Just as dynamic, only better looking

There are still two team competing for supremacy and the opposing sides are now called the Radiant and the Dire, but the same creeps race blindly towards their doom. The constant flux of minions is only disrupted when one side manages to break into the enemy base and take down key structures. This will lead to the spawning of mega-creeps which are a more powerful version and will facilitate the pushing further into the base. The goal remains to destroy the central structure and in order to accomplish this, heroes need to level up, purchase better gear and overpower their opponents.

Dota 2 looks considerably better than the original, but while this will appeal to new players, some of the veterans will have slight problems in adjusting. The heroes’ resemblance to those in Dota is uncanny, but the creeps are bigger and especially during team fights it is possible to lose focus of your character. The skills remain unchanged mostly and this makes transition smoother, although there are still some balance issues that need to be addressed. Both the developers and community are very active and by the time Dota 2 will be out of beta, there is a good chance for most of these problems to be solved.

A little more than what we expected

Among the innovations worth mentioning, we should include the fact that you can now purchase items without being next to the shop. It is beneficial for those who die on the field of battle with just enough money to make a purchase, hence miss the opportunity. You still lose money when you die and denying enemies from killing creeps remains a key element while leveling up. This game mechanic remains debatable, with some criticizing the fact that the emphasis is placed on denying instead of harassing, yet it comes as no surprise that Valve decided to keep it.

On the plus side and beyond any criticism is the fact that you can watch games that are in progress and learn a lot from the very best. The Learn and Social areas are still under development, but they promise to add a new dimension to a game that is highly interactive and brings together an impressive community. It is not too early to say that Dota 2 has all the ingredients of a major success, as all the fans will return, joined by those who found the Warcraft 3 mode exciting, but limited.

As Dota 2 inches closer to the release date, I am confident that it is worthy of 4 starts out of 5. Watch this game trailer for a sneak preview, and try to weasel your way into the closed beta if you can:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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If there is one mobile manufacturing company that has been experiencing some serious downfall, then it is the BlackBerry. From being one of the most desired and reliable phone company, the RIM (Research in Motion) BlackBerry has been losing its hold among the top spots for its worldwide share in the mobile market. We all do know that the company’s services were considered to be one of the most reliable, especial with the BlackBerry’s dedicated super fast mail server and of course the traditional BBM service, that keeps all BB owners in touch.

But thanks to the Apple’s iPhone, that has taken the world by storm, and at the same time resulted in some huge losses for companies like Nokia and BlackBerry. Adding to this disaster, BlackBerry was also suffering with major outages of its Mail server worldwide. We all know that the backbone for BB has been these exclusive services that has been keeping the company alive and running.

Well all this doesn’t seem to stop the premium mobile manufacturer, with the company preparing fresh plans to takeover the mobile market all over once again. And the latest news is that BlackBerry’s upcoming smartphone, called the BB London Super phone, was leaked. Yes we do get to see the image of the next BB smartphone, which features a killer design.

The new phone comes with a sleek and ultra-slim design, which seems to be inspired from BlackBerry’s Porsche version of the luxury phone, which was launched recently. The smartphone will be the first device from BlackBerry to run the company’s upcoming QNX based operating system. There has been no information regarding the technical specifications of the device, but the source hints about the Texas Instruments’ OMAP5 and Qualcomm 1.5GHz dual-core chipsbeing used to test the device.

The Blackberry London smartphone is expected arrive in US and UK by this fall.

Source

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Image credit: Gamespress

The plot is similar, with the elite unit assembled to repel the alien invasion, but it is the way this secret organization is presented that is different. 2K’s take on this is slightly different and instead of introducing the player to a worldwide agency with considerable resources and a vast area of operations, they focus on the American division. This allows the player to concentrate on smaller but equally significant tasks and get fully integrated into a team that becomes a second family.

This favors interaction with other characters, acts as an incentive to learn more about the organization and makes recruiting of new agents more personal. Given the fact that the game takes place in the sixties, XCOM’s resources are limited and players need to outsmart rather than overpower the aliens. The only way to succeed is by assembling the brightest minds and stealing the invaders’ secrets, harness their power and ultimately use it against them.

Don’t let them conquer the Earth

Instead of shooting your way in and out of alien infested buildings, you need to command a three man team and take a more tactical approach in every situation. The enemy is insidious, vastly superior in terms of technology and has just a single goal: to wipe out humanity and claim the planet once its inhabitants are gone. This makes everything more personal and stakes couldn’t be higher, so each time you succeed in fending off an invasion, you should get a feeling of accomplishment.

2K aims to release XCOM in March and for the time being we can only settle with a rather short Demo level and a trailer. Both look nice and do a great job in promoting the game, but the information they disclose is simply too limited to allow any definitive conclusions. Just like those guys in XCOM we can only keep the dream alive and hope for the best. Meanwhile enjoy the XCOM E3 Trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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A reality show where you can watch modern day “wanna be knights” joust could be interesting.  History channel brings this entertainment in Full Metal Jousting where people show how dedicated they are to keep the sport of Jousting alive. My son was very interested in the show since he is very busy playing the Stronghold series of games on weekends lately and is very much into “medieval times” and activities around such things.

It does look a bit gritty though and he may be a little young to watch as some of the jousters appear to get seriously injured and bloodied.

If you are looking to watch a brutal full contact sport, why not give Full Metal Jousting a try?

Check out this preview clip and let me know what you think of the show.

-Dragon Blogger

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I also predicted and saw that adding audio/video directly to conversations like a blog or social media as the next evolution of engagement with fans, readers and customers.

uWhisp helps show you how awesome it is to simply make social media posts as audio recordings without having to do any record, upload first.  It installs as a Chrome/FireFox/IE plugin for your browser and integrates with Facebook and Twitter so that you can instantly add audio directly to your Facebook wall updates.

uWhisp also directly integrates with Twitter via their main website which allows you to post audio recordings along with your Tweet.

In addition, you can pretty much record an audio post from any site via the uWhisp sidebar, you just click the uWhisp button and are greeted with a sidebar which allows you to click record, or upload existing mp3’s.

The one thing I noticed is you can’t type a custom message when uploading files but you can when recording new audio.  I did find that the feature makes it surprisingly easy and fun to simply record a message and share it with your fans.

I primarily use Hootsuite, and even though Hootsuite can’t let you send audio from the post message screen, Hootsuite does renders the uWhisp post so that it shows up as an audio play bar and you can just click play to listen. (When using the uWhisp plugin in Google Chrome)

I spoke to uWhisp and they said they have plans to work with companies like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck in the future and maybe we will see these features integrated via the Tools > App integrations feature of Hootsuite at some point.

Initial Recording:

After testing a few recordings through uWisp without posting or posting privately so only I could play back and determine the quality I was happy to see how easy it is to use.  I am however a little disappointed with the audio quality from my high quality USB mic.  I was able to tweak my mic settings and get it to sound a little better, but you could tell the audio was lower quality due to the compression that must be used.

Meanwhile, the audio bar to play uploaded audio recordings only works if others have the uWisp extension installed on their browser.

For others who don’t have uWisp installed, they are stuck having to click the link to listen.  This is expected but is a drawback as one of the huge benefits was being able to just click play in the post and listen to the recording. non-uWhisp users can only listen to about 10 seconds unless they install the uWhisp plugin which is a disappointment as it is likely to turn more users off than bring them to install the plugin.

Overall, I felt the audio was too compressed and sounded to buzzy/blurry from the 3 different microphones I tested with to sound truly professional. I mean it is akin to taking a slightly burry photo with your phone and posting it to Facebook.  It gets the message across and your friends will look at it (listen in this case) but it lacks the quality sound that you want in a professional audio recording for a blogger.

uWhisp however will keep the audio quality of an audio file you upload however, so if you record your audio and then upload it the quality will be much better, but it also defeats most of the purpose.

In doing some tests many readers said the audio was okay and not that bad, so I didn’t feel it was going to take away from getting messages across but is good for quick updates to your fans.  It is far easier, faster and simpler than taking the time to record your audio in another program, edit out background noise and then upload it to a service like SoundCloud just to share it in Facebook.

However, because users will have to install the uWhisp plugin into Chrome, Firefox, IE or whichever browser to listen to the audio it means there will not be quick adoption for the service.  It would be better if uWhisp were directly integrated with Facebook and you can install as a Facebook app rather than a browser plugin instead somehow.

uWhisp is free go ahead and try it out for yourself and add audio messages directly to your social media channels https://uwhisp.com/.

-Dragon Blogger

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