For those of you who read my blog, you will know that I was in Russia, Mongolia, and China in July. Doing a Trans Siberian Railway themed trip I guess. I have written a few articles concerning in, including Trans Siberian and the Trans Mongolian Railways.
Anyhow, my wife and I decided to you one of those on-line photo album publishing sites to do up a little nicer album. Well I managed to pick up some dirt on my lens or camera at the beginning of our trip and I have noticeable spots in about 1 in 3 photos. Talk about annoying.
I have been touching up photos all night. So this is the only article you are going to get.
Photoshop Is Awesome
This is all I can say at the end of it. Photoshop has a healing brush tool that can be used to mask zits or whatever else. It works wonders for covering up the black spot. Especially in the big blue skies of some of the photos when it is really noticeable.
During a dinner cruise along the Zambezi river just outside of Livingstone, Zambia, this hippo was with a few of his friends. Every time he would yawn, we would get a full look at how far he could open those jaws up. They are considered one of the more dangerous animals of Africa, killing many people every year.
If you have not tried out Colors! for your Nintendo DS then you should. It is a nifty little homebrew application for drawing in a "painting" fashion. You can read more about it in my article Colors! - Drawing On The Nintendo DS. I have also featured it in Best Nintendo DS Homebrew.
Anyhow, there is a new version out. 1.6 to be exact. I notice the file is up to 1.6MB in size now, so they definitely added something. Here is a feature list from the Drunken Coders site.:
Major precision overhaul
Opacity slider in brush-screen
Pressure-Controls-Size option in brush-screen
New user-interface with graphics by madwurmz.com
Playback controls with the option to continue painting from mid-playback
The possibility to send your painting directly to an e-mail address
Unlimited save slots
One additional zoom-level
Getting the game to run is he same as before. Just read my article on Colors!.
This was an awesome sight to see. If it is a clear night and a fairly full moon, a lunar rainbow can be seen above Victoria Falls. If you are in Livingstone, Zambia make sure you go over there are night to see it. There is a circular lunar rainbow around a bridge further along the trail as well.
My cousin is living in Vancouver and taking a 2 year photography course. Anyhow, I am always impressed by his photos. Some have cool lighting, a different angle, or just capture the moment quite well.
He has been posting them on flickr under the name marcosthethird. You can check out photos by marcosthethird if you want to see an interesting collection.
He posts fairly regularly and not too many. It makes it fun to go there as there is only a few you need to catch up on at any given time.
I had been staying at Kande Beach along Lake Malawi. On our way out, we managed to get a flat tire. While the driver and a few others were changing out the tire, we managed to get quite the crowd watching. This boy was just standing by and watching all the action around.
I recently purchased Killzone: Liberation. This is a pretty awesome game. It is a stealth-oriented top down tactical shooter for the PSP. Basically you control one soldier, but are able to give commands to other units at certain points in the game.
The game has been out since October 31st of 2006 and is still considered one of the better games out for this platform. This is the first time I have played a game of this type since Syndicate Wars for the PC and you can't even really compare them. I do hope they come out with a sequel for this one.
Game Quality
Killzone: Liberation's graphics are pretty slick. Lots of explosions, gunfire, and water and smoke look quite neat.
I have not finished the game yet, so I cannot comment on how long the actual length of the game is, but it seems pretty good so far. The difficulty of the single player is pretty tough. Fortunately there are frequent checkpoints so you can choose to restart from a checkpoint or do the mission over again if you need to pick a different weapon or conserve your ammo better from the beginning.
Added to the mix are challenges that get unlocked during the campaign. Each challenge has some sort of goal whether it is finishing the level in a certain time or killing a number of opponents. You can receive bronze, silver, and gold medals for the challenge which will allow you upgrades to your character during the campaign. It is a nice little touch in Killzone: Liberation because you can pick up the game and just try to beat your record on one of the challenges and not feel like you have to start slugging away at a campaign mission.
I have yet to try the multi-player part of the game, but it does support coop play of the entire campaign.
Buying Killzone: Liberation
Do not bother running out and buying this game brand new. It has been around for awhile and I found this game used for under US$15 including shipping on eBay. Check it out, I'm sure you can find it for around the same price. Brand new is around US$30 and up.
Video Review
Here is a video review I found on YouTube, but I include links below to a number of reviews and some other videos.
Links For Killzone: Liberation
There are a number of good links for this game. Check them out.
These monkeys were taking a drink from this pool. I was staying in a tent at the Zambezi Waterfront, a campground/resort outside of Livingstone, Zambia along the Zambezi river. I did try to get a closer picture after this and ended up being chased for about 30 yards by a monkey baring his pearly whites (not very pearly though).
