YES. Death Ray Manta (DRM) – the classic arena shoot-em-up game from Indie God, Rob Fearon, is out now for iPhone and iPad and iPod and also your eyes.

That’s probably Rob on the right, there.

Death Ray Manta is an arcade game about making stuff explode.

It is just 69 of your EARTH PENCE at launch. That’s like a dollar or something. It’s a steal, and a blast.

Death Ray Manta is an ARCADE GAME. Two sticks and a screen full of laser beams…Death Ray Manta does not waste your time. There is no guff, no IAP, no upgrades, just a videogame. Tap to start. Score higher….Death Ray Manta is a game about blowing up stuff. All the stuff.
(official DRM game site, with DRM vids and more words)

What is DRM? Why Santa? Why Fanta?

Take the mind-bending, tooth-melting, eye-searing slap in the face that is a can of cold Fanta.

Add the warm, fuzzy, soft-bearded Santa snuggle of your childhood memories.

DEATH RAY MANTA is what you get.

This awesome conversion of an awesome game has been brought to iOS by Jeff Murray of Psychic Parrot Games. That’s probably him on the right there. I couldn’t find a picture of Santa wearing a parrot.

Seriously, what is it?

DRM is a very pretty arena shoot-em-up that manages to be soft and brutal at the same time.

You control a little glowy manta ray. You’re in an arena, Robotron-style. Hordes of glowing bad guys try to kill you: you have a massive laser death ray and you shoot the glowy death that makes them explode into even more glowy shrapnel.

It’s hypnotic, relentless and very pretty. It sounds pretty groovy too.

How hard is your manta?

The most you can score is 64 (I think), but you’re not gonna get anywhere near that. The early levels welcome you with big glowing neon arms, but only so the hard ones can melt your teeth off later.

Your gums, however, will keep smilin’ through.

It’s a serious game that doesn’t take itself (or you) too seriously. One life, no saves: it’s a simple distraction or a serious challenge – it just depends how you play it. You don’t ‘lose’. You just get as far as you can possibly get, and then try again and do better.

Finding the tiffin

Oh, and the tiffin. There’s a thing called a tiffin on every level. Collect it and you’ll add even more power to your massive laser death ray. Makes things even crazier, which makes it a bit harder, but then your death ray is significantly more deadly, which makes things a bit easier.

Love your Manta, just like Santa.

Will you make it past An American Manta in London? Will you reach The Abominable Dr. Manta? Is there really a level called Debbie Does Manta? Only one way to find out…

Get DRM on the App Store now!

Quick summary: check the screws attaching the fan to the heatsink. They may be loose, or – as in my case – have fallen out altogether, causing the fan to vibrate and strike the shroud.

I’ve had a BFG 8800GT (OC) for 2 or 3 years now, and it’s always been fine: the stock cooler isn’t the quietest when heavy 3d use causes the fan to hit maximum speed, but that’s kind of to be expected. And on ‘phones, or speakers with a fair bit of volume, you don’t really notice it too much.

And then, a few days ago, mine started making an awful sort of “fan clipping wires/hitting something” screechy noise while playing Alien Swarm. On boot up, and during heavy 3d use (ie, when the fan hit 100%) it’d make the same awful noise. Uh-oh time.

It had been a while since I’d given the card a good hoovering, and in fact I realised I’d never dismantled it and cleaned it out properly. So naturally I assumed it was just crud in the fan.

What I realised next is that I have no idea how to get the shroud off the card. Most 8800s have the shroud screwed on: this one has it clipped on, but even with the clips undone there’s a bit of the shroud (around the fan) that refuses to budge, even if you apply a worrying amount of force. I guess there’s a screw under the sticker but it’s the kind of sticker that won’t peel off easily.

So I gave up on that and simply took the whole heatsink off, got rid of as much dust and fluff as possible, did what I could to make sure the fan wasn’t actually touching the shroud, sprayed the inside of the fan with some wd40, and put it back together.

No difference.

Then I took the card out again and had another look. I’d kinda wondered whether the fan noise – given that it only happened at max speed – was the result of some kind of imbalance, so that only at maximum speed would it hit something (and I presumed it was clipping the shroud, as there was nothing else there for it to hit).

And lo! On closer examination, what did I see but an empty screw hole where there ought to have been a screw holding the fan to the heatsink. A quick poke around the innards of my PC later, and I’d found the missing screw, which has clearly fallen out at about the time I noticed the noise.

Bad screw design. Bad something design, anyway. Easy gfx card fix. No need (yet) to replace the card or cooler. I replaced the screw, tightened up the others, and bingo! No more noise.

Election Song Contest on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=109709689064767
and
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=109709689064767#!/pages/Election-Song-Contest/115684931792362

Election Song Contest on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/electionsongcontest

Election Song Contest blog:
http://electionsongcontest.wordpress.com/

Election Song Contest on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/theelectionsong

Election Song Contest on SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/electionsongcontest

And there’s this, from me, which doesn’t seem to feature on much of the above:

Check out the links and songs… there’s an election night party planned where a winner will be chosen, apparently…

Two takes, rare moment of pseudo political interest. For more info, see:

• http://www.youtube.com/user/electionsongcontest (YouTube channel)
• http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=109709689064767 (Facebook group)
• www.myspace.com/alienbraincookies (slightly higher quality mp3 file)

The world moves on, for most at least,
But not, it seems, if you’re a priest.