Rahul Shirke

Hemp-mote is a Wiimote with a Hemp exterior. Wait, what?

People love modifying things. A google will show you the plethora of inventive PC case mods that have been churned out by human hands. But I can bet you’ve seen nothing like this.

This man named DHRECK,whose blog feed I’ve added to my Google Reader just now, is the inventor of the Hemp-mote. Alright, just a catchy name. What it is, is a a standard Wiimote with a hemp exterior.

As the creator describes it, “In stark contrast with the original Wii-mote set, what was once sleek, cold, white and hard plastic has now become a slightly fuzzy, natural, warm and textured concoction. No more bland, branded and boring but mottled, flawfull, rough and a tad sweat absorbing.”

He also describes the creation procedure in detail at his blog here. While the remote itself works perfectly, the exterior isn’t exactly as durable as good ol’ Nintendo plastic. That makes the Hemp-mote a rather unsatisfactory controller for daily use.

Still, I think it’ll more than just impress your friends. DHRECK is going to create some more Wiimote mods soon, so I’m interested in what can come out of that brain.

Sweet, More Deus Ex 3 Concept Art!

Aye, it’s Garbled Zombie, your local Deus Ex fanboy and chief editor of all things Deus Ex 3 on StuffWeLike. What arouses me from my slumber? It seems that Gamereactor got some brand new concept art for Deus Ex, and by it looks friggin’ sweet to my eyes.

There’s also a crumb of extra info, i.e. we learn that the protagonist of Deus Ex 3, Adam Jensen is a security chief for a biotech company called Sarif. The company is raided by men in black, and everybody without the name Adam Jensen are killed. And of course, it’s upto Adam to find out who did this, and why. One important piece of news we learn is that the game will come sometime in 2010. That’s 10 years after Deus Ex. Hot dayum.

And now, I analyse the concept art.

This one seems to be set in Paris, with the bridge up there labelled “Passerelle 01”. What I believe to be some sort of a cafe to the left uses a neon sign saying “Le Canne”, so I think that kind of confirms it. The “Connaught” sign down their highlights “aug”, signifying Augmentation. Possibly an augmentation-related advertisement? Then we see a postmodern building to the right, with the name “DWM”, which must be some sort of a corporation’s headquarters.

With Paris around, I’m guessing we may see the origins of the Silhouette. Maybe even explore Everett’s Illuminati and even see Beth DuClare alive! This sounds like fun.

This one is a little blurry, but it shows the Renaissance influence on the game. Nothing particularly remarkable here, but to the left there’s an information terminal (or maybe a security terminal) that’s reminiscent of the news terminals in Deus Ex. This one looks bulkier and integrated into the wall, so I guess it’s a natural progression. To the right, there’s a computer with a holographic display. Again, reminiscent of Deus Ex. This one appears to be a Star Wars-ish hologram, since it’s blue-tinted and kinda faded, whereas the ones in Deus Ex were exact and colourful. So at least that’s one step in the right direction.

This here is Shanghai, according to the PC Zone scans we found. It’s also pretty clear since there’s a dragon illustration to the bottom-left. On closer inspection, I think there’s supposed to be some sort of a transparent display there. Screenshot is mostly a standard cityscape, a little futuristic. The cool looking guy to the right may or may not be Adam Jensen. I kind of hope he is, but what the hell.

The Lowdown on Star Wars: The Old Republic

After months of rumours and badly-kept secrets, we finally have the official announcement of Star Wars: The Old Republic. As expected, it turns out to be an MMO, and set in the Star Wars universe; more specifically, the KotOR era.

We’re just a few hours out of the great revelation and the official site has gone online. Information is flying all across the Internets and we bring you the lowdown on what The Old Republic is going to be all about.

Continue reading “The Lowdown on Star Wars: The Old Republic”

PC Zone Issue 200 Scans; Deus Ex 3 Info

I can’t believe I missed this! While I did get you the deal on what little info was found about Deus Ex 3, it looks like somebody got their hands on the actual magazine scans, which have been put up here. Okay, they’re not scans, they’re outright photos and pretty bad ones at that: most of the text seems to have been clipped out.

So we’ll have to do with the concept art/screenshots, and they are definitely some tasty eye candy. The Cyberpunk/Renaissance art design becomes visible here, though I think making NPCs wear 16-century-ish clothes is a little overkill. I love the environments, though.

Augmentations are a lot more “in your face” says the caption, and that they are. With what looks like direct prosthetics for your arms, you won’t find the subtlety of JC’s nanotechnology-enhanced augmentations. This goes with the story, since JC and Paul were the first test subjects in augmented agents.

The protagonist of Deus Ex 3, Adam Jensen appears to be an agent with mechanical mods, like Gunther Hermann or Anna Navarre from the original game. In any case, he looks pretty cyborg.As for the Biomods themselves, here’s what I found from the pages:

Claymore: A last resort when facing unsurmountable odds, Jensen’s body can emit thousands of (clipped)
Multi-Kill: When faced with multiple opponents, Jensen an unleash a combo of devastating martial (arts?) (clipped)
Bungee Jumping: Hurl yourself off the edge of a building and tentacles will shoot out of your (clipped)
Wall Punch: Can be used in conjunction with the visual augmentation (clipped)

Another bit of info that can be found is about Stealth and Hacking, both of which disappoint me greatly.

Stealth is also receiving a major revamp and will now utilize cover more than shadow as its primary function., with a Metal Gear Solid-style cone of vision mechanic (available only through augmentation) used to ascertain an enemy’s field of view.
Hacking is another area receiving a makeover, taking the form of RTS-style mini game in which you (vie with?) a (mainframe?) for the control of nodes (?) (clipped)

Okay, I’m totally not sure about this. An RTS-style mini game for hacking? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m also not comfortable with replacing the shadow-based stealth mechanic from the previous two games. Deus Ex had handled stealth without making it too technical, I’m not sure if Deus Ex 3 will be able to do it.

All in all, I’m both impressed and disappointed. Still, since its Deus Ex, I won’t be missing it. 😉

Deus Ex 3 First Details! Officially a Prequel!

As was rumoured, PC Zone got the first real scoop on Deus Ex 3 for their 200th issue, and goddamn, things have been revealed. Eidos Montreal, who’s working on the game have promised the game will learn from Invisible War’s mistakes and will cater to fans of the original. How much of it will they deliver?

To start with, the story is officially a prequel set in 2027. While I utterly abhorred the idea of a Deus Ex prequel at first, this actually sounds fine. It should be better than Invisible War, at any rate. You won’t be a Denton this time round, of course. You’ll play as Adam Jensen this time, so no female protagonist. Doubt if female Alex D will be missed anyways.

The story will be deep and layered, much like the original. To affirm this, the studio has drafted Sheldon Pacotti, writer of the Deus Ex for consultation. Sounds fine and dandy for me, especially since Harvey Smith and Warren Spector have given their blessings!

There are going to be a few changes to gameplay. Whether that is good or bad is going to highly debatable. Among the good stuff, there won’t be unified ammo like in Invisible War. The bad stuff? There’s going to be auto-healing, like in Call of Duty. That may have made sense for a biomodified human, but since its a prequel, I don’t see why JC Denton in Deus Ex shouldn’t have had auto-healing!

Stealth will rely on a cover-system, instead of shadows. How that works, I don’t know; but I sure as hell know I’m going to subtly miss hiding and crouching through shadows. There seem to be some creative new augmentations this time round. 20 have been confirmed, and sound totally awesome.

Among the ones given, one will let you “bungee jump” from walls of buildings. Woah, wait. We’re going to be jumping of buildings in this game. How cool is that? There will be the ability to punch through walls and grab enemies in the next room, which sounds totally awesome. Damn, I can’t wait for the other augmentations!

Full info comes on October 9th, when the issue goes on sale. I’ll be waiting!

New Mirror’s Edge Story Trailer

Now I can’t miss a new trailer for Mirror’s Edge. I’ve already envisioned it as the next Portal: a smexy city, a female protagonist and parkour tricks?! This game is genius! I can’t believe it’s going to release on November 13th. That’s so early, it’s unfair!

Anyways, we see yet another trailer for Edge. This time, it’s one of those 2D-animated trailers to explain the story. Sometimes the theme and art of the game almost make me think that it’s a Japanese game, only to shaken up when I see the darn EA logo again. Which makes me wonder if EA is thinking of any draconian DRM measures for the game.

Now this trailer is one of those usual world-turns-into-dystopia stories, except here you can’t tell if its dystopia or utopia we’re heading to. We see our heroine, Faith as a child in a protest march against the usual oppresive-fascist-government. Yep, we’ve seen in Half-Life 2, but what it reminded me the most of was the Second Renaissance short from The Animatrix (damn, that was a good film).

Check out the trailer below! Click here to run and jump to the HD link.