LANCOZA Blog

No sooner had I announced my return, than I disapeared again. It's all a bit of a haze, but all I remember is long days and late nights and not much else.

 Part of it was some much needed rest and relaxation but for the rest I was still working behind the scenes to get the new site up and running.

I did manage to sneak in two movies, the much hyped Avatar . It was the first 3D movie that I watched and it was phenomenal. Try not to buy into the hype or other people's opinions and go and judge for yourself, James Cameron really is a master story teller.

 I also watched Sherlock Holmes because it was done by Guy Richie , I was not expecting a classic rendition of the books. It is essentially Guy Ritchie's take on Sherlock Holmes including the signature slow-mo fight sequences. Purists of the genre may be disapointed.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. My other life has taken over for a bit but I have managed to wrestle my way back.

 As a special treat, have a look at the Iron Man 2 trailer . Iron Man was not one of my favourite comic book series but the movie is definitely my favourite adaptation.

 Scarlett Johansson + sexy robotic exo-skeleton. I think that I need to change my pants now ... 

But as it turns out, a really cool toy . Not worth the price that they charge for it, so if you are keen on the Modern Warfare 2 Night Vision Edition, you should wait until it gets a nice fat discount - which I think will happen soon.

The only limited edition accessories that I am interested in are figurines or something practical , like a steel lunchbox .

I had some free time this weekend and wanted kill some Zombies but no one in my friends list was online. I tried to join a random game in Call of Duty and Gears 2 but I could not find a single gane.

In my desperation I fired up the demo of Battlefield 1943 and ran around aimlessly with eight other deperate souls for a few mintes before I threw in the towel. All in all a very sad night on Live. My goal now is to expand my friend list quite dramatically beyond 'real' friends and to focus on finding 'cyber' friends. I mostly play Call of Duty and Gears 2, I also don't have any of the addon map packs, so I think that the prospective pool is quite limited.

It looks like Tycho from Penny Arcade was right when he said that the PC-gamer demographic is not the core segment of the video game market. The latest news from Infinity Ward is that the PC multi-player mode has been reduced to 18 players from 32 in the original game.

Added to the fact that there will be no dedicated game servers, it really looks like the twilight of PC gaming as a platform distinct from console gaming. Is this a good thing? I have long since stopped using my PC as a  gaming platform. My 360 is currently the only platform that I game on if you discount my dusty PSP. With the convenient, multiplayer games afforded by Live, I really don't miss anything about PC gaming, especially the routine hardware upgrades that gaming PCs required. I will accept the 'degraded' controls and graphics in favour of a more accessible gaming experience.

But why does it feel like a part of me died...

Now that my graphics card driver is working as it should, I have returned to the loving arms of AWN . I still have to do a bit of tweaking and add a few launchers but aside from a tiny bit of lag, I am all set.

I am considering testing Gnome-Do again because it is far easier on the resources but AWN is so pretty, I might just live with the lag.

Well it depends on who you believe really. A source from BT Games mentioned that we would have Live 'sometime next year'. But he did not have any firm date or other proof to back up his claim.

Microsoft did respond to complaints about the lack of Live in SA. You can read the full interview here. It may have been a PR exercise on their part to reduce the number and volume of complaints. The one useful thing to come out of the interview is that bandwidth is not the obstacle keeping Live out of SA.

When we will have local Live servers is really anyone's guess. At the moment it is probably easier to get your UK/US Live subscription and points here  or here and not stress too much about something that is completely out of your control.

We are looking for writers who can submit news or reviews articles on a regular basis. If you are interested, send a 500 word review or news article to ebrahim@lancoza.net

In exchange for your contribution we will give you a 15% discount on any item that you purchase from Lancoza.

 The due date for submissions is Friday, 23 October. Once I have made the selection, I will contact all the applicants.

I finally got my Gold Live Subscription which means that I no longer have to create serial online personalities. The plan on Saturday was to kill zombies in Call of Duty but by the time I was online everyone else was headed to bed.

I decided to dive into the great unknown and join a random game. It seems no matter how random the selection, I always end up playing with 12 year olds from the UK or US, the mute button served me well.

I normally play online with maximum swearing and shouting so it was a weird sensation to play zombies, which requires a great deal of co-operation, without any communication at all. Regardless of how many rounds we played, we could not get past level 12. If anyone knows the secret to progressing further, please do let me know.

The blog updates are a bit late because I was ill for a few days. The doctor said that it was a combination of allergies and bronchial spasms but I maintain that it was a rare strain of flying pig flu . Either way, there has been alot of gaming news in the past week that I have to catch up on.

First up, Comztek , the guys that were appointed the temporary Xbox 360 distributors will continue as the stand-in distro until the end of this year. When they were initially appointed, they were only intended to be the fulfillment agents for three months. Someone has yet to explain why Microsoft cannot be the official  distributor of their own gaming product. Then again Ster Kinekor does Playstation, so who knows how these agreements work in the rarified atmosphere of multi-national corporations.

This might be the coolest vending machine in the known universe.

 In addition to Kiefer Sutherland and Gary Oldman, Mickey Rourke is also muscling in on the game voice acting. Rourke will be the voice of the lead character, Richard  Marcinko in Rouge Warrior. Rouge Warrior is the new shooter from Bethesda.