Gears of War 3 Beta

I had three nights and roughly 50 games on the new Gears Beta now. The first two nights I played it was absolutely brilliant.It is slightly faster than Gears 2 and more polished. Few new weapons and moves made it sufficiently different to look fresh and not just extension of Gears 2. However last night I tried for hours to get a good connection but every game was horrible. I think because of the way the game plays, if players are out of sync at all it makes it unbearably annoying. If you compare it with Halo Reach, Black Ops or Battlefield Bad Company 2, you can still play the game even though players are not in total sync because the game is close combat, or as fast, or using the cover system as heavily as Gears does.

Exclusive Beta Unlockables:

• Flaming Hammerburst GOT IT!
  Complete one match by Sunday, April 24 to permanently unlock.
• Flaming Lancer GOT IT!
  Complete one match during the week of April 25 to permanently unlock.
• Flaming Sawed-Off Shotgun
  Complete one match during the week of May 2 to permanently unlock.
• Flaming Gnasher Shotgun
  Complete one match during the week of May 9 to permanently unlock.
• Beta Tester Medal -- Wear it proudly, Gear. GOT IT!
  Complete one match in the Beta to permanently unlock.
• Thrashball Cole -- Unlock Thrashball Cole to play as Augustus Cole as he was before Emergence Day -- a legendary Thrashball athlete known for his ferocious, flamboyant style.
  Complete 50 matches in any game type to unlock for the Beta period.
  To permanently unlock, complete 10 matches as Thrashball Cole during the Beta period. GOT IT!
• Gold-Plated Retro Lancer -- Before the chainsaw bayonet was deployed at the beginning of the Locust-Human War, the original Lancer assault rifle had a large fixed blade.
  Complete 90 matches in any game type to unlock for the Beta period.
  To permanently unlock, score 100 kills with the Gold-Plated Retro Lancer during the Beta period.

The sense of achievement

"You've got mail" film is one of my favourite. It's not brilliant but it has got enough great parts in it to make it very likeable. There are some great lines in it like:

The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.

Innovations on  Microsoft's part are aplenty. To me, when it comes to Xbox 360 , nothing compares to introduction of game achievements. I think it is the genius idea that Microsoft should be very thankful for because in large part it got Microsoft where it is today in the gaming console market. I'm sure Sony would have been way ahead if they thought of introducing achievements for PS3 games instead of game trophies.

So why I'm wondering gamers like myself are so hooked in getting these achievements. Why is it that we get a smile in our face when we see that pop-up message appear: Achievement unlocked? Is it because deep down inside we're still like kids that like to be praised or just get a recognition for anything? Or is it because we went though some failings like almost everyone does and we somehow find solace in playing, escaping to another world, and get the sense that we "did it!" or "I can do this"?

Crysis 2

Not impressed with the SP so far. AI can be as dumb as it can be but at times deadly. There's just no consistency. I think they should have worked much harder on AI.

Script is not brilliant either. Missions will started with lame ideas such as a top scientist saying "Oh shit, I screwed up! I forgot my address in the office computer. You have to go and destroy it or they will find me."

I might just stop reading official game reviews as they are like this game's AI, you never know if you're getting genuine review or not. It appears most of them are totally corrupted. Just checked Metacritic now and the game has got 47 reviews of which 46 positive (http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/crysis-2) with total average score of 86/100. Compare this with COD Black Ops which has got total average score of 87/100 you'd think that the two games are the same in quality but I thin Black Ops is much, much better made game.

Nokia OVI maps

I've had so much trouble with Nokia Ovi maps since I got my Nokia phone. Really pleased they decided to offer them free of charge to all Nokia users but for every praise I had curse. Last time I went to Paris I downloaded the map for France via home PC and made sure the phone is fully synced.

But unless I connected to internet it would not display any roads, basically maps were blank. Soon as I connected to internet it would start downloading tons of data which I assume is the maps of the area I was in. Needless to say this was mounting to cost me more than a dedicated GPS device with roaming charges and data. So had to give up on it and just use paper maps which was a real pain.

However, as an experiment I recently solved this problem. I know this is not what Nokia/Ovi suggests you to do but the for me the solution is to download maps directly to your phone via WiFi, not through the PC/USB. I've now disabled internet connection on the Ovi Map settings on the phone and can still get maps more or less instantly. Got there in the end. Not sure if it will fall apart when I connect the phone to the PC but I'm seriously considering not to use Ovi PC suite at all.

Nokia doesn't like m4a files

My Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will automatically include all mp3 files in the music library. Recently I manually copied some files (as partial sync is too fiddly) and when I went to play them noticed some songs were missing from the library. When I checked with the File Manager I found out that files were there but for some reason they were not showing in the Music Library. Checking the files noticed that all files missing were .m4a files and if  I open them from the File Manager they would open on OVI music player and would play fine. So I went back to the music player trying to find some setting somewhere which excludes any file that is not mp3 file, but there was hardly anything in the settings. So after a lot of fiddling I found an option in the menu which you only get on the first Music player screen "Refresh library"! Took a minute and bang, it found over 50 new songs.

So the lesson of the day is if you copy anything other than mp3 files make sure you hit Refresh library on the main menu.