Probably the Fastest browser on Earth! Opera Launches 10.50

http://www.opera.com
The New Opera 10.50 has now been released officially. Previously it was it testing phases.

So Chromie!, came to my mind on the first sight, and why not? Like in chrome the tabs bar is on the top of the window followed by address bar. The menues are nicely arranged in on button with "O" on the top left. It feels good, I must say. The design looks great on vista or windows 7 and looks a bit weired on windows XP.

 

What the hell!! Blues!

It is said to have greater advantage over other browsers on the JavaScript based websites. It delivers a noticeable performance boost on JavaScript-intensive websites. This change is significant and marks a philosophical shift for Opera, one that puts the browser in a stronger position for the future. However some experts explain that safari and chrome still give better performance than opera which beats Firefox.

Another major addition in 10.50 is support for private browsing. Opera's implementation is a bit more clever than the one in Firefox and Chrome. In addition to being able to create a private browsing window like Chrome's incognito mode, users also have the option of creating a private browsing tab without needing to open a whole separate window. Private browsing tabs are marked with a special privacy favicon that makes it possible to tell them apart from regular tabs.

Could not find much glitter on the windows XP. Though in Vista or Windows 7 it has Aero Glass, as well as supporting Aero Peek and Jump Lists. You can also access your speed Dials and tabs from the taskbar.

Also to note there is a new tab called Follower tab.  I still could not figure out what does it do at all.

Opera is available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Download it from http://www.opera.com

Bioshock 2 - Game Review

Bioshock 2 returns with dark and gloomy corridors that lead to tattered remains of what was meant to be an underwater utopian society. ADAM, the very substance that was going to be mankind’s savior, has reduced the city of Rapture to a crumbling civilization of junkies, hopped up on the gene altering substance. Eight years have passed since the events of the first game and the failure of Andrew Ryan to establish a stable society. In Bioshock 2, the mantle of Rapture is taken up by Sophia Lamb-- another professed messiah of the race. Lamb believes that the biggest hurdle between mankind and a Utopian world is the obsession of the self.

Water is a central theme throughout the game
 

The sequel retains the immersive visuals and narration that was the hallmark of the first game. Once again the story in the game unfolds by playing recovered audio logs and with game’s characters speaking over the PA system. The game’s premise is pretty much set up very early in the game, so the audio logs and PA announcements serve to dwell deeper in to a person’s fears, motivations and dreams. Most of the script of Bioshock 2 is pretty dense with psychological, philosophical and political rhetoric and arguments. If you are interested in any of these subjects, you probably will consider the game’s script and narration as its strongest elements; otherwise you may be in for a snooze fest.


Rapture Redux

 
Buying provisions at a vending machine

As the game’s protagonist, you get to play as one of the early test subjects of the Big Daddy experiments. Playing Subject Delta in a big, burly suit does not affect game-play as much as you might think as Bioshock 2 retains most of the central elements from the first game. Combat remains a combination of weapons and Plasmids that gives you spell-like abilities. Since character upgrades are bought by spending ADAM at vending machines, encounters with Big Daddy and collecting ADAM still remains central to survival. And just like in the first game, weapons are upgraded by single-use vending machines and supplies can be purchased by spending cash at the machines. Your size and strength does not give you an advantage in battle as you are easy matched (and sometimes outmatched) by the quick and nimble Splicers. Major addition to the enemy roster is Big Sisters and they are one of the toughest opponents in the game. They are as quick as the Splicers and hurt almost as much as the Big Daddies. There are plenty of weapons, ammo types and Plasmid abilities in Bioshock 2, so there is certainly no shortage of ways in which you can defeat enemies.

So, as one might expect from sequels of successful games, 2K has taken the core elements from the first game and tweaked and polished it for the sequel. For instance, hacking has been simplified and the introduction of remote hacking ability means that it is much easier to turn Rapture’s automated security systems against the enemies. In fact, effectively using the security systems can really turn the tide of battle in your favor.
 

Friends and foes


Hacking for dummies!

Speaking about the overall balance of the game, I feel that the developers could have done better on at least two fronts. During the first half of the game, I found it quite difficult to progress without using the resurrection feature of the Vita Chambers. Then towards the end of the game, when you have access to some powerful upgrades, the balance shifted drastically to the other side. The game is comparatively a cake-walk at this point, even with more enemies on the screen. What makes life more difficult is some of the other design elements. It is quite harrowing to stay on top of things when you are surrounded by enemies. You need to keep one eye on the health and EVE reserve and another eye on the ammo type that you have currently equipped and the ammo reserve. Between all of this, the enemies are all over the place as they have the ability to teleport and even crawl on ceilings. Then there is the control system that will have your fingers all over the keyboard like tentacles— there is only so much one can achieve when using with the off-hand.

Visually this game is just as brilliant as the first one, although I experienced a few performance issues. Even after lowering graphics details from what the game had auto-detected, there were regular instances of textures popping in. Also, while accessing some of the game menus, my computer’s CPU utilization reaches almost a hundred percent, and sometimes even forcing me to restart the game.


Power to the people

 
Bioshock 2's matchmaking system is worse than my mom's

Entirely new to Bioshock 2 are the multiplayer game modes, and 2K has kept things simple and traditional in this department. Referred to by different names, the game modes in Bioshock 2 includes: deathmatch, team-deathmatch, capture-the-flag, last man standing and domination. What really sucks about multiplayer in Bioshsock 2 is the abysmal match-making system. During the couple of hours I spent online, my level one character was pitted against players that were as high as level 40. Online lag starts to become crippling when there are about five or six players on the screen. Also, accepting a game invite causes the game to crash. If the developers can iron out these issues, Bioshock 2 multiplayer has the potential to be a lot of fun.


 

2K has done very well at retaining the highlights of the first game, but introduction of new features has brought some problems along with it. If you look towards Bioshock for an engaging and often thought provoking script, then you will not be disappointed with the sequel. Game-play has balance and other issues; however none of it is game breaking. Comedable effort has been made to improve on game's combat mechanics; however the control schemes can be a bit overwhelming.The publishers had five different studios working on this game and maybe that is showing with some of the bad spots in the game.

Rating: 8.0/10

Details
Genre: FPS, Action RPG
*Platforms: PC (Windows), PS3, Xbox 360
Studio: 2K Marin, 2k Australia, 2K China, Digital Extremes, Arkane Studios
Publisher: 2K Games
Distributor: E-Xpress
*Reviewed on PC 

PC System Requirements

Minimum:
OS: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 2.4Ghz or better, Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0Ghz Processor Memory: 2GB
Graphics: NVIDIA 7800GT 256MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon X1900 256MB graphics card
DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c
Hard Drive: 11GB

Recommended:
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core 2.60Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Dual Core 2.13Ghz
Memory: 3GB
Graphics: NVIDIA 8800GT 512MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon HD4830 512MB graphics card

Other Requirements:
Initial installation requires one-time internet connection; Ability to save game, earn achievements, receive title updates and online play requires login to Games for Windows LIVE

Have you seen the Opera Unite? It really Rocks.

Been long that opera had been recommending me to upgrade my Opera 10 to 10.10. Today I just gave it a go. And holy cow, it was all worth it. There is a new menu on the Panels name "unite". The file sharing feature, Fridge, Media Player, Messenger, Photo Sharing and a WEB SERVER.

The last one caught my eyes. WTF! my computer a server?? Hell Yeah. I cannot get the perfect word to describe the New Opera Unite. Just fabulous, wonderful. The server did worked fine too. I loved this part very much.

I was a little pinched with the media player that when I play a song another song starts to play. Even if I stop it it doesn't stops. And I need to go to the playing song and stop it in there. Must have been a bug but the interface is really good.

Oh sorry not to tell you, the media player plays songs from your computer and can be shared with your friends on Opera(not any others). Also the messenger feature is available to only Opera users. For Yahoo!, MSN would have been a great boon. Anyway no problem with those.

The file sharing feature is also great. I don't know if my computer need to be ON to download the shared file from other computer which I suppose must be. It must be like your computer is a file server now...

There is also a Fridge menu. I could not figure out what it does exactly because till  now I have no friends on Opera. They say its for notes that your friends or family writes for you like "Lunch on 9am". Must be a good application to connect and help friends.

And what is this??? More applications?? There are loads of Opera Unite applications over there. Oh I can't get to them all now. I will be writing about them time to time.

If you have used Opera Unite share with us some worthy applications. I saw the webcam there.

Dante’s Inferno - Game Review

Dante’s Inferno had couple things going for it, way back when it was first announced. The most striking thing about this project was that it was going to be loosely based on a 14th Century poetry that was penned by one man’s imagination, fuelled by his faith and fear. Also, the development team working on the game is made up of the same guys that gave us Dead Space; which for my money is the most exciting game to come out of EA since a long time. Clouds of disappointment started looming when EA first presented the game-play video.

Then after getting a chance to play the E3 code, it was pretty clear that Dante’s Inferno is going to be a God of War clone. This of course is great news for those who swear by God of War’s game-play mechanics. As a follow up to Dead Space, it is very sad to know that they spent the last few months creating a cash-cow for the publisher. The premise of the game was always going to make the game a tough design challenge. However, I was expecting Visceral Games to at least try something different with this game, and although the game is not bad, the potentially deep premise is lost in the chaos of frantic combat.




For an action game, Dante’s Inferno still has a pretty deep storyline, and Dante’s encounters with consequences of his own deeds are some of the best parts of the game. The game’s story will take the player through the Nine Circles of Hell and on to the final encounter with the well-hung Prince of Darkness. Dante makes this journey to rescue the soul of his beloved Beatrice, from the clutches of Lucifer. Character of Virgil from the original works makes an appearance in the game as Dante’s guide through the underworld.



It would have been nice to get more than two weapons; however the combat system is still fairly deep. Death’s Scythe is the only melee weapon in the game and for ranged combat the player carries a holy cross that fires projectiles. Souls left behind by dead enemies and retrieved from special containers are used to purchase upgrades. Player can earn two distinct types of experience points—holy and unholy. The holy path mainly focuses on enhancing attacks made using the Holy Cross; whereas unholy experience improves skills with the Scythe.

Throughout the game, player gets to decide whether to punish or absolve an enemy. Choosing to punish will be rewarded by unholy experience and absolving gets you holy energy. There are also encounters with famous people from history and from Dante’s personal life. These encounters l reward players with bonus experience points. New skills are unlocked as the player earns experience points and these upgrades are purchase by spending souls.




The developers have made up a little for the lack of weapons with the addition of Relics and Spells. Relics are found throughout the game, often in obscure locations, and equipping these gives the player additional bonuses. Spells are unlocked at regular intervals throughout the game, most of them during special encounters. Usage of spells is linked to the player’s magic reserve and these can also be upgraded by investing souls.

So between the two weapons, spells and combos, there are plenty of ways to cause destruction in the game. I really liked the combo system because it lets you seamlessly flow from one combo to another and even between the two weapons. Combat can be a lot of fun as you switch between the two weapons and spells to rack up combos with an absurd hit-count (my finger gave up after 300 hits). Building up the combo meter also fills up a special bar which can be unleashed for substantial attack bonus.




Between the frantic battles, the game slows down the pace by using standard elements like platforming, puzzles, treasure hunt and cut-scenes. The narration and storytelling is pretty good, but the essence of the underlying story does not meld with the game-play. The combat and story are both good in their own rights; however I feel that the two together do not do justice to each other.

The game lasts for about eight to ten hours, depending on how quickly finger-fatigue sets in. Beating the game unlocks the highest difficulty level and a challenge mode. This also unlocks New Game+ mode, giving you the opportunity to max-out with the holy and the unholy paths. This is also an opportunity to collect any Relics or NPC encounters that you might have missed during the first play-through. The developers have already announced a DLC that will add multiplayer mode to the game and will come bundled with a challenge/level editor.





If you are looking only for mindless action and can get past the fact that this game is a GoW clone, then you will probably enjoy this game more than I did. If you are looking for something special from the developers, then the next best hope is probably Dead Space 2.

Rating: 7.0/10

Details

Genre: Action, Hack ‘n’ Slash

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360

Studio: Visceral Games

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Distributor: Milestone Interactive, Redington

*Reviewed on Xbox 360