I want one of these

Boxee is a pretty swish media-computer type front end, spun off of the excellent XMBC project.

Now Boxee comes in a box, and it looks hella cool. Apple TV can get to.. well, it can go away.

How cool is that? It plays just about everything through HDMI in full 1080p (assuming the content is hi-def, obviously) including, alledgedly, BBC iPlayer and assorted other on demand services. It also does an arse load of other clever stuff, which I'll let you read about on their own site.

It's coming pretty soon, and price looks like being about £200. That's twice as much as the apple TV, but it does more than twice as much stuff.

I can't wait.

boxee.tv and blog.boxee.tv

Free Prince of Persia loving, even on Windows 7

*slam* dulununu nuuuuuuu

Hot on the heels (ish) of the free Syndicate love, another absolute classic that you 100% need to rediscover or, if you are under the age of 20 something, play for the first time and realise how much more care went into games design before everything was just a slightly different version of Gears of War.

The original Prince of Persia (POP) is a beautiful game. For it's day, and even now, the simple graphics are really very attractive and serve the game perfectly. The game story and mechanics are equally simple and yet frustratingly challenging and addictive. You are there to save the princess. Yup that's it. Kinda like Mario. There is just one 'button' which if you weren't a veteran or didn't have a manual could take a while to find (I remember when I first got the game I must have pressed every key to find it).

It's shift. There. You owe me.

Pretty much everything is done with the shift key. Movement is, shockingly, controlled with the arrow cursors - left and right should be obvious, jumping is up and ducking is down. Running jumps and funny little crouch hops can be achieved with combinations thereof. Shift is used for clinging onto ledges, taking single steps (very useful for hazards, you'll work it out) and for the marvellously basic sword fights. Pressing up in a swordfight will block, pressing down will usually make you die (try it). Up also enters the end of stage doors. You should figure out quite early that the pushplates on the floor open gates and doors; each end of stage door has one of these plates, but not always on the same screen.

Links to files:

abandonia.com/en/games/10/Prince+of+Persia

dosbox.com

This game works 'out of the box' in combination with DOSBOX. Follow all the directions in the Syndicate tutorial to install and set up your DOSBOX options first (minus the specific parts about 'synd.bat'). Extract the game files to PRINCE under your dos games folder. Run by changing directory to PRINCE and the command to start the game is, yes, PRINCE.

cd prince [enter]
prince [enter]

The game is fairly unique in that it's designed to be played straight through in one go! You have one hour (real time) to save your beloved princess. If you don't make it, you fail. Start again. Unforgiving, yes, but brilliant as well. You have unlimited 'lives' but die and you will start at the beginning of the stage (the big blue ornate door).

Enjoy, and be sure to support the awesome people over at abandonia.com!



PS whilst this game is basically an hour long see-if-you-can-complete-it affair, it does apparently have a save/load option within it's key set.

CTRL+Q - Quit Game
CTRL+A - Restart Level
CTRL+R - Restart Game
CTRL+S - Sound On/Off
CTRL+G – Save Game
CTRL+L SHIFT+L – Load Game
ESC - Pause Game

edit: except saving doesn't seem to work in DOSBOX. Will find out how!
Ah-ha! Fixed. Told you shift did everything.

Hack your PS3 for 18 bucks

Not that I am condoning this in any way, I hasten to say, some clever (and perhaps a bit naughty) people have released instructions for an $18 ps3 hack.

Hot on the heels of the announcement that Sony had won an injunction against a number of companies selling pre-programmed USB dongles containing the hack code, the programmers behind the exploit have released the code into the wild, allowing anyone with the wherewithal to fillet the gaming hardware's legendarily uncooperative OS.

In fact, anyone with around $18 to spend on a USB reference board such as the one offered by Teensy (it's currently sold out... we wonder why?) and the ability to follow the instructions offered by Github will soon be playing homebrew games and using unsigned apps to their heart's content.

Requires a little bit of geekiness. But if you didn't have any of that you probably wouldn't even be reading this.

thinq.co.uk

New iPod nano

There comes a time when things really don't need to get any smaller, and I think that time has been reached. Any smaller and this is going to be impossible to use, hell most Americans thumbs are going to be too fat to touch less than 3 buttons at once already.

Decent holding, but a clear amateur. One for the future, maybe.

The size of this thing seems to have been constrained only by the size of the dock connector, so it's fortunate that the connector is reasonably wide. Suggested prices are $149 for 8GB or $179 for 16GB models.

The nano is now almost the same size as the screen-less shuffle, meaning persuading the person you bought the gift for that the shuffle is better 'because it's so much smaller' is no longer a valid excuse for saving all that precious extra money.

Shrewd move, Apple.

engadget.com

New apple TV is 'king small

Excellent thing holding.

Apple, employers of the world's finest hand models, have released their new ridicu-bloody-small Apple TV. Apparently about the size of a couple of fag packets, it has lost a few features (composite out is gone, but I'm sure an HDMI adapter could solve that) but is a pretty tempting streamer at it's new price of 99 quid.

The only annoying thing (other than having to admit that an Apple product is tempting, which always hurts) is that our American cousins are paying $99 for it.

If it can stream from programs OTHER than iTunes, this is looking close to being an essential product. It's entirely noiseless, which makes it infinitely quieter than my 360. Actually it makes it infinitely quieter than everything, but you fellow 360 streamers get what I mean.

See more at apple.com

itproportal.com

Microsoft xbox controller redesign

Apparently these guys can make a revolutionary (really?) twisting d-pad, but stereo sound in their videos is too much to ask for.

Anyway MS has 'updated' it's controller by removing the kinda useful colour coding on the buttons, and making the d-pad optionally more playstation-like.

All for the bargain price of $65 (with a play&charge kit, which you should all have already unless you're a bit special or just particularly enjoy buying batteries. Maybe the girl in the shop is cute. Maybe you're just strange.)

Thanks itproportal

itproportal.com

Telltale making Back To The Future adventure game

Telltale, makers of the modern episodic Sam & Max games, are making a BTTF adventure game and have confirmed the real voice of Doc 'one point twenty one jiggawatts' Brown (Christopher Lloyd).

I didn't really feel the new S&M games were up to the awesomeness of the original, but they certainly had charm. Regardless, it's nice to see that adventure games are even still being made. The fact that this one is centered around the almost-too-good BTTF universe is just a bonus.

Let's hope they don't end up with a load of manure. I hate manure.



AWESOME RELATED NEWS:
The original movie is being re-released into UK cinemas in October in super-duper mega-high-def amazing-o-vision. If it's not on at the BFI IMAX I'll be screwing. See you there!

computerandvideogames.com