2010 Art Review

2010 was a great year. This was a not typical year for books. The list is quite short. This list is what I could remember.

Games

Most, but not all, I finished
3 Cards To Dead Time
Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie: Murder On The Orient Express
Amnesia
Assassin’s Creed 2
Borderlands
Cities XL
Civilization V
Darwinia
Dawn Of Discovery
Democracy 2
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Dragon Age: Origin
Epic Mickey
Europa Universalis III: Heir To The Throne
F1 2010
Fallout: New Vegas
Fifa 11
Gratuitous Space Battles
Harvey Teh Attorney
Kirby: Epic Yarn
Little King Story
Mafia 2
Mass Effect 2
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
New Super Mario Bros
No More Heroes 2
Rock Band Beatles
RUSE
Settlers 6
Settlers 7
Shatter
Super Matio Galaxy 2
The Saboteur
The Secret Files: Tunguska
Thief
X-Com: AI

Movies

2012
Alice In Wonderland
Alien 3
Aliens
Angels & Demons
Avatar
Bounty Hunter
Brüno
Clash Of The Titans
Crazy Heart
Escape From New York
Fantastic Mr Fox
Funny People
Ghost Writer
Gosford Park
Green Zone
Halloween
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Pt 1
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
Hot Tub Time Machine
Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Inception
Inglourious Basterds
Kick Ass
LA Confidential
Law Abiding Citizen
Murder On The Orient Express
Near Dark
Paprika
Paranormal Activity
Prince Of Persia
Princess Mononoke
Pulp Ficiton
Robin Hood
Shanshank Redemption
Sherlock Holmes
Shutter Island
Taxi Driver
Terminator Salvation
The A Team
The Blind Side
The Fisher King
The Silent Warrior
The Sound Of Music
Time Bandits
Twilight
Up
Up In The Air
Where The Wild Things Are
Zombieland

TV Series

Death Note
Fullmetal Alchemist 1-10
House S6
Lost S6
Naruto 1-20
Mad Men S01 S02
Breaking Bad S01

Books

Some of them I used the audiobook
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Butcher’s Hill – Laura Lippman
Dramatica
Screenplay – Syd Field
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
The Blue Ocean Strategy – W. Chan Kim And Renée Mauborgne
The City And The City – China Mieville
The Comic Toolbox: How To Be Funny Even If You’Re Not – John Vorhaus
The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
The Murder On The Links – Agatha Christie
The Naked Face – Sidney Sheldon
Y: The Last Man – DC Comics

2010.12.03

Unity 3D 3

#business #game #review

The new version of the Unity 3D engine was just released and I’m super excited.

All the previous features continue there: great asset integration (several 3D, 2D, and sound file formats), programming scripts, and a great IDE. But now the visual performance is better, even with the new features enabled.

Pre-baked lightning is now included by default. It allows the creation of amazing scenes that most of the lights pre-rendered. It allows the video card to work on other stuff, like shaders. Speed is also better than the inclusion Ambient occlusion package. It analyses the scene/map previously and checked what parts of it will not appear depending on where the camera is and saves the information to be used in real-time. The performance gain is huge.

The animation manager is also a great plus. It seems very much like video editing, with curves and keyframes. It is now very nice to program animations, especially for designers.

UDK (Unreal Development kit) is also gaining a lot of attention from the media, but with a feature set somewhat similar (again, 99% of the game makers are not even capable of using the engine fully), it is quite an irresponsibility to accept the license that makes you give 25% of the profits to Epic (and after paying your distributor, marketing, etc…).

2010.10.21

ePAD

#business # #review

I just bought a Zenithink ePAD tablet. It’s a generic iPad tablet made in China that runs Android as the OS. Please, consider from now on that it costs less than half of the price of the original.

I must say that despite the whole “generic” label, its quite a nice piece of machine. It has a 10 inches screen with resistive touch sensor, which is great to navigate through internet and reader ebooks and pdf. The processor and memory don’t rival Apple but i don’t feel it is big lack, except, of course, games.

The Android used is the 2.1, which is good one. With Google Market fully enabled, its possible to transform it into a quite comprehensive computer. Zenithink US, the american distributor are releasing often versions of its firmware, so its possible that 2.2 “Froyo"or even 2.3 “Gingerbread”.

The only two things that I was disappointed (which I should not be because I knew about them before buying) are the short battery life (4 hours if WiFi is off) and the ridiculous short range of its internal WiFi. If the tablet is not less than 2 meters, it simply not work! It’s better to connect the net cable at this distance! There are several minor things here and there, but hey, as I said at the very beginning: it cost me less than half of the iPad price*. I really believe that tablets are going to be the next world desired toy. Apple is in grand advantage, but this time their advantage for being the first in the market is not to last long. Chinese companies are going to flood the market with generic inexpensive hardware until they acquire experience, scale and courage to face these big guys. This is what takes in trying to create simple and copyable products with a premium status. Apple woke the dragon.

2010.10.15

The City and The City

#book #review

Masterpiece. The crazy style of China Miéville is notorious. He specialized in a science fiction sub-genre called weird fiction, which mixes the real world with some out-of-the-place elements that are common to the characters, somewhat like Lovecraft. Almost all his books are great. But The City and The City is really great.

The story is a noir murder investigation. The main character is the detective Tyador Borlú and the story is first-person point of view. Borlú is a great character, clever but not a Sherlock, and a little sarcastic about his job.

One curious thing is that I “read” the audiobook. In the beginning, I was completely lost because the name of the characters and places: Besźel, Ul Qoma, Tyador Borlú are just unusual.. II had to check the names on the internet to see how they are written. After some time, they become familiar.

{SPOILER ALERT begin}

Its basic concept is fascinating: two cities that occupy the same physical space, at the same time. People that live in one have to “ignore” the existence of the other. “Trespass” is a crime worse than murder. Crazy crazy concept. That is just one element that sticks you to the book.

{SPOILER ALERT end}

As of September 2010, the novel only won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, tied with Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, the BSFA Award for Best Novel of 2009, as well as the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Award and won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.