A Softpedian's Blog

As promised, I’m back with my conclusions after seeing the last chapter in the Saw “saga”, Saw VII aka Saw 3D.

Trailer

In my opinion a trailer can do wonders for a movie. Trailers for Inception and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga”Hoole didn’t leave any room for doubt – those movies were a success. Saw’s trailer looked promising, but it used scenes that are not relevant or even present in the movie and I really hate that. (I’m talking about the cinema scenes and Jill’s nightmare)

3D

While I get the whole 3D fever, the few extra bucks were really not worth it. The effects are there, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t notice them that often and they surely didn’t leave me… breathless. Maybe I was too lost in the movie’s intense action to actually see them or Step Up really left its mark on me, but until proven otherwise I’ll stand by me opinion.

Tradition

Most fans have probably noticed that in the latest Saw movies, some sort of tradition was created for some elements. For example, those who were REALLY wanted to escape… well, they eventually did. Happened in all the Saw movies, but, as you might have guessed and maybe even noticed, it does NOT happen in Saw 3D. Bobby Dagen and all the people he tries to save die, despite all their efforts and determination. The only… exception is the trio in the beginning, but even those teens don’t fit the picture. In the previous movies, the person in the first trial often made an appearance later in the movie. Again, that’s not the case of Saw 3D.

Final Conclusion

Saw 3D is, most probably, a must-see for… the fans. You shouldn’t go see it if you haven’t seen all previous flics. You shouldn’t take your girlfriend to this movie and you shouldn’t see it either if you can’t handle the gore. The best part about this movie is, in my opinion, the way it leaves no loose ends, because if you have seen the entire saga, you’ve surely noticed them. Aside that, you shouldn’t have a lot of expectations because you might end up very disappointed. To be honest, I had my share of expectations and, although a lot of them were not met, I think the movie put a decent ending to the saga.

Well, I’m going to start by stating the obvious: this is my subjective opinion and probably most readers will disagree… When I first saw the Tron trailer nothing really impressed me, except maybe Olivia Wilde’s bad hairdo. On the other hand, people around me didn’t seem to agree, so I… “went along” and, when offered the chance, got tickets for Tron Night.

What’s Tron Night? A 20 minutes preview of Tron “aired” in 3D two weeks before the official release. I didn’t expect those 20 minutes to offer an impressive experience, but, in exchange, they offered nothing (Last warning: This is my personal opinion, ok?). I mean the most exciting part of those 20 minutes were the scenes you can easily see in the official trailer.

Inception’s TWO minute trailer left me a LOT more intrigued than Tron’s TWENTY minute teaser. Music: boring. Story: boring. 3D: pretty boring (yeah, it doesn’t look that bad, but it I’ve seen a lot better – and I don’t necessarily mean Avatar). There are a few interesting ideas lost somewhere inside the movie, but imho it’s impossible to judge an entire movie based on someone’s good intentions (poorly put into place).

On the bright side, tomorrow I’ll see the final Saw, Saw 7 and, since I’m a huge fan of the series, the experience will (hopefully) not disappoint me. I’ll surely be missing Jigsaw in the Halloweens to come, but “all great things must come to an end”. Saw was surely one of the longest franchises to keep me… screaming for more!

My ranting ends here. I”ll soon be back with my impressions on Saw. For those who aren’t… “Tron haters”, here’s an article they’ll surely find a lot more interesting: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Tron-Night-2010-Movie-Promises-to-Be-Brilliant-163584.shtml

Fallout New Vegas Box Shot

As we approach the end of October, we receive more and more games that need to be reviewed. Civilization 5, Sonic 4, Enslaved are already online and Medal of Honor will be released in a few days – meanwhile, we’re going to publish a few diaries.

Fallout New Vegas just came through the mail and it looks pretty awesome, if you ask me. I’ve been playing it for about 15 minutes and I’m impressed, cool graphics, no bugs and an interesting concept. It’s nice to see this type of FPS/RPG games gaining so much ground… To be honest, I didn’t expect STALKER, Mass Effect and now Fallout to receive such positive reviews, but, on the other hand, I’m not that big of a fan. Don’t get me wrong, I love FPSs, but combining them with RPGs is not something I can appreciate as much as other might.

Anyway, while playing Fallout, I couldn’t help but notice how much the graphics have been improved. Of course, they’re not “Crysis material” and, for now, they shouldn’t even think about going that far. All things considered, it’s great to see RPGs going from poor to awesome graphics. It was long overdue and the fans surely deserve it.

But enough about that, let’s get back on track. As I was saying, the MOH and Fallout New Vegas reviews will soon be online and be prepared for the… Vanquish review, of course. Hopefully, it will be online in a week or so. The schedule is still under debate, as newly arrived Lionheart: Kings Crusade must also be reviewed… As I was saying… so MANY games, so little time!

Next month, we’ll also post two overdue (unfortunately) reviews: one for Serious Sam Second Encounter HD – which recently went “live” on XBLA – and Lego Universe. We’ll start working hard on those reviews as soon as we’re finished with the ones we’re facing right now, “the big guns”.

In the end, a short clip I’ve made during my first 15 minutes of playing Fallout New Vegas. I’ve removed the gameplay part, as I’ll leave it to the in-depth review to reveal its beauty

After almost 9 months of work, I needed a bit of rest and relaxation (well, the vacation was planned a few months earlier, but who cares about those details?). Two years ago, me and the missis went on a two weeks (I think) vacation in Ixia, Rhodes and we absolutely loved it. So, this year we went back with family and friends.

The first thing I noticed from the moment we landed was the landscape and by landscape I don

For quite some time now, the Nozavi’s Apps website was pretty quite and “inert”. As the last post explains, my Alienware laptop got itself into some trouble. First because of its power adapter and then, believe it or not, its motherboard… Obviously, I wasn’t very happy about it, but, in the end, everything worked out fine (or so it seems).

Recently, I released three new tiny apps: The Big Bad Launcher, Steam Equilibrium and System Silencer. The last two were pretty easy to write, so although they have a lot of potential, I’ve decided to launch them as soon as I finished the first stable build. There’s a lot more on the way, but this basic functionality should satisfy the needs of any average user.

As most of my apps, Steam Equilibrium was created because I needed this kind tool. I was really sick and tired of switching from Steam Europe to Steam USA. I’ve been doing it for quite some time and I finally realized it would be a lot easier if I could just create a much faster replacement for this annoying loss of time. Future builds will probably allow the user to select the currencies and will support bundle packs (…/sub/… pages like this one http://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/ for example).

System Silencer was first created solely with this purpose: to silence the system while you’re away, but I immediately realized that other options could be added, so in its final version the app does a little more than just “put a sock in it”. Future versions will most probably enable users to also run files and… well, I sure hope users will have more ideas!

The Big Bad Launcher‘s story started a long time ago and it’s all on its page, so I won’t repeat myself here. The basic idea is pretty cool: launch a lot of apps in a few seconds (window launcher) or any app with just one click (menu launcher).

Symantec

When the Microsoft Security Essentials interview went online, someone suggested we should make an interview with the guys at Symantec.

Little did that person know, we’d already done that: the questions were sent and we were waiting for an answer, which, as you’ve probably guessed, arrived this week.

The person who asked about this interview will most probably be disappointed. Why? Well, despite what a lot of people might expect, the answers weren’t as `uptight` like the ones sent by Microsoft.

Stefan Wesche, Technical Expert Norton Products at Symantec, didn’t seem to have a problem answering our questions, although Ionut and Lucian didn’t limit their questions to Symantec’s flagship software.

So, if you liked the previous interviews with Avira, ESET or Panda, you’ll surely notice Symantec’s answers are pretty straight forward and to the point. Let your prejudice aside and enjoy a cool interview about Norton products!

Recently, Softpedia published the pictures of its software editors. Among them were, of course, the guys in our Games department… But, of course, a picture won’t tell you how much fun these guys are sometimes…

In most cases the fun moments are impossible to capture, but there a few rare cases, when one of us get the chance to take a picture.

Liviu VS Baby

For example, in this case:

Liviu had to test a game involving the close care of a baby.

You can easily see how careful he is, not to screw anything up.

Why? Well, he managed to almost kill the baby a few times, so now… he was being EXTRAcareful!

The great Elmer Fudd used to say Sssssh, I’m hunting wabbits!

I can only say… Sssssh! Liviu bathes the baby!

Anyway, no need to worry, Liviu doesn’t have any weird… inclinations and babies were NOT harmed in the making of this mobile shot!

As for Liviu’s pride… well, that’s another story, but not a tragic one.

The game finally found its way on Softpedia.

As for the other picture… well, it proves beyond any doubt the bond between Liviu and his colleague, Alex.

If you don’t see what’s so funny about this picture, you just need to look closer… at how exactly they’re bound

PS: A free, virtual beer for anyone who’s able to identify the model

The bond between Liviu and Alex

Alpha Protocol

Last month the guys at SEGA were kind enough to send us a review copy of their latest “hit”: Alpha Protocol.

We found the game very promising and, as you probably know, we rated it with a 9 (out of 10) and started a series of Alpha Protocol diaries.

But that’s all in the past (and in my previous post for that matter), now let’s talk about what’s ahead…

SEGA contacted us again with a GREAT idea that we kept under wraps until now: a surprise competition!

We initially thought about making it a blitz-contest (and keep it online for this weekend only), but heck, that would have taken the fun out of it.

So, in a few hours an exclusive competition will start will Alpha Protocol as our main star.

It

Last week, the guys at Sega were kind enough to send us a copy of Alpha Protocol, they’re latest RPG release.

As you can imagine, the reviewing team was all over this as soon as it arrived and now a review is online. And for those who are just interested in the numbers: Alpha Protocol scored a 9 out of 10, so it’s definitely a game worth playing, especially if you’re into espionage and such…

So, here’s the review and if you’re interested in reading a step-by-step series of articles, detailing some of the less known facts about Alpha Protocol, feel free to have a look at Softpedia’s Alpha Protocol diaries

On the other hand, if you’ve never heard of this game, here’s a little incentive:

Either way… Enjoy!

Whether you visited the Windows area or the News area of Softpedia, you’ve surely noticed the exclusive interviews with world renown AV companies.

Until now, we’ve got Avira, Avast, AVG, ESET, MSE and Panda. Who’s next? Who’s stepped in the line of fire? While Bitdefender is next!

Catalin Cosoi, Bitdefender’s Head of the Online Threats Lab, was kind enough to answer some of our question regarding both current and future PC threats, but also the company’s future plans and products.

I hope you’ll enjoy it…

Update: And here it is!