Google Photos Review

Hey Guys,

So recently I was told about one of Google's services: Google Photos (find them here). Google Photos is an UNLIMITED photo storage service based in your web browser (yes, I said unlimited). You upload all of your photos in bulk, and it sorts them out into location, date, 'things' (such as planes, food etc.) and if you're in America, then people (you can't get this feature in the UK). It does this with the content of the pictures (key features etc.) and the metadata of the image (date taken, geotags if taken on a phone etc.) This is useful as it doesn't matter how well sorted your photos are currently, Google Photos just sorts them into easy to view set of categories.

Google Photos also has a feature called 'Assistant'. This is a auto photo editing feature, that creates collages, animations, panoramas and filters for photos. It is a nice feature, adding some good looking photos to your collection. This, as I said, is a nice feature, but I don't think it's necessary - Just a solution looking for a problem. Here are some examples of things Assistant has made:

Collage of similar pictures of me.

Animation of similar pictures of my room.

A panorama of 2 photos of paintings of New York

The Google Photos interface is well designed, looks good, and is easy to navigate: 

As well as having a mobile app with auto backup from my phone to Google Photos:

All in all, I think that Google photos is excellent with as many photos as you like - whether it's me with 300 photos, or my Dad with 56,000 photos, I would highly recommend this service.

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Super Hexagon Review

Hey Guys,

So today, it's time for the 3rd in my set of 3 game reviews. If you haven't read them yet, feel free to check out my Starbound review or my Audiosurf review. Anyway, today, I'm going to be reviewing Super Hexagon that can be found here. Super Hexagon is a fast paced minimal action game that involves you, the arrow, and many shapes in the forms of hexagons coming towards the centre point. Here is a picture of the game play, from the Super Hexagon trailer:

The whole screen seems to 'bounce' to the music, as well as spin to add an extra level of difficulty. The character is controlled by the arrow keys, the aim of the game being to avoid all of the blocks coming towards you. There are various twists to the game, such as the view becoming 3D or the hexagon becoming a pentagon or square. These also add an extra element to the difficulty, ad it is constantly changing. 

All in all, I think that is an excellent game for someone with fast reactions, patience and that also likes fast paced games like this one. Finally, If you want to check out the gsme without buying it, check out the free online version here

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Audiosurf review

Hey Guys,

This is the 2nd review of my 3 games I am reviewing that I tweeted about on my twitter. If you haven't read it yet, feel free to check out my Starbound review (the first one in my series).  Today I am going to be reviewing Audiosurf. Audiosurf is a fast paced beat-catching and strategy music game. It does not have any level creation involved - you just give it a .mp3 and it creates a level for you. When playing, you are a ship going along a rollercoaster - style track, with many coloured 'beats' and 3 rows of slots. Here is a screenshot of gameplay:

Image from here

If you get a stack of 3 or more, they will disappear and turn into points, warmer colours making more points. There are power ups that do specific things, adding a bit more to the game. The 'paint splat' makes all tiles on the board that certain colour, and the lightning bolts are basically free points, adding 6 of that certain colour.

All in all, I think that this game is good for you if you are into music and fast-paced strategy getting your brain going. My favourite feature of this game is that it creates a level just from an mp3 as I think that this is really clever.

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Starbound Review

Hey Guys,

So if you follow me on twitter (If you don't, feel free to here), you will know that I have just got 3 games on steam: Audiosurf, Super Hexagon and Starbound. Today, I will be reviewing Starbound, as it is the game with the most features. It is a space - age 2D sandbox adventure quite like Terraria but involving inter - planetary travel.  All of the generated planets have different traits, animals and terrain types, so there is always something different.

When you first start, you get to chose your species out of 7 via this screen. I chose to be an apex - the highlighted one. You can also choose what you want your character to look like, in terms of hair colour and style, shirt and trouser colour etc. You then spawn in your ship that is broken, and have to repair it to be able to travel. This is the ship:

.

You can 'beam down' to the planet you are over and then walk around that planet, building houses and crafting machines.

Once you get 20 core fragments, you can repair your ship's thrusters so that you can travel to different planets. I haven't got that far yet, so have not got any pictures or info about that.

In my opinion, I think that the best thing about Starbound is the quests. You get a quest book that guides you on the best thing to do next, so that you aren't just wandering around with no particular aim. This is what makes the game different and unique from Terraria or Minecraft. 

All in all, I think that Starbound is an ace game for people that want a sci-fi adventure where you can build stuff, but you also have aims telling you what to do.

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Buffer Review

Hey Guys,

So I found out about a cool web-based program called Buffer (Find it here). It is used to schedule social media posts and spread them out. It works on the principle that you have a schedule, for me it is to tweet 4 times a day (at set times), and when you write a post in buffer, it goes into your queue. Your queue is your list of outgoing posts, so when one of your set times arrives, the post at the top of your queue gets tweeted. This is useful as it spreads out your posts so that they aren't all clumped together.

The interface is very nice and well polished, as can be seen in this picture:

There is also a chrome extension that opens up a posting window for ease of posting without having to open the web page. Here is a screenshot of it: 

And finally, the mobile app. This allows you to post via buffer using your iOS or Android device. Again, this app is very polished and nice to use. Here is a shot of it: 

In conclusion, Buffer is a great program and very easy to use, but only use it if you have a reason - If you do then great! Definitely use it, and if you don't, then you can still use it, but you may not be able to use it's full capabilities. 

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Douglas Dakota Airfix Model

Hey Guys,

Today, I went to Lincoln (part of my holiday) and there was an ace model shop there (Find them here). I am quite into building models, so spent quite a lot of time in there. I eventually decided on buying a 1:72 scale model of a Douglas Dakota. I chose this model because I saw it yesterday (If you haven't seen my post about this find it here) and really like the look of it. Here are some pics of the model:

I should be posting when I get round to building it - I can't at the moment, as I am on holiday without any tools or paints. 

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Holiday seeing Planes

Hey Guys,

So I'm on holiday in Lincolnshire, and there are a lot of RAF bases due to the flatness of the land around here. I went for a tour around RAF Coningsby and saw the Battle of Britain memorial flight aircraft: 2 Spitfires and a Lancaster. The Lancaster, unfortunately, had an engine fire recently, and it is out of action until it can be fixed. There was also a Douglas Dakota plane, a transport aircraft still being used today. Sadly, I am not able to put pictures of inside Coningsby.

Yesterday, we went to Tattershall Castle, but did not pay the actual castle much attention due to the brilliant view of the planes. There were multiple typhoons, a spitfire and the Dakota all flying round, obviously practising for a memorial flight, possibly the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. The best bit was a Typhoon and a Spitfire flying in line, then they both banked and flew off in different directions. Here is a picture of it:

I am fairly sure that they were using the castle that we were on top of as a point of reference, constantly flying around and around it. 

There are also various viewing points to see different aircraft, and we went to see the Vulcan XM607 (The one that did the bombing of Port Stanley)

and the English Electric Lightning:

Here are the rest of the photos from Tattershall castle:

Douglas Dakota

The Spitfire

The Dakota above Tattershall Castle

The newly painted Typhoon in Battle of Britain colours

The Battle of Britain Typhoon (under the wind sock) the Dakota (on the right behind the trees) and all the other Typhoons (below and to the left of the Battle of Britain Typhoon) There is also a Typhoon with it's cockpit open (above the Dakota)

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