Google I/O Keynote Highlights

I spent the better part of this afternoon watching the Google I/O Keynote on Youtube (after watching Back to the Future II, this is just how I spend my days after I finish an exam...)

There was a lot covered over the four hours, I tuned it at about hour one. Here's my personal highlights in no particular order.

Free Chromebook Pixel!

Every attendee is receiving a free Chromebook Pixel. That's right 6000 people are each getting a free £1049 laptop. You do the maths on the total retail value... Google's cash is mighty and I'm pretty jealous to be honest. Not really anything to do with new Google services, I just thought it was amazing.

Google Talk Replacement

Finally we have a Google Talk, Google Plus Messenger, Gmail Chat, Hangout replacement in the form of Google Hangouts which combines them all together and seemingly manages to keep them in sync. The Android app is available on the Play Store as a update to Google Talk (it replaces it) but if you have a Nexus 7 then it's unavailable for some reason. Download the Google Hangouts APK, and install it yourself. It'll run absolutely fine. (I retrieved this APK using Titanium Backup from my phone)

New Google+ Stream and Photo Tools

Google Plus has received an overhaul and now features a much nicer main stream and several new photo editing / touch up tools. In fact, Google Plus received 41 updates. Google+ is such a nice social network, I wish more people that I knew used it regularly. Myself and +Laurence Andrews use it quite a bit, so feel free to add us to a circle and get in touch!

Spotify Rival

Google now has their own Spotify rival known as 'Google Music All Access'. Only in the US currently, and at price points matching Spotify you can stream as much music as you like from Google's catalogue. Plus points over Spotify include the integration of your personal Google Music Player Library and their online library. Instead of making playlists for every single album you want to easily find again (I'm looking at you Spotify!) you can apparently 'add' the music you want to your library and then it'll appear just like the music you've uploaded yourself. Something I definitely want to try out as a Spotify Premium subscriber as well as a user of Google Music; I could easily see myself moving away from Spotify if it works well enough.

Leisure Suit Larry's Return!

Larry Laffer is returning to your computer in June with a shiny new modern remake for only £14.99. Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux and retells the story of his first outing from 1987. Updated graphics, bugs fixed, and some new dialogue are all part of the package, too.

From the press release: "Re-made, expanded and enhanced in every detail with original creator Al Lowe and original writer Josh Mandel at the helm, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded sees Larry Laffer’s first and greatest adventure, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, re-made for a brand new audience 26 years after its original release. Behind all-new hi-res, hand-drawn art and animation replacing the blocky pixelated graphics of the 1987 original, come expanded puzzles, locations, humour and gameplay. And rounding off the package (no pun intended!) is a re-written musical score from Grammy-nominated and BAFTA-winning composer Austin Wintory featuring Al Lowe on saxophone!"

I don't know about you guys, but I never really got to enjoy the Leisure Suit Larry games when I was younger (I guess nor should I...) so I'm quite excited to see this released for modern platforms. I actually funded this project on Kickstarter last year, and I think it'll be one of the first projects that I've backed to release (other than my Pebble Watch that I got a few weeks back). It's nice seeing Kickstarter projects succeed, but why wouldn't they if they have legends such as Al Lowe behind them? Enjoy the screenshots and let us know what you think below in the comments.

Trigun Review Redux

Some of our listeners may well know that I actually reviewed Trigun in a podcast episode, but I felt it deserved a blog post. So without further ado, here is my review of my personal favourite anime. Trigun is an anime series spanning 26 episodes about a man with a mysterious past, Vash The Stampede. A warrior on a desolate planet called Gunsmoke (a tribute to the once popular American radio and television series by the same name) who journeys by himself to try and lead a peaceful life and to protect the human inhabitants from themselves. Vash’s age is never revealed, but he has the body of a late-20s male, with bright blonde hair gelled up right. But although he may appear soft, he is a legendary gunman who uses a silver revolver (a .45 long colt six shooter) with deadly accuracy.

At the start of the anime we learn that Vash is wanted for the destruction of the city of July, and has been given the nick name ‘the humanoid typhoon’. He has a 60 million double dollar bounty on his head and is the most dangerous man on the planet. We are also introduced to Milly ‘Stun-Gun’ Thompson and Meryl ‘Derringer’ Strife, two women who work for an insurance company who were sent on a mission to find Vash and keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t cause any more trouble. They find a man who claims to be Vash, but don’t believe him because of his sunny disposition, even though he saves their lives. For the first few episodes Meryl needs convincing, but Milly was sold on the idea from the start.

The whole anime is very familiar to Cowboy Bebop in that it’s a space-western, but differs from a lot of anime with its message. Vash is a peaceful soul who tries not to kill anyone. At first we are led to believe that this is some kind of penance, but in truth that’s the way he has always been. At this point we get into spoiler territory, so if you don’t want to hear any spoilers, stop reading and start watching!

Vash is on the hunt for is brother, Millions Knifes. Along the way he meets a variety of foes and friends. He faces up against the Gung-Ho Guns, a group of human bandits each with special skills. He defeats them all but refuses to kill them, he doesn’t want to kill them, but they all end up dying anyway. They were hired by Knifes. Knifes knew all along that Vash could easily defeat the Gung-Ho Guns, but Knifes is a megalomaniac and it amused him to see Vash struggle. After each Gung-Ho Gun is defeated, they either commit suicide in fear of Knife’s wrath or are killed by the next in line. The only Gung-Ho Gun that Vash kills is Legato Bluesummers.

Along their travels Vash, Milly, and Meryl meet a preacher called Nicholas D. Wolfwood (the D stands for Doesn’tgoasingleminutewithoutacigarette) a smoking, wandering preacher with a skill which is unusual to see in preachers; marksmanship. He differs in philosophy from Vash, he believes that killing is acceptable for the greater good. Vash and Wolfwood clash, but eventually they both impact each other’s beliefs; Vash convinces Wolfwood to spare a life, and Wolfwood teaches Vash to take one.

In the end Vash confronts Knifes one on one in the best gun fight I've ever seen in an anime. The whole story of Vash’s and Knife’s lives and how the humans on Gunsmoke came to be is revealed and you finally understand who Vash really is. The anime carries a massive philosophical weight, and whether you are in Vash’s camp or in Wolfwood’s in the end you come understand both. The ending is rather bitter-sweet but definitely impressive. The voice acting throughout is excellent with Jonny Young Bosch (famous for voicing Kaneda in Akira) voicing Vash. The soundtrack is also impressive with a country/western/blues feel it greatly compliments the on-screen action.

The only downside is the visuals, they have dated badly. But even that isn't enough to take away from the experience. Trigun is an anime worth watching, especially if you liked Cowboy Bebop or Outlaw Star. It's a very well put together piece and should be part of any anime fans collection. Stick with the anime, you might get a little sick of the goody-goody nature, but there is plenty of action to be had, lots of humour and black comedy, and a big pay off.

Some would argue that Vash's goody-goody attitude is rather hard to stomach, and that his beliefs are ironic as they are reckless and endanger the lives of others. However it's the story of his philosophical development, he learns from Wolfwood what is right and that what he previously believed to be right was wrong, because Vash cant behave that way forever.

Monster Rehab Energy Drinks

If you are a student I don’t have to tell you how satisfying the taste of an energy drink can be, especially if you have a particularly boring physics or chemistry lecture to sit through. But some people like myself really don’t like carbonated drinks, which makes quite a conundrum. Thankfully Monster Energy have come up with the solution and released the ‘Rehab’ series. These are great tasting drinks which are non- carbonated and have tea in them. This article will discuss the new flavours that I have tried recently.

The new ‘Rehab’ flavours currently available:

• Tea + Lemonade + Energy
• Rojo Tea + Energy
• ProTEAn + Energy
• Green Tea + Energy
• Tea + Orangeade + Energy

The “Tea + Lemonade + Energy” flavour is currently my favourite; it tastes quite a lot like lemonade should and without carbonation. There is a hint of the tea flavour but not a whole lot. The "Green Tea + Energy" is my second favourite; it really does taste like sweet green tea, but beneath its seemingly humble taste lies the dragon within. It gives a decent kick of energy and it creeps up on you. Don’t be fooled by its taste like I was on my first try, it’ll kick your teeth out without hesitation.

The "Tea + Orangeade + Energy" is okay but it’s not my favourite; it tastes more like flat tango and the taste is so strong that I can’t taste the tea aspect at all. It’s the sweetest one of the tot and made my teeth itch. I can’t really recommend it but you might want to give it a try and see if it’s for you. I think it’s the marmite of the Monster Energy series. The "ProTEAn + Energy" tastes rather foul in my opinion, it’s the most powerful burst of energy out of the lot and it’ll keep you going but I really don’t like the taste at all. It might be for you though so give it a go, but be warned its got a nasty crash once the energy is gone.

As its name suggests the "Rojo Tea + Energy" is by far the weirdest tasting one of the lot, if you could take everything psychedelic and squeeze it into a can this would be it. Ironically its very calming and doesn't give that sugar or caffeine rush. Its also got the weakest crash of them all and is possibly a drink that you could keep on drinking one after the other.

Most of these are great tasting and non- carbonated and are a perfect drink for those dreary lectures. I’d recommend the Lemonade and Green tea versions as they are the softest and are less likely to blow away your taste buds.

Morrisons Source Energy Drink Flavours

After the excitement of seeing Vanilla Coke for sale for the first time in years (a topic for another post) this week seems to have been bumper for new drinks. I saw Monster Rehab Green Tea (another topic for another post another day) the other day and Morrisons have recently introduced some new products into their 'Source' range of budget energy drinks.

'Source' is pretty much the same stuff you'll find in all the major supermarkets under all sorts of names. Anyway, I tried a tropical variant a few months ago on the train back to uni and it wasn't that bad. When I saw Morrisons had some new flavours, well what did I think for only 50p a can? ;) The caffeine content of both is just under the gold standard at 30 mg/l.

Source Orange and Mixed Berry Energy Drinks

Orange

The immediate thought that sprung to mind when we opened the Orange one was 'orangeade'. That's pretty much it. Source is still very noticeable as a flavour (all cheap energy drinks just have 'that' taste). It was pretty pleasant but like all budget drinks needs to be drunk ice cold. Probably wouldn't buy again! Regular Source is better.

Mixed Berry

Definitely the better of the two. It tastes like a fruitier version of Relentless but manages to fall short somewhat of the target. Still has the budget taste and Amelia says it reminds her of a cocktail of sorts. Still for 50p, what was you expecting? I'd consider buying it again when looking for cheaper energy drinks. Strangely this is the sugar free version of the two and it tastes better. Who'd have thought?

Not a long review, but there wasn't a lot to review. We went through the new Red Bull flavours on the podcast a while back (Pretty sure we did!) when Laurence brought some back from Paris before they were released in the UK. Next time I'll pick up some random energy drinks from B&M and Home Bargains for me to review. Last time I went I found a knockoff Relentless (down to the can, and all) for 42p! Stay tuned.

Black Ops 2: Mindless Multiplayer Mayhem

So some time ago I wrote a semi-review of Black Ops 2 praising it for being fresh and new but at the same time saying the multi-player was the same old stuff. Well I must have hit my head pretty hard as I found myself playing it again recently. It’s kind of like smoking, you know it’s bad but you just can’t stop. Recently Treyarch made the ‘nuketown’ map available for all for free, this was my favourite map of Black Ops 1 so I decided to jump right back in the saddle and download and play the map. But to my surprise, you don’t just get the map added to the current maps in the current game modes; you get a whole new game mode called ‘chaos moshpit’. In this mode you play on a variety of maps in a variety of game modes in team of 6. Sadly this is also the only mode that you can play nuketown on so I decided to give it a go.

It’s fun enough, you play domination, team deathmatch, headquarters, demolition, and hardpoint. All of which are fun albeit often infuriating depending upon who you are playing with. I actually got to play nuketown a lot and in my opinion they have ruined it. You can be spawn killed so easily and the spawns are a mess in general and it is all a bit chaotic.

So was chaos moshpit enough to get me back on-line on Black Ops 2? Well yes and no, it’s a fun variety of various game modes and it gives players an opportunity to play game modes they otherwise avoid. But nuketown will always (and I mean always) be voted to play on regardless of game mode, and you will find yourself getting pretty sick of it pretty quickly. I guess it’s all down to personal taste but I think I maybe spending more time on it now as I always enjoy a challenge.

Tupcast Island, an OpenTTD Project

As many readers will probably know, most of the Tupcast team are avid OpenTTD players, we all properly love this game. Today we start a new story, a story that starts right here, right now...

I welcome you, avid readers to Tupcast Island:

This is the beginning of a new project, to take you through the ups and downs of our new TTD enterprise called (you guessed it..) Tupcast Transport. The company has just been established and is headed up by our noble and tenacious leader T.Caster (don't mock my creativity, I'm dedicated, ok?).

We're starting our world in 1980 and will be using the GFX+ GRFs in addition to the av8 set by Pikka and the 2cc trainset. We don't intend to use any cheats, specifically not the money or production value cheats, although as the game progresses may end up using the demolition tool.

Tupcast Transport business objectives are:

1. Build a comprehensive public transport network, connecting all towns, villages and cities
2. Connect every industry and complete all supply chains
3. Become the biggest transport company in all the land (which should be easy since we're a monopoly)
4. Make £50,000,000 before the end of 2020
5. To continue to make posts about this

We'll report back on the Tupcast website explaining our actions, profits, losses as if you were our share holders. Perhaps as the project increases we could even have the ability to vote on company decisions.... The game file available with every post so you can play along for free, and check out the progress in more detail.

Savegame 1 - 2013-03-07

Those that don't have OpenTTD can find it available for free here: http://www.openttd.org/en/

The game is also likely to be a key area of discussion in our upcoming podcasts, stay tuned!