There are some moments in life when you do some things not expecting much excitement but you do it anyway. And then out of no where you begin to have a lot of fun and you come out mighty impressed. And a nice happy feeling that is. This typically happens with movies, books and music. But recently it happened to me while playing this game called Trine.


I was linked to the game trailer and asked to play it. When I asked what it was about I was informed that it was a 2D scrolling game in a 3D World. I took upon playing the game for nostalgic reasons. It had been almost an eternity when I last played a 2D Scrolling game like Mario, Contra, Dangerous Dave or Digger. These had been my favorites and clearly no game was going to replace them. Let alone replace, how impressed could I get by a 2D game in a world where 3D is the in-thing? So I began to play Trine with very low expectations, expecting to give up in repetitive boredom.

Trine, simply put, is the most beautiful game I have ever played. The art work, lighting and narration are the best I have ever seen in any game. Not because the visuals are very realistic but because the game truly is a fairy tale brought to life. If you grew up as a kid listening to fairy tales about kingdoms, wizards and magic, Trine gives you all that at its visual best and whats even better, it allows you to be a part of it.

The game is set in a kingdom beset by evil and it is up to you to get rid of the undead (thats what they call skeletons with a soul) from the kingdom and bring peace and happiness into everyones lives. A wizard, a knight and a thief are bounded into a single body because they touch an ancient artifact called the Trine and these 3 set out on an adventure to defeat evil, win riches and separate their souls from the body. There are enough puzzles, booby traps, underwater adventures, big monsters and dangerous object that can hurt you to keep the gameplay interesting.

The game makes extensive use of physics and I feel is the first game that truly shows the value of the otherwise hyped Nvidia Physx technology. You can switch between the wizard, the knight or the thief anytime you want and use their skills to kill enemies, move objects, traverse obstacles. The knight is all about brute force, while the wizard is good for creating simple objects out of thin air and moving them around magically. The thief's acrobatic skills remind of spider-man and she is also good with archery.

The background score of the game is awesome and the game is best played with all eye-candy options turned on. A game this beautiful deserves to be viewed as the developers intended to with all graphics settings set to high. It is preferable to have an Nvidia GPU that supports Physx but it will work even otherwise. To play on laptops one might have to reduce all the graphics settings in the game launch menu.

My only gripe about the game is the last level. If all but the last level was rated 3/10 for difficulty level, the last level would be rated 9/10. The game suddenly changes pace and gets extremely difficult in the last stage. To win this level requires repeated playing to memorize the path to travel to clear obstacles and reach the end. In the end it is all worth it.

All in all Trine is one of those games that you will treasure if you own it. It will bring back a lot of nostalgia about 2D scrollers if you are an old time gamer. No wonder it got the Gamespot's Editor's Choice award at E3 '09.

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Do you like the Wild Wild West? Do you like quick draws and cow boys? Do you visualize the Arizona desert with Cactus and like the Clint Eastwood movies based around this period? Do you want to be a gunslinger? If the answers are YES, Call of Juarez - Bound in Blood is a game that will go right through the top of your all-time favorites once you finish playing the game.

Call of Juarez is a first person PC shooter based in 19th century America around the period of the American Civil War. The game starts of in the middle of the Civil War with the two playable characters - Ray and Thomas, fighting as soldiers for the Confederate army of the southern States. Unfortunately for them, they desert their side against orders from their Colonel to protect their family house under attack by the union Army. What starts off seeming like a typical FPS war game, like countless other World War games, rapidly changes pace and becomes a whole new species. The game moves on from the civil war to treasure chase, siding with native Americans, sometimes fighting them, killing bandits and many other adventures. The game play is fast paced and it just keeps getting better and better. The plot is tightly woven and even with optional missions for characters to choose the game never gets boring any time. Not to mention the rivalry between the two brothers to win a beautiful woman.



You can choose to play either as Ray or as Thomas and both of them have their own special skills. Thomas mostly does the jumping around and has Bows as a unique weapon. Ray likes the stable ground and likes revolvers and dynamite. You are forced to play one of the characters in certain chapters to keep the plot sensible. In other chapters you get to choose. Riding on horses and shooting , quick-draws, shooting horse riders chasing you from inside a horse driven carriage, fighting native Americans, Gatling guns, WANTED posters and accompanying missions all add a lot of value to the game. Very few moments feel repetitive and you really feel like Clint Eastwood in a game that feels like a combination of The Good, the bad, the ugly, A fist full of Dollars and For a few dollars more; all three movies rolled into one single game. The background score though initially not impressive quickly catches on and feels as good as some of the tunes churned out by Ennio Morricone for the Clint Eastwood Movies.

I was able to play the game quite comfortable with all settings maxed out at a resolution of 1920 X 1200 using an Nvidia GeForce GTX275. I suspect the basic game-play can be enjoyed even on a Geforce 8 Series GPU based laptop with all eye-candy settings in the game set to medium or low.



The game play felt like the type that should have been originally there in Far Cry 2. Unfortunately, the period of the game made a big difference. The only difficulty I had in the game was figuring out the Quick-draw duels. Facing off a single opponent at the strike of the town bell with a revolver is something that I have always wanted to do since watching the old western flicks. And when I finally got my chance to do it, it felt very tough. It takes some time to get the tactic to win the duel. Once you know what needs to be done, winning the duel is a piece of cake. In case you get struck at a Duel while playing, don't give up. The grass is green on the other side.



All in all Call of Juarez is a super entertainer, different and totally worth the money. If Sergio Leone was alive and had made a game, this would have been it. I missed out playing the first part of the game which was just called Call of Juarez. I am told that Bound in Blood is a prequel to the first game. Can't wait to lay my hands on the old game now.

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It is not very often that I am impressed by the beauty of stores in India. Most of them are just shelves filled with items for sale and that's about it. So when I stepped into Furtados to check out the new musical instruments store in town, I was blown away by the beauty of the store more than anything else. Without any further words, here are the pictures.

The guitar section:

They have brands like Taylor, Greg Bennett, ESP, Fender, Paul Reed Smith and Ibanez

The Percussion instruments:

Pearl, Mapex, Chancellor, Zildjian are some of the percussion brands available.

Mostly classical Instruments:

Keyboards:

And at last the Pianos. They have 3 Grand Pianos.

They also sell books related to music, accessories like Metronomes, plectrums etc. The store is so beautiful, it should be listed in one of those must visit places for tourists in Bangalore. Its worth visiting even if you do not play any instruments. Maybe this store will make you feel like picking up an instrument even if you don't feel like it.

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Found this outside a mosque in Bangalore. I won't say much lest some Islamic cleric issue a fatwa against me. But something about the words in this poster scares me.

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At around 1439, Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type and changed the world. Print media was born. Newspapers came into being. They motivated people. They exposed secrets and cover-ups. They overthrew governments. They united people. They gained independence for countries. They kept people informed. Educated them. Motivated them. They told awesome stories and events from around the world. They sold because of quality content. All were happy. Then more newspapers came. Then competition began. Then money became the goal. Newspapers became business. Profit making business. Newspapers had to sell. Not quality. Quality got replaced by cleavage. Cleavage sold. Sold to the young minds. The future of this country is run by the young minds inspired by the cleavage of women glorified by Deccan Chronicle. People no longer buy pornographic magazines. They buy the likes of Deccan Chronicle and the daily supplement in the Times of India. Hustler and Debonair are no longer profitable. They now have to compete with the Times of India and Deccan chronicle priced much lower and serving millions of people more than Hustler and Debonair can possibly reach.

Which porn newspaper do you subscribe to?

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It is quite a well established fact that a lot of Indian movies are cheesy. However, off late, there has been an increasing trend of good realistic movies being thrown out by new directors and actors (Anurag Kashyap comes to mind). This is good news for a lot of movie fanatics like me. 

However, on the other hand, one simply has to look at the fact that Akshay Kumar is the highest tax-paying actor in the country. This clearly establishes that cheesy movies have a big market.

I was at the cinemas the other day and came across this Kannada movie film poster. The name of the movie is Junglee and in a certain way the characters tend to be true to the name of the film. As long as movies like these are made and people are there to watch it, the chances for quality movies to make money are far off (except for the occasional hits). And there is only so much filmmakers can make films without the reward of money.  



Note in this poster, shades on the eyes of the fake Shahrukh Khan and another pair hanging on the T-Shirt. Why are Indian film makers obsessed with making dumb-ass cheesy movies with standard formula of romance and dance around trees and costumes no one wears in reality? To top it off, the poster says all about the quality of the movie.

And then I found another movie poster.



This is as slutty (Is that the right word? I am out of words) as movie posters get. An item of clothing 3 mm thick separates romance from cunnilingus in this poster. Why don't they just bare it all and avoid the hypocrisy?  

Now check this other poster.



A movie starring an Indian Pirate and a bald vulture as a side-kick. Once upon a time, Indian rippers had some dignity. The rip off was very subtle. One would be hard pressed to identify copied content. But not anymore. With Indian film makers losing skin and trying to capitalize on the popularity of Hollywood flicks, super-obvious Indian rip-offs are all the rage now.  I don't know Telugu (or is it Kannada?), but I suspect this movie is called Pirate of the Andra Pradesh (or is it Karnataka?)

And finally here is a poster that is the product of the average of all the other non-plagiarized Indian movie posters.



When nothing is left to be copied or when enough copying has been done, this is the standard template for most Indian films - Hero, Heroine, Eye blinding clothing and a white jacket in hot weather. Where are all the creative people in this country?  

If any movie poster designer is reading this page, do take a look at the 100 best movie posters of all time

P.S: My phone camera has become slutty having taken these pictures!

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India, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh , China and Japan will see a six and a half minutes of darkness during the daytime. The longest solar eclipse of this century. The next one, well its going to take you another 123 years, on June 13, 2132 to be precise. So maybe most of us won't last that long. So how will you view this extraordinary account - the answer of course - ONLINE.

If you are on the other side of the globe: Ustream.com will be telecasting this live! NASA's official page too has this covered.

For those following it real time tweet for your dear friends and be careful. Topicbean provides top 5 tips to view the Solar eclipse safely:

1. Pin Hole Camera - Simplest way to view an eclipse. Here is how you can make one:

2. Solar Filters or Welders glasses - Go to a nearest welder and request for a grade 14 welders glasses. Please know you can't use sunglasses - they don't have the same grade of protection as the welding glasses.

And remember to enjoy this. It won't happen again for the next 123 years.

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I knew it! I knew that it was all a facade waiting to be revealed. No one believed me. Everyone was mesmerized by the charming words of Senator Obama during his campaign for the US Presidency. I knew deep inside that there was no way an anti-lobbying contestant for the US Presidency would win. Democracy is not so perfect a system that it cannot be manipulated by the companies of capitalist nations like the US or India. I knew that there was more than meets the eye to this man. And finally, someone had the balls to expose what I knew deep inside. I so love this woman.

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