7 Cents For The 2013!

This post is dedicated to Arzu Kotan, who insisted that I should write more and made me convinced. This one is the first of many to come.

 

2013 was full of new hardware. To me, it was dominated by hardware news and not software. Which is strange, ‘cause end user seems to be interested in the software not the hardware. And yet all the major buzzes were mostly hardware. Let’s take a look at what I was most interested in 2013 in seven bullets.

7. Windows 8.1 and DirectX 11.2 arrived, even they are software they are somehow hardware related. Not that they changed our lives, certainly they’re welcomed graciously, AMD and NVidia played their last cards on their current generation hardware for the DX 11.2. Intel also played its card and released Haswell Micro-architecture. Of course it is not game-worthy. But at least -with a correct cpu- now we can have barely playable modern games at low resolution. Before Haswell, Intel HD xxxx was a joke. I'd appreciate low power gaming. Also now Haswell is a competitor at OpenCL game. I'd say it is losing horribly but at least competitor now.

6. Oculus Rift is still a no go. This brings us to wearables… 2013 brought them to our doorstep, however 2014 and 15 will be the decisive years for the technology. Because of that I am expecting a leap on battery-duration/issue of gadget oriented life.

5. Dawn of the Linux gaming era; I still don’t think it is ever going to dominate the market, the direction with the Steam powered boxes/machines sounds right to me nonetheless. Some of them have pretty bumped up monstrous specs. Many of them are simply beasts. 2014 will be a very expensive year for gaming community, so many things to buy, continues on…

4. a) Nokia’s Windows Phone lineup got matured into something spectacular. Especially Lumia 1020 is practically a super slim professional camera that you can use Windows on. Icon (leaked in 2013) will be even more.
4. b) Nokia and Android rumors took place in the darkest corners of blogosphere. I never thought it will become a reality. As far as I know and concern every OEM tinkers with possibilities, but I assumed this, even it was true, will be a rumor or a dirty experiment. As of my writing, $#!7 just got real. That’s a shock for me. I really did not expect this.

3. Intel’s Galileo; my hobby time is mostly consist of drinking, gaming, tinkering hardware. Although I like hardware projects, I am mostly uninterested in arduino. I do not have a specific reason but I really never touched arduino as of yet. On the other hand that X86 based arduino SoC is very appealing. If I’d have my hands on one of them, I have already 1 or 2 projects in my mind. 2014 will tell.

2. Many new SoCs has been released or announced. So far I’m very interested and excited about Tegra K1. It has 192 CUDA cores; which is very, very impressive. If utilized correctly, that can be a game-changer. Personally as an original Surface RT user, I would like to see it in Surface 3; I would immediately consider an early update as I am pretty happy with my Surface RT anyway.

1. X-Box One; clearly my choice of best hardware. Microsoft’s newest addition to the gaming community’s arsenal held much of the anticipation. Alongside with the new Halo title (possibly “Halo 5”), dedicated cloud gaming, exclusive music and video content and etc. it was the best thing ever happened in 2013 for me.

That's it for this post, thanks for reading.

tFU Hoth Expansion

I just played the Force Unleashed Hoth Expansion Mission Pack. Guess what? There is no single achievement for the whole thing on X-Box Live! The overall quality was not as good as the previous expansions. I didn't get disappointed that much however. It was still the Force Unleashed action but, well could be 400 MS Points or so, at the moment it is 800. 800 is not much but to this particular mission pack it is a little bit much, I acknowledged.

Anyways... Until the sequel hits the stores I am guessing this will be the only tFU action we are going to get. I mean I don't think we are gonna get another expainsion for the first game. Maybe some more Avatar Tees or something like that, but that's all. Any new game content; I don't think. In fact that may be the last content ever for this game. We'll see.

Final Fantasy XIII and Avatar

Who cares anymore I don't know. To me it is nothing. I wasn't any fan of the series. I played 3 or 4 of them and completed only 1 of them. I understand people love the series. The question is is it really still this way? Don't think so, 'cause most of my friends who is a die hard fan for FF series are not talking about this particular installment. Even Kotaku.COM has different Agenda I think... Look at the pictures;



=)
Anyways, it is out in japan for a while now if you don't have the patience for english.

The real deal is, it will be released on X Box 360 too (US and EU only)... That's g00d, more people will have access if they ever want to play.

Another g00d news is Avatar is finally out and kicking some asses! Tickets are sold out and that's promising.


I watched it on Imax and liked it... It is so visually orgasmic everyone forgets about the sound effects. They are awesome too. if you watch it more than once, care about the sounds the next time you watch.

ODST

I played Clone Wars: Republic Heroes and Halo 3: ODST this weekend. Both games are finished. I am impressed with Clone Wars [by the way my X Box read it very problematically, disc may be flawed]. The game doesn't look that good but it is a Star Wars title nontheless and I loved it. The real deal is ODST however.



I have seen only a handful of games over the last decade with that much beautiful storytelling. Action was in Halo standards but the story, enviroments, dialogs were very satisfactionary =p . Actors and the Actress plays an important role here but, even if there would no such names there, It would still be a good story. And if you stil don't know whom I am talkin about here goes nothing: Nathan Fillion and Tricia Helfer. After this there is nothing much I could tell more.

Lucidity

Well well, I have been waiting for this great news like a 20 days or something like that since Lucasarts told us there is a new IP on the horizon due to announced officially today. So today is the day. A completely new game from LUCASARTS has been announced, Lucidity is a 2D Puzzler/Platformer. It is a completely big surprise. It is not a Star Wars game or Indiana Jones for that matter. Here's some Pictures. Enjoy, I know I will once it hits to X Box Live later this month.

All pictures are from Kotaku.