Just another nerd.
Tom’s Hardware has an in-depth look at the first standalone DivX player. This sucker plays DVDs, CDs, and CD-R/RWs & DVD-RWs encoded with DivX, MP3, or even JPEG images.
The KiSS DP-450 is manufactured in Denmark and currently available in many European countries. No word yet on availability in the United States (and this will almost certainly face an MPAA challenge, just like the first MP3 players faced a legal challenge from the RIAA).
Freedom Force broke the superhero computer game jinx and is one of the best computer games I’ve ever played. But despite good reviews and relatively good sales, Irrational, the game’s developers, ended up partnering with Crave Entertainment which seemed primarily interested in a quick take-the-immediate-profits and run maneuver. Despite an excellent fan base, Crave even shut down the game’s official discussion board system to save money and a second, much-needed patch to the game has been in limbo since late last spring.
To their credit, however, Irrational kept on working on the patch in-house and this week finally announced its release (they seem to have a Seth-like approach to their software).
So, the good news is if you have a decent PC (the game runs fine for me on a 1 ghz. Celeron with a crap PCI 3d card), you can probably find this game in a discount bin for $20. Add the two patches, and you’ve got a full campaign worth of superhero strategy goodness along with a Danger Room option that, combined with all of the free content available online, means you can set up pretty much any superhero combat action you can think of? (Want JLA vs. Avengers? It’s in there).
No, I haven’t given up on weblogging. I’ve just been working 70-80 hours a week ever since two positions in my area of responsibility were eliminated and those duties were shifted to lucky old me! I’ve been training a couple part-timers to take over most of that, but in the meantime I haven’t had much time for anything except work-eat-sleep-repeat.