Gunpoint Preview: Best Indie Game Of 2012?

I’ve been beta-testing a new game recently and it’s too good not to share – you know, in a quick review, that is, not the actual game.  Gunpoint is a “game about rewiring things and punching people” according to creator Tom Francis. Which actually sums up the cunningly simple idea behind this superhero spy game that equally rewards thinking and aggression.  Not to mention it gives one a peek at the wit baked into this indie game.

So here’s the premise: you are spy tasked with retrieving vital info from a secure data terminal.  You are armed with your basic Spiderman spy gear that lets you leap and fall great distances as well as climb walls. Cool but the fun part is that you also get a crosslink device that can rewire lights, security doors, elevators, surveillance cameras and more.  As an example, you could wire the elevator door to the lights on a level with a guard so that your arrival kills the light and send the guard over to the light switch while you slip by undetected…  Or sneak up to pounce on him from behind and punch him in the face! The choice is yours. The vanguard hacks is really helpful for the ones looking to get hacks and go forward in the game.

Here’s another example from fellow beta-tester and reviewer Will:

I’m standing at the window of a building. Across a small alleyway stands another building, with a guard, above me, looking out. I’m safe now, but when I move my cursor into the space between the buildings, it turns red, telling me that I’ll be seen as soon as I step (or leap) outside. He’s in pouncing range, and I’ve upgraded my leap enough to propel me through the window, but there’s no chance I’ll cross the distance before he puts a bullet in me. I could shoot HIM, maybe, but I’ve still got objectives left in the level, and no time to clear them before the sniper shows up, blocking the exit.

I slip into Crosslink mode, look at my options. I’m in luck! The switch behind me is on the same circuit (devices on different circuits can’t be linked together, usually) as the lights on his floor. I hook my switch to his lights, exit Crosslink, and flick it. Lights go out, he turns around to turn them back on, and as soon as his back is turned, I pounce, crashing through the window and slamming my fist into his face. Awesome.

But those are simple examples.  You can chain together several devices to cause some pretty creative mayhem.  Think rube goldberg machine and you get the idea.  The great thing about Gunpoint is the number of “i wonder if…” ideas that actually work.  Spoiler Sentence: Watching a guard raise his gun at my head only to trigger a door that knocks him unconscious instead of tragically ending my illustrious spy career: priceless.

Pricing and release date have yet to be set, but trust me: you want this game.  It achieves an excellent balance of clever puzzles (for you) and traps (for them) with enough superhero action to feel like a real spy.

UPDATE: After many delays, Gunpoint is now available for just $9!

My Kindle Fire!

Got my K-Fire today! Yes that’s what all the cool kids will be calling the Kindle Fire after today. ;)

So far I have to agree with the need for a bit more polish on the software side. A few quick things I’ve noticed so far:

  • WiFi connection seems to come a go a bit (tho part of that is my flaky Samsung 4G hotspot).
  • Speaking of 4G the Silk browser does seem to speed things up noticeably over this non-cable speed connection.
  • The auto-brightness is maddening.  Sitting at my desk and holding it steady it kept changing up and down.  Thankfully you can turn the auto off.
  • The web browser setup wastes valuable screen space.  I’d rather the menu bar at the bottom was somehow integrated into the top.  Or give me the option to turn off the top bar… 7″ is nice compared to my iPhone but it doesn’t include extra space.
  • The same goes for the home button in general… I think it would have made more sense to stick it next to the YourName’s Kindle.  First it’s always there so less tapping the screen to bring up the hidden home button.  Second it seems like most of the navigation on the fire is a top menu bar – so why keep the default android home position on the bottom?

Of course these can all be fixed with a software update that I’m sure is in the works.  So Fire is good now and here’s hoping it hits great by Christmas.

Note: Sorry about the crappy images – I haven’t figured out how to screen capture on this thing yet…

Roku XDS Review

roku-xds-1080p-video-streaming-device.jpgroku-xds-streaming-player-1080p.jpgAfter owning a Roku for about a month, I thought I’d post a brief review for those considering the Cadillac option.  I opted for the XDS for the ability to play movies from a USB as well as Hulu & Netflix. (Or when Comcast decides it’s internet should go down because it’s a Tuesday…)

Setup is simple but somewhat slow with needing logins and device codes for every channel you add.  You’ll want your laptop handy when setting up your Roku to somewhat speed up the process.  But its not that bad, as most people are only really going to care about like 6 of the channels.  I really don’t need another way to get short, random, useless internet videos in front of me (sorry indie channels).  In fact, I might pay you to keep them away from me.  ;)

The real difference for XDS over the other Rokus is the USB. I have been moving my large (legally obtained) movie collection from DVD to computer files and thought that would suppliment the streaming options. Unfortunately, I can’t get the Roku to even read any of my several flash drives.  I have tried reformatting them every way I know how – including some random Western Digital tool suggested on the Nets. Since the Roku won’t recognize the flash drives, I can’t see how movies from USB play (if at all). So at this point, I paid $40 extra for a feature that doesn’t even sort-of work – even with an evening dedicated to making it happen.

Engadget in its Roku review claimed the USB option would come out of Beta “this fall” which seemed optimistic at the time. I figured end of the year would be a good target for Roku what with 100,000 Rokus getting unwrapped around that time.  Sadly, the year is ending without so much as hopeful PR statement from Roku.

Sure the Netflix streaming works great but you can say that for a thousand other products today, so I wouldn’t buy the more expensive Rokus until the extra features move out of “coming soon” status.

Lenovo Mini Wireless Keyboard Review

lenovo-remote.jpgI just got my hands on the new mini keyboard from Lenovo today.  Targeted at HTPC setups, this wireless wonder solves the problem of needing full PC controls in a remote form factor.  But does it work as well as one would hope?  Mostly.

Overall

The overall feel of the device is nice.  It fits in your hand as you would expect from  a well made remote.  The underside is a soft matte plastic that I wish they had continued on the top of the device.  The shiny black plastic around the trackball isn’t nearly as supple and quickly accumulates fingerprints (see pic below).  At 126 grams with batteries the device is noticeably lighter than a Tivo remote (164 grams).  The fact that you don’t need a driver disk is another bonus.

Wireless

The Lenovo N5901 uses 2.4G wireless promises up to 10 meters of range, and in my testing I had no problems at 23 feet or even at 27 feet through a wall.  At 35 feet and through two walls the controls would work sometimes. Needless to say, if your media room is larger than this thing’s range – you can afford a much more elaborate solution.  The fact that the micro transmitter fits inside the battery compartment is a nice touch especially if you are using this for on-the-road power points instead of sofa surfing.

Keyboard

Levovo is famous for keyboard quality and this mini is no exception.  The keys are straight off any good texting device, and provide solid feedback when thumbing away.  However, since this “media remote” is targeted HTPC use, I would have like to see back lighting on the keys.  Which would come in handy during dimly lit movies.  The media buttons across the top are a welcome addition.  The orange button launches your “my computer” window – good for easy DVD access or an extra HD filled with media.

Trackball

This is the most disappointing part of the otherwise top notch package.  The trackball seems cheaper than the rest of the device.  The feedback is just a tad off.  It can both seem too jumpy when clicking a link and too slow when moving around the screen.  Again this isn’t a huge issue, it is just not a smooth as you would expect.  Another problem is that trackball is too tall. (see pic below)  It is too easy when right clicking to hit the track ball and move the curser. (Lefties would have the opposite problem)  A slightly larger trackball sitting lower probably would have reduced this problem.  And the Lenovo eraser nub may have been the best solution.  Though it may have been price considerations that left that off the table.

lenovo-remote-back.jpg lenovo-remote-finger-prints.jpg lenovo-remote-side.jpg

Conclusion

Is the Mini Wireless Keyboard perfect? No. However considering the other options on the market, you’d be hard pressed to find a better solution anywhere near the $60 list price. Watch for a coupon from ThinkPads.com and it becomes an easy decision.

Alienware m11x Initial Review

m11x-mini.jpgAfter playing with -er- using the m11x for over a week, I can safely say that this is one of the best 11″ notebooks ever created.  I still have more testing to complete because multiple styled battery tests are not only boring – they are time consuming.  However, I feel like I have enough good data -beyond my first impressions– to help those in the market for a portable yet powerful notebook to make a better decision.  I’ve included comparisons to my desktop, Adamo, and netbook to give you a good feel for how this pocket rocket performs.   Below are the specs for my machine:

  • 1.3GHz Intel SU7300 (800MHz FSB, 3MB Cache) overclockable to 1066MHz FSB (1.73GHz)
  • Nvidia GeForce GT 335M Discrete Graphics (1GB GDDR3) with switchable Intel GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics
  • 4GB PC3-8500 DDR3 (2 x 2GB)
  • 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
  • 11.6″ WXGA WideHD LED Backlit display (1366×768)
  • Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
  • 802.11b/g/n, 10/100 LAN
  • 3-in-1 card reader
  • 8-Cell Li-ion 64WH battery, 65W Power Supply
  • Dimensions: 11.25″ x 9.19″ x 1.29″
  • Weight: 4.48lbs

First off, let’s address the 3D Marks issue. Engadget reported a “3DMark06 score [of] 5593. That’s significantly lower than the ‘over 6,100’ Alienware claims…” What they missed however was the ability to overclock the m11x in the bios.  A super simple procedure of F2-ing to reach the bios and changing the”OverClock” setting (under Advanced) from “Disabled” to “Enabled” handles overclocking the CPU from 1.3Ghz to 1.73Ghz.  This 33% speed increase is quite noticeable and is required to hit (and exceed) Dell’s claimed 06 marks.  Note: using the overclock option almost ensures the fan will be active in Intel graphics mode.  Using the GPU will kick the fan on as well, but you already knew that going into any gaming laptop.

3D Marks 06
C2D 1.3 Ghz Intel 674
C2D 1.73 Ghz Intel 737
C2D 1.3 Ghz Nvidia 5605
C2D 1.73 Ghz Nvidia 6429

Real world gaming is always the most grueling part of any review, but I suffered through it for you.  ;)  This thing can actually play Crysis at native resolution.  Stock CPU, it can handle the low settings without problems at 1355×768 and looks quite nice doing it.  Overclocking allows a bit more eye candy but not enough to enable full medium settings.  Less ridiculously intensive games do much better at native resolution:

  • Unreal Tournament runs fine at default (high) settings.
  • Far Cry 2 can be played at medium settings when overclocked.
  • Call of Duty 2 can be played at maximum settings which includes an in game 4x AA and generally see between 50-80 FPS stock or 60-90 FPS overclocked.
  • The original Call of Duty is old enough that it can’t support the native wide screen res and forces you to drop back to 1024×768.  With max setting and nHancer set 4×4 AA and 16x AF you generally get 70-200 FPS without overclocking but intense action with large explosions can cause a dip down to 30 FPS at these extreme settings.

The overclocking is noticeable in CPU intensive tasks such as video encoding or calculating prime numbers.  I ran wPrime several times after a reboot and took the best time.

wPrime 32M in Seconds
i7 Core 3.21Ghz (Desktop) 8.97
m11x C2D 1.73Ghz 55.7
Adamo C2D 1.4Ghz 62.4
m11x C2D 1.3Ghz 68.2
Asus Atom 1.8Ghz 125.7
Asus Atom 1.6Ghz 134.4

Besides CPU, the other common bottleneck in ultralight computers is often slow hard drives.  SSDs can greatly improve this area not only in data transfer speeds but also in access time.  A note on the HD Tune results for the m11x that was not overclocked:  You will notice the abysmal 7MB/sec minimum.  Running the test 3 times I got the spikes of slowness 2 out of the 3 times.  Now those spikes will happen on not-completely-sanitized machines when the antivirus or some other background process grabs a few clock cycles or hit’s the disk momentarily.  So they are to be expected and should not be inferred to mean bad, bad things.  You will notice this very low min did little to change the average speed of the drive compared to the overclocked tests.  However, after using the m11x for a week, I can attest to the real world reflection of these results.  The m11x for the most part is adequately  zippy even considering the fact that I’m accustomed to my ultra-fast workstation.  However at times it seems the slower CPU and HD bog down at the same time and performance grinds to a halt for an agonizing second or two.  Consider your normal notebook taking a “union break” and pretending it’s a netbook for a few seconds and then returning to normal.  Perceived speed is relative but the difference is there even compared against itself.  The good news is that I have not yet seen this happen while the CPU is overclocked.  Granted you can still overtax the CPU easily with intensive tasks but that is a different matter.  OC’d it doesn’t seem to have the odd random slowdown.

Min

MB/sec

Max

MB/sec

Ave

MB/sec

Access

in millisec

Intel 2nd Gen SSD 205.7 236.9 230.6 0.1
Adamo OEM SSD 97.0 137.5 103.1 0.3
2x WD Black RAID 0 (speed) 111.4 218.4 179.4 11.6
WD Green 40.2 100.0 73.5 13.3
m11x overclocked (7200rpm) 43.2 102.1 77.8 18.1
m11x (7200rpm) 7.4 101.0 76.3 19.2
Asus 1000ha 1.5 57.8 34.4 19.7

The chart above is arranged by access time as that often is a more noticeable in how fast a computer feels.  Fast transfer rates can help during an a program install or copying a large video file.  Fast access time helps everything – especially launching applications where many small files must be brought together to load the program.  For this “speed feel” test Gimp was used as it is a big slow program to load which gives a nice worse case test and makes it easier to time with a stop watch.  The test was repeated several times and the best time was taken.  However only the first launch after each reboot was used as after that cache skews the results (for instance a 2nd launch following the first for both the Adamo and the m11x completed in under 8 seconds when caching all but eliminated hard drive speeds from the equation)

Gimp Load Time in Seconds
i7 Core Desktop, Intel SSD 2.8
Adamo C2D 1.4Ghz, OEM SSD 10.0
m11x C2D 1.73Ghz, 7200 HD 15.9
m11x C2D 1.3Ghz, 7200 HD 18.4
Asus Atom 1.8Ghz, 5400 HD 25.4

Even with the faster 7200rpm HD option from Dell and a faster CPU clock speed, the Adamo’s even faster SSD allows for a significantly zippier user experience in Windows.  Dell offers an SSD upgrade but unfortunately it’s $570.  Now the good news is that it is 256GB which is large as SSDs go.  The bad news is that OEM SSD – as seen in my Adamo – don’t tend to live up to the Intel benchmark of SSD speed.  However, drives are not that difficult to upgrade, so you can always grab a top performing SSD later and spread out the payment pain a little as well.

Finally battery life.  I am still running a battery of tests (heh heh) but I can report that the battery is quite strong.  In fact, I believe that the majority of the weight difference between this machine and other “thin and lights” is actually battery weight not the GPU or fans. At the request of my friend Brad over at liliputing, I have run battery tests on HD video use first.  Interestingly, the results are almost identical with the Core2Duo running stock or overclocked. Apparently the power draw of the CPU running 60-80% is the same as the CPU being overclocked and running 50-70%.  The back light was way too dark at the lowest setting but was quite nice at the 2nd of 8 setting so it was used.  Although the differences between the rest of brightness levels does not seem to be very much, especially considering there are only 7 (not dark) settings. Wifi was on and sound was at 30% for this test. As the m11x has no CD/DVD drive, an iTunes HD video seemed a likely candidate for quick and easy video on the go.

  • iTunes HD Video Battery Test: 10% warning with 22min windows estimate at 3:32 or 3hr 54min total
  • iTunes HD Video Battery Test (OC’d): 10% warning with 24min windows estimate at 3:31 or 3hr 55min total

Or enough time to watch 6 Psych episodes with time to spare.  From general use, I can also tell you’ll see 2+ hours of gaming and 6+ hours of light, gentle use.  I flesh will out those numbers with further testing and include them in my complete review in the days ahead.

m11x-and-1000ha.jpg m11x-and-adamo.jpg thin.jpg

Until then let me just say that the balance between power (CPU & GPU), portability, and battery life in the m11x makes it quite a compelling offering.  It is well worth the extra money over the many CULV Thin and Lights out there.  As it is alone in it’s offering of an overclocked CPU and a best in class GPU (true mid-range for gamers), it is easy to call this the most powerful 11″ notebook you can buy.  For the power user wanting a bit more, an upgrade to an speedy (non OEM) SSD could make this thing really rock at a still cheaper than some price.