I think I’ve said this before but in case I didn’t here it is… I hate 3D movies. I think 3D is just a gimmick, it doesn’t add anything to a movie and I find it ridiculous that we need to wear glasses to watch a movie. With that said when I heard Nintendo were releasing a 3D portable I thought that was just stupid. Now that I’ve actually spent time with the 3DS I can back that statement up.

Nintendo have managed to get 3D on the DS without the need for 3D glasses. The screen manages to display a 3D image but it only works at a certain distance and at a certain angle. Any position other than the perfect one will result in a blurry image. It’s also very difficult to get a perfect position since it’s a handheld and you’re going to be pressing buttons which moves the DS in your hands and out of the perfect viewing position. I was playing Rayman 3D which is a crappy game but since it has a 3D environment it was a good game to test out the 3D effect. Sadly, even when the 3DS is in the perfect position the 3D effect isn’t really that 3D. Nothing jumps out of the screen and it really wasn’t comfortable playing since I was seeing doubles the whole time. I kept fidgeting with the 3DS to get it into the perfect position and after awhile I realized I spent more time focusing on trying to get the 3DS in a perfect viewing position then I spent focusing on the game. It also messes up your sight, I am seeing double right now as I am typing this post because I was playing with the 3DS before I started typing here.

I personally think the 3DS’s 3D is going to flop in the same way the Nintendo Virtual Boy did. I can’t imagine anyone playing on the 3DS without getting a headache or double vision. Now I’m looking forward for Sony’s followup to the PSP, hopefully they won’t mess things up as well.

My Nintendo 3DS was a loaner from X-cite Electronics and if you’re interested in one they’re selling them for KD110. They have them in two colors, Aqua which is the one pictured above and regular black. They also have a few games now for sale as well with more coming in at the end of the week.

I walked into 360 Mall today to find a B&O stand right in front of me. Since they’ve closed their Fanar branch and are waiting for their Symphony one to open they’ve temporarily set up at 360 Mall while that happens. I love their stuff but there is no way I can afford plunking down KD3,500 for a pair of speakers yet alone one of their audio systems or TVs. But while checking out their stuff I spotted the BeoSound 8.

I had only seen the BeoSound 8 in pictures online before but never in person. It’s one of the coolest and slickest looking iPod docks as well as being one of the few B&O items that is somewhat affordable. From first impressions the sound is pretty good with a lot of good deep bass but not overpowering and well balanced. It comes with a tiny remote control that looks exactly like the circle controller on the main device as well as a wall mount in case you want to mount it on a wall. Just like other B&O speakers, the two circular cloth speaker covers can be exchanged for different colored ones to match your interior. The BeoSound 8 has auxiliary inputs and a USB input in case you want to connect it to your computer but most importantly you can dock any iPod that ever came out which had a dock connector and you can even connect the iPad to it. Price wise it’s not cheap but it’s a lot more affordable than one of their TVs or audio systems. The BeoSoud 8 is being sold locally for KD400, which is a discounted price since they will be selling it for KD450 once relaunched at Symphony mall.

Here is a link to the BeoSound 8 online [Link]

Awhile back my MacBook was starting to feel sluggish and I was really tempted to buy a newer model but since I was just using the laptop to get online from the couch or for when I travel, I didn’t think it was worth buying a new laptop. Instead, I decided to upgrade my MacBook from a 2.5inch 5400rpm 250GB hard drive to a 64GB SSD.

What is SSD? SSD stands for solid-state drive and to keep it simple its just a hard drive with no moving parts and is around 5 times faster than regular notebook hard drives. I ordered the ADATA 64GB drive from Amazon since based on my research I found it had the best bang for the buck. I also looked at two other brands before deciding on ADATA which were OCZ Technology and Crucial Technology, both of which have extremely fast performance drives but at a slightly more expensive cost.

I could easily review the drive in just 7 words: “It makes all other computers feel slow”. It cut down the boot time of my MacBook to less than half and it also sped up the launch time of all the applications. For example it now takes 1 second to launch Photoshop while other applications like Safari and Microsoft Word launch practically instantly. No waiting or spinning colored wheel just click and they’re open. The SSD drive not only brought new life to my aging MacBook but for day to day use it made it feel a lot faster than all my other computers including my already very fast iMac and Mac Pro.

I got the 64GB SSD and not something larger because the prices became tooooo expensive with the larger drives. For example a 256GB SSD would cost you around $500 which is nearly half the price of a brand new MacBook! The 64GB drive on the other hand cost me around KD35 with shipping to Kuwait and after installing the OS and ALL my software I still had 40GB of free space left. That’s more than I need since I just use my MacBook to surf the web, edit some pictures and for traveling. If you’re planning on storing media like your photo or music library than I highly doubt 64GB would be enough.

I would definitely recommend everyone pick up an SSD drive if you can, it really makes a HUGE difference. But, if you need a large drive and are not in a rush, the longer you wait the cheaper the prices will get. Here is the Amazon link to the hard drive I got [Link]

Last week X-Cite sent me a Kinect to review for the blog. I had been reading a lot about it online (mostly all the cool hacks people were doing) and was interested to try it out. The Kinect is Microsoft’s answer to the Wii and the Sony Move except unlike either of those two, the Kinect doesn’t use a physical controller, you become a controller. When I first opened the box I was surprised by the size, I was expecting it to be smaller but the Kinect is pretty big. I struggled to find a place to put it (you’re supposed to have it either on top of your tv or below). The second issue I ran into was space, the Kinect requires you to be standing at least 1.8 meters away from it. My living room is pretty small so it was having trouble detecting me. Finally I moved the Kinect to my other TV where I had more space in front of it and managed to get it working there.

The Kinect is freaky, it recognizes you, your hands, your head, your legs… your whole body. With the Wii and PS3 you need to actually hold a controller in your hand and move that around but with the Kinect you don’t need any of that. It’s like a much more advanced version of the PlayStation Eye. In the games I was playing, if I put my hand on my head so would my character in the game, if I clapped my hands or started stomping my feet so would my character. It felt like I was inside the game.

The Kinect comes with a game called Kinect Adventures. Inside it there are five different games that show off the Kinect’s abilities. The games are:

20,000 Leaks – In this game you’re basically standing in a glass room under the sea and fish and sharks come and bang the glass to create leaks. You need to try and cover the leaks as they happen. In some cases you get 5 leaks at the same time so you have a hand on every leak, your head covering another leak and each foot on a leak as well. It’s fun for a few minutes but gets boring quickly. In two player mode it’s slightly more fun.

River Rush – You’re on a raft going down the river and you should avoid obstacles by either shifting your weight to one side of the raft or by jumping. I didn’t find this fun even when playing it two players.

Rally Ball – This was my favorite game, it’s a mixture between the classic breakout game and dodge ball. You have to throw a ball towards objects down a hallway and try to get rid of them. Sometimes you hit objects that doubles or triples the amount of balls so you have to start moving quickly trying to throw them all back at the objects. Me and my brother enjoyed playing this the most.

Reflex Ridge – The most physically exhausting game of the bunch since it’s kinda like a track and field game. You’re standing on a moving railway cart and you need to avoid objects by other jumping, ducking, moving left or moving right. Video games shouldn’t be this physically active and after one round I was all sweaty and out of breath.

Space Pop – The most boring game of the bunch, you’re in space and you need to float up and pop balloons all around. Not fun, didn’t even bother playing it two players.

Playing the games two players is more fun than alone. You only need one Kinect to play games two players but you need to stand at least 2.2meters away from the Kinect device. The games that come with the Kinect aren’t that great but since they’re free you can’t complain that much. There are more games you can buy that work with Kinect but I didn’t have a chance to try them. The PlayStation Move is more advanced than the Wii and sometimes like in a first person shooter it would be cool to physically hold an assault riffle, but the Microsoft Kinect is a more advanced system than the Move and because your whole body becomes a controller it really opens up a lot of doors. I’m giving it a 4.5 out of 5. I just wish the games that came with it were more fun.

The Kinect is available at X-Cite as either a standalone for KD54.9 or with the Xbox Slim 4GB for KD126 or with an Xbox Slim 250GB for KD148.

Last weekend Blink sent me a Logitech racing wheel to review for the blog. It was perfect timing since Nat was out of the country which meant I was home alone with Geo, my PS3 and a copy of Gran Turismo 5. The first racing wheel I ever owned was the Coleco racing wheel which I got back in the mid 80′s (and which I still have today). It came with a gas pedal and a copy of the back then amazing racing game called Turbo. Of course that was back in the mid 80′s and things have come a long way since then.

The first thing I noticed about the Logitech wheel is that it was heavy and that’s a good thing. The weight gives it a solid feel which I wasn’t expecting since the GT wheel is the younger brother of the more expensive Logitech G27 wheel. This is why I was expecting the GT wheel to feel a bit flimsy but it wasn’t at all. The racing wheel comes with a gear stick attached to the wheel and a separate gas and brake pedal with a rubber base to stop it from slipping. The force feedback is just amazing, it reminded me of the days when I used to spend all my money at the arcades playing Daytona with my friends. The force feedback is pretty powerful and I actually have to use a lot of force and fight with the wheel sometimes which again makes this steering wheel feel like it’s worth a lot more.

I tried the steering wheel on a bunch of games including MotorStorm, Formula1, Dirt2 and Gran Turismo. The steering wheel worked great in everything except Gran Turismo. I just couldn’t control my car properly and kept slamming into walls and spinning out. Not sure if it was the settings somewhere or the fact I was still not used to the steering wheel but I just couldn’t drive my car properly. I’m sure it was something from my side since this wheel is actually the official wheel of Gran Turismo which means it should work really well with it. On the other hand the wheel worked great in Formula1 and extremely well in the Baja races in Dirt2. As some points it felt like I was back in the arcade playing Sega Rally which is what I liked the best about the steering wheel. It’s an arcade wheel at home.

Another issue I faced was with the placement of the wheel. At first I tried to use the wheel on my laps (see picture above) but it didn’t work and was actually a bit painful. I then bolted it down to my coffee table but found it too low to be comfortable. Finally I ended up sitting on the floor with the wheel mounted on my coffee table and it felt like I was sitting in an F1 car which worked for me. If you have the space I would recommend you get something like [This]. Overall I liked the wheel a lot and thought it was really well built. If you can’t afford the Logitech G27 or don’t want to pay that much for a wheel then you can get this from Blink for just KD35. I give it a 4 out of 5.

Now if you’re interested in this wheel then you’re gonna like this since I’m going to give one away. If you want to win this Logitech GT racing wheel I just reviewed all you need to do is send me a picture of your PS3 setup. The person with the saddest looking setup will win the wheel. Make sure you have 248AM written somewhere in the shot (so I know you took the picture) and send your pictures to gtwheel@248am.com. Send all pictures by Saturday 9PM the latest.