EA still has it

Understand this. NFS Undercover is one of the best racing simulation games created for the PC. If you didn’t, you either need English lessons or a good spanking on your stubborn buttocks.

In a spate of horrible mediocrity with two downright shitty games namely, NFS: Carbon and NFS: Prostreet, EA did a dreadful infraction to NFS’ loyal fans, who, year after year wait, with bated breaths to illegally download th… oops, to buy the shiny DVDs (inside the legally correct enclosures) of their latest NFS releases. In fact, the general gamer mood was so dismal post-Prostreet that the anticipation that usually precedes an NFS release was displaced by genuine doubts and total skepticism on EA’s ability to deliver better and still better with each of their successive products(oh, apart from hotter and hotter females in their NFS games). But, surprisingly, EA bitchslapped the critics and gave fans world over a reason to get non-sexually excited with their latest, action-packed, adrenalin-pumping package that is Undercover.

The game starts in the fashion of an essential Hollywood action flick, with a necessary dumb background plot, and leaves you in Tri-City Bay to forward an investigation as an undercover cop, from behind the wheels of a Nissan 340SX, NFS style. And if you have cataract-free eyes, you notice super-hot Maggie Q back from Die Hard (click screenshots to get a larger view) in the opening cut-scene, who acts as the commanding officer of the investigation for the rest of the game. EA has done away with free roaming in this one with no hope of the concept appearing in any future games and instead navigation and event selection is done through a GPS map (as with each game after Underground 2). Undercover has, however, reverted to high-speed cop chases, and thankfully to the city roads, à la Most Wanted. Keeping with the Hollywood spirit of the game, ‘Jobs’ have been introduced wherein, you are required to either race with specific opponents or to deliver ‘hot’ cars to specific destinations while going hood-to-hood with the cops. The direct focus on providing the player with a movie-esque experience has, unfortunately, resulted into race types being reduced to five, viz. Sprints, Checkpoints, Circuits, Outruns (Yippee!) and a new grade called as Highway battles – A high-speed, traffic intensive version of the Outruns. No cause for major worry though, as the storyline develops in a sufficiently intriguing manner with decent acting and impressive dialogue delivery from the cast, a throng of compelling characters and a well-placed background score, all of which will strive to keep you engaged to your PCs for a respectable minimum of 40 to 50 hours.

The graphics are lush, flush and plush (which are all synonyms, for the want of a better word) and are the best I’ve seen in a racing game outside of the Burnout world. Your car looks speedy even when it’s still and an absolute monster when it’s moving, the cop cars look like they were created to send you to afterlife and the tress look like you could kill the engine and start picnicking under one of them. In short, the graphics go a step ahead to make driving an unadulterated pleasure, but have the bad habit of bringing your 8800 GT down to its proverbial knees. This is a Major issue with the game as it badly performs even on high-end machines resulting in major drops in frame rates, desktop crashes and irritating, jerky gameplay. Apparently, the developers have been watching too many youtube videos as they've installed a buffering system in place wherein your screen freezes during races and you have to wait for the rest of the track to load in order to continue further. And that, is exceedingly frustrating when it happens near a turn as it results into a certain crash. And it usually does.

EA’s sound department has a good taste in speedy, eclectic music which shows when you run around on Tri-City Bay roads enjoying tracks from a comprehensive list of artists. Tuning options are a bare minimum but conspicuously effect the way you drive. A new Wheelman level-up system is in place that increases your tuning skills at each successive level. The physics haven’t been tinkered with much from the past games and the damage modeling, as with the earlier titles, is for plain viewing displeasure.

I understand that all major sites and game critics have slammed the game underground (pun unintended) in their reviews and complained of it being aimed at the popular market, of it being an unfinished, uninspired, unchallenging and an unoriginal coaster product and definitely one of the worst racing games ever but I, apart from lifting my two fingers to show them peace and to calm them down, have only this to say to them – “This game does not lack depth. Play it a little more and you will enjoy it. It’s easy to criticize games and drive people off gaming, but try the opposite. Think of this game as redemption of this series post-Prostreet.”

To conclude, EA has delivered a product it needs to be proud of. However, a lot of work is still required and they’d certainly be fooling themselves if they were to be satisfied with their current level of commitment to pleasing NFS’ fans. And trust me when I say that I've completed 90% of the game and something inside me or inside the game still makes me want to play it more. It's at least addictive, if not a chart-topper.

If you’re deliberately giving this one a miss, you deserve to be castrated.

Coming down to Religion...

I just read about some Bajrang Dal Mediated riots in a city today. It makes me question – What are these riots about? Why do they happen? These days, a tsunamic wave of Hindutva is upon the shore in Madhya Pradesh. Hind Rakshak Artis, Mahasabhas and Yatras are being organized in our otherwise communally harmonic state, more and more routinely. Recently, a procession was being carried out in Indore with an unabashed display of swords, daggers and guns. What was it supposed to convey? That now the angry Hindu is awake and he is going to kick the metaphorical ass of all other religions?

What I have come to realize is that Hindutva has scarcely anything to do with Hinduism. The former stands for all things that contradict the very basis of Hinduism. Hinduism, in entirety, does not confine itself to the narrow boundaries of the word ‘religion’. It is, in fact, a treasury of spiritual knowledge collected over centuries. It is more a way of life. It does not compel an individual to follow a set of written, hard-lined rules. You can be an atheist, or a monotheist, or a polytheist, or an agnostic and still be a Hindu. For example, there are the believers of ‘advaita’ dharma which preaches that the god is one and after moksha the soul merges with the god, then there are the believers of dvaita dharma who believe in duality or in the separate existence of atma and parmatma, they are the believers of the concept of heaven and hell, then comes sankhya dharma which is the school of atheism. Hinduism requires and encourages open questioning and not blind obedience. For instance, the Upanishads are simply, unbeknownst to most people, a collection of questions and answers between the shishya (student) and the guru (teacher) and answer all worldly curiosities a human is expected to possess. Furthermore, the spirit of questioning has been a part of our culture for long, as Amaratya Sen boldly highlights in “The argumentative Indian”. Why India is the home for people from so many different religious backgrounds and creeds, you might think? That because, we have an ability to argue and see different and contrasting points of views and the ability to make decisions through argumentation.

I believe that religion is an extremely private affair, and as what I believe has nothing to do with what anybody else believes, then why has it become such a public affair and a figure of mass scrutiny? People indulge in antagonism and worse, violence because they want others to accept their religion or agree to what they believe and what their religion preaches. But I fail to understand the part others have to play in an individual’s own spiritual journey.

If you believe that Ram existed, and if someone else says he didn’t, will you stop believing in Ram? I know it’s politically incorrect to make such absolute statements on a public portal but on a very personal level, this is what I feel. If you look at religion from a personal viewpoint then you will realize that every single person has a different religion. One person may consider god his friend, another might fear god and perform acts of bookish goodwill to be spared from hell in the afterlife, some other might believe god to be his parent, and someone else might believe God to be a superhumanly figure, sitting somewhere above the earth in white robes, wearing a white moustache. Isn’t there a difference of beliefs that comes into play? Then why is religion communalized? The reason why I think Hinduism is different from other religions is that it gives you freedom, to feel, to think, and to believe. Amusingly enough, you really cannot escape being a Hindu .You follow any random spiritual path and you still remain a Hindu, in all its axiomatic and philosophical definitions. For the Hindutva advocates, Hinduism begins and ends with Ram. Why don’t they look beyond to the Vedas and the Puranas, to the real meaning of Hinduism? Why don’t they see the objectivism of Krishna? To conclude, what these chauvinistic communal parties are preaching is a philosophically downsized and a morally constricted version of Hinduism

A dear apology

To our overflowing followers, (:p)
The exacting pressure of competitive exam preparation (ex. CAT, GATE and other such dumb acronyms) is keeping us off our underused, dirt-laden and fungi-infested keyboards, and is corrupting our otherwise creative minds. Ergo, we dearly want to issue a dear apology for our inertness in posting on the blog, to our faithful readers. The posts will begin flowing from January next year, mother promise!
Please pray that we may not burn in hell. Amen.

Procrastination

Right, the inaugural post. Since we're feeling too lazy to actually write anything fresh for the blog, I'll just post a poem I wrote some 3 years ago. The poem is actually pretty close to me, and is probably the best I've written, considering my limited poetry prowess. I'd want to classify it under 'Water' as it was worded to express a certain dilemma I had with my subconscious nature.

Love or lust

Help me, my love,

For these days,

The fine line between dreams and reality seems to thicken and stiffen

And at the same time, narrows and attenuates

And everything appears clear as a crystal,

And at the same time, there’s my robust imbroglio,

It kills me so,

And at the same time, it’s the fount of my boundless gratification.

So tell me, my love,

When, in the fine line between dreams and reality,

I see your eyes,

Should I love to stare at them,

Or should I lust to kiss them,

Be fast, my love,

And be slow, at the same time,

For my heart paces briskly,

And at the same time, misses a few beats.

Tell me, my love,

When, in the fine line between dreams and reality,

I see your lips,

Should I love to peck them,

Or should I lust to part them and explore what’s inside,

For if love is destined to be love,

And lust to be lust,

I se my paradise burning,

And at the same time, witness its resurrection from the ashes.

Tell me, my love,

When, in the fine line between dreams and reality,

I see your naked body,

Stripped to the last cloth,

Should I love to admire it,

Or should I lust to lick it till no part of your body remains untouched by my slaver,

Speak, my love,

And at the same time, be mute,

For if you choose to express,

You may overbear my desires,

And at the same time, may murder my inhibitions.

Tell me, my love,

When, in the fine line between dreams and reality,

I see you,

Should I love to be with you,

Or should I lust to be with you,

For it seems now,

I, without choice, have chosen to answer my riddle,

And at the same time, with choice, have contradicted my question.

I feel poisoned all over my body,

And at the same time, feel vigorous with the poison as my remedy,

For if love is pristine,

And lust the devil,

I curse the saints and the fiends,

For creating the fine line between right and wrong,

And at the same time, rave about the angels and the demons,

For creating the ravine between love and lust.

I am irate with my love,

And at the same time, am content with my lust,

For I loath my lust,

And at the same time, relish my love.

All this, as I believe,

I’m in love with my lust,

And at the same time, I lust for my love, my love.