Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
New Xbox 360 – Just For Games?
Not entirely sure how this happened but I was recently invited to be an Xbox 360 ambassador. What does this mean? Well I have been asked to write a couple of blog posts and post some tweets about Xbox.
The reason for becoming an ambassador is to promote the new Xbox 360 dashboard functionality that turns your Xbox from a pure games console, into a full blown media hub.
New DashboardWhen you first load the new dashboard the first thing you ...
Sumo Gamer
A couple of years ago Sumo sent me a Sumo Omni bean bag to review. It was fantastic for relaxing on, in particular for sitting around and playing video games or watching movies. But now its time for something new. The Sumo Gamer.
On paper the Gamer is smaller than the Omni. Width and depth are less, but the height (and so the volume) more than make up for this... in ...
9
As post apocalyptic movies go, things don't get much more apocalyptic than they do in the movie 9. In a post war time, when the only things left are some golems made by an old man, and a bunch of distinctly WWII influenced robots things can't get much more bleak.
Despite this 9 has a sense of heart and a distinctly more grown up story than your average animated adventure. Likewise some of the 'enemy' machines are genuinely scary with ...
March Movie Madness
I watched loads of films last month. Most aren't worth mentioning - but below are some short reviews of the ones I enjoyed the most.
Hellboy 2Call me weird but the original Hellboy is one of my favorite films. It's up there with Blade 2 as a really enjoyable popcorn action flick. I love the cartoony over the topness. The colourful characters - and slightly crazy special effects - they all add up to make a ...
February Film Reviews
Recently I have been getting back into watching movies. I have a whole stack of them to catch up on and I am now finally reducing the stack. 3 of the films I watched in February were, Kung Fu Panda, The Invention of Lying, and The Soloist. Read the article for mini reviews of each.
WordPress MU 2.8: Beginner’s Guide review
WordPress MU 2.8: Beginner's Guide surprised me positively. To be honest, I did hesitate before accepting a review copy from the publishers as I fully expected it to be "just" a beginner's guide to WordPress mu (the multi user version of WordPress) - essentially the same as a beginner's guide to WordPress, only with a couple extra characters in the name.
I was wrong.
Yes, it covers WordPress mu, but it ...
WordPress Developer Cookbook
If I am totally honest there aren't many computer books that I actually find useful, they're generally for beginners or full of information you can get online for the low-cost of a Google search or two.
That's why I like developers cookbooks. Cookbooks are full of simple, easy to digest, recipes that help make your life that bit easier.
Thankfully the WordPress 2.7 Cookbook is no exception. It starts off covering the ...
Coraline
Coraline is a stop motion animated movie directed by the same Director as The Nightmare Before Christmas, which meant I instantly assumed that the Director was Tim Burton, and after watching the movie my opinion hadn't changed. Coraline is a very atmospheric, dark film, and it wouldn't have surprised me at all if Tim Burton had directed it - but it turns out he hasn't.
The Director of Coraline is a man called Henry Selick, and the story ...
Rocket Boards is a super fast 3D rocket boarding action. My first "commercial" (shareware) product. Didn't do amazingly well but was a good learning experience
Bubble Bomb is a polished update of a game originally built by Warren Marshal (who works at Epic games - developers of Unreal and Gears of War)
My own update of Bubble Bomb, Bubble Blitz was almost a total rewrite adding loads of new features and a shiny new look.
Seths Puzzle Boxes is a puzzle game with a surprisingly enjoyable story line, unfortunately it's quite short so won't take long to complete, but while it lasts is great fun.