Daniel 'MaTachi' Jonsson

Monthly Archives: December 2010

Anime, Manga & Merchandise Online Stores

AnimeOkay, I’m not going to buy anything. But I was interested in what kind of anime merchandise there was online, so I searched a bit and found some websites that I want to share here.

Maybe you will find something interesting on those sites. :) If you know any other good websites from the top of your head that fits the description, you are very welcome to leave the addresses in a comment below.

19 Useful FFmpeg Commands

Earlier I was searching for a software that could extract the audio from a .mp4 video file. Then I ended up on a website with commands to a very useful text based program called FFmpeg, including exactly what I was searching for. You can find all necessary links below:

Hatsune Miku live concert 39′s Giving Day

Some weeks ago I stumble across a really cool video where Hatsune Miku performs live at the 39′s Giving Day concert in Japan. There are also three other characters performing, but I don’t know their names. ^^

Check out Miku’s performance below:

The first time I watched the video I saw it in very low resolution, so I couldn’t really tell how the technology to show her worked. At first I thought that maybe it was a real actor in a costume or a robot, since Japan is a really robot friendly country. Then I googled to find answer and I found this article – stating that Miku on the concert was a 3D hologram. But I wasn’t sure if the article was right, which it wasn’t. Because I thought it sounded a bit too advance with 3D hologram.

If you watch the performance in higher resolution you can easily see that she is very pixely at close distance, which proves that she isn’t real or a robot. It is also possible to see that there is a huge frame on the stage with a net, that Miku is projected on with a camera from behind. So in reality it is only a 2D image on a net. However, it still looks awesome and the spirit on the concert is fantastic. :)

Mirror’s Edge didn’t live up to the expectations?

In the days I read an article on the Swedish gaming news site FZ about Frank Gibeau’s, who is boss on EA, opinions about Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space. Apparently he doesn’t think neither of those two games lived up to expectations, because they didn’t have a multiplayer mode included. Still he thinks that Dead Space sold well, which it did, but yeah, that wasn’t enough.

I really can’t see how it would be a bad thing to not spend time on a mutliplayer mode that wouldn’t work in the first place. Try to imagine multiplayer in Mirror’s Edge. Would it be co-op where you with all optional paths and fast phased gameplay only would lost each other? Or why not death match? Or even better, team death match with cops against a bunch of runner? That would be awesome! (not)

No, let Dice develop a sequel to Mirror’s Edge and don’t force them to include something stupid as a multiplayer mode.

Will Kinect fail?

Kinect was recently released, and I guess all of you people that will stumble upon this text are already familiar with it. I can’t say that I have read very much about it, but at least some. And I have watched some videos where it have been showed, and some gameplay videos.

I don’t believe Kinect will replace the regular controller, like they say in the advertisements. It will be a nice extra type of controller that will work in some kinds of games, like Dance Central. But then there is a flood of games that are being pumped out with Kinect support, that would be played much better with a regular controller.

Besides that there are a lot of games that works better with a regular controller. The Kinect’s performance isn’t either very good. I have heard many people and critics complain about the high response time, that really becomes a problem in fast phased games. For an example boxing games, where you have to act very fast.

Even if the Kinect works well with some types of games, I believe some of  them are totally stupid. For an example you have Kinect Sports, which is a Wii Sports clone. Why would anyone pay money for an Xbox, a Kinect and for this game to be able to throw imaginary spears and discuses in front of the TV? I would rather go out and throw real sticks.

But I guess that only the future can tell if this piece of new technology will bring us any new, fun games.

Here is a really fun review of Sonic Free Riders, by Angry Joe:

Here is another video, where Kinect Sports is reviewed by Angry Joe:

And lastly a video where he reviews the actual hardware: