June 2009

Final Fantasy VII PSN
Submitted Tuesday, June 30, 2009 - 2:20:31 PM by Klaitu

Do you own a PS3 or a PSP? If so, then I have a steal of a deal for you!

Final Fantasy VII is now available to download on the Playstation Network for 10 bucks.

This is sort of old news, but I get the feeling that a lot of you readers don't really check the gaming news that much, so there you go.

I've played through about half of the game, and so far I haven't been able to discern any difference between the PSN version and the disc version. In fact, if you have the disc version, the save games you made with it will work with the PSN version (assuming you imported them off the PS1 memory card via your PS3)

This is a steal of a deal, especially for you little tykes who never played the game originally. Go get it!

Overall Score: 9 of 10

The Cure for AIDS?
Submitted Sunday, June 28, 2009 - 10:56:48 PM by Klaitu

I don't know that you'd call this a cure, but it is an interesting story.

Their patient, who had both acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and HIV, received a bone marrow transplant from a donor who had been selected to have a CCR5-Δ32 mutation in both copies of a cell-surface Chemokine receptor receptor gene called CCR5. Because "almost all strains of HIV" use the CCR5 receptor to enter a host cell, the mutation confers a resistance to infection. After 600 days without antiretroviral drug treatment, HIV levels in the patient's blood, bone marrow and bowel were below the limit of detection although the virus may still to be present in other tissues. The patient himself was heterozygous for CCR5-Δ32. Following transplantation, the patient's CD4+ T-cells circulating in the blood were homozygous for CCR5-Δ32. The macrophages in his bowel, which continued to express wildtype CCR5 (because they hadn't been replaced yet from bone marrow precursors), also had no detectable virus.

LOST Time Travel
Submitted Sunday, June 28, 2009 - 10:44:01 PM by Klaitu

Alright, this is for you people who watch LOST, but don't normally watch Sci-Fi stuff. As a self-appointed expert on Science Fiction time travel, I shall explain to you the many various possibilities for LOST Season 6!

Don't worry, I'll go easy on your soft non-nerd brains.

There are oodles of TV shows, books, and movies that use time travel as a story device. Despite there being a great number of them, there are 2 and only 2 ways that Time Travel can be done in a story.

1. Fluid Timeline

In a Fluid Timeline, anyone who manages to go back in time can alter the past in any way they see fit, even mistakenly. This means that potentially situations can happen that can't exist.

The old example is that if you killed your grandfather, your father wouldn't be born, and then you wouldn't be born. since you are never born, then you don't exist to kill your grandfather and he lives.. but if he lives, then you do exist and are able to kill him. This is what nerds call a Paradox.

This example is most familiar to people because it is the model used in Back to the Future.

2. Fated Universe

In a fated universe, the events that happen are set in stone. They may not happen in the right order, but nothing can change them because they already happened.

In a fated universe, if you tried to kill your grandfather, you would be unable to do so, no matter how hard you tried. Your very existance prevents your grandfather from dying in any way other than that which you remember.

The most widespread story with this type of Time Travel is 12 Monkeys.

These are the only two types that are possible. There are many movies that combine Time Travel with Dimensional Shift, but we're not talking about that. There are also plenty of movies that have really bad writing when it comes to time travel (I'm looking at you, Deja Vu starring Denzel Washington).

Because LOST is so vague, it could follow either of these two types, so put your LOST hats on, kids.. we're going for a ride!

- The Case for Fated Universe

Fated Universe is the easiest case to make in the LOST universe, because it's the time travel law that Daniel Faraday subscribes to. Faraday is apparently an expert on the laws of physics in LOST world, so if anyone should know, it would be him.

Everything that happened, happened. That's the jist of how Faraday described it. Sawyer, for instance, could not stop his parents from dying, even if he had tried.

Faraday's life plays out the Fated Circle. Faraday dies in front of his mother, who learns he is her son. Some time later, he is born. His mother knows how he ends up, and because she has his notebook, she knows that he is a physicist. She guides the boy into being a Physicist, which leads him to the Island, which leads him to be killed, completing the circle. Nerds call this a Temporal Causality Loop.

It's not just Faraday, though. Locke invites Richard Alpert to witness his birth, and Alpert knows that Locke will become leader of the Others before he is even born. History happens straight as rails, and Locke does become leader of the others.

Then, there's all the talk about "Jack's Destiny" being on the island. Destiny is a word people use to describe an ending that can't be changed.. otherwise it's not destiny, it's just where you ended up.

Which brings me to Locke vs Jack. Jack wants off the island, but Locke doesn't want him to go, telling Jack that it's his destiny to stay. Locke is wrong. If it were Jack's destiny to stay, then there is no way that he could have left. If Jack has a destiny, part of it is leaving the island.

- The Case for Fluid Timeline

The biggest evidence favoring Fluid Timeline is Desmond Hume. Desmond sees the near future in flashes and not only makes decisions based solely on these flashes, but also is able to change the outcome of the flashes.

Several times, Desmond sees Charlie die, but manages to take quick action to change the future and save Charlie's life.

Desmond's future flashes would seem to indicate that a Fluid Timeline is possible to achieve, but difficult. Desmond's final flashes ironically turn out to be accurate and inaccurate at the same time. Charlie does choose to die, but Claire and Aaron do not end up on a helicopter.

Later, when Faraday has his revelation about changing the past he tries to explain it to Jack and Kate. "I was so focussed on constants that I forgot about the variables" he says, indicating that the time-displaced group are the variables. Strictly speaking, he is wrong. People can't be variables in LOST world because up until that point, absolutely everything in the timeline has been fated except for Desmond Hume. Desmond Hume may be a variable, since he seems to have some experience dealing with time travel.

- What does this mean for LOST season 6?

I can't give you any facts, but here's how I break it down:

The premise that everyone wants to know: did the detonation of the plutonium core change history?

Given all the evidence that we have so far, and without accounting for goofy sci-fi copouts or plot excuses, the answer is Absolutely Not. The plutonium core explosion always occurred exactly as depicted, because there was nobody around who had the ability to change fate.

If Desmond Hume were involved, my answer would be less clear.

However, if you're asking me what the writers will do, I would say that most certainly the plutonium core will reset history in a pooly done, incomplete way. Why?

Because if LOST sticks to the Fated universe, it means that everyone involved at the Swan drilling site is now dead because of a nuclear explosion. There are too many main characters dead here, and not enough drama time on them to make it a "good death". Furthermore, it means that the nuclear detonation didn't stop the crash of Flight 815 and they all died for nothing.. sort of a cop out ending when you build it up for so long.

Of course, it's entirely possible that they will switch to the Fluid Timeline, in which the case the detonation just created a Temporal Paradox, and things are gonna get REALLY weird on LOST island.

One thing's for sure though: Those skeletons they found in the caves in Season 1? Jack and Kate. You heard it here first.

Trek Expo 2009
Submitted Sunday, June 28, 2009 - 2:43:23 PM by Klaitu

And so, the adventure continues.

I took some pictures of my journey, that you can view here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120221&id=571642789&l=89dd27c62e

The Trek Expo comes every year to Tulsa, which is only about a 2 hour drive, most of which is on the Turner Turnpike with a speed of 75mph.

In previous years, the Expo was held in Tulsa's Petroleum Exposition Center.. a sort of fairgrounds, but this year it was held in the UMAC arena, which I had never been to before.

I mention this because the change in venue made a huge difference. The Expo is always held in June, and it's nearly always over 100 degrees outside. The Exposition Center doesn't have air conditioning.. so imagine hanging out with a bunch of costumed Star Trek nerds in a big metal building in 100 degree heat.

It was so hot that when that wrestler named "Sting" came, he sweated his facepaint off and looked like a normal guy.

When we arrived in Tulsa, it was 105, but inside the UMAC arena, it was much more comfortable. I'd guess it was hanging around 70 or so. Temperature was not a problem at all, and that's the biggest improvement to the Expo this year.

As with all the other Expos, this one was spread over the weekend. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. This year's Expo featured 22 different Science Fiction people, but those sneaky punks managing the convention stagger them across all the days so that you have to keep coming back (presumably to buy more crap).

Thankfully, the Friday people usually get duplicated on Saturday or Sunday, unless they really suck.

Friday's headliner was Mira Furlan, who you would probably recognize better as the crazy french chick from LOST. Amazingly, she got billing over both Garrett Wang (Harry Kim from Voyager) and Chase Masterson (B-movie queen extraordinaire) I didn't go on Friday, but Carson did, and he sent me text messages about how much it sucked.

I told him not to go on a Friday!

Anyways, Bran and I went on Saturday, where they had a double stack of headliners: Leonard Nimoy and Marina Sirtis. It seemed to be the best day to go considering their scheduling.

So anyways, besides being deliciously frosty cold inside the UMAC Arena, it was also well designed in terms of the vendor space. Usually at these things, there's always a part of the convention that is clogged up because people are fogging up an autographed picture of Jeri Ryan in a bikini or something. This convention had walk-in vestibules where the mouth-breathing could be done out of the flow of traffic.

The usual crap was on sale. Merchandise that you can buy at startrek.com, amazon.com, or your local Target store was sold with a steep markup. There were a lot of pictures for sale.. which brings me to Klaitu's Convention purchasing tip:

Don't buy something that is pre-signed. There's no way to tell if it was signed by the person in question.

So, since you don't want to buy something pre-signed, you want to buy something unsigned and have someone sign it, right?

You're getting closer. Each celebrity has a stack of their own photos which you buy from them, and then they sign them for an additional fee. The cooler stars do it for free. Tuvok charges the most.

Since I was dirt poor broke, I got nothing signed, though I did see several Celebrities on the floor.. speaking of which:

Have you ever tried to look at someone without looking at them? At a convention like this, the celebrities are like zoo animals, and the passersby peek into the cages hoping to see their favorite exotic creature.

So, when I stargaze at the nerdy celebrities that show up, I try to do so when they are distracted doing something else and won't notice me.

This is a little game I play with all of the Celebrities, but Chase Masterson is my archnemesis. Once before she caught me.. and as I was walking past her table she caught me again! Curse you Chase Masterson!

Another ambiguous thing is photography. Everyone has a camera at the Expo, but nobody's quite sure what to take pictures of. If it was up to me, I'd take pictures of every little stupid thing that the vendors are selling so I could show them off. I'd take pictures of the celebrities and so forth..

The Vendor stall people don't generally like you taking pictures of their wares, and the celebrities generally charge for photo ops. What's left to take pictures of? That's why most of our photos from the convention are from a long distance.

After we perused the vendor floor for awhile, we made our way up to the top of the stadium to listen to John de Lancie and get pictures of nerds from a distance. Bran decided she wanted to go look at more stuff downstairs, so I stayed up top and captured the true nerdity through the lens!

After de Lancie was finished, they played something called "Grease Trek" which, shockingly enough, was a movie combining Star Trek and fast food restaurants.

Don't believe me?

LOST Update: Season 5
Submitted Friday, June 26, 2009 - 9:38:33 PM by Klaitu

So, if I've read the internet correctly, this is the most recent season of LOST, and like with Season 4, I have little problem with it. Not many flashbacks, and everything starts moving at a pretty good pace.

This is the season with the time jumping and the nuclear bomb.

I was told that there was "a lot going on" and it was "hard to follow" but I found neither of these to be the case. In fact, it was pretty solid.

LOST Update: Season 4
Submitted Thursday, June 25, 2009 - 11:37:01 PM by Klaitu

Thankfully, season 4 was much more merciful than the previous seasons in terms of flashbacks. Most of the flashes were flashforward, and the flashbacks that there were mostly involved Desmond's time travelling phenomenon. This is definately the best season of LOST that I have seen.

The only complaint that I really have is with the bomb that was going to blow up the freighter. C4 is a highly stable explosive, and requires a detonator, thus to disarm the C4, all they had to do was pull the detonators out of the C4 at the same time.

Other than that, the season was pretty enjoyable!

LOST Update: Season 3
Submitted Thursday, June 25, 2009 - 5:57:02 PM by Klaitu

The craziness continues, this time with "The Others" coming into their own as the antagonists of the season. They began to dole out small amounts of answers.. in what I suspect is an attempt to keep people watching.

I watched part of season 3 with my sister, who made quite a big deal out of my fast forwarding through all the irrelevant flashbacks.. and there are a LOT of them. The only relevent ones I saw were from Desmond, and then a flashforward at the end.

My sister doesn't get why I would watch the show if I didn't like the flashbacks. The problem I have with them is that they are seldom relevant to the main storyline. They branch off on ridiculous tangents that have nothing to do with anything. Sometimes they reveal secrets that are just revealed again later when the characters find out about them.

Let's take, for instance, Ben Linus. Throughout the season he repeats that he was "born on this island". Then, in a Ben Linus flashback, we see his birth in Oregon.. but had you not watched that flashback, you would still pick it up because Ben Linus comes outright and says "I was not born on the island".. and since this is Ben's first flashback, it was as relevant as things were going to get (that's why I didn't skip that one).

Even from John Locke's second flashback, we know his dad is a hump, and we know Locke hates him. Nevertheless the show's producers felt we needed to see even more flashbacks where we reiterate that John Locke hates his dad. Locke's dad is also Sawyer's Sawyer, this was revealed in a flashback.

But then again later, Locke puts Sawyer in a room with.. Sawyer and you find out the truth.. again.

To be fair, I do watch the first part of a flashback to see if it's going to be relevant or not, but so far only the first flashback for each character has any importance.

This season they dedicated 2 episodes to flashbacks. One with characters you had never seen before and will never see again, it was a hideous episode. The other was a flashback regarding Claire, who nobody cares about.

No mention of Season 3 would be complete without looking at the death of Charlie, which was suprisingly well executed. This sequence is why I watch LOST, because in between all the redundant stories, the cliche love triangles, and the flashbacks.. you get stuff like Charlie's death.

I like that in order for Charlie to die, he had to choose it 3 times.

My sister says that she doesn't understand how I can like and hate the show at the same time.

Truth be told, I don't hate the show. There's a good show in there, it's just interrupted by junk in the middle. LOST works best when it isn't predictable, and the flashbacks are easily predictable. LOST also has the ability to be predictable, but still dramatic. Everyone knew Charlie was going down, but that didn't make it less dramatic, they even managed to make it more dramatic.

LOST needs more of that and less flashbacks.

Anyways, moving on to season 4, I hear "things are gonna get weirder"

Stuff Christians Like
Submitted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - 2:17:46 PM by Klaitu

We interrupt this LOST gushathon to bring you a new website I just bumbled onto: Stuff Christians Like.

You all know me. You probably think of me as "that weird Christian guy" but truth be told, for all of the weirdness I am, Church People are even weirder.

I don't like Church People, and this website is all about the stupid things that Church People do. Check this out:

#563. Keeping at least one non believer friend around strictly for witnessing purposes.

#561. Wishing there was a socially acceptable way to buy rum for cakes.

#560. Writing twitter messages that sound 14% holier than you usually are.

#558. Saying you were going to preach a different sermon but God changed it at the last minute.

#557. Creating tracts that look like money.

#556. Asking our kids to be a mini Jesus.

#555. Making up a prayer request because everyone else has one.

#545. Pastors that tell you how "hott" their wives are.

#543. Throwing out disclaimers before you recommend something secular.

#536. Having a very specific idea of what certain people from the Bible looked like.

#532. Arguing about why bad things happen to good people.

#529. Manly Men Retreats

#528. Calling someone "anointed."

#527. Thinking God needs you.

#523. Singing with your eyes closed.

#521. Judging people that use the table of contents in their Bible.

#515. Taking a sympathy scoop from the dish no one eats at the pot luck.

LOST Update: Season 2
Submitted Sunday, June 21, 2009 - 10:44:24 PM by Klaitu

I was told that season 2 is the least popular among LOST fans, and it's really easy to see why.

Season 1 ends with the group finally breaking open "the hatch", so you would expect season 2 to pick up with that.

Not so. Instead they attempted to tease that revelation for everything it's worth. You don't get to see what's in the hatch for 3 entire episodes, and the small snippets that you do see are all the same story, with the same dialogue each time.

Maybe this worked better in a weekly format, but watching the show back to back it merely was annoying and repetitive, and trying to tease out the solution to your season finale is just a colossal jerk move.

Thankfully, I was able to fast forward and/or skip the irrelevant parts.

Speaking of which, over half of the airtime on this season of LOST was devoted to completely irrelevant character flashbacks. In a typical episode there are 15 minutes of island story, and 30 minutes of BS flashbacks. I found this to be frustrating and infuriating at the same time.

After the first few episodes, I began to simply fast forward past the flashbacks. I get it, the doctor has daddy issues. I get it, Kate is a criminal. I get it, sawyer is a con man. I get it, the korean guy works for the mob. Really, I get it. I don't need endless repetition.

The worst travesty of them all was the addition of a new character, who I will call "the cop girl". The problem is not with adding her, but with how they used the situation. It seems like every character introduction has only one purpose: expand the love triangle of Kate, Jack, and Sawyer. This storyline needs to die (or one of the characters needs to die).

This season was less stupid with technology. Nobody built any robots or anything from coconuts, thank goodness. The final hatch revelation was a pretty big letdown for how much they hyped it. They spent most of the season in it, and I think its set replaced the caves set (which we hardly even hear about anymore, even though it's supposedly much safer than the beach)

The Michael/Walt storyline didn't die, and in fact lasts the entire span of the season. I wished that they would kill off Michael or Walt, and at the end of it, I'm still okay with them dying.

They did a lot of trying to play Locke off Jack again, and it still doesn't play. I guess they realized that because they completely removed the "spiritual island quest" portion of his psyche and transplanted it into newcomer, Mr. Eko.

Speaking of Eko, he's pretty much the awesomest thing since silced bread, and the best thing to happen to the show this season!

There's a big to-do about a prisoner captured by the french chick. Is he one of the "others" or isn't he? You know from the second he is captured that he is, because if he weren't, they could have just as well put his character in the tail section.

Oh, and the cop chick dies, rendering all of her flashback scenes even more irrelevant than they originally were. Thanks, LOST producers for wasting so much time.

The season feels like it was written by people who refused to talk to one another. It's disjointed, and there are no interesting story arcs at all.

The ending pretty much involves the main characters being captured by the bad guys, and the hatch doing.. whatever it does. And that's the only bad science in the season that I can remember.

Supposedly the Hatch is a seal on some sort of electromagnetic.. thing. Every 108 minutes, the electricity must be discharged or else.. well, stuff sticks to the walls.

Here's what I can tell you about real Electromagnetism: It's not Magnetism. The two are completely different forces. Electromagnetism requires the presence of electricity to produce magnetism. Electromagnets do not occur as depicted on LOST naturally. The earth's magnetic field is generally thought to be caused by an electromagnetic effect in the Earth's core.

Electromagnetism, like Magnetism, loses power quickly.. on an exponential level. The world's most powerful magnets can only affect metals within a few feet of them. In order to have an electromagnetic field powerful enough to suck barbells some 20 or 30 feet away from the source... that's an extremely powerful field. Likely enough to rip the iron right out of your hemoglobin and kill you.

The conclusion shows that the EM machine in the hatch was the cause of the original crash in the pilot episode. This is hard to believe, seeing as how the plane was supposedly at 40,000 feet, and planes are not made out of magnetic metals.. mostly aluminum and carbon fiber, and yet we see the plane getting torn apart.. supposedly by an EM field. The Metal watches and stuff in the cabin interior seems completely unaffected.

I'm not even sure an EM field of that strength is possible, even if you used every magnet on the planet.

Alright, so like the other science problems, I'm just going with it, even though it's completely ridiculous.

I was told that "Season 3 is when it starts getting somewhere" and I hope that's true, because I don't want to sit through 4 episodes of BS flashbacks and repeating scenes again.

Just to be clear, despite all my blustering here, I'm still watching LOST and I don't hate it. It has a lot of potential, I am just disappointed when the producers take the show in a stupid direction.

LOST Update: Season 1
Submitted Saturday, June 20, 2009 - 1:00:04 PM by Klaitu

I've completed Season 1 of LOST, and everything is going okay so far, but I am not yet of a fanatical mind about the show. Every time I get into the mindset of "Okay, this is pretty cool" they do something stupid and cancel it out.

I get the impression that one episode is about a day, so they stay on the lsland for about a month by the end of the season. The Pregnant lady's baby gets kidnapped TWICE in this amount of time.

How many baby kidnappers are on this island anyways? Oh, but it's not just her baby, the black kid gets kidnapped too! WTF? Why is everyone kidnapping everyone else?

The show constantly tries to play games with you, and many of them don't work. They like to create tension between Jack the doctor and Locke, the hunter.. but there is no tension.

Fewer people died than I expected, mostly "redshirts" whenever you see someone you haven't seen before trekking off into the jungle, you know they're going down. The only character to die was the Rich Kid, who died when he was exploring an airplane. I was okay with it, considering he didn't really contribute anything to the show except whining.

I was right about the show having more BS science in it. Somehow the Iraqi guy constructs a radar. Yeah, that's right.. a freaking radar. Do they really expect me to believe that you can build a radar out of scrap parts? Do they expect me to believe that there is a radar console just lying around aboard a commercial airliner?

Here's the deal, commercial airliners.. if they have any radar at all.. have a weather radar. A weather radar can't pick up anything but weather. Furthermore, in order for a radar to work you need a radar antenna. You know how you always see radar antennae rotating in movies and stuff? That's because a radar is like a flashlight. It has a beam that shoots in only one direction. In LOST, they installed the antenna so that it only points backwards on their raft.

So, even if the radar did pick up ships, it would only pick up ships behind them. The radar was a huge piece of BS plopped right into the middle of the show. Why couldn't they have just spotted the ship on the horizon?

My sister would say that I am nitpicking, but I have to declare shenanigans on a story element that involves building a radar out of scrap.

Heck, why don't they just build a spaceship and launch themselves off the island?

Aside from the radar, the other thing killing me about LOST is the false suspense. In the last episode, there are many "suspenseful moments" where they are moving and loading dynamite, but the group consists of main cast members. You know that none of them can die due to mishandled dynamite, so there is no suspense here. It just takes them foreeeeeever to show them picking up the dynamite, sweating, almost dropping dynamite, looking at each other nervously, etc etc. It's like "just get on with it!"

For the dynamite expedition, they also brought along the science teacher. You've never seen him before, so you know he's going to die in order to make a point of how dangerous the island is.. and sure enough, he explodes, and pieces of him rain down on the regular cast. That part was actually kind of awesome.

The season ends with the opening of the mysterious "hatch" that Locke has been going crazy about.. but nothing is revealed. Also, the preggo baby is rescued, and the black kid is kidnapped.. but that's okay, because you hope the black kid never comes back. The other 3 raft characters all survive their raft being torched. No doubt they will be washed up back at the island for more adventures.

I suspect that Kate will nurse Sawyer back to health, creating a love triangle between them and Jack the doctor.. because that's the most cliche thing that could possibly happen, and Kate is kinda stupid when it comes to people.

I would be suprised if the Black Kid wasn't rescued successfully.

I sense more episodes dealing with the Hobbit and his Heroin addiction, which I am not the least bit interested in.

I see Locke and Jack the Doctor bumping heads in completely tensionless scenes.

I suspect that the Korean people will reconcile.

I think that fat guy's numbers have something to do with "life, the universe, and everything" as evidenced by the number 42 at the end of the sequence.

The rest of it I'm not able to explain.

The Dinosaur that isn't a dinosaur, but really is a Dinosaur? I have no idea what that is. I'm still thinking Jurassic Park with that.

The guy who isn't a part of the plane crash, and kidnaps the pregnant girl? He's not part of the french chick's science team, so there is obviously a third group on the island. They probably built the hatch. They probably brought the polar bears.

The only other theory I have is that the Island is actually Atlantis, or something like Atlantis. It would explain the sailing ship on dry land.

Anyways, I'll update again if I can make it through Season 2.

LOST
Submitted Friday, June 19, 2009 - 2:51:08 PM by Klaitu

Yeah, that's right, LOST. The JJ Abrams show that is apparently the best thing on tv of all time ever.

I tried to get into lost some time back, but the few episodes I watched were not particularly interesting. I thought that perhaps this was because I was coming in on the middle of the LOST story.. so to give it a fair chance, I've kicked off watching as much LOST as I can tolerate, starting with the very first episode.

It's not fair to judge a series by its pilot, so I won't be reviewing the show until I have more episodes under my belt, but these are my general impressions of the pilot episode.

LOST is about a group of people who were aboard a plane and crashed on a mysterious deserted island. Actually, its formatting is almost identical to Crusoe.. but now that I've seen both, it seems more likely that Crusoe was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of LOST.

Anyways, the very first thing I noticed was how this plane crash is completely wrong and makes no sense. Whoever wrote the pilot has no idea how planes actually work.

1. There are very few airplane accidents where part of the people survive. Either everyone survives, or everyone dies. there is very little middle ground.. but it has happened before, so I can accept it as a stretch of reality.

2. One of the airplane engines is turning on and off for no reason, and stupid people are standing in front of the turbine. First off, Airplane engines don't run without fuel, and this engine is sitting on some sand by itself. Secondly, airplane engines don't turn on unless someone tells them to, and since the controls for the engine aren't even attached to the plane anymore, I think we can assume the pilot isn't screwing with people.

3. As espected, a stupid guy gets sucked into the jet turbine, and the entire engine EXPLODES! Jet engines do not explode. They are almost entirely solid metal, if a person gets sucked into them, they jam. It's much more likely that the fuel tank of an airplane will explode, but we don't see that at all.

4. A piece of debris threatens to crush a pregnant woman, and as they scramble to get out of the way of the falling debris, it hits the ground.. and EXPLODES!! Sorry, debris does not explode.

People will say that I am nitpicking, but I don't think it requires a specialized knowledge to realize that scrap metal doesn't blow up.

Anyways, the story continues.

We meet the various characters, half of whom I assume will eventually die off because this is a JJ Abrams thing. The main character is a doctor named Jack, who I really liked. He doesn't sit around whining like everyone else, and decides to go find the cockpit of the plane to see if he can find a radio to call for help. Jack was so cool that I assumed that he would die before the episode was out.. but he doesn't, they just make you think he died for a little bit.

The other primary character in the story is a prisoner named Kate. I think Kate is an interesting character, because she's exactly the same character as Jack, except she's a girl. She also assumes a leadership role, but doesn't cluck at people like so many women actresses do when they think "strong woman".

The only other person who gets a similar amount of screen time is Merry the Hobbit, who is not a hobbit here, but merely a drug-addicted bassist. Both Kate and the Hobbit trek off to find the Cockpit with Jack the doctor.

When they arrive at the cockpit, we discover that the writer still doesn't know much about airplanes. A trans-pacific flight is going to have a minimum of 5 people on the crew, and 3 of them are going to be in the cockpit.. but we don't see the rest of the crew, we only see the copilot and the pilot.. even though the Cockpit is sealed and their bodies should be in there.

Anyways, they find the pilot of the plane, who turns out to be Matt Parkman from Heroes, and you know he's going to die because otherwise he couldn't be on Heroes. Thankfully, he gives the radio to Jack before he is freaking eaten by a dinosaur or something. They never say it's a dinosaur, but let's face it: Dinosaur.

Wouldn't you know the radio is broken?

So, they head back to the beach, where all the stupid people are. It turns out that one of the passengers was a communications specialist with the Republican Guard in Iraq, which immediately makes him an interesting character (though I wonder why he's flying from Austrailia to the US).

The rest of the survivors of the plane crash (of which there are waay too many for a plane crash.. but I digress) include: Generic fat guy, Generic prom queen, Generic single dad with generic estranged son, Generic pregnant woman, that Admiral from JAG, and a guy I like to call "Mr. Racist".

So, as it turns out, the Iraq guy can fix the radio, but the "batteries are failing" so they have to find high ground quickly so that they can try to get a message out.

This is where everything falls apart. Apparently whoever wrote the episode knows nothing about batteries. Worried about your radio battery running out? FREAKING TURN OFF THE RADIO batteries only discharge if you use them. Even if the off switch is broken, you can still remove the batteries if you had to. There is no time limit here, batteries last for years! What's the rush?

Anyways, Kate, the hobbit, the Iraq guy, and Mr. Racist all go to higher ground. Along the way they shoot a polar bear, which I am not convinced could actually survive on a tropical island. Otherwise, I'm thinking it escaped from a zoo.

Once they get high enough, they pick up a distress signal that has been repeating for 16 years, and that's pretty much the end of the pilot.

So far, I can tell you about lost: Some interesting characters, but some really bad science. I'm expecting further BS scenarios to happen as time goes on.. but we'll see.

Girl Gaming
Submitted Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 8:24:43 PM by Klaitu

My old UO buddy Dana has recently published her perspective on the latest E3 specifically with regard to female gamers. It's very well done and you should go read it. There are zillions of people who blog about video games, but few that I have read are this coherant and honest.

The link is here:
http://www.ezmodeunlocked.com/2009/06/18/the-future-of-female-gaming/

I, of course, am not a woman.. so I have no unique perspective on women gaming. I merely observe that most gamers that I know are not women.

There are many issues that plague trying to analyze this situation. What exactly constitutes a gamer? Does playing scrabble and Mafia Wars on facebook qualify someone as a gamer?

Most women that I know are not afraid of video games as they had been in the past, but they also do not play video games regularly, nor do they keep up with video game news.

They don't participate in the "community" of video games, preferring instead to step in for a round or two of Rock Band, or for a couple minutes of a Wii game.

I've spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out why games are so popular with men, and not so popular with the ladies, but I can really only tell you what I have observed:

- Women seem to feel guilty for playing video games instead of doing housework and "chores", which means they don't play video games for very long at any single time, and constantly must interrupt their playing to satisfy their conscience.

- Women don't seem interested in playing games with any depth. In my observation, women are most interested in multiplayer party games, and only when those games are played in their multiplayer capacity.

- Women seem to prefer games that can be started and ended quickly with no attachment to the game. they view games as something that passes time, and not as a hobby, or a means to itself.

- All things considered, I think women prefer to do a lot of things. When faced with a large block of free time, they are more likely to do something other than play video games. Some want to go shopping, some prefer to do housework, and some would prefer to hang out with their girlfriends.

There are many kinds of women, and everyone is different. These are just examples of what I have observed. Bottom line: Women don't give gaming a very high priority, which is why a lot of women stick to fluff games if they game at all.

Dana makes mention of the game Women's Murder Club which is a DS style drama game. Personally, I saw the preview of this game at the press conference and it looked good to me, I want to play it even though it's supposedly geared for women. I don't think the game will go anywhere though because it looks like it is too involved for casual play, and does not have a social aspect.. though I hope that I am wrong and the game does take off.

Dana also addresses the culture of female gaming and how producers seem to be trying to breed a generation of video gameettes. I think that women seem to be more sensitive to this issue and I have little thought on the matter. If I were a game developer, I should think that attempting to socially engineer consumers would be a bad strategy, and would instead focus on creating products that said cousumers would buy presently.. but I'm no game producer, and they do have a history of making colossally bad decisions, so it's entirely possible.

I think that the "sex gap" between male and female gamers is smaller than anyone realizes. I think the real gap here is between normal gamers, who know exactly what they are looking for.. and casual gamers, who not only don't know what they are looking for, but even if it was handed to them, would only play the game for 10 minutes.

I think that MMO games like UO and WoW have done a lot to draw in a lot of female gamers, and I think that women gamers traditionally like games that have more substance than what their male counterparts might prefer.

A study commissioned by the ESA in 2008 showed that 40% of people who considered themselves "gamers" were female. So at the very least, it's becoming more socially acceptable for women to identify themselves as gamers. It's becoming more mainstream. Felicia Day, Morgan Webb, and of course my pal Dana are all self-described female gamers.

Will these new women gamers be exploding aliens, or will they be grooming ponies? It's anyone's guess.

Saving Grace
Submitted Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 2:37:18 PM by Klaitu

I was watching a TV show with my dad the other day, and it hadn't been recorded onto the TiVo yet, so we were stuck watching commercials. I came across what appeared to be a cop drama, but with an Oklahoma City police car doing "policey" things.

So I looked it up, and sure enough, "Saving Grace" is set in Oklahoma City, even though it's obviously not shot in Oklahoma City.

The state rarely gets any love from either cost in producing TV or movies, so I figured I'd check it out, and see just exactly how accurately the show portrays Oklahomans. I wonder how accurately other shows represent large cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

I watched 6 episodes of Saving Grace.. the first 3 episodes, and 3 that I chose at random.

The show is a cop drama with a sort of "Joan of Arcadia" twist in that the main character, Grace, frequently speaks with an angel who comes around, trying to change Grace's evil ways. Grace is a detective with the Oklahoma City Police Department.

The story part of the show is lackluster. It's not bad, but it's not compelling, particularly when Joan of Arcadia did the whole "mission from God" thing to a much better degree.

In portraying Oklahoma, the show gets most everything completely wrong. Here are a few examples:

- People with giant Stetson Cowboy Hats

Sure, there are cow handlers on Oklahoma City, but they tend not to wear giant hats, because that's what Texans do. The relationship between Oklahoma and Texas is similar to the relationship between Canada and the US, or between New Zealand and Australia.

- Oklahoma City is not rural

The show often has the characters investigating crimes on farms, ranches, stockyards and the like, and while these things are common in greater Oklahoma, there are very few of them in Oklahoma City itself (you know, where the Oklahoma City Police are).

In terms of land area, Oklahoma City is larger than Houston.. Larger than Dallas.. Larger than Los Angeles. Oklahoma City is LARGE, and it's mostly paved over and built on.

- Everyone has an accent?

Everyone, and I do mean everyone in the TV show has this ridiculous hillbilly accent. In reality, hardly anyone in Oklahoma City has that accent. Native Oklahomans speak pretty plainly, and people who come in from other states generally have their own accent.

Ron Howard is from Oklahoma.. Brad Pitt, James Marsden, Olivia Munn, and Shannon Lucid are too. No accents.

- Predominantly Catholic?

Whenever the show portrays Christians (because of the Angel thing it comes up more than you'd think) they are always Roman Catholic. Yeah, there are Catholics in Oklahoma City, but they are vastly outnumbered in terms of the Christian faith.

According to Census data, there are fewer than 200,000 catholics in the entire state. 69% of the population identified itself as protestant. 13% identified as Catholic.

It might seem strange that I mention this, but Oklahoma City's culture revolves around Drinking, Football, and Protestantism. I've lived here my entire life, and I couldn't tell you where a single Catholic church is, whereas there are 4 different protestant churches within 5000 feet of my house.

- The Weather

Like every other incarnation of Oklahoma on film, there are tornadoes. I've talked about tornadoes before. To Oklahomans they are mildly inconvienient. When the weatherman says a tornado has touched down we go outside to look at them. We do not cower in a tornado shelter.

- The Dirt

They say that Oklahoma was once the floor of a prehistoric ocean. They say that because Oklahoma rests upon a layer of red clay. When I tell people this, they are like "yeah yeah" but let me tell you, this clay is EVERYWHERE. There's not a place in Oklahoma that doesn't have clay beneath the surface. It's why they gave the land to the Indians so long ago, the soil sucks for farming and the white people didn't want it. It's why they had a land rush, because you couldn't sell the land.. they had to give it away.

And yet, there is dust. When people dig holes, it's easy as cake.

People don't dig holes in Oklahoma. Basements are virtually nonexistant here.. and if you do have to dig a hole, you have to make sure your shovel is sharp, because it has to cut through all that clay.

- Other little things

Because the show is shot in other cities, it gets a lot of background things wrong. There are no palm trees in Oklahoma, they freeze during the winter and die. We don't have a single car pool lane. The real Oklahoma City police use a completely different kind of police car, etc.

- Things they got right

The area code on the telephones is correct.. 405. The show is one of the few shows that only puts license plates on the back of cars (Oklahoma only gives you one license plate, and it goes on the back.. always). The show is pretty good about showing you the sky, and it's blue a lot of the time. Oklahoma City is seldom overcast. They got the Football rivalries correct, although they play up the OU vs Texas rivalry. The real rivalry here is OU vs OSU. They got the drinking right. Oklahomans love to drink, and then when they are sober, they like to speak about the evils of alcohol.. (though it doesn't seem to stop them from drinking more).

So anyways, Saving Grace isn't horrible, but I think whoever writes the show just doesn't "get" what God is about, and either has never been to Oklahoma City, or is just unable to recreate it in hollywood.

Inkheart
Submitted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 1:58:57 AM by Klaitu

I picked up this movie mainly because it appeared as a blip on my Jennifer Connelly radar.

Inkheart is the story of Brendan Frasier, who has a super magical power that whenever he reads aloud, his words become true. He accidentally reads the villains of a rare book into existance, and they do bad things.

My summary there just spoiled about an hour of the movie. I mean, you'll figure all of that out in about 10 seconds, but the movie likes to draw that "mystery" out forever.

During this hour, you may be asking yourself "where's Jennifer Connelly?" because I was. Yeah, she's in the movie for about 2 minutes.

So anyways, once the movie explains the rules.. which are basically "whatever you read can come true in many unpredictable ways, and for each thing you read, someone gets sucked into the book you read from" you can pretty much deduce the entire plot.

Oh yeah, and Brendan Frasier's wife and daughter are kidnapped... and the whole movie you're thinking "Why doesn't he just write down 'and everything returned to normal.. the end'"

And then at the end of the movie, that's exactly what happens.

The movie had a good idea.. sort of a "Last Action Hero" with books.. or Gumby with less clay. The rules of the book reading magic led to its eventual downfall, and the predictability of the plot is a major problem.

That, and the movie lasts foreeeever, it's like 3 hours long or something. It seems even longer because your brain is about an hour ahead of the movie at all times.

Overall Score: 4 of 10

Zack and Miri make a Porno
Submitted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 1:52:16 AM by Klaitu

I guess I'm on a romantic comedy kick, because here's another one.

With a title like that, you're never quite sure what to expect.. and when Seth Rogen is involved, you never know what kind of acting you're going to get.

Turns out, the movie was suprisingly better than I anticipated. It's not going down in the recordbooks as a masterpiece.. nor even a particularly good movie, but the movie contains a suprising amount of charm for a Kevin Smith film.

The title pretty much says it all. Zack and Miri are roommates who went to high school together. They're broke, so they decide to make a porno in order to pay the bills. Hilarity ensues.

Well, I say "hilarity" but the movie really isn't all that funny. It's not dull either, it's sort of in between. I'd say watch it if it comes on TV and you're bored.

Overall Score: 5 of 10

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Submitted Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 1:40:33 AM by Klaitu

If this film were done when I was a kid it would be more like "Nick and Norah's mediocre Mix Tape"

This is a movie about the ugliest and most pretentious emo kid in the universe who somehow manages to attract a lady who is way more hot than he is. The story follows their "adventures" throughout late-night New York.

The casting here is completely screwed up. The kids in the movie are supposedly just graduating from High School, but they all look and behave like they are 30 or so, except they dress like they are 15 and most of them have atrociously bad haircuts.

The movie isn't funny, nor is it relatable, nor does it have any redeeming quality, except perhaps the generous inclusion of a main cast member with excellent cleavage.

Also, for a movie about an "infinite playlist" the soundtrack for this movie is a complete dud. It features few songs you've ever heard of before, and no original songs that are any good.

Overall Score: 3 of 10

Star Wars on Sesame Street
Submitted Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 11:27:30 AM by Klaitu

Firemen can hook up hoses to R2's girlfriend.

Dane Cook Must be DESTROYED!
Submitted Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 2:00:14 AM by Klaitu

It wasn't until recently that I had even heard of Dane Cook. I'm not someone who listens to stand up comics unless they are incredibly mainstream, so he was beneath my radar for a long time.

My sister told me that she thought he sucked. In the past few weeks, he's been popping up more and more, and earlier tonight he was on the new Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, and I couldn't believe that this guy was a comedian. The audience gave him nothing more than pity chuckles for his entire visit.

He kept making pauses, as if waiting for the crowd to explode in laughter and cheers, but nothing happened for him. This is perhaps because Dane Cook is the most boring man on the planet. At no point during his stay on the Tonight Show did he blunder anywhere near anything that might be mistakenly construed as humor.

The entire thing was painful to watch. You longtime readers will know that I don't make a habit of posting entries regarding Tonight Show guests, but his appearance was a total and absolute train wreck.

Never heard of Dane Cook? Count your blessings, but let me give you a taste of what we're dealing with here. Here's my impersonation of Dane Cook:

"You know those people who wear red sweaters? Well I talked to one once, and I was like 'dude, better be sure there are no bulls around!'"

That's something that I just made up off the top of my head, and if anything it is MORE funny than a Dane Cook "joke" because it has a punchline.

Here, see for yourself!

The Nerd Patrol
Submitted Sunday, June 7, 2009 - 11:19:03 AM by Klaitu

I'm not sure if the wheels make them more intimidating.. or less.

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete
Submitted Friday, June 5, 2009 - 9:07:26 PM by Klaitu

Leave it to the Japanese to tack yet another word onto an already long title.

The new edition of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children is on blu-ray, and contains 26 minutes of additional footage. They also cut out some scenes and replaced them with others. In all, over 1000 changes were made.

And all of the changes are for the better, at least from what I've seen here.

Want to know why Denzel is around? Wondering WTF is Geostigma? In addition to the 26 minutes of stuff, they completely changed the dialogue of some scenes and made it more clear what exactly was supposed to be happening. The Ending of "Crisis Core" is partially folded into the story (minus all that Project G stuff)

I could go through and list all the changes, but half the fun of even having changes is seeing them for yourself. Go grab a copy today!

Re-rating the movie would be redundant, it's still a 9 of 10.

More E3 Thoughts and Predictions
Submitted Friday, June 5, 2009 - 10:29:01 AM by Klaitu

A Boy and his Blob

I was never into the original, and so the new version has no impact on me.

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny

A PSP Soul Calibur. Not interested. Kratos is in it, though.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

You know, I've only ever played demos of Silent Hill games. One of these days, I'll have to rent one and try it out. All I can say about this latest installment is that it looks creepy as always.

Left 4 Dead 2

I'll pass on it. From what I understand, it's like the original, except with 2 new zombies and different characters (but all the characters play exactly the same, so who cares?)

I was disappointed in L4D, but if you were one of the people who liked it, this promises more of the same.

Order of War

I saw this and went "ughh, another World War 2 RTS". Then I saw that Square Enix did it, and I went "huh?". Square Enix is famous for their bungling of every not JRPG gameplay style. They can't do racers, fighting games, or action games very well. I guess we'll see if they are any good at RTS. It does look pretty, though.

Split/Second

It's a racing game by.. Disney? People are raving about this game from E3, so maybe it's more fun than it sounds. The basic idea is that you race around a track.. with cars, while the enviornment explodes around you. Didn't look terribly fun to me.

Madden 10

For 19 years I have failed to play a Madden game, and this year I proclaim will be no different! It's interesting to watch Madden though, it doesn't matter if the game is any good, it always gets high marks because of its name.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

Snore... and I still don't know how mario could ever run as fast as Sonic.. running is the only thing Sonic does.

Alan Wake

Now this looks like a game I can get behind. From what I've seen of it, it looks very slick, I definately want to try it out. The main character is a writer, and that worries me, because when writers make the main character a writer, the story almost always turns out to be pretentious. We'll see.

Tekken 6

It's Tekken. What more do you want?

DJ Hero

You know, I love Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but I never have anyone to play with, so I never play them. DJ Hero looks like the same kinda thing to me.. and I think I would totally suck at it, too. Plus, I don't really like DJ music, but I like that they are trying to embrace other kinds of music.

Tony Hawk Anything

I don't care about skateboarding, or Tony Hawk. I'm not "in the know" with the tweens, but I think skateboarding went out in the 90's, and people who do it now are 30 year old guys. Any way you look at it, Tony Hawk's new ridiculous skateboard controller is sure to break.

Metal Gear Solid Rising

A smart move on Microsoft's part for the Japan market, people go crazy about Metal Gear Solid. BS philosophy nonsense plus white haired ninja equals phat cash. Personally, I can't stand Raiden so this has less appeal to me.

LittleBigPlanet Portable

If you liked LittleBigPlanet.. well, there you go.

Global Agenda: No Elves

This is one of the awesomest trailers I have ever seen. The Elves have been living in their magical lands for thousands of years, defending it with magic. The world around them advanced technologically. Now it's elves vs commandos, and the elves are losing.

I can certainly get behind this idea, because Elves suck. Yeah, that's right, I'm an elf racist. However, the gameplay graphics on this thing look like crap. In fact, they are pretty much the same as World of Warcraft's. I'd definately like to try it out though.

Gran Turismo 5

I keep having to remind people that the Gran Turismo series is the best selling console game of all time (that didn't come bundled with a Nintendo system). Gran Turismo 5 will no doubt rock the house for people who like to hold their chrome rims on with special racing bolts.

For everyone else, Gran Turismo means "ooh, pretty cars".

Warriors: Legends of Troy

It's a Koei game. They haven't shown any gameplay footage, but I'm thinking it will be Dynasty Warriors, except greek. Let's face it, Koei doesn't know how to make any other kind of game.

The Grinder

Tired of popping virtual balloons with your wiimote? The Grinder lets you shoot bad graphics zombies.

Wii definately needs more mainstream games, but if this is the best they can put up, they're in trouble.

Final Fantasy 13

It looks more like a real Final Fantasy than FF12 or 11, but it's hard to say for certain. I'll certainly play it, but I am not expecting it to be better than FF10.

Final Fantasy 14 Online

Why? For goodness sake, why would you make another MMO Final Fantasy after FF11 sucked so bad? Well, I guess here's waiting for Final Fantasy 15.

SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo

It's hard to imagine a game being less interesting than guys with machine guns running around trying to PvP.

MAG

The guys who did SOCOM bring you a game about guys with machine guns trying to PvP! MAG features games with 256 simultaneous players.. is that even possible? If MAG can pull it off, it means more creative multiplayer options in the future.. but you know, I have a hard time finding just 1 person online to play with who isn't a bunghole.. finding 255 other people who aren't going to behave like morons is a daunting task.

In fact, out of a given sample of 256 online players, 100 of them are either AFK, staring directly at their toes, or letting their 3 year old kid brother play.

Metroid: Other M

I am not a fan of Team Ninja. They suck, and I can quantify that suckage.. here:

* Dead or Alive 2
* Dead or Alive 3
* Dead or Alive 4
* Dead or Alive Ultimate
* Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2
* Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball
* Ninja Gaiden
* Ninja Gaiden Black
* Ninja Gaiden II
* Ninja Gaiden Sigma
* Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

Are there any good games in that list? Well, that's all the games Team Ninja has ever done. Sure, Ninja Gaiden is better than Dead or Alive.. but are they really that good? No, they aren't.

I'm not saying that this new Metroid will suck, but if I were a Metroid fan, I would be quite concerned about this.. though I am not a Metroid fan, at least, not of the new 3d Metroids.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

This seems like it would either be frustrating, or merely uninteresting. If you're trying to beat the game (which is what I would be trying to do.. I'm a game beater that way) then it would be very frustrating, because the other players are always trying to kill you. If you're a "party gamer" and you don't care about beating the game, then what's the point, and who cares? Besides, like I have 3 friends to play it with anyways.

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Doesn't seem terribly innovative, but it doesn't matter. It will sell like crazy.

PSP Go

It's hard to get worked up about it. It does everything the old PSP does except cost more and it doesnt read UMD. Who takes away a functionality and charges more for it? Sure it's lighter.. was it heavy before? It's not like my arms are tiring of holding the PSP.. but then again, I am pretty buff.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

You know, in terms of trailers, this one is pretty good. It tells me nothing about the game. MMO's are delicate in their design. SWTOR promises to be a level-based grinding borefest, but we haven't see it, so what do I know? If anyone can make a Star Wars MMO, it should be bioware right? I'm dubious.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

I've already gushed about this game enough, but it still looks good. Good gameplay, Good story. It's hard to think that developers still can't get that right.

Wet

Looks like someone spilled their Tomb Raider into Max Payne. Looks okay, but I have no excitement about it.

God of War 3

I was never really into God of War, but it does look impressive.. and how can you not love a guy ripping birds in half with his bare hands?

Splinter Cell: Conviction

It's Splinter Cell.. again. Do you like Splinter Cell? Well you'll like this one. I've only played the first one and I was not impressed, but I might be willing to try more of them if the opportunity presents itself.

Forza Motorsport 3

Racing game. It doesn't look as good as Gran Turismo, and won't sell nearly as many copies either.. no matter how many times the developer claims it has the "best graphics ever on any console". That claim shocked me, because when you look at them both, the one with superior graphics is blatantly obvious.

Blur

Another Racing game, this time arcade racing. Snore.

HALO 3 ODST

Looks like Halo. Probably plays like Halo too, which isn't a bad thing. If you have to FPS some aliens to death, there are worse ways.

Brutal Legend

There's a whole rock subculture that I am only on the fringes of, so when I see Brutal Legend, I see a game that will probably be funny if you get the jokes. It doesn't look bad, but it looks like a definite rental.

Wiimotion Plus

Sorry, but I have to use internet slang: Epic Fail. I have no idea of the Wiimotion Plus is any good or not, because I have absolutely no idea what it does. It's a thing that goes on your wiimote that apparently makes it do "new stuff". They even demonstrated it on stage, but heck if I know how that differed from how people normally use a wii.

So heck, maybe it's awesome, but the demonstration was an epic fail. I know that it isn't compatible with existing games, so now you've got subsets of games that include the new support that can't be played withou it, and old games that can't be played with it. Sounds like a pain to me.

Microsoft Natal

The new interface option for the 360 is interesting to me. Every schoolkid knows that motion sensing technology is complete garbage in terms of games, but I can see using Natal to navigate my videos or music on the dashboard without having to look for a controller.

However, when they demonstrated the feature live on stage, it didn't work very well. Maybe it was the lights or whatever, but it put some serious doubts into my mind.

Peter Molyneux came along with a freakish computer boy inside a TV screen that can interact with people via Natal. The demo was prerecorded, which seems to me to indicate that it doesn't work very well, or was prerehearsed.. so I did some research, trying to find someone who was invited to use it in the "seekrit back room".

Apparently The Sess got in, here's what he said on his twitter:

back up again for another round. Saw NATAL last night, it really works. The boy only thought i was kinda funny, he's British you know...

The Sims 3
Submitted Friday, June 5, 2009 - 8:24:01 AM by Klaitu

What do you want me to say about the Sims 3? It's the sims.. again. Does that work for you?

The main differences here is how fast the game loads and runs. With Sims 1 and 2, you got to go through a load screen, and then a neighborhood load screen, and then a household load screen.. and then if you took your sims to another lot, you had to go through a load screen to get there, and a load screen to get back.

Sims 3 has solved all these problems. You get a load screen at start, and a load screen for your neighborhood, but that's it. You have access to the entire neighborhood at any time. When sims go to work, they actually have to go to work. You can watch them drive there and everything.

Tracking down your sims is easy enough, they get colorful markers when you zoom out to map level.

EA did a lot of touting about its new "built in customization" but it's really not all that different than the sims 2. Instead of 3 body shapes, there are like 7 or something. All the women have man chests.

It's probably possible to kill sims in this game, but it's VERY hard to do. You can't strand them in the pool anymore and let them drown. I locked them in a vault room for 2 game weeks, and they were still alive. I started a blaze that took out an entire house, and nobody burned to death. I repaired TV's in a puddle of water and nothing happened.

If you can kiil your sims, it's difficult.

On the bright side, the AI is a little better at controlling your sims this time around, and there is less whining from them when their moods get low. Also, the comfort and enviornment need meters are gone, thank goodness.

Anyways, other than the vast performance improvement it's pretty much like the sims 2. I would have liked to see more innovation here.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

Amusing Spam
Submitted Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - 4:33:00 PM by Klaitu

We all know how spam works, but check this out:

Dear Lionel Alazraham,

It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the 2009/2010 Princeton Global Networks "Honors Edition" of the Registry.

The 2009/2010 edition of the Registry will include biographies of the world's most accomplished individuals. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands of executive and professional men & women throughout America and the World each year. Inclusion is considered by many as a very high mark of achievement.

E3 2009 Stuff
Submitted Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - 4:28:30 PM by Klaitu

Here's some of the upcoming stuff I'm interested in, in no particular order:

- White Knight Chronicles (PS3)

The Supposedly Customizable JRPG from Level 5.

- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

Uncharted 1 was pretty awesome, and this new one stars Claudia Black, which is awesome.. and the demo played at E3 looks pretty awesome. Will Uncharted 2 be awesome? My spider senses say "probably".

- Assassin's Creed 2

The original Assassin's Creed was a huge letdown, considering you didn't actually *assassinate* anyone and the guards were dumb as rocks. I'm interested to see more about AC2, maybe play a demo of it and see if it fixes the huge flaws of its progenitor.

- Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer (Ps3)

Like Indigo Prophecy, except with decent graphics. Can't wait to try it out!

- The Last Guardian (PS3)

From the makers of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, which were both pretty cool.. and the video looks pretty cool too, so sure, I'm curious.

- Fable 3 (360)

One of the few 360 exclusives that doesn't involve FPS'ing, the Fable 2 "see the future" DLC was interesting.

Of course, this isn't a comprehensive list, but they're the things that stand out in my mind. It seems that "next gen" consoles are finally hitting their stride and getting some decent games out. All 3 press conferences liked to say "2009 is the best year for ________ because we are the best" and then they proceeded to announce titles that would be released in 2010.

So maybe 2009 will not be the best year, but 2010 is looking pretty sweet.

Sony's E3 2009 Conference
Submitted Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - 4:06:00 PM by Klaitu

As I've mentioned repeatedly, Microsoft's conference set the bar pretty high. I didn't really expect Sony to match its quality, but they did a lot better than I expected them to.

Whereas Microsoft's conference was a lot to do with star power, Sony's conference was pretty down and dirty.. just showing off a ton of games.

There was a lull in there when they started talking about crap that nobody cares about like the PSP Go, and the Hannah Montana game. Nintendo totally owned Sony in the "grappy little girl games" department, but who didn't expect that?

Sony cut loose with a some body blows with Uncharted 2 and God of War 3.. and they even managed to get the Final Fantasy franchise back under their wings starting with Final Fantasy 14.

Suprisingly, Sony announced they were entering the motion sensing controller fad that the 360 and Wii are all excited about.

When the presenters for this new controller walked on stage, I though "oh great, another 30 minutes of people flailing about stupidly with a technology that nobody is going to use" but after watching their demo, I have to say I was impressed.

The 360's Natal demo had the demonstrators throwing paint on the screen. The Nintendo motion control demo had them playing Wii resort.

The Sony motion control demo was an actual, true 1 to 1 motion replication of the controller.. and it worked, and it was crazy accurate. It was accurate enough for the demonstrator to write things using only the motion control, a feat that would be difficult for the other 2 systems.

Without getting to horse around with the new motion control systems, it's hard to say how it will actually turn out.

Aside from that, the Sony conference ended with an epic God of War 3 demo.

Sony didn't announce a price drop, which I think is a problem for them.. although it may be more strategic not to announce it right now, and instead save that for Christmas. Sony absolutely needs to drop the PS3 price if they want to dominate the market.

A cheap bundle pack featuring God of War 3 or Gran Turismo 5 would be a serious boon for them.

Nintendo's E3 2009 Conference
Submitted Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - 3:51:47 PM by Klaitu

It would be hard for anyone to followup Microsoft's star-studded press conference, including Nintendo.

I'll be honest.

Nintendo's press conference was complete garbage. They announced Super Mario Galaxy 2, and a new Metroid game. They spent the rest of their 2 hours talking about throwaway trash like Wii fit and a new device that can check your pulse while you exercise.

Yeah, I know Nintendo is leading the sales charts with their so called "games" and no doubt your mom and 10 year old sister will be drooling over the new announcements.. and no doubt Nintendo will continue to be rich.

Oh, and did I mention that Nintendo released a controller addon that basically fixes the wii remote so that it doesn't suck? Did I mention that they're gonna charge you for it, and it's not backward compatible?

I'm sure there are a lot of nintendo supporters out there, but I'm not one of them. I just can't buy a console that gets one okay game per year.

Microsoft's E3 2009 Conference
Submitted Monday, June 1, 2009 - 3:23:54 PM by Klaitu

These press conferences are usually the same deal. They're basically a giant pep rally for the press and fanboys of whatever product they're talking about.

I wasn't expecting much out of the Microsoft conference, except the usual celebrity endorsement. MS likes to remind us each year that they have more money than Davy Crockett.

I have to say, they went ahead and pulled out the big guns, their conference had The Beatles (just the living ones), Yoko Ono, Tony Hawk, Steven Speilburg and Felicia Day.

The basic news was your usual expected announcements. Rock Band: The Beatles, Halo 3 ODST, Left 4 Dead 2, Modern Warfare 2. They made a theme of "showing you, not telling you" but they still slipped in a lot of BS marketing doubletalk.

The Forza Motorsport 3 guy claimed that it has "unparallelled graphics and physics" On the screen, crappy looking cars were spinning out in completely unrealistic, ridiculous ways. I found that amusing.

There were 5 things the were obviously the crowning achievements of the event:

1. Xbox Live and Facebook interactivity

The kids love them some facebook, and now it's integrated into Xbox live, where apparently you can view pictures and the like in full screen. It's hard to tell where this is going to go, but it's hard to imagine that integration here will be a bad thing for the 360.

2. Xbox Live and Twitter

Like the facebooks, them kids love posting stuff on the twitter that you don't care about.. but again, it's hard to imagine these things hurting the console.

I've always felt that the 360 had a disadvantage in that it doesn't have a web browser, in which case the 360 would have already had both of these things.

3. Natal

You know how the Wii has that magic wand controller that everyone plays with for about 10 minutes and then gets bored with?

You know how the PS3 has the sixaxis that is supposed to make games "more accessible", but everyone disables the sixaxis support because it screws everything up?

Microsoft has decided to put their own spin on that sort of "intuitive interface" with Natal, which is some kinda fancy system that incorporates voice recognition, facial recognition, and 3d imaging.

I have to admit, the demonstrations of the Natal system was interesting. It was kind of like the Eye Toy on steroids.

I want to believe that the technology is real. I don't really see how it would interest anyone in terms of video games, but I think it certainly has a "cool factor" to it. My skeptical side smells the aura of Power Glove on Natal.. pretty cool.. if only it worked.

The 3d imaging translation demo that MS did was obviously flawed, even though they didn't let onto it. The motion comprehension part of it seemed to work pretty good, though.

The Natal project is probably the correct direction for interactive technology research, though.. and as we have previously established, Microsoft has plenty of money to throw around.

4. 1080p instantly streaming movies over the xbox live

I don't know what kind of magical internet Microsoft is connected to, but I can tell you as a certified network guy(TM) that it is technologically impossible to stream 1080p instantly over the internet. You would be hard pressed to stream 1080p data in any way over the internet.

1080p videos clock in at a whopping 3000 mpbs, that's 3 GIGABYTES PER SECOND. If you are a very, very lucky cable internet customer, you MIGHT get 300mpbs. Typical cable customers run around 150-200mpbs. You have absolutely no chance of viewing 1080p streaming movies on the current internet. This part of MS's press conference was just a straight up lie.

5. last.fm coming to xbox live

Yep, but only for gold members. Too bad.

So anyways, the MS press conference was pretty good in so far as press conferences go. It's pretty clear that MS wants to take down Nintendo's market and dominate. That's good for them, as they're probably the only ones who can do it.

It's hard to imagine that Sony's press conference (or any of the other ones at E3) will drop bombs this large. Since Sony is presently de-railed from its audience, its press conference will likely be in the category of "2 hours of crap that nobody cares about". The biggest bomb they need to drop is the PS3's price.

I guess we'll see tomorrow!