Duty Calls: Big Daddy Of All FPS Tweet

Brilliant is one of the many words that comes to mind when you think of this epic shooter. Striving for perfection in a world of boring and bland shooters, Duty Calls not only sets the bar high — but raises the standards of what a first person shooter in this day and age should be. Every first person shooter should eat their heart out, because this is the sleeper hit that the genre has been waiting for.

Duty Calls: The Calm Before The Storm is a masterpiece in its own right. It has everything a first person shooter fan could ask for. Guns, bad guys, bullets, explosions, and more bad guys. It even has a main bad guy that you must take down before he sets off a nuclear weapon. It’s some pretty gripping shit when you stand back and look at it. No one could have expected how revolutionary this game would be. To say anything bad about this game is just stupid because this game is amazing — end of discussion.

Epic has created a fully playable game that roundly mocks CoD, which is aptly called Duty Calls.

The game isn't the biggest ever; someone has uploaded footage of themselves playing it and it clocks it at just under five minutes - but it is chock-full of parody for a franchise that some think takes itself way too seriously.

The game takes place somewhere and you’ll play as some random soldier who must fight his way through several bad guys, pick up objectives to advance the plot, and eventually reach the main bad guy. You might lose a friend along the way, but it’s all worth it once you reach the end. You’ll level up to super awesome levels as you progress through the game’s campaign. There’s nothing like seeing that new rank pop up on the screen.

What You'll like:

The Gun: Never before has a game offered a gun like this one. Super realistic gun sounds and the way they fire is simply unreal. I’ve never fired a gun before in my entire life, but I can tell you that the ONE gun you get in this game is as close to real life as they get. Just take my word for it, I’m the reviewer here and I say so. Realism has never been achieved in a video game like it was in this one ladies and gentlemen.

The Story: Gripping, stunning, amazing, controversial, emotionally charged — these are all appropriate adjectives to describe the story in this game. Moving from one point to the next, you’ll be left on the edge of your seat the entire time. You can’t wait to see what happens as you move from checkpoint to checkpoint. The game even finds a way to connect with you on an emotional level. Never in your life will you be as enthralled by a story as you will be with Duty Calls. It’s told by a series of gripping cut-scenes and uses techniques like slow motion to help make it that much better. Hollywood or even bollywood should take lessons from this game.

The Gameplay: While Duty Calls sets the bar high in terms of it’s amazing story, the gameplay is beyond revolutionary. No game has ever been able to make the genre feel and play so damn good. The way you have control over your character is amazing. Even the jump is fucking revolutionary. Every other FPS ever created is now a joke by comparison. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we found our “Halo” or “Call of Duty” killer. You’ll be blown away by the quality of the gameplay in Duty Calls.

The Characters: As you progress through the game, you begin to feel emotionally attached to your character. When you struggle through the hardships of war to reach his objective, you feel yourself growing attached to him. You can relate to him in a way you never thought you could to a virtual character. Aside from him, you can’t help but feel a sense of hatred towards the bad guys. Whether you love or hate the characters, Duty Calls does an amazing job at eliciting some sort of emotional response from you. You’ll love them, hate them, cry for them, but god damn it — you’ll feel something for the characters in this game.

The Leveling System: Revolutionary is the ONLY way to describe it. Never before have players been given a leveling system like this one. Any system before this one can be thrown out the window and be considered flawed or broken. The more you progress, the more you kill, the higher your level will go.

What You Might Not Like:

Nothing: Are u retarded? Duty Calls: The Calm Before The Storm is a masterpiece. No game in the history of video games has set the bar this high. If you have anything bad to say about this game — you can just get the fuck out. Go sell all your video game consoles and games. You my friend are not a gamer if you don’t like Duty Calls!

This is a must play for all the first person shooter fans out there. Even if you’re not a fan of first person shooters, this is DEFINITELY the game for you. Nothing come close to this game. This is the genre defining game that will stand out for years to come. Everything else that follows will be called a “clone” or “generic” by comparison.

To say this is just an “FPS” is an understatement. Folks this is THE FPS. It’s the definitive, end-all, genre defining game. The one that will be talked about for a long time. The bar has been raised like never before, and a new standard has been set. It will be a long time before we see another game come close to Duty Calls: The Calm Before The Storm. Play this game! You’ll be glad that you did.




Here is the torrent link to download the game

The Surprisingly Crowded Smartphone Market Tweet

Finally, here is a brief comparison between the very bitter rivals of the smartphone segment.

1. Apple iphone 4

2. Nokia N8

3. Sony Ericsson Arc

4. Samsung Galaxy S

5. HTC HD7

6. Blackberry Torch 9800

1. Apple Iphone 4:

     We all know that there are a lot of iphone fanatics but this phone right here is not what you are looking for. Yes, the iphone 4 has a lot of issues including poor signal reception, requires micro sim card, file sharing through bluetooth only via other Apple products. Coming to the OS part , the iphone 4 uses iOS 4 and its quite good and has a lot of applications to download and use. The phone weighs at 137 gms and is 9.3 mm thick. It has got a primary camera of 5 megapixels with LED flash and the hd video recording is done at 720p@30 fps. The very interesting thing is that the photo flash can be used for video light as well. The screen measures 3.5 inches and is a LED-backlit IPS TFT with capacitive touchscreen interface. The phone has a stainless steel finish and is really sturdy. The battery life is not so good as usual. It has accelerometer sensor for auto rotate, a three axis gyro sensor for excellent gaming experience and a proximity sensor for auto turn off. The phone comes with 16/32 GB storage and no card slots :( The phone runs on the Apple's A4 processor and is supported by a 512 MB RAM, but still multi-tasking is not quite overwhelming. It has two microphones for active noise cancellation.

Price: 40000-42000 INR / around 50000 INR (16GB/32GB)

Bottom-line: Go for it if you don't value money and all you are looking for is fun compromising on some tiny lil features. Good phone over all but not enough to challenge with Android phones. [I do feel thats it a good idea to wait for iPhone Gen 5 hitting the market by around September... There are speculations that this new one has improved hardwares that none can match] 

2. Nokia N8 :

N8 is one of the better smart-phones provided by Nokia. But i don't know why Nokia had to go with the Symbian^3 OS for the N8. I have got only two words for it- it sucks, maybe 3 it sucks big-time!!!!!! In the last quarter of 2010 Nokia lost about 7% of smart-phone market to the Google's Android powered smart-phones. Since then Nokia has started to work with Microsoft to provide them with an OS to over-power the Android. But leave all that, coming back to the N8 the battery cannot be removed since it is sealed with screws under the Stainless steel body. One of the very interesting features of the N8 is that an adaptor is provided with the USB cable so that the phone can be connected to external hard disks or pen-drives. This is a very unique thing is very much suited for transfers on the go. N8 has a 12 mega-pixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. The image quality is simply superb and the video recording is hd and @25 fps. The phone has a 512 MB RAM and multi-tasking is quite good. It has a 3.5 inch OLED screen which is no deal when compared to the Super AMOLED of the Samsung Galaxy S. This time Nokia came up only with a single hardware key below the screen and a keypad lock key at the right side. Nokia gets the upper-hand in providing very superior battery life. 

Price: 24000 INR

Bottom-line: Everything is awesome about the phone except for that bull-shit Symbian^3 OS.

3. Sony Ericsson Arc :

      The much awaited Xperia Arc is due to be released at the end of the first quarter of 2011. It is just 8.7mm thick and is very light @ 117 gms. The Arc is run by 1GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU,  Qualcom MSM8255 Snapdragon and a 512 MB RAM. The screen is LED-backlit LCD and measures 4.2 inches and is rather long than wide. The card slot is micro SD and is expandable upto 32 GB. The Camera is 8 megapixels and takes excellent snaps paired with the LED flash. Some additional features include touch focus, smile and face detection, geo tagging and image stabilization. Sadly no secondary camera available. The Xperia Arc will be the first phone to run on the Android OS, v2.3 Gingerbread.

Price: 30000-35000 INR (rumoured)

Bottom-line: The phone looks like 4-5 sheets of papers stacked on. Awesome offering and is sure to shake up Samsung's Galaxy S!

4. Samsung Galaxy S :

This phone right here is Samsung's Masterpiece. The phone has very less or no flaws to speak about. It has no flash, no flash support for web browser, the loudspeaker is really feeble that you cannot simply call it a "loud"-speaker. The all plastic body makes it all the more lighter and thinner. It weighs at 118 gms and is 9.9mm thick. Multitasks with 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird combined with 512 MB RAM and 2GB ROM. The huge 4 inch Super AMOLED screen is the best in a phone till date (forgetting about the much hyped Retina Display of Apple). The 5 megapixel camera has smile, face and blink detection and captures videos in HD. There is a secondary camera for video calling. Galaxy S comes with internal memory of 8/16 GB with hot-swappable slot for micro-SD cards upto 32GB. The phone runs on Android OS, v2.1 Eclair and is update-able to Android 2.2 Froyo, but the v2.2 is not quite stable and is quite slow compared to the Eclair. The Android market has a lot of interesting and useful applications. It has proximity and accelerometer sensors. The Live Wallpapers is a special feature not to be forgotten.

Price: 27000 INR

Bottom-line: The first Android powered smart phone is worth every single penny from your earnings.....or your dad's.

5. HTC HD7 : 

This Windows mobile from HTC has a huge 4.3 inch screen and weighs at 162 gms. The phone works on the 1GHz processor and 512 MB ROM and 576 MB RAM. The internal storage is 8GB for Europe and 16GB for Asia. The 5 mega-pixel camera captures high quality pictures with dual LED flash and records HD videos. The phone runs on Windows Phone OS 7. Additional to G sensor and Proximity sensor the HD7 also has digital compass and Ambient light sensor. The phone has a kick-stand for awesome movie experience with great audio quality boosted by SRS WOW HD. It has in-built flashlight app that turns the dual LED into flashlight with 3 brightness levels and even flashes SOS signal in case of emergency. The HTC Hub has a wide variety of applications which is not currently available in India. WTF!!!!!!!!

Price: 29000 INR

Bottom-line: It is more of a tablet than a phone, that is exactly why we (TechnoManiacz) did not compare Dell Streak with these smart-phones.

    

6. Blackberry Torch :

    The 3.2 inch slider mobile with TFT capacitive touch screen and qwerty keyboard weighs 161 gms. The 5 mega-pixel camera has features like geo-tagging,image stabilization, continuous autofocus, LED flash. The video recording is one place where Blackberry let down the Torch 9800. It records video at 24 fps in 3gp format, yes no HD recording unlike the other smart phones. The optical trackpad adds beauty and ease of access to the several menus and applications. Sadly there is no secondary camera for video calling. The Torch has a 624 Mhz processor , 512 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM. The internal memory is 4GB and is expandable upto 32GB with a micro SD. The phone runs on the Blackberry OS 6.0 which is so far the best for multitasking. Plus the new feature of OS 6 is that the whole way of navigation has changed - there is a navigation bar for icons at the bottom which can be pulled up to display a row of 5 shortcuts and two rows of 10 shortcuts, all these can be accessed without a single hardware button pressed. The blackberry server allows maximum file hosting and stuff. The touch interface is not very perfectly crafted like the N8 or the Galaxy S which is not a major drawback but seems a lil sluggish. The phone can play many video formats including DivX and other DVD formats.

Price: 35000 INR

Bottom-line: Quite the feel of a smart-phone and you can surely go for it if you are looking for a multimedia phone that is a smart-phone.

Sneak-Peak into Galaxy S II :

Till now all we know about the Galaxy S2 is that it is to have a launch by the end of the 1st quarter or the starting of the 2nd of 2011. The Galaxy S2 looks over its preceedor in many areas : 

1. S2 has a bigger 4.3 inch Super AMOLED screen 

2. 8 mega-pixel camera with LED flash and secondary camera is 2 mega-pixels 

3. S2 gets  Dual Core 1GHz Cortex A9 processor, Orion chipset and 1GB RAM 

4. weighs just 116 grams lighter than the Xperia Arc by a gram

5. thinner than its preceedor and measures only 8.49 mm

6. Comes with Android OS,v2.3 Gingerbread.

We got more info coming right up! So all you folk keep checking. Technology will never let us down [hopefully]. So thats all for now folks...

Android O.S.: What, How & Why Tweet

Android is a mobile operating system owned by Google Inc., who acquired it from Android Inc., a small startup company based in Palo Alto, California, USA. As of Q4 2010 Android O.S. was the world's best-selling smartphone platform, dethroning Nokia's Symbian from the 10-year top position. As Symbian used to rule the roost, especially in India, it will be useful to look at it from that angle.

The main difference is that Android is a 'connected' OS. i.e for example: Once you enter your Gmail account details (If you don't have it, it asks you to create one), it starts syncing your e-mail, contacts and calendar from the cloud. Each new e-mail you get is subsequently pushed to your phone. While the Gtalk feature is always there for instant chat feature. The Facebook and Twitter official clients on Android are as smooth as they come, while the browser is in the same league as Apple Safari, which is a good enough compliment. While discussing components it is important to mention that the world orders have shifted and people walking to buy a smartphone are rarely interested in 'How many megapixel is the camera?'

Mhz (megahertz) is the new MP.

To make it simple: there are 3 main brands making processors for Android phones (Tegra not being considered).

• Qualcomm
• Samsung
• Texas

Out of the above, by far the most-used platform is the qualcomm 600 Mhz processor (MSM 7227) used in a wide range of devices from the affordable Andro A60 to the premium and sexy HTC legend. It is a good processor and good enough to handle some multitasking. But still it will not allow you to play all new HD games coming out. Still, it is a very good choice.

Snapdragon 800 Mhz (MSM 7230): Used in phones like the newer qwertified Desire Z and some other HTC phones and also in the upcoming Sony Experia Arc and maybe the new playstation phone. This is a new power efficient chip that comes with upgraded Adreno chip 205, that enables it to trash the older snapdragon 1 Ghz (QSD 8250) in graphics performance, inspite of the lower clock speed.

Given below are the version history of Android O.S. developed by Google Inc. and the Open Handset Alliance. They are updates which aim at fixing bugs and adding new features.

Version history

1.0	Released 23 September 2008
1.1	On 9 February 2009, Android 1.1 update for Android was released for T-Mobile G1 Only. Included in the update were: Multiple resolved issues API changes Maps adds details and reviews Screen timeout longer when using speakerphone "Show" & "Hide" Dialpad included in-call menu Support for saving attachments from MMS Support for marquee in layouts
1.5 (Cupcake) Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.27	On 30 April 2009, the official 1.5 (Cupcake) update for Android was released. There were several new features and UI updates included in the 1.5 update: Ability to record and watch videos through camcorder mode Uploading videos to YouTube and pictures to Picasa directly from the phone A new soft-keyboard with text-prediction Bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP support Ability to automatically connect to a Bluetooth headset within a certain distance New widgets and folders that can populate the Home screens Animated screen transitions
1.6 (Donut) Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.29	On 15 September 2009, the 1.6 (Donut) SDK was released. Included in the update were: An improved Android Market experience An integrated camera, camcorder, and gallery interface Gallery now enables users to select multiple photos for deletion Updated Voice Search, with faster response and deeper integration with native applications, including the ability to dial contacts Updated search experience to allow searching bookmarks, history, contacts, and the web from the home screen Updated technology support for CDMA/EVDO, 802.1x, VPNs, and a text-to-speech engine Support for WVGA screen resolutions Speed improvements in searching and camera applications Gesture framework and GestureBuilder development tool Google free turn-by-turn navigation
2.0 / 2.1 (Eclair) Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.29	On 26 October 2009, the 2.0 (Eclair) SDK was released. Changes included: Optimized hardware speed Support for more screen sizes and resolutions Revamped UI New Browser UI and HTML5 support New contact lists Better contrast ratio for backgrounds Improved Google Maps 3.1.2 Microsoft Exchange Server by Exchange ActiveSync 2.5 support Built in flash support for Camera Digital Zoom MotionEvent class enhanced to track multi-touch events Improved virtual keyboard Bluetooth 2.1 Live Wallpapers The 2.0.1 SDK was released on 3 December 2009. The 2.1 SDK was released on 12 January 2010.
2.2 (Froyo) Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.32 (2.2.2 latest release)	On 20 May 2010, the 2.2 (Froyo) SDK was released. Changes included: General Android OS speed, memory, and performance optimizations Additional application speed improvements courtesy of JIT implementation Integration of Chrome's V8 JavaScript Engine into the Browser application Increased Microsoft Exchange support (security policies, auto-discovery, GAL look-up, calendar synchronization, remote wipe) Improved application launcher with shortcuts to Phone and Browser applications USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot functionality Added an option to disable data access over mobile network Updated Market application with batch and automatic update features Quick switching between multiple keyboard languages and their dictionaries Voice dialing and contact sharing over Bluetooth Support for numeric and alphanumeric passwords Support for file upload fields in the Browser application Support for installing applications to the expandable memory Adobe Flash 10.1 support Support for extra high DPI screens (320 dpi), such as 4" 720p
2.3 (Gingerbread) Based on Linux Kernel 2.6.35(2.3.3 latest version)	On 6 December 2010, the 2.3 (Gingerbread) SDK was released. Changes included: Updated user interface design Support for extra-large screen sizes and resolutions (WXGA and higher) Native support for SIP VoIP telephony Support for WebM/VP8 video playback, and AAC audio encoding New audio effects such as reverb, equalization, headphone virtualization, and bass boost Support for Near Field Communication System-wide Copy-paste functionalities Redesigned multi-touch software keyboard Enhanced support for native code development Audio, graphical, and input enhancements for game developers Concurrent garbage collection for increased performance Native support for more sensors (such as gyroscopes and barometers) A download manager for long-running downloads Improved power management and application control Native support for multiple cameras Switched from YAFFS to the ext4 filesystem
3.0 (Honeycomb)	On 26 January 2011, a preview of the 3.0 (Honeycomb) SDK was released. Changes include: Optimized tablet support with a new user interface Three dimensional desktop with redesigned widgets Refined multi-tasking Browser enhancements including tabbed web pages, form auto-fill, bookmark syncing with Google Chrome, and private browsing Support for video chat using Google Talk Hardware acceleration Support for multi-core processors
Ice Cream Sandwich	Possible mid-2011 release.

Now lets see a comparison of Android O.S. with other major brands in the market:

Smartphone Operating System	User Interface (On Scale of 10)	Application Availability (On Scale of 5)	Total (On Scale of 15)
iPhone OS	9	4.5	13.5
Android	9	4	13
Windows Phone 7	9	2	11
Symbian 3	7	2.5	9.5
BlackBerry OS 6	7	2.5	9.5
Windows Mobile 6.5	6	3	9
Symbian S60	6	2.5	8.5
BlackBerry OS 5	6	2.5	8.5

Clearly Android O.S. and IPHONE O.S. emerge as the winners. However there is a slight advantage of android over IPHONE which comes under the sections of 'Price' and 'variety'.

Here are some of the steps to be followed when your considering to purchase a Android mobile:

1. Check out the Android version of the phone you are buying. Most phones nowadays are coming with Eclair 2.1 out of the box or even 2.2 Froyo. But some phones like Moto Backflip are still stuck in history, and are best avoided.

2. Cameras: Unfortunately till now Android has failed to produce a phone, that has a camera that will output pictures that will make you go 'WOW, is that from a phone?'

The way you perhaps go for N8 or used to go for K790/K750 years ago. But still if this feature matters then Sony X10 has the best camera closely followed by Motorola XT720. Then we have the impressive duo of X10 Mini's and Galaxy S.

But then the standards have been raised so high in the previous years that any of the camphones will do for a casual shot.

3. Multimedia performance: Well if you consider video players then Samsung Galaxy S plays everything. From your SD avi's, to 720P MKV's (atleast some of them) . Most of the older HTC and Motorola phones do not come with codec support other then H264 and 3GPP, thus making it necessary to trans-code the video or to get a better media player like Rock Player.

But still those videos will lack hardware acceleration which does wonders for video clarity and battery life. Thus if media is a concern then get a Samsung or LG phone.

These are the preferred phones but you should also make the choice based on your preference for one particular feature or other.

Rs 8K-9K: Samsung Galaxy 5

Rs 11K-12K: LG Optimus One

Rs 16K-18K: Motorola Defy

Rs 20K-22K: HTC Desire

Rs 24K-25K: Samsung Galaxy S/ Nexus S/HTC Desire Z

Greater than Rs 25K: It really makes sense to wait for the new dual cores to rear their heads and pricing, as it will make for a better and informed choice.

Camera freaks: SE X10 or Moto XT 720

Media junkies: Samsung Galaxy S

Workaholics: HTC Desire Z/Motorola Milestone 2

Budget conscious: LG Optimus One (P500)