14 February, 2008

Business...

A Japanese car company and an American car company decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.
Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information , but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the one person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India .
Sadly, the End.
Here's something else to think about: The American car company has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.
The Japanese car company has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: The Japanese company makes 4 billion in profits while the American company racked up 9 billion in losses. The Americans are still scratching their heads.

10 February, 2008

Rodents (Mice inc.)



My trusty Logitech G7 has broken down. Don't squeese them too hard I say...
I've always liked wireless mice because they lacked the annoying wire. It's simple, there's no other reason. The G7 was just as good as any other mouse, albeit it felt maybe just a bit more "laggier"...


No matter how much choice of other wireless gaming mice there is, ordering the same one again felt strange and I wanted something new. So ... I ordered a new mouse which should be here soon:



26 December, 2007

Ass' Creed



It's been a long while since I've wanted to spend so much time with a video game. Most of the second half of this year was just about playing some Team Fortress 2 here and there and the x360 lay dormant and gathering dust. I guess it's life span was expanding as I still have the launch model (which has not given me any problems as of yet).

I picked up Assassin's Creed along with Mass Effect and after playing through the latter I finally started the Creed.

All I heard of this game was that the producer was really hot and you're some assassin missing a finger running around Jerusalem and stuff, didn't take much interest. That is why it became so ultimately cool when you find out you're role playing your ancestors' DNA memories from the present-time. The backstory is an amazingly orchestrated performance, giving you information in such limited quantities that you'll be frustrated to comprehend in the beginning, but later on you'll start to listen and it will make more sense.

The graphics are top notch and set an ideal atmosphere for performing the tasks at hand, I've found some textures to be flickering and glitchy (close up and in the distance), but it was minor.

The gameplay reminds of Prince of Persia, but this time it's more logical and you don't jump around unrealistic landscapes and buildings *almost. The combat system is finally what I've been meaning to see in games of the sort, you have more control of how to react in combat situations and the animations are sweet and accurate. Amongst being really serious, there are some hilarious flaws that can only be described as "oh it's a videogame" - in the main base town of Mysaf you can "gently push" city guards that are standing on a ledge to an untimely - and unnoticed death. The funniest thing is them waving their arms before just falling off and the guard next to him not reacting at all!

You'll be faced with performing various accomplishments to unlock achievements, all are pretty basic and make sense, only if you want to get ALL of the achievements you will probably need a map to find the bloody flags, that's an annoying part of the game I find as it took me more than half the game to find the full 20 flags in Mysaf.

Music is an important part of any game - Jesper Kyd did an great job yet again, but the audio was badly mixed sometimes (volume wouldn't match the game sounds and it didn't have enough bass...).

I'll be looking forward to seeing the producers not screw up such an amazing game for the sequel - there is so much to be done (remove repetition of certain aspects of the game, improve AI - oh and my console started freezing towards the end...) and so much hope for an even more assassinative mood, maybe emphasising on more stealth....

09 October, 2007

World in Conflict

Buy it. Play it.

Alternative history is something that everyone fortakes in their daily lives ... "what if?" ...

So if you can imagine the Soviet Union waging World War 3 in '89 and now the Chinese machine is on the doorstep, this is perfect for you!

One of the best games of the year, nearly GOTY material.

09 September, 2007