Dead Island Stands on the Shoulders of Giants

Dead Island is the kind of game that's best explained by talking about all the fantastic games it borrows from. The open-world model is most similar to that seen in Farcry 2; with large, separate areas to explore. The leveling system (three skill trees) and old-school RPG mechanics (i.e. loot rolls, visible damage values, etc.) are extremely similar to those found in Borderlands. The four-player co-op is also reminiscent of that found in Borderlands. The huge variety of quests are a tribute to Bethesda's Fallout 3 and can be found all around the game's world. Different kinds of zombies from thugs to runners are taken from Valve's Left for Dead series.

All in all the game is very entertaining - especially with three friends. The radically different areas make sure nothing gets boring as well as a huge amount of side-quests. The RPG system is very retro and fun. You should definitely pick up this game if you were a fan of the aforementioned games.

PS Vita Launches February 22

Sony just announced at their Web 2.0 Conference that the PS Vita will launch in North America and Europe on February 22nd. The 3G and WiFi models will launch at the same time, though no word yet on the costs and conditions of 3G.

Vita Pushed Back to 2012 Release in USA, Europe

Kazuo Hirai, Sony Corp. Executive Vice President, announced today that the PS Vita will be launching in early 2012 in the US and Europe and 2011 for Japan. Sony delayed the Vita in order to secure a better software lineup come launch. This could be a very wise move considering Nintendo 3DS user's frustration with the lack of new titles for the system.

For those of you outside Japan who were as excited about the Vita as I am there's always the option of buying a Vita in Japan and having it shipped to you. Vita has region-free gaming, meaning that where you buy the console and games won't matter. Uncharted and Wipeout:2048 have both been confirmed as launch titles in Japan. However, there are some downsides to buying overseas; The system may have hardware issues that could be worked out by the Europe release but aren't apparent until after the Japanese release (Sony frequently uses Japan to test their new systems before other releases) and the Japanese 3G model wouldn't work in your country because they use a country-specific provider. Price is also a factor, as shipping could easily cost upwards of ten dollars. For Americans the Vita will cost more due to currency conversion (313 USD for a wi-fi model) while Europeans will save a good chunk of money, getting the wi-fi vita for only 224 euros.

How do you feel about the delay? Will you take the risk of buying a Japanese Vita for the sake of rubbing in everyone's faces months before launch?

Why You Shouldn't Get Excited Over Vita Release Dates

As many of you probably know two PS Vita release dates have been leaked. GameStop UK is saying September 1st and BlockBuster UK has it listed as October 28th. Neither release has been confirmed by Sony and I'm betting that neither is accurate for a few reasons: First off, GameStop's date places the release at only a month from today, which seems all too soon especially after the Vita only recently received a major hardware change (The RAM was cut in half). Also, it's hard to imagine that Sony wouldn't have announced it already if it was only a month away. As for BlockBuster's date, the site's integrity is hurt as they have Modern Warfare 3's release date falsly listed as 11/11/11. It would also be a bad decision on Sony's part to release their portable on the same day as Dice releases Battlefield 3, a highly anticipated title. Ah those crazy brits.

UPDATE:
The Blockbuster UK site has changed their listing to TBA

When do you think the Vita will be released?

Sources:
http://www.gamestop.ie/core/common/default.aspx?advancedSearch=list
http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/ps-vita-release-date-leaked/

Google+ Could Topple the FaceBook Giant

Google+ is a new social network (in closed beta at the time of posting) set up in direct competition with sites such as FaceBook. However being backed by a giant such as Google could give this network the edge it needs to overtake FaceBook as people's primary social network just as FaceBook stole it's users from MySpace years ago. Google+ has several exciting new features, the most prevalent of which is Hangout. Hangout allows you to webcam with up to 10 friends (that's more than other free programs) and also adds to this by allowing you to all watch the same YouTube video together and run a text chat. Gtalk has always been a reliable service favored by many and would definitely win against FaceBook's chat system, which is largely known to be buggy and irresponsive. Google+ has also expanded into the smartphone sphere and has the potential of being ultra-compatible with phones running the Android OS, as both were developed by Google. Another perk over FaceBook is the lack of advertisements and third-party-apps which take over people's accounts and turn them into ad-bots. The general consensus among most Google+ users is that the only major problem is the current lack of people, but more people should be making the switch to Google+ as it emerges out of beta.

How do you feel about Google+? Let your voice be heard in the comments section below!

Mac OSX Lion

1. Mission Control - The easiest way to explain mission control is as a combination of Expose and Spaces. After the normal four-finger swipe all of your desktops are shown on the screen and whatever windows are running on your current desktop are grouped into applications where they can then be easily managed. However my problem with this is that it is now much harder to move windows and applications to different spaces as it now only allows you to move windows from your current desktop. Spaces no longer features the squares layout you're used to, and now forces you to have all of your separate desktops in a line, making navigation a lot slower, but using four-finger horizontal swipes to change desktops makes up for this. However as far as functionality I would have to say that I prefer Snow Leopard's version of Spaces.

2. Full-Screen Apps - This actually interacts pretty well with Spaces by making a new 'desktop' for full-screen applications. My favorite use for this so far is running iTunes full-screen and switching through my desktops to change songs. This is a pretty cool addition and a lot of people will love this option.

3. Launchpad - I was turned off by this at first (I hate having icons on my desktop), but after a few days using Launchpad I have seen the light. This feature turns your desktop into an iOS screen to view all of your apps, create folders, and so on. Since it can be activated with a quick multi-touch gesture, Launchpad proves to be a very quick and sexy way to get to your favorite apps. This is definitely my favorite new feature.

4. Resume - Resume makes restarting your Mac a lot simpler by automatically saving things as they were before the restart. It does the same while closing apps as well. This is just one of the many little things that make Apple's OS great and should also help users to not be as wary of constant software updates that require a restart.

5. Airdrop - This is a neat app built into Finder that allows you to share documents and apps via Bluetooth to nearby Macs. While it's functions seem pretty limited, this is helpful for users who own multiple Mac computers. This could have a lot of potential if iOS5 allows us to Airdrop documents to iOS devices.

6. FaceTime - Pretty cool, but the features are severely limited compared to competitors Skype and Oovoo.

7. Multi-Touch Tracking - The coolest of the new supported finger motions are A. Four-finger horizontal swipe to switch desktops and B. Thumb and three fingers pinch to open Launchpad. Sadly the latter is just as hard to perform as it sounds, but can quickly be picked up after the awkward initial practice. If you aren't already using a MacBook with a glass track-pad or the new desktop track-pad I definitely suggest an upgrade, multi-touch makes navigating your Mac a lot sleeker. The added three finger double-tap to define a word in the dictionary, thesaurus, and wikipedia is a great addition. Also three finger drag is a lot more useful than you would think.

Well that's all I've got for now, but I may post more updates in the future as I delve deeper into Lion's capabilities. I would definitely suggest that you upgrade, it's easier than ever through the App Store and the price tag is very reasonable. Really the only major flaw I noticed is the dumbed down version of Spaces. Thanks for reading!

Digging Lion or hating it? Post a comment!