Google Maps Takes You Inside the World Cup Stadiums - Webmaster News

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There’s just over a week left until the World Cup kicks off in Brazil, so if you’re planning on attending and need help finding your way around the event, Google Maps has come up with a solution.

Starting Wednesday, you can explore the insides of all 12 stadiums hosting the World Cup, as well as surrounding areas via Street View.

Previously, stadiums such as Rua Professor Eurico Rabelo in Rio de Janeiro could easily be found on Google Maps, but their interiors remained closed off to Street View’s virtual lens.

Getting an early visual head start on the stadiums and their layouts could be vital, as the arenas will be spread out across Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Natal, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Brasilia, Fortaleza, Cuiaba, Manaus, Recife and Sao Paulo.

Only six of the 12 stadiums will have Wi-Fi enabled, according to the Washington Post, so if you don’t have a mobile data plan to access the web, you may want to start exploring and taking notes now, before setting foot in Brazil.

BONUS: Uniforms of the World Cup, from Best to Worst

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Source: http://mashable.com/2014/06/05/google-street-view-world-cup/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss

The World is Not Enough (PS1) - Webmaster News

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When GoldenEye for the N64 was released, the latest Bond film was actually Tomorrow Never Dies. This meant the inevitable post-GoldenEye showdown between the two most popular consoles would have to be pushed off until the next film. Perhaps this means both camps had time to prepare, and it certainly gave the PlayStation an opportunity to play some technical catch-up, but regardless, the end result is a pretty excellent Bond game. For the PlayStation anyway – Dave will be tackling the N64′s version, which I intentionally have not played.

Gunplay there will be.

Like the 16-bit glory days, two different development studios tackled the tie-in independent of each other. Both obviously follow the movie, but the PlayStation features levels and mechanics not seen in its 64-bit cousin. A lot of these mechanics follow exactly what you would hope to see in a Bond game (namely, gadgets!) and to me at least, make this feel like an exceptionally well-rounded Bond experience. The gameplay isn’t as smooth as GoldenEye, and the engine not quite as crisp, but it’s certainly more than serviceable.

The World is Not Enough has Bond investigating the assassination of a British oil baron. His daughter Elektra is the next target of a group seemingly headed by her former kidnapper, an anarchist named Renard. The game has you putting pieces together across eleven different levels, each following the plot of the movie exactly with areas certainly extended, but no missions invented just to pad out the game. This is actually handled surprisingly well – a boat chase in the second level seamlessly and plausibly transitions to a foot pursuit through narrow London streets. Clips from the film appear as cutscenes, and these too end up matching. A level ending in a stand-off clicks right to a movie scene, which got to the same point in a different (usually, shorter) way. I haven’t seen the film in a while, and so without knowledge of the cuts, it struck me how well the game and film intertwine.

The same engine powering Medal of Honor is used here. It controls well, offers a variety of scenes, and even reuses some of that game’s unique systems (an infiltration level has you finding clearance documents and holding them out for guards to inspect, just like ol’ Jimmy Patterson). Medal of Honor was not a fast-paced game, but Black Ops has managed to up the speed of encounters here without actually increasing the speed of the engine. It’s no Doom, but roughly comparable to GoldenEye, which is all you can ask for. You’ll certainly mow down frequent hallways full of stooges, duck behind doors and crates for cover, and even race to defuse the latest explosive objective. Mixed in with the straight action levels are ones focused on stealth, chases (with failure to keep up resulting in a restart), and hostage rescues.

You’ll actually play a blackjack minigame.

You won’t drive a car, but you’ll do just about everything else Bond would. There’s a skiing level, where you’re really just sliding down carved trenches whilst shooting at snowmobiles, but it works. There’s a casino level where you actually have to play cards and build up $100k to proceed (it’s blackjack instead of baccarat, alas). You’re also allowed to personally enjoy as much of the action as the engine allows – for example, one level has you racing down a tunnel to outrun an explosion. Instead of cutting right to the film scene, or asking you to run on foot, you use the grappling watch to slide along a chain rig to the end of the tunnel, flames in pursuit. It’s neat touches like this that really help the presentation.

There’s a variety of weapons, albeit none that feel really unique. There’s a handful of submachine guns that vary in accuracy more than power. All the rifles are plenty deadly. Shotguns require extremely close range, and are so best avoided. Bond’s signature Walther (here a “Wolfram P99”) holds its own against basic baddies, and comes with an integrated silencer for stealth levels. The rest are collected from fallen enemies, and the guns you use are dictated entirely by which you’re finding ammo for. Satchel charges, grenades, and grenade launchers also make appearances, but only in very specialized situations. As with GoldenEye, damage to your health can never be repaired, but body armor can be refilled with pickups around the levels.

The R1 button can be held to go into aim mode, and is useful if you can catch a limb peeking out from a corner, or are trying to nail a distant sniper. Headshots count, so aim is rewarded. Unfortunately, the DualShock’s right analog stick isn’t used, so holding R1 and using the left stick is also your only way to look and aim vertically. It’s cumbersome, and pretty much relies on you to stand firmly in place to line up a shot. This is offset by an optional auto-aim system that is reasonably responsive and always fair. You can crash through the whole game shooting from the hip without too much fuss. The tradeoff is that auto-aim always snaps to an enemy’s center, so you’ll burn a little more ammo and never get a headshot this way.

Gadgets you’re given will actually see use.

Gadgets are introduced at the start of each level, and if presented, will always be used. These range from simple keycards you have to actually select in your hand for Bond to swipe, to explosive pens, credit card lockpicks, rocket launching camcorders, night vision glasses, and yet more. You can stealthily knock out goons with your cell phone stun gun, and will even defuse a bomb with it. A grappling hook watch provides a few close escapes. Gas grenades and a flashbang flashlight are nearly mandatory for hostage situations on the hardest difficulty – without stunning the room first, the goons will start shooting at their hostages.

Inventory is cycled with Square and Triangle. Certain levels can build up quite a collection of keys and weapons, so to lessen any problems with selecting the right tool in a pinch, you can use the Start menu to select which items appear in your inventory. You’re able to do this at any time, and thrown in (or take out) as many items as you like. If you know you’ll never need a device again, such as the metal detector scrambler in the first level, you can hit Start and remove it from the rotation. If it turns out you do need it later, it’s still in your overall inventory for that level and be added back in.

Graphics look great for the system, with a surprising amount of texture variety. No two levels really look alike, from the colorful textures of the casino level to the bright whites of your Alpine excursion. A wide variety of locales was always a staple of the films, and it’s nice to see it replicated here. Your HUD is minimalist, which I like. Enemy reactions to gunfire are about on the level of Medal of Honor, with lots of stumbles and staggers if you haven’t done enough damage to put them down. As said, the speed is great. You won’t be sprinting a million miles an hour, but your movement and looking around maintain a solid framerate without visual hitches (save for the texture warping, which seems unavoidable on the PS1).

Audio is similarly solid, with beefy gun effects and acceptable dialogue acting. Adam Blackwood does a surprisingly excellent Brosnan impersonation, and his in-mission quips sound authentic enough. John Cleese also appears as the new quartermaster, giving you the appropriate amount of exasperated sass in the mission briefing. M doesn’t sound remotely like Judy Dench, and Elecktra’s attempted French accent is laughable, but these are the only real disappointments. Moneypenny also offers sad sexual innuendos and absolutely nothing of value, but I suppose that fits the character (with sincere apologies to Lois Maxwell).  Audio on the film cutscenes sounds great as well, and they give you a surprising amount of the movie to watch if you’re so inclined. (If not, you can skip them).

Stealth levels are loosely enforced. You can handle replacement guards, just make sure no innocents get killed.

If I had any complaint, it would be that this is a short game by most standards. I beat it on the “normal” difficulty in a single evening, and levels are small and linear enough that none should last more than five minutes. There are some occasional annoyances along the way, usually related to having to protect hostages or Bond bimbos from waves of bad guys, or the rare moment where not knowing what to do will kill you outright (such as getting pinched between some blast doors – ouch!). In all cases, you’re dumped back to the start of the level. But again, with levels only minutes long it’s not the hassle it could be. You also can’t skip the blackjack level, which took me a few retries – and repeating unskippable dialogue – before the cards fell in my favor.

For replay, there’s only two difficulty levels. The 007 difficulty doesn’t add objectives, it just makes you weaker and enemies stronger while removing the MI6 radio hints that populate the Agent difficulty. There’s also a scoring system here. You’re ranked per level on points like speed and accuracy, which feed into an overall gun rating (bronze, silver, gold). Getting the best rating on certain levels unlock standard cheats (all weapons, invincibility, etc). The top three scores per level are also saved to the memory card as a leaderboard. This potential competition also marks the game’s only source of multiplayer. Some arena-based shenanigans might have added to the overall value, but if we’re being honest, probably wouldn’t have seen much play.

Overall, this is a great Bond game, and a suitable PlayStation challenger to GoldenEye, at least as far as the single player compares. The action is fast and the engine is smooth. I would have liked levels to be a little less linear and for the game to use GoldenEye’s system of adding objectives at higher difficulties – this would help an otherwise short game’s replay value significantly. Without them, however, this feels very much like a “one and done” game, and certainly not a “must play” from a modern perspective.

A fine PlayStation Bond. Great level variety. Engine is fast and sharp, as is the action. Stealth, gambling, and gadgets all make welcome appearances. Arguably better than the movie.

Levels are quite linear and objectives don’t change. Virtually no reason to play more than once – bad news with such a short game (I knocked it out in a single evening). “Guard the lady while she hacks something” sections can be annoying, as can the unskippable blackjack challenge.

“Oh, James. I wish you were in my hands instead of the enemy’s” — Moneypenny

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The World Is Not Enough (N64) - Webmaster News

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As I’m typing this, I have literally just finished reading J Man’s review of the PlayStation version of TWINE, and am finally getting off my duff long enough to finish the N64 review, and much like J Man’s decision to not play the N64 version, I did not play the PSX version, so any comparisons to that iteration are based off of his impressions and recollections and not my own personal experience. Also, unlike the PSX version, which was somewhat assisted by low expectations (the only Bond game before this was Tomorrow Never Dies, which was…not great), developer Eurocom had to compete with the legendary Goldeneye, so anything less than a home run was bound to be considered a disappointment. Sadly, they couldn’t quite replicate that success, but what they did give us is a very solid effort on its own.

Attention to Detail: The elevators in the bank actually work.

Quite obviously, the story remains the same here. An MI6 agent investigating terrorist attacks on an oil pipeline is killed, the money trail leads to a Swiss banker in Spain, and sure enough, the only lead gets snuffed out, and 007 has to set off to foil yet another nefarious and completely overengineered plot and save the world. Alas, this being an N64 game, there are no actual scenes from the movie here, instead, all cutscenes are handled in-engine, the limitations of which require a few shortcuts to be taken (in the movie, the banker is killed by a sniper after Bond notices the laser sight on him, in the game, Cigar Girl just pulls a gun out and shoots him).

N64 TWINE stretches across 14 levels, although one is basically broken into two halves. The levels generally stick to the plot, although one or two were leaps of faith (I don’t remember Bond having to trudge through a tube station in the movie). Most of them are your basic action stages, but there’s also a rail-shooter stage where you’re allegedly on skis, and there’s a mission where stealth is enforced and you’re not allowed to use lethal force. Needless to say, it’s the least fun mission in the game. I’m happy to also report that there’s no casino level to bog down the action and test your patience, it’s FPS all the way here, although the last level, where you have to navigate through a disabled and flooded submarine through trial and error for the first 90% of it, isn’t exactly a highlight.

Unlike the PSX version, different difficulty levels do increase the number of objectives and the number of tasks that comprise an objective. For example, the aforementioned stealth level requires you to bug a certain number of telephones. On Agent, it’s just two. On 00 Agent, it becomes four, and one phone is moved to a different location. Also, as you increase the difficulty, your auto-aim loses effectiveness; on 00 Agent, you’ll have to aim yourself.

Stalking targets with night vision.

One aspect that needs to be pointed out is that this game is far less forgiving than Goldeneye. Seemingly every other level features a hostage situation that requires pinpoint timing and accuracy or civilians in one form or another milling about, and one hostage lost or one civilian winged by a stray bullet as they stumble into a firefight means an instant mission failure. Not only that, but unlike Goldeneye, where enemies dropped a specific amount of ammo depending on the difficulty level, here it is entirely random, and worse yet, you never pick up all that much. I understand it was a “sake-of-realism” type of choice, but I can’t stress how frequently I would be down to my last magazine, take a third of that to kill an enemy, and then be rewarded with TWO BULLETS. Not to mention the fact that there’s quite a bit of jumping to be done in this game, and while I don’t believe the strafe-run jump technique is required for any of them, per se, it’s a skill you’d be well-advised to master in a hurry.

Aside from the inclusion of jumping, most everything handles quite similarly to Goldeneye: Z fires, B reloads, A switches weapons and so forth, but there are a couple cool new wrinkles thrown in.For one, if you can manage to sneak up behind an enemy and poke him in the back, he’ll surrender and drop his weapon (although if you turn your back on him, he’ll reach for a backup pistol). Holding A and pressing B cycles through your gadgets, with the reverse toggling X-Ray or night vision, if you have either. Your watch features four different powers: a close-range taser, a non-lethal dart gun for silent takedowns at range, a laser that can cut locks or deactivate alarm panels, and a grapple that sticks to black and yellow striped panels, giving it the versatility you’d like to see in a Bond gadget. Sadly, the watch is the exception, as most of the others fall into the GoldenEye mentality of being used for one and only one purpose.

Well, when you think about it, the James Bond character’s about that age.

Any FPS is only as good as its arsenal, and TWINE brings a pretty solid selection to the table. Your default pistol (called the Wolfram P2K in the N64 version) is a little weak, but capable of dealing with cookie-cutter enemies fairly reliably. There are a couple of magnum pistols, a nice smattering of assault rifles with high stopping power, a pair of sniper rifles, a handful of submachine guns that are fine, but REALLY handicapped by ammo shortages, a guided missile launcher that’s the size of a breadbox and will home in on wherever the laser sight is pointed, and a number of bizarre weapons like a crossbow that requires you to account for bullet drop when you target at long range, and a double-barreled speargun carried by scuba divers.

Most every weapon has an alternate fire mode that can be switched to by holding B and pressing Z; your pistol can switch between regular and silenced modes, rifles can toggle full auto or burst modes, and the grenade launcher can switch between impact detonation and a time-delayed detonation. The shotgun seems to be a little more capable on the N64 version than on PSX, but the biggest downside to using it is the fact that every shell must be reloaded one at a time (the same also applies to the bolt-action sniper rifle), which basically ruins its value after you empty the first magazine. And yes, there’s an RCP-90 knockoff to be found here as well.

Perhaps the biggest advantage the N64 version has over its PlayStation counterpart, though, is the inclusion of multiplayer. Up to 4 players can throw down on a variety of maps and game modes, with the option to have CPU bots filling in any empty slots. You can unlock new skins, game modes, maps, and weapon sets by beating single player stages on certain difficulties by a certain time, much like Goldeneye. AI bots have different stats, both in terms of health and personality, for example, Bond starts with 150 health, and is a Team Player, meaning he’ll be more focused on achieving the goal of the game (like capturing the flag or the satellite feeds in Uplink), but Renard is an Assassin, which means he concentrates more on killing other players than anything else. Also, a couple skins (Valentin Zukovsky and Bathing Woman) literally cannot run, instead, they just kinda waddle about and make easy targets. Skins are also categorized as Good or Evil, and sadly, Good skins are not allowed to team with Evil skins, nor are they allowed to fight other Good skins, so if you’re playing a 4-player free-for-all and one of you picks Bond, the rest of you have to pick baddies. Again, it’s another example of “sake-of-realism” overcoming practicality.

Translation: You’re going to accidentally shoot this guy.

Some of the multiplayer options are going to see more run than others. Two of the maps, Sky Rail, which features a gondola that runs between two stations and serves as a mobile sniper point, and Air Raid, which has you battling between a spy plane and a refueling jet, are actually quite fun and innovative, and the revamped Golden Gun mode (where you have to put together the three pieces of the Golden Gun and then tag the other players with it to win) can be good frantic fun. The only real complaint I had about multiplayer was that you really can’t select your weapons, instead, you’re stuck picking from different preset groups, and the game seems to have overvalued the more exotic (RE: less practical) weapons.

Visually, TWINE’s strong for a late N64 game, and closer resembles Perfect Dark instead of Goldeneye. Reloading now shows you removing a clip and physically placing a new one in your gun, which is a nice touch, but a bit of a double-edged sword when you’re using a slow-reloading weapon like the Mustang .44 or the aforementioned shotgun. Important objects in the missions flash a la Resident Evil, and enemies don’t lock in place to fire like Goldeneye, instead, they’re actually capable (and at times, frustratingly efficient) at sidestepping and ducking behind cover in a firefight.

As I said, cutscenes are handled in-engine, and while characters look more detailed than Goldeneye, they still have a very “action figure” look when they’re speaking and their faces remain frozen. Voice samples are passable for who they’re supposed to be; much like the PSX version, Bond sounds pretty close to Pierce Brosnan, and even the bit players in the story sound alright, especially Valentin. Elektra’s voice isn’t terrible, but you can get the impression the voice actor playing her was stuck between trying to emulate Sophie Marceau’s French accent and a British accent her character is kinda supposed to have. There’s also a lot more gesticulation here than Goldeneye; civilians will put their hands up and beg off convincingly as opposed to Goldeneye’s “hands up, back bent, knees shaking like I really gotta piss” civilians, and even run-of-the-mill enemies will announce your presence, although that does mean you’ll end up hearing “Bond is HERE!” way more times than you’d care to.

In the end, The World Is Not Enough is a pretty solid game that acquits itself nicely considering the competition it was up against in many gamers’ minds. The multiplayer mode definitely gives it some separation from the PSX version, and while it doesn’t have the obvious advantages a CD game is going to inherently have, the designers did a really admirable job of working within the limitations they had where they had to. It might feel a bit on the short side, but it’s enough of a challenge, especially on the higher difficulty levels, to make beating it feel like an accomplishment. Although it’s not quite as heralded as Big Brother Goldeneye or Distant Cousin Perfect Dark, TWINE definitely is a quality game that deserved a bit more attention than it got, and is definitely worthy of a play for Bond fans or FPS aficionados.

An FPS with no glaring holes, multiplayer and the higher difficulties provide replay value, about as well-acted as you could hope from a cartridge game, NO BLACKJACK LEVEL HERE.

I’m going to level with you, it’s nowhere near as groundbreaking or seminal as Goldeneye or as refined as Perfect Dark, a bit on the short side, and you’re just not going to use some of the multiplayer options.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/JustGamesRetro/~3/oTqJv1IqGgU/the-world-is-not-enough-n64