"Nothing but the rain"
What happens when you ask a four year old to pick a present for his seventy one year old granddad? This:
Fair enough I guess. #1 wasn’t interested in getting Granddad a book and thought he would like these diggers. Granddad took these home so that my sons can play with them when we visit.
This morning I might have been having a cheeky couple of laps on Gran Turismo 5. I was possibly attempting to win one of the seasonal events (which for some reason I find quite tricky).
While racing around the GT Original track I noticed a castle in the background. I was so fascinated by this that for a few laps I couldn’t really concentrate on the track. The castle is a rather good looking building and really adds to the atmosphere. Sometimes I wonder whether game designers have bets about the most ludicrous things they can add!
Screen #1:
Screen #2
These two screen grabs were taken using the LG remote app on my iPhone that has a capture function!
After playing for a long time I have finally got to 900 cars in my Gran Turismo 5 garage. This represents a large amount of effort and time playing. Also, the process for buying cars in the dealership is laborious and boring.
All I get for reaching nine HUNDRED cars is a bonus colour and car horn! I don’t even customise my cars with these.
Some money or game points would have been rather better!
My sons took these toys to nursery today.
#1 – a Lego fire truck
#2 – a Lego speed boat
Simulview is Sony’s buzzword for displaying two player images on a 3D television so that each player sees only their screen. Essentially the shutters on the active glasses activate at the same time rather than alternately and so P1 sees only his/her image and P2 sees their image only. This is quite cool and displays (I assume) a 1080p picture to each player.
Downside: This only works on the Playstation Monitor.
DualPlay is the technology that LG have introduced to try and allow two players to see their own picture full screen. It has taken me four days to figure out how to get this to work (which is slightly embarrassing). DualPlay uses passive glasses with P1 having a left/left combination and P2 having a right/right combination. The standard two player screen (up/down or left/right split) is then stretched over the whole screen. This will work with most games with that picture split.
Downside: Aspect ratio issues.
I haven’t yet tried this on my TV but will soon. I am quite excited about it but also worried about the aspect ratio change. Nice of LG to think of gamers though.
So, it’s been a busy time. I have bought a new TV to replace my 40″ Sony that I bought in the summer of 2006. I don’t know if six years is a good length of time for a TV. I guess so. The problem is that I am an early adopter of technology [see this post here – currently in draft form].
The old TV was HD Ready which, it turns out, is only 720 lines of beautiful picture. It looked deep and gorgeous in HD. But it was time to upgrade. There were just too many TV advances for me to ignore anymore.
I now have an LG 3D TV. I went for 3D because Gran Turismo will output 3D and I like playing that. Do I think that 3D is a good cinema format? No. But for Gran Turismo . . .
Current TV Room Set Up:
Current Equipment:
When I get the chance I also use a Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel.
Now have two boys taking toys to nursery.
#1 took these:
#2 took this:
Uncle Jase will be proud. A fire truck from Lego City.
Here’s a rather cool rubbish truck from Lego City. Ran out of superglue! Have to rebuild it in a few days!
Here’s a picture of the guardian angel I have looing over my Christmas tree. We have a non-religious star at the top of the tree and this chap is standing to attention just below that. It’s nice to consider him overlooking the children and keeping an eye on them. Much like Obi-Wan in this comminication.
