Steve’s blog

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Here's my first real paint job effort - same car as previous one, just put a bit more effort in so here's Kyle from South Park..

Was pretty easy but I don't think I'll be coming close to matching some of the more impressive ones I've seen online so far...

It's cool though when you finish and drive round in your custom car for the first time - even cooler when you watch it in the replays.

So.. what do you think?

EDIT: Here's some more pictures from different angles for anyone interested. I've also added some new wheels to the car and upgraded various parts - it's a lot nippier now :)

Well I got Forza 2 yesterday. Only had a quick go - have just done 3 races in career mode and had a very quick play with the editor to customise my car..

Forza2

Here's a picture of my 1st career mode car towards the end of its second race - went on to win despite the slight damage..

Overall, the game is great, the graphics are nice enough and it runs along nice and smoothly with a good sensation of speed. Playing it with the wireless racing wheel is just the icing on the cake.

Will post more thorough impressions once i've had chance to play it more but so far, it's a solid follow up to the Xbox original.

Well, it's finally here (and working) so a few thoughts on the Halo3 beta.

As many people have said, it's a lot like Halo 2 - it looks the same but nicer, plays the same but better and so basically - if you liked Halo 2 online, you'll still like this.

Halo 3 Beta Off-Screen.jpg

It certainly does look a lot better than Halo 2, some new effects and everything is generally shinier and sharper. It however lacks the next gen sheen of many other titles - put it next to Gears Of War and you'd struggle to believe its running on the same system.

Remember though, this is beta software and there's a good few months to go so hopefully the game will be improved further by release.

Gameplay is great. Everything seems nicely balanced, it's great fun and i've yet to see a single bit of lag. The maps are nice, not too big but not too small and so provide for some great matches.

Weapons feel pretty much spot on and vehicles are about the same as always. New items like the bubble shield add some new elements to the game too.

So far, it's looking good for Halo 3 - hopefully with a bit more spit and polish for the full game it'll be the classic it should be. Thumbs up to Bungie!

Check out the (off screen) pic above and video below (and yes, I still suck at the game!).

Well, the main reason I setup my blog is to make use of the Nokia Lifeblog feature on my new N95 mobile so it makes sense to start my blog with a bit about my first impressions of the N95..

So far, I'm very impressed with the phone. I have it on Orange (UK) so it has their own firmware version and is missing the VOIP functionality, for me it's not something I'd use so I don't miss it but some people will be dissapointed by the removal of this feature hence me bringing itup.

Smallville HDDVD.jpg

This picture in this article comes from the phones lovely 5 megapixel camera and was posted direct from the lifeblog software - very nice!

Same goes for the quality of the short video clip below - both the pic and vid are off-screen from the Smallville Season 5 HDDVD set running at 720p from the Xbox360 HDDVD addon. The video's not quite DVD quality as Nokia claim but for something recorded on a phone it's damned impressive.

The battery isn't perfect but isn't terrible, should last a couple of days for average phone use or a day or so if you play with the wi-fi etc..  heavy users will need to charge daily especially if making use of the GPS/Wifi/3G features regularly though.

The ability to post blogs from the phone or transfer stuff to the lifeblog software on PC is nice and simple to use.
The web browser is the best i've used outside of a PC and works with most pages - it even has limited Flash support (animation seem fine, youtube is a no-no).

The office/email type software is good and works as you'd hope and the GPS is a nice little addition - it can be slow to lock onto a signal but so far for me, it's been pretty quick 90% of the time and the mapping software is quite impressive and accurate from what I've seen so far.

Games are impressive for a mobile - probably better graphically than a Nintendo DS, not quite up to PSP standards but close.

Overall though i love it - 9/10!