Dan The Man: Gaming Guide

Heeey guys! Welcome to another 'mobile-gaming' guide with me.
Today I'm sharing a review of an arcade styled mobile game.

From the creators of  'Jet Pack Joy Ride', 'fruit ninja', 'fruit ninja FX', 'Fruit Ninja Kinect', 'Fruit Ninja whatever-the-hell', we present to you 'Fruit Ninja....' Just kidding!

This time 'Half Brick' studios made a new kind of game. And not just any game, a game where the story videos are more popular than the game (ok, probably not anymore), a game with some history...

This year Half Brick released 'Dan the Man', a retro styled game. The game's protagonist, named 'Dan' is quite popular on YouTube.

The game starts at stage 8 of the story and the rest of the 7 are on YouTube, one for each stage. It would help you understand the story if you watch all the videos so you could get a clear view of what happens as the game doesn't help you understand what happened before, but the game helps by linking the game to YouTube so you can easily watch the videos without having trouble searching for it.

The game lets you choose from 4 characters:
1. Dan
2. Josie
3. Barry Streakfries ( you may know him from jet pack joy ride)
4. And a custom character

The game's simple but effective controls takes the game a long way and trust me, it's great to kill time, especially when you're at your grandparents place without wi-fi. You can even throw an enemy overhead, forward and even backwards! The creators even remembered to insert the standard 'special moves'. I mean have you seen any fighter game characters without special moves?

They did a great job in the retro looking graphics (like check out the background dude) and the cliché Kung-Fu shouts. Oh and those soundtracks tho, mhmm, 8-bit and rock. Yeaaaaaah dude!

The many hazards and ledges will definitely keep you over the edge and the unending number of enemies will keep you glued to your device.

The game consists of 3 modes:
1. Story mode (campaign)
2. Events (events change every week)
3. Battle (a mode where you keep on fighting wave after wave)

The levels are quite lengthy with many checkpoints, there are a total of 12 levels.

Shops can be entered as you come across a shop to refill health, buy health potions, reload ammo or buy weapons.

As usual, you get your score list when you finish a level which consists of:
1. Time taken
2. Number of enemies defeated
3. Secret areas discovered
4. And objects smashed

The game also makes your character stronger by letting you upgrade your character and weapons which consists of:
1. Shurikens
2. Throwing knives
3. Modern rifles
4. AK rifles
5. RPG7 (a missile launcher)
6. And a 'Carlgustav' (another missile launcher, sounds good eh?)


Another smart thing they have done is that (and don't ask me how they did it) when you play music, the in-game music stops (but not the SFX sounds). And that's a good thing, you don't get annoyed since both are not being played at the same time, or worse, your music stops.

In conclusion this game is a great time killer. With a story which makes sense and effective controls keeps you entertained and focused. And if you by any chance (probably not) be new to gaming. This is the best starter.

Thanks for reading,
Tyrant Beast :)

MacBook 2016: Impressions and Opinion

This is the MacBook Pro 2016 (non touch bar)

This is the MacBook Pro 2013

I decided to cover this new MacBook Pro 2016 as this has been fairly trending news these days and it's a laptop line up which I've grown quite attached to.

I've used the Mac Pro's, the MacBook Pro of both 2013 (retina) and 2008, and several other Mac products over the years. While I never owned one myself (I came close to a MacBook Pro or MacBook 2016 while shopping for a PC a few months ago), I have loved having them in my household and I've loved using them. 

They're amazingly well made products with a very wide field of use in both the amateur and professional world. Don't agree? Look how many professionals use them. Stupid, you might say, they don't know the power of the Windows. Well shucks, they still bought one and a majority of them love using it, so in practical terms, that's your argument dis-validated. 

Firstly, I've got to make a bit of a disclaimer. I own a Surface Pro 4. A very Windows PC. All of the computers I've owned in the past have also been Windows. I love, and I mean LOVE my Surface Pro 4. It's an utterly, utterly magical computer and it's so good I've been through 4 replacement Surfaces because the first impression of my first one was so good. Their quality control however, not so good. That's another story right there, but this is on the MacBooks so I am not gonna go there. 

So that said, while it might seem like I'm hypocritically bashing Windows in general at some points in the article, I don't want to. My Surface was in the range of the MacBook Pro price bracket and I could easily have gone with one but I didn't. I'm Team Windows.

(Fun Fact: I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro Retina.) 

Onto the MacBook Pro 16.  An overpriced hunk of jewellery. A twist to what the MacBook Pro of old represented. Isn't that what it was? I watched the keynote. While I hate them on some sense, I really want them to start wowing me the same way they did when they made the iPhone 5. That thing blew my mind at the time. But for the last 3 years, they have consistently depressed me. 

This MacBook reveal was very lacklustre. It felt... fake; forced. Apple is now at this point where they realise they say 'thinner, lighter, faster' way too much. You could sense it. The cheesy jokes? They felt like it was Apple mocking themselves from the inside. 

But you know what's sadder? The fact that the people at Apple seem to have lost faith in their products. To those who watched the KeyNote 2016 October, I dare you go onto Youtube and watch the reveal videos for the iPhone 4 and MacBook Retina and not feel the excitement and passion the designers were feeling for the product themselves. Go on. Pause this now and go do that. 

I'm not going to bother you with the specs and the technicals. You probably already know them. That's not why I'm here anyway. I will bother myself with saying this one thing. It's overpriced. A lot overpriced. for what it offers at least. Then again, Microsoft does more of the same on it's Surface Book, but it offers way more besides basic MacOS privilege.

I think the MacBook Pro 2016 is Apple ditching the professionals they initially made the Pro for in 2006 up till 2016. They differentiated this product as being capable and offering reliability for tasks that needed it, and being powerful enough to do anything that a professional could want to do, with gorgeously elegant looks casing it all in a slim and elegant package- something that was almost unheard of at the times.

A state of the art Windows laptop in 2006: Toshiba Portege m400

MacBook Pro 2006

 That there sums it up.

Apple, from the day they last released a redesigned (arguably) MacBook Pro in 2012 (which was still great) has transitioned from being a professional's toolkit essential to a typical 'Starbuckers' essential, if you excuse the huge generalisation there. But that is what it is. Apple has gone from the Pro's expensive laptop that everyone wants to the laptop everyone has.

Is that good? Is it really? Does it really retain any of the Pro-ness that made it special when all it caters to is the ordinary person? Given, most people like to think that they are pros and want to buy a MacBook Pro to feel like a pseudo-pro, and be more productive; but if you switch your demographic from the Pros to the ordinary, won't you be loosing the original Pro appeal? You won't have a laptop packed with real professional specs like before; you'd have something for the ordinary person.

There is the overhanging thought that maybe ordinary people are becoming more and more demanding while the pros are becoming less and less demanding, but if you look at the other side of the world, the Windows world, you're going to see that actually isn't the case. Pro users still demand more than the ordinary person.

If you look at Apple as a whole, they've abandoned their real professional tools, like the Mac Pro, or the Mac Mini and are making iPads which tarnish what it really means to be Pro in the first place. They don't understand what a Pro is now- but I'll admit, it's hard to describe what a Pro is the first place. I'm talking graphics designers, editors and the like, to whom the efficient Mac exclusive software really appealed to. This MacBook is only the next one to fall prey to Apple destroying their own Pro lineup.

The lack of ports is stupid and very easily showcases that Apple only cares about your money. I cannot think of one reason why they would not put a single USB A 3.1 port in there other than to make you pay for adapters.

You might say, "Hey, they're getting ready for the future!". But I ask you, why the hell would they pack in a Intel 6th Gen chip with some mediocre graphics if they really cared about the future? The KabyLake chip has been out for a while now. There's really no excuse to not have packed either that with all USB C or minimum 1 USB A port with the SkyLake.

The lack of a SD Card is either a hilarious oversight or an example of how Apple has transitioned from Pros to Bros (sorry). It was an absolutely essential port that had no reason to go anywhere. A huge majority of MBP customers are photographers or editors, and Apple very well knows this. The SD Card port was simple and slim, and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere in the future. Why would they remove it? Why?

Money, of course.

Actually, I wouldn't be going down so hard on my beloved MacBook Pro if Apple wasn't so greedy and actually included an adapter with all the lost ports to make up for it in the box. I really wouldn't.

The SD Card still hasn't been replaced, and it's the most efficient way to transfer data from a camera to a laptop. Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior VP, said they removed it because "it’s a bit of a cumbersome slot. you’ve got this thing sticking halfway out". Which is absolutely genius, because I mean how beautiful is a huge, chunky, heavy adaptor with an SD Card sticking halfway out, right?

This SnapChat by Marquees captures the struggle creators are facing

You're paying 3000 pounds for an already overpriced as is computer, and you have to shell out another, what, 100 pounds to use it properly? What?! I mean how simple could it have been: include a single hub adapter with a USB A port, a MiniDisplay port and a SD Card port. Apple probably makes these for about 5 pounds each so why the bother, right? Except it'll hurt their ego so bad to do this, to admit that they were perhaps wrong.

I just don't get this about Apple. They think they are so perfect, so visionary and so amazing, that they can't admit it when they make a mistake and amend it.

One last point. The Touch-Bar. I see how useful it. I see the point.  It's a new way of thinking and I think if Apple does it right, they can do something good with it. But there is one major flaw with it.

It can't be used if the laptop is docked. My father uses a MacBook Pro (it's what I borrowed to write this on), and he has always used it docked to a Monitor and with an external wireless keyboard and mouse. It's only removed for transport. This, I'm told, and have seen, is how a lot of professionals actually use this. You see where I'm going with this. That Touch-Bar is pointless if you dock it, and completely inaccessible. It's a great idea, but I think this flaw really devalues it. Oh and those emojis? No, that oughtn’t be a feature. That's the 'hipstery’ things I’ve going on about the whole while.

That said, this isn't all going to be bad stuff. There's somethings which I inherently adore about the MacBook Pro 2016.

(now changing to the SurfaceType Cover)

First, the trackpad. Awesome! I never felt the current MBP’s one was small, but it’s nice to see it bigger. Mac's have always had the best trackpads, hands down, and this is just where it needed to go. Reviewer have complained that it is too big, and when I used it, it did seem a bit too big, but I think it’s alright all around.

That's how big the TrackPad on the 13" MBP16 compared to my hand.

This is the old 13" MBP13 trackpad compared to my hand. Note the difference of the keyboards.

The keyboard, whatever you might think of the ButterFly mechanism, is actually not bad! I hated the keyboard on the 2015/6 MacBook (the tiny one) because it had almost no feeling to it at all. It was exactly what a keyboard shouldn’t be, and I had similar expectations for this one.  This time Apple has taken heed of the raging reviews and have tried to give it some depth and feeling to it. My favourite keyboard right now is the SurfaceBook and Surface TypeCover (I like the flex it has), and while I think the older MacBook keyboards were good, but comparing it directly to the new one, it’s a bit too mushy for my tastes. I’m going to go as far as to say it’s, for me, a good improvement.

The display is also a good improvement. Microsoft has truly been killing it with the display tech lately, and it was time Apple needed to change their stuff up a bit. They essentially added the iPhone tech to their laptops, and I’m guessing it wasn’t much of a hard task for Apple. Apple has caught up with the market, but not beaten it. I LOVE my Surface Pro display, and I think the Mac is now more or less on par with that.

I guess I now have to comment on the improved specs and graphics, but I really have to? The competition offers better specs for almost half the price, and these specs aren’t very impressive on the Mac either. I’m just going to avoid this, and I’ve already raged about an aspect of it above. The new faster SSD though is a nice addition.

There’s also something I’m divided on. Why does this laptop need to be so thin? Having felt around it, I can agree it’s very appealing, but it just doesn’t feel any better. I never thought the current MacBook was fat, and I don’t think anyone else did either. It seems like Apple fulfils some their huge ego every time they needlessly make a product thinner. It is though much lighter, which is probably what people wanted, but the cost of better battery life, which is not what people wanted. It doesn’t seem to have quite the fantastic battery the old one did, as several reviewers have complained about.

I can’t comment on the speakers because I didn’t get to try them out, but they’re supposedly very good, much better than the old one. I think the old ones are great, so I expect the amazing.

To round this post off, what is the MacBook Pro? Has it filled the shoes of the old MacBook?

The MacBook represents the new direction Apple is taking, now trying to cater to ordinary people more than the professionals; pushing the prices up as far as they can to increase their brand value. It’s trying to become the laptop to the laptop world that the iPhone is to the smartphone world. Unlike the iPhone however, the MacBook already reigns king among the creative professionals, so Apple had a hard task in making the replacement Pro any better. Have they done it? To me, partly. To you, maybe not. To the rest of the world? They’re split over what it actually brings to the table with that huge price tag. And so am I. If Apple priced this fairly with the $4000 one at about $3000, I think the reviews would be raving. 

The MacBook, as Dave2D says is, “a thousand dollars overpriced”, and at the price it’s hard to justify this purpose unless you are a huge Apple fan, absolutely need Final Cut (or other exclusives), or don’t really care about the price. My verdict on whether or not to buy this is a resounding no. As I’ve highlighted in the points I’ve made above, I have slowly grown from hating to loving to disliking it. As even my long time Mac user (and 'never going to switch') father would say, it’s simply too much for too little. It hasn't got the presence of the 'older' MacBook.

This remains the sweet spot of the MacBook Pros

This, I believe, is the future.                

Thanks for reading! I look forward to writing more of these tech articles; I've already written ready for  publishing in the next few weeks. Don't forget to drop your email address in the gadget thingy below for updates on our latest posts. You'll get notified every time we post. 

If you have any suggestions of want you want me write about next, or want to hear my thoughts on something (I didn't know I was this interesting..), pop a comment in below! 

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