the mobile phone and gaming magazine www.phonicamagazine.co.uk
ISSUE 20
NOKIA LAUNCHES PHOTOREALISTIC 3D MODELS OF METROPOLITAN AREAS FOR OVI MAPS UNPARALLELED DEGREE OF 3D REALISM AND SCALE HELPS PEOPLE GET A FEEL FOR PLACES BEFORE THEY GET THERE Nokia recently announced photorealis c 3D models of metropolitan areas for the web version of Ovi Maps. This immersive and free feature adds a new dimension to the Ovi Maps experience and enables people to explore places in a completely different way. Introduced at the Where 2.0 conference in Santa Clara, California, Nokia’s 3D offering is the most realis c available and goes beyond rendering limited areas and buildings by making en re ci es, including suburbs, available for explora on.
“OVI MAPS ON THE WEB COVERS 180 COUNTRIES, 93 OF THEM NAVIGABLE, IN 29 LANGUAGES.” Star ng with a bird’s-eye view, people can scale up and down and move around objects such as buildings and trees from their desktop, experiencing a
virtual but super realis c perspec ve of new places. Road-level imagery completes the experience with a detailed 360-degree panoramic view of streets. With the beta service featuring 20 metropolitan areas, the number of photorealis c 3D models will increase over me. The road-level imagery is now available for five ci es, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, Oslo and San Francisco. With the goal of bridging the real and virtual worlds on both mobile and web, Nokia’s Ovi Maps for mobile covers 180 countries, nearly 100 of them navigable in 53 languages. Ovi Maps on the web covers 180 countries, 93 of them navigable, in 29 languages. “Ovi Maps’ photorealis c 3D models of metropolitan areas are a significant step towards our vision of bridging the real and virtual world, with loca on-based services being the glue,” said Michael Halbherr, senior vice president, Nokia.
ORANGE MEETS bada When I found that I was to a end the bada London event, I was a li le scep cal. As it turns out, my scep cism was more down to a lack of knowledge than anything else…such is the limited public scope that bada holds. When I arrived at the Orange Labs in Chiswick Park in London, I realised that my scep cism was not jus fied, This event was not so much an introduc on to Bada, rather an introduc on to bada 2.0, with a concentra on on coding, which wasn’t my forte but I managed. Sad to admit it was my first experience using bada. Given that there were over 5 million bada handsets sold in 2010 I was impressed to know Samsung is slowly reshaping the OS market. The opera ng system is found on Samsung’s Wave handsets, with the original being the S8500 Wave I, and the bada flagship handset now being the S8530 Wave II. Samsung perceive bada as being more of an ecosystem for the phone rather than an opera ng system (OS), and the tag-line of bada as a whole is ‘Smartphones for Everyone’ which, though not as catch as some of their compe tors, shows the level of which Samsung are promo ng this OS.
We were also introduced to Samsung Apps, which, as the name suggests, is Samsung’s applica on store that bada uses, and we were given some figures to show how this applica on store has grown. As of March 2011, Samsung Apps has had over 100 million downloads since its launch in June 2010, and the current applica on count is over 13,000. In fact, downloads are now at between 500,000 and 1 million a day, making it the second fastest growing applica on store.
“IN FACT, THERE’S A LOT MORE TO bada THAN MEETS THE EYE!” Android users need not worry though, Samsung explained that bada is not going to replace Android on any of their handsets, rather, their view is for high-specifica on smartphones to be Android, and the low-to-mid er phones to run off of bada. All in all, the bada London event was an interes ng introduc on to bada for me, and showed me that it’s not as limited an OS as I thought it was. In fact, there’s a lot more to bada than meets the eye!
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L.A. NOIRE RUNS INTO TECHNICAL ISSUES ROCKSTAR FLOODED WITH ‘FREEZING’ AND ‘CRASHING’ COMPLAINTS Despite L.A. Noire and Rockstar picking-up plaudits from every cri c in the land, the game itself has been suffering from some serious technical issues. Since its release, players on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 have been complaining that L.A. Noire has been crashing their systems, and also freezing at regular intervals. If you have a scroll down the posts that trail the Rockstar support page on this ma er, it doesn’t make for pleasant reading. So what advice do Rockstar have? Well on their support page they list several resolu ons to what they are classing as “some isolated crashes / freezes”. The majority of the seven listed fixes are memory based, with buyers asked to “Delete your L.A. Noire Game Data (not save data); create a new temporary
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(user) to ensure that new save files are created” and the classic “Launch the game and try again”. Overhea ng has also been men oned as a problem, but as far no single issue can be squarely blamed. The culprit for this issue was first thought to be Sony’s recent firmware update, but this has been denied by both Sony and Rockstar. In a joint statement made by Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold, they said “At this me, Rockstar Games and Sony can confirm that neither L.A. Noire nor firmware update 3.61 is causing the PS3 hardware to overheat. We are both commi ed to working hard to find solu ons to this and any issues that may arise.” If you are having a problem with your copy of L.A. Noire, please visit Rockstar’s support page, here. Sco Tierney
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52-INCH GLASSES-FREE 3D TV AVAILABLE IN JAPAN £12,000 AND IT’S YOURS! 3D TV is s ll treading the fine line between future every-home product, and fad. At present 3D is everywhere, from the cinema, to the Nintendo 3DS, to darts and football in your front room, but there’s s ll a feeling that a 3D TV is an expensive gimmick. But, this new TV from a group of former Phillips employers, known as Dimenco, may just p the scale for 3D TV. That said, at £12,000, not everyone – if anyone – will be able to afford one. Dimenco have launched a massive 52-inch LCD screen, that is fully 1080p 3D without the aid of glasses. The Dimenco BDL5231V3D also boasts impressive stats such as a 2,000:1 contrast ra o, 8ms response me, 700 nits of brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate. Also, the 3D can be viewed from 28
different viewing angles, resolving that frustra ng ‘sweet spot’ issue. The Dimenco BDL5231V3D is also fully 2D capable, and can autoswitch between standard 2D and 3D.
“THERE’S STILL A FEELING THAT A 3D TV IS AN EXPENSIVE GIMMICK” It’ll be interes ng to see how 3D TVs like the Dimenco progress and how they’ll set the standard for all monitors that follow. Of course, the staggering price tag will put it way out for reach for you and me, but in a few years, who knows? In five years me, will glasses-free 3D TVs be on sale for around a thousand pounds? You’d expect so, although it all depends if 3D is s ll as hot as it is currently. At least with the Dimenco, we won’t have to look stupid in our glasses. Sco Tierney
RAGE PUBLISHER: BETHESDA SOFTWORKS DEVELOPER: ID SOFTWARE FORMAT: PS3, XBOX 360, PC GENRE: SANDBOX RACER & FPS AVAILABLE: SEPTEMBER 2011
THE FUTURE’S ALL IN A RAGE If the future is anything like that of the current videogames, my friends, swallow your cyanide pills now! Crysis 2’s ruined America was sunny yet deadly; MotorStorm: Apocalypse’s The City was an adrenaline junkie’s paradise, but only if you could outrun the earthquakes and insane gangs; Homefront’s future of global war was the stuff of nightmares; even the dunes of Fallout: New Vegas were as grim as it gets, despite the razzamatazz of Vegas. So what about id’s new shooter-come-racer, Rage; what’s the world like in this fic onal future? Rage is set in 2037, a er a vast asteroid named Apophis has collided with Earth causing mass desola on…not looking good then…As one of the few survivors of Arc – a vast cryogenic freezing of
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humanity’s brightest and boldest, tasked with rebuilding civilisa on a er the asteroid hit – you reawaken with no memory, and have to survive in this barren and dangerous post-impact land, teaming with savage gangs, hos le clans and other nas ness. Visually, Rage looks truly boggling. OK, so the whole style of dusty rundown shacks in the desert, underground bunkers invested with crazies and crumbling cityscapes is star ng to grow a li le weary, but as a technical achievement, it’s hard not to be impressed with Rage’s style. It looks a lot like Fallout 3, only with a lot more nsel and firecrackers... actually, that’s a perfect sum-up of Rage itself.
“UNLIKE THE SLOW-BURN OF FALLOUT 3, RAGE’S ACTION WILL COME IN MUCH THICKER AND FASTER WAVES. RATHER THAN TAKING EVERY STEP WITH CAUTION, RAGE WILL ENCOURAGE YOU TO GET ROUGH.” The gameplay is set to feature a mix of fran c FPS blas ng, off-road racing and some RPG elements such as keeping stock of your inventory and ammo. From
what we’ve seen, Rage will very much be in the style of Fallout 3 and the like, using both a first and third-person viewpoint. But unlike the slow-burn of Fallout 3, Rage’s ac on will come in much thicker and faster waves. Rather than taking every step with cau on, Rage will encourage you to get rough, offering some serious heavy weaponry, gun turrets, throwing knives and even an RC car strapped with TNT: that should make a mess…actually it defiantly will, as Rage is gory beyond belief. We’ve seen baddies get pumped with endless rounds of ammo, chucks flying from their bloodied bodies, but who s ll struggle on un l they literally don’t have a leg to stand on. Brutal stuff. The racing Rage promises looks intriguing, as does the inclusion of the vehicles themselves. As Rage will mostly be a sandbox free-roamer, a sprightly buggy could really speed up your adventures, and give you a be er idea of the scale of this apocalyp c land. The racing elements will also feature heavily in the mul player mode, with races and tournaments on the cards. Fingers crossed the vehicles handle well enough to make the racing truly enjoyable, as the last thing we want to see is another Just Cause 2 pile-up… those vehicles were uncontrollable beyond a joke. The tomorrow is never bright in videogame land, and with the coming of Rage this year, it looks like we’re in for the same ruined future. S ll, at least the roads will be clear! Sco Tierney
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CONDUIT 2 PUBLISHER: SEGA DEVELOPER: HIGH VOLTAGE SOFTWARE FORMAT: Wii GENRE: FPS (FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER)
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FOOD CH Crysis 2 is the typical big budget shooter for the top dog console. It’s vast, detailed, expansive, intelligent, drama c: it’s the epitome of top-bracket videogaming. But what about the opposite end of the scale? If Crysis 2 is the caviar of gaming, what’s the happy shopper snack? Well, it’s fair to say that this sequel to one of the Wii’s finest shooters, The Conduit, defiantly has the whiff of Pickled Onion Monster Munch about it. Conduit 2 opens literally as the original tles closes, with the game’s central no-nonsense hunk, Mr. Ford, following his arch enemy, John Adams (*I’m doing the John Adams*…if you get that reference regarding the John Adams dance, you’ve been watching far too much Whose Line Is It Anyway) through a conduit - a type of wormhole. When Ford comes out the conduit and lands on an oil rig in the middle of a stormy Bermuda Triangle, he sees Adams escaping, abandoning the rig and Ford to be destroyed by a vast sea snake. From then, Ford must take chase, all the while guided by his slightly camp sidekick, his AI chum, Prometheus. It’s a rather corny affair, with the ac on bouncing from various loca ons such as London, Washington, The Amazon and even Atlan s, while the plot takes every clichéd direc on in the book. The ac on Conduit 2 serves up is FPS blas ng based, with plenty of weapons and some comically dumb enemies to shoot at. When I say dumb, I really mean dumb! They wander around the levels like lost toddlers in Toys R Us, occasionally hiding behind walls
HAIN, IT’S ALL RATHER SILLY. if the mood takes them, but mostly just standing square on, randomly shoo ng somewhere in your area and squealing for “backup!”. They are rubbish. If you re of these retarded henchmen, though, you can always test your skills against some of your chums in the mul player modes. Nothing beats a room full of buddies bantering the night away, but Conduit 2 is pre y poor both on and offline, even for a Wii shooter. To be plain, it’s just too dull, and lacking in any variety or pace.
corny, and a be er tle for it. When you first hear the appallingly crass dialogue, fired from the lips of someone with the voice of a smug ac on man, it’s easy to sneer. But if you really listen and s ck with Conduit 2, you’ll no ce that it is being deliberately da and sending itself up. It’s like playing through an episode of Police Squad, with everyone playing their parts straight, never acknowledging the blatant ridiculousness of the situa on. If Conduit 2 is nothing, it’s at least a laugh.
As you’d expect from a Wii tle, the controls are very hit and miss. Most of the me they’re just about workable, with the Wii Remote handling the aiming and the Nunchuck controlling your movement. The targe ng is too twitchy for our liking, and meleing an opponent is a nightmare, as when you swing the remote to trigger a punch, you’ll end up facing the floor or staring up to the ceiling. Crouching is also a pain - Ford must have a serious case of piles, as it takes two or more squeezes of the C bu on to eventually force him to crouch. You can opt for the standard two s ck controller if you require, but to be honest it’s not quite as responsive as the mo on controls. Despite their flaws, mo on’s s ll the best way to go.
“TO BE HONEST, THERE’S A LOT TO LIKE HERE - IT’S ALL INCREDIBLY CORNY, AND A BETTER TITLE FOR IT.”
To give Conduit 2 some credit, it is a well designed product, with all the wonderfully styled levels cleverly allowing mul ple route choices throughout, and overall the gameplay itself is always solid if a li le tame. The boss fights are also superb, as are the occasional vehicle sec ons. To be honest, there’s a lot to like here, and as we said, it’s all incredibly
If Conduit 2 was a packet of crisps, it’d be a 10p bag of out of date Space Invaders. Sure, it’s not par cularly good, it’s poorly made in places, and when compared to something of the quality of say Crysis 2, it’s clear to see that Conduit 2 is right down the ladder of FPSs. But, that’s not to say we don’t like Conduit 2, as if you ignore the failings and lower your expecta ons, you’ll be more than happy with this rather da shooter. Sco Tierney PRESENTATION: 16/20 STORY: 16/20 CONTROLS: 14/20 GAMEPLAY: 14/20 DURABILITY: 13/20
OVERALL
73/100