Tuesday 26 October 2010

According to the game's director, Call of Duty: Black Ops turns the emotional focus up to eleven



Treyarch has thrown out the normal FPS hymn sheet for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Gone is the strong and ever-so-silent protagonist, and in his place is someone who possesses relatable traits like, say, a face and a voice. Treyarch is hopeful that this will help drawn the player into the story more completely.
The game opens with the "interrogation" of lead character Alex Mason. He's strapped to a chair and a shadowy figure gives him a few thousand volts of encouragement if he's not forthcoming with his answers. It's a tense scene, and Dave Anthony, Black Ops' director, says that was deliberately designed that way to get the player identifying and empathizing with Mason right away.
The game's levels are actually Mason's memories of past missions, and Anthony says that you will get to see how Mason's relationships with the characters in the game change as he relives his past. "The emotional focus that we've given Mason is more than we've ever done before for a character in a 'Call of Duty' game," Anthony says. "As you go through the story ... You will actually realize how it all comes together."
Early last month, Treyarch announced that David Goyer, the screenwriter that penned the Dark Knight, would consult on the script. Gary Oldman and Ed Harris are voicing characters in the game, and an insider source suggests that lead character Mason is played by Avatar actor Sam Worthington.
 Call of Duty: Black Ops comes out for Wii, Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 on November 9th.

Original Source: www.escapistmagazine.com

iPhone 4 Metalcover Backplate


Replacing your iPhone 4’s rear glass plate with a metal panel turns out to be ridiculously easy and, in the word of the wise Derek Zoolander, ridiculously good-looking.

The brushed-aluminum and plastic panels are straight swap-ins for the breakable glass backs that come as standard. To fit it, you remove a pair of screws either side of the dock connector, slide the glass off and the metal plate on, then replace the screws. It will take you longer to dig out your smallest screwdriver than it will to perform the mod.

The beauty of Apple’s external antenna design is that it needs no RF window to let the waves in and out, so this new plate shouldn’t affect the call-quality at all. It should also make the iPhone a touch lighter, and it certainly looks the part, with the bevelled edges sloping down smoothly towards the antenna loop.

If you want one, they cost $13, although they’re back-ordered right now. I imagine, too, that the seller will have to change the design pretty soon. The panel’s decoration is an exact copy of the original Apple one, right down to the Apple and iPhone logos, and the legend “Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China.” Apple isn’t going to be happy about that.

Also available in black.

Purchase!


Original Source [Wired]