What Hi-Fi Show (part 1)

I am short on time now, so here is a quicky on last weekend's What Hi-Fi Show in London.

Serena, Lauren, Jocey and I managed to look round for a good couple of hours before the girls were bored and we got to demo pretty much all of the major TV makes and models that are out there.

Both Serena and I agree that the hands down winner was the Pioneer Kuro range.

If you are looking for a screen above 40" then the rest of the competition didn't come close!

The photos are on the family Flickr site here, but here is one for you to drool over!

Celebrity Overload!

After last week's double header of John Humphrys and Kate Humble I thought we would end up going back to the celebrity wilderness again...  I was wrong!

This week's gaggle are:

Johnny Vaughan

James Blunt

Will Mellor

and the piece-de-resistance

Steven Moffat of Blink fame!

I feel honoured!

The Orange Box

My birthday treat to myself was The Orange Box expansion for Half Life 2.

As well as including Half Life 2 and the Episodes 1 and 2 expansions for it, the key component for me was Team Fortress 2.

TF2 is an online shooter that follows on from a really old Half Life mod called Team Fortress Classic (a conversion of a Quake 2 mod called Team Fortress - surprisingly).  TFC had been my favourite online shooter of choice for many years and the TF2 update for it is just as much fun.

The game play is pretty much identical and the new graphics engine is brilliant (cartoon style rather than super-realistic). and overall it makes my purchase worthwhile!

However The Orange Box had a bonus...  A technology demo called Portal which had been converted into a game.  The game is a "not too tough" puzzler and has only about 5 hours of game-play too it, but the work they have done to add atmosphere and a plot to the game are just brilliant.  As far as freebies go there is no comparison - this one rocks!

The Cake is a Lie!

World in Conflict

You may remember that I played the demo of World in Conflict a few months back and really liked it.  Well Jase and Charlotte bought me the full version for my birthday and I have now completed it!

I have to say that it was an excellent game with the single player campaign lasting about 20 hours.

I have tried out the online play modes and am less then thrilled, as there are very few servers and those that are there are ruled by gangs of Admins who always play together and wipe the floor with newbies like myself!  I'll stick to Team Fortress 2 for my online gibbage!