Saturday, June 26, 2004

So that's the end of England's EURO 2004 campaign. At least the French are out too, along with a lot of other big names. I thought Greece looked dangerous in the group stage and was glad England didn't face them. I think we really would have struggled. I still would have preferred Spain. Oh well. Now we can sing "40 years of hurt" in the World Cup - Germany 2006!
In game news I've just got Driv3r on the X-Box today. I was really disappointed. The production of the FMV is pretty high, but the in-game stuff is still quite basic. Character animation is somewhat laughable. Mouths still don't move during speech, (and they don't move much in the FMV either, which looks odd.) The car physics is still the main draw though, which makes the driving sections quite fun, but the appalling 3rd person camera control makes the on-foot shooting areas tedious. The maps seem fairly faithful to the real world. I managed to find a hotel I've stayed in on a trip to Miami, along with the shopping centre and Hard Rock Cafe nearby (labeled the Miami Stars Cafe in the game.) Despite my initial disappointment, I have still been playing for a few hours and progressed onto Nice which has a much tighter, complex road layout, which could be fun. So either this game is addictive fun despite it's flaws, or I'm just stubborn! I wouldn't have thought I will return to this title once I have finished it, but I have yet to make a stunt movie which could kill half an hour if I were bored.
Finally, in a website update, I have added the ability to choose the theme you are looking at on this site. In the top left of the page is a drop down box with a list of different themes. Pick one and all pages on this site will be set to that theme. You can change your mind at any time, or stick to Random to sample them all eventually. It also makes it easier for me to add new themes, so look out for new additions to the list very now and again. I have 5-10 more ideas in the works already.

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