NBA 2K10 Review

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.

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

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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(click image to enlarge)

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.

More Than 2,000 Movies on a Single DVD Disc

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

PARIS (AFP) - - Scientists unveiled new DVD technology on Wednesday that stores data in five dimensions, making it possible to pack more than 2,000 movies onto a single disc.

A team of researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, used nanotechnology to boost the storage potential nearly 10,000-fold compared to standard DVDs, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

"We were able to show how nanostructured material can be incorporated onto a disc in order to increase data capacity, without increasing the physical size of the disc," said Min Gu, who lead the team.

Discs currently have three spatial dimensions. By using gold nanorods Gu and colleagues were able to add two additional dimensions, one based on the colour spectrum, and the other on polarisation.

Because nanoparticles react to light depending on their shape, it was possible to record information in a range of different colour's wavelengths at the same physical location on the disc.

Current DVDs record in a single colour wavelength using a laser.

The fifth dimension was made possible by polarisation. When light waves were projected onto the disc, the direction of the electric field within the waves aligned with the gold nanorods.

"The polarisation can be rotated 360 degrees," explained co-author James Chon.

"We were, for example, able to record at zero degree polarisation. Then on top of that, were able to record another layer of information at 90 degrees polarisation, without them interfering with each other," he said in a statement.

The researchers are still working out the speed at which the discs can be written on, and say that commercial production is at least five years off.

They have signed an agreement with Korea-based Samsung, one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers.

Last month, US technology giant General Electric said its researchers had developed a holographic disc which can store the equivalent of 100 standard DVDs.

Dual-layer Blu-ray discs hold the equivalent of 10 standard DVDs.

Thermalright CPU | VGA | MEMORY Fanless Cooler

Lots of CPU and VGA cooler are now being released on the market but here are some heatsink/cooler that stand on the crowd. Thermalright is one of the top CPU and VGA cooler on the market, what makes it different is its capability to dissipate heat even without fan... you heard it right "without fan". That means that you can have a quiet and 0dB environment without sacrificing your computers temperature. Here are some pictures using Thermalright heatsink for each component.

click on the images for higher resolution

CPU: Thermalright IFX-14 with 120mm fan and backside heatsink
MEMORY: 2 Thermalright HR-07 type L
VIDEOCARDS: 2 Thermalright VGA heatsink with fan
(fans are optional)

CPU: Thermalright HR-01 plus with backside heatsink
MEMORY: 2 Thermalright HR-07 type L and 2 HR-07 type H
VIDEOCARD: Thermalright VGA heatsink
MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET: 2 Thermalright chipset heatsink

CPU: Thermalright IFX-14 heatsink
MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET: 2 Thermalright chipset heatsink

CPU: Thermalright ULTRA-120A heatsink
MEMORY: 2 Thermalright HR-07

not quite sure if this casing is with Thermalright but its a very nice modification anyway...

But that's not all, Thermalright included attacheable clips so you can add any 80mm fan for their VGA heatsink and any 120mm fan for CPU heatsink (see pictures below), several small heatsink for VGA-memory/VRAM are also included together with installation manual for easy referrence. Thermalright also released copper-type heatsink for VGA and CPU.

Thermalright TRUE-copper heatsink for CPU

Thermalright V2 VGA cooler (copper-type heatsink)
80mm fan add-on for VGA heatsink

VGA: VRAM heatsink are also available


Backside heatsink are also available for CPU and VGA making sure that no heat can escape for both (pictures below).

Thermalright HR-11 VGA Backside heatsink

Thermalright IFX-10 CPU Backside heatsink


Top-10 PC cooler by frostytech
click on the image for higher resolution

Using Intel CPU

Using AMD CPU
Click here to see the complete review on Top-10 by frostytech

For More info, visit Thermalright official website

Tekken 6 on PSP

Found this on the net... and good news to all gamers!

The high definition and #1 anticipated fighting game Tekken-6 on PS3 and xbox360 was announced today by NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. to be released and get squished for portable Playstationing. Yes, you heard it right... Tekken-6 will be released on PSP.

The PSP system version will be essential companion for players who want their fighting skills on-the-go. Unbridled vengeance will be served worldwide this Fall when each version of the game delivers pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat action with bone-jarring punches and gut-wrenching grapples.

Tekken-6 will not only contain all the explosive action but also feature additional stages, content, items, and an ad-hoc multiplayer mode. Fighting amongst friends is encouraged as players can battle wirelessly against each other using original or fan favorite characters. Rounding out its list of impressive features is the return of the “Ghost” Infrastructure mode, which allows players to upload their “ghost” character data and download others’ from the Internet onto their PSP system. When players have reached the height of their TEKKEN fighting skills, they will be able to see how they stack up against others through the game’s network support.

Tekken-6 will be optimized for the PSP system. It means that Tekken-6 graphics/features will be adjusted to fit the PSP while maximizing the possible graphics that PSP console can support. Things will be adjusted such as...

-64-bit for PS3/xbox360 will be converted to 32-bit or 24-bit for PSP
-smoke, glare and lighting effects will be reduced
-background details will be adjusted in some ways like removing or reducing some particles
-character details will be altered as well while maintaining the stunning look
-resolution is also reduced to fit PSP screen

I know most of the gamers are dying to see Tekken-6 on PSP so here are some screenshots from PSP courtesy of IGN :)

Rocket Launched by Korea

Rockets has been part of technology for decades and commonly used by military and outer space research. North Korea stated that the rocket launched from the Musudan-ri launch site in the north-east last 4-04-09 was for "experimental communications satellite", it was a three-stage rocket blast off. The rocket reached the Tokyo, Japan airspace.

North Korea clearly violated the Security Council resolution 1718 (adopted in October 2006) as per Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. US, Japan and South Korea suspect the launch was a cover for a long-range missile test.

UN Security Council has approved a Japanese request for an emergency session and meeting will surely take place to prevent the spread of these weapons. Even China and Russia called on all sides to act while UK pressure North Korea to stop all missile-related activity.

South Korean official told Yonhap news agency that the rocket did appear to be carrying a satellite but defense and intelligence officials assessment will still take place as per White House.

As per news, International talks involving the US, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China on an aid-for-nuclear disarmament deal are currently stalled.

Here are some reports...

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DirectX9, DirectX10 and DirectX11

Microsoft already released directx10 but only for WindowsVISTA since DirectX10 is built from ground up, on a totally different architecture. They started with a clean slate which means that more than half of the games and applications you used to run under XP with good old DirectX9 simply don’t work anymore with DirectX10 installed.

Directx is a collective name for a programming interface, Direct3D, Direct Draw, DirectSound etc, and is used to handle tasks in multimedia applications. Mainly used with video games, basically how well a video game looks.

If you want to fully utilize the power of directx10...you need to buy a new graphic card that support directx10 (as far as i know Nvidia 8800 series/ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT or higher) and obviously, you also need to buy a new OS "windowsVISTA" if your still using windowsXP. Oh and by the way...buy new games and applications that already support/utilize directx10. Sounds like we're going to spend a lot of cash just to catch up with directx10.


Here's some pictures taken from games regarding the difference of Dx9 and Dx10...

FLIGHT SIMULATOR X
with DirectX9












with DirectX10












AGE OF CONAN
with DirectX9















with DirectX10















Sample Videos from games:
CRYSIS with DirectX9 vs DirectX10


COMPANY OF HEROES with DirectX9 vs DirectX10


If you have windowsXP it stops at DirectX9.0c. DirectX10 is NOT backwards compatible as they claim at Microsoft. People call it "artificially" backwards compatible which means it will only "emulate" DirectX9, but that’s not the real step back since it’s built on a totally different architecture.
It will take years for most gamers to catch up and take advantage of DirectX10 since Microsoft excluded XP and Xbox360. Bad move for their marketing strategy and I hope Microsoft will realize that they needs to work on the backward compatibility issue since its a big deal especially with end-users.

Here's some benchmark from the game ‘Lost Planet’ DirectX9 vs DirectX10



























































More info about DirectX10



There is an on-going project for DirectX10 to run on WindowsXP which is called ALKY PROJECT by an independent group. Its already on ALPHA version and it is said to be working for some users. So if this group pull this one out for XP, then we can use those money to upgrade videocard instead of buying a new Operating System...hahaha!

About DirectX11, Microsoft will release it for Windows7...hopefully this one will have better review when it comes to backward compatibility. For more info about DirectX11, click here.