Terminator Toys

Well as has been the case since the glory days of Lucas in the late 70's, the release of a new movie also means the release of new toys, and I have to say I like what I've seen from the new Terminator movie.

As is often the case, without seeing the movie it can be difficult to decide which figures are worth picking up, and the Terminator line seems to be no exception. What it does have though is a couple of cool terminators that I'm actually really tempted by.

The selection I saw was at a local Wal-Mart, so by no means the complete collection, but I was quite impressed with the 6 inch T 600 and 700's real nice pieces of work, but don't take my word for it, check em out yourself:

At 12 bucks each they aren't even badly priced, not cheap but not ridiculous either. Taking into account whats on the toy shelves right now, these are my recommendation.

Unless you want a 12" articulated Spock.

Robs Word Reboot

So there are couple of words that I like but don't have a good use for them anymore, so I figured why not give them a reboot:

1. Fort: Now to be fair I've been using this one for a few years, but this is going to be the public unveiling of it. No one really uses forts anymore, but it's a good name, it implies safety, refuge, and strength. That's why I no longer have a home office, I have a fort. No need to really narrow this down much more than that, it's a place to store collectibles, computer and networking equipment, and generally kill things from. Home office == fort.

2. Communist: Having been a child of the 70's and 80's communism has always had connotations of evil and bad. To be honest I miss calling things communist, so just last week I decided to start using tit as a general derogatory term. Don't like someone? He's a communist. Don't like that car? It's communism on wheels. Don't like supper? It's communistic. The word just rolls off your tongue, and the best part is it's not profanity so use it whenever you want.

That's about it, but what more do you need? If you get too many new additions to the vocabulary they lose their effectiveness.

Go forth and use your new found words with passion and commitment. I do.

Remembering ROM SpaceKnight

Every once in a while I bring up the comic, ROM SpaceKnight. I totally remember paging through issues of this baby as a kid yet no one else seems to recall ROM.

ROM was a cyborg travelling the universe saving it from the evil of Dire Wraiths. I suspect it was kinda lame but I still remember it fondly. After reading the wikipedia post I didn't know he was started to support a toy franchise. I totally want a ROM action figure

Bikini Samurai Squad

Well, as mentioned in my last post I just had to try this game; here's the cover again, simply because I love it:

What can I say about this game? The gameplay is nothing less than unremarkable, it's a button masher of the first order; the enemies are by and large pathetic, old school zombies, sometimes with guns, and a few other creatures like birds; the bosses are laughable, just pound away on them and jump around a bit; and the settings are mundane, a cityscape, with the odd graveyard thrown in. The only real question that must be asked is, if it's so bad why did I play it for almost 3 hours straight the first time I put it in my 360?

In case you have forgotten about the cover art, may I please point your attention to the top of this article, that says it all. The opening cinematic is nothing less than breathtaking, watching her take a shower and then get "dressed", and I use that term very loosely. Watching her bounce, and I do mean bounce, around the screen with blood spraying and bodies dropping was enough to keep me going for a few hours, and it'll bring me back when I have some more time to commit to gaming.

Last time I said that you don't need to spend money on developers when you get that kind of cover art, but I have to modify that statement as I firmly believe they did spend some money on development and, more importantly, physics. The boobie giggle in this game is absolutely amazing, you find yourself using mainly jump moves just so you can watch those girls move. It must have taken most of their budget to get that one part of the game working correctly, and they did it well. God bless the Japanese!

You want a challenging game with great villains and an interesting story? This game ain't for you buddy. You want to watch mostly naked Asian girls jump and hop around while spraying blood on the camera? Pull up a seat because this game was made for you and me buddy!

Robs New Must Play Game

Bikini Samurai Squad

Yesterday I walked into my friendly neighborhood video game store to peruse the stock and ran across this little gem. Just looking at this I knew it had to be a horrible game, and the reviews I have since read have backed that up beyond all question. Still, I gotta say, that cover art made it mighty hard for me to walk out of the store without a copy, price tag and cranky wife be damned.

Why spend money on developers when all you need is good cover art? Gotta get me copy, and right quick.

I'll leave you with that thought and one screenshot from the game:

Deadliest Warrior Part 2

A few weeks ago I wrote about the show Deadliest Warrior and gave it a grudging approval. I thought today I would revisit this idea and give a more comprehensive picture.

First off let me say that I watch the show religiously, or at least as religiously as I watch anything on TV; I just can't get into most of the crap that passes for TV in this day and age, and don't even get me started on "Reality Television". I actually watch TV more for the commercials than anything else, I've always appreciated a well written commercial, but I digress.

Deadliest Warrior tries very hard to give itself legitimacy and, to be fair, to the untrained eye they succeed. For those people who are used to accepting whatever TV spoon feeds you and accept it as fact, then this show is a freakin' forensics textbook. If, on the other hand, you are used to drawing your own conclusions based on fact and knowledge, they tend to fall short. You need examples you say? OK, lets start with this:

Problem #1: Scientific Method is completely ignored. This is by far my biggest beef with the show, they have no procedures for their testing. If you want to test item X and compare its results to item Y you need to maintain procedures. For instance, with the Green Berets vs the Spetznaz, they had the Spetznaz drop a grenade into a Washing machine with a closed lid; they then had the Green Berets throw their grenade into a Plexiglases box the size of a closet, complete with dummies and furniture. Based on this they decided the American grenade was more powerful. It doesn't work like that, you need to keep the test conditions static to compare results. Whats happening here is they are running these tests and not liking the results so they run different tests and publish the ones they like. I don't think so Tim. You need to either put both grenades in a washing machine or a plexiglass box, preferabbly both!

Problem #2: Reality is ignored. In the episode the the Shao-lin monk and the Maori Warrior they had the Maori test his club/spear on the spine of a cow, not the carcass, the spine from a de-boned carcass. They even went so far as to say that by removing the muscle and tissue around the spine you are getting a true test. Bullshit! The muscle and tissue are what holds the body together, without it I have no doubt the Shao-lin monk could have broken that spine with his own staff. If they had hung a full side of beef, muscle intact, and let the Maori break its spine I would have been impressed.

Problem #3: The infighting. OK, this isn't a problem with scientific method or facts, but it really bugs me. Most of the episodes have the opposing experts fighting and bickering like children about who is better; is a little professionalism too much to ask for? Obviously they encourage this and I wish they would stop, I almost stopped watching the show a couple of times because of it. In the Pirate vs the Knight episode it got downright sickening, but I have to say the Green Beret vs the Spetznaz impressed me. These guys were professionals who each thought they were better but they also had respect for the other guys, I admire that. There's nothing wrong with thinking your good, but your only as good as the last guy you've beaten, and these dudes knew that.

Problem #4: The warrior: Again, not a problem with scientific method, but still a big problem, they ignore the man using the weapons too often. They test these weapons and decide which is stronger and better using their bullshit methods, but they often ignore the person holding it, how strong were they? What kind of discipline did they have? How intelligent were they? These are things that can be very hard to measure, thus they largely ignore them. I think the Yakuza would have beaten the mafia, not because of their weapons, but because of their discipline.

Let me also just say that it is possible to put a successful show on TV that actually pays attention to the facts. I'm not saying that Mythbusters does everything perfectly, but they take a lot time and pay attention to a lot of detials when they conduct experiments and, as a result, it's hard to argue with the fatcs they come up. Not impossible, but hard.

So, after reading that mini-rant, you wonder why do I keep watching the show. Well, just like I said last time, the final fight is worth the price of admission. I sit on the edge of my seat, enthralled by the drama of mortal combat that they actually do a really good job at. I always have me decision made on who'll win before the show even starts, but bloodlust is bloodlust, and those fights deliver the blood.

Stupid Plots: Transformers (2007)

With the new Transformers movie coming out shortly I was thinking about 2007s movie.

I know that most of my male counter parts loved Transformers (2007): I know people who when to the theater 3 times to see it raving about the hotness of Megan Fox and the cool action. For me however this movie was ruined completely when:
Captain Lennox takes control of the cubey thing and decides the best course of action is to take it to the city. Yeah asshole great idea! Lets take the unknown alien artifact that is known to turn every day objects into killing machines to a highly populated civilian setting. The giant robots chasing you will obviously hold back not wanting to hurt bystanders in the cross fire.

Seriously, that was the point when this movie went from being okay to being completely stupid. Plus how the hell did Shia LaBeouf from Even Stevens get to be a movie headliner before Christy Carlson Romano.

Turn Based RPG

So Darcy's post got me thinking about days gone by in gaming, yesteryear as it were. I have to say that I'm a solid new age gamer, I like my next gen hardware and I'm not complaining about anything we have today, but I do have to say that I miss the Turn Based RPG. Let me clarify, I don't exactly miss playing them, they just weren't adrenaline pumping or eye hand co-ordination testing, but I miss the experience. I guess you could say I'm nostalgic.

The turn based RPG had a big thing going for it, it's story. The computing power of consoles, and even computers, in the mid to late 90's just couldn't deliver what designers wanted so they were forced to write a better game, and thats what a quality RPG was, an excellent story that required you to work your way through and solve it. There were often shortcuts but eventually you had to sit down and let the story unfold to find out what was happening and why.

Dragon Warrior was my first taste at the Turn Based RPG, an 8 bit relic from the days of NES and I have no idea how many times I finished this game. It had all the elements that RPG are based on, hit points, monster combat, armor and weapon upgrades, and leveling up; it was quite an experience when you leveled up enough that you're main battle spell 'Hurt' became the amped up version 'Hurtmore'.You could take him on anytime after you hit level 20 and probably succeed, but if you made it to level 24, the boss was your bitch!

Wild Arms was a perfect example of quality Turn Based RPG's. The three main characters always reminded me of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia, and you had to help them grow and face the villain trying to destroy their world. You didn't need to be fast on the buttons, but you had to make sure that you had the correct equipment, supplies, and, most importantly, spells ready to use. You also had to know when to use what and the best way to approach it, these were strategy games, thinkers, not button mashers. Plus, Rudy got some kickass guns as time went on.

Suikoden, god bless you Konami, is another prime example, an amazing game, released a couple years before Wild Arms it was a groundbreaker in the genre. You had a party of 6 people with you and you wandered the world collecting soldiers for your army. The game was broken up by army battles that amounted to Rock, Paper, Scissors. Normal play required not only leveling your own character, but different characters throughout the land, needing the right combination of skills and weapons to fight effectively.

I'll finish this journey down memory lane with one more game, Breath of Fire III. I never got to play 1 or 2 or any of the others that came out in this line, but that one game alone was worth the play. The first time through it took me over 120 hours to play; I never did finish it a 2nd time due to the time constraints but it's another great game. A party of 3 interchangeable characters, yours being able to morph into a dragon during battles, the dragon being dependant on the combination of genes you collected and used, leading across a medieval world, an ocean, and finally a post apocalyptic wasteland, ending up with a final boss battle against God, or at least the closest version they were willing to put in the game. Side games consisted of fishing, trading, and, of course, gambling.

I've said it many times before, I value story and plot above action and flash. I'll play a buggy game to death if it has a good story. You want proof? I've finished The Force Unleashed 3 times, on both the 360 and the PS3. I've got other tales I could recount (Star Trek: Legacy anyone?) but I think that sums everything up perfectly. I also have to say they knew how to pay attention to detail in those games. Wild Arms was the first game to let you walk through a water puddle and leave wet footprints behind; doesn't sound like much today, but 12 years ago that was an unheard of use of computing resources. Don't even get me started on the puzzles, my god the hours I spent trying to figure out things like the right sequence of paintings to look at in order to get a secret door I wasn't even sure actually existed to open; once you know what you're looking for and what to do it's 3 seconds work, but solving them was mindnumbing at times. No wonder I used to smoke!

As I said, this is mainly nostalgic, I actually own all these games and could play them anytime I want, but I don't. I've newer and bigger fish to fry (Bioshock 2 anyone?).

A good game is worth it's weight in time, and these games were magnificent, for their time.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Review * * * * +

Well after years of debate with my fiscally responsible self I went I bought a Sony PSP on the weekend and at the same time I picked up Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. At this point I have to make a confession, I have never played Final Fantasy VII.

This can come as a shock to those who know me as I'm a game geek who really likes things like Cyber Punk, Kung Fu, and Anime. Being an official member of the Final Fantasy VII fan club would seem to be a logical conclusion. However, when FF VII came out I was too busy ensuring I could eat to spend time and money on video games (sad dark days I tell you). When I did get into gaming again I leaned towards action over rpg. In fact, its only the introduction of action/rpg hybrid games that slowly made me begin to appreciate the rpg format. Still, the classic turn based rpg format had better have an amazing story to keep my interest.

Although, I've never played Final Fantasy VII I have always been aware of its existence and the ground breaking impact it had on the gaming industry. Plus what little I knew of the storyline and characters made me always think I should play that game someday and after listening to the music at the Video Games Live concert it's become more of a need. However, the desire to play with my new PSP overrode the desire to dig out our PS2 and search for my wife's copy of Final Fantasy VII so I decided to pick up Crisis Core for now and put off the Final Fantasy VII goal until later.

The story in Crisis Core occurs 7 years prior to the events in Final Fantasy VII and you play Zack Fair who to my understanding is only briefly mentioned in the previous game. That's about all I'm going to say about the storyline as I'm not done the game and I don't want to spoil the game for you. I will say that at first Zack comes off as a naive fool but as you play the game I'd be damned if his character doesn't really grow on you.

Crisis Core itself is an action/rpg hybrid and not a turn based rpg game. I didn't realize that till I hit my first battle sequence and had to quickly adjust to the realization that the enemy was not waiting for me to pick an attack. Personally, I'm a big fan of the action/rpg hybrid because as I mentioned earlier the turned based rpg game rarely keeps my interest. While fighting you have HP (health), MP (mana), and AP (action points). AP is new but it's kind of like a rogues energy in Warcraft: every dodge, block and some power attack moves use AP and once your out of AP you can't perform those moves anymore. The other factor when battling is the Digital Mind Wave (DMW) think of this as the luck factor. The DMW spins away in the top left corner and at times hits the right combination that rewards you by upping your standard abilities but once in a while a combination hits that results in Zack performing a super move that can save your ass. Plus this is when Sqare Enix inserts some cool video of your dude amping up and executing the move. you have no control over the DMW other than the fact that more experience you get the more likely it will help you out.

In the game you have the main story arch missions but you also have access to side missions which are kind of like the jobs and quests in Fable. You can access the missions from any save point and I would suggest doing them as they amp up your abilities and give you some nice potions and materia. At first I thought the side missions were an annoying distraction to the story but I've come to appreciate them more and more: if you have only have a few minutes to spend gaming you can fire up Crisis Core and knock off 3 or 4 side missions in 15 minutes. The problem with the main story arch is you can only save at save points which doesn't allow you to just up and quit.

There are a few weaknesses with the game. One the graphics are amazing except for the background environment: it's pretty boring. Two, the DMW videos are cool but if you keep getting the same sequence for the same super move it gets old fast.

However, I'm uber impressed with this game and it definitely appeals to Dragon Ball Z loving side of my personality. After I'm done I'm pretty sure I'll finally play Final Fantasy VII with a lot of interest just to finish up the story.

I give Crisis Core 4.5 stars out 5

Fable II Co-op

My best buddy guy Darcy talked about Fable II for at least 2 years before it was released, possibly more like 3, and to be honest I thought he'd gone a bit soft in the head for this game. Well, the game was released last fall and I figured what the hell, if I don't waste time in this I'll waste time on something else so I gave it a shot. Now I'm not going to say this is the best game I ever played, even Darcy will agree that it didn't live up like it should have, but I will say that it is an entertaining way to waste many hours of your life, and this weekend I finally got a chance to try the vaunted co-op mode. What can I say? In a game that should have delivered more the co-op play should have delivered much more.

If you've played the game than much of this will be familiar to you and if you haven't I would highly recommend going out and at least renting it, it's fun. I'm not going to review this game but I will speak to the co-op portion of it today. Here it is in a nutshell: one person starts the game with whatever character they have available and then allows a friend to join in with a generic premade character; once in the game no one can control the camera, it's stuck on a static, usually to far away, position; the henchman, the person joining existing game, has limited interaction with NPC, Non-Playable Characters, and what interaction he does have is usually negative; why not let me use one of my characters, I'm playing on my own 360 so I've got all the computing power I need; finally, you only get one dog between the two of you.

Now none of these are game enders, you can still get together and have some fun, farting and belching while your friend is trying to pick up chicks, using magic and weapons to scare the locals and helping out in fights, all good real life things to do; I think we spent about ten minutes just running around in circles in a field, but that may not be to everyones taste. My problem is that it could have been so much more. For instance, allow both characters to interact with merchants and, more importantly, keep the visual mechanics the same for both single and co-op play, let me control my camera so I can be more effective in fights.

I'm fairly disappointed with this, one of my big beefs with games today is the limited number of quality co-op games out there, and this one would have been great. A good story with a good buddy and some good fights, it doesn't get much better than that. Sure the basics are there but that's all, it really feels more like an afterthought than a feature of the game, like a Beta that they stuck in for testing purposes. Not even letting me keep the appearance of my character? How cheap is that?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you haven't experienced Fable II give it a try, and if you have access to a friend and Xbox Live (lets be honest now, there are a lot of people out there who have one or the other but don't have both) then give the co-op a go, just don't expect too much from it. The game by itself is worth the buy, two downloadable packs have already been introduced to keep the game going and I'd be surprised if there weren't any more. If you've played Fable then you might be slightly disappointed with this sequel but I still think it's worth at least one play through.

Star Trek (2009): Review * * * *

I was pretty excited about this movie ... no I was really really excited. This did worry me a bit because in the past hyper movie excitement usually equated to major disappointment. The Star Wars prequels come to mind and The Mummy 2 & 3. However, all in all the new Star Trek movie delivered and it's one of those rare movies that I would pay to see twice in theaters.

I remember the original Star Trek TV series fondly. It played every Saturday when I was a kid and I watched it religiously. The original Series, inspired 4 spin off television series and 10 movies so I'm pretty sure the director J.J. Abrams, the writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the cast, and pretty much anyone invested in this movie must have been nervous as hell opening night. Well I'm happy to report they did an admirable job. You have to remember they faced two major prequel challenges. One, how do you do anything new with such a momentous existing storyline? Two, how can you get a good performance out of your cast without them just coming off as imitation's of the original crew? What do you do? Solution: create an slightly altered timeline for your new creation to exist in.

The alternate timeline technique rarely works but Star Trek avoids the one factor that always destroys my interest in movies involving time travel: they don't spend the bulk of the movie trying to fix the timeline. Everyone who realizes it accepts that somethings changed and then go on to deal with the threat in the existing timeline. Thank god! I hate fixing the timeline movies!

Things I really liked;
- The meeting between Kirk and McCoy
- Kirk shows a fetish for green early
- Scotty and Chekov

The only weakness in this movie was the villain. Nero just seemed to be a faceless threat meaning you never hated or cared that much about him. Yes he was there and a threat but really it could have been anybody or anything. It was amazing that I liked the movie so much because normally I've got to love/hate the villain and with Nero I just didn't care.

However, I would still give this movie 4 out of 5 stars and am even more excited about the next one.

WoW Draenei Shaman vs Rogue

Okay I want to start this off stating that at the moment my thoughts here are an unproven theory. However, a while back when my Shaman was in his early 50s I duelled a Undead Rogue who took me apart like nobodies business. The fight went something like this.

• Accept Duel
• Drop Stone Skin, Magma, Healing, and Wind Fury totems
• Rogue disappears
• Rogue Stuns me
• Rogue takes out totems
• Rogue hits me with poison
• I finally become unstunned and manage to hit Storm Strike
• Rogues Stuns me again and disappears
• Rogue stabs my toon to death while I'm stunned

Personally, I never played a rogue above level 8 but I'm told they are one the hardest to beat on PvP and after this experience I can believe it: when playing a horde hunter I once watched a ?? Shaman take on a ?? Troll Rogue and again the rogue won handily. However, I still didn't like being taken down so easily and its been annoying me ever since. Today my Shaman is level 64 and he was challenged to a duel by another Undead Rogue. I declined due to needing to leave for work but it did get me thinking about a different battle plan.

My Shaman is an enhancement build which is capable of some decent dps and unlike the last match up I have the Spirt Wolves and Shamanistic Rage spells at my disposal. In addition, I duel wield and can't imagine why you wouldn't duel wield with an enhancement build: with that in mind I would try the following.

Before Accepting Duel:

• Hit Lightning Shield
• Enhance weapon in main hand with Wind Fury
• Enhance weapon in other hand with Flame Tongue

After Accepting Duel:

• Drop Earthbind Totem to hopefully slow him down
• Drop Cleansing Totem to counteract poisoning
• Drop Windfury Totem for chance at more dps
• Drop Magma because I still think the area attack given with this helps when he turns invisible

During the Fight:

• Hit Spirit Wolves: you know he's going to stun you and the wolves can still attack him when your out of it sadly it only lasts 45 seconds
• Hit Gift of Naaru my guy is a Draenei after all
• Hit Shamanistic Rage to lower damage taken and re-cover mana
• Hit Frost Shock to slow him down
• Go for Storm Strike/Lava Lash/Earth Shock combos
• If things are not going well drop a Fire Nova Totem to maybe turn the tide
• Re-cast Lightning Shield when ever possible

I'm not saying this will work and I have no idea what a rogue could do to counter but it's the only workable strategy I can think of and I'm definitely storing this in the back of my mind to recall next time I PvP a rogue.

If it works for you let me know if it doesn't well ... hey it's just a theory.

Left 4 Dead Survival Pack: Take 2 Again

To finish up what Darcy started a few days ago, I'm really falling behind on my blogging, I'm going to talk a bit more about the game, focusing on the new content, with a couple tips if I may.

I have to say that I was less than thrilled with the new content when I first played it and even made a slightly negative impression of it; to be honest I don't like doing reviews immediately, I prefer to ruminate on things for awhile, however to be current I sometimes forego my journalistic integrity (yes, I can be a pretentious prick at times). I have to say that overall my impressions haven't changed massively but I'm willing to give the new content a recommend now.

My big problem was only trying the new screen, the light house, and it is a tough bitch; it frustrated me and jaded my experience. However after trying some of the other levels I find I can enjoy most of them. I won't cover ground that Darcy did, but I will say this: the bronze levels, 4 minutes are reachable by one or two players and the AI and I believe Silver, 7 minutes, is within reach on many levels, however I don't think the Gold can be reached by anything less than 4 experienced and hardened campaigners.

The spawn rate is still the biggest problem, but if you can learn the ebb and flow of it you can work through it. Exhibit A, this graph I got from the Left 4 Dead blog:

This is the actual graph that is used in the game for spawning, you can see the rapid progression as time goes on, especially in regards to the special infected. However, give this a glance before playing and you can begin to time your actions. Did we clear that last wave in time for an ammo run? When is the next Tank due? Did Francis say anything amusing this time around? OK, the last one isn't on the graph, but it's still valid.

Best advice I can give? Heal after every wave for the first couple of times. Don't worry about saving resources until you've gotten good at these levels, you won't last long enough to use them all. Ideally you should be able to clear the first wave in about 30 seconds, leaving you 10-15 seconds for regroup and resupply before the first tank hits. You won't take him down before the second wave spawns unless you're well co-ordinated and after that it's a free for all, so don't spare the pipe bombs, Molotov's, or first aid. Like Bill always says: "First to aid, last to die!"

One last thing, you'd think it's a good idea to gather all you gas cans, propane tanks, and oxygen bottles in one place and use them as deployable mines, but don't. All that does is guarantee you set yourself on fire in the middle of a firefight, throw them out and use them on the zombies instead of your teammates.

Good hunting people.

Powerline Ethernet for Xbox 360 Game Networking

I've owned a XBox 360 for about 2 years and finally hooked it up to the Internet and set up a XBox live account last night. Why the long delay? Well unlike the Wii and PS3 (I think) Microsoft doesn't offer built in wireless and I was too damn stubborn to pay the $100 for the wireless adapter. However, the desire to get the new Fable 2 content finally drove me to hook the Xbox to the network.

Instead of getting the wireless adapter I decided to go the Powerline Ethernet route. Was it cheaper? Probably not. However, due to the location of my router I have my wife's network printer in my office/fort and I figured this powerline ethernet technology might be the key to moving it down to her office/fort. Now for the price of a 3rd powerline ethernet adapter, about $50, I can put her network printer in her fort or at the very least move it to the basement and use the same adapter as the XBox. Either way the monstrosity will be out of my office.

To accomplish my goal, I went to a local computer store, OTV Technologies, to pick up a couple Powerline Ethernet adapters. They only had two in stock: one that plugs into the power outlet with one Ethernet feed and the other was one that plugged into the power outlet offering a hub with 4 connections: thus I can hook up the printer by the XBox. After getting home I did easiest networking I've ever done. I put the one adapter in at my office and connected it to the router and then plugged the 2nd one into the power outlet downstairs and hooked up the Xbox ... bang done! My house's power lines can now perform double duty as a computer network offering 85mbs which is more than fast enough as my high speed service only does 10mbs.

In the end it cost me around $106 dollars with taxes so I might have been able to get a XBox wireless adapter for less if I hunted around. However, this way I can get the printer out of my office and can tell Microsoft they can suck my ass for the way they hose people on XBox accessories.

Video Games Live Review

Last night my wife and I went to the sold out Video Games Live concert.



Video Games Live come in and using one of your local orchestra and choir perform musical scores from video games. They included 3 giant video screens displaying images from the games or associated with the games to accompany musical score. One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII is amazing to see and hear performed this way.

I was a little torn about going being the Capitals vs Penguins game just went into overtime when I had to leave but I have no regrets. This was an awesome show and the Regina Symphony Orchestra and junior Philharmonic Choir sounded amazing. I can't remember when I thought they sounded better.

If this show comes to your town go.

Left 4 Dead Survival Pack: Take 2

I know we tend to keep returning to Left 4 Dead but hey that should tell you the game holds a special place in our hearts. Plus I wanted to include my 2-bits on the Survival Pack update. Unlike my hetrosexual life partner I wasn't all that excited about the Survival Pack. One I figured the final scene in the campaigns was difficult enough and two at the time I wasn't quite as taken with game as Rob. However, I've played a lot more Left 4 Dead lately and it as won me over and that includes the latest update.

Initially I agreed 100% with Robs first impressions of the Survival Pack. It seemed impossibly hard and that new scenario, "Last Stand", left a sour taste in my mouth: I kept thinking why didn't they just add a few more Campaigns instead. However, we have taken a step back and have been playing some of the other survival scenarios andI find myself enjoying them and the 7 minute Silver Achievement seems within reach: 7 minutes is a long time to survive when you typically play with 2 players and 2 AI controlled characters.

What do I like about it? Well first off its nice to play a game that takes less then 10 minutes. I don't all ways have the 1 to 8 hours available to sit in front of a computer or game console and lets face it the days of the quick 25 cent arcade game are over. Therefore, it's pretty cool to be working away and decide, hey I need a quick break, so you skype your buddy start a Survival Campaign and can usually make 3 attempts in less than 15 minutes. The other thing I like about it is that the AI deviates the attack enough so that the game is slightly different everytime. You just get use to defending one attack and the next time you play they are coming at you from a completely different source.

Any that's my quick take on the Survival pack and I'll let Rob add any future Left 4 Dead reviews :)

X-men Origins: Wolverine - Long Live Deadpool

Last night my daughter and I went to the latest X-men movie, X-men Origins: Wolverine. Personally, I've never been a fan of the whole "X" thing marvel does whether it be X-Men, X-Force, Weapon-X, or X-whatever. I have read enough of the comics to understand that it would damn near impossible to be 100% true to any continuity as Marvel themselves have done complete 180s over the years: one year Sabertooth is an anti-hero face and the next he's the most vile creature ever. In a way the heal turns remind me of the good old WWE. Anyway, I expected them to be 100% true to story lines or characters. It's a movie after all and they have to work with the medium. Still why the hell do script writers think they should completely change the character, yes I'm talking about what they did with Deadpool.

My daughter loves Deadpool. Whenever, we play Marvel Ultimate Alliance she always picks Deadpool. Thus she was pissed when they made him ...

(spoilers happening now so quit reading at this point if that bothers you)

... some robotic mutant monster with all the mutants' powers only to cut off his head. Sadly I thought they were straying from the known storyline a bit but were close enough that it worked until this point. In addition, at the beginning Ryan Reynolds nailed the character as a smarted mouthed mercenary: not sure why I never thought of it but Reynolds was the perfect Deadpool. This made it even more annoying that the messed up his character completely at the end. Hollywood you totally could have made a mint with a Deadpool movie but NO... .

I will admit that I'm not a Deadpool expert but I don't think at anytime the Weapon-X program made him a combination of Wolverine/John Wraith/Cyclops. Yes they gave him the Wolfy's healing factor but that's were it ended. I also don't recall Wolverine ever cutting off his head and killing him.

In short, "X-men Origins: Wolverine" joins the list of horrible comic book movie adaptions with the first two Punisher Movies, the first Hulk Movie, Daredevil, Electra, .... the list goes on and on. Thank god there are some decent movie adaptions that keep my faith like Punisher: War Zone, Iron Man, the 2nd Hulk movie, the latest Batman installments, and the first Batman movie with Jack as the joker.

Long live Deadpool!

Review of Twitter

Note: Image borrowed from The Drunken Servered Head (hope they don't mind)

The biggest internet trend of late is Twitter. I'm pretty sure anyone who uses a computer knows about Twitter as it's the rage at the moment. However, just in case you haven't heard about Twitter: it's a micro blogging social networking service that limits entries to 140 characters. The idea is you can quickly update what your doing at any given moment using mobile devices or your computer. In addition to entering your own tweets you subscribe to other Tweeters and get a little feed of their latest entries to which you can comment and reply. Woot just what the world needed one more social networking platform: that is sarcasim in case you missed it.

Technically Twitter seems to work pretty good and if you lead an extremely adventrous life it would be a good way to share with the masses. The problem is that most people aren't doing anything interesting and that includes the plethora of celebraties using Twitter or having their assitant using Twitter. I really could careless if Lance Armstrong was picking up his kids or Brooke Burke changed a diaper or that Shaq was just getting back from the club. Who cares! Well apparently a lot of people do but for the most part I don't.

Like most other web social networking services Twitter's is sadly abused but spammers and this was the main reason I ended my Twitter experiment. No internet porn lady I don't intend to subscribe to your nudie site just because your said your following my Tweets and no lady I don't want to rescue you with my western money: your story is sad but I question it's legitimacy. In it's defense, Twitter does do an admirable job of catching these spamming accounts and shutting them down but you still keep getting messages that they are following your Tweets which is enough to annoy me.

Now during my Twitter experient I did discover a couple interesting Tweeters and my favorite would be, Veronica Belmont (every male nerds idea of the perfect girlfriend aside from my wife of course). She actually includes quite a few cool web articles, videos, and technical trends in her Twitter entries. I also picked up the term SUGLY (Sexy but Ugly) from Shaq's tweets and now use the word whenever I can.

In conclusion, all though there are a handful of interesting people on Twitter that occassionally include interesting content in their Tweets those are rare finds. So unless your really bored or want to know when your idol does laundry I would suggest not bothering with it.

Windows 7

Back in January I installed the newest Windows OS, Windows 7.  I didn't have time to mess around with it a lot so I installed it in VMWare and had few opportunities to play with it.  Last week that all changed and I went ahead and installed the newest release; been using it it for about a week now and I gotta say I'm lovin' it!

Not much has been done to change it,. they put a bit of window dressing on it, prettied it up a bit, and sent her out for another dance, and you know what?  That's OK, cause, pause for effect, THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH VISTA!!!!!!!  The only real problem with Vista is that people weren't running it on the proper hardware.   Give her a decent processor and enough RAM and there's no problem with it, mainly RAM.  I've got Vista on my desktop and my laptop and I have had no problems with it.  My desktop has a 3 GHz hyperthreaded core with 2 GB of RAM and I have no issues whatsoever.  My laptop is a 1.5 Celeron Mobile with 1.5 GB of RAM and the only issue I have is the fact that Acer refused to make drivers to support all of it's hardware in Vista, however I can hardly help but notice that is an Acer issue not a Windows issue.  The fact of the matter is that Vista actually came with the default drivers to make everything work.  So get over it people, despite what Mac ads want you to believe there's nothing wrong with Vista.

Anyway, back to Windows 7.  Two good features:  1.  it comes with a screenshot utility, real handy if you're either doing or asking for tech support, and 2.  The side bar is no longer there.  You can still use all the gadgets, as a matter of fact you can still use the ones made for Vista, but the don't appear on an opaque bar on the side of the screen, they just sit where ever you drop them.  What more can I say?  If you've used Vista you're ready for 7, and if you haven't used Vista then get with the times.

Still don't believe me?  Well you don't have to take my word for it, find out for yourself.  Windows is giving anyone and everyone the chance to try Windows 7 at no cost for 1 year, you can get it and full details here.  After March 1, 2010 the system will only run for two hours at a time and by the beginning of July the system will not allow people to use it, but up until then you have the option to use the fully functional software, what have you got to lose?  Nothing, that's what.  Check back for future posts and I'll walk you through dual booting your system, allowing you to run your old OS and another one beside it.  At some point I'll even talk briefly about VMWare.  Have fun and don't forget to spin your propeller!

Dead Rising 2

I was actually planning on doing a blog on another game today but I just ran across this and I had to share it.  In my pursuit of Zombie culture I have ran across a lot of weird and odd things, some good, some not.  I won't go into the "not good" right now because I'm actually quit excited about this, the trailer for Dead Rising 2.

Dead Rising 2

If you've never played Dead Rising all I can say is you are missing out on one of the best games I have ever played.  Classed as a horror survival game, like the Resident Evil series, this game manages to mix some of the most grotesque scenes and bone chilling horror seemlessly along with humor and a good time; if you don't believe me go play the game and kill a zombie with a shower head.  Go, right now, I'll wait for you to come back.

As you can see from the trailer we are looking at much the same gameplay as the first one, you'll have to rescue survivors and solve the mystery to get the true ending of the game.  Along the way you get to kill as many or as few of the zombies as you want using whatever you can get your hands on for a weapon.  From what I can tell it looks like you can build your own weapons too.

Dead Rising was released in 2006, serving as a flagship title for the then new 360.  This version however is being cross platformed and will be available on the PS3 and PC, along with the 360, offering pretty much everyone the chance to kill zombies by the hundreds.  I have to say that was my favorite part of the game, you didn't have to kill any if you didn't want to, you didn't have to do anything at all, they just let you play the game and end it as you pleased. 

I like choices!  

BioShock 2

I got a chance to do a bit more reading about Bioshock 2 coming out this fall, thanks to Game Informer, and I have to say I think the project is shaping up really well. Now keep in mind the article I read was based on an interview with the development team at 2K and of course they are going to spin things to their favor, but the details they are releasing seem really promising. I can even now give you a bit of backstory for the new game.

As previously stated, you'll be playing a Big Daddy wandering the halls of Rapture in search of Adam, the difference being that you are a real Big Daddy, not just dressed in a suit like the end of the first game, and you get to use Plasmids. The story takes place 10 years after the first game, in a Rapture that has just about been destroyed by Splicers fighting over Adam which is in extremely short supply since Jack took all the Little Sisters away. So, what is the game about you ask? Well they're pretty tight lipped about that but here's what we do know: Rapture has recently been stabilized by the appearance of new Little Sisters, creating a new flow of Adam that leads directly to the Big Sister.

As Qui Gon Jinn said in The Phantom Menace "There's always a bigger fish." In video games no matter how bad you are there's always someone badder, and in Rapture that bad ass in the Big Sister. Originally a Little Sister who escaped with Jack, she has since returned bringing new girls along with her and turning them into Little Sisters. Dressed in a scaled down version of the Big Daddy suit and seriously amped up telekinetic abilities she is a force to be reckoned with, and one you'll have to tangle with a few times. As the game progresses you will need to once again fight Big Daddies to get at their Little Sisters; change in the game though, once Mr Bubbles is dead they will no longer scream in terror at your approach, they will instead welcome the approach of a new Big Daddy. Here you will have a similar choice to the last game, except instead of Harvest or Save you will have a Harvest or Adopt option, giving you the same basic outcome, harvesting gets you a lot of Adam and adopting gives you a bit. The difference is that if you adopt her she will share her harvesting with you; of course this means you have to protect her during her stops at corpses, remember how well that went in the first game? So now you're saying, well I'll just harvest her. This time around there is a bit more emotional investment in the girls as they trust and love you, making the harvesting decidedly more cold blooded.

But back to the Big Sister. Like I was saying you have to adopt Little Sisters from Big Daddies you kill, and this attracts the attention of the Big Sister. The first couple sisters are one thing but after a while you start to interfere with he balance that Big Sister has imposed on Rapture, and sooner or later your Little Sister will tell you, and I quote the magazine here: "Mr. B, Mr. B…Big Sister doesn't want you playing with me…", and before long you're going to be in a knock down fight for your life against this armored psycho bitch, every bit as tasking as a Big Daddy fight from the first game.

Few other details of importance have been released so far, apparently Dr. Tenenbaum is your guide through the game, speaking to you on the radio again, the voice recorders are back to fill you in on the story and plot details, the Plasmids are amped up, and the weapons are going to be better. On top of your drill you get the Rivet Gun, complete with custom ammo load outs, and professionally made guns, not stuff like a grenade launcher made by a strung out drug addict using coffee cans. Plus, since you're already wearing a pressure suit they figured why not let you go outside, meaning some levels of the game are only accessible by walking across the ocean floor, affording you views at some of the levels form the first game. One last thing, the "Sea of Dreams" title has now been dropped too, it's just Bioshock 2.

Currently the release date is for October 5th and I for one can't wait to get back into Rapture