Starting on October 1st, Comcast will being enforcing a 250GB monthly limit on data transfer for all of their broadband customers. If a customer goes over the limit, they will receive a courtesy call from Comcast for the first offense. However, if a customer goes over the limit a second time their account will be immediately terminated for one year.

Comcast is also not providing any tools which will monitor your monthly bandwidth usage. Making it extremely difficult to keep track of how close to the limit you might be getting. When asked, Comcast simply suggests to do a web search for bandwidth tracking tools. Personally, I suspect that Comcast doesn’t even have a reliable method of tracking bandwidth usage for all of their customers, so the fact that they are not providing any tools is not that surprising.

Comcast says that the median bandwidth usage for their customers is 2 to 3 GB a month. It is interesting that they ended up providing the median and not the average, but whatever. Those numbers would be easily broken in a matter of hours, or even minutes if customers are taking advantage of HD Video streaming (something many of the networks now provide). I used to prefer to watch Lost in HD on the web because of the much fewer commercials (and my lack of HD cable), but it looks like I wont be doing that anymore.

Also, users who use online backup/storage for files might want to be careful about how often they use such services. Those can easily suck up a lot of bandwidth. Plus, I could see families of 5 or more easily going over that limit if people in the household use things like streaming internet radio, hd video, skype, ect.

Personally, I have never had any problems with Comcast, but if I ever get one of those “courtesy calls”, you can guarantee that will be the day that I start looking elsewhere for internet and television services (possibly Verizon FIOS).

Well, I guess two out of three on my Xbox Live Arcade Wish List isn’t bad. 3D Realms recently announced that Duke Nukem 3D is in fact coming to Xbox Live Arcade. The game has passed certification, and its now up to Microsoft to release it. The price is expected to be somewhere between 800 and 1200 Microsoft Points.

The game will feature the ability to rewind gameplay and save clips from multiplayer. Similar to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Braid, the rewind functionality allows players to reverse time and replay a part of the single player campaign, allowing them to make another go at firefights and perhaps prevent their untimely demise. Meanwhile, the saved film feature lets players preserve multiplayer battles and share the replays with other Xbox Live users, calling to mind Halo 3’s similar functionality.

id Software’s new game, Rage, looks amazing. What first caught my attention is the stunning graphics and art design. It really is pretty striking and gives off a sorta Mad Max vibe (which is a really good thing). But then I started to read about the actual gameplay, and it sounds like Rage is going to be a fun game. However, I feel like most people don’t really know what the game is about.

Its obvious from the trailer that the game is set in a post-apocalyptic world akin to those seen in the movies Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Specifically, the game is set in the near future following a comet collision with the earth.

They knew the asteroid was coming, but no one expected total destruction. After it was confirmed that the asteroid would collide with Earth, the leaders of humanity secured a deep underground bunker. Its sole purpose was to house the future of the human race, leaders who would eventually rebuild the planet after the cataclysmic explosion.

The asteroid hit, destroying a large chunk of the planet, presumably wiping out all life on the surface. The survivors were supposed to open the doors of the bunker to a ruined planet and begin reshaping society on a new Earth. When they finally set foot on the surface, they quickly discovered they were not alone. Mutants stalked the desert wasteland, looking for their next victim, and were filled with rancor and hostility and what could only be described as…rage.

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In addition to vicious mutants roaming the desert wasteland, several human factions have formed in makeshift cities across the land. You play as an as-yet-unnamed character who emerges from the bunker to restart society, only to see that many of these factions have their own vision of how to implement the new world order. Some are friendly, but many are not, and one in particular has risen to power and is attempting to put a stranglehold on the rights and freedoms of the survivors. Willits likens it to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. You’ll travel from makeshift city to makeshift city, learning more about each faction as you progress through the main storyline.

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As seen in the many id Tech 5 demos and recent Rage trailers, driving will play a very large part in Rage. Over the course of the game, you’ll accumulate several different vehicles that can be customized to your liking. In the latest trailer, we saw dune buggies racing on a desert track, armed with mounted Gatling guns and machine guns. Willits said these vehicles will become an extension of the player, so expect plenty of options for customization.

- Source

Few concrete gameplay details have been released since the game’s announcement, but the developers did let a few extra details slip.

Highlights:

• Two player online co-op is confirmed for consoles and PC. Console players will also have the option of split-screen co-op.
• Co-op will be an entirely separate mode that will not include the story elements of the single player campaign.
• Hooper mentioned “armor” and “inventory” systems, and indicated that there will be some type of world economy that the player can participate in.
• The shooter gameplay will play out in the tradition of id FPS titles.
• Vehicles are being used as an “extension of the player,” allowing users to drive to instances, or race on tracks that are found in each town.
• Racers will have two seats for co-op riding, with one player manning a gun.
• Vehicles can run over monsters, but the gore will be limited, as id is shooting for a Teen rating to broaden its audience.
• Training missions played at racetracks will teach players new vehicle skills.
• Though the world will be large, it is not a sandbox title or traditional “open world” game–players will need to complete the game’s story quests in a linear fashion.
• Instances, encounters and items will be crafted, not procedurally generated as in a game like Diablo.
• The game is targeted for release sometime within the next two years–likely in the final half of 2009.

This is actually one of the best pre-order offers I have seen. If you pre-order your copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts from Amazon.com, you will receive a code to download the original Banjo-Kazooie game from Xbox Live a few weeks before its set to go up on Marketplace, which is due out shortly before Nuts & Bolts hits (which is set for November 14th). The game looks absolutely great, and I was planning on buying it anyway. So I am certainly going to pre-order and get the first game for free. Not to mention the game is only $39.99 anyway. Pretty good deal overall!

Congrats to the Nerd g1s who put together such great suggestions.

The trailer is a bit old, but I still feel like I should post it. The game looks absolutely amazing! It has been a really long time since I have gotten excited about a MMO (the last one that I really liked was Planetside), but I am already going nuts for this game. Hopefully it doesn’t come out during the school year or I am going to be in trouble.

I got a Zune a few weeks ago and decided to hold off for a little while before writing a short review for it. Now that I have been using it pretty much every day, I feel like I am familiar enough to tell you guys what I think of it.

I ordered my Zune 80 from Amazon, so it took about a week to get here. That’s fine since it gave me plenty of time to get the rest of my music collection ripped to my pc using windows media player. It filled out all of the track information for all my cds and got album art no problem, so I was pretty much ready to go once I got the Zune in the mail.

The Zune comes is a really small box that is actually pretty cool. I normally don’t care about packaging at all, but I have to agree with uberdave on this one, the box is pretty sweet. Inside the box is a short quick start guide that will walk you though the few steps needed to get the Zune up and running. The first step actually requires you to visit the Zune website to download the software. I was surprised that they didn’t actually include the software on a disc with the player. I don’t imagine this being a problem for most people, but if for some reason you don’t have internet access you won’t be able to install the software and get the music on the Zune. I guess that’s one of the down sides to having a small box.

The Zune software itself is pretty well designed. It’s similar to media player in how it functions (such as the library and monitoring folders for new content), but the layout is completely different and can take some getting used to. But once you know your way around, it’s pretty easy to get things done. You get files onto your Zune by “Syncing” it to the media library on your computer. The Zune software watches whatever folders you tell it to; automatically importing new content (video, music, or photos) into your library whenever they are added to any of those folders. For example, it monitors the “My Music” folder on my pc, which is where I rip all of my CDs to. If I want to add a new CD to my Zune, I just rip the tracks to that folder. The Zune software notices they are new and adds it to my library. The next time I plug in my Zune, the tracks will get “Synced” over to the Zune so that it has the exact same content as my library does. Overall, it works pretty well, when it works that is.

I only have one problem with the Zune software, but it happens all the time and is a bit annoying. Whenever I first plug the Zune into my pc, the player software automatically launches (which is an option you can turn off, but I like that it does this). However, when I go to Sync my library to the Zune, it says it’s not connected. This is strange, since it obviously knows it was connected (it did launch the software after all). So I have to unplug the Zune and connect it again before it will notice it. It’s not a huge problem, but it is a bit annoying. But other then that one issue, the software works great.

The player itself feels pretty good. The hardware is really well designed and seems to be made to last. The screen is a really nice size and looks beautiful, and is protected by actual glass, not plastic. So hopefully the screen won’t scratch as easily as some other players that use plastic screens. The port to connect the cable to it is located at the bottom, while the headphone jack as well as a lock switch is located at the top of the player. As for buttons, there is one large touch pad as well as a back button and a play/pause button.

Once you get all your media on the player, actually using it is a breeze. It categorizes your content based on type, such as music, video, photos and podcasts. Within those categories, you can further sort the list by artist, album, genre, or song title. They work as you would expect. For example, selecting an artist then brings up all the albums for that artist. You can select to play all of them, or drill down more to get individual albums and the songs within those albums. The album art is displayed right along with the titles, making it easy to find what you are looking for just by glancing at the covers.

Moving around is pretty easy. The Zune has a touch pad, so you simply slide your finger up and down to move around the list, or left and right to change the sorting method. Selecting a song is as easy as clicking the center down. If you are not a fan of touch sensitive input devices, you can turn it off to make it function as a normal button, but I don’t know why you would want to do that.

The podcast section is probably the one that gets the most use from me. Using the Zune software on my PC, I signed up for a dozen or so podcasts such as Major Nelson’s podcast (audio) and the 1up show (video). Each time I load the Zune software, it automatically checks to see if there are new episodes of the podcasts and automatically begins to download them if it finds some. If my Zune is connected, it goes ahead and syncs them as well. This is great for me. I listen to a ton of podcasts, and not having to go to all the sites and download new episodes myself is a huge time saver. After I listen or watch a show, it marks it as done. Next time I sync, it automatically deletes the old shows for me, which keeps things from getting out of control (which they would given the amount of podcasts I follow).

Aside from the music, movies, and photos categories, the Zune also has ones for social, radio, and settings. From there you can check friends, messages and scan for nearby Zunes. The player has wireless built into it, allowing the Zunes to talk to each other and send music. The radio is pretty much what you would expect, and allows you to scan through and find local radio stations. I don’t really use this much, but it seems to work pretty good. The settings section allows you to control some basic stuff, such as if the touch pad is on, how long before the display turns off, and other stuff like that. You can also start a wireless synch from here if you don’t feel like plugging the Zune into your PC.

Microsoft is essentially trying to do to music what they did with games via Xbox Live. That is, making music a social experience that you can share with your friends. Sending music to each other wireless is a part of that, but I don’t even think it’s the most interesting aspect of what they have done. On Zune.net, every Zune user can create a profile and a friends list (the friends list is actually integrated with your Xbox Live friends list if you have one). Your profile keeps track of your most recently played music, as well as what music you play the most. It does this for all your friends as well, so you can easily check out what they are listening to. This makes finding new music extremely easy and fun to do. I have spent hours looking at my friends profiles, listening to samples of their favorite tracks (if available), and have discovered some pretty cool new artists in the process. Once you find something you like, buying it is just a few clicks away (assuming it’s available on the Zune Marketplace).

Overall, I really like what Microsoft did with the Zune. It’s a really solid player (both hardware and software), and the social aspect of it is really appealing to me. The Zune really is a good device, and I have absolutely no reservations recommending it to friends and family.

You can find my Zune profile here: http://social.zune.net/member/NeutralX2

Wow, another really good arcade game! I played it for only a few minutes before making the purchase (800 Microsoft Points). I instantly fell in love with it. Everything just feels really good. The movement is sweet (and has a lot of depth), the combat is enjoyable, the boss fights are creative, the music is awesome, ect. Great game overall. Go check out Bionic Commando Rearmed now!

What will happen to the BatNerd? Will the Joker have his way?

I have been telling people for a while that paying for expensive HDMI cables is pointless. I explain to them that digital connections either work or they don’t, and those 0’s and 1’s wont look any better on a more expensive cable. A digital signal is unlike an analog signal in that it is “all or nothing”- either you see a great image on the screen or you see nothing. But for some reason, people have trouble believing that a $7.99 HDMI Cable will work the same as a $200+ HDMI cable.

Anyway, awhile back I was browsing YouTube and came across this video. Hopefully it will help those out that need more convincing: