All about my PSP – Versatile portable

I bought a secondhand PSP a month above to quince my thrust on Create Zen Vision W or to prevent myself from big expenses by getting Zen Vision. I see PSP (Play Station Portable) far cheaper and worthy comparing to any portable players if you are an active PC user, I mean you have to compromise the memory size by replacing files you want to play. Here is why I put my money on PSP.

Short description:

PSP is Play Station Portable by Sony Corporation launched in 2003. It is meant for portable gaming. It has separate drive called UMD drive, where you can only put UMD discs. So Sony PSP is meant to play game/software only from UMD disks. It will be the same if there are no hackers in the world and no users like me to utilize them. By doing a 1000 INR firmware update, the PSP is hacked. Now it is ready to play anything from its memory stick.

Features:

Now coming to features, PSP is versatile. It can play games, obviously. It can play videos (mpeg-4). It can play audio (mp3/wma). It can be used to view pictures. Nothing can beat its video quality and audio quality is also fine and its obvious as it is a Sony product. It is Wifi enabled. It can also read pdfs. It can read docs. It can be used as organizer. It can be navigating device…the list goes on, until the PSP software hacks halt.

Why all these features with such a low price of 8k INR? I heard that there are still people getting original UMD disk paying 1k INR for one game UMD disks are sole proprietary of Sony Corporation. Seem they get money in them.

Drawbacks: size and size.

Yes, memory size and device size. The PSP I am using is having a memory size of 1GB only. By far I have seen PSPs having memory 4GB at the max in common. But in my 1GB memory stick I can put two movies and one compressed game and some software as well. Won't that be enough for your journey? Yes it won't if you have uncompressed game which could be 1GB, but 4GB should be more than enough to put all.

If you are okay with this memory size then comes the player size.. it is definitively bulky, but bulky enough for good video display and to sit in lap for movies in long journey.

Small comparison:

Ipod nano, wins in player size and sucks in everything. Ipod classic wins in memory size and sucks in everything. Ipod video without its wide screen first sucks and I feel it would be difficult to hold it to see an entire movie, where PSP seems better. Zen Vision, which is around thrice the price of PSP has only the media features of PSP. No portable player has gaming, wifi, applications like pdf reader, gps navigation…

I watched Michael Clayton, Bee Movie and BeeGees live last during my last time journey. I played NFS Most Wanted from UMD disk in between each movie. I saw neither my watch nor the mile boards of my home town with a sleepy head.

Conclusion :

Only music – Ipod
Only Video – ZEN Vision
Only Game – PSP
Atleast any two of the above – PSP. Am for all the three… In the next post am gonna write abt the navigation feature of my PSP…

Online AOE Guide

Again a game related post.. Thought of trying this long before.. Finaly into it, I would say more into it..for about a week..Playing Age Of Empires 2 and 3 and Asian Dynasty expansion online daily.. Got some friends from India and abroad too.. This is post is just a shot tutorial for playing Age of empires 2 and 3. Here it goes…

Things you need.

1. Of course Age Of Empires Game
2. Hamachi
3. AOE loader (only for AOE3)

AOE Games:

As far as I know there are two versions of AOE 2, having same version with both peers is mandatory for online play.

1. AOE 2 - Age of Kings (Red) : CD2.0
AOE 2 – Conquers expansion (Blue): CD1.0

2. AOE 2 - Age of Kings (Red) : CD2.0a
AOE 2 – Conquers expansion (Blue): CD1.0e

For AOE3, you have three editions: Age Of Empires 3 (Basic) and two Expansions: The Asian Dynasties and The War Chiefs. For AOE 3, it is always better to update whatever edition you are having through net. So make sure the editions and versions of the peers are same.

Hamachi:

Hamachi is a VPN internet application which makes one to connect to peers as if you are connecting in LAN. Just install it from here and power it on. You will be given an IP something like 192.168.xx.xx. Choose your own Nick name, and create your own network for your friends, or better join my network
Username : booaoe
Password : password

You can chat with your peer friends to setup all using hamachi.. That’s it, nothing else, if you want to play AOE 2

AOE3 Loader (Only for AOE3 users):

As AOE3 has problems in seeing the internal IP provided by hamachi, this small comes for rescue. Just download this loader from here. Run it and choose the hamachi IP like 192.168.xx.xx and start game and choose the game you want.

Now for AOE2 and AOE3 you are in the game, go to Multiplayer and LAN settings as if you are playing in LAN and host a game and wait for the peers to join or join the game of your peer and enjoy gaming.

Troubleshooting Tips:

1. Make sure all your peers are in sync with the editions and version you are playing. Make sure all peers have updated for AOE3.
2. You should be seeing the hamachi IP 192.168.xx.xx in the Peers joining screen. If you are some other IP, check if you have selected hamachi ip in aoe3 loader.
3. For AOE2, if you are not seeing hamachi IP, goto, control panel -> network connections. Select Advanced -> Advanced Settings menu. Make sure hamachi Connection is in ordered first above all other connections.
4. If you have problem in finding the game of the peer who has hosted, try to connect using IP of the peer instead of searching the game present in the network.
5. If you get CRC Version Mismatch error, try different Crack. I had the same problem for Asian Dynasties expansion, and I used this crack to solve it. Download it from this rapidshare link.

I would like to thank Quang, a Vietnam guy who helped me patiently for my first online gaming. And this 14yr old kiddo, Denis from Israel, who helped me for AOE3 setup. And he is a Photoshop geek too… the pic posted in this blog is done by him.. hats off to Denis.. Denis, I think its enough!!

So dudes, come lets play aoe2/3.. join my network :
usename : booaoe & password : password

All About Games

So for all of the gamers , Q4 of 2007 made them busy. Yes busy in Crysis, Gears of War, War in Confilct, Command and Conquer, COD4 the list goes on.. Fine this should be rather an old post about the hot topic of Gamers in earth – The Crysis. I completed it a month ago I guess and the thing is luckily or efficiently I completed it without referring any walkthrough guide.

Why is it so? Crysis which has the promising graphics and game play has quite enough bugs too. But the game play is awesome but very short, you will have different environments which makes you feel you really miss the previous one. So if you are a gamer you must try this one. Gears of War, from Microsoft is a good one with its different 3^rd person shooter style, which only console users might have used, I guess. This one is different and good except the same environment and same stuffs again and again, I played only few levels. I am not sure how it will be in the next levels. COD4 is the also most spoken game, seems there is a good competition between Crysis and COD4, so downloading it now. Bioshock with amazing graphics and sound, but gameplay is not the way I expected, so I left it without continuing. The same goes to STALKER.

Recently I got this expansion pack from fleming, Age Of Empires - Asian Dynasties. With a great interest in seeing the things regarding india, I got it from him. Basically three cultures are covered in that – India, China and Japan. As all AOE has, this too has campaigns which tell the story with the game play associated with it. I was very interested to see the game play of India, but I have to finish China, Japan campaigns to unlock this one. It took some few hours to complete these at first started without cheat and finished with cheat codes. Now started the india campaign, the first plot starts with barakpur and then Punjab, seems the campaign is about Nana Sahib and at first he about to resist the Indian revolts L So in the starting campaigns Indian are enemies and after some levels Nana Sahib joins indian to protest agains English and I see no great in the game play too, as Indians start doing some revolt and I have to go and crush them. So started the skirmish mode, where me being Indian. You have maps of Himalayas, Central Deccan and Cyleone. The funny and interesting part is: The voice of Indians, all in HINDI; "Mein Aaa Rahaa hoon", "Makan banana vale", "Youth karne ke lea" ,"Sharir mar saktha hai, parathama amar hai". You get mostly elephant warriors and sultans and sipoys. Its really interesting to try this out, you have to install AOE3 first as this one is an addon.

Crysis: Great expectation, Well served

So back to Bangalore after my (pre) Diwali vacation. Since am not a kid to use crackers to disturb others, instead of using RDX, I decided to have my diwali vacation earlier and so bigger. But the only thing that made me worry is the Crysis Demo, which got postponed a month before to the exact date when my vacation begins. So the first thing I did after my vacation is the download of the 1.8GB download of the Crysis demo. Tried some of the mirrors and found this one having very huge bandwidth, I downloaded it from my office @ 320KBps! NVIDIA link

Completed the demo two times. The great expectation on this game is well served. There is no game to beat its graphics and gameplay. I am having the following rig: Intel core2 E6600 @ 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, 7600GT. The game is fine to play in 1280 X 1024 with medium settings and no antialliasing. I don't like to compromise resolution to quality, so only tried in 1280 X 1024 resolution. With my 7600 GT card I am even able to see things in high settings while very high setting is disabled. But it is very hard to play the game in such setting.

As everyone says the graphics is simply superb, you see an high quality movie being rendered in front of you depending on your movements! Apart from graphics the gameplay is outstanding. You can complete a mission in your own creative way. I completed the demo first using the vehicle and in land, then the same demo using boat the next time. It has all farcry features plus plenty of creative things to enjoy. One can shoot the trees and make it fall down to see the enemies hiding behind the trees. You can use object to throw on them and you can shoot at the tires of vehicles to make it immovable. Likewise when you are in a vehicle you can be in different positions and there is display showing the damaged parts of the vehicle, simply superb! Apart from these, you can switch to different modes and attach special features to your weapons. There won't be any game to make you creative and enjoyable like this.

So as the world does, I am dying for the game's release on Nov 15^th.

My September Games

I was playing Oblivion for trying out a proper RPG (Role Playing Game) and got the Command & Conquer 3 - Tiberium Wars. Have only played AOE series and then tried lil bit of Empire Earth under Strategy game genre. This C &C 3 is simply superb, which has many types of campaigns and good & sufficient graphics for strategy game. To fully enjoy this game try to get the 2 dvds pack as this high budget game has many clippings as good as a Hollywood clippings featuring Tricia and Jennifer Morrison and our famours Lost guy - Josh Holloway.
So this one is a must try game (rated 9.0 in gamespot) until you get World In Conflict. Also Command & Conquer - Tiberium is gonna come in FPS genre. Now started trying Bioshock from Unreal engine, so unreal, Quake and Doom series lover will like it. Good graphics but indoor brutal shooting, thats it.
One sad news - the demo of The Most awaited game in the universe - The Crysis is postponed one more month :(

Enjoy Gaming!!