siddhartha saha dot net

The passed without anything happening. Just an ordinary day. But after quite a few days, I worked (or tried to work) a lot today. So I am feeling a bit happy and content. A life without a motivation is no life at all.

One interesting thing happened today. I logged on to yahoo messenger and I was greeted with offline messages more than three days old. Suddenly I realized (without requiring any inteligence) that I had not logged on to Yahoo! for the last three days. And this happening to me who used to chat on Yahoo! (rather, I use Trillian) for 4-5 hours at a strech (on an average). I realized that sometimes (rather, most of the times) my own actions, my own lifestyle becomes so much dependent on a single subject or a single person, that I sometimes cannot see or think beyond a point. Is this a good thing to happen? Does it happen only to me?

… This game is scary to say the least.

Till now I have played only a little, and here are few first impressions:

1. Graphics: As a person with little bit knowledge in computer graphics, I am really amazed at the light/shadow effect that the engine is able to produce. The realtime refraction from glass window, the slight shimmeting effect of the background whenever there is a source of intense heat – these are just awesome to say the least. Everything is incredibly detailed. Though I would mention here the amount of interaction that you can do with various objects scattered inside a room, (eg, table, chair, etc)… these are better handled in Max Payne II (or so I thought). Regarding the asthetic appeal of the graphics, most people may find the lush green landscape of Far Cry much more pleasing to the eye rather than the futuristic grim metal walls of Doom 3. There are a plethora of games and movies in which a remote lab on a distant planet has been shown, and Doom 3 is no different (at least to the point that I have progressed in the game). But it is definitely technically much more advanced than the other games of this genre. The characters are comparable to the prerendered animated movies a few years old (eg: Final Fantasy).

2. Sound: I am not in a position to comment on the sound quality because I have been playing this in my laptop the sound system of which is far from perfect. But all I can say that the ambiance, the screams and the occasional faint music integrates extremely well with the mood of the gameplay.. and combined with the light and shadow it definitely produces a real creepy environment. Sometimes you would really think twice before going towards a shadowy place.

3. Gameplay: Not much different from other FPS games. Always have a mission objective, shoot the bad guys, advance through levels, collect ammo, armor and health. There is a nice addition of a PDA, which sometimes helps to unravel the plot. There are numerous cinematic cutscenes which tells the story. The incredibly detailed TV screens, security and other terminals are a nice addon. The bottomline is, I would say the gameplay is … umm.. usual.

More later….

This is really interesting…

A string of high-profile flaws in browser software prompted the Mozilla Foundation to announce on Monday that it would offer US$500 for every serious bug found by security researchers.

Hmm.. I am returning to my Blog after three days. Well, I was busy and really tired this whole weekend. As I was trying hard, I wanted to be a live this weekend a bit differently. These days I am never sure of anything. And this thought alone sometime kills me. So, finally I made a move and rented a car. I drove a lot these three days. Did absolutely no work and tried to enjoy myself as best as I could. I drove alongside the ocean for miles, kayaked in La Jolla Shores till my hands were so sore I could not row anymore, went towards Irvine to a friend’s place to enjoy a home cooked meal of chicken and rice (did I mention that lately I am finding cooking extremely boring and time consuming and not-worth-it-at-all, and am mostly living on frozen entrees and ready to eat food ), went to a Lake Poway and hiked a couple of trails around the lake – around 4 miles, got lost a number of times while driving, (the scariest being when I was climbing a hill on curvy road at around 50mph, without having the least idea where I was heading to).