Andy Laub they call me "The Solution"

Here I was, getting all excited for Forza 2 when out of the blue, this game DiRT comes along and darn near blows it out of the water.

Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. But based on the demo, DiRT looks to be very, very good. I was a little surprised when a fellow gamer mentioned that people were saying it was better than Forza, shrugging it off as hyperbole. But as soon as I started playing – no, wait – as soon as I got to the menus it was already awesome.

So wow, 2 great racing games in the span of a month? And a price drop on the racing wheel? It’s a good time for car fans.

Comment spam has been around for awhile and is a pretty common experience for any blog admin. Thankfully I have Akismet to help me out, which is why I was surprised to see this email:

To: [my comment address]
From: lngdifh@mail.com
Subject: [andylaub.com] Comment:

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IP: 202.225.151.14

Seems pretty standard. So I wonder how this got past Akismet and wander into my admin to delete said comment, only to find that it’s not there.

And then I realize: it’s not a real comment notification. A normal subject line will be formatted with the blog name in brackets, not the URL. Furthermore, it will give links to both view the post and delete the comment.

So I’ve got to say, this is clever(?), but I don’t get the point. But asking what the point of spam is beyond being part of the internet experience has about the same point as spam itself.

JB’s persistent hounding (fine, occasional reminders) has led to my downloading of the Forza 2 demo, the full game for which comes out later this month. After playing it for about 25 minutes, I shut it off, my impressions solidified:

• It looks very nice. There’s some aliasing, but then, I’ve never seen any game ever without some form of aliasing, so that’s a non-issue for me.
• The controls feel very similar to the first game. I felt right at home immediately, no complaints.
• The physics are really fun. I spent about 5 minutes actually racing and the rest going backwards around the track trying to hit the other cars. It’s kind of fun to watch your Mercedes SLR hit a Z06 so hard it flies up in the air. Furthermore, the actual car-to-car crashes feel and sound amazing. I jumped the first time my car got hit.
• Everything sounds amazing. And in the demo at least, no music during the actual racing (yay!).
• The spoiler/air brake on the SLR still does not move. It didn’t move in PGR or the original Forza, yet it does on Gran Turismo 4, a game that’s 2 years old. Boo.
• I will be buying it.

That’s it? One of the most highly-anticipated games this year is coming and my biggest complaint is the lack of spoiler movement? Well, yeah. But if a game touts its inclusion of detail, then they’d better be prepared to catch some flak for missing a few.

Regardless, the game looks fantastic so far, and I’m excited for the final product.

Info and Contact have returned.

Still no archive, since that seems to be what the cool kids are doing.

Also, I’m lazy.

So here’s a new look, and it just happens to be May 1st. I’m getting better at this “every six months” thing.

Questions? Comments?