My New Nexus S

The Box

In February I qualified for a new phone upgrade and so I started to think about which phone I wanted to get. There were only two real options: iPhone 4 or some Android. My iPhone 3GS was still in good condition, and no I din't really need a new phone but I figured I was due for a new toy, so why not.

I decided against the iPhone 4 and go for an android, mostly because I felt that I had done everything that could be done with the iPhone and if I was going to get a new phone it might as well be actually new. 

This was my iPhone battery image  

At the time I had decided that the best android phone available was the HTC Desire HD, and so I enquired as to how much it would cost me to upgrade. However, as luck would have it, on my way to buy the HTC phone I saw the Samsung Nexus S in a random store, and I was reminded of its existence. The phone hadn't officially come to Singapore but it could still be bought, for about an arm and a leg, and so seeing as this phone was superior to the HTC [in my opinion] I decided to do some searching. I found on the google that there were rumors that the Nexus S would come to Singapore in the first quarter of the new financial year, so I figured I would wait out these rumors and hang on to my money, which isn't too easy for me.

One day a colleague of mine casually mentioned that the Nexus S had arrived in Singapore with all three mobile operators, after making sure he wasn't playing with my emotions I decided to check the closest store to see if it was in stock.

The plan was simple, wait after work, ask if they had the phone in stock, nod approvingly if they did, go back home, transfer all the stuff out of my iPhone, and then purchase the phone to following day. So after work I showed up the store, but was met with news that they were out of stock, I asked if there was a nearby store that still had stock and they told me that there was one not too far away, and so I went.

The plan was still the same, although I was a bit rattled by news that the phone was out of stock, I didn't expect there to be that much demand for the Nexus S, especially given the amount of iPhone users I saw every day. With these thoughts running through my head I made it to store #2 fairly quickly. I looked around the store and noticed no display models, not a good sign. However, this was possibly done on purpose to test fair-weather buyers because after asking the cashier he told me that they did have the Nexus S in stock.

I asked how much it would cost me to get the phone given my eligibility for a new contract and the fact that I could trade in my iPhone 3GS. I was informed that the phone would normally cost me $348 but after inspecting my phone and assessing the value at $300 [not too bad for a one year old phone] all I would have to pay would be $48.

"Very well good sir, I shall return tomorrow to acquire the device," is what I wanted to say. However, what came out of my mouth was something a bit different.

This is closer to what I said

I asked the cashier if he could start all the paperwork as I frantically emailed myself all my notes and made evernote notes containing screenshots from soundhound and pictures I had taken with the phone. After all the paperwork was done they took my iPhone and factory reset it in front of me, which was very comforting, not that I had anything to hide.

So I left the store with a new phone in my pocket, a big smile on my face, and only a small dent in my wallet.

It may be cheap but I'm squeezing two posts from this event, the next will be an actual review of the phone.

Box Car 2D

The newest geekery for me is Box Car 2D a game you don't really play. Actually more than a game it's a demonstration of pretty good coding. The site describes the game as a "Genetic Algorithm Car Evolution Using Box2D Physics". The objective is simple, have you car travel as far as possible. However, you don't drive the car, instead you watch it evolve and can influence it in a number of ways.

The game uses is an example of a genetic algorithm to create the cars. The body of the car is made up of eight different vectors with differing magnitudes and angles. These vectors are then joined by triangles to make the car. You can decide whether your car should have anywhere from one to eight wheels of differing radii, each of which can be attached to one of the vectors that makes up the body. Each of these variables [the magnitude and angle for each of the vectors, the number of wheels, and the wheel radius and what vector it's attached to] becomes a "gene" and all together it makes up the chromosome. After a generation, which consists of X number of cars all running the course, parents are paired up and produce offspring. This passing on of genes is made helpful through color coding, therefore if one parent is all red and the other is all blue, you can see which parts come from which parent in the child. Lastly there is also a mutation rate you can control, this mutation will represents the likelihood that one of the genes gets a random value rather than being inherited from a parent.

There is a car designer that will allow you to create a car you can then use as the starting parent if you don't want to start with a random population. The designer is a bit hard to use because all the toggles are in terms of their values so the design isn't achieved by drawing our your car but by selecting magnitudes and angles.

There are different tracks for your car offspring to tackle. Some have a clear goal, like speedway, while others have a specific track feature, like the peak. The basic track doesn't seem to have any goal or specific feature and is the most frustrating to "beat".

During the week I tried to beat the normal track by inputting what I thought would be the best initial car, letting it run for some time and then taking the best performing car once performance plateaus and tweaking it in the designer.

My Best Initial Design

The initial design was based on the observation that cars with a big wheel in front and a small wheel behind tend to do pretty good at both taking a high fall and getting over peaks. In the higher distances of the default track [yes I played this thing enough to know the features of the track] you need good torque to climb up inclines so starting off with 91 torque seemed like a good start. After some number of generations the best I could get out of this initial design was a car that had a high score of 1033.8.

Best Car

Review: NBA Jam

It's Back

Recently I've been buying old games that I missed out on because I didn't have a PS3 so I haven't really played a current game, mostly because there hasn't been a release that has interested me all that much. However, when I heard that NBA Jam was coming out for modern consoles it warranted it's own entry into my calendar.

Originally the game was only going to come to Wii, which sucked. Then there was news that the game was going to be bundled as free DLC with EA's NBA Live 11, but then it seemed that EA realized they couldn't compete with 2K's basketball franchise, I mean they had Jordan on the cover, and they scrapped NBA Live.

However, seeing as there was enough fan demand and companies generally like making money, news came out that NBA Jam would be it's own stand alone title for PS3 and Xbox 360. Fans weren't too happy about this at first, mainly because they didn't want to pay full price for a game that was originally intended to be DLC, and they thought it should be offered through PSN for less than full price.

Either way, the game was released for PS3 at full price and I went and bought it because I needed a new multiplayer game and when they announced that the game would have the same announcer from the original game, it was a foregone conclusion that EA would get my money.

Gameplay

The game is simple enough to play. There are very few functions on either offense or defense so it's very easy to pick up and play. The controls are smooth and responsive, although with such a short action set I'm surprised you don't have the option to map your own control scheme.

The game features different modes, but at it's core it's 2v2 basketball. You select a team and then choose two players from that team to take to the court. One big annoyance is the fact that there is no "tag" mode which means that you are locked to one player, unlike the old SNES version where you controlled whoever had the ball. This is especially frustrating since the iPhone version does have a tag mode. However, unlike the iPhone version you can pay with three other friends.

The Remix mode is a normal game with power-ups, you can get an increase in strength, speed, or shooting ability, and there are power-ups that make you tiny, or invulnerable to shoves. This mode is fun although doesn't feel too different from a normal game.

There are other modes that feel like different games such as: smash, 21, elimination, and domination. These are all varied enough that you don't feel like you're playing the same game. However, the one true stand out is "Boss Battle" in this mode you take on a NBA superstar that has some special power in a half court game. My favorite so far was playing against Dwayne "Flash" Wade, this was the most fun for me because there are no breaks in the game, which means that after scoring, you don't have to clear the ball so you must be careful not to let Wade camp under the net and score basket after basket.

Presentation

The presentation doesn't seem to have changed much from the original game. While it does support HD, without vast landscapes or intricate characters it's not really an advantage.

As I mentioned before the voice of NBA Jam is back and every "boom shakalaka" takes you back, although apparently EA realized this because the announcer uses it so frequently you'd think it was a punctuation mark. The other sounds in the game can get repetitive as it seems there are only four music tracks.

The dunks look spectacular and getting on fire and dunking is especially nice as you elevate to ridiculous heights and you hear the click of the camera shutters as the photographers capture your flight. There is also a "camera hog" mode that will zoom in on your face at the peak of a fire dunk.

Recommendation

As a whole NBA Jam is a good game to have, especially if you have a human opponent. Although the game does support online play, there's nothing sweeter than blocking a dunk and talking trash to someone next to you on the couch. The dunks feel rewarding, the character roster is solid, although lacking some key players [no MJ], and with great one liners like "no hoop for you" it makes for good entertainment.