Semicoherent Lemurisms

Hawai'i, Day fzwgt

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:49:46 GMT

The Chrysler Sebring is as terrible as this island is wonderful.

Things the Internet Teaches Me, Volume I

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:24:57 GMT

There are many things I have learned from the Internets. Some of them have been more worthwhile than others.

In this instance, however, I've learned that, apparently, I am unique. Especially when it comes to this year's round of video games.

I appear to be the only person on the entire Internet who:

- Really, really enjoyed Mirror's Edge (Look for a 10-second game review in...yeah) and has very few complaints about it.

- Replayed Mirror's Edge because I liked it

- Did not feel an overwhelming need to kill all the children in Fallout 3's Lamplight Caverns. I cannot believe the number of individuals who think being called a Mungo by an invincible child was anything important at all, or even allowed it to colour their view of the game. I stand in slack-jawed amazement at how many people issue forth unending fonts of rage about this.

Stay tuned for Things The Internet Teaches Me, Volume II, in which I discuss what I've learned about cats.

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:51:16 GMT

I'm hungry. This hasn't helped.

This apparently is a list of 100 foods everyone should try once. The rules are to bold out ones you've tried, strike through ones you wouldn't want to eat, and leave alone ones you haven't tried. Here's the obligatory link:

The Omnivore's Hundred

Full ~~Monty~~ Disclosure: Italics are my own ramblings

1. Venison - Surprisingly delicious, though I prefer moose.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare - Once you get over that it's raw beef, it's really quite tasty.
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue - Though I wish I hadn't.
8. Carp - Get bass instead.
9. Borscht - The engine of Mother Russia, it's plain but surprisingly satisfying.
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari - Depending on who cooked it and how, this can be wonderful or taste like a rubber tyre.
12. Pho - Not a fan of Vietnamese cuisine, I'm afraid.
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses - Banned from French public transit? What could possibly smell that bad? I kid, I kid.
17. Black truffle - My mouth says yes, my wallet says no.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns - One of the treasures of Chinese food, these.
20. Pistachio ice cream - Unnervingly delicious!
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - Ow.
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas - Ow.
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo - The Southern version of "Whatchagot Stew," recipes for gumbo are consistently delicious.
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. ~~Whole insects~~ - I know they're good for you and all but...I. Will. Not. Eat. Bugs.
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk - My aunt owns a goat farm. Very drinkable!
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme glazed original donut - So good you can only eat one!
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - I am sure I have eaten these, and I'm also sure I didn't care for them, despite being half-Japanese.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal - Who hasn't...
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine - It's cheese curds and gravy on top of fries. What's not to like? ...Except for everything I just mentioned...
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads - Just don't tell me what it is before I eat it.
63. ~~Kaolin~~ - You know, dust to dust and all, but...eugh.
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain Best part of Thai restaurants.
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill - Deer killed on the highway - that's where the venison came from.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum - Order it Thai Spicy and kiss your sinuses goodbye.
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant I may have to make a special trip for this someday.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers - Dandelion salad counts, right?
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam - Go to Hawai'i, they will serve you spam and you won't know it's spam and oh god that was spam but it was good now I'm confused
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor - Is this a food? Seriously? Can you put that much delicious on one plate? Won't you get arrested or something?
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee - I might kill a small squeaky creature for a bag of Jamaican Blue Mountain.
100. Snake - Snake? Snaaaaaaaaaake!

Return of Ten-Second Game Reviews!

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:47:20 GMT

What? It's been four months?

Surely you jest.

Team Fortress 2 (360): Earlier this year I finally managed to buy myself an XBox Live Gold subscription, permitting me to walk through those golden gates into online gaming. I've never been a huge fan of online games to tell the truth; for the most part the people you meet will either spend every waking moment playing a game and therefore destroy you before you've begun to understand where the fire button is or will be such an obnoxious dickbag that you'll be put off of gaming forever. Or, at least, that was my experience with Halo. For whatever reason, the online community in TF2 appears to be slightly more refined than the vast majority of XBox Live, possibly due to the comparatively low player count as compared to Halo or TF2 on Steam. The gameplay experience is, therefore, noticibly improved - despite having only a rudimentary idea of what the maps looked like, I found myself able to have fun within the first ten minutes of joining a server.

There really isn't a lot to TF2 on console, there's six maps (which are variously capture-the-flag or territory control), nine classes and enough explosions to make the TSA uncomfortable at ninety paces. The gameplay is balanced to an almost atomic level, with excellent map design and fantastic work and attention to detail paid to the different classes, and above all it is really, really fun. The cartoonish world of TF2 makes it difficult to take seriously - it reminds you that you're playing a game, and a very silly one at that. There's really not much more to it, really - TF2 is a fine evolution of the original Team Fortress mod for Quake, and a fitting successor to Team Fortress Classic. I've spent more time on this game than I care to admit, which only helps solidify the score of A+.

On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One: The overwrought title can only, of course, have come from the seething, churning mind of Penny Arcade's Tycho. After years of providing critiques and opinons on the game industry, Mike and Jerry have decided to enter it on their own accord, presumably while wearing a flameproof suit. RSPD is an interesting take on the RPG genre, combining a remarkable turn-based combat system that Square could take a few pointers from, beautiful artwork, snappy writing, the Cthulu mythos and, of course, the familiar PA "flava." While the game's episodic nature makes it short, the content that is there makes for a very fun time-waster. The price of admission is reasonable, the game is fun, and to the target audience of millions of Penny Arcade viewers, it is a smorgasboard of in-jokes and references, earing itself an A-.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: I have traditionally been highly resistant to the Call of Duty franchise, feeling that the version of World War II they try to recreate was best visited in Saving Private Ryan and seeing little reason to try and improve on it. Call of Duty 4, then, is the first title in the series I have given serious time to, and Infinity Ward have done an excellent job of parting me with my free time. Like many outdoor squad-based shooters as of late, CoD4 is fairly short but it packs so much into its play time that it's easily forgiven for that. The majority of the game is tight, gripping and intense, with a gritty realism that works very well. The game's atmosphere of in-your-face sensory overload (and primary focus on the British SAS) helps to drive home the point that these are scary people doing scary things, and in a refreshing change of pace there are few if any of the Jingoistic flag-waving rah-rah hallmarks that have begun to define the war-shooter genre. The game has a battle mechanic that sits somewhere between Half-Life and Halo with a dose of (I'm told) Gears of War thrown in for good measure, and it works very well. The AI is very intelligent, battles flow smoothly and the environments are beautiful - or as beautiful as bomb-cratered Totally Not Baghdad can be. There are a wide variety of missions and the game has several moments and sequences that truly stand out as some of the best directing and writing in games, full stop. There aren't a lot of complaints I can make about CoD4, even its headache-inducing difficulty feels more like this game is hard rather than the A.I. is cheating. I'm not going to be rushing out to buy Call of Duty 5 seeing as it goes right back to World War II, but for this fantastic breath of fresh air, Infinity Ward nets themselves an A.

Even more!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:00:25 GMT

Type your cut contents here.

All taken at the Mendenhall Glacier this weekend. Cheers!

Vanity

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:37:28 GMT

So I finally have a car that I think is neat enough to get a vanity plate for - hush up, I think they're fun.

Alaska allows six characters (including spaces) for plates, and I've narrowed it down to...

GLADOS
PORTAL
DALEK
TMELRD

Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

So, theremins are awesome.

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:27:28 GMT

Yes, yes they are.

Developed in the early 1900s by one Leon Theremin, the man was trying to come up with a kind of non-contact proximity sensor. Incredible where musical instruments come from, isn't it?

The theremin is one of the only instruments (and I believe the only well-known one) designed to be played without touching it, as it works on principles of electromagnetic field manipulation. In essence, a theremin is two radio-frequency oscillators controlled by sense antennae - one controls volume (and is a fixed oscillator, meaning it works at one frequency) and the other controls the instrument's pitch (a variable oscillator). The principles by which theremins work is exactly the same as moving your hand around a television or radio antenna to alter its reception - it is literally played by waving your hands in the air. Unfortunately, you can't do it like you just don't care, or it'll suck.

Most people have heard a theremin at one point or another whether they realise it or not - the theremin was an integral part of many sci-fi shows and movies through the 1980s, and is still used whenever an otherworldly or "alien" sound is required or desired in a score. There are even several living theremin virtuosas, and a company called Moog sells a line of performance-quality pre-built theremins or theremin kits.

Off the top of my head, a couple of places theremins have been used have been in Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit and the new Doctor Who TV series, both during the opening titles. The X-Files and Star Trek both made heavy use of theremins, as did (I believe) Forbidden Planet.

Apparently the Pacific Science Centre in Seattle has a theremin in the lobby of one of the IMAX theatres that you can try to play - I'll have to hit that when I do PAX this year.

You never forget your first Doctor...

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:37:24 GMT

Okay, okay, I'm way behind the times here but bear with me - Alaska is a kind of time machine all on its own.

My mum got me Doctor Who: The Complete First Series from 2005, with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor.

I have to say, that was some of the best TV I've seen in a good, long time. Eccleston was an amazing actor, and just blew me away with his portrayal of the Doctor. I'm also deeply enamoured with the writing and editing - the Doctor's first confrontation with a Dalek was seriously intense. I hadn't expected them to bring such (believable!) darkness and fire to something that looks like a pepper mill.

Of all the episodes though, I have to say that The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances was probably the most outright creepy. There's something about gas masks, the child's plaintive cries for his mummy, and the masterful manipulation of atmosphere that just was terrifying on a visceral level.

It did an excellent job of balancing between self-referential acknowledgments to how much of a campy show it is ("Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, 'Ooh, this could be a bit more Sonic?'") and delivering a very solid dramatic content that never felt rushed or incomplete. I'm one of the people that loves seeing what props were made out of (Heavy use of plumbing bits in Doctor Who, which was awesome), so that was really fun too.

So now I finally "get" Doctor Who - and boy, do I feel silly for waiting this long. I was terribly fond of the Ninth Doctor but have heard nothing but praise for David Tennant as the Tenth - so I'm eagerly waiting the arrival of the Series Two box set. Just great, great stuff.

...yes, I cried when he sent Rose home...

Moar!

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:33:59 GMT

Yesterday I went rock-climbing at our local indoor climbing gym, and hauled my camera with me. A good friend of roseneko and I was there, and she's quite photogenic.

Maybe a couple others later if they come out well. This one was nice, though.

On a very related note, while I love my camera to bits at about ISO 500 it starts producing annoying-to-me amounts of noise. Not wanting to pony up for Photoshop and the GiMP lacking a real nose reduction filter (GREYCstoration and faking it with Gaussian blur don't count), I picked up a copy of Noise Ninja by PictureCode.

It is The Shit.

Enjoy!

Lookie!

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:28:00 GMT

So something I haven't mentioned here is that I've had a really bitching camera for about 8 months now, and have thoroughly enjoyed my purchase. I've found photography to be rewarding and fun, plus it's something else I can look like I know how to do.

I've gotten a number of shots that I've been really pleased with, and for the most part those show up on my Deviantart site at rsable.deviantart.com. Since it's recently come to my attention that more than one person reads this (Hi, Cyrano!), I thought I'd start linking some of the shots I really like here, too.

Spring is beginning to break through here in Southeast Alaska, and all the green things are beginning to emerge from the ground. I took a walk this last weekend and got a pair of shots I'm really happy with, which you will find after the cut.

Type your cut contents here.

This was actually just a patch of moss that caught my eye. In reality it's about the size of an outspread hand, but the wonders of zoom lenses and reasonably close focusing distances make it look way bigger.

Just a plug here - The original files for all of these print nicely to about 13x19" ("Super A3"), and should you want to buy one, a 13x19" work on 100% cotton paper with archival, acid-free, lightfast inks from a professional printer, packed flat and shipped US Priority Mail from glorious Juneau Alaska (And signed, if you want) will run you 80.00USD from my hot little hands to yours.

This next one was a picture of a bracket fungus which I think some folks call "artist's conk," but we up here just call "bear's bread." I doubt bears eat it, but it was a neat picture anyway.

These are all taken with a Canon EOS 30D with a 28-135mm lens - I'm hoping to upgrade to a EOS 1Ds Mark II and some L-series glass later this year, but the sticker shock has yet to wear off.

Enjoy!

Like Magic (Updated with more pictures)

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:41:11 GMT

Audi Get!

Sunset shot - it was cold, so I hurried it. Not super-happy with it...

Sun-lit shot! I need a wide-angle lens.

The "allroad" badge, covered in your usual collection of Alaskan road grime. Makes it more X-TREME?

And there's a nice whole-car shot. Maybe I'll rent a fisheye lens to do one of those "car is running over the camera" pictures without destroying my camera by running over it.

This is the nicest car I've ever driven.

And now I own it.

Yeah.

Arty-farty shots aside, it's a 2002 Audi allroad quattro (their capitalization, not mine), with every stinking thing you can think of. Even power things that have only limited business being powered - automatic folding wing mirrors? Sweet! And everything still works! It's even got a variable-height suspension, gas discharge headlights, heated leather seats, and bitching rims.

And it's a wagon, because wagons are (to use the technical term), fucking awesome.

You say you want a revolution...

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:19:05 GMT

I am the Prophet of the Holy Spork, Bearer of the One True Tine.

"There are three tines," you say!

I say they are false tines, set here to tempt one into wickedness!

Follow the One True Tine to glory!

this has been a very boring day

I'm buying a car. Why am I buying a car?

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:49:10 GMT

So we moved out of our Very Nice First Apartment (tm) into what can be called the Ivory Bloody Tower. It's great - no loud neighbors, privacy, and we can crank the theatre as loud as we bloody want.

The downside is that our current car has no hope whatsoever of managing to escape from our new, very steep driveway - and little chance of escaping our (frequently, it seems) plowed-in street. I say to all of you 2004 Mazda 3 hatchback owners: Don't take it to Alaska.

So far our choices are boiling down to...

Door Number One: An International-Orange 2004 Ford Explorer Sport-Trac.
Why It's Awesome: Your usual SUV/truck unstoppable four-wheel-drive, every amenity you could stuff in (heated seats!), it's bright orange!
Why It Sucks: It's a Ford. I don't trust them to last much beyond five years.

Door Number Two: A red 2002 BMW 325XIT AWD sport wagon
Why It's Awesome: The BMW 3-series are some of the best cars on the road. Lots of enclosed cargo space, and goodish mileage.
Why It Sucks: Premium gas. Ow.

Door Number Huge: A black 1999 Chevrolet Silverado 2500
Why It's Awesome: It's huge. It's Chevy. It's totally unstoppable in 4x4 mode, has tons of extras (including an insulated shell topper), and is the cheapest of these.
Why It Sucks: Fifteen miles per gallon. Ow.

Door Number Awesome: Optimus Prime
Why It's Awesome: Can transform and roll out in any weather, plus can be persuaded to laser people I find annoying. Or their cars, anyway.
Why It Sucks: Runs on Energon, which is really hard to find.

Decisions, decisions.

Even More Ten-Second Game Reviews!

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 02:56:53 GMT

When will they ever end?

Mass Effect: RPGs are one of my favourite kinds of games. A well-executed role playing game will do exactly that; you assume the role of your digital avatar and are drawn into the game as much as, if not more than, a novel. Bioware's latest offering, Mass Effect, is an absolute triumph of the medium - the game tells a story of profoundly humbling scope, populated with incredible characters and excellent writing. Voice acting is (characteristic of many next-gen titles) superb, and the combat mechanic - once you get used to it - is enjoyable and pleasantly hectic. While the game is planned as a three-game franchise, this first installment actually has an ending, which is something more developers could learn from. Despite this, the game is not perfect. A commitment to keeping the game on one DVD leaves some noticeable rough edges to the game, especially on a second play-through. The game is chock-full of information, enough to spend dozens of hours reading and finding, and even at that you can feel in almost every frame of the game that the developers have more, wanted to include more, but couldn't. As a corollary, the game does not make use of the 360's hard drive for anything but saving - the resulting lack of a real caching mechanism results in the Unreal 3 engine chugging very badly in some key sequences, and the "texture pop" effect is visible in almost every environment. Despite all of this, Mass Effect is the shining jewel of Western-style RPGs and a great example of sci-fi storytelling. Warts and all, it gets an A-.

Guitar Hero III: The third Guitar Hero game is much like the other two - you have a guitar, you play the songs, you get points, and have a lot of fun. The addition of "battle modes" to the game is executed well, although it detracts from the "core" experience of the game somewhat. The music selection is much better than Guitar Hero II, including some really killer tracks (Welcome to the Jungle, Slow Ride, Black Magic Woman and La Grange), and the online capabilities are intriguing, if not completely necessary. When all is said and done, though, Guitar Hero III doesn't make you feel like you're living your rock star fantasies - it reminds you pretty often that you're just playing a game. The game is definitely worth a look, and it pulls down a solid B.

Rock Band: Okay. This is the eight-hundred-pound Silverback gorilla of music and party games. Taking the core idea of Guitar Hero and extending it to the limit, Rock Band lets you and three of your friends really rock out. Each song has tracks for vocals, drums, bass and lead guitar, making the Rock Band experience best with at least four people. The included guitar is fairly solid (despite a first-round batch of recalls), the microphone works very well and the drum pads stand up to an incredible amount of abuse. Rock Band's track list borders on phenomenal, including tracks like Enter Sandman, Dani California, Learn to Fly and Don't Fear the Reaper, with most tracks being original masters. Rock Band is more fun than it has any right to be, and when everything gets going, makes you feel like you're in a band - everyone has their part to play, and the game encourages a cooperative dynamic in ways that Guitar Hero doesn't come close to. Wil Wheaton's PAX 2007 keynote was built on the idea that gaming is a social activity - and with games like Rock Band, that idea is distilled into a physical reality. For being flat-out one of the most fun - and most accessible - games of this or any other generation, Rock Band nets another A+ with cherries on top

No, I still haven't finished Assassin's Creed or Super Mario Galaxy. At the rate I'm faffing about in Assassin's Creed (It's so fun!), it will be a while until I do that.

Not much more I can add.

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 02:05:51 GMT

I want Jon Stewart to smile again.

At last, my blog is complete again.

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 02:01:16 GMT

Well, no, no it isn't. In fact, it seems to me that the state of a blog is to never be finished. Be that as it may, this is a vaguely Todd themed post, so here we go.

Firstly, I finally did manage to see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and I have to say that it is in fact very good. Johnny Depp, as usual, turns in a performance so thorough and complete, it borders on the terrifying. His vision of Todd, speaking little and singing often, brings a taste of the macabre and horrific to musical theatre - which, in its own right, is delightful. I heartily recommend a viewing, especially for people who are fans of Tarantino's Kill Bill.

roseneko and I will be attending the Penny Arcade Expo again this year, and there is talk of there being a great Battle of the Rock Bands. Having purchased and enjoyed Rock Band so much that I have broken the drum pads, I have to say that I am very interested in this. Provided we can get the cooperation of our compatriots, the name we're going to try and pitch is Mrs. Lovett and the Meat Pies. Yes, full costumes, of course. I'm thinking Neo-Victorian steampunk, or going as characters from Sweeney Todd. I've already sketched out a few ideas for straight-razor drumsticks.

Finally, I have been annoyed with the HD format war since its inception, and I have been unhappy with Sony for a long time. I still hold the banner for HD-DVD, but I have a feeling that we're going to wind up as the Browncoats on this one. So, for hate's sake, I spit:

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit, and it's filled with the Blu-Ray assholes and the cadence is wrong now.

Maybe I should stick to pumpkin carving.

loud

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:19:50 GMT

screaming and thudding

upstairs

smells like video games

harshing the mellow, man

day after christmas

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:45:52 GMT

more ham

unending

and potatoes

christmas

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 18:42:31 GMT

ham

Winter Projects

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 07:25:19 GMT

Well, looks like going to Anchorage - where stores have heard of things like "launch day" - may have been a bad move for my wallet. Dropped by a GameStop, and damn, they had Assassin's Creed. Popped by Best Buy, and whoops, they had Rock Band.

So now I have Assassin's Creed and Rock Band.

And Mass Effect Limited Edition should be here by next Monday.

And an HD-DVD player and five - no, six - movies.

And I'm building a Guitar Hero controller into a guitar.

Guess I know how to spend my free time this winter.

More ten second game reviews!

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 07:00:39 GMT

I left some out.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Okay, I actually played this one months ago, but since I update this with the regularity of a beef-scarfing octogenarian, it goes in here anyway. Years ago I played Morrowind, which I think was built on the Half-Life engine. At the time it was one of the most sprawling and detailed sandbox RPGs on the market, and kept that crown for a long time. Moving on to Oblivion, you have much of the same, a sprawling (if fairly generic), solidly-constructed fantasy world with the inevitable disaster that you, The Hero, have to save everybody from. An incredibly thorough character customization system means that you can easily spend hours creating your Hero(ine), and the excellent gameplay, positively colossal world and nearly endless sidequests will keep you entertained for dozens of hours if you like this kind of thing. The game's faults lie primarily in the abysmally short main storyline that consists almost entirely of fetch quests, the almost total repetition of non-story-crucial Oblivion Gate worlds, and the fact that it seemed almost impossible to actually play a magic-using character and not be crushed like a total maggot. Everything else aside, I found the game enjoyable, and give it a B+

Overlord: This game, billed by many as the sleeper hit of 07, places you in the shoes of an evil overlord, taking over for the previous fellow who was apparently slaughtered by a mob of angry peasants. By the game's own billing, your choices are to be merely kind of evil or totally evil; but with most games with this choice it boils down to actions that are really very good (to the point that the peasants will greet the Overlord as a hero, despite the fact he looks like the Witch King of Angmar) or positively extravagant evil (Such as setting the aforementioned peasant, their home, and their village on fire, then stalking away to pillage some more). I was expecting that no matter what your actions were that the people of the game would treat you with a kind of terrified awe at the very least, but if you can't bring yourself to slaughter everyone and everything in sight they ask if you'll marry their daughters and invite you to dinner. Conversely, if you go on a string of goodness and then make a single truly evil move, the characters in the game treat you like a leper, but they still aren't actually afraid of you. You're supposed to be the evil bloody overlord, for Pete's sake! You live in a spire of darkness on a mountain made of jagged rocks and the sundered skulls of your enemy and stand eight bloody feet tall, not to mention the huge army of minions you have at your utter command!

Beyond the inexplicable reactions of the characters in the game, Overlord can't decide whether it's a hilarious send-up of every fantasy epic ever (But in particular Tolkien's works) or a serious adventure puzzle game with more than a few choices that make it a controller-snapping exercise in frustration. Once you get a handful of hours in, it's guaranteed that if you have any kind of objective (like "get to the castle,") you will be blocked by some kind of obstruction that you need special Minions to get, then you'll have to detour to another part of the game which will have a similar problem, leading to a stacking of objectives and puzzles that eventually made my head spin. Overlord is the first game in a while that I haven't finished, and while I intend to get back to it someday there are a lot of other, better games that will be taking precedence over it. When the game does engage in satire and parody, it is fall-out-of-your-couch funny, but these sequences are short, altogether not numerous enough, and generally serve only to bookend the puzzle sequences. I really want to like this game more, but as it is I have to give it a C+

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey: Another game billed as a sleeper hit, this original-XBox generation game is one I slavered over from when I heard of it to about a year later when I managed to track down a copy. The game is set in a stunningly imagined universe that takes a few ideas from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, in particular the nature of story. I've played RPGs for years, since I was about old enough to read and Dreamfall is the best one I have ever played. In terms of single-player game experiences, it's a close tie or infinitesimally behind BioShock, and is absolutely one of my favourite games of all time. It isn't perfect, due to a number of budget cuts at the studio, FunCom had to abbreviate the ending, although they did a good job to make the end of the game consistent, like the end of a chapter instead of merely cutting it off. The voice acting is superb (On par with many animated movies like Shrek or Ratatouille), the character animations are amazing, the artistic styles of the game worlds are consistent, vibrant, and breathtakingly beautiful. If you can track a copy down and you're an RPG fan, absolutely play this game. Even better, if the ending does fuzz you, Ragnar Tornquist (The game's writer and one of FunCom's developers) has started to let out screenshots of an episodic continuation and true wrapping up of Dreamfall that should be hitting the tubes within the next year or so. A+

And that's it for now! I'm playing Guitar Hero III, and just picked up Super Mario Galaxy, so those will be showing up in the future sometime - most likely after I manage to come up for air after Assassin's Creed, Crysis and most of all, Mass Effect.

Damn it feels good to be a gamer.

Ten Second Game Reviews!

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:38:25 GMT

Since returning from PAX, I've been reminded that deep down in my soul I am, truly, a gamer. I love video games, I love the art (fuck you, Roger Ebert) they represent, and I love playing them.

So I have been.

BioShock : Probably the best game I have ever played. Immersive, artistic, with top-notch presentation, incredible art design, and some of the best voice acting I have ever heard in a game. The play style is very much in keeping with Irrational's previous title, System Shock 2, which can be both good and bad. Good because SS2 is one of the highlights of gaming over the past ten years, and bad because to certain people the gameplay can feel derivative. I fall into the "good" camp. The story is spectacular, the gameplay is rock-solid, and the Big Daddies are incredible. A+

Halo 3 : As a longtime Bungie fan, I was waiting for this with bated breath. As an extension of the highly-enjoyable Halo franchise it fills the shoes very well; the game is an evolutionary achievement over the already-excellent Halo 2, filling the nooks and crannies of the Halo formula thoroughly. That said, the game is not as good as BioShock, and as Zero Punctuation points out, almost everything it does has been done before and in some cases done better. The multiplayer component of the game is superb, the single-player campaign is almost criminally short but it does wrap up the story introduced with Halo. The game has a fairly high replayability for me, and the tweaks to gameplay, weapons, and balance are for the most part worth the time. If you are a fan of the Halo fiction, you will find a lot of information tucked away in Halo 3, and a familiarity with the previous titles certainly will help you enjoy the game more. Definitely worth the price of entry, but it won't blow you away as a revolutionary title. A

Geometry Wars : Woah, joining the 360 launch, I am. Simple, addictive, pretty colours, and a fun soundtrack. The best five bucks you will spend on a game, possibly ever. A

The Orange Box : This is gonna be divided up, because otherwise the paragraphs would take longer than ten seconds to read.

Half-Life 2 : I haven't had a PC since just before Half-Life 2 came out, so this is the first time I've experienced what some people call the greatest FPS of all time. I have to take exception tot hat, since while Half-Life 2 was by no means bad or average, it didn't really stand at the top of the heap, either. The game is beautifully rendered and artistically consistent throughout, and gives you an excellent aesthetic look at how the world of Half-Life has changed in the....fzwmp years Gordon has been out of things. The gameplay is solid, the puzzles are interesting and the major NPCs are memorable and well-performed, but the place of Gordon as the series' silent protagonist presented a barrier to my complete enjoyment of the game.

Other games have silent or largely-silent protagonists, for example we'll look at Jack from BioShock. Jack hardly says anything, but the structure of the game is such that you feel very pulled into the world around you; while the situations both Gordon and Jack find themselves in at the beginning of the game are similar, (A largely alien (as in, unfamiliar) setting they have been dropped into with little or preexisting knowledge of) Half-Life 2 paints the world and scope in broad brushstrokes, with precious little of the emotional underpinnings that really pull you into the world. The NPCs of the game all seem to act like nothing has happened with Gordon's apparent vanishing after Black Mesa, and you are often in situations that it would be really nice to have some kind of emotional connection to the game to, during which you are left alone. These sequences give an impression that Gordon is either suffering profoundly from post-traumatic stress disorder, or has a disconnection from reality that borders on schizophrenia.

By contrast, BioShock is constantly remininding you - through your interactions even with what constitute enemies in the game - of what is going on, and how you are changing things. Jack is a much more direct engine of change than Gordon, and his much more numerous interactions with NPCs reinforce this and pull you further into the game. Via your radio, you are almost never left truly alone, and the game takes pains to frequently give you emotional anchors via audio diaries or direct communication with other characters.

There are certain inconsistencies about the world of Half-Life that niggle my over-thinking brain. What, exactly, are the Stalkers for? They make little logical sense in the world of Half-Life and the Combine, other than as purely sadistic machinations of the Combine, which seem more interested in strip-mining Earth than sending a message to the puny humans. Why does no one react much to the horror that are the headcrab zombies? Those were people underneath them [and Alyx reacts properly poignantly to a Stalker], but everyone acts as though they're nothing more than the headcrabs themselves. Advisors, apparently one of the top tiers of the Combine, have the ability to fly and manipulate their environment telekinetically to a point that resembles omnipotence. Why bother building this enormous war machine when you can essentially use the Force to subjugate anyone or anything?

Taking it one step further, in Episode One (See below for more), you encounter a Combine soldier that has been taken over by a headcrab. Here you have a human citizen of Earth, hauled into the Citadel, had their mind utterly destroyed, their biology radically altered, and their very humanity stripped away from them, and then they are subsumed by an alien creature that corrupts them even further. The reaction of Alyx Vance, who is in most other ways the series' emotional tie, is to dub them "Zombines" while sounding gently amused. This is an absolute horror of the deepest level, and characters decide that a portmanteau is the right answer, rather than a new level of abject horror? Really.

Story elements aside, Half-Life 2 is an excellent game that is thoroughly enjoyable and easily one of the best shooters released in the past five years. Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance (And d0g) absolutely deserve their positions in the pantheon of memorable characters, but to me the game isn't the Holy of Holies some folk seem to think it is. B

That was ten seconds if you count really slowly.

Half-Life 2 Episode 1: Taking off immediately after Half-Life 2's non-ending, Episode One continues and fleshes out the Half-Life storyline in some very pleasing ways. The game feels much more tightly paced and scripted than Half-Life 2 did, and I was pulled into it more thanks to Alyx Vance accompanying Gordon almost everywhere. There are glaring moments of emotional disconnect (see above), but for the most part having another person that actually reacts to the world around them for most of the game was excellent. My biggest complaint is that Episode One is very short, I finished it in about three hours. A very enjoyable three hours, though. A-

Half-Life 2 Episode 2: Again beginning almost immediately after another non-ending, Episode 2 makes up the second part of Valve's three-part "Episodes" series, which collectively make Half-Life 3. This game meanders around a bit, but again fleshes out the characters and world of Half-Life on a much more personal level, as well as making some intriguing insinuations about what is going on. Again, you are accompanied by another character for most of the game (Alyx Vance or a Vortigaunt), which gives a connection to what is going on by seeing another entity react to it. Episode 2 is also short, clocking in at about four or five hours, but ends on what feels very much more like the close of a chapter, rather than the "oops, we lost the last few pages of the script" sequences that mark the completion of Half-Life 2 and Episode One. Now we just have to wait until 2035 for Episode Three to wrap it up and tell us what the hell is going on. A

Portal: From the makers of the fabulously Dadaist Narbacular Drop comes a game that introduces a truly innovative and above all new game mechanic. The game is unbelievably fun to play, with astoundingly solid gameplay, thorough design and a mirror polish shine. Everything about Portal screams that the people who made it love games, and then on top of it all you have some of the most hilarious pitch-black humour any game has ever had. Fallout always had a certain tongue-in-cheek quality bout it, but Portal's atmosphere, performing and writing take it absolutely to a new level. The voice acting is superb, the writing is phenomenal, the gameplay is fantastic and I'm out of superlatives, so you'll have to make due with that. While the game is fairly short at three to four hours, this is absolutely the best few hours you will spend playing a game for a long, long time. A+ with cherries on top

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption : While I haven't played the other two Prime games, I have been lead to believe that the series is well-received, combining excellent gameplay, beautiful art direction and solid pacing. The third installment, Corruption, continues that trend onto the Wii, and brings with it possibly the best controls for a medium-paced shooter ever. The interface wouldn't work for something like Halo, but with Metroid's slower pace (and fewer enemies), the Wiimote is the perfect instrument. Again, the art direction is superb, and ever aspect of the game shows a level of polish that is not just rare, but nearly extinct in the game industry. What plot there is exists only to string together the moments of battle, and the game is much more linear than, for example, the seminal classic Super Metroid. That isn't to say it's entirely guided by an invisible hand, there are plenty of opportunities to roam freely to your heart's content. This is an absolutely must-play game for the Wii, and while I love that odd little motion-sensing gizmo, there are precious few of them. If you own a Wii, you owe it to yourself to get it. A

Well, that's all for now. Another randomly-spaced update in...yeah.

PAX!

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:18:36 GMT

Well, we went to the Penny Arcade Expo.

Here's some pictures.

God it was fun! Exhausting, though...Gabe and Tycho are really stellar folk for putting this on, and I advise anyone with a single gamer gene to hit PAX up in 2008.

Stuff

Thu, 17 May 2007 22:46:11 GMT

So we all know by now that Jerry Falwell - who was by the standards of ordinary society quite an uncouth individual - has died. There's not a lot I want to say about that, other than I like to believe in an all-knowing, all-loving and all-forgiving God, and when Falwell arrives in Heaven I hope that he can see that a life of bigotry, hatred, and intolerance may have been in error.

"In the name of God" is a phrase that I feel is used in many ways in which it is completely inappropriate; I don't believe God is in the business of encouraging the ten thousand petty pogroms that are started in His name. Although I haven't been excessively put into the realm of religion - I don't attend church, temple or mosque - everything I have ever been taught or believe myself "God" says that this omnipotent, omniscient being can only be benevolent - or at worst, casually disinterested. The only acts that - and as hippie as it sounds, I believe it's true - the only acts that can or should be in the name of God must be those of tolerance, kindness, and love.

This is part of the reason that Fred Phelps - a name which any thinking person spits with the same venom they reserve for Stalin and Pol Pot - fills me with the kind of anger and frustration that few things can. Phelps is a man who deserves no attention; a pitiful creature that should have, in a rational world, have been left in his cage and ignored by all comers. Yet he has banded to himself a group of followers; people that make the Klan look like Sesame Street. By espousing a rhetoric of vitriol and insanity worthy of Jim Jones himself he has found a niche in the paranoid, fanatical sect of America which even Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson and the Fearless Leader don't want to reach. Phelps and his followers actively engage in the commission of hate crimes against American citizens; last I checked this was illegal.

Fred Phelps has decided he is going to picket Jerry Falwell's funeral.

Jerry Falwell was someone with whom I don't believe I have ever agreed. I found his politics distasteful, his interpretation of his religion offensive, and his success disgusting. However, Falwell was still a member of the human race, and more importantly he was an American. As much as I disagreed with Falwell, absolutely no-one on this Earth deserves to be even in the proximity of Phelps. If Falwell has earned - somehow the wrath of Phelps, then this is the singular time in my life that I will ever cheer him - if Jerry ticked Phelps off, he did something Goddamn right.

More people that perhaps should not be allowed to command a pencil

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:11:27 GMT

Toms' Hardware today is running a piece about Apple's "Get A Mac" campaign, and Bill Gates' assertation that Apple is "lying" about Vista. While I do my best to remain platform-agnostic and get a huge kick out of the ads, this is one place where I have to scratch my head and go "What?"

Tom's Hardware has, in the past, run a number of articles that may perhaps go against the grain of what is usually conventional wisdom in the tech world. For example, one of their article-writers ran a several-page diatribe (in the "Who Designed This Crap?" column) about how the iPod is, apparently, the lowest form of user-hostile UI. I feel they are entitled to their opinion no matter how much I might disagree with it, so we shall continue.

Today, however, Tom's is running a column from another source that appears to have been written not only by someone who has paid little attention to the technology world, but is either being paid by Microsoft or has buried their head in the sand so far that they must have learned to breathe mud by now. The tone of the article is smug and self-congratulatory, as though they had found some great secret behind the Apple ads. However, what is most irritating is the ending of the piece; the author suggests that if Apple's products are so great, why do they have to make things up about Vista?

This would be a valid point if the author didn't spend a significant amount of time either regurgitating baseless rumour from the Internet (It's on the tubes, it must be true...), or on occasion inventing things himself. So, if Vista's so great, why does the author have to make things up about Apple? The author furthermore spends his time attacking the Apple advertisements which are, if I may say, designed to put a particular impression into the viewer's mind. Absolutely, they are designed to make the Mac seem "cooler" and more useful than the PC and as a matter of fact, OS X does have some advantages over Windows. They are designed to sell a product. I suppose the author of this column must not watch anything else on TV if he's choosing the Apple ads to get worked up about.

Tom's Hardware is, of course, free to run whatever they like. They are an excellent source of news in the tech world and they tend to do some of the most thorough reviews of hardware and software on the Internet. However, for an entity as respected as they have become over the years, it is disheartening to see them run the kind of drivel I would expect to see on Fox News.