NBA 2K10 Review

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I know most of the game enthusiast are blown by the good graphics and gameplay that NBA 2K9 provided, and after taking over last year game charts... 2K Sports is now back with one of the most anticipated game of the year, the NBA 2K10. First thing I noticed was the game menu, it was presented with different animation and some are NBA highlights :) Pretty neat right?

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Game Introduction on the court are appealing as well, each team and their star player/s has their own style which makes it more fun to watch... like when Shaq shoot his teammates like bowling pins, vujacic giving Koby a hug, Dwight throw some robot moves and Lebron playing with some hand powder.

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Now let's proceed to the gameplay. 2K Sports added a lot of signature moves and style to each player that makes 2K10 the best basketball game on PC and other console. I've been playing 2K9 a lot but the thing I noticed with 2K10 is the tighter defense... you wont get to the basket that easy using spin move or cross-over like in 2K9 which is nice with 2K10. There are times that players are also interacting with people on the sideline after a hard drive to the basket. Alley-oop, dunks/follow-up dunks are also eye-popping and fun to watch, especially when the commentators/host goes crazy about it providing more realistic gameplay. Wide variety of camera angles and occassional news around the league are also added to the game. Regarding with Online features, they adopted most of the 2k9 features.

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2K Sports introduce "MY PLAYER" mode in this game. In "MY PLAYER" mode, you'll be able to create your own player by adjusting from physical attributes to skills/moves you want your player to have. As you play through it, your player will be invited by different teams for assessment. The skills improvement of your player will depend on how you pass, how you choose your shot selection and steals... generally said, its how you play. If any of the team that invited your player saw some potentials, you'll be on the NBA court in no time... but of course, you'll start as bench player like everybody else. Simply put, this is your CAREER MODE.

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Also, 2K Sports added a "Reel Maker" feature, a tool where you can create or edit your own Reel/Highlights from your saved replays and share it with your friends by uploading.

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The few glitch that i noticed on this game was, some of the replay (like the replay on "JORDAN player of the game" after a match-up), the background were off and out of sync as the camera zoom-in and out... so the result, the audience are bigger than the players and players are out of the court :( Check some snapshots I took below.

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Other than that, all replays are gorgeously fine. Second glitch is when the referee took 3x handing-over the ball for an inbound pass before it was caught by the player. Though you rarely see this glitch, I found it annoying sometimes. I think by this time 2K Sports has already released a patch for the said glitches.

So considering all this, I'll give 2K10 a 9 out of 10 rating ^_^
This game really is worth a try... a good job 2K Sports.

Video Conversion / Converting Tool

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Sorry for the delay, been busy for the past few weeks. Ok, lets proceed.

I'll introduce you to one of the best video conversion tool. Based on my opinion and review, this is simply the best so far... the ImTOO MPEG Encoder Platinum. What i like about it is that it's user-friendly, easy to use and it support wide variety of video and audio file-types. You can convert any video optimized for your DVD/VCD player, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, Mobile Phone, PS3, PSP, Windows Mobile, HD Video, Xbox/Xbox360, Portable Media (Zune, Creative Zen Vision, iRiver PMP-100, Archos) even Pictures and Animation. You can easily select what type of video output and for what player (see image below).

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This Software also support multi-Core CPU which makes the video conversion much quicker. In my case, I have a Dual-Core CPU (see image below).

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You can even set how many CORE/s you want to use. Lets assume that you have a Quad-Core CPU and you only want to utilize 3 of them so you can use the remaining 1 to another application you are running. Go to "Tools" button, select "Preferences" then choose "Convert" tab. Set the CORE value to 3 (see image below).

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Another good feature of ImTOO MPEG Encoder Platinum is the clip tool... you can choose one or more segments, or even several crossed segments, and then convert them to individual file respectively, or merge them to one file. Moreover, you can also convert video file to various audio formats. You can convert a portion/video to any of the ff:

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***General Video***
ASF - Advanced Streaming Format
AVI - Audio-Video Interleaved
DivX Movie
DVD - MPEG2 PS Format
DV - Digital Video Format
MOV - QuickTime
MP4 - MPEG-4 Video
MPEG-1 Movie
MPEG-2 Movie
MPEG-4 AVC Video Format
RM - RealVideo
Super VideoCD - MPEG2 PS Format
Video CD - MPEG2 PS Format
VOB - MPEG2 PS Format
XviD Movie

***General Audio***
AAC - Advanced Audio Coding
AC3 - Dolby Digital AC-3
SUN AU Format
M4A - MPEG-4 Audio
MP2 - MPEG Layer-2 Audio
MP3 - MPEG Layer-3 Audio
OGG - Ogg Vorbis Audio
RA - RealAudio
WAV - Waveform Audio
WMA - Windows Media Audio
AIFF - Audio Interchange File Format

***iPod***
iPod (320x240) MPEG-4 Excellent
iPod (320x240) MPEG-4 Mini
iPod (320x240) MPEG-4 Normal
iPod touch MPEG-4
iPod touch MPEG-4 480P
iPod touch MPEG-4 Extra
iPod touch MPEG-4 Wide Screen
iPod touch MPEG-4 (320x240)
iPod touch MPEG-4 (480x320)
iPod Video2 for TV
iPod Video2 (640x480) MPEG-4 Normal
iPod Video2 (640x480) MPEG-4 Mini
iPod Video2 (640x480) MPEG-4 Excellent

***iPhone***
iPhone MPEG-4 480P
iPhone MPEG-4 Extra
iPhone MPEG-4 Video
iPhone MPEG-4 Wide Screen
iPhone MPEG-4 (320x240)
iPhone MPEG-4 (480x320)

***Apple TV***
Apple TV h264 (320x240)
Apple TV h264 480P (640x480)
Apple TV h264 720P (1280x720)
Apple TV MPEG-4 High 480P (640x480)
Apple TV MPEG-4 Normal 480P (640x480)
Apple TV MPEG-4 Low 480P (640x480)

***Mobile Phone***
3GPP - 3rd Generation Partnership Project
3GPP2 - 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2
BlackBerry AMR Audio
BlackBerry 3GP Video
BlackBerry AVI Video
BlackBerry MPEG-4 Video

***PS3***
PS3 Video 1080P MPEG-4
PS3 Video 720P MPEG-4
PS3 Video 480P Excellent MPEG-4
PS3 Video 480P MPEG-4

***PSP***
PSP - PSP MPEG-4 Video
PSP AVC Video Format
PSP AVC Video (480x720)
PSP MPEG-4 Video - Excellent Quality
PSP MPEG-4 Video - Minimal Size
PSP Video(480P) MPEG-4

***Portable Media***
Zune MPEG-4 Video
Zune MPEG-4 AVC Video Format
Zune WMV - Windows Media Video
Creative Zen Vision Video
iRiver PMP-100 Video
Archos AV500/GMini402 Video
Archos AV700 Video

***Windows Mobile***
Dell Axim X51 Video
Dell Axim X51v Video
General Pocket PC Video
General Pocket PC-Excellent Quality Video
General Pocket PC-Minimal Size Video
HP iPAQ hw6500 series Video
HP iPAQ hx2000/rx3000/rx1900 series Video
HP iPAQ hx4700 series Video

***Picture and Animation***
FLV - Flash Video Format
Picture - BMP Format
Picture - GIF Animation Format
Picture - JPEG Format
Picture - PNG Format
SWF - SWF Format

***HD Video***
HD ASF Video
HD AVI Video
HD H.264 Video
HD Quick Time Video
HD MPEG2 Video(*.mpeg)
HD MPEG2 Video(*.mpg)
HD MPEG2 TS Video
HD MPEG4 Video
HD H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
HD MPEG4 TS Video
HD VOB Video
HD WMV Video

***Xbox Video***
Xbox MCE HD WMV Video
Xbox360 HD H.264 Video
Xbox360 HD MPEG4 Video
Xbox360 HD VOB Video
Xbox360 MCE HD ASF Video
Xbox360 MCE HD AVI Video
Xbox360 MCE HD MPEG2 Video(*.mpeg)
Xbox360 MCE HD MPEG2 Video(*.mpg)
Xbox360 MPEG2 1080pTV Movie
Xbox360 WMV 1080pTV Movie
Xbox360 MPEG4 Video
Xbox360 WMV Movie
Xbox360 H.264 Video
Xbox360 MCE AVI Video
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For advance users, you can set more video properties like interlace (see below). Otherwise, leave it on default settings.

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