towards that and everything that he did on the way was in order to plant his very own seed in his mind to free him from his guilt. An interesting theory. Of course Mal could be just his subconscious guilt all along and never really existed but only as a fragment of his subconscious planted there by his father in order for him to “wake up”.

The Ending
I love the ending to this film. In the final shots of the film, everyone was perked up in the cinema and when it cut to black, giant “oh!” and groans and delighted giggles rang out through the cinema. I think there are two possible ways this ended, firstly that either he’s still stuck in limbo in his dream and that he sees his kids. Therefore he’s gotten rid of his guilty subconscious in Mal and decided that he doesn’t care whether or not he’s in limbo or not as he gets to see his kids. The alternative is that he really did wake up and that he really did see his kids in the end. Obviously. But that would be too easy now wouldn’t it. Ultimately I think it comes down to the point of that as Cobb creates his dreams from his memory, how far gone is he. Has he really lost touch with reality and becomes obsessed and forgets the truth. Also another point is also that whose to say that when Cobbs finds Saito in the end that they’re not in sedation still? Remember we don’t know how much time has passed in the real world, therefore it’s perfectly logical that they were both still under sedation meaning that if they were both killed then, they might have been sent further into limbo creating a place where it was impossible to tell the difference between reality and the dream state.

That my friends is what I leave up to you to decide. The film has about a million more different paths that aren’t even thought possible unless you read into them and so this post could really run much much longer however I think that’s all I have to say but one thing. Go and watch this film if you haven’t, it’s a truly breathtaking cinematic experience.

UPDATE: For the record, have a look at what the New York Movies editor wrote about Inception. Reading it put me in beggar’s disbelief that this “expert” (David Edelstein")  actually knew anything about movies:

Inception is full of brontosaurean effects, like the city that folds over on top of itself, but the tone is so solemn I felt out of line even cracking a smile. It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscapeor the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix—or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia. The attackers in Inception are anonymous, the tone flat and impersonal. Nolan is too literal-minded, too caught up in ticktock logistics, to make a great, untethered dream movie.

I could not agree with this guys opinion any less. The “brontosaurean” (if that’s even a word) effects in the film are justified in the film making technique that Nolan uses to create a more realistic special effect stunt, i.e. less CGI and more realism. The tone of the film is intentionally solemn as it’s the story revolved around a man trying to get around his guilt in his mind aswel as to highlight how dangerous a predicament the antagonists find themselves in when they enter so many levels of the dream world. The attackers are intentionally anonymous and flat and impersonal as they are representations of your subconscious defence mechanism. They are not real people and are only figments of your subconscious filling in the dream state. If this buffoon of an editor actually bothered to watch the film rather than fill his very much retarded review with preconceived misconceptions and idealisms then he might actually have understood the film for what it was trying to convey. It seems the rest of the 146 commenters agree with me and  they can’t all be wrong too. The article that can be found here. To wrap up, my favourite comment was this particular one by Vini888:

What's up with these NY critics? First they bash The Dark Knight, which turned out to be a masterpiece, now this?
Did Nolan touch your kids or something?

UPDATE: I found this infomation graphic which might help you explain the levels within Inception. Move everything down a notch though as I wouldn’t count reality as being a level and also I’m not sure that their level 5 IS limbo and that level 5 should be Cobb’s dream making 6 the world in limbo.

LiveJournal Tags: Inception,Christopher Nolan,Leonardo Di Caprio

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Essential Software: WinDirStat

There are an absolute wealth of system disk space managers and visualisers out in the software market. However on my quite regular quests to scrounge out every megabyte from my disk like a junkie on crack, WinDirStat is easily my personal recommended choice.

 

For anybody who is unfamiliar with WinDirStat or indeed other disk space visualisers, the purpose of these types of software is to map out your hard drive and give the user a graphical image of where their space is taken up. This is often an amazing time saver when it comes to freeing up some free space or even occasionally finding something you’d forgotten and left lying around (such as in my case, my BSG series 1-4 collection).

 

Click to enlarge

 

At first launch, WinDirStat allows you to select one or more drives you’d like it to scan first. It then does it’s business and presents an image similar to the one you see just above. Every folder is arranged in an oblong formation and every subfolder of that becomes arranged within that formation. Every coloured block you see in the display actually represents a single file.

 

So for example the white segment highlighted above represents how much space “Edwin’s Music” occupies. Similarly if I were to click that middle yellow square at the centre-top of that, it would show me that that block is an episode of The Engadget Show podcast that I’m subscribed to. From there I can decide to delete the block, open up the containing folder etc etc.

 

All in all, a great piece of software if you’ve got a mass of data and/or multiples hard drives to keep up with (like me and my 2 terabytes of storage over 4 drives). WinDirStat is available only for Windows.

 

You can find WinDirStat and the download links on their homepage here.

Technorati Tags: WinDirStat,drive imager

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Game Review: Blur

Gamers everywhere will have been hit with a conundrum this week on which of two racing titles to go with, but Blur hopes to get one leg up on it’s opposite number, Split/Second in bringing a twist to the racing car genre. Without taking itself too seriously, racing title is better suited for the veteran racing gamer. The last few weeks we’ve seen a general cool down of game releases at least on the PC front with only Alpha Protocol, Prince of Persia and Split/Second to be big named titles in recent weeks, but a game like Blur has entered the arena providing a breath of fresh air.

 

Read on for the full review and game trailers.

 

Here is the Blur trailer for Xbox 360/PS3.

 

 

I must point out that I’ve only been playing this game on the PC and not on the console so my opinion is only reserved for that platform.

 

Positives

• Brilliant core idea of power-ups
• Large selection of (licensed) vehicles
• Well rounded driving mechanics
• Diverse number of levels across many continents
• Good selection of Licensed music
• Impressive visual effects

 

Negatives

• “Silly” objectives
• Unbalanced difficulty level
• Lack of vibrancy or vividness in environments
• Laborious game mode
• Odd and Un-configurable Control Scheme

 

I’ll skip the formality of explaining the format of the game and just provide my own opinion but The Guardian has a decent explanation of the basic fundamentals of the game for those of you who don’t know what the game is about.

There are straight races, checkpoint races (in which you have to pick up stopwatch and speed-boost power-ups in order to pass a specified number of checkpoints), destruction races (in which you must use triple-shot gun power-ups to acquire extra time by destroying rival cars) and one-on-one races. Each of the tracks has Fan Runs you can trigger, opening up a series of gates you have to steer through for bonus fans and lights (which are what you otherwise win by finishing in the top three).                                 Source: The Guardian

So basically the game is Super Mario Kart but for adults with a few changes in game modes and presentation. The first thing I shall say about the game is that it’s an absolute blast to play on just a purely “fun” scale. The mix of what is essentially Need for Speed Underground and Super Mario Kart is very smart. There are over 55 licensed vehicles ranging from a 1950’s pickup truck Ford FR-100 all the way to my favourite car the Volkswagon Scirocco 24 to a large Land Rover LRX. The big range of cars means that for most levels you usually find a good enough vehicle to do the job.

 

The Power-ups in the game are fantastic. They really do set the game apart from other  racing games out there. Amongst my favourite are the homing bolts that track the next opponent flipping them into a somersault as well as the protective shockwave that shunts all nearby cars away from you and temporarily slowing them down. The power ups in this game is definitely the highlight of the game. It vastly increases the tactical element to a driving game whereby rather than deciding to drift round a corner and bump an opponent out the way, you could decide to “Nitro Ram” him or lay a mine just in front of your opponent or fire reverse shunts in mid drift onto unsuspecting trailing opponents. There are numerous possibilities which is helped when you can not only fire forwards but also defensively backwards. You can use bolts to shoot down incoming missiles, mines that fire forwards and into the opponent in front, there really is a wealth of possibilities. This in itself is probably worth the cost of getting the game in itself and it’s such an underrated factor but just pure enjoyment factor alone, this game wins hands down. It’s an addictive and viscerally satisfying experience to be able to port the fun from Super Mario Kart over to a more adult audience and to serious racing fanatics.

 

In terms of driving mechanics, the vehicles feel pretty well rounded if a little on the heavy handed side. With tight turns, most times you’ll find yourself needing to slow down even a little as drifting can be bit of a hit or miss in the game as there is such a small margin for error. The game itself is actually surprisingly tough, it starts off simple enough with you being able to come first in most the starting races. However as the game progresses you’ll find the difficulty curve taking a distinctively upward direction and rather sharply. This is where I get to my first gripe of the game, it’s too fracking hard. Not in the way in which repeated attempts at a level will get you through it, but tough as in the amount of “perfect” driving, ridiculous prerequisites and tactics required in the later races is far far too high. That and when you do give in and shamefully turn the difficulty down, it becomes too easy to the point where it’s almost unsatisfying or even boring to win an event.

 

At every rung of the career ladder, there’s a boss car to beat at the end, however even if  you’ve beaten all the competitions, come first and obtained all the “lights” required for all the events leading up to the boss, there’s still a further 4 demands that must be met in order to take on the boss car. Oh and these are 4 puny challenges here, these are full-on “collect 100 of this item” sort of challenge. I can understand extending the life of a game by including these, but some of them are simply ridiculous. One boss required that you must knock an opponent into the water as part of a pre-requisite to face him. There isn’t even a lee-way of some kind or a middle ground of doing 3 out of the 4 requirements. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two stages that even have accessible water in them and the points in them at which you can knock an opponent into the water are few and far between. So rather than naturally playing a game with an objective to win, you’re constantly distracted by this notion that you may at some point in order to progress, need to lie in wait at the side of the road, wait for an opponent to conspicuously drive into your road side trap and then ram him into the water. This really ends up hurting the pacing of the game.

 

Speaking of which, the highlight game modes of the Blur game are your basic race, and destruction mode. The first is a simple first to the finish whilst the second requires you to destroy as many vehicles in front of you in a given time period. However by including a checkpoint game mode, I find this to be seriously tiresome and almost a chore to work through. Some are easy and can be dealt with quickly, but others are simply difficult beyond explanation. So why might this be such a big deal after all? It’s that you can’t progress any further in the game without doing all of these tasks and not just passing them, but actually doing them well. This often leaves you as the gamer at an empasse in the game many times and makes you go back to previous levels and repeat them over and over again in order to scrape together the odd “light” here and there to get through to the next round.

 

Although I’ve mentioned a lot of negatives about the game, I genuinely believe that the amount of fun you do have driving around and smashing other people’s cars up really does set this game apart. It’s one of those games that although unpolished, it’s a hell of a lot of fun playing and isn’t that just what games were made to do? Anyways I believe anyone whose ever enjoyed Super Mario Kart and needs a good driving game to get their teeth into, should really get their hands on a copy of Blur.

 

Ratings

Story :- N/A

Design :- 6.0

Gameplay :- 9.0

Graphics :- 8.1

Enjoyment Factor :- 9.4

Overall :- 8.1

 

Check out this cute video pitting Mario Kart against Blur.

 

So there we have it, let me know what you thought about this review and whether or not you have a different opinion. If so then leave it on the comments section below.

 

Related articles

• Blur video game review (telegraph.co.uk)
• Blur (coolhunting.com)
• Blur Review (1up.com)
• Blur's TV ad makes fun of 'boring' Mario Kart (destructoid.com)
• Blur's multiplayer beta hints at a spectacular game (arstechnica.com)
• Video: New Blur Commercial Takes Direct Aim at Mario Kart (wired.com)
• Blur goes to court (guardian.co.uk)
• Blur review (guardian.co.uk)
• Blur: Career Mode And Power-Up Tutorial Trailers (cinemablend.com)
• New Blur trailer meant to be watched with friends (joystiq.com)
• Blur racing game for PS3, 360 features Facebook integration (games.com)

LiveJournal Tags: Blur

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