Killzone 3 review

In the bleak, grim future there is only red and blue. Or is it green? This is a review of Killzone 3, a game that makes me wonder if I’m colour-blind.

Killzone 3, much like the previous entries in the series, makes use of a very monochromatic palette in most of its environments. They mostly explain this away as the planet being formerly inhospitable. The colours also lend to the mood of the game, so I guess you can’t put too much fault to it. The lack of colour actually makes the few colours that you do see seem much more distinct, like the reds of the eyes of your enemy, or the bright-blue-green that you see on the uniforms of your allies. There are a few moments where you see a little bit more colour, like in the jungle level where you can see some of the wildlife of Helghan.

Lenovo Thinkpad E520: First Impressions

The first thing I noticed obviously was the box. It's simple, it's mostly uncoloured and it was just a box. The packaging stresses how it is made out of  recycled materials. I have no idea of what percentage of the material is recycled, however.

The keyboard feels very, very comfortable to type on. The keys didn't give much resistance and they're indented slightly so that my fingers almost feel like they're melting into them while I'm typing this.

The finish isn't glossy anywhere except for the spaces between the keys, which is a bit odd. I am glad that the screen is anti-glare because I hate glare. How the hell shiny screens became popular I'll never know. The back of the screen has a bit of a rubbery feel to it, perhaps to minimise fingerprints.

One thing that concerns me at the moment is the real lack of indicators on the laptop. There is a little light to dot the 'i' on the Thinkpad logo that turns on whenever the laptop is turned on, and a charging light on the side, but aside from that there really isn't anything to tell you of the hard drive activity or whether caps/numlock is on.

I bought the version that normally costs $649.00, with a little discount. It has an Intel Core i5-2410m CPU with 4GB of ram and a AMD Radeon HD 6630m discrete graphics card, so it is possible to do some decent gaming on this thing.

I may do a fuller review later, because when I was looking for reviews of this thing after I bought it (stupid I know) I couldn't really find any that were in English.

Logitech Gamepad F310

I bought this at Dick Smith Electronics for about AU$40 if I remember correctly. You could probably find it cheaper if you looked elsewhere online.

Bought on a whim, I thought I'd use it to play some older games and some PC shooters for shits n giggles. It lets me do that rather nicely, but there are a few niggling little problems I have with it.

The first of these problems would be the triggers at the back of the controller. They work, but they don't really try to hold your finger in that much. They're not uncomfortable, but they're not that comfortable either, especially when compared with the triggers that the controller the Nintendo Gamecube controller had.

The thumbsticks are generally pretty functional but they don't seem to detect your minor movements. When I tried playing on an emulator they only started to register when I had the sticks moved in about half a direction. I'm not sure whether it's because of some settings I'm unaware of or because of the game I was playing, but other controllers I've used were a little more responsive. I suppose if I played more I wouldn't have this problem. I generally use mouse and keyboard to play games.

The face buttons and the shoulder buttons are fine. You press them and shit happens on the screen. My only gripe is with the placement of the "mode" button which lets you switch the functions of the left thumbstick and the d-pad. I kept pressing it whenever I intended to press the select button, which caused me to make further mistakes. Again, this may just be due to me not using controllers much.

The dpad is very similar to the buttons. Shit happens on the screen when I press the dpad, like I expect it to. I  guess I'd have more to say about it if I played more 2d fighting games, which involve heavier use of the dpad than the platformers I played with it.

As you can see from the picture it borrows some very obvious design cues from some modern console controllers, such as the colour scheme (and lettering, no numbers like most traditional PC game controllers) of the face buttons from Microsoft's Xbox 360 controller, and the thumbstick placement from the Playstation's line of DualShock controllers. It even has a home button. I have no idea what it does.

The handgrips feel comfortable enough to me and all of the components of the controller are within easy reach for my fingers and/or thumbs.

Since this is my first review here I'm not sure if I want to be the type of reviewer that gives out numbers as a rating or just gives you something to read. I guess I'll give you a number, but I might not next time.
8

There. Now it's up to you to decide what that number is out of. 8/10? 8/5? 8/100? 8/40? Completely up to you.