rgbFilter – Page 17 – For the pixel pusher in you.

Bulletstorm review – FPS meets arcade fun

February 25, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Arcade, Bulletstorm, EA, epic games, FPS, PC gaming, People Can Fly, PS3, PSN, review, Xbox 360, Xbox Live3 Comments

Bulletstorm is a breath of fresh air for FPS games. The Duty Calls parody ad, complete with in-game cries of “boring” was a statement on the state of modern shooters, as if each were as serious a look at war as Platoon, Band of Brothers or Generation Kill. Of course, this Tom Clancyesque style of fiction has as much in common with reality as Plan B’s magical super subs, but that’s another story. Eschewing the gritty ‘realism’ of modern shooters for over the top science fiction is only the beginning,…

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang

February 23, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Kickstarter, Minecraft, Minecraft The Story of Mojang, PC gaming2 Comments

When Markus “Notch” Persson first launched Minecraft, I don’t think he expected to see the indie game grow as popular as it did. Not only has the game well surprassed 1,000,000 copies sold at this point, but it’s getting its own movie. 2 Player Productions, the people behind Reformat the Planet, have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to make Minecraft: The Story of Mojang, and with a month to go have already raised almost a third of the $150,000 budget.

Kinect for Windows getting official SDK

February 22, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Kinect, Kinect hacks, Microsoft, SDK, Windows1 Comment

Ever since its release in the fall, Microsoft’s Kinect has been a popular target for coders everywhere, putting the motion controller to use in applications far beyond the traitional use as a game controller. Now Microsoft has made it official, by announcing that it will be releasing an official Software Development Kit later this spring. This SDK will be for non-commercial use, and there’s no word when a commercial SDK will come out. The Kinect for Windows SDK is being developed and released by Microsoft Research (MSR) in collaboration with…

Zune HD coming to Canada

February 21, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Hardware, Microsoft, portable media player, x10, Zune HD2 Comments

Microsoft’s Zune HD portable media player, formerly only available in the US and UK, will be coming to Canada in the near future. Although first released in 2009, the hardware has never been available here. It’s curious that Microsoft would choose 2011 to bring their media player here, since they’ve been focusing on Windows Phone for their mobility solution as of late, including integrating many of the Zune features into their new phone platform. While the Zune software on PCs and the Xbox allows for both movie and TV rentals and purchases, it’s been noticably absent of music options here.

Singularity: Equilibrium

February 21, 2011September 26, 2012 Wesley Fok Activision, FPS, PC gaming, PS3, Raven Software, Singularity, Xbox 3604 Comments

Spoiler warning:This post reveals substantial portions of the plot, including the ending. In the wake of nearly every popular cultural phenomenon arrives a flood of imitators. Their reasons for existing aren’t always obvious, however; some imitators are obvious cash-ins, yes, and others are little more than tributes to the original. But some retreads have higher aspirations—inspired by, but not direct copies of. Maybe it’s an attempt to tell the same basic story in a different way, or tweak parts of the formula to make it more appealing to a certain…

Computing Science

Saturday Morning Science 003

February 19, 2011March 5, 2011 Pete Chapman Casimir Effect, graphene, Saturday Morning Science1 Comment

Graphene Novelties– This week’s edition started off with a simple article from Science Daily: Graphene and ‘Spintronics’ Combo Looks Promising. A group of researchers from the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Science and Technology of China presented their work on using graphene as a platform for creating “spintronic” devices. In their scheme, the electromagnetic spin of particles, their “up” or “down” orientation, could be used to encode the ones and zeroes of binary data at incredibly high density (seeing as graphene is one atom thick) and…

Hydrophobia: Annals of bad encounter design

February 15, 2011March 28, 2011 Wesley Fok Dark Energy Digital, Hydrophobia, third-person shooter, XBLA, Xbox 3600 comment

Hydrophobia was maybe a bad choice of game to play right after Dead Space 2, because despite their many differences I can’t help but compare aspects between the two. There’s no way a budget XBLA game made by a relatively small developer is going to compete with a big-budget sequel with the might of EA’s vast resources behind it, but luckily for Hydrophobia most of its problems are ones of polish…

Netflix on Boxee Box – Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Boxee Box, media player, Netflix, Software, streaming video, update3 Comments

It’s no secret that there are Boxee Box fans here at RGB. The coolest looking little media player has proven itself to be a very flexible workhorse. Today, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen posted that the newest update has started rolling out, and with it, the long-awaited Netflix compatibility for both the US and Canada.

Q&A with Telus on 4G

February 14, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves 4G, Canadian wireless, Dual Cell, HSPA, LTE, Q&A, rollout, Telus, WiMax2 Comments

Last week, Telus announced the arrival of its Dual Cell network, which could bring theoretical speeds of up to 42Mbps to their network, which doubles the HSPA+ technology being used today. The usage of the term 4G elsewhere has been met with some confusion, but with it getting wide use in the US for competing technologies, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing it happen here in Canada as well.

To get some clarification on the use of 4G, and what plans they have for LTE, we fired off some questions to Telus, and present the response below…

Computing Science

Saturday Morning Science 002

February 12, 2011February 19, 2011 Pete Chapman quantum mechanics, quarks, S. Jay Olson, Science, Stardust-NEXT, Vikings0 comment

The quantum world got weirder, a respected scientist got weirder, the Vikings may have used polarized light to navigate and there’s a comet flyby for Valentine’s Day. Spooky Action in Time– “The greatest significance of our result is almost certainly in some application that is yet to be imagined.” In an interview with PhysOrg, S. Jay Olson of the University of Queensland summed up the implications of his paper with fellow physicist Timothy C. Ralph, “Extraction of Timelike Entanglement from the Quantum Vacuum“. Just as some of us are trying…

SOCOM 4 Preview – I traveled 4000km to play it

February 11, 2011September 26, 2012 David Doel David Doel, Great Canadian Gamer, preview, PS3, SOCOM 4, SOCOM preview, Sony, video, Zipper Interactive22 Comments

Recently Zipper Interactive invited me, as a fan of their SOCOM franchise, down to their studio in Redmond, Washington to check out the upcoming SOCOM 4 – releasing on PS3 April 19th. After having a few days to digest the entire event and what I had played I have come away with a very positive outlook on how this game will turn out. I’m in the unique situation of being one of those people who have sunk over a thousand hours into the SOCOM franchise since the original released in…

HTC HD7 now available on Bell

February 10, 2011February 14, 2011 Doug Groves Bell, HTC HD7, Microsoft, The Source, Windows Phone 7, Xbox Live1 Comment

While first announced a couple of months back, Bell has now launched the HTC HD7, including availabilty at The Source outlets, or at least the one I passed by when grabbing lunch. With the number of quality games that have already been released for the platform, the larger screen real estate makes for a great mobile gaming phone. The phone also comes bundled with Bell’s TV Remote PVR app, which allows Bell TV subscribers to manage their PVR away from home. Freatures include show search, schedule recording and remote control…