Pre-Built Desktop Buyer's Guide: Holiday 2011 Edition
While we at AnandTech recognize that a good portion of our readership prefers to roll their own as far as desktops go, not everyone is that way. Sometimes there are also situations where we'd be better off just recommending a pre-built desktop to family than damning ourselves to being tech support at all hours for the next few years. With that in mind, we bring you our...
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Game Review: Jurassic Park: The Game
Jurassic Park is a bit of an outlier as tie-ins go. The source material, Steven Spielberg’s film of the same name (not Michael Crichton’s twenty-one-year-old book, mind you), is sixteen years old, and Jurassic Park 4 has been "in development" since 2002. So instead of retelling of a story we already know, Telltale Games wrote their own parallel story, giving them license to nod and wink at the film without being utterly beholden to it.
As a canonical companion to the original film, Jurassic Park largely succeeds. You’ll see a few familiar locations, hear a few memorable quotes, and spend plenty of time with old friends like the velociraptor. You won’t, however, encounter any characters from the films (except some dinosaurs and the corpse of a greedy, near-sighted computer programmer).
Now when I say “control” each character, I’m using a rather loose definition. For a product titled Jurassic Park: The Game, gameplay occupies an oddly low position on the design totem pole. Your limited interactions with the game consist of selecting perfunctory dialogue options, clicking around icon-littered environments until you touch upon the one required to advance, and going toe-to-toe with increasingly fiendish quick-time events. Most of the time, Jurassic Park is more concerned with the delivery of its plot, and if you happen to break its flow by missing a button prompt, you’ve failed.
Failure in Jurassic Park (often accompanied by a swift, grisly death at the hands of ravenous dinos) plays a significant – and frustrating – role. I found it nigh impossible not to die at least a few times in each episode, mostly because I am not psychic. During action sequences, button prompts often appear with only a vague relation to the action taking place on screen. And if you’re caught up watching the cinematic action sequence, you’ll likely miss a few prompts.
The intention seems to be to create tension: “Where will the next prompt come from?” “Will the next one you miss be one that kills you?” This tension sucked me in during an excellent rollercoaster sequence in Episode Two but wore out its welcome in the latter half of the game.
Jurassic Park is an ambitious amalgam of adventure game mechanics and cinematic aspirations, but it never quite excels in either respect. The bulk of Jurassic Park’s code is that of a blockbuster movie – action sequences, dialogue justifying the action sequences, more action sequences – but it ultimately feels incomplete and small given the setting and material it’s working with. The shallow gameplay plugs the holes but, just like frog DNA rounding out the genetic code of a dinosaur, also creates unfortunate consequences that cause the whole operation to go awry.
Franchise diehards will likely enjoy Jurassic Park: The Game (sometimes it’s enough just to hear that soaring John Williams score), but they should know they’re getting a frog in dinosaur’s clothing.
This review is based on PC retail code. Jurassic Park: The Game is available for $29.99 on PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3 and iPad 2. You can find the modest hardware requirements below:
PC | Mac | |
OS | Windows XP/Vista/7 | Mac OS X 10.6 |
Processor | 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent | 2.0 GHz Pentium or equivalent |
Memory | 2 GB | 2 GB |
Video Card | ATI/NVidia card w/ 256 MB RAM | ATI/NVidia w/ 256 MB RAM |
DirectX®: | DirectX 9.0c | - |
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Gigabyte X79-UD5 Giveaway
Earlier this month we reviewed Intel's new ultra high end CPU: Sandy Bridge E. The 2.7 billion transistor chip is a serious workhorse, overkill for most enthusiasts but a dream come true if you do a lot of video encoding, offline 3D rendering or any other heavily threaded task. The platform is expensive but Gigabyte gave us a pair of its X79-UD5 motherboards to give away to any of our readers that might be interested in going down the LGA-2011 path.
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NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti w/448 Cores: GTX 570 On A Budget
A little more than a year ago NVIDIA introduced the GF110 GPU, the power-optimized version of their Fermi patriarch, GF100. The first product was their flagship GTX 580, followed by the eventual GTX 570. Traditionally NVIDIA would follow this up with a 3rd product. The GTX 200 series had 285/275/260, and the GTX 400 series had GTX 480/470/465. However in the past year we have never seen the 3rd tier GF110 card… until now.
Today NVIDIA will be launching the GeForce GTX 560 Ti With 448 Cores (and yes, that’s the complete name), a limited edition product that will serve as the 3rd tier product, at least for a time. And while NVIDIA won't win any fans with the name, the performance is another matter entirely. If you've ever wanted a GTX 570 but didn't want to pay the $300+ price tag, as we'll see NVIDIA has made a very convincing argument that this is the card for you.
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Amazon Kindle Fire Review
I'll be honest here (I always am?): I don't understand the iPad comparison. The Kindle Fire and iPad 2 couldn't be more different. They are vastly different sizes, shapes and prices. They even serve slightly different functions. The search for an iPad killer reminds me of the search for a Voodoo killer back during the heyday of 3dfx in the late 1990s.
Why would Amazon enter the IPS LCD equipped multitouch tablet business to begin with? For users who are content reading ebooks on an e-ink screen, the vanilla Kindles are as good as they get. The problem is for users looking to consolidate devices, they may find themselves carrying a Kindle and a tablet of some sort (likely an iPad) and will ultimately ditch the Kindle in favor of the iPad. Should these users replace their Kindles with iPads, there's the argument that Apple could tempt them away from Amazon's Kindle store altogether. If they want a more affordable tablet however they are likely going to be forced into a solution that's probably not very good. Neither possibility is something Amazon likes, so the obvious answer is to offer a Kindle that delivers enough of the tablet experience that will satisfy those users looking for more than an e-ink Kindle could provide.
The Fire is that Kindle. Read on for our full review!
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HP: Printers Will Stop Themselves Before Hackers Set Them On Fire
Company admits vulnerability exists, but claims it only affects Macs and Linux machines
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UPDATED: Apple Approves, Then Pulls Illicit Tethering App for iPhone
A similar thing happened back in 2008; Apple rejected that app -- has it changed its mind this time?
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Plug-in Chevrolet Cruze Hybrid May Land in 2014
Plug-in Cruze will be more like Prius than Volt
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Google Launches Indoor Mapping with Google Maps 6.0
Maps cover the inside of malls, airports, and more
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11/29/2011 Daily Hardware Reviews
DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Tuesday
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Next Gen Kinect Features Higher Resolution Camera, Reportedly Can Read Lips
Lots more accuracy will need a new interface
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Facebook to Raise $10 Billion for 2012 IPO; Company Value Could Double HP's
Facebook hopes to be valued at $100 billion
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Exploit Could Literally Allow Hackers to Set HP Printers on Fire, FBI Briefed
"How the hell doesn't HP have a...certificate indicating ... real firmware from HP?" -- Mikko Hyponen, F-Secure
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GM Offers Loaner Vehicles For Scared Volt Owners
The recent battery fires caused by NHTSA crash tests have some Volt owners worried about their safety
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U.S. "Driving Age" Teenagers/Young Adults Prefer Internet Over Cars
The Internet provides the social interaction teenagers once found in car ownership
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Seagate Ships 750GB Momentus XT Hybrid Hard Drive, Boosts NAND Flash
The next best thing to a SSD gets better
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