I’ve made a couple of small changes to my site’s branding. These aren’t big things: I have larger changes planned in the next few months. But they address a couple of things that were bothering me, and hopefully won’t make much of a difference to the folks who visit.
I have updated the title of my site and the ‘favicon’ it uses.
Continue reading Site title and favicon change: Welcome to Ubergeek Kelly’s World!
Artificial intelligence as a term conjures up all kinds of science fiction images for most people. Colossus, Terminator, HAL 9000, the Matrix: most of the stories are tales of man’s hubris as a ‘creator’ turning against him.
These are all interesting cautionary tales. And advances in the field of artificial intelligence over the last few years have been amazing. But are we really on the verge of ‘the singularity’? Will our creations become smarter than us and then turn against us? Are these the end times, just before our robot overlords arise?
Continue reading AI in 2024: Debunking Misconceptions and Predicting the Future of Artificial Intelligence
| Title | Crysis |
| Developer | Crytek |
| Type | First Person Shooter |
| Platform(s) | Windows XP/Vista |
| Kelly Score ™ | 95 |
I bought Halo 3 on my XBox 360 shortly after it came out. I didn’t expect much from it- and that’s what I got. The Halo franchise is good, but has never really “wow”ed me.
At its root, I’d say the problem is partly a matter of the story as presented in the game coming across as “weak”, and partly the visual perspective the game plays from. I understand the back story behind the games is very detailed and rich…but the game doesn’t convey that well to me. As for the perspective: they seem to consistently do something with Halo that combines to irritate me (“an endless stream of passages, all alike…”) and give me motion sickness. First person plus acres of similar looking views equals nausea for me. Add these considerations to the fact that I made a mistake and played 9/10ths of the game on “easy” before discovering that you have to play on “normal” to get any achievements…the thought of playing the game through again made me put the DVD away.
Along comes Crysis. This game is as “different” as Far Cry was a few years ago, and that’s not too surprising I guess as both games were developed by Crytek. Note that Far Cry 2 was *not* developed by Crytek, so who knows what that will be like.
Moving back to the topic…Crysis has the bog-standard first person shooter plot. A super-soldier is part of a squad tasked with investigating some strange happenings on an island near China. The cause turns out to be some sort of alien invasion- much gunfire ensues. What makes Crysis “better” than the standard fare has more to do with how the story is presented, how the player is allowed to interact with the world, and how natural the whole process feels.
Continue reading Crysis: a First Person Shooter as it should be done
