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Get ready for a little taste of the deranged! The Suffering: Ties That Bind, developed internally by Surreal Software, takes a lesson from the previous instalment in the series by keeping the same dark flavour while adapting the storyline with a few twists and turns along the way. As Torque (the main character), you are forced to battle your way through your hometown of Baltimore in search of resolution with an old enemy, Blackmore. Along the way you will uncover some startling truths regarding the death of your family and in doing so will be forced to utilize your own inner demons in your ultimate quest of vindication for those who were wrongfully taken from you.
   In concept and theme, The Suffering: Ties That Bind turns out to be a great story and idea. Unfortunately, upon weighing the gameplay and technical aspects into the equation what you get as an end result is a great story that is distracted by generally unoriginal status quo action elements. Gameplay mainly consists of navigating through a linear compilation of narrow halls and the occasional open street setting. Don’t expect to have tons of options when it comes to how you choose to play the game, because you are going to be blasting your way straight through this one. This is a good thing though, because the more you frag, the more your insanity meter will grow so that you can transform into a killing machine.
   While playing through the game you will be treated to a plethora of weapons to unleash with all your maniacal fury. With weapons ranging from grenade launchers to lead pipes (sorry, no crowbars here) you can bash, shoot, or blast your way through the demonic monstrosities that have been unleashed on the streets. You will have to pick your arsenal to suit various situations though, since you are only capable of carrying two weapons at a time. A cool addition to this game is a new system of ethics and morals that will actually change your characters appearance when you enter insanity mode.
   What gives Ties That Bind the most originality is most definitely the creatures that this development team has hatched. From the first enemy to the last, each monster is so twisted and grotesque that you can’t help but instantly want to insure that you give it a quick ticket back to whatever hell spawned it. While a good number of the creatures have made a prior appearance in the first game there are a few new baddies to challenge your sanity and inspire your fears.
   Adding to the technical mishaps were a few instances where events failed to trigger properly. I once found myself standing around in the streets outside a police station running around for about 10 minutes trying to find what to do next, only to finally have the game trigger the event and send the next grotesque demon for me to gun down. This sort of thing happened in a few other situations that lead me to a good deal of frustration.
   A major point to take into account when deciding if this game will be your cup of tea relates to story continuity. Ties That Bind is a game that relies heavily on the story set in place by the first game. This means that someone who hasn’t played the first game will really be caught off guard and might feel like a fish out of water. For fans of the first game I feel that The Suffering: Ties That Bind is a must own title.
   — Moinuddin Sifty
   
   Game description
   Title: The Suffering: Ties That Bind
   Developer: Midway
   Publisher: Surreal Studios
   Genre: Action
   Game website
   http:// sufferingtiesthatbind.com
   Minimum system requirements
   1.0 GHz Intel or equivalent processor, 128MB RAM, 32 MB VRAM, 2 GB HDD space
   Ratings
   - Generally unoriginal gameplay consisting of industry standard shooting action elements mixed in with some less-than-complicated puzzles.
   - Rather impressive graphics allow for a more visceral effect on the player. Only issue is that with such a dimly lit game it is sometimes quite hard to really enjoy the impressive character design.
   - Generally well done environmental sounds add to the general evil vibe of the game. Only complaint here would be the lack of a really good musical soundtrack.
   Our verdict C+

Creating installer programs can be a pain in the neck. While it is a difficult job to make good quality software, it is even more difficult to create a nice, smooth installer program. Check out Install Creator, if you don’t want users of your software to run away even before they’ve got started.
   Install Creator features a very easy to use, powerful development system for creating installer programs for software products. There’s no complex scripting language, you simply select a directory that contains the files to install and set options for any special individual files and that’s it, you’re done. When the project is done, just save the settings and you can recover the project later and update it at your will. Install Creator handles the installation and registration of fonts, Active X controls, DLL files, screen saver files, and creates a single EXE file for easy distribution. It puts you in control of every text and button caption. Need another language? You can create your template in any language in a jiffy. In addition to all the great features of the program, the latest version adds even more for the professional software developer. You can create multi-version distributions with serial number protection (this is the same installer Clickteam, the developers use for their own products). The user is presented with a menu and depending on the serial number they have they are allowed to install certain versions of the program. Install Creator comes with a custom and secure serial number generator. When your user registers the software you send them a serial number to install the purchased program.
   If you didn’t know, Install Creator is the replacement/upgrade for the hugely popular Install Maker series. Many enhancements, improvements and new features make Install Creator a truly superior product. All installers are built with a visual interface and all of the screens are easy to customize. The list of features and functions is huge. Frankly put, it’s the easiest installation distribution tool in existence.
   With the standard version of Install Creator (which is free and weighs around 2 MB) you will have unlimited rights to produce installers for both commercial and non commercial products. As for the standard version of Install Creator itself, there are absolutely no limitations in the functionality, and none of those annoying ‘nag screens’ in the software. However, each installer will contain an advertisement page for Clickteam when the installation is complete, with a button to connect to their web site. And that final advertisement is all they ask for. If you don’t want the advertisement, you will need to buy the professional version of this product.
   Install Creator Pro acts like a web installer (download files to a local directory), and has the ability to block out codes that are malicious, run a program before uninstalling, run an installation silently and can create up to 16 versions of a program. I would still recommend you to use the standard version - don’t mind the advertisement, it shouldn’t hurt your installers that much. Get this great software before the developers place a price tag on it. Install Creator and Install Creator Pro are available at www.clickteam.com.
   — Renad Hakim

Celebrity heiress Paris Hilton, whose Bentley was damaged in a videotaped crash that spawned an Internet sensation and a police investigation, was the ‘only victim’ of the incident, her spokesman said on Thursday. The videotape released by celebrity Web site TMZ.com shows Hilton’s companion, Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, slamming her luxury car into a truck as the couple left a Hollywood nightclub with at least two other people.
   The car is then seen speeding away from the scene with a scratched hood and Niarchos at the wheel as bystanders and celebrity photographers scatter. Later, Niarchos is shown speaking to Los Angeles police officers who have pulled him over.
   The officers then allowed Niarchos and Hilton to leave with their friends, identified by TMZ.com as rocker Rod Stewart’s daughter, Kimberly Stewart, and Talan Torriero, star of MTV’s reality show ‘Laguna Beach.’ Torriero is heard telling his friends, ‘I’m the only sober one, let’s just go.’ Hilton, star of the popular Fox reality show ‘The Simple Life,’ blows a kiss to one of the policemen and is heard saying, ‘Thank you officer – we love the police,’ before she steps into the car.
   The Los Angeles Police Department said it has opened an investigation to determine whether the officers should have detained Niarchos, a student at the University of Southern California, to determine if he was driving under the influence of alcohol.
   ‘At the end of the day what seems to be going on here is that Paris is the only victim,’ Hilton publicist Elliot Mintz told Reuters. ‘She’s going to be stuck with the tab of repairing that car.’
   Mintz added: ‘It’s all very upsetting (for Hilton) as you might imagine. But the important thing is that no one was injured.’
   — Reuters

Maybe here’s another treasure to eCommerce, as we come across a man with 17 years of experience in the field of technology making a brave online venture with DhakaShop.com. Dhakashop.com, an online auction portal aged only about a year has already earned enough respect to be worth noticed. Our visit to the site witnessed auctions on products designed under 23 categories.
   In the Cameras section a Sony Cybershot DSC-S30 digital camera was bid up to Tk 300 with auction period valid till November 19, and in the Computers section there were some sleek laptops like the Dell Latitude C400, which the seller claims has a market price of over a lac but promises a cheaper price if traded at the portal. An ACER Travelmate Laptop with a ‘Buy it now’ tag of Tk 80,000 is on for bid till November 15.
   Delwar Hossain had been a major in the Bangladesh Army earlier in his career and later acquired his MBA on Technology Management from California State University, USA. After working as a software engineer for Pacific Bell, CA, the second largest telecommunication company in USA and PMI Group, Inc, CA, the largest mortgage insurance company in the world, he has brought Blackstone Technology Ltd in Bangladesh, the first company to introduce radio frequency identification (RFID) technology here. As DhakaShop.com CEO and managing director, Delwar Hossain talks to New Age Portal about his site.
   Portal desk: What made you go for an online bidding portal?
   Delwar Hossain: I have been using eBay.com for buying and selling since many years and eBay sparked the inspiration to create one for Bangladesh so that Bangladeshis are not deprived of such online trading privilege.
   PD: If eBay has been your benchmark, how would you assess Dhakashop today?
   DH: Pierre Omidyar from San Jose launched eBay from his living room in 1995 that took several years to draw people’s attention to grow sales. DhakaShop.com has been launched in Bangladesh after 10 years of eBay’s overwhelming response, where technology and concept of eCommerce are still in its infancy here.
   But to his surprise has been the existence of a Yahoo community for Dhakashop that a member of the original portal has developed to promote the site and share knowledge and experience. ‘In a short time I have witnessed the members dealing cars, computers, laptops and many other items’, said Delwar. Regarding its storage system the software engineer informed the database stores the user records and auction products in a capacity of 40 gigabyte at present. ‘We have automated backups. Every modification and upgrade is done through a proper engineering process’, he said.
   PD: Now that you are in some position with around 4500 members in your portal, how have you planned its returns?
   DH: Even though we have kept the registration and trading free of cost at DhakaShop.com but in future sellers will have to pay a percentage of their selling price. DhakaShop.com deposits a virtual amount of Tk 500 to the account as soon as a user is registered, which is provided to habituate them with the trading practice in addition to allowing a percentage of the selling price to Dhakashop. A present option for DhakaShop to make money is out of users’ trading as s/he runs out of the virtual deposit. We have even received cheques from some users who have already used up the free amount.
   PD: If I call it your brainchild, how would you justify this term?
   DH: Shew! I have to go back at least few years! I had been working as senior software engineer in the world’s largest mortgage insurance company the PMI Group, Inc located in San Francisco, California, USA. I wanted to do something similar to eBay for Bangladesh. Perl made it easier to handle files even though I am a Sun Java engineer. Rigorous testing has been my old habit, which I even tried with Dhakashop.com and later I had to return home to start in full-fledged.
   Claiming a contribution of 9 dedicated employees of who three are in charge for its development and upgrade and four to take care of marketing, DhakaShop.com maintains state-of-the-art technology initially developed with Perl and now in the process being migrated to Java.
   PD: Can you take it to the height of a money making business?
   DH: Return on investment (ROI) from eCommerce always takes time but it does it well when established. Kick-off time burns out maximum resources for any business and the same has been the application for DhakaShop.com as well.
   Asked about the flexibilities in his portal he said ‘There is always room for improvement. I believe the presentation layer varies in accordance to the geographical and cultural location of the site’. In his effort to make it more convenient for mainstream users, he recently introduced Bangla along with English in the portal.
   ‘As per the hosting software report, average hits per day are 2000’, claims Delwar, saying there will also be a hit counter for each item, which will benefit the seller and also help us to know the items being visited most. DhakaShop.com is also going to arrange workshops periodically to educate buyers and sellers or anyone interested at free of cost.
   ‘Currently, I’m in a discussion thread with eBay to review my site with a future possibility to go for partnership with eBay’, he said.
   — Portal desk