SeriousGamer

2011-09-22T11:50:00.003-04:00

In a move that is being called a coincidence, but is totally not a coincidence Marvel is rebooting their Ultimate Universe at around the same time DC is rebooting their entire line of comics. Of course there are some changeups in the world, but the most stupid, lazy and just plain moronic change is that there is a new Ultimate Wolverine. It is Wolverine’s son, he has the same powers but he also has organic metal on his claws and skeleton.

This is one of the stupidest moves I have ever seen in a comic book. period.But Michael, you ask, what about the new Spider-Man, he is now a half hispanic/half black kid that has nothing to do with Peter Parker? Yes that is stupid, yes that makes no sense canon wise, but at least I understand why they did it. It is a pathetically obvious ploy to garner media attention by doing something so ‘outrageous’ as to have an ethnic Spider-man. But Marvel, if you want to have a strong ethnic character why not actually pay homage to the dozens you already have? Make Luke Cage a game changing character, or Cloak, or Forge, or Deathlok (love Deathlok), or Bishop, or any of the others you could choose from.

No my nerd rage over the new Spider-Man is different, it is a rage against the stupidity of suits in a company who think up stuff like this simply to garner press. My nerd rage over the new Ultimate Wolverine is due to the fact that the move is pointless and simply lazy. There is no need for a new Wolverine, no one would step into that characters shoes, nor does the world need it.

In the case of other fallen heroes there is a need for a replacement. When Superman died four replacements stepped up to fill his red boots. Superman is an icon, a symbol and a beacon of hope for the world. There was a void when he disappeared that had to be filled. Captain America is much the same. When he quit being Captain America due to differences in policy they needed a replacement because he is a symbol to America and one that is needed for the people. When his replacement did not do the uniform justice they made a deal and Steve Rogers came back. When he died much the same happened, Bucky/Winter Soldier had to step in, the world NEEDS Captain America.

In a same but different way when Batman had his back broken (and when he died) a new Batman needed to take his place. First Azrael took his place during Knightfall and then Dick Grayson when he died. He is not as much a symbol of hope, but a symbol of justice in a place that has none. Gotham city needs Batman and the world needs his realistic approach to crimefighting. There is grey in the world and the Batman recognizes that.

In the case of the Ultimate Wolverine, I am sure he will be back as there is still an arm left from him (and he can regenerate every part of himself) when he was vaporized (long story). But in the meantime we have his son Jimmy Hudson who has Wolverine’s powers of regeneration, has claws but also organic metal that coats then and his bones. makes me think that perhaps Colossus joined in and donated his sperm to this weird kid? Frankly this is just plain infuriating. Wolverine is not an icon, he is not a hero, he tried to kill cyclops for a girl, he betrayed his friends numerous times and is a dick. The world does not need a Wolverine like it needs a Captain America or Superman. This new Wolverine serves no purpose and him assuming his fathers mantle is a lazy and amateurish move by Marvel.

This new ‘Wolverine’ dons his father’s identity, but for what reason? There is no unfinished legacy, there is no iconic purpose, in fact it serves to hinder him. Much like the new Batman’s and Captain Americas people will wonder why he is different. But unlike those replacements of fallen icons he has really no reason for doing it. He doesn’t have Wolverine’s history, his anger, his long years of wisdom. He is just a kid with imitation powers and he is there for no reason, plus he looks like a neutered wolverine (see picture at top again). Please Marvel, kill off this kid, have the real Wolverine regenerate and return quickly and never, ever do this again.

2011-08-13T21:27:00.007-04:00

So my son is a big fan of Lego and Transformers right now and he astounded me with his latest creation. He loved Laserbeak in the new Transformers movie and decided to look up the original Transformer to see what it was like:

He was determined to make his own version, and out of Lego at that. I couldn't believe it as it took form, but he made one that transforms between the retro cassette version:

And a fully articulating Vulture version. The wings rotate, neck moves up and down, even the legs move. If I recall it is probably more movable then the original G1 Transformer!

He is also making a Soundwave, can't wait to see how that one goes!!

2011-08-12T11:34:00.008-04:00

Mass Effect is one of the best game series out there with Mass Effect 2 being one of the best games I have ever played (3 times). The game boasts stellar visuals, amazing gameplay, engaging characters and a main protagonist that is very nearly perfect. Especially because you can make that character your own by customizing the look with a robust creation editor within the games.

The main character is named Commander Shepard and in all of my playthroughs I create a female Shepard or FemShep as the internet has called it lately. In my mind (as a man who likes looking at attractive women) I wanted to look at a female for my 30-40 hour experiences with the character. She is a phenomenal character because she is battle hardened, reacts in amazing ways to adversity and the voice acting by Jennifer Hale is spot on. My Commander Shepard kept her scars from the rebuild process in Mass Effect 2, had a fairly angular face and shoulder length dark red hair. She also wore understated lipstick and some eye makeup. My thought was that, yes she is a tough as nails commander, fights giant aliens with her bare fists (seriously), but she is also a passionate person. She pursues relationships because she has no fear of death, embraces life and wants to look and feel attractive when she can because she chooses to.

Take me for example, I am a male who takes care of himself. I try to stay in shape, wear nice clothes have well groomed hair and goatee, that is me. I will take the time to make sure I look OK before I leave for work, who is to say Commander Shepard doesn’t as well? Many people seem to have a different opinion based on the backlash after Bioware decided to have a vote for the ‘official’ look of the female Commander Shepard. See for Mass Effect 3 Bioware has decided that the Female Shepard will finally be officially promoted in commercials and on the collector’s edition box. And like any business minded company they wanted media attention so they had a vote for the look of Female Shepard. Frankly I wasn’t Keen on any of them (because they don’t look like mine!), but if I had to choose it would be these two:

Instead the unwashed Masses (harhar), chose FemShep 5 who is blonde, pretty and hated by many in the gaming world:

While I would not have chosen this model as it is not my visual ideal for Commander Shepard (where are her scars dammit!) I certainly don’t despise it for some of the reasons the internet does. ‘She looks more like someone who would do her nails instead of saving the galaxy’ ‘Being blonde there is no way she could command a team’ ‘it looks like a wind can blow her over, she looks stupid’ and many other similar thoughts echo around this decision.

Hey Internet! Just because a woman is blonde doesn’t make her stupid, Just because a woman is attractive do not assume she is not capable, and for God’s sakes assuming a female Shepard is dumb because women couldn’t save the galaxy just makes you a waste of air. The character of Commander Shepard will not change because she is represented by a pretty blonde, her voice and actions will remain the same and she will kick ass just like Ellen Ripley did many times, in fact I would place my Commander Shepard above any female heroine out there any day...case in point see the fist fight at 5:20 and later in this video:

It is pretty fantastic that Bioware is going to feature an official Female Shepard in the media for Mass Effect 3. They tried to do it in a way that the public chooses the face of the FemShep and the Internet chose FemShep 5. Maybe it was non Mass Effect fans, maybe it was and they wanted a blonde, either way I think it is great that there will be a female line of ads. And to all the outraged kids out there who are furious that their beloved franchise will be tainted by this ‘blonde bimbo’ Shepard I have to ask why you are angry? It must be the ingrained superiority complex that the anonymity of the Internet gives to certain people because at the end of the day I am sure you will do one of three things:

1 – Import your Commander Shepard from the past two games (I will)
2 – Create your own Commander Shepard variant
3 – Use the male version of Shepard (as apparently 87% of players did) and it is a moot point cause you like generic looking male soldier characters.

So stop whining, get over it and when the kick ass ads with a possibly blond but still very determined, deadly and dangerous FemShep appear be prepared to eat your complaints.

2011-07-28T14:14:00.001-04:00

Watching this made me cry from delight and happiness, I truly love Harrison Ford again. 'Daniel Craig is my Wookie bitch now'

2011-07-14T08:57:00.002-04:00

Wow, I haven't posted an update to this blog since May? For shame! Today's long overdue post is about the band Metric, specifically lead singer Emily Haines.

I am a huge fan of Metric and actually found them in a very weird way, through a Crystal Method album. On their last major release, Divided by Night, one of the standout songs was called 'Come Back Clean' the music was by Crystal Method but the haunting vocals were performed by Emily Haines. I was floored by her voice and wanted to find out more about her.

Turns out she was in a band called Metric as well as having released a solo album called Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton. I bought all the Metric albums I could find, watched videos and fell head over heels fanboy infatuated with Emily Haines.

I have seen them live now twice. My first time was last year at Bluesfest, saw them again yesterday and despite it being a short show and off to a rough start it was a great show. By chance the final act of the night (My Morning jacket) were not terribly good so we left early and saw a crowd gathered at the stage where Metric had played. Rushing over we saw Emily and Band were signing autographs. I was able to get my ticket signed, get some nice closeup pictures of my Emily Haines and have a quick conversation with her about her performance and last years better timeslot. I was in fanboy heaven, very nice surprise at Bluesfest this year:

2011-05-20T09:52:00.002-04:00

It’s always interesting writing a Kijiji ad for anything. I finally got a new Xbox 360 after my last one RROD 6 or so months ago, the newish 4GB slim was on a 70 dollar off sale and I figured what the hell. The big benefit is that the new model has built in wireless which meant I no longer needed the wireless adaptor I had for my original x360. So off I went and created the ad to sell this still viable piece of hardware:

That is when all the amazing responses start coming in, responses like:

‘can u deliver’
‘i have 35 dollar firm you call negotiate’

Then a decent response that went nowhere:

‘I am interested in buying this from you. Thank you please email me back.’

Then more idiocy:
‘is price firm’ (Jesus fuck, the ad says FIRM moron)
‘interested but need it drooped off’

Normally I ignore the stupid questions, but this last one finally got my goat:

‘do you want trade your adaptor for my ps3 game’

Graaaahhhhhhhhhh! I had no choise I had to reply:

'Hi there, normally I don't reply to silly questions like this, but I just can't help it:

Did no one teach you proper etiquette when communicating with people? Start with "Hi there, I have a question", or "I saw your ad and have a question" You come off as rude and immature in this reply. As far as I know they teach grammar and punctuation in elementary school. Remember, capital letters and periods are your friends. Oh and if you read it the ad is offering an Xbox 360 component for $40 firm and you offer a PS3 game? One that you don't even give me the title of?

The answer is a firm no, and I hope you read this reply and realize that you need to read before answering and answer with at least a little courtesy and knowledge. Being 13 (I am guessing your age based on your e-mail address) is no excuse for asking for something without using proper tone and language.

I am sure this note will make you want to reply in anger, but I hope you don't and think about what it means to properly communicate with people. Look at the ad, it is clear, concise and friendly, your reply is none of these things.'

Bottom line, people are idiots, oh and I know my reply is far from perfect, there are grammatical, tone and placement mistakes, but that is not the point.

2011-05-17T09:09:00.001-04:00

An open letter to Sony that I sent to Sony Media, Jack Tretton and Patrick Seybold:

Hello, I hope that you will read my e-mail and comment back or at least forward it to a group that can address my concerns.

First off I do appreciate that Sony is giving something away as an apology for the severe outage sustained last month. What I do not appreciate is that the welcome back program is obviously targeted to casual PlayStation users instead of the loyal or hardcore fans like myself.

People like me who buy all cross Platform games on the PS3 even though I have an Xbox 360
People like me who buy all exclusives day one, games like infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Wipeout, Dead Nation and SuperStardust
People like me who can show you a games list that is over 80 strong
People like me who get absolutely nothing from your Welcome Back package.

I can plainly see that Sony felt it was better to please it’s casual fan base then the diehard Sony fans like myself. Once again I naively felt Sony would look at rewarding it’s most loyal fans. I was naively hoping for an open reward program, not a program that means nothing to people who truly believed in the PlayStation brand and supported it with their hard earned money like I did. I naively hoped that we could choose our own reward, receive PSN credits, choose DLC, anything except a closed list.

I would greatly appreciate hearing back from someone letting me know how the hardcore fans of the PlayStation family are being welcomed back, because this list only gives my own leftovers back to me.

Regards,

Michael Prince

2011-05-02T11:34:00.002-04:00

For those with an iPhone (or iPad) Superbrothers: Swords and Sworcery EP is one of the coolest and most visually striking, and sounding, games on the platform. A true arthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifistic genius took the look of the game and applied it to Star Wars and the results are magical:

2011-03-17T13:58:00.003-04:00

This blog post is a bit of a rant. I am no angel, I have pirated in the past and I will pirate in the future, but this uproar over Sony's treatment and pursuit of Geohot in the PS3 hacking case is driving me crazy and not for the reasons everyone else has.

Geohot is a douchebag, he is not a douchebag because of his anti-sony rap (though it helped), nor is he a douchebag for trying to hack the PS3 for knowledge's sake. He is a douchebag because he publicly released and bragged about his hack of the PS3, but then said, hey don't use this to pirate the PS3 cause that would be wrong!

Sony realized that this is a huge vulnerability and tried to stop it, but Geohot kept the data up about the hack and how to do it. Sony needs to protect their device so they sued him and issued a cease and desist. Since then a few things have happened:

-Geohot begged for money to fight big bad Sony - he got enough to hire a number of lawyers
-Sony subpoenaed the visitors at Geohots site and his computer contents - everyone shouted that Sony is evil
-Sony is now getting access to Geohots paypal contributions - everyone is shouting that Sony is evil

Ok, everyone needs to actually think about this. The PS3 is now compromised by this hack and people are using it to pirate games and cheat in multiplayer matches. Barely anyone is in fact using it for 'homebrew' and installing the Linux OS because of course millions of users legitimately only want to do that.

As to Sony's looking into Geohots paypal, computer and site visitors? Gee, maybe Sony is actually trying to prove how many of his visitors donated, looked at the hack and then pirated games? Maybe they are actually trying to demonstrate how his public bragging of this hack has actually harmed the multiplayer community? Caused rampant piracy?

Everyone seems to think that Geohot is an innocent in this, in fact he is not. He wanted infamy, he wanted to break the PS3 open and share it for good and ill and he needs to answer for these actions. I don't think he should be put in jail or fined a hojillion dollars, but a lesson should be given to this little puke.

2011-03-01T09:03:00.001-05:00

With PAX East coming up soon I have been in big time hype mode. Reeving media contacts from the show, setting up interviews, and planning the events I am going to visit. It also made me decide to go back and look at last years coverage and in particular my favorite part of the show, my interview with the folks from Naughty Dog.

This was a major highlight for me for a few of reasons. First Naughty Dog is one of the best developers in the business and the Uncharted games are some of my favorite of all time. Second the guys were gracious and a great group of people, giving me the interview chance because I couldn't make it into their filled to capacity panel. Third the interview went amazingly well, it was an organic and fun roundtable discussion on everything from multiplayer, to design secrets and the talent involved in the game.

This is well worth a listen (again) and shows the passion these guys have for the game and the industry.

PAX East 2010: Naughty Dog Interview

2011-01-28T14:14:00.008-05:00

The Sony NGP is Drool Worthy

OK, I kind of take back what I said about Sony being stupid. I still think they should have teased the PSP2 or Next Generation Portable prior to the press conference but by God is this machine delicious!

Specs first:

CPU: ARM® Cortex™-A9 core (4 core)
GPU: SGX543MP4+
External Dimensions: Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)
Rear touch pad: Multi touch pad (capacitive type)
Cameras: Front camera, Rear camera
Sound: Built-in stereo speakers, Built-in microphone
Sensors: Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), Three-axis electronic compass
Location: Built-in GPS, Wi-Fi location service support
Keys / Switches: PS button, Power button, Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left), Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square), Shoulder buttons (Right/Left), Right stick, Left stick, START button, SELECT button, Volume buttons
Wireless communications: Mobile network connectivity (3G), IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1x1)(Wi-Fi) (Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode), Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR （A2DP/AVRCP/HSP）

There is a whole lot of Sexy in that list like the proper Wireless-N, the sixaxis gyroscope and accelerometer and three axis electronic compass, the GPS and rear touch pad. The biggest addition is the two analog sticks (!) this will enable proper full console like games to a handheld for the first time.

The other inmortant bits (and boy are they important) should be discussed with glorious pictures:

OK, the first look is at the front and is she ever sexy. Of note as mentioned are the TWO analog sticks, and I say sticks because by all reports they are not the painful nubs we are used to from the PSP but instead slightly smaller DualShock quality sticks. Other cool things are the PS, select and start buttons are on the sides (instead of bottom) and the front camera (!) A facetime style app and plenty of interactive technology becomes possible.

The screen deserves a lot of attention, it is a capacitive (read touchscreen) OLED screen weighing in at 5-inches and a resolution of 960 x 544. OLED is bright, has great viewing angles and uses much less power then a typical LED display. The touchscreen brings the ability not just for innovative NGP specific games but also all the great iPhone/iPad games from the past couple of years.

What can you say about the back of the NGP except WOW and wonder what may be possible. What you see is a multitouch, err, touchpad that from reports is comfortable and easy to interact with. Picture holding the NGP using the analog sticks to navigate, the two (much better) designed shoulder buttons to interact and the touchpad for additional control. The possibilities are amazing and a game already uses them in a neat way. In Little Deviants the environment is manipulated by where you touch on the rear touchpad.. As it is as large as the screen you can control the entire display surface. A rear (presumably higher resolution) camera is in the mix enabling augmented reality options as well as standard picture taking.

The Bottom of the NGP is fairly standard with no surprises at all aside from the fact that I could be wrong but that does not look like a mini USB port as seen on the PSP. Not sure what the little hole next to it and the seemingly removable tab to the right is. I do like the grips they have seemed to build in the bottom of the NGP. Every aspect of the design seems to take comfort and usability into account.

The top is more exciting, we can see the better designed shoulder buttons (with indents behind them) as well as the new buttons. The buttons for Power and volume are just that, buttons. They remind me of cell phone buttons but does raise a question, what about standby/sleep mode? On the PSP you could move the slider to standby or off, here there is just power. Hopefully there is a standby mode accessible via the PS button? Maybe a 3DS style suspend mode?

This view also give a good look at the analog stick profile. Just looking at the image lets you know these are superior to the nub on the PSP.

So there you have it, the NGP is crazy spec and feature wise and has all the capabilities anyone could want. Already games like uncharted, Call of Duty and Killzone are getting the NGP treatment and with the ability to generate so many tactile experiences the games on this device can be outstanding. It is supposed to launch by the end of the year and I cannot wait for more information.

It is also worth noting that Sony will release games both on flash cards (brilliant and something I have been asking for) as well as digitally. If they can swing a proper 'app' store like iTunes this could be huge. The lack of a disk drive will greatly improve load times as well as battery life (which should be equal to the PSP).

Here's hoping they will have some at PAX East to try come march!

2011-01-26T13:40:00.003-05:00

I am convinced that Sony is inherently stupid.

The PlayStation brand is an incredibly strong one but they completely mishandled it in the launch of the PlayStation 3 years ago. They entered the current generation market with an arrogance that was built on the market dominance of the PlayStation 2 but mishandled nearly every aspect:

-Horrible development policies and a machine that while powerful was incredibly difficult to develop for
-Senior people saying you are basically stupid if you don't buy it and that it is worth any price (I agree but the message was delivered horribly).
-Fairly weak launch lineup with few games that convinced people to spend 500 dollars for the console.
-A non-existent online strategy with no release games and weak multiplayer potentially as compared to the robust Xbox Live experience.

I could talk about many more aspects that failed (including the recent and mishandled PlayStation Move launch) but instead I want to focus on some unreleased hardware that Sony is missing the boat on.

In the pipe at Sony there is definitely a PlayStation Phone and a PlayStation Portable 2. Despite the fact that developers have said they have PSP2's and dev kits and there ARE VIDEOS OF PEOPLE WITH THE PLAYSTATION PHONE Sony has not said a word to anyone publicly. Even during the recent GDC summit while videos were being released of the PlayStation Phone being played with and torn apart Sony at their Keynote said nothing except that they are leveraging their PlayStation knowledge in all aspects of their business.

Why the hell would Sony not drop hints, or a coming soon or anything? People are so excited to hear about these devices and Sony would be regarded in an amazing light if they came out with any hints. Instead they are going to wait until tomorrow and supposedly reveal the handhelds at a Sony Press conference in Japan. The press conference will probably be glossy, show trends and sales numbers and be very formal.

What would have been cool and pull them away from the arrogant stuffy image they are cultivating despite the awesomeness that is Kevin Butler would be silent reveals. At recent events have Howard Stringer or Kaz Hirai walk out playing with the device and put it down. When asked, hold it up and say 'Oh this little thing? Hmm, we'll talk about that later' Or have prominent players spotted with them. Sony shoudl embrace the fact that the world knows and play tongue and cheek games with the press and the world.

Instead Sony is arrogant and stupid and will wait for glossy over done press conferences to the tell the world what they already know.

2011-01-25T12:51:00.005-05:00

I had an EBgames gift card and when I was making a pre-order I saw the recent game Singularity reduced to 10 dollars. I had heard mixed things about the game but for 10 dollars (and just enough left on my card) I figured why the heck not.

I found myself with a few hours free and dug into the game. The premise of Singularity centers around a new material called E-99 that was found in the 50’s era USSR area and experimented upon. The material was found on an island and a research base was founded there and shuttered after a huge E-99 related explosion killed everyone. You are an American soldier on a black op to investigate weird satellite interference centered on the island.

Once you land you discover that the island is devastated but still carries some secrets. E-99 has practical temporal related applications and an aftereffect of the explosion rips you through time to the 1950’s where you stumble upon and save a military scientist named Demichev on the island. This scientist was an amoral and ambitious co-lead on the E-99 research and by saving him from his fate you change history. When you return to the present the world has changed and Russia, using E-99 tech, has become the ruler of the world’s government under the rule of Demichev.

The game proper has you trying to restore the balance with the help of the main E-99 scientist and a device called the Time Manipulation Device (TMD) that straps to your wrist. The TMD allows you to age and renew objects that are imbued with E-99 as well as age organics as well. Over the course of the game you can get upgrades that add other abilities like a zero gravity, time bubble and other feats. The game is quite good across the board.

Story

This is a time related game and obviously can get very convoluted especially as there are a few points that you go back to 1955 and perform some objectives. Thankfully the story is very linerally given to you as you frantically move from area to area. The story itself is solid though, you are faced with a world ruled by a sadistic Russian dictator who instead of promoting a unified peace continues to pursue unlimited power. Meeting up with the other scientist (Borislov) you are tasked with destroying the facility before the technology is used for war and restoring the timeline. On the way you meet a freedom fighter named Kathryn who works with a group called Mir-13 and she assists you on your way. Kathryn is killed during a mission and you and Barislov continue your plan alone.

The game gives you one choice late in the game but aside from that your hand is held through the whole game which is a bit of a shame. A bit more options or the ability to impact or alternate the story slightly earlier in the game would have been nice. But that being said the story was engaging and I quite liked the ending I received which throws you on your heels a bit and has some neat tweaks over a scene from earlier in the game.

Graphics

This is an Unreal powered game and while it is not Uncharted 2 or Mass Effect level of beautiful it is a pretty great looking game. The real shocker is how stable the game is. I played it on the PS3, which usually suffers when the Unreal engine is used, and it was rock solid with none of the tearing and draw-in problems I have seen in other games.

The look of the game is not terribly original with military installations, forest areas and villages being the norm in this game. But the look of the enemies and environments are quite well done and actually has a neat look many of the times. The temporal effects of aging and renewing objects is very cool and well done as is all of the weapon effects. It is very cool to see a damaged bridge or decayed box and rebuild it (basically you are rolling back the clock on the object) so you can cross or open the box. There are a lot of little touches like faded blackboards you can renew or odd light filters when time is distorting. The game was a pleasant surprise graphically and the Russian themed look was quite well done.

Gameplay

The temporal related disaster created mutated creatures that phase in and out of time and Demichev has sent soldiers to harass and stop you. These forces battle each other and are well represented and very aggressive in attacking you. The game frequently closes the door behind you when you enter an area which forces you to keep battling head on instead of retreating and taking your time. You are given a series of weapons and the TMD’s various functions and you are off to the races.

The gameplay is run and gun refined with a twist. The weapons are pretty generic but capable, you can equip 2 at a time which does limit your choices. Thankfully the developer (Raven) stole some components from Dead Space, namely the weapon customization and TMD customization. In fact it looks like they lifted it wholesale from Dead Space right down to the expanding machine as you activate it and the holographic display. These weapon lockers let you equip any of the weapons anytime you interact with the locker. You can also upgrade the weapons but that needs weapon tech which is hard to come by (like nodes in Dead Space).

The TMD can also be upgraded and you can buy a number of perks from your TMD or skillset as you progress as well. This adds a nice mix to the fairly generic weapon loadout and something to encourage you to find all scattered E-99 tech. The TMD is neat to use if somewhat hamstrung; imagine if you had the command of time itself? Well the game does and limits when and how you can use it. You can age any enemies as well as mess up the temporal creatures but this drains energy from the device so it is not unlimited. Scattered objects can be renewed or aged but not the entire game world. It adds an artificial limit to the freedom the device should have, but on the flipside the game needs to be challenging and directed, limiting the abilities is a way for that to happen.

The game starts challenging, but as you progress and especially at the end when the TMD does not consume energy anymore (unlimited aging and renews) the game becomes VERY easy. I breezed through many areas and died very few times as I played through. This does make Singularity move at a brisk pace, but a harder challenge would have been appreciated. I am restarting in the now unlocked harder difficulties and it makes a true difference.

Despite being a fun, well written and good looking game Singularity failed miserably, hence the price cut to 10 dollars after only 6 months on the market. It failed not because of the game itself but mainly because of the publisher Activision doing nothing to market the game. They knew this would not be a Call of Duty as it did not have the mainstream appeal or brand they seemingly left it to die.

Aside from a few magazine ads the game was nowhere to be seen when it was released and it is a shame because Raven is a talented developer and the game clearly had care and attention poured into it. I am not saying it is an instant classic or game of the year contender, but it is a solid and enjoyable shooter with a twist that deserved a chance that Activision never gave it. At 10 bucks it was a great 7 or so hours and I recommend people grab it.

2011-01-19T13:19:00.002-05:00

What you see above this text is the first 'official' picture of the X-Men: First Class cast in costume. Left to right, we see: Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert, January Jones as Emma Frost, Jason Flemyng as Azazel, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Lucas Till as Havoc, Zoe Kravitz as Angel Salvadore, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, and James McAvoy as Charles Xavier.

I have major fucking issues with what I see in this image. I understand that making a comic book movie property involves many groups who know nothing about comics but this is fucking ridiculous. Not everything is wrong, but what is spits in the face of the parts they did get right:

From Left to Right -
-Alright, this is set in the 60's which would place Magneto in his young 30's, Fassbender fits this bill and I like his look.
-Moira is an old love interest of Charles Xavier, so she looks just fine as well. She is appropriate to the stryline as well because she has always worked towards mutant rights.
-God help me I love January Jones (super sexy) but the Hellfire club is not appropriate to the timeline and she is not right for the cold as ice Emma Frost. Plus she would be a toddler at the time Xavier and Magneto were starting out.
-Azazel? Azazel? What was he in, like one X-men comic? Who the hell picked this guy as a viable mutant in this movie and era? So many better choices.
-Beast and Havoc, dear God why? Havoc is Cyclops brother and WAS NEVER PART OF THE ORIGINAL X-Men. He came about years later as a hero. Beast at least was part of the original X-men BUT this story is based in the 60's when Xavier and Magneto were young, Beast would not have been here.
-Angel Salvadore??? I had to look her up because she is more of a nobody then Azazel is. There are perhaps 30 active, viable and recognizable X-men over the years and they choose her? Why not Jubilee if they are this stupid?
-Sigh Mystique? Really? At least she could be older then she appears and this could work. But the real Mystique was always a later generation character introduced as Rogue adoptive mother (really). She could fit but is suspect.
-I like James McAvoy, as long as he can hide his accent I think he could make a great Xavier, plus Xavier is younger then Magneto so his age works.

This simple poster shows exactly what is wrong with the handling of the X-men franchise. The issues started in X-men 2 with Legion being Strykers son and got worse and worse till the disaster that was X-men Origins: Wolverine. The studio needs to step out and people who know the X-men as they are and have been need to guide the ship or at least have a director that will not bow or doesn't need to bow to studio pressure.

Blech....

In other news this woman is playing Catwoman in the Dark Knight Rises, what a disaster...

2011-01-14T09:37:00.003-05:00

So there is a new Spider-Man movie coming out and it is a reboot of the franchise. I don't even want to talk about that. I understand the need to start fresh with Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire out of the picture, but I have to discuss the sheer awfulness that is this reveal of the new costume:

Let's dissect shall we?

-First what is with the look of the actor? Did we not learn that an Emo Spider-man/Peter Parker is bad? The kid (and no offense to him) looks like he stepped out of Team Jacob's camp after Twilight stopped filming
-The suit is all wrong starting with the logo, what is that squiggle on his chest?
-Without a belt it looks just wrong, there is no flow from the top of th suit to the bottom.
-The material makes it look like those Fantastic Four outfits, it is all wrong and looks cheap and not what you would expect from Spider-Man
-No webbing design on the suit at all? Even the top portion looks wrong.

I can't state enough how much I hate the design. Look through every iteration of Spider-Man and this costume just doesn't jive. The original movies were a little different simply because the skintight cloth idea would not work, but it always LOOKED like Spider-Man, this looks like a knock off, a B-movie alternative and gives me little hope.

2011-01-11T11:28:00.006-05:00

Well it is a new year and there are a ton of new games on the horizon. I am playing a weird montage of games right now as I await some new releases.

Batman – Arkham Asylum – I played this and finished it in 2009 and had an urge to replay. This is an amazing game and playing it in hard takes a deliberate skill that is surprising me. Great stealth play, amazing gadgets, and collectibles I love to search for and combat that is fun and challenging (and still the only game that does group combat well).

Final Fantasy XII – Right at the end, about to fight Behemoth but want to finish a number of hunts for swag and some sheer grinding. I may be able to beat Behemoth now but want to enjoy the world for a bit longer.

Final Fantasy XIII – Still digging into this but having an issue putting serious time into it, I am probably about 80% done, so will work through it. The game is ‘open’ now and I can engage in hunts/missions as I explore but playing it in line with Final Fantasy XII makes me realize how much they gimped the series.

Resident Evil 4 – Never finished this but I am near the end and enjoying jumping back into the game. After Resident Evil 2 this is the best in the series in my humble opinion. Graphics look amazing upscaled with PS3 and gameplay is solid and really enjoyable.

Champions of Norrath – The pinnacle of the action dungeon crawls in my opinion. The gameplay, story, characters and world are top notch and the action is hella fun. Wish I was playing with a friend (I ran through Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance three times with a buddy).

As I dig into these classics I await some new games that will (hopefully) grab me and not let go till I finish them.

Dead Space 2 – I absolutely loved the original. The visual style, gameplay, story and especially the audio were amazing and a breath of fresh air from EA. The sequel is bigger in scope and if the demo is any indication just as creepy and immersive. This comes out late January.

Bulletstorm – This Epic directed/People can Fly developed crazy as hell shooter has had me excited for a while. Skillshots are the name of the game with kills executed in zany ways awarding points and prestige. It looks batshit crazy and I can’t wait. Bulletstorm hits late February.

Killzone 3 – I loved the look and methodical pace of Killzone 2. I really felt like I was in a huge war and the game was a pinnacle in shooters on the PS3. Killzone 3 looks even better and could be the thing that inspires me to get a Move controller. This more serious shooter arrives late February as well

Dragon Age 2 – I loved Dragon Age: Origins at first. Then Mass Effect 2 was released and I saw what Bioware could REALLY do graphically and gameplay wise. Dragon Age 2 is a tighter narrative, has overhauled graphics and employs a Mass Effect style dialogue scheme. Sounds like a winner and it is the only new game coming out I have pre-ordered.

2011-01-07T10:35:00.006-05:00

Microsoft proudly announced at CES that they sold 8 million Kinects, Sony will soon lie about selling (shipping) a bunch more Move units, I just can’t care about either product. Both technologies are great in their own ways but as a launch and a new innovation it is a completely wasted effort.

The big issue with each technology is the installed user base of the consoles themselves. There are 51.2 million Xbox 360’s and 42.6 million PS3’s in homes around the world. This means that if you are developing a big AAA game for either platform you will automatically choose to make it console native (instead of Move or Kinect native). Why would you spend 20, 30 or even 40 million dollars developing a game that only a 6th or less of your installed base can play? The logistics don’t work and it means we will never see a triple A Kinect game, but we might see a Move one.

Why the Move? Well Kinect is a unique beast, you generally need to stand, there is no controller and it is pretty hard to transition from a controller based segment to a Kinect based segment in a game without awkwardness and destroying the pace/fun. Move on the other hand has a physical controller, you could easily, as demonstrated by Killzone 3, have a great triple A experience using Move. The development costs to add Move support are minimal as well which makes adding Move functionality quite simple and if it is not used, well it does not harm the game. Kinect games will generally need to be Kinect games only and that will scare some developers away.

The other issue is the install base. These are the people who bought Wii Fit and put it under their bed to collect dust. The Ellen and Oprah segments on the Kinect were great advertising but this is not the Xbox 360’s demographic, these are middle aged women who do not play video games. They will buy it because Oprah said it is the second coming of Christ but then they will never use it. Their kids will want to play Gears of War or Black Ops on the console instead and will never use the Kinect functionality.

The Move on the other hand was miserably promoted and packaged. There was basically no advertising aside from traditional web commercials and sporadic billboards/paper ads. No mass market attention was devoted to this product. Geek culture knew about it, but the ‘Wii Generation’ did not. There is no bundle for someone who already has the camera and if you want to use it with 2-3 players it becomes very expensive very quickly. Without a great brand awareness campaign only the hardcore are buying and that is OK, but not a way to get mass market attention to a product that could integrate with the core console experience a lot better than the Kinect can.

Move and Kinect implementation in the UI of the systems is also suspect. It is cool but more effort to use motion to control your console. The voice aspects are interesting but the UI was modified to use it and not built to which causes some issues with missing commands or a clunky design. I have spoken to people who used the Kinect motion and voice controls to navigate the dashboard and movies and after a few times they stopped. Why would you hold your hand up for a few seconds when you can click a button instead? The PS move is very precise but clunky as a UI tool on the PlayStations XMB dashboard. You need to hold a button and move around with a pointer essentially. Not terribly enjoyable way to browse the XMB when a controller is handy.

Bottom line there will be no Triple A gotta have it games on these platforms exclusively. The Move will have functionality in a lot of large titles, but ground up Kinect and Move games will generally be casual and smaller experience type games which is a shame because both techs have some great features. The better move would have been to wait and integrate these into the PS4 and X720 (or whatever they call it). I understand that the brand awareness now will help this integration a few years when it happens, but the revolution may well stall and die before it’s time. Plus everyone looks like a knob playing them and the Kinect marketing pics are some of the fakest family featured ones I have ever seen.

2011-01-05T14:37:00.010-05:00

If you want definitive proof on how badly Square Enix screwed up Final Fantasy XIII look no further then Final Fantasy XII for the answer. Final Fantasy XII was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it is far, far superior to FF XIII in nearly many ways and demonstrates the huge step backwards Square Enix made in the series. Let’s break it down shall we?

Character design - FF XII– While Vaan isn’t the most appealing character he has a boyish charm that comes through. He wants to be a sky pirate and once he sees the life and the horrors of the world he realizes it isn’t glamour and thrills only. Vaan works in this game because he suits the world and the mythos. But in Final Fantasy many times the best characters are the other party members in this case it is especially true. Balthier, Fran and Basch are some of the best games in the Final Fantasy series, especially Balthier. This is Errol Flynn in digital form, he is arrogant, capable, charismatic and 100% rogue with a heart of gold…maybe. All the characters have well defined motivations, exceptional looks/designs and voice acting that is a treat to hear.

Character design - FF XIII – Well Lightning certainly looks amazing and I really do like her design but aside from Fang she is the only design I truly liked. Vanille is horrible and Sazh/Snow/Hope all vie for the next worst character designs. The voice acting is very much hit and miss, Lightning and Fang again are great, Vanille is horrendous and warrants a mute button. None of the characters are likeable; none of them have goals I really cared about. I disliked so many things about their backstory, especially the annoying Sarah whom both Snow and Lightning are fighting for. The graphics are detailed and pretty but if only 20% of the designs are great what is the point?

Mechanics – FF XII – The License and Gambit system took heat when the game launched, people asked why they would want a game playing itself. But once you dug in you realize that the gambits are a tool to supplement your gameplay. At any time you could choose what the character did (and you could issue commands to any character, anytime) plus you get set a list of definable parameters for the characters do in various situations. Things like curing when people are below a threshold, curing blindness when necessary, automatically setting regen on each character or casting magic on flying creatures. This Gambits were versatile, useful and best of all made combat fast and fun without the need to micromanage each character.

The License board was even better. Want to make the fighter a mage? You could by unlocking better spells on their board. The mage wear heavy armor? You could by unlocking that path. The License board gave you the ability to truly customize your characters in a fun meta-game that you wanted to explore. FF XII also features Mists which are special attacks like summons and Mist Charges. The summons are what you expect but the Mist charges are chargeable attacks that you can chain from character to character and are a real game changer. Both of these abilities use yoru magic (which recharges as you move around) so there is a real decision, do you cast spells? Summon a creature or go all out with a level 3 Mist Charge?

Mechanics – FF XIII – What a mess this game is mechanically. In an attempt to simplify the gameplay from the elegant FF XII system FF XIII has the Crystarium. A completely linear progression system built on individual jobs. Each character has a locked Crystarium for half the game restricting them to three jobs that you load up with no option at variance like in FF XII. These jobs are then assigned to your characters in the paradigm system. All you can do is assign the roles of each party member and during combat you only control the leader. The other party members perform actions based on their job and are AI controlled. You cannot set conditions like you could in FF XII so at times you will fail because your party members are not making the right choices. You can switch paradigms on the fly so building a good list is essential so you have healing, attack and magic coverage as necessary.

The system is engaging once the 30 hour tutorial is done (more on that later) but feels woefully static and limited after the very customizable FF XII Gambit/License system. The lack of divergence possible in each role and the late unlocking of all roles for all characters means you will not diversify nearly as much as you did in FF XII. FF XIII has summons which are actually quite well developed. You have control over the summoned entity and can choose the attacks till there AP runs out. At the end you can choose to do a team up attack that deals massive damage. The summons are nice but shallow like the rest of the game. There is no variance or real skill for them and no strategy either, again a step back from the previous game.

Gameplay – FF XII – With the Gambit system setting an AI for your party that you specify and control playing FF XII is fun and battles are dynamic and interesting. At any time gambits can be tweaked and as you level and kill monsters you get more license points to open up the board giving you more diverse actions to use. The ability to control any character any time as well as swap in other party members if you or your party dies makes the game flow incredibly well. Exploration is quick as is air travel thanks to quick travel options like the crystals and airships. The world is fairly open from the start allowing you to explore cities travel overland and explore areas you have been with ease anytime. FF XII is a lesson in gameplay that everyone (especially Square Enix surprisingly) should look at and admire.

Gameplay – FF XIII – The Paradigm system is interesting…after about 20 hours. For the first large part of the game they slowly mete out components like extra jobs, customizing the party, making a paradigm list and so forth. This means you are locked into the original roles with no variance for a great deal of time. Often they force characters on you and with no customization you might as well be playing an action game, with no direct control over your actions. Combat is fast but with the shallower system it feels flat and limiting. The system also only allows you direct control over one character, if that character dies it is game over (RIDICULOUS), thankfully the checkpoint system has you start right before the last battle, but still ridiculous. Exploration is tedious and very limited. There are no cities and most of the game has you going from linear corridor to linear courtyard to linear path to linear cavern. The progression overland is frustrating and tedious and a far cry from the interesting travel mechanics and world dynamics in FF XII.

Progression/Story – FF XII – I have discussed a number the things that make up progression in FF XII but as you play through the game you get to know and love the characters and the story. The overarching plot revolves around kingdoms at war with mysterious and powerful judges controlling everyone against each other. The story isn’t the best in the series but is quite engaging thanks to the cast of characters involved. The world of Ivalice is a huge part of it's charm as well. The towns are teeming with people and by talking to them you get a feel of the world in a way FF XIII did not even bother showing at all. Moving through the game world enhancing your characters, increasing their license list and customizing the gambits is fun and involved.

Progression/Story – FF XIII – The story is about, err, giant god like creatures that, err, control the people and transform them to focus driven superhumans, if they fail the focus they turn to crystal or something. The story is not good; the world is confusing and frustratingly linear. As the Crystarium are so static you do not even get the joy of building your characters into what you want them to be. The game is beautiful and I am curious about the horrible story which is the only reason why I am still playing through it. This is a huge step back from the vibrant and interesting world of Ivalice. Without towns the only dialog is in cutscenes and you have no feel of the culture and life pulse which simply makes you not care.

Graphics/Sound – FF XII & FF XIII – Both games look and sound amazing, this is an area Square Enix has never faltered in. Taking aside some horrible designs and voice actors the environments, characters and summons are breathtaking in both cases. FF XII has aged well in the last 4 years and new generation of hardware, it was a final generation PS2 game so that is to be expected. FF XIII is truly stunning and even naysayers can admire the graphics and sound in this game.

So what does this mean and why do I care? Well point by point we see that Square Enix de-evolved the excellence that was FF XII to the point that it was far from the AAA experience the series deserves. In an attempt to modernize the series they broke it from every angle. The gameplay is too linear, the combat is flat and uninspired, the progression system is boring and limited. They need to look at their past successes and then western RPG’s like Mass Effect and Fallout 3 and learn from them. Take the story, character and design ethos from their past and current competitors games and fix the series before it is too late.

2011-01-04T14:04:00.005-05:00

Long time no Blog. It has been a busy month or so but I am back in the swing and plan to blog some. The big change in my gaming world has been my purchase of an iPhone 4 and realized that gaming on this platform is a really big deal.

The iPhone is a wonderful gaming platform for many types of games in particular for the small form factor and play anywhere ability. The display is amazing and touch controls are more response then you could ever have imagined a few years ago.

The other major plus to the iPhone as a gaming platform is the pricing model and availability of purchasing games. The AppStore (while cludgy at times) is available on the phone and games can be purchased anytime, anywhere although larger ones need a wireless connection to download. The pricing model is unbelievable. Many quality games are only 99 cents or slightly more. There is literally hundreds of fun as hell games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Rage, Star Defense and more at less than a buck.

This pricing model cannot be understated, we have been buying games for 40 or 60 dollars and smaller PC games for 10-15 and were satisfied with that. Now we can buy a Rage HD for $1.99 or Angry Birds for 99 cents and play for hours. Frequently there are special offers to raise visibility and games are free for a short time. Recently I grabbed the AMAZING Broken Sword: Directors Cut and Diner Dash for free. These are both great games and to get them at the grand price of nothing is unheard of and keeps me coming back. I follow the APPera on twitter and any free games are tweeted by them and it is well appreciated.

The true joy I have in the iPhone is finding games that grab me and don’t let go. The first was Star Defense, a neat take on tower defense games featuring a full planet that you can rotate or zoom around. I played this whenever I was waiting or had a few moments. That is until I found Game Dev Story.

This simple game lets you create your own game studio, hire designers, writers and coders and then design games. You choose and license new platforms, unlock game types to design, train and level up your staff, tweak game stats, name them, release sequels, create your own console, attend awards shows and trade shows. The depth of this game is delightful and incredibly addicting.

The graphics are simple but charming, the music is 8bit, the characters are charming and the gameplay is simple but has a way of grabbing you until your eyes are sore and your fingers are nearly bleeding from tapping so much. Essentially you choose a game genre and type, the platform you want to design on (all based on real consoles but with names like game kid and neongeon) and click go. You then choose a scenario writer who adds bonuses to fun and creativity. Then the team starts to program, sometimes they create stats in fun, creativity, graphics and sound. Then at the 40% mark you focus on graphics and a designer adds bonuses to graphics. Next is the sound as a priority and a sound engineer is assigned to give bonuses in that stat. Finally when the game is done you debug it, during the whole process you can advertise in various ways, use modifiers to increase stats and train/level your staff.

Once the game is released you can move on to the next one right away. Critics review the game and if it is Hall of Fame material (32 points or higher) you can make a sequel for it (but wait till its sales cycle finishes). You see the sales stats as they happen and can see if it debuts on the top ten or not. As the money climbs you can license new consoles as they launch, make bigger games (game genres and types level up and cost more to develop, but make more). The ‘must keep playing’ factor is unreal.

I made games of all types, a Music game with a Movie type called Theme Writer, a Simulation game with a Romance type called Girl Crush, a War Shooter called Art of War and an RPG with monsters called PokeCreatures are some of the games I made. My first campaign I ended with 58 games over 22 years and I am up to 16 games in 7 years on my new campaign.

The game is so much fun and the Girl and I are playing it to death (she has developed a console and I haven’t and she won more awards but I have had bigger selling games!) but it is not perfect. I would love to see a sequel with more customization of your office upgrades (plus more of them), create a character, game center support, more control over advertising, more control over the game conferences and the ability to play longer or expand to multiple studios.

Having said that I am still playing the game and have clocked more time on this 4 dollar game then I have on the 60 dollar COD: Black Ops I got in November. That is an unbelievable statement! The iPhone is a revolution in gaming and I cannot wait to see what 2011 holds for it.

2010-11-12T12:00:00.004-05:00

The Party Pooper - Original Story by Aidan - age 9, typed out exactly as he wrote it (spelling mistakes and all).

Chaper 1 - Intro

Once upon a time there was a boy named Brad Nikles. Brad was 12, just like his brother Ace, and lived in Toronto Ontario.

Chapter 2 - The first victim

One day Brad decided to throw a slumber party, he invited 10 people (5 boys and 5 girls). But little did he know someone was watching him!

On Saturday night, when it was time for the party, the guests arrived. First was Sally, then Bob, then Sarra, Jonny and everyone else. Then it was time for the party to Begin! The first game was hide and go seek (which is perfect Because it's a pretty Big house). "I'll count" said Brad. So everyone hid, But, when Bob hid in one of the spare rooms, and it was his turn to be found, everybody heard a yell coming from upstairs! When they Got upstairs to the room he was hiding in, all they found was his watch!

Chapter 3 - The Diapearing Daisy!

The guest were sooo terrafied when Bob had Diseperred, that they imedetly cancled hide-and-go-seek, and moved onto the next game (which they didn't have so they would have to find something else). "I'll go" said Daisy "I'll go check the Basement, besides you never know what you'll find Down there" and off she went.

"Wait" said Brad following her "I'll be fine" she said "OK" said Brad. He had just started Back up when he heared a wack!~ Then a thump! He turned around fast! But Daisy was gone...'this has to stop soon' he thought (after all he already lost two people), but he was wrong!

Chapter 4 - What's next?

Brad called a group meeting in the liveing room, because things were getting too serious. "What's happening?" said alarmed Jessie. "Oh Daisy" sobbed Ace. "What if they come for me next?" said James. "I hope not" said James's younger sister Jamie. "Looks like we have a Party Pooper!" said Jonny and Sally at the same time. Sarra giggled at the idea.

"We will have to stick togther from know on" replied Brad. But right at that moment, it happened. The remamaining guests saw a figure press a button and foomp! a net shot out of the wall taking James, Jamie and Jessie into a hole in the other side of the wall! The both holes quickley closed!

Chapter 5 - The Party Pooper reveiled - Part 1

"Wait a sec" said Brad "only a previous owner of this house would have known where that was, right Ace?" But Ace was nowere to be seen! Just then the power went out, and then, there was an eeerrrttt! severil yells, and a thump! The when the lights turend Back on, Brad was all alone!

Then, he heard a door opening in the side of the wall, then he turned around and his heart started racing, he swore he saw the handle turn! The last thing he saw Before he Blacked out was a dark figure running toward him!

Chapter 6 - The Party Pooper reveiled - Part 2

Brad woke up in a Dark room, when his eyes ajusted to the light, he gasped!! All the guests were tied up in the room with him, but no sign of Ace. 'Wait a sec' he thought. Then he remembred the Back to the glimps of the party pooper 'that long black-brown hair' he thought. Then a horrable thought struck him 'what if Ace is the party pooper?' he shudderd thinking of the idea.

Then a dark figure apeared, Brad finally got his first clear glimps of the party pooper. He was short and dressed compleatly in Black: Black suit, Black shoes, Black pants, and a Black tie. He had a dark hat that hid most of his face. Then he spoke in an evil voice "I know it is time!!" the he took off his hat...Brad's heart skippted a beat...it was ACE!!!!!!

Chapter 7 - Escape!

"You...you traitor" Brad yelled "My own Brother!! My own Brother!!"Betraid me!!" Ace just gave Brad a wicked laugh, in return. Just then Brad noticed his friends wriggling out of the ropes. 'After all, Ace was never good with ropes' Brad thought. So Brad, started doing the same things his friends were doing.

Brad looked around for a door, and he found one. "Go home" said Brad to his friends. Only Sarra, Daisy and Jonny staid. "Get back here" shouted Ace as they ran up the stairs. Finally they got to the top floor and hid in one of the rooms. It wasn't long before Ace found them. "I've got you now!" shouted Ace as he burst through the doors.

Then he charged towards Brad who was standing against the window. "Jump" Sarra yelled. Brad jumpted out of the way and send Ace smashing through the window. "Argh!" yelled Ace as he fell towards the rose bushes with a lound thump! "Doooohhh!" said Jonny, "ouch!" said Sarra "that's gona hurt in the mornin!" said Brad, then the door bell rung. "I'll get it" said Brad. It was his parents. "Why did Ace just fly out the window?" asked Brad's mom. "Don't worry mom, I'll tell you all about it!"

The end!

2010-10-19T15:18:00.007-04:00

I am in the midst of many games right now, some nostalgic (Temple of Elemental Evil), some average (Afro Samurai), some incredibly shitty (Quantum Theory) and one that is completely blowing me away - Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

This game is from the talented folks at Ninja Theory who made the ahead of it's time Heavenly Sword. Heavenly Sword was beautiful, had some of the best motion capture and voice acting this side of Uncharted but had framerate and pacing issues that ultimately stalled it and held it back from a blockbuster. It was also really, really short and seemed designed as a rental game.

Enslaved on the other hand shows the maturity of the developer and they bring in many of their strengths from Heavenly sword and few of the weaknesses. It is a true single player game and it features a pair of incredibly real, likeable and human characters in the form of Trip and Monkey. They are both escapees from a slaver ship, but Trip wakes up first and slaps a slave band on Monkey. She doesn't do this because she is evil or a weak female character, she does this because she is a realist.

The setting is 200 years after the end of the world, the cities and former populated areas are being reclaimed by nature and are overgrown wastelands. Mechs wander the land and are controlled by a group and used as slavers. Trip is strong, smart and capable but she is aware that she cannot travel home on her own. She just cannot handle the mechs one on one and cannot be sure she can always hide from them. Monkey however proved he can defeat these creatures and Trip needs him. She hates that she has to trap him into helping her, but she does it to survive.

Monkey does not want to be trapped or be Enslaved again, but there is a side to him that reluctantly at first and then more naturally lends a protective feeling for Trip. As the game progresses you can tell he has feelings for her and want sto actually help her. He is a good person and while he would rather be alone he also craves her company and wants to help her.

How do I know all this? Subtle looks between the characters, their body language, the way they speak to each other and how those nuances change. Teh way she leans into Monkey on his bike or the way he touches her when he is concerned. The gameplay itself has one or two really great hooks, but it is very much like Uncharted (not a bad thing at all), the real star is the feeling of character and life they have managed to inject into this game. There are subtle eye glances in this game that convey as much as a glance from Michael C Hall in Dexter or Kevin Spacey as Keyser Soze do in their roles.

Ninja Theory built a studio and motion capture environment when creating Heavenly Sword and formed a partnership with the chameleon Andy Sirkis. Sirkis oversees the motion capture and acting sequences and places the part of Monkey as well. His talents combined with the truly spectacular writing and art direction make this 'game' more like an incredibly fun and engaging interactive movie.

Enslaved is not a perfect game, it has framerate dips, drawin inherent to the Unreal Engine and uneven textures at times, but with an experience and story like it has all those aspects are irelevant. One of the best games of the generation and a sure classic. Play it as soon as you can.

2010-10-08T18:27:00.003-04:00

***Warning, boring introspective post ahead***

Life is complicated as they say. I have a pretty complex life right now, kids, an ex-wife, a girlfriend and all of these parts have complications that rear their heads at odd times.

Right now I am in a pretty grey mood. I am my own worst enemy and right now all I can seem to do is think of the worst of the worst thoughts and I keep spinning myself in circles.

I actually have a very good life right now. My ex-wife and I while not friends are not enemies and we are amicable with the kids and most aspects of the division of our old life. My kids are great, I spend a good amount of time with them (shared custody) and greatly enjoy the times I have with them. They are both unique and amazing in their own ways and they are as important to me as anything has ever been.

My girlfriend is also amazing. In her I have found someone I sync with on levels I haven't felt quite the same way before. I adore her, quirks and all. She is one of the smartest, most charming and big hearted people I know. I am lucky to have met her, with her I am happy and that is something I had almost given up on.

But like life we are complicated and sometimes those aspects cause me to spin and enter a dark mood and doubt myself and a funk settles. When that happens I take everything the wrong way and I lose myself in the spiraling of thoughts.

I know it is not right and I should appreciate what I do have, but doubts and my own inability to shut of my stupid inner monologue plague me at times. They tend not to last, but when they do it is a rough ride for me.

On the bright side I do have a cat in a dryer with laser eyes...

2010-10-01T15:17:00.004-04:00

Final Fantasy X was one of my least favorite of the series, mostly due to my severe dislike of the protagonist Tidus and his infamous water sword. The game does have a special place in my heart because of two characters however. The first is Lulu, she was one of the most attractive characters in any Final Fantasy game and fought with a Moogle puppet. Her look alone, especially her, ahem, assets, distinct fighting style and personality made her a key character in the series. Many cosplayers have tried to emulate her look, but frankly it is hard to match in many ways:

The second is Auron who is probably my favorite FF character of all time after Vivi. Auron is an older ex-warrior monk who defines the term hard edged. He fights with one hand, only using the other when performing a critical strike. he always has a jug of volatile liquor with him and gives firm reasonable advice. His look is equally difficult, but this cosplayer nailed it:

2010-09-30T11:14:00.005-04:00

One of the most amazing news pieces lately is that a planet called Gliese 581g has been discovered that is Earth like and is almost 100% likely to support water on the surface. This means that if the astronomers are correct the planet can sustain life.

This is an amazing find and the fact that it is relatively close (in the grand scheme of the Universe) at 20 light years away is equally astounding. This is just the beginning of our location of Earth like (or exoplanets as they are called) planets. Nasa has recently launched the Keppler Satellite which is specifically designed to locate planets similar to Earth in mass, potential atmosphere and distance from their star that is not too cold or hot for water to form (called the Goldilocks zone).

By tagging these planets as potential exoplanets further study can begin (similar to studies of Gliese 581g) to see if in fact there is atmosphere, water and potentially proof of life.

Why is this important? Well we cannot travel to these places, yet, but we can send signals, we can hypothesize on what kind of life is on these planets and we can grow ourselves further intellectually about the vastness of space and the universe.

I believe we cannot be alone, the universe is too vast, too varied and the odds that we are the sole 'intelligent' lifeforms amongst billions of stars and trillions of planets is a naive and small minded concept. Discoveries like these are sometimes decried as unimportant by some when compared to the issues that plague our world and people. I think instead we should look at all the advancements made when we discovered not so long ago that we are not the center of the universe, that the sun did not orbit the Earth and that the Earth was round instead of flat.

More knowledge of our universe, our neighboring worlds and what if any life we find on far way planets could end up enriching our world and people in ways no one could ever imagine.

2010-09-29T15:29:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite genres of all time is Space Sim games a la Freespace, DarkStar One and especially Wing Commander.

I have many great memories of the Wing Commander series. The first 2 games were pure Space sims letting you gain ranks as you killed hoards of Kilrathi and have upgraded ships. Wing Commander 3 and 4 introduced FMV video to advance the story featuring Mark Hammil as the titular Christopher Blair with Tom Wilson as Maniac and Malcolm McDowell as Admiral Tolwyn.

Decent story and acting, compelling events (Angel being killed, Tolwyn's suicide) made these experiences instead of games. The gameplay was a nicer looking version of the Wing Commander series and was pure magic. They continued with Wing Commander Prophecy which was average and not really at the level of the previous games. There was also offshoots of the series called Privateer and Armada. Armada was a simple strategy game that I played a lot of but Privateer was a true innovation. Giving you the ability to choose your path and trade as well as fly missions much like the classic series you had a great deal of choice with the quality Wing Commander engine.

There was a sequel to the game called Privateer 2: The Darkening which took the FMV route and featured an up and coming Clive Owen as the title character. IT was a decent game with a slightly muddled story and barely advanced gameplay. Since then there have been new games like Freelancer, Freespace, Darkstar One and others but the genre has been relatively stagnant and never at it's heights again since the WC 3-4 era.

Apparently there are some other passionate people like me out there and there has been an open source 3d Space Sim engine created called Vega Strike that is making the rounds. This engine will work on Modern PC's and an enterprising group has ported Privateer to this engine and called it Wing Commander Privateer Gemini Gold. This one is out now and I have hopes for another project that is a recreation of Wing Commander 3 using the Freespace 2 engine called Wing Commander Saga.

2010-09-24T09:42:00.002-04:00

Just look through my posts and you will see how much I love my PS3, I am a Sony fanboy, I love the machine, love the games and love the controller, but hate the UI/Infrastructure most days.

The Sony Infrastructure feels much like a hodge podge, things like Trophies were added later and feel like it. When you want to load them or compare someone else they take forever to display. Achievements on the other hand on the X360 take very little time to pop up.

The big issue, though, is how badly downloads are handled on the PS3, from firmware updates to games, to streaming:

Firmware updates - Unless you are a PlayStation Plus member you have to initiate the download manually and oftentimes you don't know there is one until you try to play a game, then it forces you to do the update whether you want it or not. last night I received a Dead Space 2 Beta invite, in order to get it I need to sign into PSN, once I do it forces a firmware update, this one is for 3D Blu-ray support, which I cannot use, nor want! Oy, the update is huge (of course), the download is slow (despite my 10Mb connection) and takes a good 30 minutes.

These updates are bloated, happen way to often and are not distributed intelligently at all. Take a hint from Kojima Sony, add a torrent option for them so all the users who already have the update can distribute and share the load. make them happen automatically overnight, make them optional unless they are security fixes as well.

Game Downloads - There is a ton of content on the PSN now, the issue is how you get it. On the Xbox you choose the download, it comes down faster then lightning and as soon as it is downloaded you can play. On the PS3 you need to download (which is slow (of course) and then install the game separately. Completely stupid and a huge waste of time.
Something is wrong with wireless on PS3 - Streaming on the PS3 via the new Netflix is super easy to start but it stutters over wireless. My Laptop however streams in HD perfectly over wireless with never any issues. I am not sure if it is the PS3 adapter, the software or how it transfers the data, but so far I am disapointed with Netflix on the PS3, good thing I have HDMI out on my laptop.

Sony has made a great business and network out of copying the successes of Xbox Live and keeping some of their weaknesses away. They need to now go the extra mile and fix these last few things and then we will all finally have nothing to complain about...oh and add cross game chat of course.

2010-09-23T14:29:00.002-04:00

Saw this great Tweet this week:

O+P+T+I+M+U+S = 15+16+20+9+13+21+19 = 113 is a Prime number; Optimus = Prime. Your mind = Blown Again

Since I hated Rodimus Prime from the original Transformers movie I wanted to make sure math was still my friend to disprove his existence.

R+O+D+I+M+U+S = 17+14+3+8+12+20+18 = 92 Which is NOT a prime number! Hot Rod should have never been made a Prime and this mathematically proves it was never meant to be!

Yes I am a nerd!

2010-09-14T13:46:00.002-04:00

I was incredibly excited for Dragon Age: Origins and I did have a lot of fun with the game, but it was completely ruined by playing Mass Effect 2 in the middle of it. Mass Effect 2 was so much more polished, complete and slick that Dragon Age ended up looking clunky and clumsy once I returned to it.

It is a shame because the core game has potential and the world itself is truly amazing. I am hopeful that the more focused experience the sequel is offering will bring it to the level I was hoping to see. Regardless I played a shit ton of the game and am at the very end with no interest in playing the DLC (maybe Awakenings, but not at the current price) so this is the end of the game for me. The problem is the final boss.

All through the game you can approach battles in a strategic sense and generally you can find tactics that work against the groups you are facing. Whether it me a melee rush or a pre-planned spell blitz, if you thought ahead you could succeed. The Archdemon is a huge and very mean Dragon that can only be killed with sustained pounding. I have tried the fight many times (and saves can only be done before going to the keep which is VERY annoying) and it always ends the same. My party dies one by one and then after much attrition of health my main character dies.

This departure from the ability to plan and strategize really annoys me and feels like lazy design choices and is very disappointing. I will finish it, but expected much more from the game...plus as I mentioned it is a really, REALLY ugly game.

2010-09-13T10:18:00.003-04:00

So I am a sucker for new technology and out of morbid curiosity I am interested in the Playstation Move motion controller.

The concept is simple now that Wii is a mature console and a fixture in pop culture. You have a main motion controller and an 'optional' navigation controller. These two things interact with your PS3 via the PlayStation Eye camera and Bluetooth for the Nav controller. They say you can use the left side of your DualShock 3 instead of the Nav, but I am unsure how comfortable that would be, hence the quotes around optional.

At it's heart Playstation Move is an HD version of the WiiMote and that is not a bad thing. In well done motion games it truly is a fun concept, but the poor quality and last gen graphics of most Wii games have made me never want a Wii. The added sensitivity and potential for Move support added to legacy games (Socom, Resident Evil 5, Heavy Rain) make this a much more attractive sell for me. let's not forget soem decent new games (like Sports Championship) that use the system.

Now to the issues I have with the hardware. Price, plain and simple. They are pricing the Move Wand at $49.99 and the Nav controller at $29.99. The camera is $39.99 and is necessary as well, games will be $49.99. There is a Move bundle at $99.99 which has the camera, wand and Sports Championship game. The problem is I have the camera already (hello Eye of Judgement bundle) so the Move is priced badly for me. If I want to enter the market I need to get the Wand, Nav controller and at least one game - $49.99 + $29.99 + $49.99 = 129.97 which is way to much money. And if I want to play with at least one friend I am looking at another $79.98.

Sorry Sony, this is priced ridiculously for a family friendly concept platform. The Wand + Nav should be bundled at 50 bucks and there should be a pack in game. This will get adoption and more units in peoples hands which is what you want. Hopefully pricing and alternate bundles develop in the consumers favor and then I will take the dive. At least there is a new and awesome Kevin Butler campaign in conjunction with the launch. Vikings FTW!

2010-09-10T09:48:00.002-04:00

Great Googely Moogely, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is out and apparently all kinds of awesome. I am a huge fan of the series, especially the mainstream PS2 games, even though I have still not completed the game to get the proper ending. I have been trying for a LONG TIME.

The Portable games have always been a divergence from the series. Chain of Memories had a battle system based on cards, so no real action sequences you directly controlled. It was fun. I finished it, but it was an anecdote and not the game proper. 358/2 Days was so mind numbingly repetitive and bland that I could not care much about it. The tutorial reached FFXIII levels and lasted way too long before giving you your full abilities.

Birth by Sleep aims to change these perceptions. Featuring three new characters unburdened by Sora, Roxas and Co's backstory they can simply be Keyblade masters and interact in the world while affecting the overall story. It sounds great and looks even better:

The gameplay is no longer a gimped version of Kingdom Hearts, it is a full fledged action RPG with improvements apparently. When Square Enix gives games this treatment we have real gems like Crisis Core, Dissidia and now Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Cannot wait to pick this up and dive back into this unique blend of Disney infused Squeenix RPG goodness.

2010-09-09T10:09:00.002-04:00

I find it funny that huge franchises like Halo and Gears of war branch out to beverages, comics, novels and potentially movies but truly interesting games in the universe are foregone in favor of playing it safe. Halo Wars was interesting, but really nothing new was brought to the genre and the game itself was fairly vanilla. Here is what I want:

Gears of War tactical strategy game - Turn/real time hybrid with Delta infiltrating the enemy using tactics instead of third person action. You could deploy in a pre-planning phase and the action for the turn is real time (no turn versus turn, you tune the reactions and readiness of your gears). There could be dozens of mission types, environments and upgrades for the Gears. hell Carmine could even be in this one.

Halo action RPG - Think Mass Effect with the huge allure of the Halo Universe. Start with a new Spartan and progress through a conflict that results in him achieving glory. hell this could even be Master Chiefs origin story...

StarCraft action RPG - Hell we almost had Ghost, instead as described above start with a newly created Ghost that progresses through her adventure meeting companions gaining allies and eventually stopping a galaxy spanning conflict. The richness of units and characters gives this a huge base to draw from when creating the environments and scenarios.

There are many options out there and I would love to see more developers get out of the comfort zone for franchises and spread their wings a bit.

2010-09-08T13:30:00.006-04:00

I am going to take a cat lady moment and talk about the latest member of my family, an amazing and absolutely crazy bundle of fur called Indy.

I started thinking about a cat almost as soon as I moved on my own. I love cats and couldn't have one in the past so once the opportunity was there I seriously thought about it. I had trolled a number of the humane society sites but one day the girl sent me a link to a really cute female tabby located at a Pet Smart via the humane society. I went the next day to check her out but she was already adopted but her brother was still there. They mentioned he was actually a lot more affectionate and the moment I touched him he purred up a storm and curled into my hand.

The kids fell for him as quickly as I did and on June 12th of this year Indy became part of the family. I bought him and all the supplies and took him home and he immediately settled in, no issues feeding, no issues with his litter box. He is insanely friendly and almost from the start he cuddles with you and purrs louder then my Xbox 360. The girl fell for him as soon as she saw him and despite minor allergies spends many a night petting and cuddling the bundle of fur.

I mentioned he is crazy right? Well we discovered that on top of his insane cuteness and affectionate nature he has no limits on what he feels he can do. Climb on the table, your shoulder while you eat, repeatedly sniff at your food despite moving him off the couch. Hell he even has the gall to drink my beer!

He is also a very aggressive player and has many a cat fit running pell mell across the place, he has even vaulted across the girls book and my laptop using them as steps when zipping around. He frequently erupts into scratching and nipping fits, funnily enough not with the kids, but with the girl and I and sometimes he takes it too far. He recently lost two teeth and we think it is associated with that, but boy can he leave marks.

He also can fetch and loves to play that game. There are a couple of stuffed animals he loves, a little cat and rabbit we got him being the favorites. If you through it he will tackle the animal, fight it for a while then pick it up in his teeth and drop it on your lap. He loves this game and also loves to chase crumpled papers for long periods at a time.

At night when he sleeps in the bedroom he will play around for 5-10 minutes then settle next to me (always next to me) and curl up to sleep making body contact. He will generally wake up when the sun rises and want to play, but for the night even if I shift he relocates next to me and this amazing furry weight is next to me all night. When I am at leisure on the laptop or playing games by myself he will always curl in my lap (if he can) and purr away or fall asleep with me.

I lucked out with this cat, he has a great and quirky personality (he suspends himself on my screen and has climbed a fake rubber tree a number of times) but he is very affectionate. He has some loyalty and playful features of a dog, but all the independence and self reliance of a cat. He is amazing and a great companion around the house, the boys adore him and so do the girl and I.

2010-09-07T19:11:00.002-04:00

Blogging is something I mean to do more of every day, but the hours and days go by at times in an alternating blur and molasses like crawl. Today I want to start with a recap post and maybe do another more geeky post later. First I am listening to a Mix of Prince B-Sides and Alternates and it is awesome.

So what has been going on you ask? Well nothing as exhilarating as Trapeze, but life has been busy. I had to work from home most of last week as my kids did not have any daycare available and we had to scramble to make sure they were cared for. This week we are in a similar boat, Mini B doesn't start school till Friday as the first week is staggered but the school neglected to remind parents. I worked from home today and have short days Wed/Thurs so I can pick him up. The older one is fine as his new gifted school is in full swing.

I was able to make it to the eldests school before he entered class for the first time and I could tell he was grateful to see me. He is a pretty stubborn and self sufficient kid but he has his insecurities and he knows he has trouble with people at times. He made some early friends and really likes the class. I had a heart swelling moment as he was brimming with excitement over his first day. I am fiercely protective of that little guy and I was really nervous with him in this new class, new school and new kids. He did me proud and I love him like crazy.

--------------

Things with the lovely girl are going well. She is able to join me in Halifax for a friends wedding even though she has to take unpaid days and will join us on the Monday instead of the Sunday I am heading out. The geeks and I need to settle and arrange the night before festivities which ultimately mean getting the bride and groom drunk so we are there a day in advanced. I am really happy she can make it as we had a great time in Halifax and she is a great travel companion and all around amazing person.

In her neck of the woods the girl has been going through a couple of things with family and friends and she has been putting herself deep emotionally into these other people. I don't want to mention details as it is not my place to say them but she has a huge heart and is an amazing friend and daughter and I am proud of her and how wonderful a person she is. Nuff said on that, she is good people and I am lucky to know her.

--------------

And as a tie in to both parts of this post is the fact that the girl and I have been dating for a while and while I don't think she or the boys are ready to meet I have been thinking of talking to my oldest at least about the concept of her. This is something I don't take lightly at all and will discuss with all affected parties before I do anything. Really all I want to do is talk about the idea that I am or might be seeing someone so he can ask questions or make comments. I owe that to him and don't want to surprise him or have them meet to early.

This has to happen eventually and I want to introduce the idea in a fairly slow way, how to do this and what the reaction will be I have no idea, but I know it has to happen eventually. Life goes on and his Mom and I know that we are better apart so the kids will see this one day from both of us. How to do it the best way is a mystery and something I will work through.

That is it for now, have to smile that the song playing now is Gett Off (Clockin the Jizz Mix), Prince used to be such a dirty little man. Now off to play some Gears of War 2 unless I get inspired to make another post.

2010-08-25T21:27:00.003-04:00

Like everyone I go through cycles. Highs and lows, peaks and valleys. Right now I am in a low cycle, I am doubting myself, my friends, my confidence and at my new job my abilities. It happens from time to time, it will pass (hopefully), but to try to take my mind off, well, my mind, I have decided to try sketching again.

I used to be quite good, I was never amazing at original material, but sketching things I see and altering or preserving the look was a strength. My first stab was really, really horrible. I almost gave up for the night, but decided to try something different and tackled an image of the protagonist from Persona 4. I have the art book and have admired the style for a long time.

Here it is:

It is not complete, I will finish it tonight or tomorrow, but I am pretty happy with it thus far. Proud of this after not seriously holding a pencil in at least 12 years...

2010-08-17T22:09:00.006-04:00

So I will continue the story of my trip to Halifax next, but I recently did something so amazing that I need to talk about it. Some friends and I went and experienced a bit of the high flying circus life and did some Flying Trapeze lessons.

There is a company in Montreal called Trapezium that will teach you to fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Well they make it look easy, but it was very hard. The stage was set with a safety net, a platform 25 feet up and a small ladder. Equipped with safety gear I was the first to go up and try this out.

The weirdest part was gripping the bar, you had to dangle over the edge as a spotter holds you by the belt. You grip the bar and drop once the say "Ready, Hep'. We started basic with a swing, then hook the legs, then swing with no hands, grip and unhook legs, then drop. It was incredibly exhilarating and fun, but they always added a step.

After this they introduced a backflip to dismount. Basically you did the same steps as before but instead of dropping in a sit you flip. After you drop your legs back down you kick three times and on the last kick forward you let go and flip to your landing.

Feeling good we were now ready to be caught and rely on another person instead of our bar. Timing in this one is critical as he has to meet you. You do all the same steps, be as you are hanging by your legs you arch back and when he grabs your arms you grip and release your legs. It was the coolest thing ever and I flubbed my first attempt but the next couple went great.

The last trick was to be caught, then as you swing back pus down on your arms, the catcher then uses the reverse gravity to through you up, you twist and grab the bar. In theory at least. I tried it twice, the first time is this epic fail (tho my transition to him was great), the second I was slow and couldn't hook my legs properly and aborted.

Trapeze was one of the most exhilarating, fulfilling and amazing experiences of my life. It is the day after and I am still smiling and amazed I did it, even though I am covered in bruises. It was exhausting and punishing but I would do it again tonight if I could.

2010-08-05T10:32:00.002-04:00

Listening to the new Arcade Fire album The Suburbs on NPR radio. It is really good, I became a recent fan of the band at Bluesfest this year and can't get enough of their music. I love when recognized bands willingly allow the streaming of their new work to get people excited and listening to the music:

2010-08-03T10:41:00.010-04:00

The Chronicle of an East Coast Vacation - Part 1 - Lunenburg

The girl and I just returned from an amazing vacation to the East Coast of our beautiful country. Specifically Lunenburg and Halifax, both amazing places and very different from each other.

The trip was planned some time ago with the general plan being to stay at a house in Lunenburg with her family and then move on to Halifax for a few days then head home.

We flew to the Halifax International Airport Wednesday night (28th) and rented our car from the cheapest option I could find, Avis. To our surprise we were given a Prius and began the somewhat long drive (in the dark). The car was pretty cool and it was nice that my lovely companion was driving, I could then be free to navigate badly (she is an amazing navigator, I am average at best). After a few mis-turns we made it to the house (a large red one, aptly named the Red House) after 12:30 AM Halifax time.

The next day we decided to try and get a lot of fun out of the day and started with a great brunch and then headed into Lunenburg to see the sights. We decided to try out the fisheries museum wondering if it would be any good. In fact it was really fun, they had a number of vessels you could wander into and a lot of information about the coast and Lunenburg. It was pretty cool to see crew quarters in an old trawler, see the captains cabin and what it was like in these vessels. There was some really interesting talks about the Lobster trade, how the area was fished out and even how whaling was a big part of the area many years ago. The museum was a great time and highly recommended when visiting the town.

Later that day we explored part of the surrounding area and went to a place called Blue Rocks, described as Peggy's Cove without the commercialism. It was a really nice area, very rugged coastline, and a ton of crabs around. We even found a crab graveyard of sorts and recovered a pristine, yet hollowed out, crab head. It was a very serene area and a nice quick stop.

Later that night we had a bit of a long trip to a town called Hubbards for a Lobster dinner at a somewhat famous place called the Shore Club. This was to be my first time trying lobster (and mussels) and I was excited and unsure. I was told I would love it and I have to say I did. The restaurant itself was pretty cool, very no frills but a great deal and amazing food. With every lobster meal you have unlimited salad/pasta and mussel bar which I availed myself of quite a bit. I tore apart the lobster with help and I have to say I really liked it. The claws were my favorite, the tail removal was, err, interesting but the experience was really fun.

We decided to see the 'night life' of Lunenburg that night and found our way to the one bar open late, the Knot pub. A really nice little place with it's own custom beer that was smooth and tasty. After that we wandered to the only late night eatery and I got some amazing ice cream (it was that good). We then retired back for some much needed sleep.

The next day we slept in a bit and then headed into town for a bit to explore some more and decided to go ahead with a Whale watching tour we had been looking up. This was a 2 and 1/2 hour trip that was a lot of fun. It wasn't wall to wall whales, but we did track and follow a couple of Minke Whales. At one point the whale did go under the boat, I missed a picture of it, but seeing it up close (say 10 feet away) was very, very cool. The girl and I had an amazing time on the boat, it was so amazing to be on the North Atlantic and just enjoy the day and surroundings.

We burnt under the sun that trip, but it was worth it. Aside from seeing whales, porpoises and seals we were also treated to a scenic trip around the coast of Nova Scotia, we passed through a chanel with crumbling lighthouses, past major ports and we saw a natural phenomenon called the ovens. A series of 17 caves hollowed out of the cliff by the force of the ocean, people can (and did while we were passing) dive from the the walkways and swim into the caves. Very amazing to see up close.\

having not yet been to an ocean beach the next stop was at a really nice beach in the area called Hirtles. All of us headed there and quickly set up camp, dropped to our swimsuits and wandered into the water. I then wandered out fairly quickly. It was damn cold, the kind of cold that feels like bricks slapping against your legs. Unlike me artificial (girlfriend) stayed in the water and managed to move to her waist. I wandered back in and took it (somewhat) like a man. I got my goggles on and made it chest deep, the waves were a couple of feet high so jumping and swaying with the water was necessary. I finally dived into a wave and enjoyed that a few times. Wandering in I dried and warmed myself and then went in for one last soak, all he while artificial was still frolicking. She was beet red when she was done, but exhilarated by the feeling. She was so beautiful at that moment and many others on the trip.

The rest of the ocean side trip was taken up with wandering the beach, tidal pools and rock formations. A beautiful place and the beach to hit if you are in the area.

Later that night we had a great dinner at the Red House consisting of steak that I cooked (yikes), scallops, salad and potatoes. Oh and two and a half bottles of wine. We ended up staying around the table chatting with my girlfriends dad till quite late. He has some great stories and it was a nice night of tales and drinking. Not quite tired my lovely girl and I wandered around the area and eventually settled in the backyard with beers while we used an iPhone app to track constellations. We were eaten alive by mosquitoes, but it was well worth it, a great night to end the first leg of our trip.

The next morning we packed up, said farewell to her parents and brother and started off on our solo part of the trip, see below for a slide-show of the pictures of the Lunenburg area. I'll post the second half of the trip soon.

2010-07-23T09:23:00.001-04:00

Absolutely amazing new Tron Legacy trailer. Drool worthy, young Jeff Bridges is both creepy and a marvel of modern digital imagery:

2010-07-19T11:00:00.008-04:00

So I just completed my first Bluesfest experience. I have to say it was an amazing and tiring experience.

There were a few bands like Metric, Matt Good, Weezer and Great Big Sea that I was greatly anticipating but thanks to my lovely girlfriend I experienced a number of great bands I had never given a chance to before. I will start with the ones I anticipated and move on to the new bands I plan to absorb as soon as possible.

Metric
What can I say, I have such a fanboy crush on Emily Haines and she did not disappoint in their set. She was full of manic energy, the band was spot on and the show was absolutely amazing! Emily if you read this I will drop anything if you call...just saying!

Matthew Good
Matthew Good will always hold a special place in my memory as we watched the show with a friend from Montreal and had a great night of drinking and fun afterwards. The show was amazing and a precursor to one of the best nights I have had. Oh and Matt put on a great show as well.

Great Big Sea
This was the biggest party show of the festival, the place was busier then any other day we were there and we danced non-stop together till the very end despite being on very little sleep from the previous nights fun. They are a great band that still has the magic I remember from my college days.

Weezer
One of the best shows I have ever seen. The music, antics, vocals and vibe were amazing, a truly great end to a great festival. The only shame was they ended with 14 minutes to spare before sound bylaws kick in, that is 2-3 more songs we could have had! Best moment was when Rivers came out in a blond wig and mashed up Poker Face into their set.

Bands I experienced for the first time!

Arcade Fire
They were in the middle of the festival, but I need to mention them first. The entire time we watched them the feeling in the air was magical. Both of us just stared at each other at times, absorbed the music and just had an amazing night. The Arcade Fire is a large band with 2 violins, 2 drummers, 2 keyboards, multiple guitars and singers. How they make it work and work so well is a wonder. One of the top concert moments of my life.

Moneen
A Punk band on a smaller stage, but wow did they get my body moving. Hard music with surprisingly strong vocals combined for a great experience.

Bluestone
The girl has friends in the band and they were the first act we saw this year. A good band with lots of energy and a good sound. The female vocalist has a great voice live.

The Flaming Lips
I had heard of this band but never really experienced them. The show was absolutely phenomenal with the band putting on a wacky show complete with lead singer in a bubble crowd surfing. Go go dancers, dozens of balls to kick around and at least 50 confetti guns. The music was great and the band genuinely seemed to enjoy themselves.

City and Color
We went to a rainy Bluesfest event on York street to see Dallas Green in his band City and Color, he also sings (very differently) in Alexis on Fire that we saw as well. Dallas has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard, I can't believe I have never experienced his work before. I am desperately tracking down his albums and may be forced to resort to iTunes, I liked it that much!

Other Bands
There wasn't a bad experience, but the rest were OK and not amazing. The B-52s were a little rough but fun. The Moody Blues were technically fine, but fairly boring. Aexisonfire was good, but a little too guttural for my tastes. Very odd seeing Dallas Green play punk style after his acoustic set the night before.

Bluesfest was a great experience, made all the better by having my girlfriend as my festival companion. It is truly something to experience great music, atmosphere and plenty of beers from the Mill St. brewery with a person who gets and appreciates music. Can't wait for next year already!

2010-07-12T15:29:00.002-04:00

Amanda Palmer rose to fame with her band The Dresden Dolls and has recently been touring with Jason Webley in the sideshow circus themed act called Evelyn Evelyn. All you need to know about that show is that Jason Webley and her play conjoined twins made to perform by an evil sideshow owner. She is a manically amazing performer, very twisted and talented and has one of the best twitter feeds on the Internet.

Not content to release standard material Palmers next release is a very strange, yet amazing one. You see, Amanda Palmer loves Radiohead and she loves to play her Ukulele, so of course her next release is Amanda Palmer Plays The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her Magical Ukulele. Having heard the album I can assure you her Ukulele is indeed magical and she is as talented as ever.

The opening track is "Fake Plastic Trees" and starts with some light strokes on the magical ukulele and when Palmers voice starts to join in it is a joy to hear. Obviously a track with just voice and ukulele will tend to sound subdued, this one certainly does, but it is haunting and soulful at the same time. "High and Dry" is the next track and while Palmers voice and ukulele is the star we also have some backing piano music to add to the tone of the track. Again the song becomes uniquely Amanda Palmer with the classic (and very singable) Radiohead tune sounding fresh and wonderful in this version.

"No Surprises" is the next song and once again it is a very subdued track, the presentation is minimal, but very personal and echoes of her passion for the music carry through in a very satisfying way. The next track is "Creep", but this one is subtitled with “Hungover at Soundcheck in Berlin”, it is a much more freeform cover then the others on the EP and it shows. It is not my favorite on the album, but it is still very good, you can tell that she was stretching her voice and trying a few of her own ticks and sounds and again makes the song her own.

Next is "Exit Music (For a Film)"; this song makes a liar of the EP title as there is no Ukulele apparent, instead it is all piano and Palmer. It is an excellent track that again shows Palmers passion for music and her soul being poured into the song. It is not her own music, but she sings it like it is and the result is magic. I do find that the levels on this song seem a bit off and her voice is a tad drowned by the piano but the result is still amazing and must be listened to.

A live version of "Creep" is next (odd to have two versions of a song on an EP, but it is a truly great song); it is truly a live track with audience hoots and participation. The version is obviously raw and the levels aren’t perfect but it is still a better version then the other one on the EP. You can tell she was on her stride at this point and was having a great time playing and loves the song as much as we do. When you hear the song you can literally hear Palmer pouring her entire voice into the song and it makes me fall a little in love with her if I can be honest.

The final track is "Idioteque" and it is also the first release from the EP and it is a great choice as the hook to attract people to the album. Fast and frantic ukulele music starts the tone, piano slowly adds to the sound and then Palmers voice just cements the song into a delightful and incredibly enjoyable track. This is the most ‘produced’ track on the release (backing vocals, more instruments, echos) yet it still feels as personal as the other songs and is a great end to an amazing EP.

Amanda Palmer Plays The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her Magical Ukulele is not your normal everyday release. It is very niche, very personal and very, very good. I mention it many times, but the songs sound so personal, so much like Amanda Palmer is singing songs she truly loves and sharing the results with us. I have listened to the tracks many times, in fact while writing this review I have looped them on repeat three times and I can say without doubt that this is a release every Amanda Palmer fan must have. In fact any music lover should give Idioteque a listen and then proceed to buy the album once it is available.

<a href="http://music.amandapalmer.net/album/idioteque">Idioteque by Amanda Palmer</a>

The EP is available on Amanda Palmers own website as she is now a musical free agent and it is a donation based release. The minimum price will be 40 cents per track (9 cents goes to Radiohead and the remainder to cover paypal fees) if you choose to donate more the money goes directly to Amanda Palmer. That means the entire seven track EP (once released on July 20th) can be yours for $2.80, or more if you are not a tightwad, I strongly recommended more. I plan on buying the album despite having review copies of the tracks, it is that good and I want more from Amanda Fucking Palmer.

This was originally published on BlogCritics

2010-06-14T10:43:00.002-04:00

So Microsoft 'officially' unveiled their new motion controller - Kinect. I think I preferred Natal, but what I have seen/read about the device leaves me completely uninterested. There are a few issues with the device that Sony is also going to face with Move.

It is a standalone peripheral for a huge established base of Xbox 360 consoles. Publishers will not spend millions of dollars developing Kinect only games when the base is zero. They may add tacked on controls (a la WiiMote) for big titles, but core games will not be Kinect specific.
It looks like you have to stand the whole time, annoying, plus you have to mimic gripping things for extended periods. Go ahead pretend to hold a steering wheel for 20 minutes and see how it feels
The marketing is already atrocious, fake families pretending to play, games that are simplified to the point of annoyance. The best looking game is an on rails star wars that has you flailing like the Star wars Kid.
Too little, too late, nothing about this looks like a must have concept, there needs to be a killer app that everyone must play, and that is nowhere to be seen.
Where is Milo? Hyped as the true face of natal, Milo is missing but that my a good thing. The concept was creepy and boring.
The video chat and Minority Report controls are a gimick and will be used very rarely. Hmm will I fire up Kinect and flail my arms to get to the My Games blade or push up on my controller?

Plus the unit looks like a Sony accessory, not Microsoft, guess the rumours of the new Xbox360 design (sleek and shiny black) may be true. No sale here Microsoft.

2010-06-14T10:39:00.002-04:00

Here is a video for a band I have never heard of (Broken Bells) but it stars Christina Hendricks, who I will watch in just about anything. Song is averagey catchy, video is actually cool with a William K Dietz vibe. There is a decided lack of Christina Hendricks cleavage which is disappointing.

2010-06-10T11:48:00.001-04:00

I would watch this! One of the better Funny or Die videos in a long time...love the constant mentions of how young he looks still...good stuff.

Wax On, F*ck Off with Ralph Macchio from Ralph Macchio

2010-06-03T15:15:00.003-04:00

I was faced with a challenge in my new place as far as my audio setup is concerned. At my house I had a wall behind my couch and ran cables under the floor and out vents to the speakers mounted on the wall. My new place has no wall between the living room and dining room (and they are both spacious rooms). I really had no desire to run speaker wire on the floor or ceiling, but I was sorely missing my rear channels.

Some research led me to two items that will make my living room complete (aurally at least).

The first is a wireless rear speaker solution by Rocketfish:

This is a really cool unit that has a sender unit for the audio (that plugs into your receiver) and a receiver unit that plugs into the receiver. You still have to plug in power to the receiver unit, but that is behind the couch and not a big issue.

The real bonus is that the receiver unit is actually an amplifier, so you are not sending the audio across a wireless spectrum to wireless speakers themselves...you are sending the signal to an amp which then shoots the audio signal out the speakers. Very elegant solution and not very expensive at all, plus I get to keep using my Polk Audio speakers and not low quality wireless ones.

This raised another issue of mounting the speakers. I had a wall before and now needed to raise the speakers to a proper listening level. Some research brought me to these beauties:

A great silver speaker stand pair (matches my speakers) that is adjustable and looks nice as well. They should both arrive next week and proper 5.1 surround will be mine again!!

Luckily I found my calibration mic (my receiver auto calibrates) so once the setup is ready I will calibrate and my receiver will have a feel on how to modulate and send the signals to suit the room.

2010-05-31T08:33:00.003-04:00

Seriously, how fucking stupid are marketing people? Well that is probably a silly question. I am already sick of ads of people playing games where it is obvious that:

A) They have never played a game before in their life
B) The system isn't on or there reactions are inappropriate to the type of game.

This image from a promo shot of the new EA NHL Slapshot game featuring Wayne Gretzky (glee) goes a huge step further:

They deliberately put the back of the TV and Wii to the viewer and didn't run any cables from the TV or even connect the Wii to the television. Plus there isn't even a WiiMotion sensor. Really idiotic marketing people? You are that lazy and stupid? Hey Wayne and kids enjoy the game with no action or even a signal to the TV.

FAIL

2010-05-28T14:51:00.003-04:00

So I mentioned that I bought DJ Hero, it arrived in days and Canada Post left the big ass box (3 feet high) in front of my apartment door....Yikes!

Luckily the building is full of old people so it was safe and I unpacked it. I got the renegade edition which comes with a case that turns into a stand, a 2 disc Jay-Z/Eminem mix and the turntable has metal faders and is reportedly better constructed.

A few thoughts about the package in general:

The case is amazing, custom cut foam inserts and it clasps closed on both sides very securely. Plus it has a handle and the legs can fit inside the case for great portability
The turntable is amazing, the fader feels really solid and click nicely when in the middle. The tuner for effects is smooth and spins well and the euphoria button lights up when active which is a great touch.
The platter itself spins really easily and the buttons are a good distance from each other and grooved for your fingers. Button presses are easy as are green spins, blues are a little trickier as they are on the inside row and the platter feels heavy when you scratch blue sections. I am adjusting and trying different grip techniques to compensate.
The 2 disc mix is really quite amazing and a bit surprising. The liner notes are censored, the game is censored but the music is most definitely not, I lost track trying to count the f and n-bombs being dropped. It is appreciated as the music needs to be raw when not re-mixed DJ Hero style...these are pure Eminem and Ja-z tracks, any bleeps or fades when swearing occurs would be noticeable and jarring.

A few thoughts on the game:

People are right about the game being minimal as far as modes go but no one could fault the music at all. The mixes are truly great so far, my favorite being the Queen/Daft Punk mixes I have heard.
Gameplay is really cool and at times requires fast hands and eyes, when you hit the cues and nail the crossfades it is very satisfying, when you miss and music stops you know you have messed up. The nice thing about the great mixes is I don't mind replaying songs to get the 5 stars.
There are really jarring ads in the game, in a Block Party setting there was a crazy bright green TD ad on the wall and I kept looking at it, I don't mind ingame ads if they are there and subtle, but make it fit the subject matter. How about clothes? Music? Movies?
I really do feel like a DJ standing above my stand mixing music, the effects knob and ability to insert freestlye effects is really cool as is the scratching and crossfades.

Verdict? Love this game, I love the culture of DJing, I like the music and the scenarios and I really enjoy playing this.

2010-05-21T10:53:00.002-04:00

If I had an iPad (and nothing really makes me want one...yet) I would buy this back Decal in a fraction of a heartbeat:

2010-05-21T08:47:00.003-04:00

I love these, Propaganda posters made using idiotic statements made by videogame executives. My favorite is this one by Peter Moore when pressed on the failure rate of Xbox360's:

More at Kotaku, I remember all of these statements and they are pure gold. There are many more that could have been used like this one from Sony Chief Jack Tretton (he actually said this!):

2010-05-20T12:11:00.003-04:00

Meant to do this earlier, but here is my Iron Man 2 Micro Review:

Loved:

-A closer look at Tony and his life, he is an interesting character and it was nice to see that further explored.
-The briefcase suit, perhaps one of the coolest scenes in a superhero movie ever.
-The tech used, it was fantastical and yet seemed feasible for a genius like Tony.
-Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. nails this character, he is Tony and he is Iron Man, it is a perfect casting and acting role
-The suits, by and large they are amazing and represented the genre perfectly. Tony's looked sleek and unique, Hammer's looked like cheap knockoffs
-Whiplash, I have to say I really liked these villain, not nearly enough motivation behind his actions or enough buildup to his staggering intellect but he was well handled by Mickey Rourke.
-Nick Fury, I know it was cheeseball, but Sam Jackson did his homework, for the most part, he had the Ultimate universes of Fury's confidence, but not his dangerous edge. I hope he gets to show that in later projects.
-The action sequences, mostly great, the Rhodey/Stark fight was weak, but the rest were great.
-Hammer, Rockwell is a great actor and he nailed the character...I have to wonder if it was his idea to give Hammer a blatantly fake tan...

Hated:

-The pacing...Gad, there were some sequences that severely dragged, while it was nice to see more character it could have been handled more deftly with better writing and or motivations.
-Whiplash showing his face at the end...really? Why anyone thought the villain would drop his helmet in the final battle? To see Rourkes face? Not necessary and blatantly stupid. Plus while I like the character overall his sheer perfection and skill was odd without any preamble...where was he the rest of his life?
-The drunken in armour scene. That was as painful as the dancing scene in Fantastic Four 2...should never have been in this film.
-The habit of having the helmet half-open, it looks bad, is unnecessary and never makes sense as other scenes have the helmet off.
-Rhodes, I hate putting him here, but for the most part the character is badly handled, not by Cheadle, but by the writing and scenarios. He was better represented in the first film and made slightly ridiculous in this one.
-Black Widow, Scarlet tried to hard, the fight scenes were a little contrived and her civvie clothes were poorly chosen. She looked amazing, no doubt, but did not work in the role.
-Costume choices, the men all look great and comfortable, the women all have dresses 2 sizes small. Scarlet had no chest in many scenes, who was the costume designer? The producer?
-Dragged too long, while the final battle was great, the constant back and forth chases took too long to payoff.

Overall I like it, I have seen it twice and will own it on Blu-ray but it is a flawed movie that could have been much better. It is hard to live up to the outstanding first film, but it could have been more.

2010-05-19T14:42:00.003-04:00

I like electronica, techno, trance and house music a great deal. I have reviewed artists in this genre, I listen to the music to relax and workout and I am a huge fan of the genre. DJ Hero was a game I have been incredibly interested in for quite some time, but I had refrained from getting. Looks like the renegade edition is now just a 100 dollars on Amazon (down from 200).

This is a really cool edition of the game with an enhanced turntable, a case that converts to a stand for the turntable and some remix soundtracks from Jay-z and Eminem. Recently I traded in some Aeroplan points for an Amazon.ca card, looks like I know what I will e getting once the card arrives...I mean the renegade turntable has gold knobs for Pete's sake!

2010-05-12T15:02:00.001-04:00

It has been a long time since updating and there have been a lot of changes in my life. I don’t generally delve into my personal life on this blog and I won’t delve deep but some things bear mentioning.

After 12 years at Magma/Primus I have finally left and joined a new company, Telus. This was a huge move for me as I was comfortable, happy and competent in my role as a Sales Engineer at Primus. I joined Telus for a few reasons, challenge, growth and training being the main ones. I have started at Telus and think I will enjoy it, I have a huge amount to learn and have hit the ground running to try and become a key member of the team. I also had to take a dorky picture for my fancy smart card ID.

The other major change is that I have my own place for the first time in my life. I will be bringing my boys over from time to time and my girlfriend is over occasionally as well, but I have a home that is mine to control completely and that is a cool feeling. I have the majority of the living space setup (couch arriving in a couple of weeks) and cosmetic/finishing touches will roll out over the next couple of months. My DSL isn’t working (ANGER) but thankfully there is a strong unsecured wireless signal nearby that keeps me from showing Internet withdrawal symptoms.

On the gaming and hobby side there are ups and downs. My Xbox 360 RROD some time ago and I am having it repaired soon, but man does that make me angry. There is no reason that my 360 should have failed so quickly again. I received a new unit after my last RROD less than two years ago, I have friends that are on their 4th or 5th X360 since launch. That is truly shameful and I really hope Microsoft fixes this for any future hardware deployments.

On my trusty launch PS3 (that has never failed…knock on wood) I am digging into the incredibly hard, sometimes frustrating, but completely addicting Demon’s Souls. I think I have a handle on the game now and will hammer through a couple of levels and get a solid character in place to progress through the game with. It is definitely a complex game and I needed to get a feel on how to move through, level and engage in smart combat. The initial dozen or so deaths, in particular the one by the Dragon near the end of 1-1 as I had 3200 souls were anger inducing, but I feel I am stronger for it and will persevere.

Movies and media wise I am reading through a review novel called Never Look Away. It isn’t a bad book, moves quite slowly though and while it is labeled as a thriller it does not have a lot of tension or hooks that make you flip page after page. I am also listening to Sia’s new album (We Are Born) over and over and getting ready to write up a piece on that album (early spoiler, it is great!). I am working through Fringe with my girlfriend and Castle each week as it comes out.

2010-04-05T10:59:00.001-04:00

Wow, all other words aside from that fail me...

2010-04-03T08:49:00.003-04:00

One of the highlights of PAX East for me was the chance to attend a Panel called Naughty Dog LIVE – Game Design with the Dogs. The panellists were Richard Lemarchand, co-lead game designer, Arne Meyer, community strategist, Justin Richmond lead multiplayer designer, and Jacob Minkoff, game designer. They all worked on the incredibly successful and well received Uncharted 2: Among thieves and the talk was sure to be entertaining.

The audio interview is available below to stream or download and I really encourage anyone who is a fan of the Uncharted Series, naughty Dog, heck anyone who likes games to give it a listen. These are entertaining and genuine guys who care about their games and it shows in how they discuss it in the conversation we had.

PAX East 2010: Naughty Dog Interview

2010-03-19T10:06:00.002-04:00

What do Laurence Fishburne, Adrien Brody (who people say I look like), Topher Grace, Danny Trejo and Robert Rodriquez have in common? They are all involved with the upcoming Predators movie...and you know what it looks really good! Getting an Aliens vibe from it that I am digging:

2010-01-12T10:43:00.002-05:00

Great Googely Moogely, I had heard about a new Kids in the Hall series ages ago and I just saw that it premieres tonight at 9PM!

Death Comes to Town on CBC tonight! Looks promising as it is an 8 part comic mystery, hope it is good so we get more of this in the future.

2010-01-08T09:10:00.002-05:00

Wow, this is surreal! No this is not a scene from The Day After Tomorrow, this is an actual satellite image of Britain in the midst of a cold snap, ice age, whatever you want to call it. Just Wow!

2010-01-03T16:16:00.001-05:00

Hilarious! Nathan Filion being interviewed by Alan Tudyk

Leonard Maltin's Secret's Out Serenity Alan Tudyk Nathan Fillion | Movie Trailers

2010-01-01T20:42:00.002-05:00

As I enter 2010 I can look back at 2009 as a year of experiences. I really entered the music reviewing scene at blogcritics this year focusing on mainly electronica acts. I started with the familiar though and my first CD review was for a new one by a favourite band, The Odds:

The Odds: The Cheerleader Review

Following that I decided on a 1-2 punch and reviewed the new Crystal Method CD, Divided by Night, and the tour.

Crystal Method: Divided by Night Tour in Montreal
The Crystal Method: Divided by Night Review

Getting into a very electronica mood and loving the concert scene in Montreal I went again and saw Underworld live (amazing concert).

Underworld North American Tour in Montreal

Following that I looked at the slightly underwhelming but still good new Paul Oakenfold studio album.

Paul Oakenfold: Perfecto Vegas Review

I finished off seeing electronica acts for the year with an amazing Tiësto concert in Montreal. He played for over five hours and it was phenomenal.

Tiësto: Kaleidoscope Tour in Montreal

I did attend one last show which is more of a classical act then electronica, but it was not quite mainstream. Star Wars in Concert was a highlight of the year for me and made me care for the series again in a way I haven't for a while

Star Wars in Concert in Ottawa

It was a great year for me musically and I feel very lucky for all the opportunities I have had and looking forward to a great 2010.

2009-12-11T11:11:00.001-05:00

The word of the day is:

an⋅noyed

[uh-noi] Show IPA

Use annoyed in a Sentence

See web results for annoyed

See images of annoyed

–verb (used with object)

1.	to disturb or bother (a person) in a way that displeases, troubles, or slightly irritates.

2.	to molest; harm.

–verb (used without object)

3.	to be bothersome or troublesome.

–noun

4.	Archaic. an annoyance.

Origin:
1250–1300; (v.) ME an(n)oien, enoien < class="ital-inline">anoier, anuier to molest, harm, tire < class="ital-inline">inodiāre to cause aversion, from L phrase mihi in odiō est … I dislike …; cf. in- ² , odium, ennui, noisome; (n.) ME a(n)noi, ennoi < class="ital-inline">a(n)nui, etc., deriv. of the v.

2009-12-09T20:00:00.002-05:00

Data, in this modern world it is more precious then almost anything else. My car was recently broken into and my laptop bag was stolen. In it was my laptop (works actually), a great laser mouse, power supply, headset, cds, some of my and my kids ID's and worst of all 6 USB memory sticks.

On these sticks was:

-An archive of 11 years of work e-mail, thousands of folders and correspondence, now gone.
-The last 2 years worth of pictures of my kids and events I went to
-My documents folder which contained all my articles, work diagrams, RFP documents, security notes and irreplaceable assets I used daily at work.
-Some short stories I was dabbling in
-My completed Ubisoft game design (60 odd pages) and my partial Bioware and EA designs
-Music I archived over the years
-Game saves and other bits of data.

Frankly I am still reeling from this loss of data. It is like a part of my life was erased and cannot be replaced....it is only data, but so much of my life and passions were in there. Do the thieves have any concept of what they took? Probably not.

2009-12-07T10:05:00.001-05:00

The word of the day is:

per⋅plexed

[per-plekst] Show IPA

Use perplexed in a Sentence

See web results for perplexed

See images of perplexed

–adjective

1.	bewildered; puzzled: a perplexed state of mind.

2.	complicated; involved; entangled.

Origin:
1350–1400; ME perplex confused (< class="ital-inline">perplexus; see per-, complex ) + -ed ²

Related forms:per⋅plex⋅ed⋅ly [per-plek-sid-lee] Show IPA , adverb per⋅plex⋅ed⋅ness, noun

2009-12-07T09:58:00.002-05:00

Meant to post this a while ago! I attended the Montreal International Games Summit a few weeks ago and it was an amazing experience! I attended some great Seminars:

MIGS 09: Cinematics sans Cutscenes

Jonathon Cooper from Bioware discusses how he would love to see cinematic gameplay instead of cutscenes.

MIGS 09: Dead Space: A Musical Post Mortem

Jason Graves dissects and pulls apart the process he used to create the excellent audio for Dead Space.

MIGS 09: Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development, Valve Keynote Liveblog

A liveblog and recap as Jason Holtman from Valve, discusses games entertainment in the age of connectivity.

MIGS 09: Ken Rolston, Lead Designer Big Huge Games Liveblog

A liveblog and recap as Ken Rolston, Lead Designer from Big Huge Games, discusses a narrative designers toolkit.

MIGS 09: Yoichi Wada, President and CEO of Square Enix Keynote Liveblog

A liveblog and recap as Yoichi Wada, President and CEO of Square Enix, discusses cultural diversity in gaming development.

I also interviewed a number of influential people in the videogame industry:

MIGS 09: Interview with Jonathan Cooper, BioWare

Lead Animator at Bioware, Jonathan Cooper, sat down with me to discuss Mass Effect 2 and cinematics in general.

MIGS 09: Interview with Ken Rolston, Big Huge Games

An organic discussion with a talented designer of huge narrative RPG titles.

MIGS 09: Interview with Patrick Plourde, Ubisoft

Patrick Plourde from Ubisoft and I share a candid discussion about Assassin's Creed 2.

MIGS 09: Interview with Dorian Kieken, BioWare

Dorian Kieken from BioWare shared some insight on how a living plan benefits BioWares development process.

It was a great conference and a real life experience for me.

2009-11-30T14:39:00.002-05:00

I should mention that the laptop purchase was not all clear sailing, I had serious issues just getting a status update last week, perhaps the worst customer service I had ever experienced.

Below is the e-mail I sent Ronald Garriques - President of Consumer products for Dell:

Hello Mr. Garriques, I am sorry to disturb you as I am sure you are very busy but I had a recent issue when ordering a consumer laptop that I wanted to bring to an executive level. I recently ordered a new Studio 17 laptop (on the 26th in the early AM) and have yet to receive any updates so I decided to call support to see the status of my order.

When I reached someone in customer service they bounced me to online sales where I was on hold for over 30 minutes. As soon as the online sales rep answered and I told her what I wanted she transferred me back to customer service without even trying to assist me. Once I reached customer service (another 10 minute wait) the gentleman was extremely rude to me. That portion of the call started at approximately 2:45 today (Nov.27th) ending at 3:15PM and was extremely disatisfying (and disheartening) from a customer experience.

Without even asking my name he insisted that my order is not ready to discuss and that he would not look up my account. When I asked him politely to take my name and investigate he again flatly refused to look into it. I work for a National Telecom and I managed our support and provisioning teams here in the past and was appalled by his marked lack of any interest in doing his job. I then asked him to pass me to his supervisor or manager and he flatly refused to do either, even go so far as to lie to me saying he cannot transfer calls. I was actually dumbfounded at this and then asked him his name so I could call back and address the issue. He also flatly refused to give me his name, I was speaking to a customer service representative and he refused time and again to make any minimal effort to help this customer. At the end of the call I was insistent on getting his name or transferred to his manager, he still refused to do any of this or even to take my name and check the order still and then hung up on me with a thank you.

I am shocked that in this time of economic recovery and a realization that customer service levels are at an all time low that actions like this can happen at a company as respected as Dell Canada. I would appreciate a response to my issues and a reprimand to that employee or to the outsourcing company that manages your overseas support.

Below are my order details, I still have no idea what the financing options are, if the order is approved nor do I even have an order number.

Thank you for any assistance.

2009-11-30T11:57:00.003-05:00

Finally getting a new laptop. I have been discussing it for a while and I am getting via work with a buyout option. This thing is a monster as I was able to design it myself (within reason):

Studio 1745 Studio 17 Laptop
Processor -- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600 (2.8GHz/1066Mhz FSB/6MB cache)
Memory -- 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
LCD Panel -- 17.3” HD+ (900p) Bright LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera
Video Card -- 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650
Hard Drive -- 500GB SATA HDD (7200rpm)
Combo or DVD+RW Drive -- Slot Load Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)

Yowza! Very excited and it is a slick midnight blue color. This will definitely allow me to play some LFD2, Star Wars The Old Republic and Star Trek Online as well as DDO Unlimited with my friends in a very sweet resolution! The benefit of the Blu-ray drive is that I can now take screencaps of the blu-rays I review instead of having to search online!

Windows 7, Direct X 10 support, wireless N! All sorts of goodies onboard!

Tres excited, now I just have to wait...and wait...

2009-11-24T23:00:00.003-05:00

Full Twitter Feed from Star Wars in Concert,a review will be posted shortly on Blogcritics.org, Imperial March and Duel of the Fates live almost unmanned me.

Jer1ch0

Awww yeah!!! Imperial March again!!!! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

an encore! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qtoyf about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

So it ends...final end theme...goosebumps again! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Endor and the death star...big finish, more flames...daniels introducing the end of Vader... about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

I am feeling that same sense of wonder that the original trilogy always gives me...this is Star Wars aurally at it's best... about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Tone, imagery, lights and the music...by God the music...this makes me want to marathon through the movies.. about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qtmn9 about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Yoda time!!!! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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cantina music! geek euphoria again! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Princess Leia segment..now Luke..starting with tatooine theme...hd imagery is phenomonal! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Millenium falcon and Han Solo time! daniels just reverted to 3P0 mode...awesome!! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qtjzq about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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post intermission...amaIng laser show...sith theme! about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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I am your father at the pinnacle of March...mega goosebumps!!! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Imperial March...I am in geek euphoria....Darth Vader time! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Wow!! flame bursts during volcano planet fight...i could feelthe heat from them! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Ooh, Anakins turning...morose theme...deep notes, choir and full orchestra...goosebumps again. about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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somehow this is actually making me interested in their love story...very effective cuts and music... about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Amidala and Anakin segment...love theme from attack of the clones...very nice.... about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

funny moment as daniels introduces C3P0! Droids section playing...jawa music! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Anakin being introduced...looks they will play themes based on characters and scenarios... about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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This is actually making the prequels cool...really! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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with Live Choir...I have goosebumps!! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Anthony Daniels eloquently introducing the star wars mythos...seque to Duel of Fates...LIVE!!! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qtbhn about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Darth Vader introducing Anthony Daniels!!! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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screen is huge and image is ultra clear...live footage of players...they are using HD cameras... about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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lighting is AMAZING! Main theme being played... about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qtana about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qtai0 about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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wow, serious bass, battle sounds all around! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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show is starting! about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qt9zk about 3 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Hmm..men in an orchestra always wear tuxedos, but the women don't wear gowns generally...dress pants and nice shirts...odd that! about 4 hours ago from TinyTwitter
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Orchestra is bathed in purple light...smoke is billowing and players are filtering onstage! Star Wars in Concert starting soon! about 4 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

They are slowly testing effects, random blaster shots, lightsaber noises and breathing! about 4 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Posted a picture http://twitpic.com/qt712 about 4 hours ago from TinyTwitter
Jer1ch0

Sitting in my seat, have to thank PR person, sitting on the floor16 rows from the stage!!!! about 4 hours ago from TinyTwitter

2009-11-24T13:15:00.002-05:00

MIGS 09 - Interview with Jonathan Cooper - BioWare

2009-11-19T19:20:00.021-05:00

Test

MIGS 09 - Interview with Patrick Plourde from Ubisoft

2009-11-14T08:55:00.002-05:00

MIGS - Yoichi Wada - President and CEO Square Enix - Keynote Speech

2009-11-08T17:22:00.002-05:00

In breaking news Stephen Tyler has quit Aerosmith!

In other breaking news Stephen Tyler formally of Aerosmith is the ugliest man alive!

Note - I don't really care about the breakup, just wanted the excuse to make the ugly joke. I amuse myself at least.

2009-11-08T16:06:00.003-05:00

It's no secret that my eventual goal is to have a creative director style role in the video games industry. In fact I have three solid game designs in various stages of completion. One for Bioware, one for Ubisoft and one for special one for EA. These are all tailored to the strengths of the individual studios.

Video Games are my true passion, not just playing them, but the design thought, the histories of the studios, and the desire to join this industry. The feeling of creating of one of these games in my head is my true and deepest dream.

To this end I am going to be attending the Montreal International Games Summit next week (Nov. 16 & 17). People from Square Enix, Valve, Bioware, Ubisoft and many other studios will be there and discussing aspects of the gaming industry. Game Design Workshops, cinematic progression, pitching your game and other topics will be discussed. I am there on a press pass for BlogCritics and will be LiveBlogging a few speeches, plus making a number of posts about the event itself.

This is it people...my first real steps towards my dream, hope it doesn't get crushed.

P.S. My Ubisoft design is essentially done. First chapter fully storyboarded, with dialogue, progression and characters fleshed out. Gameplay mechanic is fully described, as is the unique narration technique I developed and I mapped every chapter out already. This is a game I would LOVE to play, but it is not a pie in the sky design, it is something Ubisoft could do very well and sell boatloads of.

2009-11-03T19:26:00.000-05:00

Best.Walken.Ever!

2009-11-02T15:21:00.003-05:00

PSA: This post in no way is meant to imply that I do not love and cherish my long-time friends...just some deep thoughts

Friends, I have a good amount of them, most of them are long time friends, greater then 10 years, some going back 20 years or so. I love this core group of people, but as I grow and age and learn to try new things I find myself recently (last year or two) opening myself up to new friends. Not to replace my current friends, far from it, but to represent some of my new interests.

You see I don't make new friends very easily, that is not to say I am not outgoing, personable and even charming, without sounding egotistical I believe I can be all of those things. It really is a matter of trust, respect and opening myself to new people and ideas. I tend to close my true self out and while I have tons of acquaintances, I have a relatively small group of true friends as I don't let people in often.

Why is that? Not really sure? I did lose my best friend when I was a teenager and I think that affected me a great deal. I don't think that is entirely why, at this stage in my life I am so busy I tend not to invest a lot of myself into people emotionally unless I feel they are, well worth it sounds harsh, but essentially that is what it boils down to. If I think someone is interesting and could be someone I regard as a friend, I realize I internally weigh them and decide if I can open myself to the idea of friendship with them. It sounds in depth and anal, but it really isn't, I find that within a short time I can determine if I think the person is someone I would enjoy a friendship with.

Why is it such a big deal? Well I consider friends as someone I would sacrifice for, help, support, and invest myself in them and their well-being. I am a very emotional person (despite some opinions to the contrary) and when I click into a friend mode I take that very seriously. Acquaintances I will hang with, get coffee, get lunch, but the core of me will not get revealed, I hold that too close to my chest.

Over the past year or two I have made inroads to some new friends, I would say I have a handful of new friends that I have opened myself too. Some of them don't quite get what that costs me, some do, but regardless I am happier because of it as it has been years since I have let myself have new friends and it is a nice feeling.

PSA 2: I don't think I have had many introspective posts on this blog, usually just hooray a new game or technology type things...probably won't happen often.

2009-11-02T08:51:00.002-05:00

ZOMG! Harley Quinn is one of my favorite DC female character, seriously, it is truly funny because she was created for the Batman Animated series, not for the comics. She is sexy, funny, psychopathic and completely loyal to the Joker despite all the crap he has done to her. I actually liked the dark sexy spin they gave her in Batman: Arkham Asylum and a female gamer/nickelodeon star Lisa Foiles seems to like Harley Quinn (and Kotaku) just as much as I do:

That is truly the Sexy!

2009-11-01T16:45:00.002-05:00

In no way do I need more games...really I don't, and with Dragon Age dropping on tuesday I REALLY don't need more games. But I was at Roger's Video and the had a 50% off PS2 sale, a 30% off used x360 sale and a buy one get one free sale, end of the day I got Gears of War 2, Rise of the Argonauts and Shadow of the Colossus for the grand total of 38 dollars taxes in! That deserves a woot!

2009-10-24T12:36:00.002-04:00

OK, I have to talk Borderlands again. It truly has gripped me in it's OCD inducing claws. This game has such a wonderful loot drop system and I am a true sucker for Mission based RPG's. I truly love games that let you grab a number of quests and then let you pick and choose which ones to complete and in what order.

Done well
--The map and compass clearly shows you where your next point of interest for the quest is.
--Quests are interesting and varied, fetch quests, challenges, boss fights, mayhem and repair variants are all there.
--Rewards are very rewarding! Generally you get XP and money, sometimes a great weapon. The loot is so cool that you really want that next gun, shield or mod.
--Quests have level indicators and they are accurate. I tried a level 15 when I was level 12 and paid for it in blood. Nice to see this done well.

Done not so well
--Quests for the most part have no personality. The ones from people resonate a little bit, but the ones from the bounty board are always for people, but you are never given their motivation or history. A little background would have gone a long way
--I don't mind the overland back and forth, but give the low level monsters AI a little nudge and teach them not to attack people who could kill them with a sneeze. Pup Skaag's keep attacking me, it is now an annoyance, like mosquitos.
--Quick travel would be lovely, even if it is just back to FyreStone to hand in quests. The vehicles are great, but it is tedious to drive back everytime...

Not related to the quests things that suck
--Really only the load times are annoying. With a 2.7Gb install I would have assumed we would have short loads, nope! Moving between the maps takes about 70 seconds...that is 40 seconds too long

I do truly love the game despite my quibbles. It has made me late for work three times as I played in the morning for a bit and I am thoroughly sleep deprived from plying too late daily.

2009-10-22T10:30:00.003-04:00

So Borderlands is a game I have been looking at for some time. It is labeled as a Role Playing Shooter (RPS) and it is just that. It has a really well done FPS engine (no surprise as the developer is Gearbox) but the game using that engine is your classic North American RPG structure.

-Odd characters who assign missions
-Overarching story with smaller sub-quests
-lots of varied monsters
-customizable skill tree and level progression as well as a deep equipment system.
-Lots of dialogue, missions and rewards that are satisfying.

The game is really, really violent (geysers of blood), has a mad-max vibe with some dark and twisted humour, and the cell shaded graphics add a great feel to the game as a whole.

People will compare this to Fallout 3, Fallout 3 however was a more realistic take on a post-nuclear world with less humour. It is also an incredibly deep RPG wrapped around a basic FPS engine. Borderlands is a more casual RPG experienced wrapped around a stellar FPS engine...both are great, Borderlands has a little edge in the fact that it has 4 player co-op using your canned character, carrying over your benefits and rewards between single and multi-player games.

Very recommended, and tons of fun!

2009-10-21T09:41:00.006-04:00

I discovered Emily Haines of Metric when she first collaborated with Crystal Method on their Divided by Night album (on the Come Back Clean track) then with Tiesto on his Kaleidoscope album (Knock You Out track). I recently acquired all the Metric albums and I am astounded by the sheer quality of her voice. I tend to like artists that have a diverse range and not just one 'sound', Emily Haines is one of those people and I recommend her work with great enthusiasm...plus she is so edgy/yummy that it just adds to her appeal.

2009-10-19T19:39:00.002-04:00

Mother of God, this trailer shows nothing of the actual game, but a hell of a set and a seriously sexy female Boba Fett...well a mercenary in the same Mandalorian armor anyway.

2009-10-16T18:28:00.003-04:00

YUM!

Enjoying a great new beer, Sapporo, Japans oldest brand, started in 1876, Super Yum!

2009-10-15T10:42:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, life/work/play has been so busy lately that I haven't posted a lot, will try to be more consistent. What have I been doing you ask?

Well I played a Game:
PSP Review: SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny

Beautiful, great engine, great sound, great controls, no game to be found. No gameplay modes worth lingering with, a shame really.

I watched a Movie:
Blu-ray Review: Shaun of the Dead

Fantastic movie, a true classic in the genre and a must see for anyone. The Blu-ray treatment is excellent, great visuals, stunning audio and worthwhile extras.

I read a Book:
Book Review: The Lost Throne by Chris Kuzneski

A good read, no new ground is broken by any means but the characters while a little cliched are interesting and the plot was engaging.

And I saw a great Electronica concert in Montreal:
Concert Review: Tiësto - Kaleidoscope Tour, Montreal, October 2

Tiësto gave a hell of a show and had all of us dancing in the Bell Centre like it was a club till 3:30 in the morning. A true performer he looped, mixed and played synth tracks like a maestro and enjoyed it as much as we did.

So I have been busy! ;p

2009-10-13T13:19:00.002-04:00

OH.MY.MOTHER.FUCKING.GOD!

If I had not pre-ordered Dragon Age: Origins already I would be running out of work right now to do so. I need to book some time off in November to just play this I think.

Wow, and yes that is Claudia Black as the Mage. Yummy!

2009-09-23T12:51:00.003-04:00

Am I a bad person because I found this incredibly funny? A great Hitler rant from a movie called Downfall and the death of Michael Jackson make a great mashup. perfectly timed text in the subtitles, it could almost be exactly what he is saying.

2009-09-16T10:46:00.004-04:00

So Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 will be a great game. The original game (sans the Sigma) was amazing on the Xbox 360 and they are adding more extras, more bosses, more characters and tweaked (better, not worse) graphics. They also added some motion control using the sixaxis technology, this additional control is the focus of this so bad it is good advertisement.

Yes, the motion sensors in the controller directly manipulats, umm, movement of the breasts.

wow...Japanese are truly weird...the best part is the guy at the end.in a robe.with a glass of wine.

2009-09-11T10:22:00.003-04:00

Know why I love Batman: Arkham Asylum? Well many reasons, it is truly a fantastic game, but the real reason is how it handles collectibles.

Many games have them, scraps of paper that tell a story, audio clips relating a nightmare, things like that. Arkham Asylum has patient recordings and an audio diary split into many parts on Arkham's history. All of the material is amazing and what they did that was unique was never present them out of order.

Each main villain has 5 patient logs where they talk to therapists, even if you find one, let's say the third you found for Joker, and in fact it is the fourth one you COULD have found, it is listed as the third. Basically they don't (unlike every other game) dictate that a recording is number X. Every recording is the next one in sequence for that person no matter where you found it.

This is a smart move that is actually quite simple really, but no one else has really done it before...kudos Rocksteady for thinking outside the box.

2009-08-26T13:03:00.003-04:00

Aww yeah!!

Batman: Arkham Asylum is the love child we have all been looking for in a Videogame. Paul Dini wrote it....and the the kids show restraints were removed. He has crafted a brutal, gritty and very edgy Dark Knight vibe that has plenty of dark twists and nasty secrets. From historical patient recordings, to Jokers taunts of Batman, to the mass murder of guards and inmmates this game features a dark Joker that we love to see. Mark Hammil is at his absolute best voicing the joker on this game, I have never heard him so engaged as the character.

The game looks, plays, sounds and is simply GREAT. There is stealth, puzzle solving, 100+ riddlers from the riddler to solve, great dynamic fighting system, plenty of gadgets and bios to enjoy. If you have a PS3 or a X360 you must own this game. Walmart is selling this game for today and tomorrow for 38.83, after that it jumps to 69.99. This game is averaging 92% in ratings, one of the highest (if not highest) ranked games of the year.

2009-08-24T14:00:00.004-04:00

In other gaming news I am a sucker for a great concept picture, this one from the upcoming Bethesda Softworks game Wet was just too cool for school:

Well the game is launching soon and it is described as a highly stylized 3rd person action game. Shoot anywhere, anytime gunplay (think Stranglehold) combined with sword fighting and amazing acrobatics. The story is supposed to be zany, serious and gory, plus the main character is ridonculously hot. I like any game that can turn the concept image above into a near perfect in-game model below. There is a demo live on the UK PSN store, gonna try it tonight!

2009-08-23T07:53:00.000-04:00

God I want Dissidia: Final Fantasy for the PSP so bad...here is a video that features one of my favorites, Squall Lionheart, versus Sephiroth...yeah, the game is that cool

2009-08-22T16:27:00.003-04:00

Wowee, big news at Gamescom with the PS3 Slim announced. Every feature of the current 80GB PS3 phat except the power button on the back, but with additional Bravia synch support and it features a 120GB hard drive. On top of the announcement of a 33% lighter and 36% smaller PS3 they also lowered the price on existing PS3's immediately to $299 which will also be the price of the PS3 Slim when it launches Sept. 1st.

This is huge news for Sony and will be a game changing moment for them. Many people have held off buying a PS3 due to the prohibitive price point and this is the time for them to buy. This year many games are coming only on PS3 led by Uncharted 2 we also have Demon's Souls, EyePet, Gran Turismo 5, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, PixelJunk Shooter, The Last Guardian and Heavy Rain.

Should be a good year, also the PSN keeps improving, we now have a portable ID that displays our trophies as bragging rights. I need to work on mine a bit more I think...

Get your Portable ID!

2009-08-20T08:01:00.005-04:00

Okay, I am ready to eat crow. Back at E3 a game was announced and when I did my E3 post mortem for Microsoft I made these comments about this Xbox 360 exclusive game.

'Shadow Complex – Nothing about this looks terribly interesting to me, I know I will be in the minority, but I could not feel any excitement about this announcement.'

Sigh, I am a weak, weak man (see Riddick post) and the hype post release for this game has been great. So I bought it last night and boy is it good. They were right, it is a 3d, modern day take on the Metroid formula. The maps, guns, tunnels, climbing, everything feels comfortable and solid. Add to this the absolutely STUNNING graphics and the game is rocking.

The main character is so generic though, a review called him Nathan Bourne (although his name is Jason) because he looks and acts like Jason Bourne but is voiced by Nolan North (of Uncharted's Nathan Drake fame). If you were on the fence, don't be, with collectibles, powerups, amazing action, hidden paths, smart backtracking (they give shortcuts) this game is a winner.

Video Games | Shadow Complex | Launch Trailer

2009-08-18T08:03:00.003-04:00

Do I even need to say the words I am weak anymore?

To my defense it was only $21.99, I have never seen it cheaper then $45 before and it is two games in one package. The amazing Xbox game Escape from Butcher Bay enhanced with the new engine created (and it looks very nice) and Assault on Dark Athena. The Riddick games are much better then the sequel to the movie was and really nails the dark gritty aspect of the character. Plus Vin Diesel is dreamy!

2009-08-17T10:27:00.002-04:00

Holy crap, stupid games dropping at the same time. Dissidia: Final Fantasy is releasing on the same day as Batman: Arkham Asylum. Damn, this is a game I have been looking forward to for some time. In a nutshell:

-It features a hero and villain from the first 10 Final Fantasy games.
-It is an RPG meets fighting game, but the fighting is dynamic and strategic, not button combination based.
-Tons of collectibles, two story modes that can be played multiple times with the various characters.
-Amazing graphics, sound and interactivity.

Plus you get to play as the Final Fantasy character who has a sword tail!

2009-08-15T09:13:00.002-04:00

Drool...August 25th is so close!

I actually enjoyed another Batman game a few years ago. It was the Batman Begins tie in game. I actually finished it on the XBox (doesn't happen often). Nothing groundbreaking, but a solid, fun and good looking (at the time) game.

2009-08-12T14:46:00.002-04:00

I love it when a demo sells you on a game. The demo for Uncharted did it, the demo for Ratchet and Clank did it, the demo for Watchmen: End is Nigh did the opposite thing. I recently played the demo for Batman: Arkham Asylum and it impressed me quite a bit.

Aside from the characters being a little bulky (it is the Unreal Engine, so bulky is all they can do) I felt they got the tone and feeling of the characters down perfectly. The tone is darker so there is almost an industrial style makeover on all the main characters and villains but it just works thanks to the darker themed story.

To add gravy to the fine chicken that is Batman: Arkham Asylum all the main voice actors from the Batman Animated shows return for this game, that means we have Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as The Batman as well as big names such as Arleen Sorkin, Richard Moll and Ron Pearlman as main villains.

The game has a solid action mechanic, an engaging cat and mouse style stealth element and puzzle aspects in the form of detective work to track down clues or paths through the asylum. Graphically and audibly the game is terrific and I pre-ordered it right after playing the demo.

By pre-ordering I received a special costume, play as the joker challenge rooms and I just discovered there is a private Playstation Home Space...a batcave you can live in!! Damn, this may make me re-log into Home again!

2009-08-04T10:24:00.004-04:00

Worst.Ad.Ever!! Well probably not, but what is Sony thinking? here is the image, then we will dissect:

The girls seem to old to be enjoying a Pony game, I could be wrong, but 13-15 year olds don't tend to play with Pony type things in public.
Shouldn't some of the other girlz have PSP's as well? Wouldn't that make more sense?
If you are going to call them girlz...sigh...at least show them as real gamers and not casual. The girlz tag makes it seem like you are calling them l33t gamerz (see I can do it to).
Did you really write OMG Lilac PSP? OMFG WTF is wrong with U? Lolz
Is it just me or do the middle two girlz look like they are laughing at the girl with the PSP?

What would I have done?

Show three - four girls (no Z dammit) sitting around their basement (on beanbags, Sumos or couches) playing PSP. Angle two of them so that the screens are visible.
Show real girls, casual, comfortable clothing, hanging out with friends.
the viewpoint perspective is not bad it just needs to feel more natural

2009-07-30T16:30:00.003-04:00

So I listen to Prince and only Prince nearly 95% of my music listening time. Seriously. In fact I own 37 Prince albums, ripped them all to MP3, created a private streaming station on my server and burned three MP3 Prince CD's (120+ songs on each disc) for car listening.

Lately I have been in a techno mood so, GASP, I did not listen to Prince for about 3 months. Instead I listened to Crystal Method (love the new disc Divided by Night), MSTRKRFT, Underworld, Freelands Cope and Paul OakenFolds Perfecto Vegas. Loved listening to all of this, Crystal Method stood head and shoulder above the others but the vibe was great.

But like in the GodFather Prince keeps pulling me back in, I started listening to The Man again yesterday and damn is he good. Really, if you like music at all I can recommend at least 15-20 songs that you will A) not know is Prince and B) love enough that you sing, hum and move as he grooves.

Listening to D.M.S.R. makes me want to move and sing...

D.M.S.R. (LP Version) - Prince

Oh yeah, and in my humble opinion, Prince's Band from the Musicology tour was the best he has had in 2 decades and way better then his current band (no offense). Watching them live, and in live videos they had chemistry, they joke around, played to each others AMAZING strengths and were just plain FUNKY!

2009-07-28T15:39:00.002-04:00

This is why I love following Nathan Fillion on Twitter...he is one of us! Except with fame and money...and stuff.

@NathanFillion Today in History, in 754, Pope Stephen II, made Pippin de Korte King of France. Pippin then went on to aid delivery of The Ring to Gondor.

2009-07-28T11:49:00.003-04:00

Oh Olivia Munn, I just can't quit you:

She recently attended Comic-con and underwent many costume changes as she performed at the show. I say performed because she knows she is a geek sex symbol and if she was not being paid she would not choose (I am sure) to walk around in various states of undress at a comic book convention signing shirts and hands of all the sweaty man creatures at the Con.

Having said that Olivia Munn does seem very sincere and very quirky, on her site she has many video segments as she was followed around for the entire 48 hour convention by a camera crew. Entertaining stuff and you could see the strain of being friendly when being swarmed at all times was getting to her a bit. Well worth watching even to see the behind the scenes look at a celebrity as they hit one of these conventions.

2009-07-27T10:10:00.003-04:00

Dammit, I refused to buy anymore costume packs for LittleBigPlanet, but how can I resist marvel Sackboys? Especially when they look this good:

Apparently these were announced at Comic-Con, now if we could get professional quality Marvel themed levels...that I would buy in a heartbeat!

2009-07-23T15:27:00.003-04:00

I have mentioned before that I am weak, further proof is in my recent purchases. I ordered BlazBlue online (then found it a week later at retail...sigh) and still have not received it. I decided, with input from friends, that I would get the Mad Catz SFIV Fight Pad for the Xbox 360. Ended up getting the Blanka version

Couple of concerns, it is wired, which apparently satisfies tournament rules, but still...wired?? Also the only Xbox 360 fighting game I have is DC Universe versus Mortal Kombat, and of course the Fight Pad, for some reason, controls the game perfectly but cannot execute special abilities. This is a known problem that makes no sense!

Of course I mentioned I am weak, EB Games is doing a door crasher a day at their store, yesterday it was Call of Duty: World at War Collectors edition, priced so cheap at 39 bucks I had to get it. Sigh...Great game though!

2009-07-14T16:15:00.004-04:00

I am a sucker for great 2d fighting games, a new one BazBlue has really caught my eye. I have buddies playing it and they can't stop talking about it. I also love the fact that the limited edition is a free upgrade from the regular and gamestop offers a huge art book when you purchase...the game looks crazy good, I would put money down (mine) that I will have it by tomorrow.

Limited Edition deets...

2-Disc, 42 track, BlazBlue soundtrack! (that’s right, 42 tracks, that’s 13 more tracks than the previously released original soundtrack in Japan!) – Done!

And finally, the pride and enjoy of this Limited Edition; the bonus disc that contains tutorials, created by top players of Dustloop.com and Shoryuken.com. The tutorial will breakdown the basics and advanced strategies per character. It’ll even walk you through various combos, that will challenge the combo fiend in all of us. And just when you think you can’t get enough of it, we’ve included high level match play, so that you can see the strategy and tactics in play. Narration is also done by the players themselves plus a special guest star…