I call this a nanoreview because its more commentary than review.

I love this game, its beautiful, its action packed, and it assumes your intelligent - unlike oh, so many games out there that cater to the lowest common denominator. However! whether due to lack of sleep or sheer impatience, i found quite a few of the cutscenes tiring - too long, too boring, not enough to keep my attention.

Also, if you never played the game before, or dont know the back story, your kinda fooked. I knew it all, and still had trouble keeping track - its a very complicated story.

Still, I’m onto playing it for the third time since i bought it AND a ps3 (for that specific purpose) over the weekend its just that damn good. Get it, you wont be sorrry.

9.5/10

If it has yet not occured to our readers, that procrastination is something which I apreciate as an artform, best experiences as a long bender; spending days doing all i can, but what i should. Then let me say it definitively now: My name is Sean, I am a procrastinator. For that Im not really gonna apologise, cause yeah.. i dont care. but well thats the reason why its been forever and a day since my last GTA post.

Since then and now I’ve basically been spending every waking moment playing the game, bar the last week or so when I’ve been desperately forcing myself to do *other things* after constantly getting msn messages and nudges with people (yes, you sarah) moaning about me STILL PLAYING GTA4.

Thats pretty much the best endorsement your gonna get from me. Playing the game to the detriment of all social life. its a humbling thought - i suspect.

Apart from the plot of the game, which in fairness i think is only *0K*. its neither bad, nor good, its enough. The online game play however is superb. For a game which only went online at the begging of its fans, and despite the fact that its such a linear single player game, its quite a feat. Theres just so many options, deathmatch, carjack, turfwar etc each with a teambased option to (team deathmatch for example); theres definitely enough to keep you occupied for ages. It certainly kept me from stuff OUTSIDE.

I thought i wouldnt be too thrilled about the game, its just another sprawling do-whatever-you-want fest, only prettier; which I would be enclined to believe had i not had that oportunity to play the game online. Its a saving grace of the game. Sure the single player is good, but nothing spectactular.

Writing this kind of article seems futile anyways, because if you havent already picked up the game (which you should!) its doubtful you will. but there you have it. I say buy the damn thing. its awesome. in parts. yeah… 7/10 says me.

Bit-Tech’s Joe Martin reports that both Mass Effect and Spore are going to be sold with a very intrusive DRM, which will call home every ten days to check if your a pirate or not.

BioWare technical producer Derek French revealed that Mass Effect and Spore would feature a copy protection system similar to that used for BioShock, except that it will require online authentication once every ten days.

read more at [Bit-Tech]

Today we take a look at Three’s mobile broadband offering, which is offered in direct competition with both O2’s and Vodafone’s  mobile broadband services.

Three differentiate themselves from the pack right off the mark by offering both a prepay (dubbed threepay…urgh) and a subscription based service (for which im sure the marketing department were sorely disapointed, since they couldnt figure out how to inject the brand name into another already existing, perfectly usable word) which runs at approximately €25 per month and €20 per month respectively. Though it should be noted the prepay can only be topped up in increments of €10 - so you could easily find yourself with a misterious €5 credit that always just seems to hang around every second month or so. lovely.

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image courtesy of Apple

Ology is a suffix denoting a field of study or academic discipline. Appleologists, as mentioned in Ars Technica, would therefore be people studying the field of Apple. Contrary to logic and belief, there are many who could fit this description.

As the buzz about Macworld 2008, Apple’s annual shindig, is building to a crescendo the air is full of speculation as to what new products will be announced. After all the iPhone was born a year ago. What will it be this year?

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Sexual predators and online pedophiles are a growing concern among parents whose children use the internet. The FBI estimates that there are now over one million pedophiles active online. With many of them involved with child pornography. The majority are and chatting with children online daily.Here is a simple checklist that you can review in order to determine if your child’s habits online should cause you concern for the safety of your child and even your family.

Teaching your child not to reveal any personal information in chat rooms or over the internet which might lead a predator to the child can go a long way to ensuring their safety. Knowing what to look for is the first step.

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At present the IrishGeeks website has two part-time writers, producers, bloggers - whatever you want to call us, there are two of us writing the content for the website, but thats not nearly enough -we want more! IrishGeeks aims to be a portal to the world of tech news for Ireland, and such a lofty goal is unlikely to be achieved with merely the two of us on staff part time.

So we are calling out for any geeks (…or nerds) out there who live in the republic, which have a good level of english (we’re not asking for shakespear here, but dublander in written form wont suffice either), and a passion for technology to contribute and become a member of the IG family.

Whats in it for you, besides the esteem of becoming an IrishGeek? well, you’ll have your articles posted on Irelands best technology blog, in addition to which we offer a fair revenue share of the GoogleAd’s presented on any article you post.

If your interested, drop us a line via our contact page. If you do so, naturally telling us about yourself, and giving a sample of your written work will work wonders.

The beeb are reporting that lawmakers are considering drafting legislation that would ban Filesharers from the internet should they be found to be sharing copyrighted content without authorisation.

Some of the UK’s biggest internet providers, such as BT, Virgin and Tiscali have been in talks with the entertainment industry over introducing a voluntary scheme for policing pirate activity, but no agreement has been reached.

You might ask why this interests us over the pond, well as is too often the case, lawmakers in the republic copy/paste legislation from the UK - if this goes through it presents a worrying trend that could translate to Irish Internet users.

[bbc online]

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I’d like to start off by addressing some criticism we’ve recieved since yesterdays posting, about not asking ‘the hard questions’ when interviewing Gerard Ryan yesterday. A phrase comes to mind here: ‘Catch more bees with honey than lemon’. There is already a great wealth of decidely anti-Scientology literature and media (which we linked to in our original post), its necessary sometimes to remember these are real people who really believe in the ‘religion’ created by L. Ron Hubbard. It is our goal to present as much a balanced argument as possible, so we make no apologies for attempting to hear the other side.

What is Scientology?

Scientology is a self-described ‘religion’ based on the writings and talks of the Science Fiction writer, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986) [0]. The Church of Scientology defines Scientology as “the study of truth”. However even on a cursary look at the Church of Scientology reveals that such truth comes at a price. Where most other major religious groups share their teachings as ‘absolute truths’, which they believe will stand out on their own merits, it will cost you to ’study truth’ in scientology. Approximately $100,000 to learn the core beliefs. The Church of Scientology argues that the work they do, such as the auditing sessions, are labour intensive and thus justify the fees they charge; in stark contrast to most if not all other religions which survive on optional donations alone. As Gerard Ryan of The Church of Scientology (Ireland) admits, if you dont have the money to pay for the ‘religious services’, your pretty much out of luck - so from the point of view that Scientology is only for those with money seems at least in part to be true. One might reasonably ask, why spiritual enlightenment should carry a monetary levy.

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With the threat of protests looming the air is heavy with the feeling of anticipation. Today just before the day of the worldwide protest organized by Anonymous against the Church of Scientology, and in an effort to get the full story we have gone out and gotten in contact with Scientology Ireland’s official spokesman Gerard Ryan to discuss Scientology in Ireland today, and the looming protest tomorrow.

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