The 458 has the bite to match its bark

The Italians are world renowned for their car making prowess. Lamborghini, Maserati and Zonda also hail from this nation and are all highly sought-after pieces of metal. However, none have the allure, passion and exclusivity of Ferrari. It’s because of this exclusivity that if you had to ask most people what their dream car would be, most of the time the answer will be a Ferrari.
Passion, power and precision are words by which Italy is famous for, and it’s only fitting that Ferrari’s latest offering bares the moniker of its homeland.
The 458 Italia will be replacing the F430 as Ferrari’s ‘entry level’ car. Don’t let this deter you. The 458 is by no means a watered-down supercar. The guys at Maranello insist that this car is 100 per cent Ferrari, and its fusion of aesthetics, creative flair and avant-garde technology make it a winner.
Visually, the car is exquisite, and with its unmistakable Ferrari DNA, the 458 Italia oozes racing pedigree. Ferrari have spiced up their range with this new car without going over the top – no garish bodykits, no indecent colours – just understated sophistication.
But appearances aside, the 458 has the bite to match its bark. So lets talk performance.
A 4.5-litre direct injection V8 heart has been recruited to set up camp in the rear. Mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, the engine produces a staggering 425kW and 540Nm of natural power. What makes these figures more impressive is the fact that the Italia has been carved from lightweight materials. Pair this with its aerodynamic shape and you get a 0-100km/h time of 3.4 seconds and a top speed of 325km/h.
These figures are quite astonishing for an entry-level car. In fact, the figures are so impressive that they make the 458 Italia faster then the Ferrari F430 Scuderia and Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4.
So what’s the catch? Quite simply, there isn’t one. This car allows the ‘poor man’ Ferrari exclusivity and unrivalled performance. For roughly £150 000 (about R176 6926), it buys you a membership in the Ferrari fraternity, and a smile on your face every time you drive it.

Forza Motorsport 3, released on October 27, 2009, is one of the best racing games ever made due to its excellent array of single and multiplayer game modes, large and varied selection of cars, incredibly realistic racing physics and unparalleled accessibility (at least within the racing simulator genre). Another important aspect that Forza 3 also excels in is in its highly impressive visuals, running at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second. Because of these excellent visuals, the in game photo mode allows for some truly breathtaking images.

Now, I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert photographer but I’ve become positively enamored with the game’s photo mode after a few trips to the Forza Motorsport 3 forums and taking a look at the multimedia showcase forum, in which budding photographers and folks obsessed with the sheer beauty of four wheeled vehicles meet to share the images they’ve taken in Forza 3. Taking a look through some of the threads there, I was amazed at the levels of realism and artistry that people were able to achieve with Forza 3’s photo mode and decided to try my hand at producing some high quality images of my own.

So, I decided to revive my long dormant Flickr account and create a gallery of the best images I’ve come up with. Some of which I’ll share below.

Clicking on any of the images above will take you to the full size 1280 x 720 version of the image you click on, which is also a part of my Forza 3 gallery at Flickr. If you want to view the rest of the images I’ve uploaded, just check out this link.

So check out the images if you like and let me know what you think.

Some guys in the team have a deep addiction to video games…and to our studio!!.

Lancer Evo VI GSR with Single turbo

- BRB

Today has been a relatively poor day. Not even Christmas shopping could cheer me up.

What is it with this whole ‘Rage AGainst The Machine’ for Christmas number one bullshit?

I’m going to say now, if you support this, agree with it, or think its funny then I think your a cock. Joe McElderry is 18 years old. Did you see his face when he won the whole competition? A select number of people feel like being complete dick heads to stop him reaching number one? Killing in the name of isn’t even a slightly Christmassy song. Theres a time and a place to fuck up somebody’s dreams, self-confidence and happiness, christmas isn’t one of them. Every single one of you a complete TWATS. If you wanted to get back at X-Factor, then boycott it or something. I just hope  he still gets number one, cos he deserves it.

Yesterday was Blues V. Blackburn. We won 2-1 and I can confirm I’m now a blues boy through and through. I liked football, but never understood the passion some people had for it. Within 10 minutes, I was calling the referee a twat, Samba a cunt and singing songs. I cannot wait for the next game, which will probably be against Tottenham.

Today I forgot to take my power cable for my laptop to college, so I couldn’t do any work. There was no point what so ever in going in. Oh well. I decided to go home early, but before that try some Christmas shopping to cheer me up. Seriously, it ends here. I spent another hundred quid or so, and got some more wrapping paper. I need to get even more tomorrow, because I totally forgot the one I have to pick up from the store and wrap. Bugger.

This evening I had a little nap and then played some Forza. I finally got round to racing in the Revington! After that, I caught up with Jamie and then watched the episode of Misfits I hadn’t got round to watching yet. I also have episode one of Vampire Diaries to watch, which I might do now.

Lambo Revington

I think I will leave it here. I generally feel angry and agitated this evening. Like, even the slightest thing is pissing me off. Might relax to a movie and fall asleep, hoping I wake up in a better mood tomorrow.

The days of the race will be taking place on Sunday now since we dont have a NASCAR 09 league right now. Also the first race of the season will be early January. I have decided to have the league be a stock setup league for better competition.

Like in my last post, the first of the paid content is out of the garage and been release onto the race track in Forza Motorsport 3. The Hot Holidays Car Pack contains 10 cars for a low price of 400 Microsoft Point, but are they worth the points or will they go spinning off into the tyre barrier, let’s find out!

The easiest way of saying about what car so you don’t lose where you are is to do a car-by-car. But first, the easy stuff, the last update for the game involved of the of a couple of fixes (e.g. money glitch), but also the cockpit view had now the hand movement when gearing up of down, which is great, but not for all the cars as some of them have paddle shift that don’t move and when you gear up, it move it hand on the steering wheel, not on the paddle. Anyway back on track and here’s what i think of the new cars in the pack!

2009 Aston Martin #007 Aston Martin Racing Lola

When I first go into the wheel of the Aston, I thought, ‘THIS IS BLOODY FAST!’ and it was! I was hitting a top speed of 217mph and it weren’t tune or no upgrades. Yes, you need to get a handle on it, but, you can easily get a fast time in it without a doubt.

2009 Audi Team Joest R15 TDI

Oh look, another Audi TDi to ruin my day! I’m not really a fan of the TDi, they have so low revs and it no different for the new one, I prefer the Aston, but if you love the Audis, you will love this one (Note: look out for hills in low gear!)

2009 Mercedes Benz SLR Stirling Moss

This is not a normal Mercedes, is it a fashion icon in the car world. It has good speed but al it wants to do is have the tail out, is this start of its drifting career?

2010 Audi S4

This Audi took me back in my memory, yes it has 4 wheel drive and yes it average, but I couldn’t of have some much fun with it. Put all the assist off and press the A button on the controller and you can throw it round the corners by doing a 4×4 drift and powering out of it. And the best thing of all, this car is FREE TO DOWNLOAD!

2010 Jaguar XFR

I’m not sure of what to say about this car, it quite slow to get off the line, but with a few upgrades, it could be great.

2010 Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SV

One word – Lighting Jet with so much grip!

2010 Porsche Panamera Turbo

Lots of fun, I fell that this is one of the best Porsches in the game, but I don’t really like the look of it, why the 4 doors?

2010 Ferrari 599X

It’s pretty much a track day car. Fast and control, needs a couple of upgrades here and then to be perfect, but an OK car

2010 Ferrari 458 Italia

Looks brilliant, sound is brilliant and did I forget to mention the word BRILLIANT!

2010 Nissan GT-R SpecV

Try it round Sunset Infield and felt a bit disappointed, I thought it would be … what the word hard to control. But it was quite calm. I may have to try and get the tail out and throw it though some more corners.

So that my view of each car in the Hot Holidays Car Pack, for the price of 400 Microsoft Points, it is worth the points but if you waiting to get some more points, please get the S4 without thinking about it. I would like to hear you views on the DLC; was it a good start to the paid DLC or would you like other cars to be involved, leave comments below or send me a message on XBL @ f1 racing mad or on twitter @f1_racing_mad.

So, the first paid for DLC for Forza 3 has been release on the 8/12/09.  Most of the cars in this pack are all due to be release for sale in 2010, so think of this as an early Christmas present! The cars are:

• 2009 Aston Martin #007 Aston Martin Racing Lola
• 2009 Audi Team Joest R15 TDI
• 2009 Mercedes Benz SLR Stirling Moss
• 2010 Audi S4
• 2010 Jaguar XFR
• 2010 Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SV
• 2010 Porsche Panamera Turbo
• 2010 Ferrari 599X
• 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia
• 2010 Nissan GT-R SpecV

But your thinking, ‘ I don’t know any of those cars!’ But thanks to Turn 10, they have put a vid about all of the 10 cars, which is below

That’s the cars and the price is 400msp, not a bad price. But if you want to try one of the 10 cars out, download the 2010 Audi S4 for FREE. I will be doing a review on the cars but before I do that, I need to try them out!!!

I hope someone got a bonus for coming up with "Hotte Latte"

So I returned home for the holidays to make the discovery that yet another bikini coffee hut has emerged in Lakewood with the addition conversion of Hotte Latte (KD’z Espresso) on Gravelly Lake Dr. This now makes two on a less than half-mile stretch of Gravelly Lake Drive, and four in a 1.5 mile radius. Classy!

While I’ve been a coffee shop bum for a good portion of my life, I’ve been a bookstore bum for significantly longer. My bookstore loitering goes back to elementary school, when I used to hang around the B. Dalton Bookstore in the Lakewood Mall where my mom worked in the evening. When B. Dalton–and eventually the Lakewood Mall–went the way of the dodo, I eventually migrated my loitering to the hip and happening new Barnes & Noble (now with free WiFi!) in the late ’90s.

The store. The myth. The legend.

The Lakewood Barnes and Noble was officially my very first coffee shop, and I’ve been a loyal patron since it absorbed the Lakewood Mall B. Dalton bookstore. Actually, I wouldn’t say “patron” as much as “cousin.” I can point out where the humor section was located spanning back five store re-designs, and recall the day I discovered the magic of cinnamon twists. It’s also where I fell in love with graphic novels, bought countless Christmas gifts,  reunited with long lost friends classmates, and was the site of the first and only time I ever asked anyone on a date (asked a barista out for coffee).

Lately I’ve branched out to check out some Lakewood’s other coffee offerings. I had initially not given Forza a fighting chance. In the last ten years they’ve thrived and expanded in the greater Puget Sound area. I’ve only had a chance to stop by their Bridgeport Way location for a cup o’ joe on the way out of town, and I was intrigued by their “relaxed atmosphere of dark African mahogany wood, Italian

All that and flat panel tvs? Now they're just showing off.

porcelain tiled floors and comfortable chairs near a warm fireplace.” I didn’t stay, but if I did I imagine it would be like like an afternoon of light coffee and masterpiece theatre.  I’ve not decided whether or not the knowledge that there are nearly two dozen afro-mahoga-Italia-porcea-firepla- comfy-chair locations makes it lose a bit of it’s luster. Then again, as we all know I’m not above being reined in by marketing.

If you’re feeling at all generous this holiday season, please consider a donation to the support the families of the rather horrific incident of violence at a Lakewood-area Forza. This kind of thing shouldn’t happen anywhere, let alone a coffee shop.

Changed the ‘Indentification’ page into a page about my Xbox 360 failures and experience.

More updates will come :]

Another week, more games to play. And this is what you ANZ gamers have been playing while connected to Xbox LIVE!

1. Modern Warfare 2
2. Halo 3
3. Assassin’s Creed 2
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
5. Call of Duty: World at War
6. Grand Theft Auto IV
7. Forza Motorsport 3
8. Halo 3: ODST
9. FIFA 10
10. Borderlands

- jinx

Genre: Racer
Untergenre: Simulation

Preis: Vollpreis
Preisleistung: Sehr Gut

Spielspaß: 88%
Sound: 95%
Grafik: 86% (Fehlt Bewegung im Hintergrund…)
Langzeitmotivation: 92%
Umfang: 97%

Singleplayer: 94%
Multyplayer: 90%
XBox Live: 91%

92% Darkwertung
Top Game

So I went out on Thursday Nov,26,2009 and picked up Forza 3 along with a official xbox 360 steering wheel.I have been playing Forza 2 for along time now with a controller and a wheel borrowed from a friend. So I beat most of forza 2’s single player using the controller which was fun but afterwords I tried out the wheel.The wheel was alright but for $99 + tax I didn’t fined it worth buying unless it would be used for multiple split screen like a arcade only at home. Forza 2 which had very basically split screen multilayer which wasn’t all there, yet still a blast against a friend.The Problem was only having one wheel, Always needing to share it and then there’s always the advantage or disadvantage of playing against your friend on a wheel while you use a controller.

So before forza 3 came out i had began looking for a used xbox 360 wheel,why used you might say? well buying a used xbox wheel will be about half the price and most people who buy a xbox wheel or any steering wheel either use it alot or barley at all, theirs usually no in between so you find one which have been barely used at all and you have just saved your self a bunch of money congratulations. Now its your turn to either use it a little or a lot but at least you wont loss much money if you only use it a little this way . Now that we have 2 wheels it was time to Race!

-So away I went trying out the single player a little bit to see how good the wheel was I bought and to see how forza 3 was compared to forza 2.Lets just say Graphically it has improved which is nice to see and the tracks feel less smooth which makes it so much fun Everything seemed Great. It was Time to get into some great racing with a friend in forza 3 split screen oh i couldn’t wait since forza 2 was good and now we had 2 wheels .
So we First started out with F Cars only we spent about 1hr playing with only F cars, theirs just so many cars its ridiculous. when we moved on the E cars, There were even more cars The list of cars was never going to stop we were loving just this fact alone we spend another hour just on E cars but we had keep changing tracks just to see what the courses would be like, lets just say there better then ever not just because theirs Soooo many to choose from the fact that they all look great but they also drive very realistically compaired to forza 2, Since before it very smooth tracks now there more bumps like I mention before which just adds alot of fun. this was as far as we had gotten before it was time to stop playing but this game has blown our minds we cant help but want to play it more, The split screen multiple this time around can have 2cpu player which is a nice feature which forza 2 really need.

In conclusion go take alook at the forza3 demo and what you see there will be what you get. Ill be busy playing forza 3 for along long long………. Time! see yea next time if i ever come back from forza 3

Wishing everyone a happy turkey day. Hope everyone gets their eat on and does the fat dance at the end of the night. haha

on that note. LOL . i wanted to share these Forza pics of my IS300 made by my friend Nick Stonawski aka Supra Nick. Pretty bad ass. looks like my car when i had the chargespeed kit on . Oh i miss that kit. Hrmm maybe i’ll put it back on one day

Details from the Ginger Bread Charity Diorama at the Four Seasons Hotel, Austin, Texas. Photos by Tracie B.

Maybe it’s the little boy in me… I’ve always been fascinated with culinary anamorphism — a cultural phenomenon whereby food is refashioned to resemble something else, edible or otherwise.

The tradition of fashioning food to look like buildings stretches back to the Renaissance. One of the most famous examples is torrone nougat: on the occasion of the wedding of Bianca Maria Visconti to Francesco Sforza, October 25, 1441, the bride and groom were presented with a nougat replica of the city’s church bell tower, the so-called Torrione (today known as the Torrazzo) from which the sweet derived its name.

Another such example from recent memory is Abe Lebewohl’s depiction of Manhattan’s Twin Towers, fashioned out of chopped liver from the Second Avenue Deli.

The Art of Cooking by fifteenth-century Italian chef Maestro Martino (which I translated for UC Press, 2005) offers many examples of culinary anamorphism, mostly for the sake of recreating milk and eggs on days when they were forbidden by the Catholic church.

Last night Tracie B had to drag me away from the ginger bread diorama in the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Austin. Our good friend chef Todd Duplechan oversees the creation and construction of this wondrous little city. Each edifice is auctioned off for charity (last year, a celebrity loved it so much, she paid for it to be recreated and reassembled in Las Vegas, “just so she could show how cool Austin is,” said chef Todd).

Happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll!

Non riesco a dominare i tuoi occhi. E’ come se riuscissero ad ipnotizzarmi. Ogni volta che provo ad alzare lo sguardo e cerco di fissarti non ho la forza di combattere e di non farmi pervadere dall’emozione. Molto spesso mi sono illuso di essere forte. Mi sono illuso di poter controllare le emozioni e mi sono illuso, credendo di aver superato ogni piccola sensazione che mi provochi.

Mi sono sentito forte nel convincermi della mia forza e ho cercato di capire la situazione. Mi sono ostinato sulla mia persona cercando di modellarmi.

Solo con te ho capito il principio dei poli nelle calamite. Sei attrazione per il mio corpo che non riesco mai a controllare. Sei il polo mancante alle mie giornate e solo in tua presenza mi rendo conto che io, il polo opposto, trovo il senso al mio essere.

Solo con te ho capito il vero senso della debolezza. Non quella tangibile, presente e razionale. La debolezza quella meschina, subdola, nascosta e cinica al cuore.

Debolezza che fa sentire la sua presenza ad intermittenza, a tratti, per ricordarmi che il mio comportamento razionale è solo una mia illusione.

Una debolezza che ti deride e ti fa sentire sciocco. La debolezza di chi prova le più belle sensazioni che l’esistenza ti possa regalare.

Bisognerebbe sentirsi forti in queste condizioni. Io mi sento legato. Catene invisibili e taglienti che impediscono i miei movimenti. Che mi rendono immobile. Forse è un bene! Potrei far esplodere le mie emozioni che rovinerebbero una sottile armonia, un fittizio patto che ho accettato; convincendomi di poterlo rispettare.

Non sai quanto è dura a volte. Molto spesso quando si è convinti di poter far tutto si rischia poi di fregarsi con le proprie mani. Sarebbe bello essere sempre forte e cinico. Sempre intoccabile agli eventi. Ora che ci penso non lo sono mai stato intoccabile. Neanche ora.

Mi sono convinto solo di esserlo ma non ho fatto i conti con l’inconscio, con quei movimenti tumultuosi e casuali che il cuore e l’anima, egoisticamente e anche con un certa cattiveria, provocano.

Mi sento di chiedere scusa a me e a te. Scusa perché forse ho voluto fare qualcosa di più grande di me. Scusa perché ho peccato di superbia, involontariamente. Mi sono voluto sentire diverso dal passato e questo mi è sembrato giusto. Mi sono voluto sentire più forte di te. Mi sono anche voluto sentire bene non rinunciando al polo mancante.

Ho sperato che qualcosa cambiasse, ingenuamente. Ma le cose se non cambiano subito sono destinate a rimanere tali. Ho preteso il cambiamento, ma io non sono cambiato. Solo l’illusione mi ha dato la percezione di essere diverso e qualcuno un giorno mi ha detto che chi nasce tondo non potrà mai morire quadrato. Mi sono accorto che quando ci sono in ballo i sentimenti è proprio così.

Here’s your top 10 retail games for the last week, based on unique users connected to Xbox LIVE across ANZ.

1. Modern Warfare 2
2. Halo 3
3. Assassin’s Creed 2
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
5. Call of Duty: World at War
6. Forza Motorsport 3
7. Grand Theft Auto IV
8. Halo 3: ODST
9. FIFA 10
10. Borderlands

This list looks a lot different than last time I posted! Such a great time of year. We get so many awesome games through these holiday months.

- jinx

First Place:

Forza Motorsport – 57%

Second Place:

Gran Turismo – 43%

Analysis:

Gran Turismo may have created the sim racing genre, but in the end the Forza Motorsport series won out in the hearts of Frayed Wire readers. The fifth installment of Gran Turismo has yet to come out, so if I had made this poll sometime in the future after that game had been released, maybe we would have seen some different results. But for now, the Xbox’s little pride and joy is the king.

By Josh60502