Roger Ward

Due to my never ending search for perfection when it comes to my HD television, I am forever calibrating the hell out of the damn thing till I’m happy. For a while now, I didn’t think that was going to happen. But after lots of researching and adjusting, I think I might have done it. So if you own an “X Series” Sony Bravia, give these settings a try, you might like them!

A note though. I’ve calibrated and optimized for Blu-Ray and HDTV sources only. I haven’t tested these settings for Standard Definition sources, although I would still think they wouldn’t be to bad either.

Backlight: 2
Picture: 76
Brightness: 50
Color: 52
Hue: 0
Color Temperature: Neutral
Sharpness: 30
Noise Reduction: off
MPEG Noise Reduction: off
DRC Mode: Off
Black Corrector: off
Advanced C.E.: off
Gama: off
Clear White: off
Color Space: Standard
Live Color: off
White Balance
R-Gain: 0
G-Gain: 0
B-Gain: 0
R-Bias: 0
G-Bias: 0
B-Bias: 0
Detail Enhancer: Low
Edge Enhancer: Low
Motionflow: Standard
Cinemotion: Auto2

There was a time when games were as hard as nails, the graphics were average and they were actually good! Those days are long gone sadly. Today games are all spoon fed to the average gamer, sure the graphics are great, but because of this need to create games that look good just to impress a core demographic that accepts mediocrity so willingly, the core element of the game suffers. The gameplay. Why am I banging the today’s games are rubbish today drum? Well, it’s been announced the one of the classic flight simulations from the golden age of gaming is getting a revival of sorts; Red Baron.

For those of you who are old enough and therefore, smarter, wiser, less munted and know how to speak and type English correctly will remember Red Baron as one of the seminal PC flight simulations. By today’s standards it looks decidedly terrible, but in it’s day this was THE BEST flight sim you could get. It was damn hard, if you died, you died and had to restart from the beginning. NO CONTINUES!

Now news comes through that the game is being given a contemporary makeover with Red Baron: Arcade. To me it’s the subtitle of the game that concerns me the most, “ARCADE” uh oh. Already it sounds like the game has already been dumbed down for today’s audiences. I hope I’m wrong about Red Baron, I really do. I hope that I get a nice surprise when this is released onto the PSN in September. Who knows, lightening could strike twice after the nice surprise that was Bionic Commando!

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

• Salesperson
• Computer Technician
• Customer Service Manager
• Warehouse Manager

Four Favorite Foods:

• Pasta.
• Burritos.
• Beef Goulash.
• Chicken Soup.

Four Films I Can Watch Over And Over:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Wall Street.
• Bridget Jones.
• Transformers.

Four Favorite Songs:

• Angels – Robbie Williams.
• On Days Like These – Matt Monro.
• Last Request – Paolo Nutini.
• Feel – Robbie Williams.

Four Favorite Books:

• World According to Clarkson – Jeremy Clarkson.
• My Life – Murray Walker.
• On The Edge – Richard Hammond.
• Red Storm Rising – Tom Clancy.

Four Favorite TV Shows:

• Top Gear.
• The Simpsons.
• Doc Martin.
• Two And A Half Men.

Four Places I Want To Visit:

• London.
• New York.
• Chernobyl.
• Paris

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

• PS3Fanboy.
• Gmail.
• High-Def Digest.
• Facebook.

In this World of what is old is new again, Capcom have decided to remake the original game. Ugh! The biggest problem to me when it comes to remakes, be it movies or games is that a remake gets stuffed because the maker wants to re-invent the wheel. Thankfully in this case the developer haven’t decided to re-invent the wheel,  Just give the wheel a new lick of paint. The result? A great game!

Well color me impressed, here’s a remake of a classic game that is actually good. Even though it’s been 20 years since the original game, there are still a lot of gamers (older ones mainly) who remember this game fondly. I’m one of them. And now I can enjoy it again without pulling out my old Nintendo console when I’m feeling all nostalgic.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed with it’s old school game play and challenging levels is breath of fresh air, but we all know that this is only a precursor for Bionic Commando 3D which is a modern day re imagining that will wreck, sorry, bring the franchise into the 21st century.  Let the wheel re-invention begin.

Olympic Rings In Stadium

It’s been a but since I’ve posted on here for a few reasons. First is, there has been a lot happening in my life, which has limited my blogging time. Second is that I haven’t been near a computer much this last week. The Olympics have also taken up some of my time, although I’m getting a bit bored of the Olympics already, although that was really to be expected as channel Se7en have plastered us with wall to wall coverage.

I have to say though, I have been very impressed with the HD visuals. Except for the AFL down here in Australia, sports in general get a bit shortchanged when it comes to high definition.  I’m a big fan of high definition and next gen video and audio format. I know it’s a sizable investment to bring ones devices up to spec, but the end result is definitely worth it, So it’s good to see Se7en making the effort. I had a friend around at mine the other night and he was blown away by the quality. He’s always been one of those people that has resisted having to upgrade, but now it looks like he’s been converted.

It’s been a few weeks since the release of Soul Caliber IV, I’ve played through it a few times and have pretty much gotten all I can out of the single player mode. Playing the online mode in the game is satisfying, but not revelatory, so if I had to describe Soul Caliber IV in one word, it would be mediocre!

Yes, it has an excellent fighting engine like the previous installments. Yes, the graphics are technically proficient for this current generation. Yes, there’s a good amount of characters to play. But I just can’t seem to get around the fact that this feels exactly like a lot of sequel games today. A cash in! There is an old addage that everything old is new again and that’s definitely the case here.

The developers have obviously no respect for the audience it is aiming at due to the inclusion of Darth Vader & Yoda. Well not so much for the inclusion, but for the partial inclusion. Having Yoda on the 360 version and Darth Vader on the PS3 version is one of the most deplorable money grabs in history. Right now there would be thousands upon thousands of nerds just desperately wanting to pit their favorite Star Wars character against one and other, but at the moment you cannot fight these characters against one and other due to the “exclusivity” of each character to a console. While this isn’t possible at the moment, even a blind man could see that Namco will make either character available as a paid downloadable character from each consoles respective online store, just to squeeze those extra dollars out of you!

TYPICAL!

Anyone want to buy a cheap secondhand copy of the game?

Little Big Planet has been one of those games that seems to be actually living up to the hype that the game has been getting since it’s announcement. In another sign that the game is getting closer and closer, the un-official European Sony blog threespeech have shown us the first look at the Uk coverart and most likely for us gamers here in Australia too. So, if you live in a part of the World that still respects the authority of the Queen, here you go. For everyone else in the uncivilised World, wait a while!

Now the politically incorrect side of me is going to be coming out here and people know that I have an odd sense of humor, but I just found this really funny. The stranger thing is that this is probably closer to the truth than we’d like to believe. Anyway, with the games starting tonight, what better time make some jokes about it, huh?

How The Beijing Games Got Their Logo!

I’m not a huge fan of netspeak, txtspeak or lolcat speak. Personally I prefer the use of the proper Queen’s English, but I am a fan of cute pets and animals. This definately falls into the cute animal category!

Doomed

No Thumbs

Grandma