Friday, January 30, 2009

ILFORD Inkjet Photo Paper


Oh ... mygod. Remember when you were in High School photography class and you had a really artsy looking print, like with contrast and texture and stuff, and you'd dip into your stash of ILFORD paper to make it look extra fancy?

Yeah, well they make inkjet paper now. No, really.

The image is totally smoother and cleaner than the crap you get from office supply stores. And the paper holds up when you abuse it by, say, spray-epoxy it onto your laptop. This stuff is totally top shelf!

Cuboid for PS3 (PSN)


Cuboid proves once again that the future is inexpensive, downloadable, casual games. It's a puzzle game, played on a track of one-by-one tiles. You have to topple a one-by-one-by-two playing piece around the board, and its oblong dimensions make it tricky, some directions progressing by one tile, others by two -- it's hard to explain, watch someone play.

It's totally addictive. Screw with your friends; invite them over and let them try it. If you partake on your own, without a buddy, be careful!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Mirror's Edge for PS3


On the ground and inside the skyscrapers of the city, cameras watch every move you make. The only way to keep secrets is by sending private couriers who deliver your data without asking questions. It's a surveillance state, and dissent is not tolerated. This is also the basis of the beautiful "first person platformer" game Mirror's Edge, from EA.

You're a roof-running courier, jumping from rooftops to zip-lines to steel plates on cranes to small thermal exhaust ports ... the whole time avoiding the "blues" who keep shooting at you. I love that the training mode shows you how to grab one of their guns, and the very next thing it shows you is how to empty it of bullets and throw it away.

The visual style of this game is a total win ... grab the free demo and see what you think. It's definitely worth full price!

Fallout Three for PS3


I keep coming back and playing more of Fallout 3. The quests just keep enticing you to do *one more* little piece ... and the open world style of the game provides tons of side-quests that you can do when you're bored or frustrated with the main quest line. Next thing you know, hours have passed.

You can tell that a lot of imagination went into the game, it's engaging and visually very pretty. (Technically, it's glitchy, so make sure you save each time you level-up and keep three or four save files going back.) Even though I've had to roll back to a couple old save files here and there to recover from a bug, I'd recommend the game. It'll be perfect when the price gets down under $40.