Bill Gates the actor?

CNET.com writes;

Microsoft chairman and world’s richest man Bill Gates has landed a role in cult BBC sci-fi drama “Doctor Who,” with a special half-hour episode set to hit U.K. screens later this year.

That’s just strange… and it’s not even April 1st anymore.

Update:
CNET has taken their story down, and if you follow the trail around the net for sources for the story you end up on a lot of pages dated April 1st, so it might be a very slow moving Aprils Fool joke.

2nd update:
CNET writes:

We’ll admit it–we fell for an April Fools’ prank.

In this spot on Monday, we ran an item from sister site Silicon.com that reported an upcoming episode of the cult TV show “Doctor Who” would feature an appearance by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, as himself. Fans of the show were intrigued–and then disappointed. It turns out that the story was a hoax.

As astute readers were quick to point out, we should have been tipped off by a pair of clues: The original story–we say again, it’s not true–was posted on April 1, and the run date for the show was said to be Nov. 31 (one day after the 30-day month of November actually ends).

In our defense, a television appearance by Gates is not unprecedented. In 2001, he had a cameo on the “Frasier” sitcom.

Ghost Recon vs. Ghost Recon

For some time now I’ve been considering if I should spend some money on a Xbox 360 or not. My current PCs (both desktop and laptop) are not even close to meeting the minimum spec. required to run the new games that are being release.

And now with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is out and looking great, so it might very well get me to buy one.

But what is the world happened to Ghost Recon: Advance Warfighter (or GRAW as they call it)? On Xbox 360 i a superb game according to GameSpot.com. They gave it a 9.2 score and ends their review with:

If you like shooters or action games, and you own an Xbox 360, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is a must-own for your library. A solid and challenging campaign and a unique, online-co-op mode combine with an unmatched presentation in what is arguably the best game yet on the Xbox 360. Even those who don’t necessarily like shooters may want to at least try the game out, as GRAW represents the best of what a tactical shooter can offer and can serve as a useful graphical benchmark to judge other games on the console by.

(also see the MetaCritic rating)

That sounds like a pretty good game to me, right?

But then read GameSpot.com’s review of the PS2 version of the same game (they gave it a 4.4 score, and again the MetaCritic rating):

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the PlayStation 2 makes too many compromises in the gameplay design for us to recommend it to anyone. Tiny levels that feel more like a series of corridors than a true city, excessive graphical slowdowns, and neutered multiplayer options are just a few of the reasons to avoid this game.

That sound like a very bad game, right?

So what is it? It bears the exact same name, so it must be similar in some way, but after reading the reviews I have some very strong doubts about that. Ubisoft (the publishers) have, as many other publishers do, before handed the development of different version of the same game to different development houses around the world. But the different versions of the games have always had some similarity and only minor hardware specific differences.

But in this case something very serious seems to have gone wrong.

GTA: SA: the greatest PS2 game ever?

According to GameSpy.com Rockstar North‘s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the greatest game ever made for the Playstation 2. They have ranked it above all the other great games released for Sony console.

I’m not sure I agree completely, but I would certainly rank it in the Top 5. It is at least one of the games I’ve used the most time with on my PS2, only toppled by GTA: Vice City, which, hands down, is better in many ways than San Andreas.

Last year around this time I wrote a post about some of the thing I found not the functioning well in San Andreas, especially the stronger focus on the storyline in San Andreas.