The Future Of PC Gaming

There are lot of gadgets introduced at CES 2011 and still announced, but the most ....

Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3

This fall, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 come out within weeks of each other, ...

Moonsoon, Foot Frezy!

Come monsoon season and everybody has to rake their brains...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown ...

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Archive for September 2011

Written by Aditya in


How To : Facebook Timeline




Please note: If you haven’t already verified your Facebook account with either a mobile phone number or credit card number, you’ll be asked to do so before you can try the new features. If you need more help with that,here’s a helpful link.
First, you’ll need to go to the Facebook developer page, which is a part of your Facebook account. Make sure you’re logged into your Facebook account, and then simply follow this link to get started.

Step 1

1. When you get here, click "allow."


Step 2

2. Click "create new app


Step 3

3. Name it whatever you want, and give it whatever namespace you'd like -- it doesn't matter. Click the checkbox "I agree to the platform privacy policy." And then click Continue, pass the security check by filling in the Captcha, and you'll be ready for the next step.


Step 4

4. After you've verified yourself as a human, you'll reach this screen, where you'll need to click "Open Graph" on the left side.

Step 5

5. You'll see the next screen, entitled "Get Started with Open Graph" -- fill in anything you want (it doesn't matter) in those fields under the heading "start by defining one action than one object for your app." Click Get Started.


Step 6

6. On this screen, do nothing except scroll to the bottom and click "Save Changes and Next." Do the same thing on the next screen.



Step 7

7. You'll be taken to this screen. Wait a few minutes, and then go to your Facebook homepage. That's where you'll be invited to enable Timeline. Be patient at this point -- sometimes it requires you to wait before the changes take effect.


Step 8

8. When you go back to your Facebook homepage, you'll see this. Success! Click Get It Now, and you're in!




 You've Done It!

Here's where you fiddle with your timeline, set it up the way you like it, and when you click Publish Now, your Timeline goes live. Or, you can wait until Thursday, September 29, 2011, and it'll go live on its own. If you want to get into your timeline from another computer, the address for this developer's version is located at this URL: http://www.facebook.com/[yourusername]?sk=timeline and of course [yourusername] is your own Facebook user name.


Written by Anonymous in


Retro's back?


2 years ago when my mom asked me to wear a flashy pink, I would detest the simple idea of it. Yet, now, I crave for the brightest of neon. The fashion of the 80's is back. And there is no denying it. With crazy yellows and blasting blues, save the polka dots, it's all around the 'f streets'.
While the clothing has changed it's cuts as well, so have the shades. A matching one with every piece of dress you wear.
Whether it's the classy black and white, or the attractive red and blue. It's not the face cut anymore but the cut of the glasses you're wearing. From the sophisticated and sleek frameless shades we're back to the large and wide frame shades that I saw my dad wearing in black and white photographs.
And it looks funky. The edge to it comes when you get to wear it indoors. Honestly, they're not to protect yourself from the sun anymore, but to flaunt your bit of extra quotient.
Who knows what winter might bring? So let em rule your accessory range till the monsoon bades goodbye!

Written by Aditya in


"The War" Battlefield 3 Vs Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3








This fall, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 come out within weeks of each other, trying to capture the free time of millions of gamers worldwide.

Graphics


Battlefield 3 looks amazing. Development studio DICE argues that its brand-spanking new "Frostbite 2" engine leads the way forward to the next generation of gameplay experiences and it's hard not to agree after seeing the game in person. Everything in BF3's visuals–character animations, crumbling destruction, lighting filters and effects–make the experience look hyper-real and hypnotizing.
But Battlefield 3 has been shown almost exclusively on a PC every time I've seen it. While the PC version of BF3 runs at a speedy 60 frames/second at 1080p, DICE's Johan Anderson tweeted that the console versions will run at 30 fps at 720p to keep things stable and detailed.


Modern Warfare 3 consistently runs at 60 fps on consoles and PCs, and it looks much, much better than a majority of other games. Still, there's a sameness that can't be denied in the graphical style.
The textures look improved but character movements still have that slightly exaggerated, jittery look to them. The lighting looks a little better, too, but MW3 didn't have the visual wow factor that EA's game does.

Feel

If Modern Warfare 3's being built on top of previously existing engine technology, then the one plus that the threequel will have is that it'll feel familiar to all those pre-existing COD players out there.
When all you want to do is jump into some deathmatches during your limited gaming time, you may not want to be bothered with learning new systems and strategies. As shiny as Frostbite 2 looks, there's a good chance it'll change things up a bit from previous iterations of Battlefield.
In the hyper-competitive communities that flock to these kinds of games, even minute changes can take time to integrate into an individual or clan playstyle. There's a certain amount of risk involved if players find a learning curve frustrating. Players who think they want something different may get turned off when they actually see what it is.
For those who say that MW3 just looks like more of the same, that may be exactly what a large chunk of its players want.
Advantage: Modern Warfare 3



A Battle Of System Requirements



Modern Warfare

Recent Call of Duty games have been known for one thing: being casual friendly. And along with being casual friendly comes easy-on-the-PC system requirements that allows a broad range of gamers to play without being bogged down with heavy hardware requirements. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s original requirements were rather tame, needing only Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 2800+ processor or any 1.8Ghz Dual Core Processor or higher, 512MB of RAM and nVidia GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon 9800 or higher. Generally speaking, even old-school noobs will be eligible for running the game. Even Call of Duty: Black Ops only required an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 2GB of RAM and nVidia GeForce 8600 or ATI Radeon X1950. Over the course of the past four years Call of Duty games have managed to keep system requirements rather slim, and given that Modern Warfare 3 won’t be using any advanced engine tech at its core, it can safely be assumed that this will enable PC gamers to enjoy the newest title in the long-running franchise without having to update or upgrade their computer to do so.




Audio


But what is a silent world? Far, far less than one with whistling bullets, chest thumping explosions and authentic radio chatter. Again BF3 delivers the goods time and time again, be that the sound of a sniper’s bullet whistling past your ear, footfall within a tight tunnelled corridor or the clink of a grenade landing somewhere near you. Every sound feels completely natural, frightening and exciting. Just as it should be.
Now MW3 is closer here than in other areas to the BF3 experience but where it really comes undone is transitional sound modification. In BF3 one of the first things you don’t notice is the change of every sound when you move from a large, open, outdoor space to the confines of a claustrophobic tunnel, that’s because it feels so completely natural. Go back and play MW3 and you now notice how artificial the sound scheme really is in most shooters. There is little if any attention paid to acoustics changing based on location and surrounds in other titles, whereas Battlefield 3 has it down to an absolute art form.


Engine

Both Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 have, of course, pushed their graphics further than any previous release. But as anyone who has had an eye on trailers can testify, it’s clear that Battlefield’s Frostbite 2 engine is significantly superior to Modern Warfare’s IW Engine 5.0 in a number of respects. But why is this? Well, let’s peel back a layer and have a look shall we?
It’s worth noting at this point that whilst Frostbite 2 is a completely new engine, written from scratch, IW Engine 5.0 is a “revision” of version 4 (which is, in turn, based on the Quake 3 engine created pre year 2000!). This is, I’m afraid, a portent of what is to come from MW3’s point of view. With IWE5 lacking, amongst other things; destructible environments, real-time physics, a sophisticated lighting architecture or soft-shadowing, it is already way, way behind Frostbite 2, which has them all and much, much more. So in a very real sense, there is just no point comparing these two game’s engines, it would be like a single Second World War soldier taking on a 4-man, 21st century, SAS assault team. No contest, at all.
But, rather than bore you with an intensely geeky breakdown I’m just going to pull the main issues to the fore and lay them out for you.


User Base

EA won't have a directly analogous constituency to draw from for Battlefield 3. The last Battlefield game, Bad Company 2, came out a year ago and EA hasn't had a FPS game that secured as significant a population since then.
This key category will be the one that makes or breaks the fortunes of either game. As part of the Call Of Duty franchise, Modern Warfare 3 will have the benefit of one of the most rabid fan communities out there.

Activision claims that up to seven million people play a COD game every day, so even if a portion of them buy MW3 on day one, then it's well on its way to a chart-busting debut.


The company's put out multiple shooters–Crysis 2 and Medal of Honor among them–that have drawn players' time and attention. But all of those players haven't been in the same place, in terms of a franchise.
With a beta seated in Black Ops right around the corner, Activision's Call of Duty Elite platform will further consolidate their loyalists and get them excited for Modern Warfare 3 in November.

                                       

Classes, Weapons & Equipment

Whilst there is not quite so much to separate these two titans in terms of classes, weapons and equipment, it is in the way in which they implement these that lies the real genius, or lack thereof. Modern Warfare again treads the fairly well established corridors of specific classes and, to be fair, so does Battlefield 3. My favourite feature in this area however is Battlefield’s take on “customising” your class. You can really get into the depths of the class system here and make choices which vastly affect both your role and capabilities in-game. No longer is it a “Choose a class and a weapon” type selection, but now you can really define specific roles you want to play via your load-out and put a different spin on what you do with the options available to you. Battlefield 3 leads the way here, just, but its small improvements like these that reflect the greater focus on playability over that of Modern Warfare 3.
Battlefield 3 includes jets.



Wrap-Up

It's too soon to say which will actually be the better game, as parts of both Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are still being built as we speak. The marketing hasn't begun in earnest and Activision in particular has much more of its game to be revealed. But given the quality and ambition already on display, it's safe to say this is a year when the FPS championship belt could be up for grabs. May the best shooter win, because it's going to be fans who ultimately reap the spoils of this conflict about conflict. So again, many of these things are personal taste.