Team Fortress 2: BETA

After eight long years of agonising waiting, valve has finally seen fit to release a second Team Fortress game. To save the lazy among you from reading the whole thing, it's good.

The new game pays homage to the original without slavishly clinging to its rotting, eight year old corpse. A good thing, cause in todays market I don't think the original, Team Fortress: Grenade Spam, would have held anyone's attention for very long.

The developers also took a step away from the norm with the graphics. Instead of making yet another, "oh-my-god our light maps and textures look a little bit more freakishly, almost real than yours" game, they went with a neat, semi cell shaded look that look different and fabulous.

More importantly, the graphics add to the usability of the game. Instead of squinting as a bunch of drab brown models in a drab green and brown landscape you can easily spot and identify the various classes. the whole point of a First Person SHOOTER is to shoot stuff. Not to spend half the game trying to see something so you can shoot it. TF2 makes it nice and easy, you can easily identify the enemy and SHOOT them, which is the point after all.

The classes are reasonably well balanced with the exception of the 'WTF PWN" Spy and the Engineer's turrets being piss weak. But it's still in Beta so I assume they will get fixed.

I'll do another update when the full version lands on 12 October.

Cheers

DTN.

Life. Oh Life.

Finally I have time to ruminate on the blogosphere once again. I have been very busy at work. Which hasn't left me a whole lot of time to rant at the world and ranting at the world is something that I am really fond of.

So what the fuck is with Australia's politicians and their on again, off again election campaign. They are so damn obsessed with one-upping each other and trying to invent scandals that they have forgotten to run the country.

It really worries me when a session of parliament is indistinguishable from a bunch of five year olds calling each other names. When will these guys grow up and realise that they are in positions of serious responsibility and discussing things like carbon trading or corporate reform might be a touch more beneficial to the nation that causing each other names.

The problem is who the hell do you vote for. The five year old who whines that the other guy is an old bully and has been hogging the swing set OR the seven year old that whines about the five year old staring at titties and caring about the other kids.

Why isn't there an adult to vote for. Dammit!

Looking at your optins and finding they all suck...

Such is life.

DTN.

No Reservations

No Reservations is a romantic comedy... I could almost stop talking about it right there.

Everyone should pretty much know what to expect by now. This one really doesn't break the time honored mold.

Our heroine, who is some kind of chef, suffers a crisis, in this case her sister dies and leaves her with a kid to look after. She struggles on for a bit, making a few mistakes and then, just as she thinks she can no longer cope, a guy shows up. He saves the day,by teaching her to relate to the kid and is generally considered the second coming of sliced bread.

Obviously that would be too easy so the love birds have a tiff and break the whole things off. One threatens to move away, they realise their differences, get back together and it's happily every after. Apparently, the movies never really go on long enough for us to know.

No Reservations makes a vague attempt to break the mold by having the Heroine (Kate) piss of the kid as well near the end but its not much of an effort. I did like the slightly more sober tone adopted by this movie. The death of the mother/sister is constantly referred to and it helps to keep the tone a bit more level than the usual giddy-happy-fest of the genre.

Despite its lack of originality it is a quite good movie. There really isn't anything done badly to complain about. The acting is pretty good, the cinematography is pretty good, it goes for long enough that you don't feel cheated but isn't Peter Jackson long and the story keeps up at a decent clip. The whole thing is pretty good. If I had one major complaint its that they could have picked a hotter lead guy. Aaron Eckhart is really dredging the barrel.

If you go to see this then you already know what you are going to see and you won't be disappointed. A true triumph of consumer cinema.

Cheers

DTN.

The APEC Holiday

Australia is currently playing host to one of those international junkets, this one known as APEC. This has lead to the supposed 'leader of the free world' George Bush coming to visit. Which has led to possibly the most rediculous dispaly of government stupidity I have ever seen.

Security has gone mad. Half the city of Sydney is surrounded by a 3 meter wall and 'normal' people are no longer allowed in. There are helicopters with snipers hanging out the windows circling the city constantly, there are 2 police on every street corner and there is even an FA18 Hornet fighter jet flying around. As if that that isn't enough overkill, they then went and gave everyone the Friday off. WHAT THE FUCK!!!!

Someone better blow something up or shoot someone or this whole thing has just become the biggest joke in the history of the country.

Now I am happy to admit that some small amount of security is required for something like this. But they have gone way way way WAY! beyond sensible.

Total cost to the Australian economy of elected representatives thinking they are pop starts, approximately $1b. Plus the $300m straight out of the governments pockets for security and other supercilious pursuits. Hell they even outfitted a special room for the damn event (that pretty logo wasn't free either).

I think it is about time that democratically elected leaders realise they are there to serve their nation, they aren't pop stars or tv celebrities. Anyone who thinks that the people of Australia are best served by all this hullabaloo is insane.

The event might be necessary though I wonder what is wrong with teleconferences. Even if they all have to meet in person, why put something requiring all this security in the middle of a city. There are plenty of isolated military bases in Australia with barracks plenty big enough to house everyone.

I live in vain hope that one day we will have a prime minister who cares about the Country and has enough common sense to do what is right for it.

Peace

DTN.

The Exam is Over

Well my CA exam is done... finally.

With any luck I passed that one and only have 4 subjects to go.

Marks are scheduled to land on 12 October, so, I'll let you know then.

Patiently waiting...

DTN.